Shah Shoja Mozaffari

Shah Shoja (1333–1384) took the Muzaffarid state of southern Iran to its widest reach. He seized power from his father Mubariz al-Din Muhammad: after stopping him from demolishing the poet Saadi's tomb, he blinded and imprisoned him in 1358 and took the throne.

His long reign was a running quarrel with his brothers. Shah Mahmud, backed by his Jalayirid father-in-law, seized Shiraz in 1364, and Shoja could not retake his capital until 1366; he occupied Isfahan after Mahmud's death. A well-educated prince who wrote verse, he was alluded to 39 times by Hafez.

In 1383, drunk, he blinded his own son Sultan Shebli and regretted it the next day. That year he wrote to the warlord Timur and entrusted his sons to him. He died in 1384, naming Zain al-Abidin his successor.