Alamshah Halime Begum Explained

Alamshah Halima Begum
Birth Date:	1460
Birth Place:	Aq Qoyunlu
Spouse:	Shaykh Haydar
Issue:	Ismail I Sheikh Sultan Ali Sheikh Ibrahim Fakhr Jahan Khanum Melek Khanum Other two daughters
Mother:	Teodora Despina Khatun
Father:	Uzun Hasan

Alamshah Halima Begum (1460–1522) (Azerbaijani: عالم‌شاه حلیمه بیگم) was a Turkoman Aq Qoyunlu princess. She was the daughter of Uzun Hasan and Teodora Despina Khatun, and the mother of Ismail I.

Name

There are different opinions about her real name.^[1] It may have been Halima, Halime, Alamshah, Alemshah, Alamşah, Alemşah,^{[2] [3]} or Martha.^[4]

Life

Her father was the Aq Qoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan and her mother was the daughter of John IV of Trebizond,^[5] Theodora Megale Komnene, also known as "Despina Hatun".^[6] There is no reliable information about the first years of her life. In 1471 she married Shaykh Haydar, the son of her aunt Khadija Khatun (her father's sister) and the sheikh of the Safavid Order. They had three sons, Ali Mirza Safavi, Ibrahim and Ismail I and four daughters.

Issue

By her husband, she had three sons and four daughters:

• Ismail I (1487 - 1524). First Shah of Safavid dynasty.
• Ali Mirza Safavi (d. 1494). He was the penultimate head of the Safavid order.
• Shaykh Ibrahim.
• Fakhr Jahan Khanum. She married Bayram Beg Qaramanlu.
• Melek Khanum. She married Abdallah Khan Shamlu.
• A daughter who married Husayn Beg Shamlu.
• A daughter who married Shah Ali Beg.

Notes and References

1. Həbib əl-Siyər, IV cild, səh. 425, 428
2. A. D. Możṭar, Cahanguşa-i Xaqan, İslamabad,1971.
3. [İsgəndər bəy Münşi]
4. G. Sarwar, The History of Shāh Ismāʿīl Ṣafawī, Aligarh, 1939
5. [Şərəf xan Bitlisi|Şərəf Xan Bitlisi]
6. Michel Kuršanskis, "La descendance d'Alexis IV, empereur de Trébizonde. Contribution à la prosopographie des Grands Comnènes", Revue des études byzantines, 37 (1979), pp. 239-247