The general discontent came to a head in A.H. 809 (1406), when two nobles, named Khodāydād and Shaykh Nūr-ed-Dīn, suddenly took up arms against their master, and advanced to attack Samarkand. They were repulsed by Khalīl, and in the following year Shaykh Nūr-ed-Dīn made peace with the Sultan. Meanwhile Khodāydād, allying himself with other malcontent nobles, returned to the attack. On arriving before Samarkand, the rebels decoyed Sultan Khalīl from his defences under a pretence of parleying, seized his person and obtained possession of the city,[413] A.H. 812 (1409).
On learning this piece of treachery, Shāh Rukh at once despatched an army under his general, Shāh Mulk, to punish Khodāydād. The latter abandoned Samarkand, which remained without a ruler until the arrival of Shād Mulk, to whom the gates were opened. Shāh Rukh himself arrived shortly afterwards, and, after establishing order in the town, heaped the most galling indignities on Shād Mulk, who had been the cause of Khalīl’s misfortunes.[414] He then made his young son, Ulugh Beg, governor of Transoxiana, and returned to Herāt.
The thirty-eight years during which the cultured prince ruled as his father’s lieutenant in Samarkand were the golden age of Central Asia. Himself an astronomer and mathematician of no mean renown,[415] he gathered round him a galaxy of stars of science, which made Tīmūr’s capital a beacon-light for the Eastern world. His liberality and deep artistic sense were not less conspicuous. They stood revealed in palaces, mosques, and colleges, which during their brief existence made Samarkand the most beautiful of Asiatic cities. The long peace that had brooded over Transoxiana under the reign of this enlightened prince was rudely dispelled by the death of his father, Shāh Rukh, which took place in A.H. 850 (1448).[416] Ulugh Beg, as heir-apparent, was proclaimed emperor, and set out for Herāt to take possession of his father’s treasure. But his nephew, `Alā ud-Dawlé, had seized the citadel and the person of Ulugh Beg’s son, `Abd ul-Latīf. Paternal love induced the emperor to come to terms with the pretender on certain conditions, first and foremost amongst these being his son’s release. This was achieved, but the other stipulations were not carried out by `Alā ud-Dawlé. The war was therefore renewed, and it ended in his discomfiture and flight towards Meshed. While pursuing his enemy through Khorāsān, Ulugh Beg received disquieting news from home. Herāt had been plundered by a Turkoman chief, and Samarkand by the uncouth Uzbegs, who destroyed in a few hours the marvels of art with which he had decorated it. But worse was still in store for the unhappy monarch. His darling, `Abd ul-Latīf, for whom he had sacrificed so much, set up the standard of revolt at Balkh and invaded Transoxiana. Ulugh Beg was forced to oppose his claims, but was defeated and taken prisoner. To `Abd ul-Latīf’s eternal disgrace, he caused his father to be put to death in prison by a Persian slave.[417]