Umar Shaykh Mirza II

Umar Shaykh Mirza was born around 1456 in Samarkand, the fourth son of the Timurid ruler Abu Said Mirza; contemporary sources do not name his mother, and historians usually identify her as Shah Sultan Begum.

While still a boy he was given Andijan and its district by Abu Said, with Khudaiberdi Tughchi Timurtash appointed as his guardian (atabeg); his brother Sultan Ahmad Mirza for a time handed Tashkent and Sayram to him. After his father's death he became ruler of Fergana on 8 February 1469 and ruled it to the end of his life; later he was left with Fergana, Khujand and Ura-Tyube.

According to Babur's Baburnama he was short, stout, generous, talkative and brave, a Hanafi who never missed the five daily prayers and who took Khoja Ahrar Vali as his spiritual guide.

While he was trying to expand his lands, his brother Sultan Ahmad Mirza and the ruler of Tashkent, Sultan Mahmud Khan, marched on Andijan in 1494. In June of that year Umar Shaykh Mirza was killed at Akhsi when he fell into a ravine together with a dovecote while flying pigeons.

The throne passed to his eleven-year-old son Zahir ad-Din Muhammad Babur, who later founded the Mughal Empire in India.