Mohammad Khodabanda

Mohammad Khodabanda (born 1532; died 1595 or 1596) was the fourth Safavid shah of Iran, reigning from 1578 until his overthrow in 1587 by his son Abbas I. He was a son of Shah Tahmasp I and a grandson of Ismail I, the dynasty's founder. Nearly blind from an eye affliction, he was passed over at his father's death in 1576 in favour of his younger brother Ismail II, and came to the throne only after Ismail's short and bloody reign. ¹

He was born at Tabriz — the Arabic article and Wikidata give his birth year as 1531 rather than 1532, and Wikidata names Ardabil as his birthplace. As a child he was named titular governor of Herat, and in 1572 he was appointed governor of Shiraz, where he moved among the poets and artists of the city. He was himself a poet, writing under the pen name Fahmi. ^{1 2 3}

When Ismail II died abruptly on 25 November 1577, the Qizilbash chieftains first considered crowning Ismail's infant son, then agreed on Khodabanda: old, almost blind and pleasure-seeking, he suited those who intended to rule through him. He entered Qazvin on 12 February 1578. Real power at first lay with his formidable wife Khayr al-Nisa Begum, titled Mahd-e Olya, who secured his throne and promoted their elder son Hamza Mirza — until a group of Qizilbash conspirators strangled her on 26 July 1579. ¹

His reign was marked by the second civil war of the Safavid era: Qizilbash factions dominated the court, forced the shah to surrender his vizier Mirza Salman to execution in 1583, and advanced rival sons as heirs. The crown prince Hamza Mirza was murdered on 6 December 1586. Abroad, the Ottoman sultan Murad III opened a war in 1578 that lasted until 1590; Shirvan and Georgia were lost, and in 1585 an Ottoman army captured Tabriz, the old capital, which remained in Ottoman hands for twenty years. ¹

When the Uzbeks invaded Khurasan, the Ustajlu chief Murshid Quli Khan marched his ward, the prince Abbas Mirza, to Qazvin, where Abbas was proclaimed shah in October 1587. Khodabanda made no attempt to resist and accepted his dethronement. He lived for a time in the capital and was then reportedly banished to the fortress of Alamut. Iskandar Beg Munshi records him dying at Qazvin sometime between 21 July 1595 and 10 July 1596; the Arabic article and Wikidata give July 1595. He was buried at the Imam Husayn shrine in Karbala. ^{1 2 3}

The English and Arabic articles both record his religion as Twelver Shia Islam, the faith of the Safavid state his grandfather had founded; Wikidata gives Shia Islam. ^{1 2 3}