Pir Muhammad Mirza (c. 1376 – 22 February 1407) was a
Timurid prince and briefly succeeded as King of
Timurid Empire after the death of his grandfather
Timur the Lame
Timur ; chg, ''Aqsaq Temür'', 'Timur the Lame') or as ''Sahib-i-Qiran'' ( 'Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction'), his epithet. ( chg, ''Temür'', 'Iron'; 9 April 133617–19 February 1405), later Timūr Gurkānī ( chg, ''Temür Kür ...
.
He was the son of
Jahangir Mirza
Jahangir Mirza (c. 1472 – c. 1515)Muhammad Haidar says (p. 329) that he is 42 years old in 1514, but he is notoriously unreliable with dates. was a Dughlat prince and briefly the ruler of Yarkand (1514). He was the eldest son of Mirza Abu Bakr D ...
who was the actual successor to the throne but had died before his father. Next in line was
Umar Shaikh Mirza I but he too died.
Pir Muhammad's brother
Muhammad Sultan was appointed Timur's heir, but he had succumbed to battle-wounds in 1403.
[Marthe Bernus-Taylor, ''Tombs of Paradise: The Shah-e Zende in Samarkand and Architectural Ceramics of Central Asia'' (2003), p. 27] This left
Shah Rukh, whom
Timur considered too meek to rule and
Miran Shah who suffered from mental difficulties post head trauma. Timur felt that none of his sons were capable of ruling so he named Pir Muhammad as his successor.
Pir Muhammad had been Governor of
Kandahar since 1392.
His territory extended from the lands west of the
Hindu Kush to the
Indus River
The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...
in modern
Pakistan.
In the fall of 1397 he led the first wave of Timurids into
India, and was invested with the rulership of
Multan.
However, none of Pir Muhammad's relatives supported him following Timur's death. He was unable to assume command in
Samarkand
fa, سمرقند
, native_name_lang =
, settlement_type = City
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, ...
. He went into battle twice against
Khalil Sultan a cousin and the other claimant to the throne but was defeated. He was allowed to remain in his lands. However, six months later he was murdered by his vizier
Pir Ali Taz in 1407.
References
1374 births
1407 deaths
Timurid monarchs
Timurid dynasty
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