■ Source: Beatrice Manz, ed. in Historical Perspective. Boulder: Westview Press, 1994, pp. 27–44.

The Legacy of the

The Mongol eruption in the thirteenth century was without question the most significant impact of the nomadic peoples of Inner Asia on the sed- entary world. Mongol troops reached west all the way to Hungary and Poland and south all the way to Southeast Asia and the . and Central Asia, as the Mongols’ two nearest neighbors, had greater and longer exposure than other regions to the descendants of Chinggis Khan. Most works on the Mongol impact on China and Central Asia have stressed the destruction and dislocation generated by the initial conquests. Setting aside such a one-sided view, a study of the Mongol legacy in Central Asia needs to consider two different perspectives. First, the immediate conse- quences of the conquest and occupation of Central Asia require investi- gation. The Mongols governed much of Central Asia for about a century, and their Turkic-speaking descendants dominated the region for at least another century and a half. Later still, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a powerful new Mongol confederation influenced the peoples and lands of Central Asia. Second, certain patterns of Mongol culture and society appear to have influenced the societies of Central Asia. Such shared patterns are the enduring legacies of Mongol relations with Central Asian peoples and societies.

The Mongol Conquest and Its Aftermath

The Mongols’ initial encounter with Eastern Turkestan, their closest neigh- bor in Central Asia, was peaceful.1 The Uighurs, the principal inhabitants of the region, submitted voluntarily and as a result were accorded a spe- cial status in the Mongol domains. Having the most literate and sophis- ticated population among the Turks, the Uighurs were eagerly recruited into government service.2 A Turkic group from Central Asia had, in this case, a dramatic impact on its Mongol overlords. Uighurs adapted their vertical script to provide the first written language for Mongolian and served as tutors, secretaries, translators, interpreters, and government officials. Other Turkish groups, including Önggüd and , were 424 the legacy of the mongols granted positions in the Mongol military, central government, or local administration.3 During the century or so in which they controlled Uighuristan, the Mongols conducted censuses, devised a regular system of taxation, and organized postal stations to facilitate the speedy conveyance of official mail and incidentally to promote travel and trade.4 The immediate Mon- gol legacy in eastern Central Asia was thus not destructive. By surrender- ing without a struggle, the Uighurs escaped the possibility of a devastating assault. Indeed, they benefited from Mongol policies. The caravan trade that had lain relatively dormant after the tenth century revived as a result of Mongol control of much of Eurasia and Mongol encouragement of com- merce.5 The flow of merchants and goods traversing Eurasia increased appreciably during the Mongol era, and caravans coming to or from China naturally traveled via the oases of Central Asia, offering numerous eco- nomic opportunities for the inhabitants. Judging from the adverse reac- tion to efforts made by the early Ming dynasty, the Chinese successors to the Mongols, to limit trade and so-called tribute, the Uighurs had made striking gains as a result of Mongol promotion of trade.6 This relatively rosy assessment of the meaning of Mongol rule in does not apply to the of Central Asia. The Khorezm-Shah, who ruled much of this area, was much less docile than the Uighur iduq-qut.7 In 1218 he even condoned the killing of an envoy dispatched by Chinggis Khan—a direct challenge to the Mongols to whom “the person of an ambassador . . . was sacrosanct.”8 Chinggis Khan now needed to avenge himself against the Khorezm-Shah and thus had a pretext to launch an invasion. The Khorezm-Shah, in any case, had a precarious hold on his domain. His army was wracked with strife; many of his subjects, particularly those in who had been subjugated during his campaigns in the early 1200s, were not loyal to him, and he could not count upon support from the religious leadership.9 Capitalizing on the Khorezm-Shah’s weaknesses, Chinggis Khan initi- ated an attack against in Central Asia in 1219. Encountering resistance, the Mongol armies responded violently and brutally. Persian historians acknowledge that the Mongol campaigns in Transoxiana were not as destructive as the ones in Eastern Persia and Iraq. Even so, they describe deliberate massacres and destruction. Juvayni, one of the great- est Persian historians, writes about one Turkish group in that “no male was spared who stood higher than the butt of a whip and more than thirty thousand were counted amongst the slain.” He quotes one refugee