TURKS AND THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN CENTRAL ASIA

TURKS IN CENTRAL ASIA

Kirill Nourzhanov and Christian Bleuer wrote: “In the late fourth and early fifth centuries AD, a new force appeared in the steppes adjacent to Khujand—the north-eastern outposts of the Iranian civilisation—namely, the Turkic tribes of the Ephthalites and the Huns. Like all their nomadic predecessors, they quickly settled down, mostly in urban centres. The Turks would come to exert a great influence over the formation of ethnic groups in Central Asia before the Arab conquest, and long after it.” [Source: “Tajikistan” by Kirill Nourzhanov and Christian Bleuer, Australia National University, 2013 ]

“The reign of the Samanids was brought to an end in 999 by the invasion of the Qarakhanid Turks, and power in Central Asia passed to Turkic rulers for the next nine centuries. One of the determining factors for the prosperity of culture and trades in Mavarannahr was that the new Turkic dynasties completed the process of liquidating the class of the old Iranian landed aristocracy, the dihqans, which had begun under the Samanids. As a result, the highly stratified elite culture so characteristic of the Achaemenids and the Sasanians became more diffused amongst much of the population. Iranian urban-based strata—merchants, artisans, tradesmen—rose to eminence, and often had a say in political affairs under the Turkic rulers of Mavarannahr, who used them as a counterbalance to the nomadic nobility. This transition away from an aristocratic community made an important contribution to the formation of a single Tajik ethnic culture.”

“All political entities based on the tribal system proved highly unstable in Central Asia. Even the impressive structure created by Timur (Tamerlane) from the Barlas tribe (1370–1405) did not survive its founder. There was an evident dichotomy, even antagonism, between the Turks who clung to the old nomadic way of life and the Turks who had become sedentarised. Their coexistence within a unified state was problematic. It was not unusual for whole groups of tribes to secede from the parent polity and return to the nomadic way of life, creating state entities of their own and ravaging their former kin. That was definitely the case in the Chaghatai Khanate, the Golden Horde and the Timurid Empire.”

Karakhanids, Ghaznavids and Seljuks

In the wake of the Samanids arose two Turkish dynasties: the Ghaznavids, based in Khorasan in present-day Turkmenistan, and the Karakhanids from present-day Kazakhstan. The Karakhanids are credited with converting Central Asia to Islam. They established a large empire that stretched from Kazakhstan to western China and embraced three important cities: Balasagun (present-day Buruna in Kyrgyzstan), Talas (present-day Tara in Kazakhstan) and Kashgar. Bukhara continued as a center of learning.

The Karakhanids and Ghaznavids fought one another off and on until they were both outmaneuvered diplomatically and militarily by the Seljuk Turks, who created a huge empire that stretched from western China to the Mediterranean. At their height, the Seljuk sultan had himself invested as emperor by the caliph of Baghdad. The Seljuks ruled for about a century before they were weakened by fights for succession and thrust Central Asia into another period marked by chaos and conflicts between feuding kingdoms.

Turkification of Central Asia

In the ninth century, the continued influx of nomads from the northern steppes brought a new group of people into Central Asia. These people were the Turks who lived in the great grasslands stretching from Mongolia to the Caspian Sea. Introduced mainly as slave soldiers to the Samanid Dynasty, these Turks served in the armies of all the states of the region, including the Abbasid army. In the late tenth century, as the Samanids began to lose control of Mawarannahr and northeastern Iran, some of these soldiers came to positions of power in the government of the region, and eventually they established their own states. With the emergence of a Turkic ruling group in the region, other Turkic tribes began to migrate to Mawarannahr. [Source: Library of Congress, March 1996 *]

The first of the Turkic states in the region was the Ghaznavid Empire, established in the last years of the tenth century. The Ghaznavid state, which ruled lands south of the Amu Darya, was able to conquer large areas of Iran, Afghanistan, and northern India during the reign of Sultan Mahmud. The dominance of Ghazna was curtailed, however, when large-scale Turkic migrations brought in two new groups of Turks who undermined the Ghaznavids. In the east, these Turks were led by the Qarakhanids, who conquered the Samanids. Then the Seljuk family led Turks into the western part of the region, conquering the Ghaznavid territory of Khorazm (also spelled Khorezm and Khwarazm). *

Attracted by the wealth of Central Asia as were earlier groups, the Seljuks dominated a wide area from Asia Minor to the western sections of Mawarannahr, in Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq in the eleventh century. The Seljuk Empire then split into states ruled by various local Turkic and Iranian rulers. The culture and intellectual life of the region continued unaffected by such political changes, however. Turkic tribes from the north continued to migrate into the region during this period. *

In the late twelfth century, a Turkic leader of Khorazm, which is the region south of the Aral Sea, united Khorazm, Mawarannahr, and Iran under his rule. Under the rule of the Khorazm shah Kutbeddin Muhammad and his son, Muhammad II, Mawarannahr continued to be prosperous and rich. However, a new incursion of nomads from the north soon changed this situation. This time the invader was Genghis (Genghis) Khan with his Mongol armies.

Iranians Versus Turks

Kirill Nourzhanov and Christian Bleuer of Australia National University wrote: In Central Asia there is much shared culture... thanks to linguistic, cultural and genetic mixing that resulted from the massive in-migration of Turkic peoples into Iranian-populated lands; however, the process of Turkicisation was not accompanied by serious depredations or genocide. Statements to the effect that ‘from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries the Turks … advanced into Turkestan increasing the Turkic population there and destroying the Iranian culture should be treated with extreme caution. This period witnessed the further growth of cities and the important role of Persian language and culture. As John Armstrong has noted, before the rise of the Ottomans, ‘all Turkic regimes used Persian as their Court language’. [Source: “Tajikistan: Political and Social History” by Kirill Nourzhanov, Christian Bleuer, Australia National University ]

“In the tenth century the ethnic boundary between Iranians and Turks and the cultural boundary between sedentarism and nomadism were roughly the same. The whole medieval history of Mavarannahr can be written in terms of the relationship between steppe pastoralism and oasis agriculture. These contacts went far beyond warfare and the exchange of goods. Samuel Adshead, while describing the symbiosis between the two modes, applies the words ‘complementarity’ and ‘compenetration’, and gives a lucid picture of political interaction:

On the one hand, the sedentarist found the best defence against one set of nomads was another set of nomads. On the other hand, if the nomad wanted to organise an empire out of his conquests, it was best done from an oasis with its granaries, money, literacy and unifying religion. The oasis needed government and protection: the steppe could provide both. The steppe lacked administration and education: the oasis could provide both.

“Prior to the tenth century, sedentarist Transoxiana had demonstrated an almost infinite ability to accommodate nomadic tribes invading its territory. Within two or three generations the steppe-dwellers usually gave up their habitual way of life and language. Some experts believe that only ‘the vast, sudden incursion by pagan Mongols in the mid-thirteenth century’ (and their Turkic allies) broke the routine; however, archaeological and anthropological data point to the fact that already in the eleventh century the situation in Mavarannahr was undergoing a radical transformation. There was a far greater influx of nomadic Turkic peoples during the earlier Qarakhanid era.

Mixing of Turkic and Persian People in Central Asia

Kirill Nourzhanov and Christian Bleuer of Australia National University wrote: ““The historically close relations between Turkic and Iranian-speakers did not have just political and socioeconomic consequences, but ethnic and linguistic ones as well. This time the newcomers settled in rural areas as well as in towns; they not only retained their tongue but also eventually gave it to lands with ancient Iranian traditions. In Richard Frye’s words, the spread of the Turkic languages in Transoxiana was ‘nothing short of amazing’. On top of the numerical strength of the Turks, the Qarakhanids’ conversion to Islam, which supposedly took place under Satuq Bughra-khan (died about 955), must have facilitated the infixion of the Turkic element in Mavarannahr enormously. Even before the Mongols, many Turkic toponyms had appeared in the Zarafshon Valley. [Source: “Tajikistan: Political and Social History” by Kirill Nourzhanov, Christian Bleuer, Australia National University ]

“ The interaction among Tajiks, sedentarised Turks and nomadic Uzbeks remained a highly complex process. Culturally, only language clearly demarcates the Tajik and Uzbek categories, and the prevalence of bilingualism lessens the importance of this division. In Eastern Bukhara, where Tajiks constituted the majority of the population, large numbers of Uzbeks ultimately lost their native tongue and clan divisions, and adopted the way of life of the indigenous sedentary population.

“The stereotypes of the ‘ideal’ appearance of Turkic peoples (including Uzbeks) and Iranian peoples (including Tajiks) are very different; however, the population of sedentary Central Asia has been intermixed for so long that it is impossible to accurately distinguish Tajiks from Uzbeks on physical appearance (phenotype) alone, particularly those who live on the plains and in the lower valleys. The lowland Tajiks share more physical characteristics that are stereotyped as Turkic while mountain-dwellers share fewer linguistic and physical features with Turkic peoples. A large number of the Uzbeks in Central Asia have Iranian ancestry while Tajiks who live outside the isolated mountain communities have some Turkic ancestry. In line with this description, it is noted that mixed marriages are common in Tajikistan, with the Ferghana Valley the area where mixed marriages are most common.

Ghaznavids

The Ghaznavids, a Central Asian dynasty, was founded by the Karluk Turks in the 10th century. Named after the their ancient Afghan city, Ghazni, they established a kingdom in Afghanistan and helped establish Islam on the Indian subcontinent by conquering much of India in the name of Islam. Ghazni is not far from Kabul.

The Turks that became the Ghaznavids established themselves in Afghanistan in the late 9th century and created the first Afghan state. In A.D. 962, one of their leaders Alaptagin became the ruler of Ghazni. In 977, the first loya jirga (a form of government still found in Afghanistan) was convened. It chose the freed Tatar slave Naziruddi to head the Ghaznavid Empire, By 1001, the Ghaznavids, had extended its rule into the northwestern region of India.

The Ghaznavids made a fortune as raiders and slave traders. Mass conversions to Islam began at this time and Sufism introduced by Muslim saints such as Ali Makdum al Hujwiro was widely embraced. Ghazni and Lahore became centers of Islamic culture. The Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan were absorbed and became integral parts of the Ghaznavid empire.

Mahmud of Ghazni (971-1030), a Ghaznavid ruler, launched the Islamic conquest of India. He led seventeen raids against the Rajput kingdoms in northern India—looting, pillaging and bringing back everything thye could carry—under the pretext of bringing Islam to Hindus. He founded the slave kingdom of Delhi and rampaged across northern India, smashing many Hindu idols. Historians think he used religion as pretext to loot and steal.

The Ghaznavids battled with the Karakhanids, a rival empire that stretched from Kazakhstan to western China until they were subdued by the Seljuk Turks and were ousted by the Iranian Ghurids (1148-1206), who conquered Delhi in 1193 and extended Turkish rule to Bengal. Gauri was a 12th century Muslim invader who conquered parts of northern India. Pakistan has named a missile after him. Gauri defeated a Hindu ruler named Prithvi. India has a missile named after him.

Ghaznavid Culture

According to the Encyclopedia Iranica: “The Ghaznavids were an Islamic dynasty of Turkish slave origin. The genesis of the Ghaznavids lay in the process which took place in the middle decades of the 10th century, whereby Turkish slave commanders made themselves in effect autonomous on the southern fringes of the Samanid empire. After the death of the Amir Abd-al-Malek I, Nuh I in 961, the Turkish slave general of the Samanid army in Khorasan, Alptigin withdrew to Gazna after an attempted coup to place his own candidate on the throne had failed. He dispossessed an indigenous family who had ruled in Gazna, the Lawiks, and he, and following him a series of slave commanders, ruled there as nominal vassals of the Samanids; they struck coins but placed the names of the Samanids on them. [Source: Encyclopedia Iranica \~]

“The ethos of the Ghaznavid empire was, from the outset, strongly orthodox Sunni, with the sultans personally followers of the Hanafite legal school. The Ghaznavid leader Mahmud was assiduous in cultivating good relations with the Abbasid caliphs in order to supplement the naked force, which was the practical foundation for his authoritarian rule, with a moral and religious element. Immediately on his accession, he recognized the caliph al-Qader in Khorasan, where the Samanids had continued to acknowledge his predecessor. He regularly sent presents to Baghdad from the captured plunder of India. \~\

“The Ghaznavid sultans were ethnically Turkish, but the sources, all in Arabic or Persian, do not allow us to estimate the persistence of Turkish practices and ways of thought amongst them. Yet given the fact that the essential basis of the Ghaznavids’ military support always remained their Turkish soldiery, there must always have been a need to stay attuned to their troops’ needs and aspirations; also, there are indications of the persistence of some Turkish literary culture under the early Ghaznavids (Köprülüzade, pp. 56-57). The sources do make it clear, however, that the sultans’ exercise of political power and the administrative apparatus which gave it shape came very speedily to be within the Perso-Islamic tradition of statecraft and monarchical rule. \~\

“Persianisation of the state apparatus was accompanied by the Persianisation of high culture at the Ghaznavid court. Ferdowsi sought Mahmud’s beneficence towards the end of his life, but Mahmud and Masud are most notably known as the patrons of Persian poets with a simple, lyrical style. Art and architecture enjoyed a great florescence in the Ghaznavid period under the stimuli first, of enthusiastic patronage from the ruling dynasty and its high officials and commanders, not only in Gazna but in provincial centers like Herat, Balkh and Bost, and second, of the great amount of money available for the arts of peace flowing in from the spoils of India. It is possible that idols and other trophies of war were on occasion actually set into the fabric of public buildings like mosques and palaces in the capital as symbols of the triumph of Islam over paganism (Scerrato). It is literary sources like Abu’l-Fazl Bayhaqi and Abu Said Gardizi (qq.v.) which tell us about the numerous gardens, kiosks, and palaces laid out by the sultans in the cities of the empire, since gardens are transient affairs and the use of sun-dried brick as the standard building material equally makes for impermanence.” \~\

Karakhanids

The Karakhanids — a Turkic people — are credited with converting Central Asia to Islam. They established a large empire that stretched from Kazakhstan to western China and embraced three important cities: Balasagun (present-day Buruna in Kyrgyzstan), Talas (present-day Tara in Kazakhstan), Samarkand (Uzbekistan), Uzgen (Kyrgyzstan) and Kashgar (Xinjiang in western China). Bukhara continued as a center of learning as it had under the Samanids.

The Karakhanids (also spelt Qarakhanids), or Ilek Khanids, established the Kara-Khanid Khanate, which conquered Transoxania in Central Asia and ruled it between 999–1211. Their arrival signaled a definitive shift from Iranian to Turkic predominance in Central Asia, yet the Kara-khanids gradually assimilated the Perso-Arab Muslim culture, while retaining some of their native Turkish culture. Their history is reconstructed from fragmentary and often contradictory written sources, as well as studies on their coinage. [Source: Wikipedia +]

The Karakhanids were a confederation formed some time in the 9th century of Karluks, Yaghmas, Chigils, and other tribes living in Semirechye, Western Tian Shan (modern Kyrgyzstan), and Western Xinjiang (Kashgaria). The name of the royal clan is not actually known; the term Karakhanid is artificial—it was derived from Qara Khan or Qara Khaqan (the word "Kara" means "black" and also "courageous"), which was the foremost title of the rulers of the dynasty, and was devised by European Orientalists in the 19th century to describe both the dynasty and the Turks ruled by it. +

During the 9th century southern Central Asia was under the rule of the Samanids, while the Central Asian steppe was dominated by Turkic nomads such as the Pechenegs, the Oghuz, and the Karluks. The Karluks were a nomadic people from western Altai who moved to Semirechye. In 742, the Karluks were part of an alliance led by the Basmyl and Uyghurs that rebelled against the Kök Türk rulers. In the realignment of power that followed, the Karluks were elevated from a tribe led by an el teber to one led by a yabghu, which was one of the highest Turkic dignitaries. In the 9th century, The domain of the Karluks reached as far north as the Irtysh and the Kimek confederation, with encampments extending to the Chi and Ili rivers, where the Chigil and Tukshi tribes lived, and east to the Ferghana valley and beyond. The area to the South and east of the Karluks was inhabited by the Yaghma. +

Creation of the Karakhanid State

During the 9th century, the Karluk confederation (including the Türgesh descended Chigil and Tukshi tribes) and the Yaghma, possible descendants of the Toquz-oguz, joined force and formed the first Karluk-Karakhanid khaganate. In the mid-10th century the Kara-Khanids converted to Islam and adopted Muslim names and honorifics, but retained Turkic regnal titles such as Khan, Khagan, Ilek (Ilig) and Tegin. Later they adopted Arab titles sultan and sultan al-salatin (sultan of sultans). According to the Ottoman historian known as Munajjim-bashi, a Karakhanid prince named Satuk Bughra Khan was the first of the khans to convert. After conversion, he obtained a fatwa which permitted him in effect to kill his presumably still pagan father, after which he conquered Kashgar. Later in 960, according to Muslim historians Ibn Miskawaih and Ibn al-Athir, there was a mass conversion of the Turks (reportedly "200,000 tents of the Turks"), circumstantial evidence suggests these were the Karakhanids. [Source: Wikipedia +]

In the final decade of the 10th century, the Karakhanids began a struggle against the Samanids for control of Transoxiana (present-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) with a campaign led by the grandson of Satuk Bughra Khan, Hasan (or Harun) b. Sulayman (title: Bughra Khan). Between 990-992, the Karakhanids took Isfijab, Ferghana, Ilaq, Samarkand, and the Samanid capital Bukhara. However, Hasan Bughra Khan died in 992 due to an illness, and the Samanids returned to Bukhara. Hasan's cousin Ali b. Musa (title: Kara Khan or Arslan Khan) resumed the campaign against the Samanids, and in 999 Ali's son Nasr retook Bukhara, meeting little resistance. The Samanid domains were split up between the Ghaznavids, who gained Khorasan and Afghanistan, and the Karakhanids, who received Transoxiana; the Oxus River thus became the boundary between the two rival empires. +

The Karakhanid state was divided into appanages, as was common of Turkic and Mongol nomads. The Karakhanid appanages were associated with four principal urban centers, Balasagun (then the capital of the Karakhanid state) in Semirechye, Kashgar in Xinjiang (Kashgaria), Uzgen in Fergana, and Samarkand in Transoxiana. The dynasty's original domains of Semirechye and Kashgaria conserved their prestige within the Karakhanid state, and the khagans of these domains retained an implicit seniority over those who ruled in Transoxiana and Fergana. The four sons of Ali (Ahmad, Nasr, Mansur, Muhammad) each held their own independent appanage within the Karakhanid state. Nasr, the conqueror of Transoxiana, held the large central area of Transoxiana (Samarkand and Bukhara), Fergana (Uzgen) and other areas, although after his death his appanage was further divided. Ahmad held Semirechye and Chach and became the head of the dynasty after the death of Ali. The brothers Ahmad and Nasr conducted different policies towards the Ghaznavids in the south – while Ahmad tried to form alliance with Mahmud of Ghazna, Nasr attempted to expand, unsuccessfully, into the territories held by Ghaznavids. +

Karakhanids and the Spread if Islam in Kazakhstan

Islam began to take hold in the 10th century when the Karakhanids became dominate in Central Asia. The first important Karakhanid ruler, Satuk Bughra Khan (920–958), adopted Islam in 932 and took power over Karluks, which had previously ruled much of Central Asia, in 940. The Karakhanids accepted the authority of the Muslim-Arab Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad during their dominant period. The Islamization of the Karakhanid Turks was a not a result of short-lived missionaries efforts, but a process of Islamic penetration into the Turkic environment, causing the replacement of the ancient Turkic written language with the Arabic script.

In the mid-10th century, the Karakhanids converted to Islam and adopted Muslim names and honorifics, but retained Turkic regnal titles such as Khan, Khagan, Ilek (Ilig) and Tegin. Later they adopted Arab titles sultan and sultan al-salatin (sultan of sultans). According to the Ottoman historian known as Munajjim-bashi, a Karakhanid prince named Satuk Bughra Khan was the first of the khans to convert. After conversion, he obtained a fatwa which permitted him in effect to kill his presumably still pagan father, after which he conquered Kashgar. Later in 960, according to Muslim historians Ibn Miskawaih and Ibn al-Athir, there was a mass conversion of the Turks (reportedly "200,000 tents of the Turks"), circumstantial evidence suggests these were the Karakhanids. [Source: Wikipedia +]

Islamic attacks and conquest of the Buddhist cities east of Kashgar began when the Turkic Karakhanid Satuq Bughra Khan who in 934 converted to Islam and then captured Kashgar. Satuq Bughra Khan and his son directed endeavors to proselytize Islam among the Turks and engage in military conquests. Muslim accounts tell the tale of the four imams from Mada'in city (possibly in modern-day Iraq) who travelled to help the Islamic conquest of Khotan, Yarkand, and Kashgar by Yusuf Qadir Khan, the Qarakhanid leader. In the battles with the Buddhists, "blood flows like the Oxus", "heads litter the battlefield like stones" until the "infidels" were defeated and driven towards Khotan by Yusuf Qadir Khan and the four Imams.[26] The Imams were however assassinated by the Buddhists. +

Islam and its civilization flourished under the Karakhanids. The earliest example of madrasas in Central Asia was founded in Samarkand by Ibrahim Tamghach Khan. The early Karakhanid rulers, as nomads, lived not in the city but in an army encampment outside the capital, and while by the time of Ibrahim the Karakhanids still maintained a nomadic tradition, their extensive religious and civil constructions showed that the culture and traditions of the settled population of Transoxiana had become assimilated. +

Karakhanids Fall to the Seljuks

Early in the 11th century the unity of the Karakhanid dynasty was fractured by frequent internal warfare that eventually resulted in the formation of two independent Karakhanid states. In 1040, the Seljuk Turks defeated the Ghaznavids at the Battle of Dandanaqan and entered Iran. The Karakhanids were able to withstand the Seljuks initially, and briefly took control of Seljuk towns in Khurasan. The Karakhanids, however, developed serious conflicts with the religious classes (the ulama). In 1089, during the reign of Ibrahim's grandson Ahmad b. Khidr, at the request of the ulama of Transoxiana, the Seljuks entered and took control of Samarkand, together with the domains belonging to the Western Khanate. [Source: Wikipedia +]

The Western Karakhanids Khanate became a vassal of the Seljuks for half a century, and the rulers of the Western Khanate were largely whomever the Seljuks chose to place on the throne. Ahmad b. Khidr was returned to power by the Seljuks, but in 1095, the ulama accused Ahmad of heresy and managed to secure his execution. The Karakhanids of Kashgar also declared their submission following a Seljuk campaign into Talas and Semirechye, but the Eastern Khanate was a Seljuk vassal for only a short time. At the beginning of the 12th century they invaded Transoxiana and even occupied the Seljuk town of Termez for a time. +

Karakhanid Culture

The takeover by the Karakhanids did not change the essentially Iranian character of Central Asia, though it set into motion a demographic and ethnolinguistic shift. During the Karakhanid era, the local population began using Turkic in speech – initially the shift was linguistic with the local people adopting the Turkic language. While Central Asia became Turkicized over the centuries, culturally the Turks came close to being Persianized or, in certain respects, Arabicized. Nevertheless, the official or court language used in Kashgar and other Karakhanid centers, referred to as "Khaqani" (royal), remained Turkic. The language was partly based on dialects spoken by the Turkic tribes that made up the Karakhanids and possessed qualities of linear descent from Kök and Uyghur Turkic. The Turkic script was also used for all documents and correspondence of the khaqans, according to Diwanu l-Lugat al-Turk. [Source: Wikipedia +]

The Diwanu l-Lugat al-Turk (Dictionary of Languages of the Turks) was written by a prominent Karakhanid historian, Mahmud al-Kashgari, who may have lived for some time in Kashgar at the Karakhanid court. He wrote this first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages in Arabic for the Caliphs of Baghdad in 1072–76. Another famous Karakhanid writer was Yusuf Balasaghuni, who wrote Kutadgu Bilig (The Wisdom of Felicity), the only known literary work written in Turkic from the Karakhanid period. Kutadgu Bilig is a form of advice literature known as mirrors for princes. The Turkic identity is evident in both of these pieces of work, but they also showed the influences of Persian and Islamic culture. However, the court culture of the Karakhanids remained almost entirely Persian. The two last western khaqans also wrote poetry in Persian. +

Islam and its civilization flourished under the Karakhanids. The earliest example of madrasas in Central Asia was founded in Samarkand by Ibrahim Tamghach Khan. Ibrahim also founded a hospital to care for sick as well as providing shelter for the poor. His son Nasr Shams al-Mulk built ribats for the caravanserais on the route between Bukhara and Samarkand, as well as a palace near Bukhara. Some of the buildings constructed by the Karakhanids still survive today, including the Kalyan minaret built by Mohammad Aslan Khan beside the main mosque in Bukhara, and three mausolea in Uzgend. The early Karakhanid rulers, as nomads, lived not in the city but in an army encampment outside the capital, and while by the time of Ibrahim the Karakhanids still maintained a nomadic tradition, their extensive religious and civil constructions showed that the culture and traditions of the settled population of Transoxiana had become assimilated. +

Image Sources:

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, U.S. government, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated April 2016


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