Ulugh Beg II also known as Ulugh Beg Kabuli (d.1502) was the Timurid ruler of

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

and

Ghazni Ghazni (, ), historically known as Ghaznayn () or Ghazna (), also transliterated as Ghuznee, and anciently known as Alexandria in Opiana (), is a city in southeastern Afghanistan with a population of around 190,000 people. The city is strategica ...

from 1461 to 1502.

Reign

Born the fourth son of the Timurid Sultan

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 ...

, Ulugh Beg was given the cities of Kabul and Ghazni by his father, governing first as a prince and then, after Abu Sa'id's death, as an independent monarch. His elder brothers, Ahmad Mirza and Mahmud Mirza, were given the rule of

Samarqand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek and Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia. Samarkand is the capital of the Samarkand Region and a district-level ...

and

Badakhshan Badakhshan is a historical region comprising the Wakhan Corridor in northeast Afghanistan, eastern Tajikistan, and Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in China. Badakhshan Province is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. Much of historic ...

respectively, while another brother, Umar Shaikh Mirza, received Farghana. The latter became the father of

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 ...

, who later founded 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 ...

. Ulugh Beg had a long and stable reign, during which Kabul became a cultural centre. The discovery of a number of books from his library, including a copy of the ''

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' (, ), also transliterated ''Shahnama'', is a long epic poem written by the Persian literature, Persian poet Ferdowsi between and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couple ...

'', confirms the activity of a royal

scriptorium A scriptorium () was a writing room in medieval European monasteries for the copying and illuminating of manuscripts by scribes. The term has perhaps been over-used—only some monasteries had special rooms set aside for scribes. Often they ...

during his reign. The elaborate frontispiece of one manuscript suggests that illuminators, calligraphers, and possibly painters were attached to Ulugh Beg's court. He also had a love of gardens, which was noted by his nephew Babur who had inherited this trait. The names of some of those he had commissioned have been recorded, such as the ''Bagh-e Behesht'' (Garden of Paradise) and the ''Bostan-Sara'' (Home of Orchards). During his reign, the

Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans until 1964 after the ...

Yusufzai The Yusufzai or Yousafzai (, ), also referred to as the Esapzai (, ), or Yusufzai Afghans historically, are one of the largest tribes of Pashtuns. They are natively based in the northern part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ( Malakand, Dir, Swat, Shangl ...

tribe first arrived in Kabul. Some traditions state that the group had lent their support to Ulugh Beg, who in turn highly favoured them. However, during the last quarter of the 15th century, relations between the tribe and the ruler became strained. Eventually, with the assistance of the Gigyani tribe, Ulugh Beg allegedly had many of the tribal leaders assassinated. Orientalist Annette Beveridge records the following story regarding Ulugh Beg and the head of the Yusufzai, Malik Sulaiman: Alternatively, another account states that after the Yusufzais migrated to Kabul, they resorted to banditry alongside a number of other tribes. This reached such an extent that Ulugh Beg subsequently had the group expelled from the region.

Death and succession

Ulugh Beg died in 1502 and was likely buried in the Abdur Razaq Mausoleum in

. Though the tomb is named for his son, Abdur Razaq's short reign of only a year makes it unlikely that he had the opportunity to order its construction. It is instead more probable that the tomb was originally built by Ulugh Beg for his own use, with Abdur Razaq being interred in it later. Abdur Razaq, who was still in his minority at the time of his father's death, was quickly usurped by one of his ministers. A tumultuous period followed, which only ended with Muhammad Mukim

Arghun Arghun Khan ( Mongolian Cyrillic: Аргун; Traditional Mongolian: ; c. 1258 – 10 March 1291) was the fourth ruler of the Mongol empire's Ilkhanate division, from 1284 to 1291. He was the son of Abaqa Khan, and like his father, was a de ...

, Ulugh Beg's son-in-law, taking control of Kabul. Finally, Ulugh Beg's nephew Babur, seeing Mukim as a usurper, drove out the latter and captured the city for himself in 1504, pensioning off his cousin Abdur Razaq with an estate. It was from here that Babur later launched his invasion of the Indian subcontinent.

Issue

*Abdur Razaq Mirza (d.1509) – briefly ruler of Kabul *Miran Shah Mirza *Biki Begum – married Muhammad Ma'asum Mirza, son of

Sultan Husayn Bayqara Sultan Husayn Bayqara Mirza ( ''Husayn Bāyqarā''; June/July 1438 – 4 May 1506) was the Timurid dynasty, Timurid ruler of Herat from 1469 until May 4, 1506, with a brief interruption in 1470. A skilled statesman, Sultan Husayn Bayqara was ...

Herat Herāt (; Dari/Pashto: هرات) is an oasis city and the third-largest city in Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Se ...

*Kabuli Begum - married first Badi' al-Zaman Mirza, married second Qambar Mirza Kukaltash *Bibi Zarif – married Muhammad Mukim

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beg II, Ulugh 1502 deaths Timurid monarchs Timurid dynasty 15th-century monarchs in Asia People from Kabul