Pari Khan Khanum
| Pari Khan Khanum | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Artwork of a seated princess, most likely Pari Khan Khanum.[1] | |
| Born |
August 1548 Ahar, Iran |
| Died |
12 February 1578 (aged 29) Qazvin, Iran |
| Spouse | Badi-al Zaman Mirza Safavi |
| Dynasty | Safavid dynasty |
| Father | Tahmasp I |
| Mother | Sultan-Agha Khanum |
| Religion | Shia Islam |
Pari Khan Khanum (Persian: پریخان خانم, also spelled Parikhan Khanum) was a Safavid princess. She was the second daughter of the Safavid king (shah) Tahmasp I (r. 1524 – 1576) and was a influential and bright figure in the Safavid Empire. She was strangled to death on 12 February 1578 at Qazvin.
Biography
Family and youth
Pari Khan Khanum was born as the second daughter of the Safavid king Tahmasp I by his Circassian wife Sultan-Agha Khanum in August 1548 at Ahar.[2] When Tahmasp's brother Bahram Mirza Safavi died in 1549, he took care of the latter's children, even announcing prince Badi-al Zaman Mirza Safavi as his own son. He thereafter made him the governor of Sistan, and offered him Pari Khan Khanum (who was at that time 10 years old) as a wife, which he accepted. However, since she was Tahmasp's favored daughter, she was not allowed to go alongside her husband to Sistan.[2]
Succession disputes
On 18 October 1574, Tahmasp became ill—during his illness, he was close to dying two times, and he still hadn't chosen a successor. Thus the main chieftains of the Qizilbash arranged a meeting to discuss about who should be the successor. The Ustalju clan, and the Shaykhavand clan (which was related to the Safavid family) favored Haydar Mirza Safavi. The Georgians also supported him, since his mother was Georgian.
The Rumlu, Afshar, and the Qajar clan favored Ismail Mirza Safavi, who was jailed in the Qahqaheh Castle. Pari Khan Khanum also favored Ismail Mirza.[2] While Tahmasp was still ill, those who supported Haydar Mirza, sent a message to the castellan of Qahqaheh Castle, named Khalifa Ansar Qaradghlu. They requested him to have Ismail Mirza killed. However, Pari Khan Khanum managed to find out about it and told Tahmasp about the plot. Tahmasp, who still had some feelings for Ismail Mirza due to the courage he used to have in the battles with the Ottoman Empire, sent a group of Afshar musketeers to the Qahqaheh Castle to protect him.[2] Two months later, Tahmasp recovered from the life-threatening illness he had. Two years later, on 14 May 1576, he died in Qazvin. Haydar Mirza was the only son who was with him when he died, and thus the following day, he announced himself as the new king. Normally, some Qizilbash tribes would guard the royal palace and take turns with other others—unfortunately for Haydar Mirza, on that day all the Qizilbash guards were either from the Rumlu, Afshar, Qajar, Bayat, or the Dorsaq tribe—all loyal supporters of Ismail Mirza.[2]
When Haydar Mirza found out about the dangerous position he was in, he took Pari Khan Khanum (who was also in the palace) "into custody as a precautionary measure" (Parsadust).[2] Pari Khan Khanum then "threw herself at her brother's feet in the presence of Haydar Mirza's mother", and tried to urge him to let her leave the palace, stating that she was the first to acknowledge his rule by making a prostrating to him—she vowed that she would attempt to persuade Ismail Mirza's supporters to change their mind, which included her brother Suleiman Mirza and her Circassian uncle Shamkhal Sultan. Haydar Mirza accepted her request, and gave her permission to leave the palace. However, after she left the palace, she broke her oath and gave Shamkhal the keys to the gate of the palace.[2]
When the supporters of Haydar Mirza found out about the threat their king was in, they hurried to his royal residence to save him. However, the palace guards, who disliked Haydar Mirza (although he had tried to win them to his side by making several promises) closed the entrances of the palace.[2] At the same time, the supporters of Ismail Mirza, entered the palace and went to its inner part. However, Haydar Mirza's supporters shortly managed to break through the gate, but did not reach there in time—Ismail Mirza's supporters found Haydar Mirza, dressed as a woman in the royal harem. He was immediately captured and beheaded.[3] His bloody head was then thrown down to Haydar Mirza's supporters, who stopped their resistance, which thus meant that Ismail Mirza could safely ascend the throne.[2]
De facto ruler of the Safavid realm
During the dynastic struggle between the two brothers, Pari Khan Khanum became the de facto ruler of the state;[2] it was her that ordered all the princes and top-ranking members of the realm to gather at Qazvin's main mosque on 23 May 1576, where a famous cleric named Mir Makhdum Sharifi, read the khutbah in the name of Ismail Mirza, thus confirming him as the new king of the Safavid dynasty.[2]
References
Sources
- Matthee, Rudi (2011). Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan. I.B.Tauris. pp. 1–371. ISBN 0857731815.
- Babaie, Sussan (2004). Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Safavid Iran. I.B.Tauris. pp. 1–218. ISBN 9781860647215.
- Newman, Andrew J. (2008). Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire. I.B.Tauris. pp. 1–281. ISBN 9780857716613.
- Savory, Roger (2007). Iran under the Safavids. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–288. ISBN 0521042518.
- Roemer, H.R. (1986). "The Safavid period". The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 5: The Timurid and Safavid periods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 189–351. ISBN 9780521200943.
- Parsadust, Manuchehr (2009). "PARIḴĀN ḴĀNOM". Encyclopaedia Iranica.
- Nashat, Guity; Beck, Lois (2003). Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800. University of Illinois Press. pp. 1–253. ISBN 978-0-252-07121-8.
- Daryaee, Touraj (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–432. ISBN 0199875758.
- Blow, David (2009). Shah Abbas: The Ruthless King Who became an Iranian Legend. London, UK: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84511-989-8. LCCN 2009464064.
- Mitchell, Colin P. (2009). The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran: Power, Religion and Rhetoric. I.B.Tauris. pp. 1–304. ISBN 0857715887.