MAJD-AL-DIN ḴᵛĀFI, significant political figure (d. Ḏu’l-qaʿda 899/August 1494), active in the administration of the Timurid ruler Solṭān-Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (see HOSAYN BĀYQARĀ; r. 873–911/1469–1506) in Herat.

His full name was Ḵᵛāja Majd-al-Din Moḥammad Ḵᵛāfi. Zayn-al-Din Wāṣefi (q.v.; rev. ed. I, p. 403) also refers to him as (A)mir Kalān. He was the son of Ḵᵛāja Ḡiāṯ-al-Din Pir-Aḥmad Ḵᵛāfi, who headed Šāhroḵ’s financial administration from 820/1417 to 850/1447 and introduced professional bureaucratic practices in the Timurid  divān  (q.v.) such as the use of the special accountancy script called siāq and the keeping of  daftar s (q.v.; financial ledgers) (Ḵᵛāndamir, 1938, pp. 353–57; Ḵᵛāndamir, 1984, III, pp. 600–601; ʿOqayli, pp. 342–43). These practices were summarized in an administrative manual entitled Šams al-siāq that Pir-Aḥmad commissioned in ca. 831/1428 from one of the functionaries of the divān (Subtelny, 2007, pp. 79–82).

Majd-al-Din followed in his father’s footsteps, beginning his bureaucratic career as a scribe (monši) in the chancery of the Timurid Solṭān-Abu Saʿid Mirzā (r. 1451-69) and later as wazir, or head of the financial administration, of the Timurid prince Moḥammad-Solṭān, known as Kičik Mirzā (d. 1484). After Solṭān-Ḥosayn Bāyqarā came to power in Herat in 873/1469, he brought Majd-al-Din into his own administration (Ḵᵛāndamir, 1984, IV, p. 160; Esfezāri, I, pp. 218–19; Subtelny, 2007, p. 82).

Like his father, Majd-al-Din was a long-serving bureaucrat, who would remain in Solṭān-Ḥosayn Bāyqarā’s administration even after his dismissal in 895/1490, with the exception of a nine-year period from 883/1478 to 892/1487, when he had been forced out by his opponents in the divān. Between father and son, these two members of a Persian family from Ḵᵛāf were in Timurid service in Khorasan for roughly three-quarters of a century and were instrumental in shaping its fiscal administration (for the biographical notice on him, see Ḵᵛāndamir, 1938, pp. 400–18).

Having amassed a personal fortune and ready to cover the spending shortfalls that plagued the Timurid fisc, Majd-al-Din was catapulted to power by Solṭān-Ḥosayn Bāyqarā on the promise that he would reform the system of taxation and restore fiscal stability in Khorasan. In 1472, he was appointed parvāna, one of the highest offices in the Timurid chancery, and was also named moqarrab, or royal intimate, which gave him an entrée into the royal household establishment, an appointment that was contested by the Turkic military elite who believed that a “Tajik” should not be accorded such a favor (Subtelny, 2007, pp. 82–85).

One of Majd-al-Din’s most influential early supporters was Mir ʿAli-Šir Navāʾi (1441-1501), who felt that, as a professional, Majd-al-Din should be given a free hand to carry out his reform program. However, when it became clear after he was reinstated in 1487 that he intended to centralize the fiscal administration by conducting a purge of the divan on the one hand and curtailing the privileges enjoyed by the Turkic military class on the other, the Timurid amirs, headed by Mir ʿAli-Šir himself (who, as a consequence, was forced to leave Herat in 892/1487 for a post in Astarābād), turned against him (Bābor, fol. 177a; Ḵᵛāndamir, 1938, pp. 401–5; Subtelny, 2007, pp. 84–89).

Majd-al-Din’s most ambitious reforms targeted the system of land grants with tax immunity known as soyurḡāl that were held by members of the Timurid elite. By his actions, Majd-al-Din undermined the very foundations of the Timurid patrimonial state. The concerted efforts of the amirs and other privileged members of the Timurid administration finally forced Solṭān-Ḥosayn to dismiss him in 1490 from all posts except for that of parvānači (Ḵᵛāndamir, 1938, pp. 406–9; Ḵᵛāndamir, 1984, IV, p. 195). What followed was the extraordinary trial of a Tajik bureaucrat and member of the Timurid household establishment by the Turko-Mongolian court of investigation (yarḡu). Majd-al-Din was found guilty of embezzlement, his property was confiscated, and he was ordered to pay out a large sum of money, which he was unable to do (Ḵᵛāndamir, 1938, pp. 412–16; Ḵᵛāndamir, 1984, IV, pp. 196–97; Subtelny, 2007, pp. 95–99). While under house arrest, he managed to escape but was murdered in 899/1494, ostensibly on the way to perform the ḥajj (Ḵᵛāndamir, 1938, p. 417; Ḵᵛāndamir, 1984, IV, p. 198).

The failure of Majd-al-Din’s reforms illustrate the difficulty of effecting change in the fiscal basis of a polity dependent on a tribal military elite whose interests were diametrically opposed to centralized bureaucratic control (Subtelny, 2007, pp. 99–102).

Majd-al-Din was known as a well-connected patron of the arts. His entertainments, to which the leading literati, musicians, singers, and prominent members of Herat society were invited, were legendary (Wāṣefī, I, pp. 523–28; rev. ed., I, pp. 403-13; Subtelny, 1984, pp. 144–45), and he apparently personally presented the  Bahārestān (q.v.) of the Naqšbandi mystic and Persian poet, Jāmi (q.v.), who was one of his supporters, to Solṭān-Ḥosayn Bāyqarā at a court assembly in 1487, the year of his reinstatement (Roemer, pp. 129–30 and p. 198).