DELŠĀD ḴĀTŪN

 

DELŠĀDḴĀTŪN, eldest daughter of the Chobanid Demašq Ḵᵛāja (q.v.) and Tūrsīn Ḵātūn, granddaughter of the Il-khanid sultan Aḥmad Takūdār (q.v.; Aharī, p. 184; tr., p. 83). After the fall of the Chobanids (q.v.) in 727/1327 Delšād Ḵātūn was brought under the protection of her aunt Baḡdād Ḵātūn, who had become wife of the il-khan Abū Saʿīd (q.v.) after having first been married to Ḥasan-e Bozorg Jalāyer. When Delšād attained maturity she was presented to Abū Saʿīd, who married her in 733/1333 and became so devoted to her that Baḡdād Ḵātūn regretted her action (Šabānkāraʾī, p. 295; Ḥāfeẓ-e Abrū, ms., fol. 527b). Abū Saʿīd died without an heir in 736/1335, and a remote cousin, Arpā Khan, was chosen as his successor by the vizier, Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Moḥammad (q.v.). Delšād Ḵātūn, who was pregnant, fled with her cousin ʿAli Jaʿfar, grandson of Īrenjīn (Īrenčīn), to ʿAlī Pādšāh, the Oirat amir of Dīārbakr (q.v.) and uncle of Abū Saʿīd; seven months later, on 6 Šawwāl 736/18 May 1336, she gave birth to a daughter (Mostawfī, pp. 91, 94, 98). Shortly afterward ʿAlī Pādšāh was defeated and killed by Ḥasan-e Bozorg, a rival claimant to the throne, who then married Delšād Ḵātūn; in her new position she brought about the death of Meṣr Ḵᵛāja, who had killed her father (Aharī, p. 162; tr., p. 63).

Although married to Ḥasan-e Bozorg, she remained to some extent a partisan of her Chobanid kinsmen, some of whom found temporary asylum in Baghdad (Mostawfī, 1371 Š./1993, p. 27; Ḥāfeẓ-e Abrū, 1350 Š./1971, p. 219). When, in the summer of 748/1347, her cousin Malek Ašraf led an expedition against the capital, she reportedly persuaded Ḥasan-e Bozorg, who wanted to flee to the fortress of Komāḵ on the Euphrates, to stay and defend the city (for a different version, see Faṣīḥ, p. 74). When the Chobanid army withdrew Delšād prevented the Jalāyerids from pursuit and even welcomed some of Malek Ašraf’s associates (Mostawfī, 1371 Š./1993, pp. 42-44; Ḥāfeẓ-e Abrū, pp. 226-67). According to Ṣalāḥ-al-Dīn Ḵalīl Ṣafadī (p. 24), she was poisoned by her husband, who suspected her sympathies with Malek Ašraf. Ṣafadī also reported that she enjoyed undisputed power over Jalāyerid Iraq, as well as considerable influence in Syria, and that after her death, on 8 Ḏu’l-qaʿda 752/27 December 1351, Ḥasan-e Bozorg seized her agents and associates. Delšād Ḵātūn was said to have been charitable to the poor. She was buried at Najaf (Ṣafadī, p. 24).

Delšād Ḵātūn bore three sons to Ḥasan-e Bozorg: Oways, who succeeded his father in 757/1356; Qāsem, who died in 769/1367-68 and was buried in Najaf; and Zāhed, who was born on 9 Jomādā II 752/3 August 1351, shortly before his mother’s death, and died in 773/1371-72. Various daughters are mentioned only fleetingly in the sources (Naṭanzī, pp. 163, 165; Ḥāfeẓ-e Abrū, pp. 242, 244; Samarqandī, pp. 251-52).

 

Bibliography:

Abū Bakr Qoṭbī Aharī, Tārīḵ-e Šayḵ Oways, ed. and tr. J. B. van Loon, the Hague, 1954.

Faṣīḥ Aḥmad Ḵᵛāfī, Mojmal-e faṣīḥī, ed. M. Farroḵ, III, Mašhad, 1340 Š./1961.

Ḥāfeẓ-e Abrū, Ḏayl-e Jāmeʿ al-tawārīḵ, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. no. Suppl. persan 209; ed. Ḵ. Bayānī, 2nd ed., Tehran, 1350 Š./1971.

Moʿīn-al-Dīn Naṭanzī, Montaḵab al-tawārīḵ-e moʿīnī, ed. J. Aubin, Tehran, 1336 Š./1957.

Ḥamd-Allāh Mostawfī, Ḏayl-e Ẓafar-nāma, tr. M. D. Kyazimova and V. Z. Pirieva, Baku, 1986.

Idem, Ḏayl-e Tārīḵ-e gozīda, ed. Ī. Afšār, Tehran, 1372 Š./1993.

Moḥammad Šabānkāraʾī, Majmaʿ al-ansāb, ed. M.-H. Moḥaddeṯ, Tehran, 1363 Š./1984.

Ṣalāḥ-al-Dīn Ḵalīl Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī be’l-wafāyāt, ed. S. Dedering, XIV, Wiesbaden, 1982.

ʿAbd-al-Razzāq Samarqandī, Maṭlaʿ al-saʿdayn wa majmaʿ al-baḥrayn, ed. ʿA. Navāʾī, Tehran, 1353 Š./1974.

(Charles Melville)

Originally Published: December 15, 1994

Last Updated: November 21, 2011

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Vol. VII, Fasc. 3, p. 255