poets of the day. Bokhārā was, moreover, the capital of an empire which included such famous and widely separated towns as Merv, Nishāpūr, Ray, Amul, Herat, and Balkh.1 At this date Bokhārā fully deserved the title of Sherif, or "the Noble," which she has retained to the present time, when the memory alone of her ancient greatness survives. Such was the inheritance which Ismail, on his death 2 in A.H. 295 (907), left to his son Ahmed. While, on the other hand, the Būyide or Daylamite dynasty was becoming daily more powerful, and was gradually absorbing the whole of Persia and trespassing on the Western possessions of the Sāmānides, the representatives of this house had become mere puppets in the hands of their ministers, many of whom were Turks, who, like their kinsmen the Mamlūks of Egypt, had risen from the position of slaves to the highest offices in the state. Thus in the year A.H. 350 (961), on the death of 'Abd el-Melik I., Mansur I., his brother and successor, met with serious opposition from a certain Turk named Alptagin, governor of Nīshāpūr, who refused to recognise his claims. Resort was had to arms, and, after a battle at Balkh, the results of which are variously stated, Alptagin withdrew to Ghazna, where he established himself so strongly that he was able to repulse the army sent by Mansur to attack him. On the death of Alptagin in A.H. 366 (976) the leadership of those men who had 1 Vambéry (Bokhara, p. 67) adds to this list Kazwin, Shiraz, and Isfahan, which were towns in the dominion of the Buyides. The Būyides and the Samanides practically shared the whole of Persia and Central Asia as follows:Samanides-Khorāsān, Sīstān, Balkh, Bokhārā, and Samarkand. Buyides-The two 'Irāks, Fars, Kirman, Khuzistān, and Luristan. Tabaristan and Jurjān were continually changing hands. 2 He died of some malady at a place called Zarman, whither the doctors had sent him for change of air, accompanied him to Ghazna passed to another Turk named Sabuktagin. The choice was fortunate, for Sabuktagin proved himself to be a general of great talent; and by means of little frontier engagements he succeeded in rapidly extending his territories, and ultimately in founding a powerful dynasty which, under his successor, was to bring Northern India, Persia, and the East under its sway. Although Sabuktagin was the nominal vassal of the Sāmānides,1 he was in reality an independent ruler. This was, moreover, the case in a lesser or greater degree with many of the governors in Khorasan and the neighbouring dependencies. 1 Dawlat Shah, in his Lives of the Poets (see Browne's edition, p. 44), quotes from 'Unsuri the following quatrain in which the rulers of the house of Sämän are enumerated Nuh kas būdand zi ål-i-Sămān mazkūr Du Nüh u dù'Abd-ul-Malik u dū Mansür. Translation.-Nine members of the house of Saman were famous in the government of Khorāsān, namely, Isma'il, one Ahmad, one Nasr, two Nüh's, two 'Abd el-Melik's, and two Mansur's. CHAPTER XVI THE KARA-KHANIDES, OR UÏGHŪRS WHILE the Sāmānides were thus harassed by the powerful Daylamites in the west, by the growing power of Sabuktagin in the south, and the fear of insubordination in their own states, a force still more formidable had arisen on their northern frontier, where a Turkish state had been founded which extended from Kāshghar to the Sea of Aral. The relations of this state with its southern neighbours were at first of a peaceful and even friendly character; but when the nomads perceived that Iranian authority was on the wane they began to cast longing eyes across the Jaxartes. They probably belonged to the tribe of Uighur, which had been the first to separate from the main body of the Turkish race and settle down in a home on the slopes of the Tien-shan.1 1 Cf. Vambéry, Bokhara, p. 81, and Bretschneider, Mediaval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources (London, 1888), vol. i. p. 236 seqq. An interesting article was published in 1874 by Grigorieff in the Memoirs of the Eastern Branch of the St. Petersburg Archæological Society, vol. xviii. p. 191 seqq. This article contains the Turkish text of an extract from the Tārīkh-iMunajjim-Bāshi, with an introduction, a translation, and copious notes. The name of Kara-Khānides was first suggested by Grigorieff for this dynasty, after Satuk Kara Khan, who was the first of its kings to embrace Islām. The title is more convenient than the others by which this dynasty has been known, such as Uighūrs, Ilek-khāns, and Ilkhāns, as will appear from note below, p. 116. Bretschneider, whom on such subjects it is hard to contradict, was by no means convinced by Grigorieff's positive assertion that the KaraKhanides were not Uighurs. According to the Mohammedan historian Juvayni,1 the Urghūrs originally came from the valley of the Orkon River. The first king whose name has come down to us was Būkū Khan, whom tradition has identified with the great Afrāsiyāb.2 Būkū Khan, having learnt in a dream that he would possess the entire world, assembled his troops and sent his brothers to wage war against the Mongols, Kirghiz, Tanguts, and Khitays. They returned to their dwellingplace with great booty, and founded the city of Urdu Balik. Būkū Khān again dreamt that a piece of jade was given him with the assurance that as long as he 3 1 The passage from his famous history, the Tārīkh-i-Jahân-Kushãy, dealing at great length with the Uighūrs, has been translated by d'Ohsson. Cf. Histoire des Mongols, vol. i. p. 430 et seq. 2 Narshakhi (ed. Schefer, p. 233) calls this dynasty of "Turkish Khāns" the "house of Afrāsiyāb.” Afrāsiyāb is one of the most prominent figures in Firdawsi's great epic of kings, the Shah Namé. B.C. 700 is given as a conjectural date of the first migration of the Turks across the Oxus-as far as India and Asia Minor. According to the coins, it appears that the Turks (under what name it is not known) entered the Greek kingdom of Bactria. Cf. Reinaud, Rélations de l'Empire, Rom. avec l'Asie Centrale (Paris, 1863), p. 227. Tradition has it that Afrāsiyāb flourished about B.C. 580. He was the emperor of Tūrān, of which Turkestan was a province, and was the great foe of Iran. During his reign Siyāwush, son of the emperor of Iran, Kay. Kā'ūs, having incurred his father's displeasure, fled across the Oxus, which formed the boundary between the two kingdoms, to Afrāsiyāb, who held court at Rāmtin. Siyawush received Afrāsiyāb's daughter Ferengis in marriage, with the provinces of Khotan and Chin as her dowry. Afrāsiyāb's brother Gersiwaz, jealous of the stranger's growing power, set his brother's mind against Siyawush, and induced him to take the field against his son-in-law, who was captured and conveyed to Rāmtin and there put to death. Siyāwush left a posthumous son by Ferengis, named Kay-Khosru, who became emperor of Iran. Kay-Khosrū, bent on avenging his father's death, besieged Rāmtin, drove Afrasiyab out of his country, and occupied it for seven years; Afrāsiyāb afterwards returned and recovered his capital, but was finally defeated and slain. Kay-Khosru now became master of Samarkand and Bokhārā; but, wishing to devote his days to religious contemplation, resigned his government to Lohrasp, the son-in-law of Kay-Ka'ūs, who soon exacted homage from the rulers of Tartary. Thus the Persian dynasty existed till the overthrow of Darius II. 3 The accurate transcription of this name is Khita'i; however, for convenience the more familiar spelling of Khitāy has been retained throughout. The prospect We preserved it he would rule the world. induced him to turn his arms to the west and enter Turkestan, where he built the city of Balāsāghūn.1 know from Chinese sources that these Uighūrs had their abode in the seventh century in the north-west of Mongolia; that in the eighth century they dwelt near the place where, in the five hundred years later, the Mongols built Karakorum. In the ninth century their empire in Mongolia was destroyed by the Kirghiz, when they were dispersed, and apparently split into two parties. The eastern branch came into contact with Chingiz Khān. After and thenceforward they appear in the Mongol-Chinese annals as under the name of Weiwu-rh.3 Of the Western Uighurs little is known, but they may be identified with the Eastern Turks of Mohammedan authors of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.* 1 The exact position of this town, which during the tenth and eleventh centuries was the capital of the Khans of Turkestan (see Ibn el-Athir), is not known. Abulfeda says it was not far from Kāshghar. Juvayni says that in the days of the Mongols it was called Gu-Balik. 3 2 Grigorieff, in his well-known but harsh, and indeed unjust, review of Vambéry's Bokhara, published as an Appendix to vol. i. of Schuyler's Turkestan, says (1) that the Ilik Khāns were not Uïghūrs, but Karlukhs, and (2) that the KaraKhitays were their descendants. Though he takes M. Vambéry to task for not knowing such "facts," neither of these statements will bear the light of modern research. Vambéry was, however, wrong in calling the Kara-Khitays Uighūrs. Klaproth (Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren) proves convincingly that the Hui-ho of the Chinese authors anterior to the Mongol period are identical with the Uighurs, and that the Uighurs are to be classed among the Eastern Turks. The term Hui-ho was, however, used by Chinese writers of the Mongol period to designate Mohammedans generally (cf. Bretschneider's article on the Uighurs in his Mediaval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, to which excellent monograph most of these notes are due). Translations of the principal Chinese records of the Uighurs are to be found in Videlou's supplement to d'Herbelot's Bib. Orient. The name Uighur is first found in Mohammedan histories at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Previously to this they seem to have been known by the name of Taghazghaz, which is doubtless a corruption. Cf. Tarikh-i-Rashidi, or, History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, by Ney Elias and E. Denison Ross, p. 94 of Introduction. |