Töregene Khatun

Töregene Khatun (also Turakina) (d. 1246) was the Great Khatun and regent of the Mongol Empire from the death of her husband Ögedei Khan in 1241 until the election of her eldest son Güyük Khan in 1246.

Born in the Naiman tribe, Töregene was given as wife to Qudu, the noble of the Merkit clan at first. But Rashid-al-Din Hamadani named her first husband as Dair Usun of the Merkits. When Genghis conquered the Merkits in 1204, he gave Töregene to Ögedei as his second wife. While Ögedei's first wife had no sons, Töregene gave birth to five sons.

She eclipsed all of Ögedei's wives and gradually increased her influence among the court officials. But Töregene still resented Ögedei's officials and the policy of centralizing the administration and lowering tax burdens. Töregene sponsored the reprinting of the Taoist canon in North China. Through the influence of Töregene, Ögedei appointed Abd-ur-Rahman as tax farmer in China.

Soon after Ögedei died in 1241, at first power passed to the hands of Moqe, one of Genghis Khan's wives, who Ögedei inherited. With the support of Chagatai and her sons, Töregene assumed complete power as regent in spring 1242 as Great Khatun and dismissed her late husband's ministers and replaced them with her own, the most important of whom was another woman, Fatima, a Tajik or Persian captive from the Middle Eastern campaign. She was a Shiite Muslim who deported Shiite shrine of Meshed to Mongolia.

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