In the meantime his rivals came to terms; Sultan Khalīl being left in possession of Transoxiana, while Pīr Mohammad was acknowledged as his heir.[412] Shāh Rukh was conscious of his inability to contend against these combined forces, and he wisely resolved to secure a realm which they were not likely to dispute with him.
He hastened back to Herāt and seized Khorāsān, Māzanderān, and Sīstān. In A.H. 817 (1414) he added Isfahān and Shīrāz to these acquisitions, and ruled over the fairest province of Irān until his death, in A.H. 850 (1447).
Sultan Khalīl possessed many admirable qualities, with no small share of the vices which are associated with every virtue. He was too lavish in gifts and in affection. Had it not been for the slavery in which he was held by his beloved mistress, Shād Mulk, the “Joy of the State,” he might have revived the lustre of his grandsire’s rule. But his submission to every whim of an extravagant woman soon depleted Tīmūr’s brimming treasury, and estranged from his person even those who had been his most ardent supporters.
The general discontent came to a head in A.H. 809 (1406), when two nobles, named Khodāydād and Shaykh Nūr-ed-Dīn, suddenly took up arms against their master, and advanced to attack Samarkand. They were repulsed by Khalīl, and in the following year Shaykh Nūr-ed-Dīn made peace with the Sultan. Meanwhile Khodāydād, allying himself with other malcontent nobles, returned to the attack. On arriving before Samarkand, the rebels decoyed Sultan Khalīl from his defences under a pretence of parleying, seized his person and obtained possession of the city,[413] A.H. 812 (1409).
On learning this piece of treachery, Shāh Rukh at once despatched an army under his general, Shāh Mulk, to punish Khodāydād. The latter abandoned Samarkand, which remained without a ruler until the arrival of Shād Mulk, to whom the gates were opened. Shāh Rukh himself arrived shortly afterwards, and, after establishing order in the town, heaped the most galling indignities on Shād Mulk, who had been the cause of Khalīl’s misfortunes.[414] He then made his young son, Ulugh Beg, governor of Transoxiana, and returned to Herāt.
The thirty-eight years during which the cultured prince ruled as his father’s lieutenant in Samarkand were the golden age of Central Asia. Himself an astronomer and mathematician of no mean renown,[415] he gathered round him a galaxy of stars of science, which made Tīmūr’s capital a beacon-light for the Eastern world. His liberality and deep artistic sense were not less conspicuous. They stood revealed in palaces, mosques, and colleges, which during their brief existence made Samarkand the most beautiful of Asiatic cities. The long peace that had brooded over Transoxiana under the reign of this enlightened prince was rudely dispelled by the death of his father, Shāh Rukh, which took place in A.H. 850 (1448).[416] Ulugh Beg, as heir-apparent, was proclaimed emperor, and set out for Herāt to take possession of his father’s treasure. But his nephew, `Alā ud-Dawlé, had seized the citadel and the person of Ulugh Beg’s son, `Abd ul-Latīf. Paternal love induced the emperor to come to terms with the pretender on certain conditions, first and foremost amongst these being his son’s release. This was achieved, but the other stipulations were not carried out by `Alā ud-Dawlé. The war was therefore renewed, and it ended in his discomfiture and flight towards Meshed. While pursuing his enemy through Khorāsān, Ulugh Beg received disquieting news from home. Herāt had been plundered by a Turkoman chief, and Samarkand by the uncouth Uzbegs, who destroyed in a few hours the marvels of art with which he had decorated it. But worse was still in store for the unhappy monarch. His darling, `Abd ul-Latīf, for whom he had sacrificed so much, set up the standard of revolt at Balkh and invaded Transoxiana. Ulugh Beg was forced to oppose his claims, but was defeated and taken prisoner. To `Abd ul-Latīf’s eternal disgrace, he caused his father to be put to death in prison by a Persian slave.[417]
The parricide did not prosper long. Abū Sa`īd, a descendant of Tīmūr’s third son, Mīrān Shāh, seized the throne of Samarkand; and, though `Abd ul-Latīf proved himself the stronger in the field, his triumph was cut short by his assassination by one of Ulugh Beg’s trusted servants, A.H. 854 (1450). Abū Sa`īd claimed the succession, but was repulsed by one of Shāh Rukh’s grandsons named `Abdullah Mīrzā, who took possession of the oft-contested throne of Samarkand. Gathering a strong force of Uzbegs, he returned to the charge and deprived `Abdullah, his cousin, of his crown and life, A.H. 856 (1452).[418] The history of the following thirty years is a dreary record of struggles for supreme authority between Tīmūr’s descendants. At length, in A.H. 870 (1465), Abū Sa`īd had defeated every rival and found himself unquestioned master of Transoxiana, Northern Persia, and Afghanistān. Central Asia enjoyed, too, a brief respite from the stress of civil war under a prince of real military and administrative genius. Two years later, A.H. 872 (1467), his evil star tempted him to intervene in the affairs of Āzerbāyjān. He marched against a pretender named Hasan Beg with a powerful army, but was utterly defeated and handed over by his captor to the tender mercies of Prince Yādgār Mirza, son of Shāh Rukh’s consort, Gawhar Shād, whom Abū Sa`īd had put to death. The Mohammedan law is based on the Mosaic code, which prescribes blood for blood: and the once-powerful emperor was beheaded by the inexorable Yādgār.
His son, Sultan Ahmed, was permitted to mount the throne of Samarkand. He was known to be of moderate abilities and a yielding nature; and revolts against his authority were frequent. The southern provinces threw off their allegiance, and were never reconquered during Sultan Ahmed’s lifetime. His brother `Omar Shaykh successfully withstood him on the extreme east, and he had the greatest difficulty in bringing back Turkestān to obedience. His reign was, however, more peaceful than might have been anticipated in times so stormy. If Sultan Ahmed was given to alternate fits of drunkenness and devotion, he was at least devoid of the lust of conquest which proved so fatal to his predecessors. Transoxiana enjoyed comparative repose during his twenty-seven years’ reign, and its capital was adorned with public edifices which rivalled those of Ulugh Beg in beauty and grandeur. He slept with his fathers in A.H. 899 (1493); whereon his brother, Sultan Mohammad, seized the throne, and basely slaughtered his five youthful nephews. This infamous cruelty and his own debauched life roused the ire of his nobles, whom good Sultan Ahmed had raised to a comparatively high standard of civilisation. He died after a reign of six months (1494), probably by violent means. The succession was, as usual, disputed by his children, Mas`ūd, Sultan `Ali, and Baysunkur, the latter of whom, a youth of eighteen, was elevated to supreme authority by a powerful faction; for by this time a new factor had been introduced into Central Asian politics. The Uzbeg chieftains and the ecclesiastics, who had been restrained by the strong arm of Tīmūr and his descendants, gained the mastery under the feeble Sultan Ahmed. Baysunkur’s youth and inexperience rendered him unable to hold the balance true between the contending parties. His lukewarmness made him disliked by all; and his brother, Sultan `Ali, was invited from Karshī to supplant him. Baysunkur sought refuge in flight, but was soon afterwards restored, while his rival, Sultan `Ali, escaped to Bokhārā. Here he organised resistance so effectually that Baysunkur was foiled in an attempt to capture Bokhārā, and driven back to his capital. Sultan `Ali now turned the tables effectually on his brother. He advanced on Samarkand at the head of overwhelming forces, while Mas`ūd pressed forward from the south to assist him; and the famous Bāber Mīrzā, grandson of Abū Sa`īd, raised the standard of revolt in Kokand.[419]
Baysunkur felt resistance to this powerful combination hopeless, and he fled[420] to his brother Mas`ūd for protection, dying in obscurity in A.H. 905 (1499). His dominions were, in name, divided between Sultan `Ali and Bāber Mīrzā, but their extreme youth forbade them to assert authority over the powerful nobles who had usurped every species of power. They abandoned the contest; and a chieftain named Mohammad Khān Shaybāni, a descendant of Jūjī, the son of Chingiz Khān, seized the throne of Samarkand. Thus fell the dynasty of Tīmūr, after a duration of 140 years.[421] Their age has cast undying lustre on the Turkish name, for their own culture attracted an array of scholars and men of science whose works recall the brightest days of Moorish dominion in Spain. Shāh Rukh was a song-writer of no mean order; while Ulugh Beg won fame in the severer studies of the mathematician and astronomer. Bāber Mīrzā, who afterwards sat on the throne of Delhi, was famous alike as statesman, philosopher, and writer; and, indeed, there was hardly one of Tīmūr’s descendants but manifested a taste for letters. The annals of this house are rendered illustrious by the names of poets, philosophers, and theologians which are still household words throughout the East. During this period of Central Asian history, Bokhārā, Samarkand, and Merv all gave birth to distinguished Mohammedan writers, as did many other less important towns of Transoxiana and Turkestān; but rarely did these authors employ in their compositions the principal vernacular of these countries, namely, Eastern Turkish. All theological and didactic works were written—as they still are—in Arabic: and thus it is that many of the masterpieces of Arabic literature owe their origin to Mohammedans of Central Asia. The alternative literary language was Persian, which probably came in vogue for poetical compositions about the time of the Tāhirides.
In the days of the Tīmūrides, however, the dialect of Turkish, known as Chaghatāy, became honoured by a definite position in literature, chiefly in the department of poetry. The Chaghatāy dialect is the oldest form of Turkish which has come down to us in the Arabic character, and it is still spoken throughout Transoxiana, Turkestān, and Kāshghar. As with the Aryan family of languages so with the Turkish, the farther east we go the nearer we approach its source. In Yarkand and Kāshghar this language is called Turkī, while in Samarkand and Bokhārā it is known by the name of Uzbegī. Although Uzbegī is the language most commonly heard in the bazaars of Samarkand and Bokhārā, it does not hold the field alone, its rival being a corrupt form of Persian spoken by the Tājiks, and hence known as Tājikī. This dialect, while on the one hand preserving many old Persian words which in Persia itself have dropped out of the spoken tongue, has, on the other hand, with regard to its grammatical forms and its syntax, been greatly influenced by its Turkish neighbour.[422] Under the Tīmūides there flourished a poet named Mīr `Alī Shīr, or Navāy, who certainly did more than any other to enrich the Chaghatāy literature, and who may justly be regarded the national poet par excellence of the Eastern Turks.