Saray Mulk Khanum

Saray Mulk
This photograph of the Bibi Khanum mausoleum in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) is from the archaeological part of Turkestan Album.
Tenure	1370 - 1405
Born	1343
Died	1406 (aged 62-63) Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Spouse	Amir Husayn of Balkh Timur
Full name Saray Mulk
House	House of Borjigin (by birth) House of Timur (by marriage)
Father	Qazan Khan ibn Yasaur
Religion	Islam

Saray Mulk khanum (c. 1343 – 1406) was the Great (or Grand) Empress of the Timurid Empire as the chief consort of Timur, also known as Tamerlane the Great, the founder of the Timurid Empire as well as the Timurid dynasty. By birth, she was a princess of the Chagatai Khanate as a daughter of Qazan Khan ibn Yasaur and was also a direct descendant of Genghis Khan.

Saray Mulk Khanum was born a princess of the Chagatai Khanate in c. 1343 to Qazan Khan ibn Yasaur, the last Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. Saray's grandfather was Khan Yasa'ur, her father's predecessor and a great-great-grandson of Chagatai Khan. She was therefore, a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, the Great Khan (Emperor) and founder of the Mongol Empire. Saray was also a member of the House of Borjigin, the most renowned family clan in Eurasia.

Being the daughter of a Khan, Saray held the title of Khanum ("daughter of a Khan or princess") by birth.

Before her marriage to Timur, Saray had been previously married to her husband's predecessor, Amir Husayn of Balkh. When in 1370, Timur defeated and thereafter executed Husayn after the Siege of Balkh, he seized the harem of his predecessor and took to himself the latter's wives, one of whom was Saray Mulk Khanum, daughter of Khan Qazan and a Turko-Mongol princess. Saray was five years younger than Timur. As the daughter of a Khan and a descendant of Genghis Khan, Saray enjoyed the status of Timur's senior wife, although in her first husband's harem the chief wife was a daughter of Khan Tarmashirin, who after Husayn's fall was married to the Jalayir Khan Bahram.