Ilbars Khan

Ilbars Khan (Abu al-Mansur Ilbars) belonged to the Arabshahid branch of the Shaybanids. He was a son of Bureke Sultan and a grandson of Yadgar Khan, ruler of the Uzbek ulus, and his line went back to Arabshah, a khan of the Golden Horde in the late fourteenth century. The literature gives 1456 as his year of birth, but the date is approximate. His younger brother Bilbars was popularly known as Bilikich. Abu al-Ghazi writes that once Shaybani Khan had taken Transoxiana, the brothers lost their father’s lands and lived in the Dasht-i Qipchaq steppe.

In the early sixteenth century Khorezm changed hands several times. Shaybani Khan took Urgench in 1505 after an eleven-month siege, and when he was killed near Merv in 1510 the country came under the Iranian shah Ismail I. Qizilbash rule did not last: in the city of Vazir a conspiracy formed against the Safavid governors, and one of its organisers, Sayyid Hisam al-Din Kital, invited Ilbars, son of Bureke Sultan, to come from Dasht-i Qipchaq.

In 1511 Ilbars arrived in Khorezm with his brother. The Qizilbash in Vazir were killed, and a public assembly proclaimed Ilbars khan; Abu al-Ghazi dates this to 911 AH (1511). The following year his army won the battle for Urgench. Ilbars summoned his uncles Abulek Khan and Aminek Khan from Dasht-i Qipchaq, and they moved their clans to Urgench. Soon the Qizilbash were pushed out of Khiva and Hazarasp too, and the whole country was cleared of them.

Ilbars shared power with his kin: Yangi-shahar went to his brother Bilbars, and Tirsek to one of the khan’s nökers. Bilbars led an expedition to Mangyshlak and brought the Turkmen there under Khorezmian rule. The sources also mention Arabshahid raids on Khorasan, which went on until the death of Ismail I. The historian Utemish Hajji began his career at the khan’s court, and Ilbars is remembered as a devout ruler.

Ilbars Khan died in 1518 and was succeeded by Sultan Hajji Khan. He had eight sons, of whom only two are known by name, Sultan Ghazi and Muhammad Ghazi; the epithet “ghazi” is linked with the memory of freeing Vazir from the Qizilbash. After his death the branches of the dynasty fought for power. The Arabshahids ruled Khorezm for about two centuries.