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THE ASHTARKHANIDS KHOREZM THE QAZAQS AND THE JUNGHARS During Mughal Emperor Akbar III 1948-2012

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1994
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YURI BREGEL
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Geography
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Akbar III 1948-2012
Stacked Wooden Logs

Description

The new dynasty that came to power in Bukhara in 1599 is called by some modern scholars the Toqay-Timurids, from the name of its ancestor—Toqay-Timur, the thirteenth son of Jochi, or the Janids, from the name of Jani Muhammad Khan, the first ruler of this dynasty, or the Ashtarkhanids,from the name of the city of Haji-Tarkhan (Astrakhan’), from which the founders of this dynasty came in the 1550s (see map 27); in Central Asian sources, however, only the latter name is found.The Ashtarkhanids ruled over a much reduced territory in comparison with that of the Abulkhayrids: all the conquests of #Abdallah Khan (Khorasan, Khorezm, and since the 1650s Badakhshan) were lost, and the regions in the middle part of the SïrDarya basin (with the cities of Turkestan, Sayram, and Tashkent) and the eastern part of the Ferghana valley (with Andijan) mostly belonged to Qazaq khans and sultans, who ruled them sometimes as Ashtarkhanid vassals, but more often independently. In 1612 the khanate was divided into two parts, Mavarannahr, with its capital in Bukhara, and Balkh with its region. For thirty years, 1612-1642, the ruler of Bukhara was Imam-Quli Khan and the ruler of Balkh was his brother Nadhr Muhammad; the latter was also given the title of khan (or “little khan,” as distinct from the “great khan” in Bukhara), and he was an independent, or almost independent, ruler. Later Balkh was the appanage of the heir-apparent. Thus the Astrakhaned khanate during most of the 17th century was actually a double khanate, consisting of Bukhara (Mavarannahr) and Balkh. Both Mavarannahr and Balkh were divided into smaller subappanages given to the Astrakhaned princes, but the princes did not play as important a role as under the Abulkhayrids. In the second half of the 17th century the chieftains (amirs) of the Uzbek tribes gradually acquired a greater role in state affairs, and this weakened the central authority. But under Imam-Quli Khan the Ashtarkhanid state still enjoyed relative political and economic stability. In 1641 Imam-Quli Khan abdicated and left for Mekka, where he later died, and he was succeeded by Nadhr Muhammad. Nadar Muhammad tried to introduce a land reform (involving the conversion of land grants to the amirs into cash grants to be collected from the treasury), which caused strong opposition.
The amirs of Bukhara were also unhappy about the prominent role of the amirs he brought with him from Balkh. In 1645 a coalition of Bukharan amirs persuaded the khan’s eldest son, #Abd al-#Aziz, who ruled Samarqand, to take Bukhara by force; he was proclaimed khan, and Nadhr Muhammad returned to Balkh and ruled it until 1651, when he stepped down, went for Mekka, and died on his way there. From 1651 to 1681 the Astrakhaned state was again a double khanate, with #Abd al-#Aziz Khan ruling in Bukhara and his brother Subhan-Quli Khan ruling in Balkh, but
in 1681 #Abd al-#Aziz abdicated in favor of Subhan-Quli, who ruled the reunified khanate from Bukhara until 1702.

In the political history of the Dasht-i Qïpchaq in the 17th century, the dominant factor was the expansion of the Oyrats. Since the end of the 16th century, after the destruction of the Sibir Khanate by the Russians, some Oyrat groups had begun to nomadize in Western Siberia and the north of the Dasht-i Qïpchaq, in the basins of the Irtïsh, Ishim, and Tobol rivers. In the early 17th century these north-western groups of the Oyrats gradually moved farther west, separated from those who remained in Jungharia, and became known as Qalmïqs. In 1630-31 they invaded the upper Emba and Yayïq regions; by 1640 most of the Noghays (Manghïts) had fled from them across the Volga (though some migrated to Khorezm), and the Qalmïqs occupied their former territory and then began raiding Khorezm, the Turkmens of Mangïshlaq, and, in 1657-58, even the border regions of Iran.
The Oyrats who remained in the east in 1635 formed a confederation that became known as the Junghars (lit. “left wing”) under a ruler with the title khun-tayiji (or khung-tayiji). By then, all the Oyrats had adopted Buddhism. The first ruler of the Junghars, Batur Khun-tayiji, repeatedly raided Qazaq territories, only once, in 1643, suffering a defeat. Under his successor relations with the Qazaqs were mostly peaceful, but Galdan-Boshoktu Khun-tayiji (1670-1697) began a series of even more destructive raids, attacking Sayram, Osh, and Andijan; these raids intensified in the first half of the 18th century (see map 29). The Qazaqs could rarely counter these attacks with similar force. They lost Semirech’e to the Junghars, but they preserved their political centers in the regions of Turkestan, Tashkent, and Andijan, with their grazing grounds stretching to the central Dasht-i Qïpchaq, and under the khan Tavakkul Muhammad (known as Tawkee) they even played a role in the affairs of Eastern Turkestan. Pressed by the Jungians from the east, they tried to compensate for the pasturelands lost at the expense of the Qalmïqs; the latter, however, under the rule of Ayuki (who had the title of khan), a nominal vassal of Russia, were too strong an adversary.

In Western Siberia, the Moscow government, after conquering the Shïbanid khanate of Kuchma (see map 27), began to encourage Russian peasant settlement. The main areas of initial peasant settlement were between the lower Tobol and the lower Ishim and in the upper Ob’. Gradually, peasants began to occupy the grasslands that served as summer pastures to the Qazaqs, who began to raid these settlements. To protect them, the Russian
government began to build forts manned by military garrisons. The first line of such forts extended from the middle Tobol, south of Kurgan (founded in 1670), to the lower Irtysh, south of Tara (founded in 1594). In the next century the lines of these forts formed the Russian frontier with the Qazaq steppe.

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