Banāʾī's Shaybānīnāma: A Post-Timurid Source

For the study of 16th century Central Eurasia, there are a substantial number of sources written in Persian, with comparatively fewer written in Chaghatai. Few of the extant sources have yet to be critically translated and analyzed for the breadth of information they provide. In this regard, this project seeks to further the field of Central Eurasian studies with the production of a critical analysis of Banāʾī’s Shaybānīnāma. The Shaybānīnāma was part of a new wave of historiography that was produced in post-Timurid Central Eurasia. A notable feature of the Uzbek conquest that displaced the Timurids was the influx of Turkic populations in the region, comparable to the Arab and Mongol invasions in prior centuries. This added to the gradual Turkification of the settled peoples of the region, which greatly affected the historiography of Central Eurasia. The merging of traditions among the settled populations with those of the newly arrived nomads led to a burgeoning of historiography in the 16th century. Works were produced in both Persian and Turkish, and include chronicles, biographies, and hagiographies. It was early in Shaybānī Khān’s rule that Banāʾī was commissioned to write the Shaybānī-nāma. This chronicle is an account of the events from Shaybānī Khān’s rise to the disintegration of the Timurids in the areas overrun by the Uzbeks. According to Kubo, the text relies heavily on the anonymous Tavārīkh-i Guzīda-i Nuṣrat-nāma, which is somewhat problematic, but it does provide immense detail on Shaybānī Khān’s invasion and conquering of Samarqand. The source is important in other respects because of its use in Persian historiography, namely by Khwāndamīr in Ḥabīb al-siyar. The Shaybānīnāma serves an important source for the history of Central Eurasia as it covers the early history of the Uzbek leader, Muḥammad Shaybānī Khan, from his birth to his conquest of Khwarazm. It is written in Persian prose with hyperbolic verses interspersed. It provides the political and social history of Central Eurasia at the beginning of the 16th century, and it is, as are many other sources, intended as a source deferential to Shaybānī Khan with conventional rhetoric praising his qualities.