Abdallāh (Golden Horde)

ʿAbdallāh (, Ğabdullah Xan), (also Avdulja, modern Abdulla and Avdulla in Russian texts), was Khan of the Golden Horde in 1361–1370, as a protégé of the beglerbeg Mamai. While ʿAbdallāh was recognized as khan throughout the territories dominated by his patron Mamai, he was in possession of the traditional capital Sarai only intermittently, in 1362, 1367–1368, and 1369–1370. The origins and identity of Khan ʿAbdallāh are unclear, and nowhere stated precisely. On the basis of Mamai's marriage to the daughter (Tulun Beg Khanum?) of Khan Berdi Beg, a descendant of Jochi's son Batu, and also Ibn Khaldun's statement that "Mamai went to the Crimea and appointed as khan one of the offspring of the children of Öz Beg, named ʿAbdallāh," some modern historians have considered ʿAbdallāh a descendant of Batu and, more specifically, of Öz Beg. This is possibly undermined by negative evidence: Ibn Khaldun is not infallible in his coverage of the Golden Horde (considering, for example, Tokhtamysh the son of Berdi Beg); the Čingīz-Nāmah asserted that the death of Berdi Beg was said to have ended the line of Batu; Mamai is unlikely to have supported a pretended descendant of Öz Beg in Kildi Beg, if a genuine one was available in ʿAbdallāh; the detailed genealogical compendiums do not include any descendant of Batu identifiable with ʿAbdallāh. A plausible alternative is to identify ʿAbdallāh with a certain ʿAbdal (son of Mīnkāsar, son of Abāy, son of Kay-Tīmūr, son of Tūqā-Tīmūr, son of Jochi), listed by the Muʿizz al-ansāb and Tawārīḫ-i guzīdah-i nuṣrat-nāmah among the descendants of Jochi's son Tuqa-Timur, alongside others that can be identified with Mamai's subsequent puppet khans Muḥammad-Sulṭān and Tūlāk; moreover, descendants of Tuqa-Timur are known to have settled in the Crimea, which was Mamai's power base. The former beglerbeg Mamai was apparently excluded from power at Sarai following the death of his father-in-law, Khan Berdi Beg in 1359. He returned to his power base in and near the Crimea, where he seems to have been autonomous, his relations with the rapidly changing khans in capital being unknown.