Musha Sha

(nickname of the sayyid Muhammad). Year of birth unknown; died 1465 or 1466. Leader of one of the extremist sects of the Shiites; founder of a small state in Khuzistan.

In his youth, Musha Sha called himself a precursor of the Mahdi (or sometimes the Mahdi himself). In 1440 (or 1441) he led a rebellion of several Arab tribes in southern Iraq. The peasants, urban poor, and artisans of Khuzistan joined in the rebellion. The rebels slew the local aristocracy and Sunni clergy, distributed their lands and property, and defeated a feudal militia that attacked them from Fars. In 1442 the rebellion was crushed by the forces of Iskandar, the royal heir of the Kara-Koyunlu dynasty. In 1457 (or 1458), in the Khuwayza region, Musha Sha founded a small Shiite state of a type similar to the Serbedar state; it subsequently was transformed into an ordinary feudal state, existing until the 1730’s as a vassal of the Safawids.