Abu Sa'id (Timurid dynasty)

Abu Sa'id (Herat, 1424 - 1469), was a Timurid Empire ruler in today parts of Persia and Afghanistan and member of the Timurid dynasty.

Abu Sa'id was the great-grandson of Timur and the grandson of Miran Shah . As a young man his ancestry made him a principal in the century long struggle for the remnants of Timur's empire waged between Timur's descendants, the Black Sheep Turkomans, and the White Sheep Turkomans (1405-1510).

He raised an army but failed to gain a foothold in Samarkand or Bukhara (1448-1449); established his base at Yasi and conquered much of Turkestan in 1450; captured Samarkand with the aid of the Uzbek Turks in June of 1451; fought an inconclusive war with Babur Ibn-Baysunkur of Khorasan (1454); took advantage of his cousin Jahan Shah's capture of Herat late in 1457 to capture it for himself in 1458, thus acquiring most of Babur's realm outside of India and becoming the most powerful of the Timurid princes in central Asia; defeated an alliance of three other Timurid princes at the Battle of Sarakhs in March 1459, and conquered eastern Iran and most of Afghanistan by 1461, agreeing with Jahan Shah to divide Iran between them; when the White Sheep Turkoman chieftain Uzun Hasan attacked and killed Jahan Shah, Abu Sa'id spurned Uzun Hasan's peace offer and answered Jahan Shah's son's request for aid.

Captured with a small force in the mountains of Azerbaijan during a campaign against the Ak Koyunlu (White Sheep) Turkomans, he was executed by Uzum Hasan in 1469. A capable and conscientious ruler, he tried to recapture the glory and prosperity of Miran Shah; a Sufi disciple, he did much to restore economic prosperity in his kingdom.