Sultanum Begum ( 1516 – 1593), also known as Kadam Ali Soltan Khanum, was the first wife and chief consort of the second Safavid king

Tahmasp I Tahmasp I ( fa, طهماسب, translit=Ṭahmāsb or ; 22 February 1514 – 14 May 1576) was the second shah of Safavid Iran from 1524 to 1576. He was the eldest son of Ismail I and his principal consort, Tajlu Khanum. Ascending the throne after t ...

. She was the mother of her husband's successor,

Ismail II Ismail II (; Born Ismail Mirza; 31 May 1537 – 24 November 1577) was the third Shah of Safavid Iran from 1576 to 1577. He was the second son of Tahmasp I with his principal consort, Sultanum Begum. By the orders of Tahmasp, Ismail spent twent ...

, and the mother of

Mohammad Khodabanda Mohammad Khodabanda (also spelled Khodabandeh; fa, شاه محمد خدابنده, born 1532; died 1595 or 1596), was the fourth Safavid shah of Iran from 1578 until his overthrow in 1587 by his son Abbas I. Khodabanda had succeeded his brothe ...

, who reigned from 1578 until his overthrow in 1587.

Life

Sultanum Begum was the daughter of Isa Beg Mawsillu of the

Aq Quyunlu The Aq Qoyunlu ( az, Ağqoyunlular , ) was a culturally Persianate,Kaushik Roy, ''Military Transition in Early Modern Asia, 1400–1750'', (Bloomsbury, 2014), 38; "Post-Mongol Persia and Iraq were ruled by two tribal confederations: Akkoyunlu (W ...

. Like Tahmasp's mother

Tajlu Khanum Tajlu Khanum ( fa, تاجلو خانم) or Tajli Begum (), also known by her title of Shah-Begi Khanum (), was a Turkoman princess from the Mawsillu tribe and principal consort of Ismail I. Family While Italian writer Angiolello and Iranian ...

, Sultanum belonged to the Turcoman

Mawsillu Mawsillu (; az, Mosullu; tr, Musullu) was a Turcoman tribe active in Aq Qoyunlu and the Safavid Empire. History According to Turkish historian Tufan Gündüz and John E. Woods, they one of the three biggest tribes dominating Aq Qoyunlu along ...

tribe and was a maternal

third cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...

of her husband. Musa Soltan, governor of Azerbaijan was his brother. Tahmasp had most likely married her around the time of his father,

Ismail I Ismail I ( fa, اسماعیل, Esmāʿīl, ; July 17, 1487 – May 23, 1524), also known as Shah Ismail (), was the founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran, ruling as its King of Kings ('' Shahanshah'') from 1501 to 1524. His reign is ofte ...

's death. She became his principal wife and bore him two sons, including Mohammad Khodabanda who was born in 1532, during the early years of the Shamlu-Ustalju regency, when Tahmasp himself was only eighteen years old, and Ismail II, born in 1537. Sultanum Begum rose to become the harem's leader after Tajlu Khanum's exile to

Shiraz Shiraz (; fa, شیراز, Širâz ) is the fifth-most-populous city of Iran and the capital of Fars Province, which has been historically known as Pars () and Persis. As of the 2016 national census, the population of the city was 1,565,572 ...

in 1540. She had an independent royal court and her vizier was Khwaja Ibrahim Khalil. She also gained the honorific title of

Mahd-i Ulya Mahd-i Ulyā ( fa, مهد علیا, meaning "Sublime Cradle" or ''the highest ranked cradle''), also transliterated as Mahd-e Olyā, was a common title for empress mother, mothers of Shahs, or crown princes, in Iran during the Safavid and Qajar era ...

. She owned the ''tiyul'' and ''muqarariyat'' (perpetual fixed assignation) payable on lands in Western

Khurasan Greater Khorāsān,Dabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 or Khorāsān ( pal, Xwarāsān; fa, خراسان ), is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plate ...

Reign of her sons

She mainted her strong position during the reign of

as her tribe,

, also supported him. She was alive during her son

's and grandson Abbas I's reigns.

References

{{reflist Safavid royal consorts 16th-century Iranian women Iranian Turkmen people 1516 births 1593 deaths 16th-century people of Safavid Iran Mawsillu Burials at Imam Reza Shrine