After Mubariz al-Din Muhammad's conquest of Kerman in 1341, he organized a marriage between Shah Shoja and the daughter of one of the tribal Mongol chieftains who roamed the region.

[2] Shah Shoja later prevented his father from having the tomb of the prominent Persian poet Saadi Shirazi demolished, whom Mubariz al-Din Muhammad had condemned for his poems on religious factors.

Shah Shoja proved to be a less of a tyrannic figure than his father, but he was constantly fighting with his brothers, causing a long period of instability.

Shah Mahmud would continue to play and influential role in Iranian politics, using his marriage alliance to claim Tabriz from the Jalayirids after Shaikh Awais Jalayir died in 1374.

On his deathbed, Shah Shoja wrote a letter to the powerful Turco-Mongol warlord Timur, who was then campaigning in Azerbaijan, in which he gave his sons' loyalty to the conqueror.

The representation of Shah Shoja as portrayed by contemporary and subsequent historians is that of a sophisticated yet at times harsh renaissance prince, well-educated in scholarly and theological sciences, a poet and man of learning himself, and likewise a benevolent advocate of knowledge and literary work.