A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

The Shaybanids 161
Yunus Khan (ruled 1461–86), his grandson Mansur Khan (ruled 1502
or 3–1543), the latter’s brother Said Khan (ruled 1514–32), and Said’s
son Abd al-Rashid Khan (ruled 1532–70) stand out.The fact that the
last three monarchs’ reigns overlap illustrates the concept of family rule,
for Mansur Khan’s domain was Moghulistan proper and northern
Altishahr with Aksu as the capital, whereas Said Khan ruled from
Yarkand in the south.The most interesting personality in this society,
however, is not a prince of the dynasty but a member of the Dughlat
clan, Mir Haydar or Muhammad Haydar Mirza (1499–1551), who
wrote the already quoted Tarikh-i Rashidi, a memorable account of the
dynasty’s history and of the country under their rule.Mir Haydar was a
younger contemporary and a cousin of Babur (his mother, the aforementioned
Khub Nigar Khanim, was a younger sister of Babur’s
mother Qutluq Nigar Khanim), and the analogy between their works
immediately springs to one’s eyes.In contrast to the Baburname written in
Turki, however, the Tarikh-i Rashidi was written in Persian.
One of the bonds between the Shaybanids and the Chaghatayids was
wariness of their immediate neighbors to the north, the Kazakhs of the
eastern Dasht-i Kipchak.These were the territories of what is now
central and southern Kazakhstan, where the formation of a distinct
Kazakh nationality, triggered by the aforementioned and almost anecdotal
defection of Janibeg and Girey, really took shape during the sixteenth
century.Political structure in the Dasht-i Kipchak had become
much looser than that bequeathed by the Mongol empire, and the most
constant feature was the unceasing ebb and flow of alliances, conflicts
and nomadic movements.The Genghisid ancestry of the Shaybanid
line continued to play a role, but it failed to produce personalities strong
enough to create a realm and nation that could play a major role.A new
destiny for Inner Asia had indeed begun to dawn by the middle of the
sixteenth century, and by the turn of the seventeenth its course was
firmly set.