TEN
The Eastern Persian Lands,
Transoxania and Khwārazm
before the Seljuqs
205–78/821–91
Governors in Khurasan (Khurāsān) and in Baghdad and Iraq
1. The governors in Khurasan and its administrative dependencies
205–59/821–73
⊘ 205/821 | Ṭāhir I b. al-Ḥusayn b. MuṢ‘ab b. Ruzayq al-Khuzā‘ī, Abu ’l-Ṭayyib Dhu ’l-Yamīnayn |
⊘ 207/822 | Ṭalḥa b. Ṭāhir I |
⊘ 213/828 | ‘Abdallāh b. Ṭāhir I, Abu l-‘Abbās |
⊘ 230/845 | Ṭāhir II b. ‘Abdallāh |
⊘ 248–59/862–73 | Muhammad b. Ṭāhir II |
259/873 | Ṣaffārid occupation of Nishapur (Nīshāpūr) |
(259–67, 268- / |
|
873–81, 882- | Muḥammad b. Ṭāhir II nominal governor of Khurasan) |
(263/876 | al-Ḥusayn b. Ṭāhir II, temporarily restored in Nishapur) |
261-1875- | Khurasan disputed by the Ṣaffārids and various military adventurers |
2. The military governors (Aṣḥāb al-Shurṭa) in Baghdad and Iraq
207–78/822–91
205/820 | Ṭāhir I b. al-Ḥusayn b. Muṣ‘ab |
207/822 | Isḥāq b. Ibrahīm b. Muṣ‘ab |
235/849 | Muḥammad b. Isḥāq |
236/850 | ‘Abdallāh b. Isḥāq |
237/851 | Muḥammad b. ‘Abdallāh b. Ṭāhir I |
253/867 | ‘Ubaydallāh b. ‘Abdallāh b. Ṭāhir I, first governorship |
255/869 | Sulaymān b. ‘Abdallāh b. Ṭāhir I |
266/879 | ‘Ubaydallāh b. ‘Abdallāh, second governorship |
271/884 | Muḥammad b. Ṭāhir II |
276–8/890–1 | ‘Ubaydallāh b. ‘Abdallāh, third governorship |
278/891 | The Turkish slave commanders Badr al-Mu‘taḍidī and Mu’nis al-Khādim |
c. 297/c. 910 | Muḥammad b. ‘Ubaydallāh, deputy Ṣāḥib al-Shurṭa for Mu’nis |
Táhir b. al-Husayn was probably of Persian mawld or client origin, though eulogists of the Táhirids endeavoured to give them a direct lineage from the aristocratic Arab tribe of Khuzá’a. Táhir rose to favour under al-Ma’mün as commander of the latter’s forces in the fratricidal war against al-Amin in 194/810, and after the fall of Baghdad became governor of that city and of Jazira. Finally, he was appointed governor of the East. Just before his death shortly afterwards, he had started to omit al-Ma’mün’s name from the Friday khutba or sermon, this being tantamount to a renunciation of allegiance or declaration of independence. Nevertheless, the caliph handed on the governorship to his son Talha, being unable to find anyone more reliable for this important office. Henceforth, the Táhirids ruled from Nishapur as a hereditary line of governors but remained faithful vassals of the ‘Abbásids, continuing to forward tribute regularly to Iraq (the Turkish military slaves in this tribute became one of the mainstays of the caliphs’ professional armies), although ‘Abdallāh b. Táhir was careful never to leave Khurasan for Baghdad. Hence the Táhirids may be considered as a virtually autonomous line of governors but not as a separate, independent dynasty, as were their rivals the Saffárids. The family’s strong Sunnī orthodoxy and their favour towards the established Arab and Persian landed and military classes assured them of top-level support, while they also had a reputation for protecting the interests of the masses, of encouraging agriculture and irrigation, and of patronising scholars and poets.
In Khurasan, the main political and military efforts of the Táhirids were first aimed at suppressing rebels like the Qárinid Mázyár (see above, no. 80) and keeping in check, also in the Caspian provinces, the Zaydi Shlfis; but latterly, their position was threatened by the rising power of the Saffárids in Sistan (Sístán) (see below, no. 84, 1), an administrative dependency of Khurasan, and this they failed to withstand. Muhammad b. Táhir II lost Nishapur to Ya‘qüb b. al-Layth in 259/873, and eventually escaped to Iraq. The caliph reappointed him to the governorship of Khurasan, but he was never able to take this up, and for the next twenty years the province was disputed by the Saffárids and several local commanders.
Khurasan was, however, only one of the governorships held by the house of Mus’ab b. Ruzayq, for other members functioned as military governors in Baghdad and Iraq until the end of the ninth century, a longer tenure of office than their kinsmen in Khurasan. After Táhir I left for the East, his command in Baghdad was at first given to the parallel branch of the Mus’abids, but then after 237/851 the descendants of Táhir I took over. The Táhirids’ position in Baghdad was based on their great wealth and estates there, in particular, their Harim, a complex of buildings and markets to the north of al-Mansür’s Round City. The governors in Baghdad were renowned as patrons of Arabic culture, and some of them, like ‘Ubaydalláh b.‘Abdalláh, themselves enjoyed contemporary reputations as litterateurs.
Justi, 436; Lane-Poole, 128; Sachau, 19–20 no. 39; Zambaur, 197–8; Album, 32.
EI1 Táhirids’ (W. Barthold).
Sa’id Nafisl, Ta‘rikh-i khdnddn-i Tdhirl I. Tahir b. Husayn, Tehran 1335/1956, with a genealogical table at the end.
C. E. Bosworth, The Táhirids and Saffárids’, in The Cambridge History of Iran, IV, 90–106, 114–15.
Mongi Kaabi, Les Tdhirides au Hurdsdn et en Iraq (IIIiéme H./IXiéme J.C.), 2 vols, Tunis 1983, with a genealogical table at I, 409.
204–395/819–1005
Transoxania and Khurasan
⊘ 204/819 | Aḥmad I b. Asad b. Sāmān Khudā, originally governor of Farghāna and then of Soghdia |
⊘ 250/864 | Naṣr I b. Aḥmad I, ruler in Samarkand |
⊘ 279/892 | Ismā‘īl b. Aḥmad I, Abū Ibrāhīm al-Amīr al-Mādī |
⊘ 295/907 | Aḥmad II b. Ismā‘īl, Abū Naṣr al-Amīr al-Shahīd |
⊘ 301/914 | Naṣr II b. Aḥmad II, al-Amīr al-Sa‘īd |
⊘ 331/943 | Nūḥ I b. Naṣr II, al-Amīr al-Ḥamīd |
⊘ 343/954 | ‘Abd al-Malik I b. Nūḥ I, Abu ’l-Fawāris al-Amīr al-Mu’ayyad or al-Muwaffaq |
⊘ 350/961 | Mansūr I b. Nūḥ I, Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Amīr al-Sadīd |
⊘ 365/976 | Nūḥ II b. Mansūr I, al-Amīr al-Radī |
⊘ 387/997 | Mansūr II b. Nūḥ II, Abu ’l-Ḥārith |
⊘ 389/999 | ‘Abd al-Malik II b. Nūḥ II, Abu ’l-Fawāris |
⊘ 390–5/1000–5 | Ismaī‘ī II b. Nūḥ II, Abū Ibrāhīm al-Muntaṣir |
395/1005 | Definitive division of the Sāmānid territories between the Qarakhanids and the Ghaznawids |
The founder of the Sāmānid line was one Sāmān Khudā, a dihqān or local landowner in the Balkh district of what is now northern Afghanistan, although the dynasty later claimed descent from the pre-Islamic Sāsānid emperors of Persia. Sāmān Khudā became a Muslim, and his four grandsons served the ‘Abbāsid caliph al-Ma’mūn as sub-governors for the Tāhirids of Khurasan (see above, no. 82, 1): Nūḥ was appointed governor of Samarkand (Samarqand), Aḥmad of Farghāna, Yahyā of Shāsh (the later Tashkent) and Ilyās of Herat (Harāt). The branch south of the Oxus did not prosper, but the others acquired a good foothold in Transoxania so that in 263/875 Naṣr b. Aḥmad received from al-Mu’tamid the governorship of that complete province. This rich region became the core of the Sāmānids’ empire, and they took over also the duties of defending Transoxania’s territorial integrity and its commercial interests from attack by the pagan Turks of the steppes. The northern fringes of Transoxania and Farghāna were definitely secured for Islam, and expeditions mounted into the steppes against the Qarluq and other Turkish tribes. By making their military might feared within the steppes and by keeping caravan routes across Inner Asia open, the Sāmānids assured the economic well-being of their lands; it was through their agency that many of the Turkish slaves, employed from the ninth century onwards very extensively in the armies of Muslim princes of the central and eastern lands, were imported. Backed by this prosperity, the Amīrs made their court at Bukhara not only a centre of Arabic learning but also of the renaissance of New Persian language and literature, and it was under Sāmānid rule that Firdawsī began his poetic version of the Persian national epic, the Shāh-nāma. In 287/900, Ismā‘īl b. Aḥmad earned the caliph’s gratitude by defeating and capturing the Ṣaffārid ‘Amr b. al-Layth (see below, no. 84, 1), and was rewarded with the governorship of Khurasan in succession to the Ṭáhirids and Ṣaffārids. The Sāmānids were now the greatest power in the east, strong proponents of Sunnī orthodoxy there, and exercising suzerainty over outlying regions like Khwārazm, the upper Oxus lands and Sistan, while in northern Persia they were rivals of the Būyids (see above, no. 75), But in the middle years of the tenth century, ominous signs of instability appeared in the Sāmānid state. A series of palace revolutions showed that the military classes, opposed to the Amīrs’ policies of centralisation, were gaining control, while revolts in Khurasan abstracted that province from the direct authority of Bukhara. It was therefore not difficult for the Turkish Qarakhanids and Ghaznawids (see below, nos 90, 158) to take over the Sāmānid territories, and the last fugitive Sāmānid, Ismā‘īl al-Muntasir, was killed in 395/1005. The downfall of the dynasty meant that all the hitherto Iranian lands north of the Oxus passed under Turkish control, and there now began there a process of ethnic and linguistic Turkification, substantially completed – except in what is now the Tajikistan Republic and to a lesser extent in Uzbekistan – by modern times.
Justi, 440; Lane-Poole, 131–3; Zambaur, 202–3; Album, 33.
EI2 ‘Sāmānids’ (C. E. Bosworth).
W. Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol Invasion, 3rd edn, London 1968.
R. N. Frye, ‘The Sāmānids’, in The Cambridge History of Iran, IV, 136–61.
W. L. Treadwell, The Political History of the Sāmānid State, D.Phil, thesis, Oxford 1991, unpubl.
247–393/861–1003
Centre of their power in Sistan, with an empire extending at times into Persia and eastern Afghanistan
⊘ 247/861 | Ya‘qūb b. al-Layth al-Ṣaffār, Abū Yūsuf |
⊘ 265/879 | ‘Amr b. al-Layth, Abū Ḥafṣ |
(261–8/875–82 | Aḥmad h. ‘Abdalldh Khujistāni, Abū Shujā‘, rebel in Nishapur) |
⊘ (268–83/882–96 | Rāff b. Harthama, rebel and caliphal governor in Nishapur and then Rayy) |
⊘ 287/900 | Ṭāhir b. Muḥammad b. ‘Amr, Abu ’l-Ḥasan, with his brother Ya‘qūb, Abū Yūsuf |
⊘ 296/909 | al-Layth b.‘All b. al-Layth |
298/910 | Muḥammad b.‘Alī |
⊘ 298/910 | al-Mu‘addal b.‘Alī |
298/911 | First Sāmānid occupation of Sīstān |
299/912 | Revolt of o Muḥammad b. Hurmuz |
299–300 | ‘Amr b. Ya‘qūb b. Muḥammad b. ‘Amr, Abū Ḥafṣ |
300–1/912–14 | Second Sāmānid occupation |
301–11/914–23 | Seizure of power by the local commanders Aḥmad Niyā, Kuthayyir b. Aḥmad, ⊘ Aḥmad b. Qudām and ⊘ ‘Abdallāh b. Aḥmad |
⊘311/923 | Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Khalaf, Abū Ja‘far |
⊘ 352–93/963–1003 | Khalaf b. Aḥmad, Abū Aḥmad Walī ’l-Dawla, d. 309/1009 |
⊘ (352–8/963–9 | Ṭāhir b. Muḥammad, Abu ‘l-Ḥusayn, descendant of ‘All b. al-Layth, regent for Khalaf, d. 359/970) |
⊘ (359–73/970–83 | Ḥusayn b. Ṭāhir Tamīmī, rebel) |
393/1003 | Ghaznawid occupation |
The Ṣaffārid brothers derived their name from their founder Ya‘qūb’s trade of coppersmith (saffār). Under Ya‘qūb and ‘Amr, their native province of Sistan became the centre of a vast but transient empire which covered almost all Persia except for the north-west and the Caspian region and which stretched to the frontiers of India. In the ninth century, Sistan was much disturbed by social and sectarian unrest; it had long been a refuge area for various malcontents and schismatics fleeing eastwards through Persia, including the Khārijīs, defeated and dispersed by the Umayyad governors. It may be that Ya‘qūb had been a Kharījī himself; the nucleus of his forces lay in the bands of local vigilantes defending the cause of Sunnī orthodoxy in Sistan, but his troops came to include many former Kharījīs also. With this army, Ya‘qūb expanded eastwards to Kabul (Kabul), then a pagan region on the fringe of the Indian world, and overturned the native dynasty there. In the west, he attacked the Ṭāhirids (see above, no. 82) in 259/873, wresting from them their capital Nishapur and ending their governorship over Khurasan. He was bold enough to invade Iraq and mount an attack on the heart of the caliphate itself, but this was halted on the banks of the Tigris in 262/876.
Whereas the Ṭāhirids and Sāmānids (see above, nos 82, 83) represented the interests of religious orthodoxy and the social status quo, the Ṣaffārid chiefs were plebeian in origin and proud of it, and they openly proclaimed their contempt for the ‘Abbāsids. Thus they effectively demolished the ‘caliphal fiction’ whereby provincial governors and rulers derived legitimacy for their authority from an ostensible act of delegation by the head of the Islamic community. ‘Amr b. al-Layth was recognised by the ‘Abbāsid ruler as his governor in several Persian provinces and, eventually, in Khurasan. However, not content with these extensive territories, ‘Amr coveted Transoxania also, which had been nominally under Ṭāhirid oversight. But the actual holders of power there, the Sāmānids, proved more than a match for the Ṣaffārids; ‘Amr overreached himself and was disastrously defeated. Being a personal creation of military conquerors, the Ṣaffārid empire lost its Khurasanian provinces, and in the early tenth century, after a series of weaker, ephemeral amīrs, passed temporarily under Sāmānid control.
Despite this severe check, the Ṣaffārids were to revive, and it is clear that they to some extent represented the interests and aspirations of the people of Sistan from whom they had sprung. From 311/923, the Ṣaffārids reappear as local rulers in Sistan and adjacent regions. The two amirs of this line, from a collateral branch of the family, achieved widespread reputations as Maecenases and, in the case of Khalaf b. Aḥmad, as a scholar in his own right. In 393/1003, the aggressive and expansionist Mahmūd of Ghazna (see below, no. 158) incorporated Sistan into his empire, an event which the patriotic anonymous author of a local history, the Ta’rlkh-i Sīstān, regards as a disaster for the land.
It should be noted that the convenient division of the Ṣaffārids into ‘Laythids’ and ‘Khalafids’ corresponds to the ‘first line’ and ‘second line’ in Zambaur’s listing of the Ṣaffārids, but that his third and fourth lines have no demonstrable connection with the Ṣaffārid ruling house; for these, the so-called Maliks of Nīmrūz, see below, no. 106.
Justi, 439; Lane-Poole, 129–30 (ignores all but the very first Ṣaffārids); Sachau, 11 no. 16; Zambaur, 199–201 (see the remarks above); Album, 32.
EI2 ‘Ṣaffārids’ (C. E. Bosworth).
Milton Gold (tr.), The Tārikh-e Sistān, Rome 1976.
C. E. Bosworth, ‘The Ṭāhirids and Ṣaffārids’, in The Cambridge History of Iran, IV, 106–35.
idem, The History of the Saffarids of Sistan and the Maliks of Nimruz (247/861 to 949/1542–3), Costa Mesa CA and New York 1994, 67–361, with genealogical tables at pp. xxiii-xxiv.
85
THE BĀNĪJŪRIDS OR ABŪDĀWŪDIDS
c. 233–c. 295/c. 848–c. 908
Balkh and Ṭukhāristān
? | Hāshim b. Bānljūr, in Khuttal, d. 243/857 |
⊘ 233/848 | Dāwūd b. al-‘Abbās b. Hāshim, in Balkh, d. 259/873 |
⊘ 260/874 | Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Bāníjūr, Abū Dāwūd, previously governor of Andarāba and Panjhīr, still ruling in 285/898 or 286/899 |
? | Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, in Balkh and Andarāba until c. 295/c. 908 |
The Bānījūrids were a line of local rulers, vassals of the Sāmānids (see above, no. 83), who ruled at Balkh and Andarāba in the region of Ṭukhāristān to the south of the middle Oxus, and generally also at Panjhlr in the Hindu Kush, famed for its silver mines. They were most probably of Iranian origin. Their ancestor Bānljūr, a contemporary of the first ‘Abbāsid caliphs, had connections with Farghāna, but both the affiliations and the chronology of his line are extremely obscure. From the early tenth century, other local chiefs seem to have controlled Ṭukhāristān, but it is possible that a line of local princes to the north of the Middle Oxus, in Khuttal, were kinsmen of the Bānījūrids.
Zambaur, 202, 204; Album, 33.
EI2 Suppl. ‘Bānidjūrids’ (C. E. Bosworth).
R. Vasmer, ‘Beitrage zur muhammedanischen Münzkunde. I. Die Münzen der Abū Dā’udiden’, NZ, N.F. 18 (1925), 49–62.
Muḥammad Abū-l-Faraj ‘Ush, ‘Dirhams Abu Dāwūdides (Banū Bānījūrī)’, Revue Numismatique, 6th series, 15 (1973), 169–76.
300–92/913–1002
Governors in Khurasan and feudatories in Quhistān
300–1/913–14 | Sīmjūr al-Dāwatī, Abū ‘Imrān, governor for the Sāmānids in Sistan, d. between 318/930 and 324/936 |
310–14/922–6 | Ibrāhīm b. Sīmjūr, Abū ‘Alī, first governorship in Khurasan |
333–4/945–6 | Ibrahim b. Sīmjūr, second governorship, d. 336/948 |
345–9/956–60 | Muḥammad I b. Ibrāhīm, Abu ’l-Hasan, first governorship in Khurasan |
350–71/961–82 | Muḥammad I b. Ibrāhīm, second governorship, d. 378/989 |
⊘ 374–7/984–7 | Muḥammad II b. Muḥammad I, Abū ‘Ali al-Muzaffar ‘Imad al-Dawla, Amīr al-Umara’, al-Mu’ayyad min al-Samā’, first governorship in Khurasan |
385/995 | Muḥammad II, second governorship, d. 387/997 |
? | ‘Alī b. Muḥammad I, Abu ’l-Qāsim, commander in Khurasan until 392/1002, d. at some point thereafter |
The Sīmjūrids began as Turkish military slaves of the Sāmānids (see above, no. 83), Sīmjūr being the ceremonial ink-stand bearer (dawātī) of Isma’il b. Aḥmad. He rose to prominence when the Sāmānids temporarily drove out the Ṣaffārids (see above, no. 84) and occupied Sistan. Thereafter, the family were prominent throughout the tenth century in the warfare of the Sāmānids with their enemies in northern and eastern Persia, often as governors in Khurasan and with a territorial base in their Quhistān estates, and were finally involved in the chaos there as the Sāmānid amirate broke up, after which the family largely drops out of mention.
Sachau, 11 no. 15; Zambaur, 205.
EI2 ‘Simdjūrids’ (CE. Bosworth).
Erdoğan Merçil, Sîmcûrîler, n.p. n.d. = a series of articles in Tarih Dergisi, no. 32 (1979), 71–88; Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, nos 10–11 (1979–80), 91–6; Tarih Dergisi, no. 33 (1980–1), 115–32; Belleten, 49, no. 195 (1985), 547; and Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, no. 13 (1989), 123–38, with a genealogical table at p. 138.
320–57/932–68
Kirman
320–2/932–4 | Muḥammad b. Ilyās, Abū ‘Alī, governor for the Sāmānids, first tenure of power |
322/934 | Expulsion by Mākān b. Kākī |
324/936 | Muḥammad b. Ilyās, second tenure of power, abdicated 356/967 |
356–7/967–8 | Ilyasa’ b. Muḥammad |
357/968 | Būyid conquest of Kirman |
Muḥammad b. Ilyās was a commander, of Soghdian origin, in the service of the Sāmānid Naṣr II b. Aḥmad (see above, no. 83), who, after the failure of the rebellion of the Amīr’s brothers at Bukhara in 317/929, eventually withdrew southwards to Kirman, where there was something of a power vacuum after the waning of ‘Abbāsid control in southern Persia. There he successfully established himself, fighting off the Daylamī commander Mākān and acting nominally as governor for the Sāmānids but in practice independent. He was compelled by his sons to abdicate after a reign of thirty-six years, but it was at this point that the powerful Būyid Amīr ‘Adud al-Dawla turned his attention to Kirman, and this proved fatal for the short-lived line of the Ilyasids, with Ilyasa‘ driven out to Transoxania. Various Ilyāsids attempted revanches, but Kirman was to remain generally under Būyid control until the advent of the Seljuqs (see below, no. 91, 3).
Sachau, 10–11 no. 14; Zambaur, 216.
EI2 ‘Ilyāsids’ (C. E. Bosworth).
C. E. Bosworth, ‘The Banū Ilyās of Kirmān (320–57/932–68)’, in idem (ed.), Iran and Islam, in memory of the late Vladimir Minorsky, 107–24.
321–43/933–54
Governors in Khurasan and Amīrs of Chaghāniyān
321/933 | Muḥammad b. al-Muẓaffar b. Muḥtāj, Abū Bakr, governor in Khurasan, d. 329/941 |
⊘ 327/939 | Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, Abū ‘Alī, first governorship in Khurasan |
333/945 | Governorship of Ibrāhīm b. Sīmjūr |
335/946 | Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, second governorship |
335/947 | Governorship of Manṣūr b. Qaratigin |
340–3/952–4 | Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, third governorship, d. 344/955 |
late fourth/tenth | Muḥammad b. ?, Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Fakhr |
and early fifth/eleventh centuries |
al-Dawla, Amīr of Chaghāniyān, ? a Muḥtājid |
The Muḥtāj family were hereditary lords of the principality of Chaghāniyān on the north bank of the middle Oxus, but whether they were descendants of the indigenous, presumably Iranian, Chaghān Khudās from the time of the Arab invasions, or possibly Persianised Arabs, is unknown. They appear as commanders for the Sāmānids, and then as governors and commanders-in-chief in Khurasan for the Amīrs, in the second quarter of the tenth century. Abū ‘Alī Aḥmad was a dominant figure there, but eventually died in exile. It seems, however, that the Muḥtājids retained their local base in Chaghāniyān, possibly into the eleventh century, since local princes there are mentioned, although their affiliation to the original line is uncertain.
Zambaur, 204; Album, 33.
EI2 ‘Muhtādjids’ (C. E. Bosworth); EIr ‘Āl-e Moḥtāj’ (Bosworth).
C. E. Bosworth, ‘The rulers of Chaghāniyān in early Islamic times’, JBIPS, 19 (1981), 1–20.
Pre-Islamic times to the seventh/thirteenth century
Khwārazm
1. The Afrīghids of Kāth (pre-Islamic times to 385/995)
Sixteen Shāhs are listed by al-Bīrūnī, the tenth, Arthamūkh b. Būzkār, being allegedly a contemporary of the Prophet Muḥammad. The first Shāh with an Islamic name is the seventeenth:
‘Abdallāh b. T.r.k.s.bātha, ? early third/ninth century
Mansūr b. ‘Abdallāh
‘Iraq b. Manṣūr, reigning in 285/898
Muḥammad b. ‘Irāq, reigning in 309/921
‘Abdallāh b. Ashkam, not listed by al-Bīrūnī but ruling c. 332/c. 944
⊘ Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, Abū Sa‘īd, ruling in 356/967
⊘ Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, Abū ‘Abdallāh, d. 385/995
Ma’mūnid conquest
2. The Ma’mūnids of Gurgānj (385–408/995–1017)
385/995 | Ma’mūn I b. Muḥammad, Abū ‘ Alī |
⊘ 387/997 | ‘Alī b. Ma’mūn I, Abu ’l-Ḥasan |
399/1009 | Ma’mūn II b. Ma’mūn I, Abu ‘l-‘Abbās |
407–8/1017 | Muḥammad b. ‘Alī, Abu ’l-Ḥārith |
408/1017 | Ghaznawid conquest |
3. The Ghaznawid governors with the title of Khwārazm Shāh
(408–32/1017–41)
408/1017 | Altuntash Ḥājib, Ghaznawid commander |
423/1032 | Hārūn b. Altuntash, lieutenant of the nominal Khwārazm Shāh, Sa‘īd b. Mas‘ūd of Ghazna, later independent of Ghazna, probably then himself assuming the title Khwārazm Shāh |
425/1034 | Ismā‘īl b. Khāndān b. Altuntash, independent of Ghazna, styling himself Khwārazm Shāh |
432/1041 | Conquest of Khwārazm by the Oghuz Yabghu, Shāh Malik b. ‘Alī, Abu ’l-Fawāris, of Jand, probably receiving the title Khwārazm Shāh from Mas‘ūd of Ghazna |
4. The line of Anūshtigin Shiḥna, originally as governors for the Seljuqs with the title of Khwārazm Shāh, from towards the mid-twelfth century often in practice largely independent rulers in Khwārazm and, at times, in Transoxania and Persia (c. 470–628/c. 1077–1231)
Khwārazm, the classical Chorasmia, was the well-irrigated, rich agricultural region on the lower Oxus, in later times the Khanate of Khiva. Surrounded as it was on all sides by steppeland and desert, it was isolated geographically, and this isolation long enabled it to maintain a separate political existence and a distinctive Iranian language and culture. Khwārazm may well have been an early home of the Iranians; certainly, the local historian and antiquary al-Bīrūnī (d. 440/1048) traced the beginnings of political life there beyond the first millennium BC. He placed the beginning of the Iranian Afrīghid dynasty in c. AD 305, and listed twenty-two Shāhs of this line down to its extinction in 385/995. Khwārazm first came into the purview of Islamic history in 93/712, when the Arab governor of Khurasan, Qutayba b. Muslim, invaded Khwārazm and wrought considerable destruction, it is reported, to the indigenous civilisation there. It thus came vaguely under Muslim suzerainty, but it was not until the end of the eighth century or the beginning of the ninth century that an Afrīghid was first converted to the new faith, appearing with the traditional convert’s name of ‘Abdallāh. The Islamic names of subsequent Shāhs are henceforth attested, though not their exact chronology, since al-Bīrūnī provides no dates.
In the course of the tenth century, the city of Gurgānj on the left bank of the Oxus grew in economic and political importance, largely because of its position as the terminus for the caravan trade across the steppes to the Volga and Russia. A local family, the Ma’mūnids, in 385/995 violently overthrew the Afrighids of Kāth (which lay on the right bank of the river), and themselves assumed the traditional title of Khwārazm Shāh. The rule of the Ma’mūnids was brief but quite glorious; great scholars like the philosopher and scientist Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) and the littérateur al-Tha‘ālibí flourished under their patronage. Khwārazm had been theoretically under Sāmānid suzerainty, although in practice this had meant little; but in 408/1017, Maḥmūd of Ghazna, heir to the Sāmānids’ power in Khurasan, resolved to add Khwārazm to his empire, and Ma’mūnid rule was ended there. For the next decade or so, the province was governed by Ghaznawid military commanders, and then fell into the hands of Shāh Malik, the Oghuz Turkish Yabghu or ruler of Jand at the mouth of the Syr Darya. However, very soon, in 432/1041, Shāh Malik was overthrown by his rivals from the Seljuq family of the Oghuz (see below, no. 91, 1), and soon afterwards Khwārazm passed under Seljuq control.
The Great Seljuq sultans appointed their own governors to Khwārazm, and in Malik Shah’s reign his Turkish slave commander Anūshtigin Gharcha’ī, who was keeper of the royal washing-bowls (ṭasht-dār) received the nominal title of Khwārazm Shāh, although he never seems to have gone there. His successors, however, became hereditary governors in Khwārazm, with the practical title of Shāh; this line of Anūshtigin was strongly Turkish in ethos, seen by the prevalence among them of Turkish names, and close connections, including by means of marriage alliances, were kept up with the Inner Asian steppes. Anūshtigin’s grandson Atsïz, while remaining nominally a vassal of the sultans, had ambitions of striking out on a more independent policy. This became possible after Sanjar’s disastrous defeat of 535/1141 by the Qara Khitay (see below, no. 90), but the Shāhs were in turn forced to acknowledge the suzerainty of these new invaders from the Far East. In effect, the Qara Khitay left the Shāhs largely to themselves, and the last decades of the twelfth century were taken up with a prolonged struggle for hegemony in Khurasan and the whole of the Iranian East between the Shāhs and the Ghūrids of Afghanistan (see below, no. 159). By the opening years of the thirteenth century, the Shāhs were triumphant, and were able to expand right across Persia, clearing away from there the last remnants of Great Seljuq rule and even daring to confront the ‘Abbāsid caliphs in Baghdad. They thus became masters of an empire stretching from the borders of India to those of Anatolia. Yet this impressive achievement proved transitory. In 617/1220, Chingiz Khān’s Mongols conquered Transoxania, and the reign of the last Khwārazm Shāh, Jalāl al-Dīn, was spent in heroic but futile attempts to stem the Mongol influx into the Middle East.
In subsequent centuries, Khwārazm came under the rule of various Turco-Mongol and Turkish Central Asian steppe peoples, and its original Iranian character was completely overlaid, although the prestigious title of Khwārazm Shāh seems to have been borne by the governors there for the Tīmūrids as late as the fifteenth century.
Justi, 428; Lane-Poole, 176–8 (the Anūshtiginids only); Sachau, 12no. 17 (the Ma’mūnids); Zambaur, 208–9; Album, 38–9.
E. Sachau, ‘Zur Geschichte und Chronologie von Khwârazm’, SBWAW, 73 (1873), 471–506; 74 (1873), 285–330 (includes a list of the Afrīghids as given by al-Bīrūnī).
W. Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol Invasion, 3rd edn, 144–55,185,275–9,323ff.
İbrāhīm Kafesoğlu, Harezmşahlar devleti tarihi (485–617/1092–1229), Ankara 1956 (on the Anūshtiginids).
C. E. Bosworth, in The Cambridge History of Iran, V, 140ff., 181ff., 185–95 (on the Anūshtiginids).
L. Richter-Bernburg, ‘Zur Titulatur der HḪwārezm-Šāhe aus der Dynastie Anūsštegins’, AMI, N.F., 9(1976), 179–205.
382–609/992–1212
Transoxania, Farghāna, Semirechye and eastern Turkestan
‘Alī b. Mūsā b. Satuq Bughra Khān (d. 388/998) and ⊘ Hārūn or Ḥasan b. Sulaymān b. Satuq Bughra Khān, Ilig, Bughra Khān, Shihāb al-Dawla (d. 382/992), joint founders of the Qarakhānid confederation in Transoxania |
1. The Great Qaghans of the united kingdom
⊘ ? | ‘ Alī b. Mūsā, Abu ’l-Ḥasan Arslan Khān Qara Khān |
⊘ 388/998 | Aḥmad b.‘ Alī, Arslan Qara Khān, Toghan Khān, Nāṣir al-Haqq Qutb al-Dawla |
⊘ 408/1017 | Manṣūr b. ‘Alī, Arslan Khān, Nūr al-Dawla |
⊘ 415/1024 | Muḥammad or Aḥmad b. Hārūn or Ḥasan Bughra Khān, Toghan Khān |
⊘ 417–24/1026–32 | Yūsuf b. Hārūn or Ḥasan Bughra Khān, Qadïr Khān, Nāṣir al-Dawla Malik al-Mashriq wa ’l-Ṣīn |
2. The Great Qaghans of the western kingdom (Transoxania, including Bukhara and Samarkand, and Farghāna at times), with its centre at Samarkand
⊘ after c. 411/c. 1020, | |
in control of Soghdia | ‘Alī Tigin b. Hārūn or Ḥasan Bughra Khān, d. 425/1034 |
425/1034 | ⊘ Yūsuf and Arslan Tigin b. ‘Alī Tigin, their Father’s successors in Soghdia) |
⊘ c. 433/c. 1042 | Muḥammad b. Naṣr b. ‘Alī, Arslan Qara Khān Mu’ayyid al-‘ Adl ‘Ayn al-Dawla |
⊘ c. 444/c. 1052 | Ibrāhīm b. Naṣr b. ‘ Alī, Abu IsḤāq Böri Tigin, Tamghach or Tabghach Bughra Khān, victor over the sons of ‘Alī Tigin |
460/1068 | Naṣr b. Ibrāhīm, Abu ’l-Ḥasan Shams al-Mulk Malik al-Mashriq wa ’l-Ṣīn |
472/1080 | Khiḍr b. Ibrāhīm, Abū Shujā’ |
?473/1081 | Aḥmad b. Khiḍr |
482/1089 | Ya‘qūb b. Sulaymān b. Yūsuf Qadïr Khān |
488/1095 | Mas‘ūd b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm |
⊘ 490/1097 | Sulaymān b. Dāwūd b. Ibrāhīm, Qadïr Tamghach or Tabghach Khān |
⊘ 490/1097 | Mahmūd b. … Mansūr b. ‘Alī Abu ’l-Qāsim Arslan Khān |
⊘ 492/1099 | Jibrā’īl b. ‘Umar, Qadïr Khān |
⊘ 495/1102 | Muḥammad b. Sulaymān, Arslan Khān |
?523/1129 | Naṣr b. Muḥammad |
⊘ ?523/l 129 | Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, Qadïr Khān |
524/1130 | Ḥasan b. ‘Alí, Jalāl al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn |
?526/1132 | Ibrāhīm b. Sulaymān, Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Rukn al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn |
526/1132 | Mahmūd b. Muḥammad (later, ruler of Khurasan after the Seljuq Sanjar: see below, no. 91, 1) |
536/1141 | Occupation of Transoxania by the Qara Khitay |
536/1141 | Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad, Tamghach or Tabghach Khān |
551/1156 | ‘Alī b. Ḥasan, Chaghrï Khān |
⊘ 556/1161 | Mas‘ūd b. Ḥasan, Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Tamghach or Tabghach Khān, Rukn al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn |
566/1171 | Muḥammad b Mas‘ūd, Tamghach or Tabghach Khān, Ghiyāth al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn, d. 569/1174 |
574/1178 | Ibrāhīm b. Ḥusayn, Arslan Khān Ulugh Sulṭān al-Salāṭīn Nuṣrat al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn (before 574/1178 in Farghāna, therafter in Samarkand also) |
600–9/1204–12 | ‘Uthmān b. Ibrāhīm, Ulugh Sulṭān al-Salāṭin, vassal on various occasions of the Qara Khitay and the Khwārazm Shāhs |
609/1212 | Occupation of Transoxania by the Khwārazm Shāh |
3. The Great Qaghans of the eastern kingdom (Īlāq, Talas, Shāsh, at times Farghāna, Semirechye, Kāshghar and Khotan), with its centre at Balāsāghūn, later Kāshghar
423/1032 | Sulaymān b. Yūsuf, Abū Shujā‘ Qadïr Khān, Arslan Khān, Sharaf al-Dawla |
448/1056 | Muḥammad b. Yūsuf Qadïr Khān, Bughra Khān, Qawām al-Dawla |
449/1057 | Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad |
451/1059 | Maḥmūd b. Yūsuf Qadïr Khān, Ṭoghrïl Qara Khān, Niẓām al-Dawla |
467/1074 | ‘Umar b. Maḥmūd, Ṭoghrïl Tigin |
467/1075 | Hārūn or Ḥasan b. Sulaymān, Abū ‘Alī Tamghach or Tabghach Bughra Qara Khān, Nāṣir al-Haqq |
496/1103 | Aḥmad or Hārūn b. Hārūn or Ḥasan, Nūr al-Dawla |
522/1128 | Ibrāhīm b. Aḥmad or Hārūn |
553/1158 | Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm, Arslan Khān |
? | Yūsuf b. Muḥammad, Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Arslan Khān, d. 601/1205 |
607/1211 | Muḥammad b. Yūsuf, Abu ’l-Faṭh, d. 607/1211 |
607/1211 | Occupation of Semirechye and Farghāna by the Nayman Mongol Küchlüg |
4. The Qaghans in Farghāna, with their centre in Uzgend
The Turkish dynasty of the Qarakhānids acquired this name from European orientalists because of the frequency of the word qara ‘black’ > ‘northern’ (the basic orientation of the early Turks) > ‘powerful’ in their Turkish titulature; they have also been called the Ilek (properly Ilig) Khāns, again from one of the terms in the hierarchy of this titulature, and Āl-i Afrāsiyāb ‘House of Afrāsiyāb’ because of a fancied connection with the ruler of Tūrān in Firdawsī’s Shāh-nāma. It has been suggested by a leading authority on the dynasty, Omeljan Pritsak, that the Qarakhānids sprang from the Qarluq, a tribal group which had been formerly connected with the Uyghur confederation and as such had played an important role in earlier steppe history; another scholar, Elena Davidovich, has suggested a connection with the Yaghma or Chigil tribes, which were in any case components of the Qarluq.
The Qarakhānids became Muslim in the middle years of the tenth century, and their then head Satuq Bughra Khān assumed the Islamic name of ‘Abd al-Karim. His grandson Hārūn or Ḥasan Bughra Khān was attracted southwards by the unsettled condition of Transoxania caused by the decline there of the Sāmānids, and in 392/992 temporarily occupied Bukhara. A few years later, the Ilig Khān Naṣr and Maḥmūd of Ghazna finally extinguished the authority of the Sāmānids and divided their lands. The Oxus became the boundary between the two empires, and for the next two centuries the territories of the Qarakhānids stretched from Bukhara and the lower Syr Darya in the west to Semirechye and Kashgharia in the east. The Qarakhānids formed a loose confederation rather than a monolithic, unitary state, with various members of the family holding appanages which, if they held more than one, were not necessarily contiguous. Internal quarrels soon appeared, and after c. 432/c. 1041 there were two main parts of the Qarakhānid dominions, a western Khānate centred on Samarkand in Transoxania and at times including Farghāna, while an eastern one included the lands of the middle Syr Darya valley, at times Farghāna, Semirechye, and Kashgharia in eastern Turkestan, with a military capital, the Khāns’ ordu or encampment, near Balāsāghūn, but with Kāshghar as its religious and cultural centre. Farghāna was a substantial appanage which often had its own hereditary branch of subordinate Khāns. In general, the descendants of the Great Qaghan ‘Alī b. Mūsā (the‘Alid branch, in Pritsak’s convenient terminology) ruled in the west, while those of his cousin Hārūn or Ḥasan Bughra Khān b. Sulaymān (the Ḥasanid branch) ruled in the east. The boundary between these was not hard and fast, and members of each might rule in the other parts of the Qarakhānid lands; in the later twelfth century, the Ḥasanids were ruling in Samarkand. The western Khānate flourished under such rulers as Ibrāhīm Tamghach or Tabghach Khān, but in the later eleventh century fell under the suzerainty of the Seljuqs. However, after Sanjar’s disastrous defeat in the Qaṭwān Steppe in 536/1141, control over the whole of Turkestan west of the T’ien Shan mountains passed to the Buddhist Qara Khitay or Western Liao from northern China. The last western QaraKhānids continued as vassals of the Qara Khitay but failed to maintain their position against the Khwārazm Shāh‘Alā’ al-Dīn Muḥammad (see above, no. 89, 4), who in 609/1212 killed the last ruler there, ‘Uthmān, while the eastern Khānate fell to the Mongol Küchlüg just before Chingiz Khān’s hordes arrived in Central Asia.
Whereas the originally Turkish Ghaznawid sultans built up a strongly centralised state on the familiar Perso-Islamic pattern, the QaraKhānids remained closer to their tribal and steppe past and had a more diffused system of authority, with members of the ruling family allocated their own appanages and the greater part of their tribesmen remaining probably nomadic. Within the ruling family there prevailed the system, common among other Altaic peoples, of Great Qaghans and co-Qaghans, with lesser Khāns beneath them, each with his own suitable Turkish title, often combined with a totemistic title taken from the names of animals, birds, etc., for example aislan ‘lion’, bughia ‘camel’, toghrïl and chaghrï ‘falcon, hawk’, etc. Since members of the family were continually moving up in the hierarchy of power and acquiring new names and titles, the task of elucidating the genealogy and chronology of the QaraKhānids is exceedingly difficult; the historical sources are not numerous, and, while large numbers of Qarakhānid coins are extant, these last also present a bewildering array of names and titles. As remarked in the Introduction, Zambaur noted over seventy years ago that this was the only major Islamic dynasty whose genealogy remained obscure, and confessed that his own attempts at constructing a genealogy were necessarily sketchy; many obscurities still remain despite much recent research and many coin finds within Central Asia, the contents of which are increasingly ending up in the West. The tables given above follow the researches of Pritsak supplemented by those more recent ones of Elena Davidovich.
Zambaur, 206–7; Album, 34.
EI2 ‘Ilek Khans’ (C. E. Bosworth).
O. Pritsak, ‘Karachanidische Streitfragen ’l-4’, Oiiens, 3 (1950), 209–28.
O. Pritsak, ‘Die Karachaniden’, Der Islam, 31 (1954), 17–68.
Reşat Genç, Kaiahanh devlet teşkilati (XL yüzyil) (Türk hâkimiyet anlayisi ve Karahanhlai), Istanbul 1981.
Elena A. Davidovich, ‘The QaraKhānids’, in History of the Civilisations of Central Asia, IV/1, The Age of Achievement, UNESCO, Paris 1997, ch. 6.