Abdullah Khan I

Abdullah Khan I belonged to the Shaybanid dynasty: he was a grandson of Abu’l-Khayr Khan and a son of Kuchkunji Khan, who was supreme khan from 1512 until the early 1530s. The sources give no exact year of birth; about 1490 is usually assumed. His brother Abu Sa’id succeeded their father as khan, and a younger brother, Abd al-Latif Khan, later took the Shaybanid throne in Samarkand.

Abdullah Sultan served for many years as governor of Yasi (Turkestan); Wikipedia and reference works on the history of Uzbekistan date the post from about 1514 to March 1540. According to information drawing on the National Encyclopedia of Kazakhstan, in 1517 he was defeated in battle by the army of Kyrgyz Muhammad, which had marched on Turkestan, and was taken prisoner and then released.

In March 1540 Ubaydullah Khan, the Shaybanids’ leading figure in practice, died, and the state split into the holdings of members of the dynasty. At that point Abdullah took power in Samarkand and was proclaimed khan. His reign lasted only six months, from March to September 1540.

Abdullah Khan I died in Samarkand on 14 September 1540. He was buried there beside his father; some sources place the grave at the Chihil Dukhtaron cemetery near the Registan. The mausoleum has not survived, and its ruins were wholly destroyed in the 1930s. According to the National Encyclopedia of Kazakhstan, he left no descendants.

After his death the khanate had two rulers: in Bukhara, Abd al-Aziz, a son of Ubaydullah Khan, was elected khan, while in Samarkand the dead khan’s brother Abd al-Latif Khan ruled with the rights of supreme khan. Little is known about Abdullah Khan I, and it appears mostly in short encyclopedia entries; he should not be confused with Abdullah Khan II, who reigned in 1583–1598 and came from another branch of the family.