Mahmud Khan

Who was Mahmud Khan?

Sultan Mahmud Khan, was Khan of Tashkent and of the Moghuls of western Moghulistan. He was the eldest son of Yunus Khan. He was born in 1462, his mother was Shah Begum, daughter of Badakhshan prince Lali, who claimed his descent from Alexander the Great and gave one of his six daughters to Yunus Khan in marriage, pleasing his request.

Upon his father's death, Mahmud Khan succeeded him in Tashkent and western Moghulistan, while his brother Ahmad Alaq had already taken control of eastern Moghulistan

Mahmud Khan had to defend Tashkent from the Timurids Sultan Ahmad of Samarkand and Omar Shaikh of Ferghana, who resented the loss of the city to Yunus Khan a few years before. Mahmud Khan successfully thwarted their efforts to take Taskhent, and during his fight with Sultan Ahmad gained the defection of one of the men fighting under him, the Uzbek Muhammad Shaybani. As a reward to Muhammad Shaybani, Mahmud Khan gave him land in Russian Turkestan in 1488. This move, however, upset the Khazaks, who were enemies of the Uzbeks. Although the Moghuls were traditionally friends with the Khazaks, they went to war with each other, and Mahmud Khan was defeated.