Safwat al-Din Khatun (1256–1295 ,), otherwise known as Padishah Khatun (), was the ruler of Kerman province from 1292 until 1295 as a member of the Qutlugh-Khanids in Persia and a poet in Persian language.[
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Life
She was born in 1256, as the youngest daughter of Qutb al-Din (d. 1257) and
Kutlugh Turkan of Kirman.
[Mernissi, Fatima; Mary Jo Lakeland (2003). The forgotten queens of Islam. Oxford University Press. .] She already had her own fiefdom in
Sirjan thanks to her mother Kutlugh Turkan's visit to coronation ceremony of Abaqa in 1265.
Her first spouse was Abaka Khan to whom she was married on 22 May 1272. The marriage was arranged by her mother to secure Mongol support for her rule. She was granted the household of Abaqa's late mother Yesunjin. She was instrumental in strengthening the rule of her mother Kutlugh Turkan and was her supporter against her siblings Muzaffar al-Din Hajjaj (1276) and Suyurghatmish (1280).
After Abaqa's death
She did not leave for Kerman after
Abaqa Khan's death in 1282, choosing to stay in court and live with her mother until her death in 1283. She sent her sister Bibi Khatun to protect her interests in Kirman during her stay in court, ceding
Sirjan to her. She obtained to co-rule Kirman due to her influence on
Arghun in 1284. However, powerful vizier
Buqa ruled in favor of
Suyurghatmish, hastily married her to
Gaykhatu and thus obtained her removal to
Anatolia in 1286. She regained Sirjan in 1289 from Arghun.
Reign
Upon
Gaykhatu's election in 1291, Padishah again found herself in a position of power. She demanded to be given the rule of Kirman as her personal fief, which her spouse agreed to. She imprisoned her half-brother
Suyurghatmish in October 1292. However he managed to escape thanks to his wife
Kurdujin Khatun, only to be imprisoned again.
He was finally strangled to death on 21 August 1294. She was soon granted the rule of
Yazd and
Shabankara. She even meddled in
Ormus politics, replacing Rukn al-Din Masud with Sayf al-Din Ayaz as the prince.
She minted coins in Kirman with the regnal name Padishah Khatun, citing her husband the Ilkhan Gaykhatu as overlord with the title Padishah-I Jahan (Ruler of the World/Universe).
Death
When her husband
Gaykhatu was assassinated on 21 March 1295, Padishah was thrown into a difficult position. She was immediately imprisoned on orders of
Kurdujin Khatun and Shah Alam -
Suyurghatmish's widow and daughter. She was strangled to death on her way to
Baydu's court in
Kushk Sar in June/July 1295. She was buried in Gubba-i Sabz Mausoleum as her mother during reign of Muzaffar al-Din Mohammad.
Legacy
Padishah earned mention in the travel diary of Venetian traveler,
Marco Polo, a contemporary of Padishah.
He described her as
“an ambitious and clever woman, who put her own brother Siyurgutmish to death as a rival.” She had both silver and gold coins struck in her name. She left handful amount of Persian poetry under the pseudonym
Lala Khatun and
Hasanshah. She described herself as "
the child of Qutb ad-Din and the fruit of the garden that is the heart of the Turks" in of her poems.
She was also skilled at calligraphy.
Further reading
