ELEVEN FROM PERSEPOLIS TO SAMARKAND: THE PERSIAN LEGACY IN CENTRAL ASIA

The territory of Persia and its successive empires centred on the Middle East, a region which is, of course, contiguous with other parts of Asia. As a consequence of its proximity to both Central and South Asia, historically Persia has influenced, and been influenced by, the peoples of these regions. In the millennium following the fall of the Achaemenid Empire and its Hellenistic successor states, there were numerous invasions from Central Asia by Parthians, Turks and Mongols, all of whom conquered large parts of the Middle East and established powerful empires there. All of them incorporated the lands that had been part of the Achaemenid and Sasanid empires and their centres of power were also inherited from those earlier rulers. These incomers were inevitably influenced by the indigenous civilization of the lands they conquered.

In addition to this, over time Persia came to exercise considerable influence over adjacent Central Asia, and this was nowhere more in evidence than in the lands between the Caspian and the Aral seas. This influence was of crucial importance in changing this region from one dominated by nomadic pastoralists – ‘barbarians’ in Greek terms – to one of the few great civilizations to develop in the heart of Asia itself. From the very beginning, in the time of the Achaemenids, the Persians had sought to bring Central Asia into their sphere. It was from there that the Persians and their mentors the Medes had first come, and they were followed by many other migrants seeking the better life which they believed was to be found in the lands to the south. As a result, the Central Asian lands were always considered a danger and from the outset of their imperial venture the Persians sought to prevent more unwelcome immigrants from descending on their empire and disrupting their rule.1 Persistent Persian interventions meant that over the centuries the adjacent parts of Central Asia became gradually more integrated politically, economically and culturally with Persia itself.

During the reign of Darius the Great, the Achaemenid Empire extended its control deep into Central Asia and at that time the whole of Transoxiana was brought under the rule of the Great King. During that reign the region was divided into satrapies for administrative purposes and a Persian governing class was established there. Similarly, under the Sasanids, and later the Arabs, there was further penetration into the region. With the Arab invasions, Islam also took hold and this was to prove of great significance in the transformation of the Islamic world in later centuries.

Economically, Transoxiana in particular was a most welcome addition to any empire. The great trading cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Balkh were of considerable commercial importance, adding a great deal to the economic power of the state within which they were located. One of the main reasons for this was that they lay on the Silk Road, that great trading route stretching across Asia from Europe to China. While the two main termini of this routeway were Byzantium in the west and Xi’an, the capital of China, in the east, Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent and Merv all achieved great importance. They were the places where the traders from the west met and exchanged goods with those from the east. The trading domes of Bukhara are witness to the huge economic importance of that particular city. While silk was, of course, of considerable value in the trade, there were a great many other products, including tea, spices, precious stones, ceramics, metals and metal ornaments. This trade benefited the economies of the lands it passed through and, consequently, Asiatic rulers wished to ensure that the favoured route passed through their territory.² The most important routeway westwards from Samarkand and Bukhara passed through northern Persia to Tabriz and on to Byzantium, which was the major commercial city in medieval Europe. During the sixteenth century Shah Abbas, realizing the value of the route, attempted to divert it southwards through his new capital of Isfahan. While this had some success in view of the importance of the Safavid capital, the northern route still remained the preferred way for traders making for Byzantium.

Finally, Persian cultural influences in this area also go back to ancient times. Political and military penetration of the area brought with it the Persian language. Being the language of the rulers, it inevitably soon came to be used by those over whom they ruled. Before long the leading families of the region were learning to speak Persian and as a consequence the region’s importance in the Persian world increased. The Samanids, the most successful of the independent dynasties that sought to break Persia away from the Arab caliphate, came originally from Balkh on the Oxus river south of Samarkand. They were Persian-speakers and had converted to Islam before moving south into Khorasan and Parsa. They not only extended their rule south, but penetrated northwards deeper into Central Asia, establishing a capital at Bukhara. In this way there was an overall displacement of Persian civilization northwards away from the qalb (heartland) of the caliphate and into an area where the establishment of an independent state proved far easier.

When the rule of the Samanids was replaced by that of the Turks, the same set of conditions prevailed. Like the Samanids, the Turks, the first of them being the Ghaznavids from Afghanistan, followed by the Seljuks from Central Asia, had also converted to Islam.3 They conquered a land with an established language and cultural attainments and themselves soon became influenced by these. The symbiosis that this all produced must have been, in part at least, responsible for the fact that the whole period from the Samanid rule in the tenth century to the Turks in the eleventh was one in which science, learning and the arts flourished, and Persian Central Asia played an important part in this.

The reason for the significance of Central Asia in the dissemination of Persian Islamic culture is very similar to that for the cultural dissemination into other peripheral regions of the Islamic world, notably Moorish Spain. The hold of the caliphate was lesser in such remote regions and there was greater freedom for individual expression. The qalb of the Abbasid caliphate was Mesopotamia and its political centre was Baghdad. Besides being the capital and residence of the caliph, it also soon attained a wider religious and cultural role. By the ninth century, this Arab city had become the major centre of learning in all Islam, and scholars and scientists from other parts of the empire were attracted to its madrasas, libraries and institutions of learning. It became a melting pot for new ideas in physics, astronomy, geography and other sciences. However, by the tenth century a religious and scholarly elite had become entrenched there and was increasingly reluctant to accept any new ideas that might conflict with their own. Said and Khan, in their biography of Al-Biruni, the Persian scholar born in AD 973, observed the wider implications of this development:

As long as the work of translations and assimilations of foreign knowledge was going on, the centralization of scientific and literary activities at Baghdad proved beneficial. Under the vigilance of the caliphs, the work became organized and systematic and its accomplishment was guaranteed by the immense resources of the caliphate. But after this phase was completed, the centralization of the literary life became an impediment to further progress. A scholar who wanted to gain recognition had to go to Baghdad, where the already entrenched ulema and scholars made the entry of any new rival very difficult. The point is well illustrated by the episode of Ziryab, a Persian scholar from Transoxiana who was forced to leave Baghdad due to the envy of his teachers.4

Accompanying the hardening of attitudes in Baghdad came the weakening of the Abbasid caliphate and the loosening of its grip on Islam. This was another factor in making Baghdad less attractive, and it encouraged the dispersal and decentralization of learning and knowledge. This produced greater diversity in the Islamic world than was possible when one leading city dominated most fields of activity.

Central Asia was one of the most important centres in this new era, and many of the leading scholars and scientists of the age came from there. Many of its cities, already centres of commerce, also became important centres of learning. This was a development of the greatest importance for both Persia itself and the subsequent dissemination of Persian influence in Asia.

Since the Arab conquest in the seventh century, Arabic had been the language of religion and politics and it also came to be seen more widely as the language of learning. Scholars from Persia and elsewhere who descended on Baghdad would be expected to understand Arabic and to produce their work in that language. However, Persian was still widely spoken throughout Transoxiana, and as the caliphate became weaker so the Persian language gained ground in other spheres. While Arabic continued to retain its primary role as the language of Islam, Persian came to be used for a greater variety of purposes, and by the eleventh century it had largely regained an important role in the life of the people.5 This was associated particularly with the rise of the Persian Saffarid and Samanid dynasties, which began the process of moving Persia away from the caliphate and reasserting its historic independence. Since the Samanids themselves came from Central Asia they always maintained a close association with it. This contributed to the importance that the area rapidly gained in the Persian world and its subsequent role in the dissemination of the wider aspects of Persian culture.

Following the initial Persian conquests, two distinct population groups were to be found in Central Asia. One of these consisted of the pastoral nomadic people, whose principal homeland was the steppe grassland. These people had over the millennia migrated southwards and attacked the sedentary civilizations of the Middle East. The most successful of them had established their own powerful states, which then dominated the region. The second major population group was that living in the cities of Transoxiana, centres of trade and industry, which had steadily built up their economic power. At times when the grip of the Persians over the region became weaker, the states centred in these cities were able to add to their political power. It was this process that resulted in the creation of the sultanate of Khwarazm in the twelfth century. This became a powerful state that was itself able to exert considerable influence throughout the region. At the same time as its political grip loosened, Persian cultural influences again increased and a great deal of the scholarly and scientific achievement of the Persian world was soon coming from this region.

Scientists and scholars from Transoxiana and Central Asia listed in approximate chronological order of writings. Most of the work of these scholars was in Persian or, if in Arabic, would have been translated into Persian.

In the early thirteenth century Transoxiana was invaded by the Mongols, the most powerful and aggressive people ever to come out of the heart of Asia, who rapidly gained control over most of the centre of the continent and much of the Middle East. Led by Genghis Khan, these pastoral nomads, whose homeland was to the south of Lake Baikal, created the largest empire to have existed up to that date anywhere in the world. At its maximum extent it stretched across the continent to include both Russia and China. After the death in 1234 of Ögedei, the son of Genghis Khan and the second Great Khan, the still growing empire became too unwieldy to be held together as a single unit. It soon split up into subsidiary khanates which themselves became semi-independent states. The main part of Transoxiana fell to Chagatai, another of the sons of Genghis Khan, and thanks to the Silk Road and its commercial cities it provided considerable wealth for its rulers.

The most important centre of Mongol power was China, and there they established themselves as a Chinese dynasty. However, by the middle of the fourteenth century the grip of the Mongols was beginning to weaken, and in 1368 the last of the Yuan (Mongol) emperors, Tögüs Temur, was forced back into exile in the old capital, Karakorum. While with the fall of the Yuan dynasty the most important centre of Mongol power had come to an end, for a time Mongol rule continued in certain places, including the khanate of Chagatai. The Pax Mongolica, the peace brought by the Mongols to the fractious tribes of Central Asia, had revived the Silk Road and for a time given considerable prosperity to Transoxiana. The possibility of the breakdown of this peace and a return to petty rivalries was not a welcome prospect.

This was one of the reasons for the widespread desire for the revival of the Mongol Empire, and it was responded to by a local warlord from near Samarkand. He was Timur Lenk, who had already established a power base for himself by becoming emir of Transoxiana. Better known in Europe as Tamerlane, or Tamburlaine, he proved to be a redoubtable warrior and was soon extending his conquests with vigour.6 Timur was actually from the Turkish Barlas clan from near Fez to the south of Samarkand. He had, however, been educated in the Persian cultural tradition, which had suffused Transoxiana over the centuries. He was a Persian-speaker and had great respect for all aspects of Persian culture, something that was to become evident as his reign progressed.

In 1370, when news of the last Yuan emperor’s death reached Transoxiana, Timur proclaimed himself successor to the fallen Chinggisids, the dynasty of Genghis Khan. From then on he considered that his principal task was to resurrect the Yuan Empire. He always proclaimed himself to be of Mongol-Turkish descent and in this way legitimized his claim as inheritor to the Chinggisid dynasty. He possessed a considerable appetite for conquest and power. Within ten years he had gained complete control over the Chagatai khanate, which became his base for further conquests. By 1390 he had conquered Persia itself, the historic centre of the great civilization that he so admired. During this conquest he is known to have paid a visit to Persepolis, where he would have been able to see the ruins of the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenids. In 1393 he captured Baghdad and occupied all Mesopotamia. As a result of this he had gained control over the principal centres of power in both the Persian Empire and the caliphate.

Unlike the previous Middle Eastern conquerors, who had moved their capitals to, or near to, Mesopotamia, from the outset Timur’s centre of power lay in that other land of two rivers, Transoxiana – and so it remained. His capital was Samarkand, a city for which he always had the greatest affection and to which he regularly returned in order to recuperate after his many conquests. It was during these interludes that he began to embellish his favourite city with many fine buildings. In doing this he was certainly inspired by what he had seen elsewhere. It has even been suggested that his visit to Persepolis would have been an inspiration, although the ancient capital would then have been little more than a ruin in the sand. Important among those who thought so was Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo, sent as ambassador to the court of Timur by King Henry III of Castile.⁷ Based on the observations of Clavijo, John Ure expressed the opinion that ‘When Tamerlane rode through Persepolis he was not only making a symbolic triumphal progress but was, in all probability, making mental notes for more impressive triumphs at home based on what he saw here.’⁸

Tomb of Rustum, near Shiraz.

The Great Stairway is a veritable statement of empire in stone, considered by Forbis, as noted in Chapter Five, to have been ‘a hand-chiselled filmstrip of obeisance to the emperor’.⁹ If anything of it was to be seen by the time of Timur’s visit, it would certainly have inspired the conqueror.

A great deal was known to the Elizabethans of the story of the Asiatic conqueror but, as with Cyrus, this would no doubt have been a mixture of truth and legend. Marlowe puts into the mouth of the conqueror the words: ‘Is it not passing brave to be a King, / And ride in triumph through Persepolis?’ (Tamburlaine the Great, II.5) But the new Persepolis was to be Samarkand, and Marlowe makes Tamburlaine’s triumph outshine even Darius when he has him declaiming:

Then in my coach, like Saturn’s royal son,

Mounted with shining chariot gilt with fire,

And drawn with princely eagles through the path

Pav’d with bright crystal and enchas’d with stars,

When all the gods stand gazing at his pomp,

So will I ride through Samarcanda streets. (IV.4)

Samarkand owed much to the Persian traditions of architecture from the Achaemenids to the Safavids. In designing the mosques, libraries and madrasas he built, architects were brought from as far afield as Shiraz, another city that seems to have particularly impressed him during his conquest. In the centre of his capital was the palace of Timur himself. The Gok Sarai – the Blue Palace – was highly fortified and around it were laid out many magnificent parks and gardens. One of Timur’s favourite gardens was the Baghi Dilkusha, the Garden of Heart’s Delight, which had been designed to commemorate his marriage to Tukal-khanum, the daughter of the khan. In 1404 Clavijo observed that Samarkand was a town set in the midst of a forest in which there were gardens and running water, fruit trees and cisterns, olive groves and aqueducts. As with the conquering kings of Persia, here another Persian-inspired conqueror created a paradise at the heart of his empire. It was, said Clavijo, ‘the first of all the cities which he had conquered and the one that he had since ennobled above all others, by his buildings making it the treasure house of his conquests’.10

It is evident from the comments of such travellers that the city and its surroundings designed by Timur were very much in the tradition of the Persian pairidaēza dating from Achaemenid times. All the elements of this were clearly present, most significantly the vital running water that irrigated the land and enabled what had been ugly to become beautiful and what had been unproductive to become fruitful. At the centre of his paradise were his great buildings, including the palace and the mosques, to which the gardens would have been a magnificent backdrop and place of pleasure. Timur would undoubtedly have seen many such beautiful gardens during his conquests, and he brought back the architects and gardeners to recreate them in Samarkand.

As a result of all this frenetic activity of conquest interspersed with building, a new Persia was born in the heart of Transoxiana. The northwards displacement that had been observed over the centuries, and which had political, economic and cultural implications, reached its apogee with Timur and his successors. Despite his savagery towards his enemies, this Persian-speaking Turk was in many ways a cultured man who was most happy when engaged in discussions with scientists and scholars.

Samarkand was intended by Timur to be a city of beauty and culture, an oasis of tranquillity built with the spoils taken from other parts of his vast empire. It was not exactly to be a new Persepolis in the imperial sense but if, in Marlowe’s words, Timur’s ‘native city Samarcanda’ was to ‘be famous through the furthest continents’, it was to be a fame arising from the civilization rather than the power of his empire. However, he needed another capital for imperial purposes, and he chose to build this some 50 kilometres to the south of Samarkand. This was Shakhrisabz, formerly Kesh, in the territory of the Barlas clan. Timur is said to have asserted, ‘Let he who doubts our power look upon our buildings’ – and Shakhrisabz certainly was intended for this purpose.11

The dome of the Gur-Emir mosque from the eastern side, Samarkand, c. 1905.

The ruins of the ‘White Palace’ of Timur at Shakhrisabz, southern Uzbekistan.

While Persepolis was a statement of both power and beauty in stone and in the pairidaēza that surrounded it, Timur chose to separate the power and beauty and to have one city displaying each. The two sides to the conqueror’s character were evident in these two adjacent but very different Transoxianian cities. The one reflected his Turkish origins while the other reflected the Persian civilization he had adopted. According to Amin Maalouf, Samarkand ‘was the most beautiful face the Earth has ever turned towards the sun’.12

In 1403 Timur returned to Samarkand after his abortive Indian campaign. The ruthless sack of Delhi left nothing, says Luc Kwanten in his book Imperial Nomads, but ‘a trail of blood’.¹³ Timur had also succeeded in defeating and humiliating the Ottoman sultan Bayazid. This event is central to Marlowe’s Tamburlaine and to his depiction of Timur as the ruthless Asiatic conqueror. However, on his return, the other side of his character came to the fore and he threw himself into the further embellishment of his beloved city. We learn of ‘feverish construction’ in the capital, something that contrasted markedly with the destruction he had left behind elsewhere. Justin Marozzi, an English journalist, tells us that Timur’s attention was then given almost obsessively to the completion of the glorification of his capital, ‘with all the furious energy of war’. Marozzi called the Cathedral Mosque, which was one of Timur’s final projects, ‘the apotheosis of Timur’s architectural creation’.14 However, there was as yet no apotheosis of the old warrior’s greed for territory, since the most important part of the old Mongol Empire still eluded him. This was China, and as the self-proclaimed successor to Genghis Khan, Timur was determined to conquer this country too. Consequently, in addition to all his building, he was also engaged in preparing for his next campaign. In 1405 he set out eastwards with an enormous army, but he was now 69 years old and in poor health. In January 1406 the conqueror of so many lands died in the ferocious Central Asian winter on the plain of Otrar, north of Tashkent. His body was brought back to his beloved Samarkand and there laid to rest in the Gur-Emir tomb prepared for him.

Timur’s conquests did not long survive his death, and the Ottomans were soon able to regain their position as the leading power in the Middle East. The two capitals he had built in Transoxiana remained as twin memorials to his strange and ambivalent character. His love of cultural artefacts, mainly those of the Persian civilization, was indisputable. He was, said Grousset, not a barbarian ‘but a cultivated man, a great lover of Persian literature and one who was always ready to quote the Koran’.¹⁵

It was to be the civilization of Samarkand rather than the power of Shakhrisabz that was to be Timur’s most lasting legacy. Samarkand became one of the cities where his successors, the Timurids, created the most impressive ever indigenous civilization in Central Asia. Their achievements were firmly based on the heritage of that Persian civilization that had permeated Transoxiana for so many centuries and which had been espoused and passed on by Timur.

While the conqueror himself had brought little but death and destruction to India, among his successors were those who succeeded in bringing Persian influence of a very different kind to the subcontinent.