In the spiritual center of the Turkic world, the city of Turkestan, 60 meters opposite the mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, there is a tomb, often ignored by tourists and pilgrims who come to the ashes of the Sufi master. People, without stopping, pass by the building with a blue dome, apparently believing that this is part of the Yassavi architectural complex. The personality of the ascetic, the author of "Divani Hikmet" Khoja Ahmed overshadowed, left in the shadows even the great khans resting inside and around the mausoleum of Yassavi, what can we say about her, Rabieh, daughter of Ulugbeg, great-granddaughter of Tamerlane and beloved wife of Abulkhair Khan Sheibanid, forty years old whose reign over the Great Steppe began with Chimgi-Tura/Tyumen.

Even the tombstone of Rabiya Sultan Begim, as they say, was transferred under the vaults of Ahmed Yassawi's khanaka. However, we failed to verify this while traveling through the ancient cities on the Silk Road. The tomb was closed for restoration and we did not get inside.

Rabia was born in Samarkand around 1435. She grew up, surrounded by attention, in the palace of her father, the ruler of the Timurid state, mathematician, astronomer and poet Ulugbek. At that time, her betrothed, the young Khan Abulkhair, was staying 2000 km from Samarkand, in the Siberian city of Chimgi-Tura, having come to power with the support of the Nogais as a result of internecine wars in the former Ulus of Jochi. The apogee of Abulkhair's power in Siberia was the defeat of his main rival and relative-Sheibanid Mahmud Khoja Khan on the banks of the Tobol.

Here is how this battle is described in Tarikh-i Abu-l-Khair-khani by Masud Kuhistani:

“The sounds of drums, trumpets and timpani, resounding from both sides, reached the highest heavenly point ... The fire of war and battles and the flames of battles ignited, the eagle of death stole the bird of the souls of opponents with the claws of violence. From fear for life, the heart in the timid body trembled, like willow leaves under a gust of harsh wind. From the lightning of the brave swords, rains of bloodshed flowed, and the emerald color of the dagger from the blood of the brave turned red like a ruby ​​...

Mahmud-Khoja-khan, with the help of a fast horse, wanted to carry his soul from the battlefield and the battle in good health. However, by the predestination of the Almighty God, they captured him [and] on the orders of [Abu-l-Khair-Khan] Khakan, who has a retinue, [brave warriors and knights knocking a man down, blocking [him] the way with the help of the divine and heavenly numerous], like stars, sent [him] from the city fortifications of being to the dwelling of eternity ... ".

Kuhistani also reports that Abulkhair Khan married the widow of Mahmud-Khodzhi-Khan, a beauty named Aganak-Bike, and "became happy and cheerful."

After the defeat of the main rival and the conquest of the lands adjacent to Tyumen, Siberia became cramped for the young khan. Leaving in the velayat of Chimgi-Tura as darugs-governors of the faithful emirs, who "became the cause of the power of the Khan", Abulkhair Khan moved south, cleaning up the steppe expanses of the Eastern Deshti-Kipchak one. He made Sygnak (Syganak) the capital city. The ruins of this settlement are now located on the territory of the Kyzylorda region of Kazakhstan.

The steppe empire of Abulkhair went down in history under the name of the State of nomadic Uzbeks and it stretched from Tyumen in the north to the Timurids in the south, from the vassal Nogai Horde in the west to the Dzungar Khanate in the east.

Rabiya Sultan approached the age of majority in Islam when her future husband Abulkhair Khan came to the borders of Maverannahr. The Timurid state experienced a "great fitnah" during this period. The descendants of Tamerlane were torn among themselves. Rabia's father Ulugbek was killed by his own son Abdul-Latif. In turn, the parricide was killed by Abdullah, the great-grandson of Aksak Timur. The country was divided. In the internecine struggle, one of the great-grandsons of Tamerlane, Abu Said, resorted to the patronage of the ruler of the nomadic Uzbeks Abulkhair, and in the summer of 1451 a large army of the steppes moved to Samarkand. The campaign was personally led by Khan Abulkhair.

Having sat on the throne in Samarkand, Abu Said presented rich gifts to the patron and gave him his young relative, the youngest daughter of Ulugbek, for him.

Masood Kuhistani reports this as follows:

“When the aforementioned padishah [Abu Sa'id], with the help of the divine and mercy of the Almighty [with] the blessing of the Khakan, established himself on the throne of control [Samarkand] and power, then in accordance with the pillars of the state and the rulers of the army and people, according to the custom of the faithful sultans, with luxury and With [full] splendor, he gave as a wife to [Abu-l-Khair-khan], a khan, similar to Sulaiman in [his] power, the greatest cradle and the highest veil, the glory of women, the daughter of the sultan-martyr and blessed khakan Ulugbek-kurekan - may the Lord illuminate his tomb - Rabi'u-sultan-begim.There is also a version that as Abulkhair's troops approached Samarkand, Abu Said began to regret his act. Looking at the warlike nomads, he imagined how they would gallop through the streets of Timur's capital, ruining everything in their path. Having seized the moment, Abu Said left Abulkhair Khan, and went out to meet him from the gate with luxurious gifts and the young Rabiya Sultan. The beautiful daughter of Ulugbek melted the heart of the 40-year-old Sheibanid Khan, and he ordered the army not to enter the city.

After the nikah, Rabiya-sultan-begim went with her crowned husband to Sygnak. Nine months later, she gave birth to a son, who was given the name Kuchkunchi (nomad). Two years later - the son of Suyunchi ("a gift for good news").

In the memory of the people, Rabiya Sultan, the fourth and beloved wife of the Khan, was preserved as a pious, generous woman. The daughter of the great astronomer and mathematician was distinguished by her education and political insight. Rabiya became the personification of peace and harmony between the Timurids and Sheibanids. Thanks to her, even the descendants of Tamerlane, who did not agree with the power of Abu Said in Samarkand, found patronage in Sygnak. Thus, in particular, reporting on the arrival of the son of Abdul-Latif to the Uzbek Khan Muhammad-Juki, Kukhistani writes: wife of the Khan of the country and aunt on the father of the prince, arranged various entertainments and favors for her nephew. Muhammad-Juki-mirza, with a calm soul and enjoying peace, indulged in prayer in the house of a khan like Sulaiman.

Thanks to the marriage alliance with the Sheibanids, Abu Said restored the unity of the Timurid state, but an unexpected split occurred in the State of nomadic Uzbeks itself: part of the steppes left Abulkhair, went to the borders of Moghulistan in Semirechie and became Uzbek Cossacks (free Uzbeks).

One of the reasons for the split in the nomadic empire, researchers call the reforms of Abulkhair on the centralization of power. The free steppe dwellers, not accustomed to a rigid vertical, state taxation, their own masters (Uzbek - in the translation “bek to himself”), who put at the forefront not the power of the khan, but their own family, began to leave Abulkhair en masse and unite around the sultans Kerey and Zhanibek for the Cossacks (freemen).

Abulkhair died in 1468, having gone on a campaign against the rebellious Uzbek Cossacks/Kazakhs. After the death of her husband, the 33-year-old Rabiya Sultan Begim left Sygnak and settled in Turkestan to spend the rest of her life in prayer near the Yassawi mausoleum. Her sons Kuchkunchi and Suyunchi from their youth participated in the warriors of the Uzbek-Sheibanids with the Uzbek-Kazakhs.

After the death of Abulkhair, the Timurid state also collapsed. The descendants of Abulkhair, pressed by the Uzbek-Kazakhs, knocked out the great-grandchildren of Tamerlane from Maverannahr and founded a new Uzbek Khanate (no longer nomadic). The steppe Uzbeks, who became Cossacks/Kazakhs, occupied Sygnak, Turkestan and all the space of the former empire of Abulkhair up to the borders of the Siberian Khanate of Ibak Khan.

Rabiya passed away in 1485 at the age of 50, outliving her husband by 17 years. By that time, Turkestan was already the capital of the Kazakh Khanate. The sons of Rabiya and Abulkhair became rulers in the new Uzbek khanate in Central Asia, but they never forgot their origin. Ruzbikhan, a historian of the Sheibanids, wrote in “Notes of a Bukhara guest”: “Three tribes are attributed to the Uzbeks, which are the most glorious in the possessions of Genghis Khan. Now one [of them] - the Shibanites and his Khan's Majesty, after a number of ancestors, was and is their ruler. The second tribe is the Kazakhs, who are famous all over the world for their strength and fearlessness, and the third tribe is the Mangyts, and [from] them the kings of Astrakhan. One edge of the possessions of the Uzbeks borders on the ocean (meaning the Caspian Sea); the other - with Turkestan; the third - with Derbend; the fourth - with Khorezm and the fifth - with Astrabad. And all these [lands] are entirely places of summer and winter nomadic Uzbeks. The khans of these three tribes are constantly at odds with each other and each [of them] encroaches on the other ... ".

During periods of reconciliation with the Kazakh khans, the sons of Rabiya visited the mausoleum of their father near Sygnak. They also erected the tomb of their mother in Turkestan, leaving an epitaph on the tombstone, which, translated into Russian, reads: “This is the place of calm for the noble, forgiven (by God), pardoned, virtuous Rabbi Sultan Begim, daughter of the mighty, great Sultan Ulugbek who died a martyr's death. Guragan, son of the powerful emir Timur Guragan. May God light up all their graves until the day of judgment. This departure from the temporary dwelling to the eternal abode happened in one of the months of the year 890 (i.e. 1485) of the new moon era of the Hijra of the chosen Prophet - may mercy and peace be with him.

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