Goharshad

Who was Goharshad?

Goharshād Begum was a wife of Shāh Rukh, the Emperor of the Timurid Empire of Herāt. She was the daughter of Giāth ud-Din Tarkhān, an important and influential noble during Tīmur's reign. According to family traditions, the title Tarkhān was given to the family by Genghis Khan personally.

Gohar Shad was married to Sharukh probably in 1388, certainly before 1394 when their son, Ulugh Beg was born. It was a successful marriage, according to the ballads of Herat which sing of Shahrukh's love for her. But little is known of their first forty years together, except what concerns her buildings.

Along with her brothers who were administrators at the Timurid court in Herāt, Goharshād played a very important role in the early Timurid history. In 1405 she moved the Timurid capital from Samarkand to Herāt.

Under her patronage, the Persian language and Persian culture were elevated to a main element of the Timurid dynasty. She and her husband led a cultural renaissance by their lavish patronage of the arts, attracting to their court artists, architects and philosophers and poets acknowledged today among the world's most illustrious, including the poet Jami. Many exquisite examples of Timurid architecture remain in Herāt today.