Kuchkunji Khan

Kuchkunji was born around 1452. His father was Abu'l-Khayr Khan, the founder of the Uzbek ulus, and his mother Rabia Sultan Begim, a daughter of Ulugh Beg (she died in 1485 and was buried in Turkestan). His brother Suyunchkhoja Khan also held the supreme khanship of the Shaybanids briefly. The sources give his name as Kuchkunji, Kuchkunchi or Kuchim.

In the early sixteenth century his nephew Muhammad Shaybani Khan conquered Transoxiana, and Kuchkunji Sultan took his place among the Shaybanid sultans. In 1503 Shaybani Khan made him governor of the Turkestan region; he held the post until about 1509.

In 1510 Shaybani Khan was killed in battle with the Persian shah Ismail Safavi near Merv. Suyunchkhoja became supreme khan first (1511–1512), but at the end of 1512 the Shaybanid sultans gathered in Samarkand proclaimed Kuchkunji khan with the consent of Ubaydullah Sultan, the governor of Bukhara, and his elder brother yielded the title to him. Kuchkunji lived in Samarkand, while the affairs of state were largely run by Ubaydullah from Bukhara, so the khan himself is generally regarded as more nominal than real in power.

His reign opened with a military success: in November 1512 the Shaybanids under Ubaydullah defeated a Safavid army at Ghijduvan (the khan's son Abu Said took part), and Transoxiana did not pass under Iranian control. In the following years the Shaybanids twice took Herat (in 1513/14 and in 1529). A campaign against the Kazakhs around Tashkent in 1516–1517 failed. Kuchkunji sent an embassy to Babur at Agra; Babur received the envoy and sent him back with gifts.

His main domestic measure was the coinage reform of 1513–1523: less carefully thought out than Shaybani Khan's, it nonetheless helped trade and the economy, and the coins bore the khan's title and the names of the four caliphs. On his order Sharaf al-Din Yazdi's Zafarnama was translated into Old Uzbek in 1519, and Rashid al-Din's Jami' al-tawarikh later followed. Madrasas in Samarkand were kept in repair. He is also reported to have written verse in Turkic.

Kuchkunji Khan died in Samarkand at the end of 1529 or in 1530 (the Encyclopaedia Iranica gives 27 December 1529, other sources 1530) and was buried in the dynastic mausoleum near the Registan. His eldest son Abu Said succeeded him (1530–1533); two other sons, Abdullah (1540) and Abd al-Latif (1540–1551), later held the supreme khan's title as well.