Mihrabanid

The Mihrabanids were a Persian Muslim dynasty, the third indigenous Muslim line to rule Sistan, also called Nimruz, after the Saffarids and the Nasrids. They held the province from 1236 to the mid-sixteenth century, governing from Shahr-i Sistan with the title of malik.

The first malik, Shams al-Din Ali ibn Mas'ud, took power after the Mongol conquest, and the family ruled as largely autonomous vassals of the Ilkhanate, conquering Quhistan by 1289. The collapse of the Ilkhanate left the Mihrabanids independent for nearly half a century, until Timur invaded Sistan in 1383 and devastated the province; the maliks then served the Timurids and the Shaybanids.

The last malik, Sultan Mahmud, acknowledged Safavid suzerainty and introduced Shia practices such as the Shia call to prayer among a mostly Sunni population, before the family handed over Sistan and ended its three centuries of rule around the 1540s.