Aisha Sultan Begum () was Queen consort of Ferghana Valley and

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

as the first wife of Emperor

Babur Babur (; 14 February 148326 December 1530; born Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad) was the founder of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. He was a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan through his father and mother respectively. He was also ...

, the founder of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

and the first

Mughal emperor The emperors of the Mughal Empire, who were all members of the Timurid dynasty (House of Babur), ruled the empire from its inception on 21 April 1526 to its dissolution on 21 September 1857. They were supreme monarchs of the Mughal Empire in ...

. Aisha was a

first cousin A cousin is a relative who is the child of a parent's sibling; this is more specifically referred to as a first cousin. A parent of a first cousin is an aunt or uncle. More generally, in the lineal kinship, kinship system used in the English-s ...

of her husband and was a Timurid princess by birth. She was the daughter of Babur's paternal uncle, Sultan Ahmed Mirza, the

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

and

Bukhara Bukhara ( ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan by population, with 280,187 residents . It is the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and t ...

Family and lineage

Aisha Sultan Begum was born a Timurid princess and was the third daughter of Sultan Ahmed Mirza (the King of Samarkand and Bukhara) and his wife Qutaq Begum. She was named 'Aisha' after

Prophet Muhammad In Islam, Muhammad () is venerated as the Seal of the Prophets who transmitted the Quran, eternal word of God () from the Angels in Islam, angel Gabriel () to humans and jinn. Muslims believe that the Quran, the central religious text of Isl ...

's wife, ‘Ā’ishah bint Abī Bakr. Her father, Sultan Ahmed Mirza, was the eldest son and successor of

Abu Sa'id Mirza Abu Sa'id Mirza ( Chagatay/; 14248 February 1469) was the ruler of the Timurid Empire during the mid-fifteenth century. Born a minor prince of the Timurid dynasty, Abu Sa'id quickly established himself as the most prominent among his warring re ...

, the

Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

of the

Timurid Empire The Timurid Empire was a late medieval, culturally Persianate, Turco-Mongol empire that dominated Greater Iran in the early 15th century, comprising modern-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, much of Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and parts of co ...

. Aisha's paternal uncles included Umar Sheikh Mirza, the ruler of

Ferghana Valley The Fergana Valley (also commonly spelled the Ferghana Valley) in Central Asia crosses eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. Encompassing three former Soviet republics, the valley is ethnically diverse and relation ...

, who later became her father-in-law as well. His children, Babur (her future husband), and his elder sister, Khanzada Begum, were thus, Aisha's first cousins.

Marriage

In her infancy, Aisha was

betrothed An engagement or betrothal is the period of time between the declaration of acceptance of a marriage proposal and the marriage itself (which is typically but not always commenced with a wedding). During this period, a couple is said to be ''fi ...

to her double first cousin, Babur, the son of Umar Sheikh Mirza and her aunt, Qutlugh Nigar Khanum. Their fathers were brothers and one of Ahmed's wives was Mihr Khanum, sister of Qutlugh. The engagement happened in 1488 in

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

, when Babur himself was only five years old. Aisha married Babur eleven years later in August 1499 at Khojand and subsequently joined him in

Ferghana Fergana ( uz-Latn-Cyrl, Fargʻona, Фарғона, ), () or Ferghana, also Farghana is a district-level city and the capital of Fergana Region in eastern Uzbekistan. Fergana is about 320 km east of Tashkent, about 75 km southwest of ...

, where Babur had succeeded upon the death of his father as ruler of the valley of Ferghana. The young queen found her husband a bashful, if not reluctant lover. Babur remained very shy of her in the beginning of their marriage and went to see her only once in ten or fifteen days. As Babur tells it, "Though I was not ill-disposed towards her isha yet, this being my first marriage, out of modesty and bashfulness, I used to see her once in ten, fifteen, twenty days." He soon bored even of this, and discontinued his visits altogether. Thereafter, Aisha's aunt and mother-in-law, Qutlugh Nigar Khanum, used to scold him with great fury ("many dunnings" as he says in his autobiography, translated by Annette Beveridge) and send him to visit her every few days. Babur was simply not interested in her, or in marriage, at this time. Aisha gave birth to Babur's first child after three years of marriage. This was a daughter, Fakhr-un-Nissa, born in 1501 at

but died after a month or forty days. Her death grieved Babur the most as he had grown dearly fond of his little daughter.

Divorce

Though their relationship was much closer now, it seems that Aisha and Babur quarrelled and she left him before the overthrow of

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

in 1503. Babur states that his wife was misled by the machinations of her elder sister, Rabia Sultan Begum, who induced her to leave his house.

References

{{Reflist, 3 Timurid princesses Wives of Babur 15th-century women