Hadji Mohammed khan

Ḥājjī Muḥammad was Khan of the Golden Horde in 1419–1423. The evidence on his reign in this confused period of civil war is limited; moreover, his name invites confusion with several contemporaries in both the medieval sources and more modern treatments; the other Muḥammads include Ulugh Muḥammad, Muḥammad Barāq, Kūchuk Muḥammad son of Tokhtamysh, and Küchük Muḥammad son of Tīmūr. In retrospect, Ḥājjī Muḥammad is significant as a precursor and ancestor of the khans of Sibir. Ancestry According to the Tawārīḫ-i guzīdah-i nuṣrat-nāmah and the Muʿizz al-ansāb, Ḥājjī Muḥammad was son of ʿAlī, the son of Bīk-Qundī, the son of Ming-Tīmūr, the son of Bādāqūl, the son of Jūjī-Būqā, the son of Bahādur, the son of Shiban, the son of Jochi, the son of Chinggis Khan. He was thus the nephew of Khan Ḥasan Beg (1368–1369), the great-nephew of the khans Khayr Pūlād (1362–1365) and Īl Beg (1373–1374), and the cousin of the khans Qāghān Beg (1375–1377) and ʿArab Shāh (1377–1380). According to the Muʿizz al-ansāb, Ḥājjī Muḥammad's mother was the sister of the Qongirat emir Manqlāy Muḥammad Khwāja. Reign When his protégé Darwīsh Khan was defeated and killed by Qādir Berdi in 1419, the beglerbeg Edigu fled first to the Crimea, where he raised as his new protégé the Tuqa-Timurid Beg Ṣūfī. Having suffered a further defeat at the hands of Qādir Berdi, Edigu fled to the east and Sibir, where he proclaimed as khan the Shibanid Ḥājjī Muḥammad. Although he naturally had Ḥājjī Muḥammad's support, Edigu died of mortal wounds sustained in battle against the forces of Qādir Berdi later the same year. He is said to have sworn his sons to uphold Ḥājjī Muḥammad as khan. As Qādir Berdi himself perished in the struggle at this time, Edigu's sons, led by Manṣūr, quickly succeeded in making Ḥājjī Muḥammad the monarch of the majority of the territory of the Golden Horde. Ḥājjī Muḥammad's success, however, was tenuous and short-lived, especially where the western part of the Golden Horde was concerned, as he was soon faced with opposition by several rivals for the throne and their supporters. The first assertions of the claims of Ulugh Muḥammad, supported by the Shīrīn emir Tekne, are dated variously to 1419 or 1421 or even 1424, and there is much confusion among scholars as to which khan is designated in the historical sources.