Jahan Malek Khatun

Her birthdate is not known, but her parents were married in 1324, so she must have been born after that date. Her father was Jalal ud-Din Masudshah and mother was a daughter of Ghiyas al-Din Hamadani. Her step-mother was a Chupanid princess, Sultanbakht - daughter of Dimashq Khwaja, who married Masudshah in Baghdad in 1342.[1] After his father's marriage, she too got married between 1343 and 1347. Groom was Amin al-Din Jahromi[2], companion of Injuid ruler, his uncle Shaikh Jamal al-Din Abu Ishaq. Masudshah was deposed in 1339 by allied powers of Shams al-Din Muhammad and Chupanid Pir Hosayn and fled to Luristan and was finally murdered in bath by Yagi Basti's men in 1342.[3]Jahan Malek was brought up and guarded by his uncle Abu Ishaq. Abu Ishaq too finally fell from power in 1353 when Mubariz al-Din Muhammad captured Shiraz and executed Ishaq in 1357.

Jahan Malek Khatun's poetry was usually love poetry. Besides, she also mentioned several rulers in her poems, like Mubariz al-Din Muhammad, Shah Shoja Mozaffari, Ahmad Jalayir, Shah Mansur and Miran Shah, giving a clue about her lifespan.[1] She was a contemporary of Ubayd Zakani, Khwaju Kermani and Hafez. She was at odds with Ubayd Zakani who mocked her poetry[1] alongside Kamal Khujandi. Her divan is the largest known divan from any woman poet of pre-modern times. It contains 4 qasidas, one strophe-poem, a lengthy elegy, 12 fragments, 357 rubai and 1413 ghazals.[2] Only 4 known manuscripts are located at British Library, National Library of France, Topkapi Palace and Cambridge University Library. She was influenced by Saadi and other women poetesses of her time including Padshah Khatun[4] and Qutluqshah Khatun[2] (wife of Öljaitü and daughter of Irinjin[5]).

Being mostly out of scope of academic interest, she was published in 1995, Tehran for the first time for modern readers.[6] Dick Davis translated a big part of her poetry into English in 2013.[7]Another translation of her divan was by Paul Smith in 2018.