ʿABD-AL-ʿAZĪZ SOLṬĀN

 

ʿABD-AL-ʿAZĪZ SOLṬĀN B. ʿOBAYDALLĀH KHAN, Shaibanid ruler of Bokhara. He was born in Bokhara in 917/1511-12 or in 918/1512-13, according to Tārīḵ-e Rāqemī (see Abu’l-Ḡāzī, II, p. 239, n. 2), or in 920/1514. In this last year news of his birth was received in Ṣabrān on the Sīr Darya, and Zayn-al-dīn Vāṣefī dedicated to the new-born prince his Badāʾeʿ al-waqāʾeʿ (ed. A. N. Boldyrev, Moscow, 1961, I, pp. 346-47).

In 933/1526-27 ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz was nominated as governor of Astarābād, which had been captured by ʿObaydallāh Khan; the city had to be abandoned, however, when Iranian troops approached (Ḥasan Rūmlū, I, p. 201, II, pp. 98-99). ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz also participated in other campaigns of his father in Khorasan: He was in the battle with Shah Ṭahmāsp near Jām in 935/1529 and marched on Mašhad with 6,000 troops several months later; in 939/1532-33 he was in Mašhad with 8,000 horsemen, and he and his father retreated before Ṭahmāsp. In 942/1535-36 he commanded the vanguard of ʿObaydallāh’s army, and after ʿObaydallāh occupied Ḵᵛārazm in 945/1538, ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz became governor in Urgenǰ. But at the news of the arrival from Khorasan of Dīn Moḥammad Solṭān and his troops, ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz fled to Bokhara. (On all these events, see ibid., I, pp. 215, 220, 245, 267, 291-92, II, pp. 103-04, 112, 132-33; Abu’l-Ḡāzī, I, pp. 223, 225, II, pp. 239, 242.)

ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz ascended the throne in Bokhara after his father’s death in 946/1539 (Ḥasan Rūmlū, I, p. 295, II, p. 134). He then defended Bokhara against the rulers of Tashkent (Nawrūz Aḥmad Khan [Baraq Khan], who became supreme khan of the Uzbeks) and of Samarqand (ʿAbd-al-Laṭīf Solṭān b. Kučkuṇči). They unsuccessfully besieged Bokhara in 947/1540 and 948/1541, devastating its surroundings. The third time, in 949/1542, Nawrūz Aḥmad Khan captured the city and ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz fled to Balḵ. But he soon returned, with the help of the Jūybārī shaikhs (see V. L. Vyatkin in ʿIqd al-yumān. V. V. Bartol’du [collected papers], Tashkent, 1927, pp. 7-9).

ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz was said to be pious and well disposed toward darvishes. After returning from Balḵ, however, he was on bad terms with the leader of the Jūybārī shaikhs, Ḵᵛāǰa Eslām. A biographer of the latter asserted that ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz indulged in hard drinking and depravity in his last years (ibid.). He died in 957/1550 (Ḥasan Rūmlū, I, p. 343, II, p. 155; Taḏkera-ye Moqīm-ḵānī in Senkowski, Supplement à l’histoire générale des Huns, St. Petersburg, 1824, p. 23) or, at the age of forty, in 958/1551 (Tārīḵ-e Rāqemī, cited by Desmaisons in Abu’l-Ḡāzī, II, p. 239, n. 2, and correction on p. 393).

Bibliography: Given in the text.

(Yu. Bregel)

Originally Published: December 15, 1982

Last Updated: July 14, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 1, pp. 101-102

Cite this entry:

Yu. Bregel, “Abd-Al-Aziz Soltan,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/1, pp. 101-102; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abd-al-aziz-soltan (accessed on 12 January 2014).