The geographical and historical meaning of the term “Central Asia” is not as obvious as that of “Asia” or the “Indian subcontinent”, and it requires a definition. Such a definition was given in the introduction to my Bibliography of Islamic Central Asia,1 and, since nothing new has been offered in scholarly literature since then, I will repeat it here in a slightly modified form. In geographical terms, Central Asia extends from the Caspian Sea and the Ural river basin in the west to the Altay mountains and the Turfan oasis in the east, and from the limits of the steppe belt (where it borders the West Siberian forest, the taiga) in the north to the Hindukush and the Kopet-Dagh mountains in the south. But physical geography by itself (even less the contemporary political map of Asia) can hardly define this region, which should instead be approached as a distinct cultural and historical entity. From this standpoint, Central Asia can be defined as the western, Turko-Iranian, part of the Inner Asian heartland; its indigenous population consisted of various Iranian peoples, who have been mostly Turkicized by now, while its growing Turkic population has assimilated its indigenous Iranian culture to various degrees. Beginning with the 8th century A.D., Central Asia was gradually incorporated into the Islamic world (a process that now distinguishes it from the eastern part of the Inner Asian heartland, Mongolia and Tibet). As part of the Islamic world, it shares many cul-
tural features with its Islamic neighbors to the south and to the west, but it combines them in a unique blend with the features it shares with the world of the Inner Asian nomads. It belongs to both of these worlds, being a border area for each of them.