Shaybani was initially an Uzbek warrior leading a contingent of 3000 men in the army of the Timurid ruler of Samarkand, Sultan Ahmed Mirza under the Amir, Abdul Ali Tarkhan. However, when Ahmed Mirza went to war against Sultan Mahmud Khan, the Khan of Moghulistan, to reclaim Tashkent from him, Shaybani secretly met the Moghul Khan and agreed to betray and plunder Ahmed's army. This happened in the Battle of the Chirciq River in 1488 CE, resulting in a decisive victory for Moghulistan. Sultan Mahmud Khan gave Turkistan to Shaybani as a reward. Here, however, Shaybani oppressed the localKazakhs, resulting in a war between Moghulistan and the Kazakh Khanate. Moghulistan was defeated in this war, but Shaybani gained power among the Uzbeks. He decided to conquer Samarkand and Bukhara from Ahmed Mirza. Sultan Mahmud's subordinate emirs convinced him to aid Shaybani in doing so, and together they marched on Samarkand.
Family
; Consorts Shaybani had five consorts:
Zuhra Begi Agha, an Uzbeg lady and formerly a consort of Sultan Mahmud Mirza;
Khanzada Khanum, daughter of Ahmad Khan of Haji Tarkhan and Badi-ul-Jamal Begum, and former wife of Muzaffar Husayn Mirza Bayqara;
;Sons He had three sons:
Muhammad Temur Sultan, married firstly to Mihr Sultan Khanum, daughter of Qazaq Khan Burunduq, married secondly in 1500 to Sultanum Begum, daughter of Sultan Ahmed Mirza and Qatak Begum, married thirdly in 1503 to Daulat Sultan Khanum, daughter of Yunus Khan and Shah Begum, married fourthly in 1507 to Ruqaiya Agha, former wife of Badi' al-Zaman Mirza;
Continuing the policies of his grandfather, Abul-Khayr Khan, Shaybani ousted the Timurids from their capital Samarkand by 1500. He fought successful campaigns against the Timurid leader Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire. In 1505 he recaptured Samarkand and in 1507 also took Herat, the southern capital of the Timurids. Shaybani conquered Bukhara in 1506 and established the Shaybanid Dynasty of the Khanate of Bukhara. In 1508–09, he carried out many raids northward, pillaging the land of the Kazakh Khanate. However he suffered a major defeat from Kazakhs under Kasim Khan in 1510.
Shah Ismail I was alarmed by Shaybani's success and moved against the Uzbeks. In the Battle of Marv, Muhammad Shaybani was defeated and killed when trying to escape. Shaybani Khan's army was surrounded by Ismail's 17,000-strong army and was defeated after fierce resistance. The remnants of the army ended up dying under enemy arrows. At the time of Shaybani's death, the Uzbeks controlled all of Transoxiana, that is, the area between the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers. After capturing Samarkand from Babur, Shaybani married Babur's sister, Khanzada Begum. Babur's liberty to leave Samarkand was made contingent upon his assent to this alliance. After Shaybani's death, Ismail I gave liberty to Khanzada Begum with her son and, at Babur's request, sent them to his court. For this reason Shaybani was succeeded not by a son but by an uncle, a cousin and a brother whose descendants would rule Bukhara until 1598 and Khwarizm until 1687. From the accounts of Babur, i.e. the Baburnama, we came to know that the Shah of Persia Ismail beheaded Shaybani and had his skull turned into a bejeweled drinking goblet which was drunk from when entertaining; he later sent the cup to Babur as a goodwill gesture. The rest of Shaybani's body parts were either sent to various areas of the empire for display or put on a spike at the main gate of Samarkand.
Personality
Shaybani Khan was very fond of history in his youth. In 1475, he was specially presented with a book about the life of Alexander the Great — Iskandarnamah, written in the distant Ottoman Empire. Medieval author Nisari recognized Shaybani Khan as a scholar of the holy Koran. The manuscript of his philosophical and religious work "Bahru’l-huda", written in the Central AsianTurkic literary language in 1508, is in London. Shaybani Khan used various works on theology when writing his essay. It contains his own views on religious issues. The author presents his own idea of the basics of Islam: repentance for sins, showing mercy, and others. Shaybani Khan shows excellent knowledge of Muslim rituals and daily duties of devout Muslims.
