Iskandar-i Shaykhi

Iskandar-i Shaykhi (Persian: اسکندر شیخی), was an Iranian ispahbad from the Afrasiyab dynasty, who ruled Amul as a Timurid vassal from 1393 to 1403.

Together with some supporters and two nephews of his father, Iskandar initially took refuge in Larijan, but later left for Herat, where entered into the service of the Kartid ruler Ghiyath al-Din II (r. 1370–1389).

Defeated, he was either killed by a Timurid army in 1403/4 at Shir-rud-duhazar, or committed suicide in the Alburz castle of Firuzkuh to avoid capture.

Kiya Afrasiyab served as the general of his son-in-law, the Bavandid ispahbad Hasan II (r. 1334–1349), who ruled Amul and its surroundings.

The Baduspanid ruler (ustandar) Jalal al-Dawla Iskandar (r. 1333–1360), received Hasan II favorably, but the Chalabis distanced themselves from the latter.

[1][2][3] Hasan II's wife (Kiya Afrasiyab's sister) accused him of seducing his stepdaughter and gained a fatwa from Amul which had him convicted.

While the sons of Hasan II fled to Jalal al-Dawla Iskandar, Kiya Afrasiyab established his authority in Amul, and also possibly Sari.

His accession was met with outrage by many in eastern Mazandaran, which made him feign adherence to the influential shaykh (religious scholar) Mir-i Buzurg.

Their stay was short-lived; the income from these districts proved insufficient, and thus one of Kiya Afrasiyab's men, Nur al-Din, took the young princes, together with some of their supporters, to the city of Shiraz in Fars and then to Sabziwar in Khorasan.

In 1375, Iskandar betrayed Ghiyath al-Din II by joining an anti-Kartid rebellion supported by local dervishes and the Muzaffarid ruler in Shiraz, Shah Shoja Mozaffari (r. 1358–1384).

[7] When Iskandar left his realm in 1399/1400 to join Timur's Azerbaijan expedition, the latter deprived the Baduspanids of most of their holdings by sending his troops to administer most of Rustamdar.