ENTRAL ASIA

The central expanse of the Asian continent, the land mass situated approximately between 55° and 115° E and 25° and 50° N, comprises two geographically distinct areas. The western part includes the Transcaspian plains and the low tablelands between the Aral Sea and the Tien Shan (lit. “heavenly mountains”) range; it is generally equivalent to the territory of western Turkistan (the Turkmen, Uzbek, and Tajik Soviet Socialist Republics and the southern and western portions of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic). The eastern part encompasses the high plateaus and mountainous perimeters of the Tarim basin (approximately equivalent to Eastern Turkistan, now Sinkiang [Xin-jiang] Uighur province of the People's Republic of China) and Tibet, the area north of the Tien Shan mountains as far as the southern Siberian plains and the Altai mountains (the northern and eastern portions of the Kazakh S.S.R.), and the Gobi desert (comprising parts of the Mongolian People's Republic and Chinese Inner Mongolia), along with the high mountain ridges thrusting east and south into China and Southeast Asia.

The crest lines of the great Central Asia mountain systems generally lie on east-west axes, which seem to radiate from the Pamirs. A cluster of parallel ranges curving to the southwest, then to the west, are generally known as the Hindu Kush, the Paropamisos of the Greek geographers (cf. Pauly-Wissowa, XVIII/4, cols. 1778-79). The southernmost of these ranges bends sharply westward, then south, continuing as the Sulaiman mountains, which separate the Iranian plateau from the lowlands of the Indus (Sindh), though, as there are few elevations higher than 2,000 m, they do not constitute a major geographical barrier. The range extends in various chains south and west through Baluchistan, thus linking the Pamirs with the Zagros system along the southern and southwestern margins of the plateau. The main ranges of the Hindu Kush, however, extend directly southwest, gradually declining in elevation to an average of around 4,000 m; they are linked to the volcanic Transcaucasian plateau by the B^na@lu@d (q.v.), Alborz (q.v.), and Qara@ Da@g@ chains, which form the northern boundary of the Iranian plateau, 1,000 m lower on the average than the Zagros. The highest peaks of the Hindu Kush include Tirich Mir at 7,750 m in Pakistan on the Afghan border and a number exceeding 6,000 m in northeastern Afghanistan; those in the western portion of the range and in the B^na@lu@d rarely exceed 3,000 m. In Tajikistan the Alai range extends straight west from the Pamirs, with a fairly even crest line; it is paralleled just to the south by the Trans Alai and still farther south by the Darvaz (Qara@ Teg^n) range, which, however, traces an arc similar to that of the Hindu Kush, trailing off to the southwest in several minor subranges. The highest peaks in this region are Pik Kommunizma (Communism, formerly Garmo, peak, 7,495 m) in the Darvaz chain and Pik Lenina (Lenin peak, 7,127 m) in the Trans Alai. In the western Alai, 110 km southeast of Samarkand, Pik Chimtarga rises to 5,490 m, west of which the range trails off in a southwestern branch and a shorter western one.

Water. Because of increased precipitation at higher elevations, which may reach a maximum of 1,000 mm a year, the snow cover and particularly mountain glaciers are the main sources of water for Central Asia. In the Pamirs the snow line lies as high as 5,500 m. In the latitudinal ranges it is often 500-700 m lower on the northern slopes than on the sunny southern slopes. The glaciers, most of them valley glaciers, are associated with the highest peaks. In Soviet Central Asia alone 1,700 glaciers total 11,000 km², five times the surface of the Caucasian glaciers; they also melt at a much more rapid rate than those in the Caucasus or in Switzerland. The largest is the Fedchenko glacier, discovered in the early 20th century near Communism peak north of the Yazgulem pass; it is 77 km long, 2-5 km wide, and 550 m thick, with a volume exceeding 200 km³. From an altitude of 5,330 m it extends down to 2,904 m and is fed by thirty-seven tributary glaciers, some of them more than 10 km long. The Fedchenko glacier melts at a rate of 27 cm a day, 100 m a year; in 1924-35 it lost a total of 282 m. Also in the northwestern Pamirs are the Garmo (29 km long), Fortambek (25 km), and Finsterwalder (16 km) glaciers. In the Alai range the Zeravshan glacier, 25 km long and 200 m thick, is located in the valley between the Turkistan and Zeravshan chains. It melts at a rate of 27 cm a day and is the source of the Zeravshan river. Glacial melting at high altitudes is responsible for the summer flow maximum of Central Asia rivers. A spring maximal flow occurs when these rivers are fed by the melting snow on the lower slopes of the mountains bordering the fertile loessial piedmont plains on which most of the irrigated agriculture of Central Asia is concentrated.

The major rivers in western Central Asia are the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) and Amu Darya (Oxus; see aúmuú darya@) rivers. The Syr Darya, almost 1,400 km long begins as a small stream in the Farg@a@na mountains and is fed by the Naryn, which rises farther east on the southern slopes of the Terskey Ala Tau, south of Lake Issyk Kul, and flows west through the Farg@a@na valley. At Leninabad, the western gateway to the Farg@a@na valley, it turns sharply northward, bypasses the oasis of Tashkent, and flows northwest, emptying into the northeastern tip of the Aral Sea (in 1987 40 m above sea level). Important towns in the Syr Darya basin include Chimkent and Turkistan in southern Kazakhstan and Kazalinsk in the delta. Farther south the much longer Amu Darya (ca. 2,500 km) drains the Pamirs and the northern Hindu Kush. Its upper course, which defines the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, is called Pyandzh as far as the confluence with the VakòÞ west of Kirovabad; the VakòÞ rises in the Alai as the Kyzyl Su (Pers. Sorkòa@b, lit. “red water”) and follows the Darvaz range south. Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan is situated 1,220 m above sea level on the Kafirnigan river, which joins the Amu Darya west of the confluence with the VakòÞ. From there the Amu Darya flows generally northwest and empties into the Aral Sea from the south; along its lower course, in ancient Choresmia (q.v.), the important towns of Khiva (K¨^va) and Urgench (UÚrganj) are located. Both the Syr Darya and Amu Darya have fed the irrigation systems of the fertile Central Asian plains since antiquity; furthermore, as they flow through these unforested expanses they lose a considerable volume of water through evaporation. These natural loesses, however, are modest compared to the diversion of nearly all the water of these rivers to irrigated agriculture in the Soviet era. One result of this is that virtually no water from either the Syr Darya or Amu Darya flows into the Aral Sea, which is shrinking at a rapid rate. From 1960 to 1987 it lost two-fifths of its area and two-thirds of its water volume.

Between the two great rivers the Zeravshan (ZarafÞa@n) rises at the western end of the Alai range and flows west, watering the entire cultivated zone between Samarkand and Bukhara (q.v.), before disappearing in the desert sands. The main population centers in Uzbekistan, aside from Tashkent, lie along its course, including Ziyauddin (Z˜^a@÷-al-D^n), Meymana, Karmina, and Bukhara. South of the Amu Darya two former tributaries, the Morg@a@b and Har^ru@d (Tedzhen) rivers, drain the western Hindu Kush but also dry up in the sands of the Kara Kum (“black sand”) desert in Turkistan. The impressive ruins of ancient Marv are situated not far from where the Morg@a@b disappears. Still farther south the Atrak (q.v.) rises between two ranges of the B^na@lu@d mountains northwest of the town of Qu@±a@n and flows west across the barren steppes east of the Caspian, forming part of the border between Persia and the Turkman S.S.R.; it empties into Gasan-Kuli bay near Chikishlyar. Stormy Lake Karakul (elev. 3,780 m) in the northeastern Pamirs, southeast of Lenin Peak, is the source for a number of streams that water the high plateaus in that region, a land of rural valley settlements of essentially uniform size.

Because of the distance from the oceans, there are few clouds and little atmospheric moisture or precipitation, and solar irradiation is correspondingly strong. Much of the land surface is thus arid; the lowlands are preponderantly steppes, interspersed with stretches of sandy desert, particularly the Kara Kum on the Transcaspian plains (Turkmen SSR) and the Kyzyl Kum east of the Amu Darya. Wherever the natural water supply and precipitation are sufficient, the steppes and the fertile plateaus of the lowest zone are covered with grass. South of 45° N, the steppes begin to dry out by early July and have usually remained barren until late October or November, when some rain-bearing cloud formations move in from the Atlantic zone in the northwest. Over the last fifty years, however, there have been noticeable climatic changes, and it is now not unusual for compact cloud formations or overcast skies to appear in midsummer in some areas of western Turkestan as far south as the central course of the Syr Darya and the oasis of Tashkent. This change represents an extension of the influence of the northwestern maritime climate that formerly never penetrated beyond Moscow and central Russia in summer. Only rarely do monsoon clouds diverted from the regular southwest-northeastern path of the South Asian monsoons reach Central Asia. In Soviet Turkmenistan and western Uzbekistan the severe aridity of the Central Asian climate has also been mitigated to some extent by large-scale irrigation and the construction of dams (e.g., the Kara Kum canal). Evaporation from these projects contributes a certain amount of atmospheric moisture and has led to a more humid climate throughout the westernmost portions of Central Asia. Historical climatology shows that current arid conditions result from a recent period of desiccation lasting 1,500-2,000 years, which particularly affected northern Africa and Arabia but also to a lesser degree the Asiatic continent.

The combined population of the Uzbek, Kirgiz, Tajik, and Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republics totals more than 30 million people, one tenth of the population of the Soviet Union. Owing to a relatively high birth rate and a low death rate, it is also the most rapidly growing segment, at an average annual rate of approximately 3 percent a year, comparable to those of the most rapidly growing nations of the underdeveloped world. In general the Central Asian population is characterized by a low level of urbanization, very uneven geographical distribution of the oasis type, a high density among the rural population, and a large Muslim majority, including a number of Iranian-speaking peoples. The chief Russian-language sources on the demography of Central Asia are the Russian and Soviet censuses of 1897, 1926, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, and 1989, as well as annual population estimates (Tsentral'ny¥ Statisticheski¥ Komitet, 1899-1905; Tsentral'noe Statisticheskoe Upravlenie SSSR, 1929, 1962-63, 1972-74, 1984-87; Pravda, 1989; 1939 data were published in the 1959 census and elsewhere; additional 1979 data have also been published in Goskomstat SSSR, 1988). Although there was no official population census before 1897, there have been estimates of the population of Central Asia for this period. For example, Karakhanov (pp. 226-28) provides annual total population estimates for the four republics for 1865-1982, and official estimates were made for political units of Central Asia in 1885 (Tsentral'ny¥ Statisticheski¥ Komitet, 1887). The republic of Kazakhstan is sometimes included in “Central Asia,” but it will not be considered here, as it is considered today by the Soviets as a separate economic region from that of Central Asia, which consists of the four republics listed above, and has an insignificant Iranian-speaking population (in 1979 there were only 19,293 Tajiks and 17,692 Kurds; no other Iranian-speaking peoples were listed for Kazakhstan in 1979).

Unlike most other regions of the Soviet Union, the majority (ca. 60 percent) of the population in Central Asia still lives in rural areas. There are some fairly large cities in the region, however, the most important of which is Tashkent, the fourth largest city of the USSR, with more than 2 million people. Settlement is concentrated in river valleys and along canals, especially the Amu Darya, Syr Darya, and Zeravshan (ZarafÞa@n) river valleys and the Kara Kum canal zone. The majority of the population is located in the relatively small area extending eastward from Bukhara through Samarkand to the Zeravshan and Fergana (Farg@a@na) valleys and along the upper Syr Darya and, on a branch of the Syr Darya, in Tashkent and its surrounding countryside. Rural population densities in these areas often exceed 200 people per km², the highest in the USSR. Other notable areas of concentration are the lower Amu Darya valley just south of the Aral sea, in the Kara Kum canal zone between the Amu Darya and the Caspian, and in the Vakhsh valley of the Tadzhik SSR. On the other hand, great stretches of territory are uninhabited or very sparsely populated, especially the Kara Kum desert in the southwest between the Amu Darya and the Caspian Sea and the Kyzyl Kum desert between the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya, and the mountainous zones of the extreme south and east, including the Gorno-Badakhshan area of the Tadzhik SSR (Glavnoe Upravlenie Geodezii i Kartografii, pp. 130-31; Akademiya Nauk Tadzhiksko¥ SSR, pp. 118-19). Approximately 60 percent of the population is in the Uzbek SSR and 10-16 percent in each of the other three republics.

Iranian-speaking populations. Virtually all the remaining Muslim population (11 percent of the total population of Central Asia in 1979) speaks Iranian languages. This group is composed almost entirely of Tajiks (2.9 million, or 98 percent), 77 percent of them living in the Tajik SSR and 21 percent in the Uzbek SSR. Ethnic Tajiks constituted 59 percent of the population of the Tajik SSR, the remainder being mostly Uzbeks (23 percent) and ethnic Russians (10 percent). The Tajiks are among the least urbanized and most rapidly growing nationalities in the USSR. In 1979 only 28 percent lived in urban centers, and the population growth rate, 3.4 percent a year between 1970 and 1979, was the highest among the fifteen nationalities that enjoy SSR status. The native language of 98 percent of them is Tajik, the Central Asian variant of Persian, which includes many archaisms in phonology (e.g., preservation of majhu@l vowels) but is strongly influenced, especially in local dialects, by the morphology and syntax (particularly the verbal system) of the surrounding Turkic languages (see xv, below).

It is difficult to trace historical population trends among individual nationalities in the USSR because of changing ethnic classifications and governmental decisions on whether or not to include a particular national population in published census reports (Lewis, Rowland, and Clem, pp. 42-48, 388-92). It is especially difficult to assess long-term population trends among the Tajiks because the nationality was defined differently in the 1897 Russian census and in the Soviet censuses of 1926 and later. One major source of confusion is the language category “Sarts,” which was included among the Turkic languages in the 1897 census. Some sources agree with this classification, but according to others the Sarts, who were regarded as the settled peoples of Central Asia as opposed to the nomadic peoples, spoke either a Turkic language or an Iranian language (Tajik); the name has even been used practically synonymously with Tajik (Akiner, p. 304; Bennigsen and Wimbush, p. 92; Krader, pp. 55-56; Wixman, p. 174). In the 1897 census more than 900,000 Sarts were counted in the Russian empire, and there were also 350,000 Tajiks listed separately. Virtually all of the “Sarts” and the “Tajiks” were in Central Asia. The last figure represents a serious underestimate of the Tajik population at that time, however. Not only may a number of Tajiks have been included in the “Sart” category, but also a large part of what is now the Tajik SSR was then part of the khanate of Bukhara (q.v.), a vassal state that was not officially part of the Russian empire and thus not included in the 1897 census. It has been estimated elsewhere that perhaps 30 percent of the population of Bukhara at that time was Tajik (Becker, p. 7; Lorimer, p. 36). As the total estimated population of Bukhara was 2-2.5 million, the Tajik population must have been 600,000-750,000, approximately twice the official census figure for the Russian contingent. It thus appears that the total Tajik population of Central Asia approached 1 million or perhaps even exceeded it. In 1926, however, it was slightly less than 1 million (978, 680, or 980, 509 if the Yag@no@b^ are included; see below). The figure increased to 1,229,300 in 1939 (Kozlov, p. 285), 1,396,939 in 1959, 2,135,883 in 1970, and 2,897,697 in 1979, when Tajiks were the eleventh largest nationality in the USSR. In that year they accounted for 1.1 percent of the total population of the country, whereas in 1959 they had been only the sixteenth largest nationality, accounting for 0.7 percent of the total population.

In the 1979 census, only three other Iranian-speaking nationalities were recognized in Central Asia: “Persians” (Persy), who have been in Central Asia for centuries, Baluch, who have arrived only since the late 13th/19th century, and Kurds, who reside primarily in Transcaucasus when in the USSR. In 1979 there were 31,313 Persians (Persy) and 18,997 Baluch (Beludzhi). The totals for Persians were not broken down by republic in 1979, but in 1970, when the total of Persians (Irantsy or Persy) in the USSR was 27,501, three-fourths (20,525) lived in the Uzbek SSR and one-fourth in the Turkmen SSR. Virtually all of the Baluch live in the Mary (Marv oasis) area of the Turkmen SSR. Soviet censuses provided figures for these groups in 1926 (43,971 Persians, also called Farsi; 9,188 Iranians, or Irani; and 9,974 Baluch) and 1959 (20,766 Persians or Irantsy and 7,842 Baluch). The listed numbers of Kurds in Central Asia in 1926, 1959, 1970, and 1979 were 2,308, 7,046, 10,907, and 9,544, respectively (the 1959 and 1970 data are for both the Kirgiz and Turkmen SSRs, while the 1979 data are for the Kirgiz SSR only).

Other Iranian-speaking peoples of Central Asia are apparently counted with the Tajiks. Most notable among them are the speakers of East Iranian Pamir languages (Mountain Tajiks; the languages were formerly also called GÚal±a/Ghalchah, see, e.g., Grierson, pp. 3-4) in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, eastern Tajik SSR. Eight specific nationalities are recognized there, and the populations of seven of them have been estimated for 1960 (Akiner, pp. 374-79): ˆug@n^ (20,000); Ro@Þa@n^ (7,000-8,000); Wa@kò^ (6,000-7,000); Bartang^ (q.v.; 3,000-4,000); Yazg@ula@m^ (1,500-2,000); K¨u@f^ (1,000-1,500); and EÞka@Þm^ (500). No estimate was provided for the Baju@^. Also now included with the Tajiks are the Yag@no@b^, who were listed separately in 1926 (population 1,829). In addition, Afghans were listed in the 1926, 1959, and 1970 censuses (populations of 5,348, 1,855, and 4,184, respectively) but not in the 1979 census.

Bibliography : Akademiya Nauk Tadzhiksko¥ SSR, Atlas Tadzhiksko¥ Sovetsko¥ Sotsialististichesko¥ Respubliki, Dushanbe, 1968 (detailed population maps of the Tajik Republic). S. Akiner, Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union, London, 1983. S. Becker, Russia's Protectorate in Central Asia, Cambridge, Mass., 1968. A. Benningsen and S. E. Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, Bloomington, Ind., 1986. A. J. Coale, B. Anderson, and E. Harm, Human Fertility in Russia since the Nineteenth Century, Princeton, 1979. Glavnoe Upravlenie Geodezii i Kartografii pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, Atlas SSSR, 1986 (maps of population distribution in Central Asia). Goskomstat SSSR, Naselenie SSSR, 1987, Moscow, 1988. G. A. Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India X: Specimens of the Eranian Family, Delhi, etc., 1921; repr. 1968. S. I. Islomov, Demografiya Tadzhikistana, Dushanbe, 1985. M. K. Karakhanov, Nekapitalisticheski¥ put' razvitiya i problemy narodonaseleniya, Tashkent, 1983. V. I. Kozlov, National'nosti SSSR, Moscow, 1986. L. Krader, Peoples of Central Asia, Bloomington, Ind., 1963. R. A. Lewis and R. H. Rowland, Population Redistribution in the USSR, New York, 1979. Idem and R. S. Clem, Nationality and Population Change in Russia and the USSR, New York, 1976. F. Lorimer, The Population of the Soviet Union, Geneva, 1946. I. R. Mullyadzhanov, Demograficheskoe razvitie Uzbeksko¥ SSR, Tashkent, 1983. Naselenie Sredne¥ Azii, Moscow, 1985. Pravda, 29 April 1989, p. 2. Razvitie narodonaseleniya i problemy trudovykh resursov respublik Sredne¥ Azii, Tashkent, 1988. Tsentral'noe Statisticheskoe Upravlenie SSSR, Vsesoyuznaya perepis' naseleniya 1926 goda, Moscow, 1929 (1926 Soviet census). Idem, Itogi vsesoyuzno¥ perepisi naseleniya 1959 goda, Moscow, 1962-63 (1959 Soviet census). Idem, Chislennost' i sostav naseleniya po dannym vsesoyuzno¥ perepisi naseleniya 1979 goda, Moscow, 1984 (1979 Soviet census). Tsentral'ny¥ Statisticheski¥ Komitet, Sbornik svedeni¥ po Rossii za 1884-1885 gg., St. Petersburg, 1887. Idem, Pervaya vseobshchaya perepis' naseleniya Rossi¥sko¥ Imperii, 1897 g., St. Petersburg, 1899-1905 (Russian census of 1897). R. Wixman, The Peoples of the USSR, Armonk, N.Y., 1984. Annual population totals and data on fertility and mortality can be found in the annual statistical series for the USSR, Tsentral'noe Statisticheskoe Upravlenie SSSR, Narodnoe khozya¥stvo v SSSR (through 1987), as well as those for the individual Central Asian republics. Population data can also occasionally be found in the journal Vestnik statistiki.

The sources. The main evidence for the history of Central Asia before the coming of Islam comes from archeological excavations, while written sources contain little information. Historical texts include the Old Persian inscriptions by Darius I and Xerxes I (6th-5th cents. b.c.e.), the Chinese dynastic histories (covering events from the 2nd cent. b.c.e. onward; for a summary see Samolin) and accounts of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims (the earliest was Fa-xian/Fa-hsien ca. 400 c.e.; see buddhism i), fragmentary Greek writings of travelers or geographies (such as Ptolemy and Strabo), early Arabic histories and geographies, plus indigenous inscriptions and documents such as the early Sogdian Ancient Letters (q.v.) from the Dunhuang times and the later Sogdian letters from Mt. Mug east of Samarkand. Scattered Sogdian, Bactrian, Choresmian, Parthian, and Middle Persian, as well as Indian inscriptions on wall paintings, ostraca, or on boulders or coin legends give some assistance in reconstructing history (for a Sogdian inscription on a wall painting from Afra@s^a@b, q.v., old Samarkand, see Frye, 1967, p. 35; for the Parthian inscriptions from Nisa see Dyakonov and Livshits; for Bactrian, Middle Persian, and Prakrit in Kharosátáh^ script see Staviski¥; numerous inscriptions in Sogdian, Bactrian, Middle Persian, Chinese, and Indian Prakrits in both Brahmi and Kharosátáh^ scripts were found on boulders in the upper Indus valley, Sims-Williams, 1989). Most of the inscriptions contain almost exclusively names of merchants, however, although coin legends in Choresmian and Sogdian also provide names of rulers and towns (Vamberg and Smirnova). The literary texts, that is, the Avesta and the Pahlavi texts, contain only little information. For the Avesta see avestan geography (with further refs.), and for the Pahlavi texts see in particular the geographical chapters of the BundahiÞn (chaps. 9 on the mountains, 10 on the seas, 11 on the rivers, 12 on the lakes) and the Pahlavi version of Vide@vda@d, chap. 1, with Christensen's commentary.

The earliest times. From excavations much information has been obtained about the daily life of both rulers and ruled. The discovery of Neanderthal remains in a cave at Teshik-Tash, Uzbekistan, indicates an early human settlement in Central Asia (cf. Okladnikov). Although subsequent finds are few, one may suppose a continuous occupation through the migration of the Indo-Iranian peoples into the area from the northwest at the beginning of the second millennium. Several questions about these migrations are difficult, if at all possible, to answer. First of them is the question about the identity of the aboriginal population in Central Asia at the time of the migrations, and second is the time of the split between Iranians and Indians and the duration of Indian occupation of the area. A generally accepted belief is that the Indians split from the Iranians sometime during the first half of the second millennium b.c.e. and preceded the Iranians, who moved onto the Iranian plateau at the beginning of the first millennium b.c.e. (for references to this theory see Ghirshman). Differing opinions have been expressed by M. Mayrhofer and I. M. Dyakonov. It is uncertain whether ancestors of the Dravidians, such as the Brahui (q.v.) in present Baluchistan, or of the Burusho (see burushaski) in Hunza, inhabited large parts of Central Asia in early times before the expansion of the Indo-Iranians. As we have no records of identifiable pre-Aryan peoples in Central Asia or in Northwest India the suggestion above is nothing more than a plausible guess.

The coming of the Iranian tribes. In any case, neither the aborigines nor the Indians remained in Central Asia; either they were absorbed or were pushed out by the Iranians, who settled in the area by tribes. Archeology is our only source for this pre-literate period of the history of Central Asia. For a survey of early sites in Soviet Central Asia see Kohl, ed., and, for a more comprehensive survey of sites in Central Asia after the early Bronze Age, Koshelenko (1985). Masson, 1966 (1981) contains useful bibliographical surveys of the main archeological sites (pp. 225-30). A. Koshelenko makes the following divisions for this early period: 1. Early Iron Age in the areas of the Marv oasis, northern Parthia, the Sarakhs oasis, northern Bactria, Fergana, the Tashkent oasis, Ustrushana; 2. the Ancient era, in which Choresmia, Fergana, and Sogdiana are added to the Iron Age areas. The Bactrians settle in present northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan, while the Sogdians occupy the Zarafshan river and Fergana valleys.

In Bactria sites along the rivers have provided information about the material culture of the early Iranians who settled there. Along the Surkhan Dar'ya numerous larger and smaller sites have been explored; such as old Termez, Dal'verzin Tepe (q.v.), Zar Tepe, A¥rtam (q.v.), and Khalchayan. Numerous sites are also located in the Hissar valley, on the lower Kafirnigan valley, on the right (west) bank of the Vakhsh river, on the lower left bank of the Vakhsh (Lagman, Kafyr Kala, etc.), on the valley between the Tair Su and Kyzyl Su (for references and complete lists of these sites see Koshelenko, pp. 250-72). Among the sites in Sogdiana the following may be mentioned: Kashka Dar'ya with centers Karshi and Shakhrisiyab Kitab (Kalyandar Tepe) and Kurgan Tepe; other sites are located in the vicinity of Samarkand (other than Afra@s^a@b) and in the Bukharan oasis (see Koshelenko, pp. 273-92). Numerous sites have been explored in the Fergana valley (Koshelenko, pp. 304-316) and in the Tashkent oasis sites (e.g., Dal'verzin Tepe, q.v.; Koshelenko, pp. 297-303). The Choresmians settled throughout the region to the south of the Aral Sea around the Oxus River, although they originally may also have roamed south of that region. Among the principal sites of Choresmia are Gyaur Kala, Toprak Kala, Kzyl Kala, and Ko¥-Krylgan Kala. It is noteworthy that the pattern of settlement in Choresmia, unlike in other areas, was the fortified castle or kala. The archeological work in this area was led for many years by S. P. Tolstov and has been described in the reports on the excavations of the Choresmian expeditions, as well as in other publications (e.g., Tolstov), in which a detailed picture of the material culture of that region is drawn. To the north of the oases in the steppes were the nomads called Scythians by the Greeks and Sakas in the Old Persian inscriptions (Herodotus, bk. 1; Pyankov; Kent, Old Persian; see also, e.g., Bongard-Levin and Grantoskij; Litvinski¥; Akishev, 1984).

In his inscriptions Darius, and after him Xerxes, mentions the following northeastern parts of his empire (the order varies in the inscriptions): Parƒava (Parthia), Zra(n)ka (Drangiana), Haraiva (Hera@t), Margu (Marv), Uva@razmiy (Choresmia), Ba@xtriÞ (Bactria), Suguda (Sogdia), and two Saka peoples, the haumavarga and the tigraxauda; on the trilingual golden plates from Persepolis and Hamada@n (DPh and DH, Kent, Old Persian, pp. 136-37, 147) he boasts that his empire reaches from the Sakas who are beyond Sogdia to Ethiopia and from Sind to Sardis. In the B^sotu@n inscription (DB 5.20-30, Kent, Old Persian, pp. 133-34) Darius says: “Afterwards with an army I went to the land of the Sakas after the Sakas who wear a pointed hat. These Sakas went from me. When I arrived at the sea, then I crossed beyond it with all my army. Afterwards I defeated the Sakas exceedingly. Another I took captive who was led bound to me and I slew him.” We may presume that the Central Asian provinces of the empire were not uniformly quiet down to the invasion of Alexander the Great, but we have no information about revolts or any events here during the rest of Achaemenid rule, so whether Darius actually fought against the Sakas in Central Asia as well as in south Russia, as suggested by the B^sotu@n inscription, is uncertain. According to the Greek sources (Herodotus, 3.92; Arrian, 3.8.3) Central Asian contingents and officers served in the Achaemenid armies.

It is uncertain how far Iranian tribes, presumably mostly the Sakas, extended into the steppes to the north of the oases of Central Asia, but archeological finds at such sites as Issyk Kurgan near modern Alma Ata (Akishev, 1978) and Pazyryk in Siberia (Rudenko) suggest that Iranians dominated the steppes as well as the settled regions to the south. From Pazyryk comes the oldest relatively well preserved carpet in the world (late 4th-early 3rd centuries b.c.e.) with Achaemenid motifs but probably manufactured locally (see carpets vi). In the Issyk kurgan (burial tomb) was a prince with a tall hat and armor of gold, presumably a Saka prince. The movement of various tribes or peoples on the steppes, however, can only be guessed, as we have no written sources. The time of the movement of the “Tokharians,” an Indo-European people speaking a language of the European, rather than Asian, type (Centum language) into Chinese Turkistan is much disputed; estimates range from the third millennium to the second century b.c.e. If the movement took place in the 8th century b.c.e., as has been suggested, then the “Tokharians” would have moved from west to east before the expansion of the Sakas into the steppes from the south as Herodotus tells us (for historical questions connected with the “Tocharians” see Ivanov and Winter).

Excavations at the Bactrian site of A¥ Khanom (AÚy K¨a@nom, q.v.) on the Kokcha river in northern Afghanistan, as well as other Bactrian sites on the Oxus, have revealed the purely Greek character of the culture of these sites under the Seleucid successors of Alexander (Francfort, Bernard, et al., eds.; the publications of the De‚le‚gation arche‚ologique française en Afghanistan; also Litvinskiy and Pichikan). Inscriptions of Greek poetry, as well as styles of architecture and town planning, were just as characteristic of Central Asia as of mainland Greece (Bernard, 1975, p. 457; idem, 1978, p. 453). Hellenic art influences, such as Corinthian columns and volutes in architecture, had a great influence on Central Asian art (Bernard in Francfort and Bernard, eds., I, 1973, pp. 211-13) just as the beautiful coinage of the Greco-Bactrian rulers influenced all later coinage in Central Asia, both by the use of the Attic weight system and by style of obverses and reverses of the money (Mitchener, I, pp. 10-18). Trade with China probably developed more under the Greco-Bactrians in the 3rd-2nd centuries b.c.e. than earlier, as suggested by the presence of Greek words in several languages of Chinese Turkistan (see china and iran i).

In the second half of the 2nd century b.c.e. Central Asia was the scene of nomadic invasions from the north and east (see, e.g., Bivar, 1966, pp. 51-52). The Sakas moved south into the land which bears their name, S^sta@n (from Proto-Iranian *Sakasta@na), and into India where small Saka (S´aka) kingdoms were created. Probably at this time they also established a kingdom in Khotan (q.v.; see also as‚oka iv). The Greco-Bactrian state collapsed under this invasion but other rulers maintained power in the Hindu Kush mountains and in India (cf. Narain, pp. 145-47). After a period of confusion one of the invading peoples, called Yue-zhi (Yueh-chih) in Chinese sources, established a state north of the Oxus River and then in the first century c.e. spread to the south under one of the tribes, which gave its name to the new Kushan empire (Gafurov, ed., esp., I, pp. 182-98, and II, pp. 42-46; Samolin, see index). North of Sogdiana it seems a confederation of settlements and nomadic tribes came into existence called Kang-qu (K'ang-chü) in Chinese sources (Litvinskij, 1972, 1976; Samolin, see index). It is uncertain how much control the Kushans exerted on the settled folk of Central Asia, but because of the scarcity of Kushan coins in Choresmia, as well as the striking of their own coins, we may infer that the Choresmians were independent or in a loose vassal relationship with the Kushans (see Va¥nberg for a history of the land as well as a catalogue of coins). The Sogdians too probably were in a vassal relationship with the Kushans, who directed most of their efforts of expansion in the Indian subcontinent (Gafurov, ed., II, pp. 9-15).

Sasanian times. In the third century c.e. the Kushan empire seems to have split into two or more parts, and Central Asia was invaded from the Sasanian empire. The data and the extent of Sasanian expansion in the east, however, is uncertain, but probably both Bactrians and Sogdians acknowledged some sort of submission to the western power. The history of T®abar^ tells us that under the first Sasanian ruler ArdaÞ^r, the Kushans submitted to him (Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, pp. 4-6), and in the inscription of ˆa@pu@r on the Ka¿ba-ye ZardoÞt at NaqÞ-e Rostam it is said that the empire of Iran included the Kushan domains (KuÞa@nÞahr) as far as Ka@Þ (Kashgar ?) and Sogdiana (ed. Back, pp. 288-89). In the inscriptions of ˆa@pu@r I and his successors the following northeastern provinces of the Sasanian empire are listed: Marw, Hare@w, AbarÞahr, KuÞa@n, Ka@Þ, Sugd, Ùa@±, Xwa@razm (inscriptions of ˆa@pu@r on the Ka¿ba-ye ZardoÞt at NaqÞ-e Rostam and of Narseh I at Paikuli, see, e.g., Maricq, pp. 336-37 [78-79], Humbach and Skjærvø, III/2, pp. 122-24). Later conquests by the Sasanians north of the Oxus are unknown, but trade and cultural influences were strong (for trade relations cf. Pigulevskaya, pp. 1-12). The Choresmians maintained their own dynasty, and relations with the Sasanians are unclear for early periods, but after the fourth century their land was independent, if not in some vassal relationship with the Hephthalites (q.v.) or later the Turks (Va¥nberg, pp. 89-93; Muninova, pp. 40-50). To the north of the oasis states we have no information, but with the continuing expansion of nomads to the south we may presume the end of any confederation and rather the rule of local dynasts. This is confirmed by coins, the main source of information for the period before the Arab conquests (cf. Zeimal, pp. 233-51).

The end of the fourth century saw a change on the steppes of Central Asia with the expansion from the east of the Altaic-speaking peoples, under the pressure of which the Iranian nomads moved south and west, although it seems some were ruled by Altaic nomads or were absorbed by the newcomers (McGovern, pp. 399-419). Sogdiana and Bactria were invaded by Chionites (q.v.), probably a nomadic group with Altaic rulers but Iranian common folk. It seems that the name Chionite, which appears in Byzantine sources, is related to the word Hun, and the name of the Hunáas, who invaded India in the middle of the fifth century (Moravscik, s.vv. Chionites, Huns). The Chionites were succeeded by the Hephthalites, again probably a mixed horde (Enoki, 1959, 1969). According to Enoki Chinese accounts of the Hephthalites indicate that they were primarily mountaineers from the lands to the west of the Pamirs, but others argue for their steppe origin (Bivar, 1983, pp. 213-15). In spite of these invasions and foreign rulers the local people of Central Asia developed their trading activities, with the Choresmians establishing extensive relations with the Volga river and eastern European areas, bringing furs, amber, beeswax, and other commodities back, while the Sogdians were the traders of the east, extending their activities and their trading colonies into China and Mongolia (Frye, 1972, pp. 266-68). The trade of the Sogdians was in cloth, precious stones, and spices from India in exchange for silk and various craft objects from China. The Bactrians, of course, were more concerned with trade to the south, but it seems that all of the Central Asians were primarily middlemen in trade in all directions, and the trade was primarily in luxury objects, as the risks of long distance trade in those times required large returns.

Trade, religion, culture. The extensive trading activities of the Central Asians coincided with the expansion of the universalist, missionary religions and the Central Asian were instrumental in spreading those religions. The earliest was Buddhism (q.v.), which reached Central Asia under the Greco-Bactrians; later Bactria became a center of Buddhism under the Kushans (Klimkeit, 1986, pp. 8-10). Archeology has revealed numerous Buddhist remains in present northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and even though we may not have any Buddhist writings in the Bactrian (q.v.) language (the contents of the so-called Hephthalite fragments have not yet been identified for certain, see bactrian, p. 346b bottom), we may presume that they existed but have not survived. One fragment from Turfan in Manichean script but in the Bactrian language contains a Manichean text (Gershevitch, 1984; bactrian). Buddhism continued to flourish in Bactria into the Islamic period and only in the ninth century of our era did Balkò (q.v.), the largest city of Bactria, become Muslim in religion (Litvinsky, 1968, p. 121). Buddhism apparently made little progress in Sogdiana and Choresmia, and the greatest success was to the north and east of Central Asia (cf. Rapoport, pp. 119-21). The accounts of Chinese Buddhist travelers to the west such as Xuanzang (Hsüan Tsang) give us welcome details about the presence of Buddhism in various oases of Central Asia.

In Sogdiana a local form of Mazdeism was the dominant religion (cf. Henning), although Manicheism and Nestorian Christianity both had adherents, and we may suppose that it was primarily Sogdians who spread both religions to the east by missionaries in the caravans of merchants (cf. Barthold, 1901, pp. 20-26; Hage, p. 518). In Chinese Turkestan Sogdian became a lingua franca, and even the Turkish states in Mongolia and the Altai mountains used Sogdian as their written language, although later they were to develop their own system of writing of their languages using modified Sogdian script. The Sogdian city states of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Ùa@± (Tashkent) flourished in the period of Hephthalite domination, and this did not change with the Turkish conquest of the Hephthalites in the 560s of our era (Smirnova, 1970, esp. pp. 122-55). The ease with which the Sogdians replaced Hephthalite overlordship with Turkish reveals the attitude of the merchant society which sought stability so trade could flourish (for the expansion of the Turks see Barthold, 1945; for the Sogdian culture see Azarpay).

The Choresmians also followed a local form of Mazdaism, although here, as with the Sogdians, universalist religions were active (Rapoport; Livshits). Archeology has revealed the same kind of culture and civilization as in Sogdiana but not as rich or ostentatious. Also the Choresmians were unified under one dynasty unlike the Sogdian city states (Tolstov and the many publications of the Southern Choresmian expedition). Their language (see choresmian) was originally written in a modified Aramaic alphabet, but later, perhaps in the 10th and 11th centuries, the Choresmians began to write their language in Arabic characters, which apparently was not the case with the Sogdians. Missionaries in Choresmian caravans spread Islam to the Volga region beginning in the 9th century, and the Volga Tatars maintained relations with Choresmia in later times (Togan, pp. 217-18, 253-56). One of the articles of trade with the north was silver, especially in the form of bowls, rhytons, and plates (Frye, 1971, pp. 255-62; idem, 1972, p. 266). The Choresmians played the same role in the west as the Sogdians did in the east in the spread of ideas and culture (Yagodin, pp. 128-68).

Although the Sasanians controlled Bactria and some areas to the north of the Oxus River in the late 3rd and 4th centuries through their Kushano-Sasanian governors, who at times were independent rulers, the nomadic invasions eliminated Sasanian rule in Central Asia, and only raids and temporary incursions were made by the Persians in later times (Carter). The raids by Bahra@m IV (q.v.; r. 388-99) left a mark on Bukhara, where the coinage of the Sasanian ruler was adopted as a prototype for the local coinage of Bukhara (Frye, 1949). Later the Sasanian general Bahra@m Ùo@b^n (q.v.) defeated the Turks and obtained booty from his campaigns in 589 (Kolesnikov, pp. 51-53). Sasanian cultural influences, however, grew such that Central Asia in the period before the Islamic conquest was considered by Arnold to be a provincial Sasanian outpost in cultural matters (Arnold, pp. 10-11). Thanks to archeology this view has changed, and we know that the Sogdian city states and Choresmia were centers of their own cultures (cf. Belenitzki/Belenitski¥ for Sogdiana, Tolstov for Choresmia).

The coming of Islam. Marv became an Arab center in the east, just as it had been for the Sasanians, and raids across the Oxus began in 673 and continued almost yearly after that (Gibb). The Muslim conquest of Central Asia began with Qotáayba b. Moslem, who became Umayyad governor of Khorasan in 705, and he established Arab rule firmly in lands to the north of the Oxus. Several times the local rulers rebelled against Arab hegemony, and from one of them, called D^va@st^±, lord of Panjikent, we have twenty letters in Sogdian telling, among other matters, of his attempts to organize resistance against the invaders, although to no avail, as he lost his life by Arab orders in 722 (Livshits, 1962, pp. 90-91). It is true that the Sogdian city states turned to their nominal rulers the western Turks for aid, but also to no avail. Neither their successors, the eastern Turks, nor the Turgesh later were able to dislodge the Muslims. Conversions to Islam turned Central Asia into a great Islamic cultural center, and gradually other religions died out. Central Asia and its cultures, however, played an important role in the development of an Islamic civilization including art, architecture, literature, and thought. By the 4th/10th century under the Samanids Central Asia was fully Islamicized (Negmatov, pp. 23-66). The Samanids were the last Iranian dynasty to rule in Central Asia with their center in Bukhara through the tenth century. Afterwards only Turkic dynasties ruled this part of the world.

Bibliography : A. K. Akishev, Kurgan Issyk, Moscow, 1978. Idem, Iskusstvo i mifologiya Sakov, Alma-Ata, 1984. T. W. Arnold, Survivals of Sasanian and Manichaean Art in Persian Painting, Oxford, 1924. G. Azarpay, Sogdian Painting, Berkeley, 1981. M. Back, Die sassanidischen Staatsinschriften, Acta Iranica 18, Tehran and Lieàge, 1978. W. Barthold, Zur Geschichte des Christentums in Mittel-Asien, Tübingen, 1901. Idem, Histoire des Turcs d'Asie Centrale, Paris, 1945. A. M. Belenitski¥ (Belenitzki), Zhivopis' drevnego Pendzhikenta, Moscow, 1954. Idem, Mittelasien. Kunst der Sogden, Leipzig, 1980. E. Benveniste, “La ville de Cyreschata,” JA, 1947, pp. 163-66. P. Bernard in Comptes rendus de l'Acade‚mie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, April-June, 1975, pp. 167-97 and April-June 1978, pp. 421-63. A. D. H. Bivar, “The History of Eastern Iran,” in Camb. Hist. Iran III, 1983, pp. 181-231. Idem, Zentralasien, in G. Hambly, ed., Fischer Weltgeschichte, vol. 16, Frankfurt am Main, 1966. G. M. Bongard-Levin and E. A. Grantoskij, De la Scythie aà l'Inde, Paris, 1981. M. L. Carter, “A Numismatic Reconstruction of Kushano-Sasanian History,” American Numismatic Society, Museum Notes 30, 1985, pp. 215-81. A. Christensen, Le premier chapitre du Vendidad et l'histoire primitive des tribus iraniennes, Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, hist.-filol. medd. 29/4, Copenhagen, 1943. P. Crone, Slaves on Horseback, Cambridge, 1981. I. M. Dyakonov, “Die Arier im Vorderen Orient: Ende eines Mythos,” Orientalia 41, 1972, pp. 91-120. I. M. Dyakonov and V. A. Livshits, Parthian Economic Documents from Nisa, Corpus Inscr. Iran. III/2, Moscow, 1976. K. Enoki, “On the date of the Kidarites,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 27, 1969, pp. 1-26. Idem, “On the Nationality of the Ephthalites,” ibid., 18, 1959, pp. 1-58. H. P. Francfort, P. Bernard, et al., eds., Fouilles d'Aï Khanoum, vols. 1-7, Paris, 1973-87. R. N. Frye, Notes on the Early Coinage of Transoxiana, American Numismatic Society, New York, 1949. Idem, “The Significance of Greek and Kushan Archaeology in the History of Central Asia,” Journal of Asian History 1, 1967, p. 35. Idem, “Sasanian Silver and History,” in E. Bosworth, ed., Iran and Islam in Memoriam V. Minorsky, Edinburgh, 1971, pp. 255-62. Idem, “Byzantine and Sasanian Trade Relations with Northeastern Russia,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 26, 1972, pp. 265-69. Idem, The History of Ancient Iran, chaps. 3, 7, 9 and 12. A. von Gabain, “Irano-Turkish Relations in the Late Sasanian Period,” in Camb. Hist. Iran III, 1983, pp. 613-24. B. G. Gafurov, ed., Tsentral'naya Aziya v kushanskuyu eàpokhu, 2 vols., Moscow, 1974-75. I. Gershevitch, The Avestan Hymn to Mithra, Cambridge, 1967. Idem, “The Bactrian Fragment in Manichean Script,” in Harmatta, ed., 1984, pp. 273-80. R. Ghirshman, L'Iran et la migration des Indo-Aryens et des Iraniens, Leiden, 1977. b H. A. R. Gibb, The Arab Conquests in Central Asia, London, 1923.

W. Hage, “Das Nebeneinander christlicher Konfessionen im mittelalterlichen Zentralasien,” in ZDMG, Supp. 2, Wiesbaden, 1969, pp. 517-25. J. Harmatta, ed., Prolegomena to the Sources on the History of Pre-Islamic Central Asia, Budapest, 1979. Idem, ed., Studies in the Sources on the History of Pre-Islamic Central Asia, Budapest, 1979. Idem, ed., From Hecataeus to al-Huwarizmi, Budapest, 1984. H. W. Haussig, Die Geschichte Zentralasiens and der Seidenstrasse in vorislamischer Zeit, Grundzüge 49, Darmstadt, 1983. W. B. Hennig, “A Sogdian God,” BSOAS 28, 1965, pp. 242-54. H. Humbach and P. O. Skjærvø, The Sassanian Inscription of Paikuli, 3 vols. in 4, Wiesbaden, 1978-83. V. V. Ivanov, “Yazykovye dannye o proiskhozhdenii kushansko¥ dinastii i tokharskaya problema,” Narody Azii i Afriki 3, 1967, pp. 106-19. H.-J. Klimkeit, Die Begegnung von Christentum, Gnosis and Buddhismus an der Seidenstrasse, Opladen, 1986. Idem, Die Seidenstrasse, Cologne, 1988. P. L. Kohl, ed., The Bronze Age Civilization of Central Asia, Armonk, N.Y., 1981. A. I. Kolesnikov, “Iran v nachale VII veka,” Palestinski¥ sbornik 22, 1970, pp. 1-110. A. Koshelenko, ed., Drevne¥shie gosudarstva Kavkaza i Sredne¥ Azii, Moscow, 1985. B. A. Litvinsky, Outline History of Buddhism in Central Asia, Moscow, 1968. B. A. Litvinski¥, Drevnie kochevniki “Kryshi mira,” Moscow, 1972. B. A. Litvinskij, “Das K'ang-chu-Sarmatische Farn,” Central Asian Journal 16, 1972, pp. 242-89, 20, 1976, pp. 47-74. B. A. Litvinskiy and I. R. Pichikan, “Monuments of Art from the Sanctuary of Oxus,” in Harmatta, ed., 1984, pp. 25-84. V. A. Livshits, Sogdi¥skie dokumenty s gory Mug, Moscow, 1962. Idem, “The Khwarezmian Calendar and the Eras of Ancient Chorasmia,” Acta Antiqua Hungaricae 16, 1968, pp. 433-46. A. Maricq, “Res Gestae Divi Saporis,” Syria 35, 1958, pp. 295-360; repr. in Classica et Orientalia, Paris, 1965, pp. 37-101. V. M. Masson, Das Land der tausend Städte. Baktrien, Choresmien, Margiane, Parthien, Sogdien. Ausgrabungen in der südlichen Sowjetunion, Wiesbaden and Berlin, 1987 (tr. by M. T. E. Seitz of Strana tysyachi gorodov, Moscow, 1966, repr. 1981). M. Mayrhofer, Die Arier im Vorderen Orient—Ein Mythos?, Vienna, 1974. W. M. McGovern, The Early Empires of Central Asia, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1939. M. Mitchener, Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian Coinage, 9 vols., London, 1975-76. G. Moravscik, Byzantino-Turcica, Berlin, 1958. I. M. Muninova, Istoriya Khoresma, Tashkent, 1976. A. K. Narain, The Indo-Greeks, Oxford, 1957. N. N. Negmatov, Gosudarstvo Samanidov, Dushanbe, 1977. A. P. Okladnikov, “Neandertal'ski¥ chelovek i sledy ego kul'tury v Sredne¥ Azii,” Sovetskaya arkheologiya 6, 1940, pp. 5-19. D. Pipes, Slave Soldiers and Islam, New Haven, 1981. N. V. Pigulevskaya, Vizantiya i Iran na rubezhe VI-VII vekov, Moscow, 1946. B. B. Petrovski¥ and G. M. Bongard-Levin, eds., Tsentral'naya Aziya. Novye pamyatniki pis'mennosti i iskusstva, Moscow, 1987 (numerous contributions on art, archeology, and texts; note E. V. Ze¥mal', “K periodizatsii drevne¥ istorii Sredne¥ Azii”). I. V. Pyankov, Srednyaya Aziya v izvestiyakh antichnogo istorika Ktesiya, Dushanbe, 1975. Yu. A. Rapoport, Iz istorii religii drevnego Khorezma, Moscow, 1971. I. Ronca, Ptolemaios. Geographie 6, 9-21. Ostiran and Zentralasien, Rome, 1971. S. I. Rudenko, Kul'tura naseleniya tsentral'nogo Altaya v skifskoe vremya, Moscow, 1960. W. Samolin, East Turkistan to the Twelfth Century. A Brief Political Survey, Central Asiatic Studies 9, London, etc., 1964. N. Sims-Williams, Inscriptions in Sogdian and Other Iranian Languages from the Upper Indus, Corpus Inscr. Iran. III/2, London, 1989. O. I. Smirnova, Ocherki iz istorii Sogda, Moscow, 1970. Idem, Katalog monet s gorodishcha Pendzhikent, Moscow, 1973. Idem, Svodny¥ katalog sogdi¥skikh monet. Bronza, Moscow, 1981. V. Y. Staviski¥, Kara Tepe, 4 vols. 1-4, Moscow, 1964-75. W. W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India, Cambridge, 1951. A. Z. V. Togan, Ibn Fadlan's Reisebericht, Leipzig, 1939. S. P. Tolstov, Drevni¥ Khorezm, Moscow, 1948. Idem, Po sledam drevne-khorezmi¥sko¥ tsivilizatsii, Moscow and Leningrad, 1948; Germ. tr. O. Mehlitz, Auf den Spuren der altchoresmischen Kultur, Berlin, 1953. B. I. Va¥nberg, Monety drevnego Khorezma, Moscow, 1977. W. Winter, “Tocharians and Turks,” in D. Sinor, ed., Aspects of Altaic Civilization, Indiana University Publications, Ural and Altaic Series 23, pp. 239-51. V. N. Yagodin, Nekropol' drevnego Mizdakhkana, Tashkent, 1970. E. V. Zeimal, “The Political History of Transoxiana,” in Camb. Hist. Iran III, 1983, pp. 232-62.

In early Islamic times Persians tended to identify all the lands to the northeast of Khorasan and lying beyond the Oxus with the region of Turan, which in the ˆa@h-na@ma of Ferdows^ is regarded as the land allotted to Fere@du@n's son Tu@r. The denizens of Tu@ra@n were held to include the Turks, in the first four centuries of Islam essentially those nomadizing beyond the Jaxartes, and behind them the Chinese (see Kowalski; Minorsky, “Tu@ra@n”). Tu@ra@n thus became both an ethnic and a geographical term, but always containing ambiguities and contradictions, arising from the fact that all through Islamic times the lands immediately beyond the Oxus and along its lower reaches were the homes not of Turks but of Iranian peoples, such as the Sogdians and Khwarezmians. Equally imprecise was the Arabic designation Ma@ Wara@÷ al-Nahr “the land beyond the river” (i.e., Amu Darya, the Oxus), which passed also into Persian literary usage and was used until post-Mongol times, e.g., by H®a@fezá-e Abru@ and by Ba@bor. At the outset, however, those nearby parts of Central Asia with which the Arabs were familiar were often subsumed into the vast and ill-defined province of Khorasan, embracing all lands to the east of Ray, Jeba@l, and Fa@rs.

On the eve of the first Arab incursions across the Oxus in the second half of the 1st/7th century, the ethnically, linguistically, and culturally Iranian lands of K¨úa@razm and Transoxania were still thriving entities linked with the Eurasian steppes, which ran from eastern Europe to the borders of China, by a nexus of commercial routes, benefiting from the religious and intellectual stimuli of both the Iranian and Indian worlds (see also buddhism; choresmia; sogdia). Arab raiders penetrated north of the Oxus in the caliphate of ¿Ot¯ma@n and in the governorship over Khorasan of ¿Abd-Alla@h b. ¿AÚmer b. Korayz (q.v.), but Yaz^d b. Mo¿a@w^a's governor Salm b. Z^a@d (61-64/681-83) was the first Arab commander actually to winter across the Oxus. Disturbances in the heartland of the caliphate meant that it was not till the time of Qotayba b. Moslem Ba@hel^ (86-96/705-15; q.v.) that a firm hold was secured over Transoxania and the upper Oxus provinces, together with the first Arab attack on K¨úa@razm in 93/712 (Gibb, pp. 42-43; also choresmia). But only after 133/751 was Arab rule in Transoxania finally free from challenge. In that year, at the battle of Talas (T®ara@z), the ¿Abbasid forces under Z^a@d b. Sáa@lehá defeated the Chinese general Kao-hsien-chih, for the T¿ang emperors claimed suzerainty over Central Asia and had responded to appeals made to Peking by the threatened Sogdian princes (Ebn al-At¯^r, IV, p. 449; Barthold, Turkestan, pp. 195-96). The Chinese threat was thus averted, as had been, shortly before this, the threat of the Western Turks of TürgeÞ, who as a steppe confederation had been liable to press on the frontiers of Transoxania at times of political weakness and instability there and who had been called in, like the Chinese, by local rulers (Barthold, Turkestan, pp. 186-87; Gibb, pp. 59-87; Grousset, pp. 165-72). Yet whereas the Chinese retreated permanently back behind the T¿ien-Shan Mountains, Turkish pressure was only momentarily dispelled and was later to be exerted by the individual tribes who succeeded to the heritage of the Western Turkish empire in the steppes; certain of these tribes such as the Qarluq (K¨arloq), the probable progenitors of the Islamic Qarakhanids and the Oghuz, from whom the Saljuqs sprang, were later to have decisive and lasting effects on the historical and demographic evolution of Transoxania.

The ¿Abbasids integrated Transoxania in their empire as a province, at first appointing over it a series of ephemeral governors, who had to cope with several movements of social and religious protest, some Islamic in nature, such as those of the Kharijites (q.v.), others distinctly heterodox, such as the uprising of Moqanna¿ and his “Wearers of white,” the Mobayyezμa or Sap^dja@maga@n (q.v.). The integration persisted, helped by the gradual rallying of the landowning or dehqa@n classes in the eastern Iranian lands to Islam and the Islamic ruling order: The members of the abna@÷ al-dawla, supporters of the ¿Abbasid revolution, came from Transoxania, and in the 3rd/9th century Transoxanian Iranian elements in the caliphal armies were perpetuated through local princes like the AfÞ^n (q.v.) K¨aydòa@r of Osru@Þana and contingents from specific areas like the “men of Farg@a@na” and the men of Osru@Þana” (Fara@g@ena and Osru@Þan^ya in the sources); these were undoubtedly free Iranians rather than Turkish slave guards (g@elma@n, mama@l^k; see Ayalon, pp. 29-32).

The Taherid governors of Khorasan in the 3rd/9th century deputed their authority over Transoxania to an Iranian dehqa@n family from T®okòa@resta@n in the upper Oxus valley, the Samanids, who after the capture of the Taherid capital N^Þa@pu@r by the Saffarids in 261/875, were recognized by the ¿Abbasids as their official representatives in Transoxania and Khorasan (R. N. Frye, in Camb. Hist. Iran IV, pp. 137-38). The increasing enfeeblement of the caliphs in Sa@marra@ and Baghdad meant that the Samanids, while always proclaiming their allegiance to the caliphate and to Sunni Islam, could behave as virtually independent rulers. The Arab historians and geographers praise the beneficence of Samanid rule during the later 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries: low taxation, helped by the fact that Samanid amirs could raise money from import and transit dues levied on traffic in the products of inner Asia, above all, on Turkish military slaves (see barda and bardadaúrè v. military slavery); cheap and plentiful provisions from the rich irrigated lands and oases of the Oxus, ZarafÞa@n, and Jaxartes (Syr Darya) valleys; and the generally enlightened rule of the Samanids themselves, which involved respect for scholars and litterateurs and, at least in the years until the decay of the amirate, regularly paid salaries for officials and the troops (see Barthold, Turkestan, pp. 234-40). Socio-religious protest, while not disappearing completely (Isma¿ili propagandists dispatched by the Fatimids seem to have secured a foothold in Transoxania during the reign of Nasár b. Ahámad, 301-31/914-43; see ibid., pp. 242-44), was much diminished. The frontiers of Transoxania and K¨úa@razm were maintained by strong defense lines of reba@tás or frontier fortresses, from which punitive raids could be launched into the steppes when the nomads proved recalcitrant; alliances were made with some Turkish tribes on the frontiers whereby they received subsidies in exchange for acting as frontier guards; and, although little is known about this, a certain amount of evangelism in the pagan steppes may have been undertaken by individual Sufi shaikhs and similar enthusiasts for the faith, such as the Shaikh from N^Þa@pu@r Abu÷l-H®asan Moháammad Kalema@t^ (d. some time before 350/961), who worked among the Qarluq and may have played a part in the conversion of the Qarakhanid prince Satuq Bog@ra Khan (see ibid., pp. 254-56; and Grenard). Thus the northeastern bastions of Islamic faith and civilization, maintenance of which had always been a prime concern of governors and rulers in the East, held firm during these early centuries, and from the second half of the 4th/10th century onward Islamic religion began to influence, even if only superficially, the animistic and shamanistic beliefs of Turkish and other peoples of the steppes like the Oghuz and Qarluq and, further west, the Khazars and Bulghars. Although the complete Islamization of Central Asia was hardly achieved even by the Timurid period, Central Asian Islam began to evolve its own special nature and emphases, seen, e.g., in the Sufi order founded in Transoxania in the later 6th/12th century by the followers of the Turkish holy man Shaikh Ahámad Yasav^ (d. at Yas^, the later town in Turkestan, in the middle Jaxartes valley in 562/1166; see F. Ëz, “Ahámad Yasaw^,” in EI², pp. 298-99).

These political events had profound consequences for Transoxania and K¨úa@razm. The incoming of steppe nomads with their herds, first of Turkish tribesmen and then, in the 7th/13th century, of the Mongols, was bound to have long-term economic and demographic effects. A certain degree of pastoralization may have begun under the Qarakhanids, as there is mention of the setting-up of royal hunting grounds (g@u@roqs) by ˆams-al-Molk Nasár b. Ebra@h^m T®amg@a@± (T®amg@a@j) Khan (460-72/1068-80; see NarÞakò^, p. 35, tr. Frye, p. 29, cf. p. 125). Since the Qarakhanids were a tribal confederation and never formed a centralized state they had several centers of power, from Khotan to Samarqand, but these were only semipermanent (see Pritsak, pp. 23, 37). A continuator of NarÞakò^ (p. 39, tr. p. 33) states that taxes were everywhere lightened when the Qarakhanids replaced the Samanids, and it is possible that the indigenous Iranian landed classes, the dehqa@ns, enjoyed a temporary resurgence of power. Nevertheless, the long-term trends of the 5th/11th and 6th/12th centuries militated against the preservation of the Iranian character of Transoxania and K¨úa@razm. Turkish elements continued to be attracted into these lands from the steppes, with the ultimate effect of the disappearance of the Sogdian and Choresmian languages and the confining of Iranian speech to the mountainous refuge-areas of the upper Oxus, what is now the Tajikistan SSR and the Pamir region (cf. xiii, below).

On the other hand, the strength of Islamic culture and religion exerted a pull in the reverse direction. Once converted to Islam, dynasties like the Qarakhanids and Saljuqs came to share fully in the Islamic heritage, which had always been strong in Khorasan and Transoxania. Persian poets flourished at the courts of the Ilek-khans, and Nezáa@m^ ¿Aru@zμ^ cites thirteen poets who glorified the AÚl-e K¨a@qa@n, as he calls it, among whom ¿Am¿aq of Bukhara (q.v.) was the eulogist of ˆams-al-Molk Nasár and his successor K¨ezμr Khan b. Ebra@h^m (472-73/1080-81; Ùaha@r maqa@la (ed. Qazv^n^, text, pp. 44-45; cf. Browne, Lit. Hist. of Persia II, pp. 335-36); but it was also among the Qarakhanids that the first Islamic Turkish imaginative literature appears, with Yu@sof K¨a@sásá H®a@jeb's Qutadg@u bilig, completed at the local court of Kashghar in 462/1069-70 (see Bombaci, pp. 83-96). In the sphere of toponymy, increased Turcisization in Central Asia is reflected in the appearance—at a point which cannot be precisely documented—of the term Turkestan for the Turkish lands of Central Asia comprising the former Transoxania and K¨úa@razm, while after the Mongol invasions that of Mog@olesta@n appears, more specifically for the steppes to the north of the Oxus-Jaxartes basins and Turkestan proper (M^rza@ H®aydar Dog@la@t, introd. pp. 51ff., tr. pp. 36-37; and Bosworth, “Mogholista@n,” in EI²).

The Mongol invasions of Transoxania were not a cataclysm, in that this appearance of non-Turkish, non-Islamic peoples from remote Inner Asia in Transoxania had been prefigured by the arrival there, some eighty years before Ùeng^z Khan's time, of the Qara Khitay (K¨etáa@y), probably also of Mongol but conceivably of Tungusic stock. In 536/1141 the Qarakhanid Mahámu@d Khan b. Arslan of Samarqand and his suzerain, the Saljuq Sultan Sanjar, were defeated by these incomers at one of the great battles of Central Asia, that of the Qatáva@n Steppe in OÞru@sana to the south of the middle Jaxartes (Ra@vand^, pp. 171ff.; Ebn al-At¯^r, XI, pp. 81-86; Barthold, Turkestan, pp. 326-27). (The news of this event filtered through dimly to the Christian West and gave an impetus to the legend of Prester John, the powerful anti-Islamic monarch who supposedly ruled in Inner Asia). Since the Qara Khitay stemmed from the people of northern China called in Chinese annals the Liao (Wittvogel and Fêng), they were partly sinicized, and the decentralized rule which they established in the eastern parts of Transoxania during the later decades of the 6th/12th century had a distinct Chinese imprint (e.g. in regard to the copper coinage of the Qara Khitay Gür Khans; ibid., pp. 661-62, 664, 672-73), bringing yet another element into what was becoming the ethnic, religious and cultural melting pot in Central Asia.

Bibliography : D. Ayalon, The Military Reforms of Caliph al-Mu¿tasáim. Their Background and Consequences, commun. to the International Congress of Orientalists, New Delhi, 1964; offset Jerusalem, 1963. A. Bombaci, Storia della letteratura turca dall'antico impero di Mongolia all'odierna Turchia, Milan, n.d. [1956]. Barthold, Turkestan³. Idem, Zwölf Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Turken Mittelasiens, Berlin, 1935; French tr. Histoire des Turcs d'Asie Centrale, Paris, 1945. Idem, Four Studies on the History of Central Asia, Leiden, 1962. C. E. Bosworth, “Ma@ wara@÷ al-nahr,” in EI². Camb. Hist. Iran IV, chaps, 1-5; V, chap. 1. M^rza@ H®aydar Dog@la@t, Ta@r^kò-e raÞ^d^, tr. N. Elias and E. D. Ross, A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, London, 1895. H. A. R. Gibb, The Arab Conquests in Central Asia, London, 1923. F. Grenard, “La le‚gende de Satok Boghra Khân et l'histoire,” JA, se‚r. 8, no. 15, 1900, pp. 5-79. R. Grousset, L'empire des steppes, 4th ed., Paris, 1952. G. Hambly, ed., Zentralasien, Fischer Weltgeschichte, Frankfurt, 1966, Eng. tr. Central Asia, London, 1969, chap. 4. T. Kowalski, “Les Turcs dans le ˆa@h-na@me,” Rocznik orientalistyczny 15, 1939-49, pp. 84-99. Le Strange, Lands, pp. 433-89. Markwart, EÚra@nÞahr, pp. 47-93, 199-304. V. Minorsky, “Tu@ra@n,” in EI¹. O. Pritsak, “Die Karachaniden,” Der Islam 31, 1953-54, pp. 17-68. Moháammad b. ¿Al^ Ra@vand^, Ra@háat al-sáodu@r wa a@yat al-soru@r, ed. M. Eqba@l (Iqbal), London, 1921. F. H. Skrine and E. D. Ross, The Heart of Asia. A History of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian Khanates from the Earliest Times, London, 1899, pp. 34-148. K. A. Wittvogel and Fêng Chia-Shêng, History of Chinese Society. Liao (907-1125), Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, N.S. 36, Philadelphia, 1946.

Period of the Great Khans. In the middle of the 7th/13th century Ùag@atai's territorial holdings (ulus) included the area around Lake Issyk-Kul (Èseq-Ku@l) and the region of Yetisu (“seven rivers,” approximately coterminous with the modern Alma-Ata district in southeastern Kazakhstan) and, to the east and northeast of Lake Balkhash, adjoined the land belonging to his brother Ögedei (Ögödei; UÚkada@y, UÚkata@y), who was Great Khan from 626/1229 to 639/1241. Ögedei's ulus included the Tarbagatay mountains and extended north to the valley of the Kara Irtysh river and the Altai mountains. The two domains were not sharply delineated; they were economically interdependent and inhabited by Turks who spoke the same language. The brothers' residences were located in close proximity: in winter on the lower Ili south of Lake Balkhash, in summer farther upriver near Kuldja (I-ning) or east of the lake in Èm^l (Emel; Chuguchak, T'a-ch'eng/Pin-yin: Ta-cheng) on the upper course of the river of the same name. Each brother received allowances from the tax revenues and had at his disposal an army of 4,000 men, and both permitted various lesser dynasties to rule as vassals; the Il-khanids (654-736/1256-1336) did the same in their own territory.

Ùag@atai was recognized throughout the Mongol empire as the guardian of the old customs and the code of law (yasa, ya@sa@), formulated by Ùeng^z Khan, and gained a reputation for active hostility toward Islam. The governor appointed by Ögödei over the urban settlements in Transoxania and the Turfan oasis, the K¨úa@razmian Mahámu@d Yalava± (Yalava@j, d. 652/1254 in China), thus became the defender of his fellow Muslims against the hostility of the nomadic Mongols; he was supported by the Uighur Ùenqei (J^nqa@y; executed in 649/1251). Mahámu@d's son Mas¿u@d took over this role from about 637/1240 until his death in 688/1289, when he was succeeded by three of his sons. During this period nothing was done to prevent Muslims, Nestorian Christians, and Buddhists from practicing their religions, as the Mongols, who were mostly nomadic shamanists, must have found it advantageous to watch over their economic interests. Gradually the region recovered from the particularly severe devastation that it had suffered during the Mongol conquests in 615-18/1219-21, as well as during subsequent internecine conflicts, yet it never regained its former position as a center of Islamic learning and economic prosperity. It was linked to the great khan's newly established capital at Karakorum (Qara@qu@rom), near the headwaters of the Orhon river, by means of the Mongol postal system (yam/ya@m).

The Chaghatayids entered into an alliance with Qaidu, who was recognized as the rightful great khan in Central Asia in or soon after 667/1269, and took part in his campaigns against Qubilai and his clients in the east. These included the Uighur rulers, who were forced to abandon their territories of Beshbalyk (B^Þba@l^g@; north of the Tien Shan mountains near present-day Urumchi), Turfan, and Kucha (Ku@±a@, Ku@ja@), which had passed into the hands of the Chaghatayid khan Du'a (Du@÷a@) by about 689/1290. Ùag@atai's descendants also engaged in lengthy conflict along the northern border of their territory with the White Horde, the eastern branch of the Golden Horde, ruled by the line of Jo±i's son Orda (UÚrda). In conjunction with Qaidu they crossed the Oxus and established a foothold in northern Afghanistan, where they fought against the Il-khans and from where they further launched repeated incursions into northern India. Following Qaidu's death in 702/1303 the descendants of Ùag@atai and Tolui reached an agreement, which was then briefly extended to become the Pax Mongolica announced to western European monarchs by the II-khan in 704/1305 (Mostaert and Cleaves, cited in Camb. Hist. Iran V, p. 399).

The advance of Islam in the Chaghatayid khanate. The struggle between the lines of Qubilai and Ögedei came to an end with the defeat of Qaidu's son Ùapar (Ùa@pa@r) in 708/1309; the ulus of Ögedei then passed to the descendants of Ùag@atai. At that time the Mongol empire in Central Asia consisted of two distinct regions, which continued to evolve along different lines. In the west, in the original ulus of Ùag@atai, Sunnite Islam gradually prevailed. In 726/1326 the Chaghatayid khan ¿Ala@÷-al-D^n TarmaÞirin (TarmaÞir^n) converted, though he was overthrown only eight years later (cf. Haidar) by opponents in the east. The Mongols' acceptance of Islam helped to further their integration with the Muslim Turkish peoples, who were predominant among the population. Doubtless the remnants of the Iranian languages in the area disappeared at about the same time. Under the influence of Islam the rulers were encouraged to give greater consideration to the interests of the cities; for much of this period their capital was in Transoxania, at NakòÞab (QarÞ^/Karshi, southeast of Bukhara), where they created a new administrative organization, based on small individual units, and minted a new type of coinage. Nevertheless, there was continuing opposition between settled inhabitants and nomads (which persisted into the 14th/20th century), and religious leaders, officials, and the army also sought to further their own interests. At the same time the power of certain Turkish clans, the Barla@s, Arlat, and Süldüs (Su@ldu@s), increased substantially, and they were even able to extend their influence over large portions of Afghanistan, to the detriment of the Kartid rulers there (see aúl-e kart).

In the eastern part of the Chaghatayid khanate, around Lake Issyk-Kul, in the former ulus of Ögedei, Islam met with bitter opposition and remained a minority religion in the early decades of the 8th/14th century. The struggle to establish it continued for some time longer and led to conflict and considerable destruction in the Chu and Talas (T®ara@z) valleys, which became visibly depopulated. Nevertheless, in 739-40/1339 the increasing power of the Muslim faith led to the dissolution of the Roman Catholic missionary center at Almalyk (Almalïg@, Alma@l^g@). The Nestorian Christians, who had been represented in Central Asia for hundreds of years, died out completely in the 8th/14th century. Buddhism, which had also played an important role in the region, declined as well. The yasa was gradually replaced in importance by the ˆar^¿a (Islamic law). In 747-48/1347 a (so-called) prince gained recognition as khan and converted to Islam, along with a large portion of the population of this region. A powerful eastern monarchy now confronted the ruling clans in the west. The contrast was so marked that the eastern area was given the name Mog@olesta@n, which remained in use for some time. There, too, the spread of Islam was followed by a Turkicization of the general population, so that the Turkish-language area continued to extend its eastern limits. The Turfan oasis was converted to Islam, and even in western China Muslim groups appeared (e.g., the Dungans), which still survive today. Only the definitive conversion of the Mongols in Mongolia to Buddhism toward the end of the 10th/16th century brought the eastward expansion of Islam to a halt.

T^mu@r's successors, who were, unlike him, essentially peace-loving, devoted themselves to the support of culture, the arts, and religion and to the preservation of his territorial legacy. His fourth son, ˆa@hrokò (807-50/1407-47), succeeded him as ruler of Transoxania, though he lived in Herat, and earned a great reputation as a friend of scholars and poets and as a patron of architecture. He installed his son Olog@ (Ulu@g) Beg as governor at Samarkand, where, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, he enlarged his palace and took steps to prevent the deterioration of many of his ancestor's monuments. His personal interest was astronomy, to which he made significant contributions (cf. Barthold, 1935). Like his father, Olog@ Beg was entirely integrated into Persian Islamic cultural circles, and during his reign Persian predominated as the language of high culture, a status that it retained in the region of Samarkand until the Russian revolution of 1917. Many works of poetry, history, and other learned subjects were composed there in Persian (as later in the empire of the Great Mughals in India). By contrast, Persian was disappearing in Anatolia at the same period, increasingly supplanted by Ottoman Turkish.

Despite occasional forays (particularly an expedition to Lake Issyk-Kul in 828/1425), the Timurids generally tried to effect a reconciliation with Mog@olesta@n and to strengthen trade relations with it, as well as with China. In 822-25/1419-22 ˆa@hrokò dispatched an embassy to the capital of the newly installed Ming dynasty (1368-1644) to dispel fears of an imminent Mongol attack and to prevent the rulers of Mog@olesta@n from enlisting Chinese assistance against the Timurids. ˆa@hrokò experienced considerable difficulties with the Sufis in Transoxania, who had succeeded in gaining considerable economic influence, particularly the order of the NaqÞband^ya and their spiritual leader K¨úa@ja Ahára@r (q.v.). This situation changed radically after his death in 850/1447 and the murder of his son Olog@ Beg in 853/1449. After 855/1451 a great-grandson of T^mu@r, Abu@ Sa¿^d, ruled in Samarkand, though only with the help of the Uzbeks. This Turkish tribe had settled in the winter of 808/1405-06 on the northern bank of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) and had conquered K¨úa@razm in 834/1430-31; by about 859/1445 it had taken the whole northern bank of the Syr Darya, freed itself from the domination of the White Horde (see above) in the north, and ravaged parts of Transoxania. It was impossible for Abu@ Sa¿^d to punish these incursions; in fact, the Uzbeks had obtained a substantial voice in his affairs. Under the leadership of K¨úa@ja Ahára@r the influence of the Sufi orders, which had been strong enemies of the khan's predecessors, increased considerably, and tolerance in religious matters came to an end (cf. Gross; Chekhovich; Paul).

In contrast to western Turkestan, Mog@olesta@n continued to maintain itself as an independent power in the region of the Ili and its tributaries, Lake Issyk-Kul, the Tarim basin, and the Turfan oasis as far west as the Ala Tau mountains and the upper Yenisei (Naryn) rivers. An internal reorganization of the country occurred in connection with the establishment of Islam and the Turkish language under the khan Esen Buqa (Èsen Bu@qa@) II (833-67/1429-62),though these changes led to a long struggle with the “pagan” Oïrats (UÚyra@ts, Qalmaqs) on the Ili and, after 855-57/1451-53, to incursions into Transoxania, which caused serious devastation there. Beginning in 860-61/1456-57, the khan had the support of the Uzbek ruler of K¨úa@razm, Abu÷l-K¨ayr Khan (q.v.), who eventually, in 873/1468, fell in battle against the rebels, or Kazakhs, as they have been known since that time. In the meantime Abu@ Sa¿^d had managed to establish Esen Buqa's brother Yu@nos as a counterclaimant to the throne of Mog@olesta@n. Between Yu@nos and the Oïrats, who had advanced into the region of the Amu Darya (Oxus), Esen Buqa's power was increasingly curtailed. The Turkish amirs and clans joined forces with Yu@nos, who, after his brother's death and ten years of warfare, became ruler of Mog@olesta@n in 876-77/1472. During these battles the power of the tribes in Mog@olesta@n had increased significantly; the khan was forced to allow the Dog@la@t clan to form a kind of vassal state in the southwestern Tarim basin, which was, however, weakened by internal conflict.

During this period of struggle the last important Timurid ruler, H®osayn Ba@yqara@ (q.v.; 875-912/1470-1506), controlled large portions of eastern Persia and Central Asia from his capital at Herat. He encouraged the development of Persian literature and literary talent in every way possible; among the outstanding literary figures who benefited from his patronage were the poet ¿Abd-al-Raháma@n Ja@m^ (817-98/1414-92) and the historian M^rkòúa@nd (836-903/1433-98). At the same time Sultan H®osayn also allowed his famous vizier, the noted poet ¿Al^-ˆ^r Nava@÷^, to further the cause of his mother tongue, the Turkish spoken by the Chaghatay people (See chaghatay language and literature) and to champion its importance as a language of high culture. In fact, Nava@÷^'s own works and the memoirs of the first Mughal emperor, Ba@bor (q.v.; 932-37/1526-30), guaranteed the establishment of this branch of Turkish, now known as Chaghatay, as a literary language (cf. Barthold, 1938; ¿Al^-ˆ^r Nava@÷^; Bertel's). This development was certainly related, at least in part, to the fact that in the early 10t