Masuma Sultan Begum ( ) was the Queen consort of Ferghana Valley and

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, ...

as the fourth wife of Emperor

Babur Babur ( fa, , lit= tiger, translit= Bābur; ; 14 February 148326 December 1530), born Mīrzā Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad, was the founder of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. He was a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan through his ...

, the founder of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

and the first

Mughal emperor The Mughal emperors ( fa, , Pādishāhān) were the supreme heads of state of the Mughal Empire on the Indian subcontinent, mainly corresponding to the modern countries of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The Mughal rulers styled t ...

. Masuma was a

first 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 and was a

Timurid princess The Timurid dynasty ( chg, , fa, ), self-designated as Gurkani ( chg, , translit=Küregen, fa, , translit=Gūrkāniyān), was a Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim dynasty or clan of Turco-Mongol originB.F. Manz, ''"Tīmūr Lang"'', in Encyclopaedia o ...

by birth. She was the fifth and youngest daughter of Babur's paternal uncle,

Sultan Ahmed Mirza Sultan Ahmed Mirza was the eldest son of Abu Sa'id Mirza on whose death he became the Timurid ruler of Samarkand and Bukhara from 1469 until 1494. During his rule, he successfully repelled at least one invasion attempt by the Kara Koyunlu, and fa ...

, the

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

and

Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...

Family and lineage

Masuma Sultan Begum was born a Timurid princess as the fifth and youngest daughter of

, the

and

, and his fifth wife Habiba Sultan Begum, niece of Sultan Husain Aghun. She had four elder half sisters, among whom one, Aisha Begum, was the former wife of her husband

, and two more became her sisters-in-law. She was the step-daughter of

Mihr Nigar Khanum Mihr Nigar Khanum was the first wife of Sultan Ahmed Mirza, the King of Samarkand and Bukhara. She was a princess of Moghulistan by birth and was the eldest daughter of Yunus Khan, the Great Khan of Moghulistan and his chief consort Aisan Daulat B ...

, sister of Babur's mother

Qutlugh Nigar Khanum Qutlugh Nigar Khanum (''also spelled Kutlak Nigar Khanum''; d. 1505) was the first wife and chief consort of Umar Shaikh Mirza II, the ruler of Ferghana Valley. She was a princess of Moghulistan by birth and was a daughter of Yunus Khan, the Great ...

. She was also the half sister of

Aisha Sultan Begum Aisha Sultan Begum was Queen consort of Ferghana Valley and Samarkand as the first wife of Emperor Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire and the first Mughal emperor. Aisha was a first cousin of her husband and was a Timurid princess by b ...

, first wife of Babur, whom she later divorced, under the influence of their eldest sister Rabia Sultan Begum. Her father was the eldest son and successor of

Abu Sa'id Mirza Abu Sa'id Mirza ( Chagatay/ fa, ابو سعید میرزا; 14248 February 1469) was the ruler of the Timurid Empire during the mid-fifteenth century. Born a minor prince of the Timurid dynasty, Abu Sa'id quickly established himself as the most ...

, the Emperor of the

Timurid Empire The Timurid Empire ( chg, , fa, ), self-designated as Gurkani ( Chagatai: کورگن, ''Küregen''; fa, , ''Gūrkāniyān''), was a PersianateB.F. Manz, ''"Tīmūr Lang"'', in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Online Edition, 2006 Turco-Mongol empire ...

. Masuma's paternal uncles included

Umar Sheikh Mirza Umar Shaikh Mirza II ( fa, , b. 1456 – d. 1494) was the ruler of the Fergana Valley. He was the fourth son of Abu Sa'id Mirza, the emperor of the Timurid Empire in what is now Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and eastern Iran. His first wi ...

, the ruler of

Ferghana Valley The Fergana Valley (; ; ) in Central Asia lies mainly in eastern Uzbekistan, but also extends into southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. Divided into three republics of the former Soviet Union, the valley is ethnically diverse and in the ...

, who later became her father-in-law as well while her first cousins included her future husband, Babur, and his elder sister,

Khanzada Begum Khanzada Begum ( 1478 – 1545) was a Timurid princess and the eldest daughter of Umar Shaikh Mirza II, the ''amir'' of Ferghana. She was also the elder sister of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire. She and her brother remained deeply at ...

Marriage

Following Babur's loss of

and

Andijan Andijan (sometimes spelled Andijon or Andizhan in English) ( uz, Andijon / Андижон / ئەندىجان; fa, اندیجان, ''Andijân/Andīǰān''; russian: Андижан, ''Andižan'') is a city in Uzbekistan. It is the administrative, ...

, Habiba Sultan Begum, Masuma'a mother, brought Masuma to

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safēd ...

. One day when Babur was visiting an elder relative on his expedition to Khosran, Masuma came there with her mother. Masuma fell in love with him. As Babur tells it, "At once I felt a rising in her great inclination towards me." Babur asked her hand in marriage. After an exchange of private messages, Babur's elder relative and Payanda Sultan Begum (wife of Sultan Husayn Mirza Bayqara) settled with Habiba Sultan Begum that the latter should bring her daughter to

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

for Babur. Babur then moved to Kabul where he married her in 1507.

Death

A year after her marriage she gave birth to a girl, at the time of whose birth she was taken ill in child bed, and died. Her daughter was given her name.

References

{{Reflist Timurid princesses Wives of Babur 1509 deaths 16th-century Indian women 16th-century Indian people Deaths in childbirth