CENTRALASIA IN THE HISTORY OF THE MUSLIMEAST by Yuri Bregel Institute of Asian and African Affairs The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Occasional Paper #20 THE ROLE OF CENTRALASIA IN THE HISTORY OF THE MUSLIMEAST by Yuri Bregel Institute of Asian and African Affairs The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Occasional Paper #20

February 1980

Afghanistan Council The Asia Society 112 East 64th Street New York City .. Introduction

The present paper was read at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, on 5 April, 1978, and for the second time, in Hebrew with some alterations, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on 6 June, 1978. The subject of it is very general. Though it was proposed to me by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and, therefore, it is the Center that is to be blamed first, I am by no means trying to decline the responsibility for this choice. Perhaps it may be useful to discuss some ~e!leral fc.cts and opir:ir:,:ns concerning the place of Central Asia in the history of the Islamic world and the role of some historical movements which originated in this region during the Isla.mic period. It may be worthwhile for a historian of the Middle East, who is sometimes too fascinated by the great imperial past~ or present - of Turkey, Iran or Abu Dhabi 1 to pay attention to such. a marginal area as Central Asia. It also may be of use for a historian of Central l'.sia, who is usually so busy tackling numerous unstudied and unresolved problems of the region's history that he does not try to place them in some broader perspective and to realize that he can claim an equal place in the .sun with bis colleague studying the Shurubiya or the Abbasid revolution. Thus, this paper is an attempt not only at an evaluation but also, in a sense, at a self- . -justification.

The text of the paper is being published as it was read at Harvard, with al­ terations included in the Hebrew version and ·with the addition of notes. The general character of the subject precludes references to primary sources. The references given in the notes, which are at the end of the text, are roainly to some modern works where the same problems have been discussed (though there is no attempt at a complete bibliography).

It is my pleasant duty to express my thanks to the Afghanistan Council of the Asia Society for its willingness to publish this lecture in its "Occasional Paper" series.

Yuri Bregel March, 1979 I

I must begin with the definition of the area which I shall refer to as "Central Asia" because this term does not yet have a meaning that is generally accepted. I shall define this region as the western part of the Inner Asian heartland; the part which now culturally belongs to the Islamic world. It is thus distinguished from Mongolia and Tibet which form the eastern part of Inner Asia. In other words, Central Asia is the same as Turkestan - in the meaning that this latter term acquired in the l9th century - designating, to my mind, a definite historical and cultural entity. It comprises Western, Eastern and Afghan Turkestan and the areas with.in the Soviet Union termed the "Central Asian Republics," :1.ccording to current S~viet usage, and Kazakhstan.

I shall add two more introductory remarks: Firstly, in using the terms "Turks" and "Turkish" I shall mean the Turks of Central Asia, their languages and their culture. Secondly, by the term "Islamic" or "Muslim" world, I shall mean, for short, chiefly the eastern part of the Islamic world, from the Fertile Crescent to India. II

For a long time Central Asia was largely neglected in general historical studies of the Islamic world. Even now, several decades after the appearance of Barthold's works and despite the growth of a vast literature on Central Asia in the Soviet Un.ion, this subject does not receive proper treatment in such a standard reference work as The Encyclopaedia of Islam; In The Cambridge History of Islam Central Asia isincluded among the "central Islamic lands" in the first volume but Professor Spuler, who wrote the chapter on Central Asia, declares that from the beginning of tre 16th century Central Asian history becomes a "provincial history" and, therefore, de;erves only a sketchy survey at best. 2

The reason seems to me quite obvious. It is the geographical position of Central Asia within the Islamic world. From.its Islamization, Central Asia was, and always remained, on the periphery of the Islamic world with barbarian nomads on its north and Chinese civilization at its east. It is und~rstandable that its history could not attract the same attention as that of the Fertile Crescent. Central Asia belongs not only to the Islamic world; it is of double cultural loyalty. A con­ siderable part of it belongs to the vast cultural world of Inner Asian nomadic civilization which is by no means composed only of Muslim peoples. For this civilization the steppe regions of Central Asia were also a periphery, its southwestern outposts facing the sedentary Iranian and Islamic civilization. Therefore, historians of Inner Asian nomads tend to neglect the history of Muslim Central Asia just as historians of the Middle East do. I once heard a.prominent Altaist say that "-!:::--.egenuine;" Inner Asia was Mongolia and Tibet - and he was probably right. Anyway, because of this "double cultural citizenship" Central Asia became a "double periphery" and was c::ten inadequately treated from both sides.

III

To be sure, the role of Central Asia in Islamic history and in world history in general has received a certain treatment in Soviet historiography, particularly in Central Asian Soviet historiography, where much has been written on two topics related to this problem: (1) commercial.and cultural ties and exchange between 1 \

Central Asia and the surrounding countries; (2) the contribution of Central Asia to world cultural development and, in particular, to Islamic culture in various fields such as literature, art and science.

Unfortunately both subjects have some political and ideological con~otations in Soviet historiography. The treatment of the history of relations between Central Asia and its neighbors depends on the current state of political relations between the Soviet Union and the respective country. Discussion can prove century-old friendship or, if needed, a no less old aggressive policy of the other side.3 The contribution of Central Asia to Islamic culture is a recurrent theme in Central Asian Soviet historical writing. There have been two main ideological reasons for this interest. Firstly, the Second World War brought about a need to stress national and patriotic feelings instead of old-fashioned and unproductive internationalism - not only for the Russians but also for other nationalities in the USSR. Secondly, there was always an ideological demand to contrast everything Soviet with everything non-Soviet. I remember a Soviet street poster of the 1930s divided into two parts: one part was painted in black, the other in red. On the black side one could see beggars, slums covered by cobwebs, lines of unemployed and, in the foreground, the grinning face of a fat capitalist in a top-hat; on the red side one could see brave young workers and peasants on a background of new factories and fields full of crops. The heading was: "With them" .,.. on the black side, and "With us " -· on the red side. This simple device was applied also to the presentation of the past. Soviet citizens should know that they not only lived better than people in other parts of the world, they also had a better history. The glorious present must have a counter- part in the glorious past and, indeed, since the Second vlorld 0 War, there has been a permanent search for this "glorious" or, as it is more often called, "great past.,'' which has replaced the outdated term "the accursed past." It is natural that im­ pressive figures of "our great ancestors" rise from this "great past." 4 Soviet historians of Central Asia are required to de~onstrate the great cultural heritage of the peoples of Central Asia to counteract the bourgeois falsifiers of histors 1 who allegedly try to depreciate this heritage. As a result,, many Soviet works try to show that Central Asia produced a large number of great men and in their lists everybody is included who was born in Central Asia (even if he left it in his childhoodJ, who died there, who came for a visit (very much like the medieval hagio­ graphic local histories), and often, also, those who lived in neighboring countries, especially Iran. The tendency to encroach upon Iran in seeking "great ancestors" was ~specially strong after WW II, when almost all Persian poets and writers (some of whom lived in southern Iran and never even approached the borders of Central Asia) were described as Tadjiks. Later these claims were somewhat moderated and Central Asian historians began to speak about the "corrunon cultural heritage" of Central Asia and Iran. On the other hand, this is supplemented by inner quarrels between various re­ publics, each of them claiming its own part of the Central Asian cultural heritage. Suffice it to mention here the appropriation of Navoi (together with the Chaghatay lar.guageJ by the Uzbeks, not to the delight of other Central Asian Turks. 5 In the same way the Kazakhs recently tried to claim al-Farabi. Especially unscrupulous . scholars in the field of heritage hunting are probably found arnong the art historians .0

I shall not delve further into this fascinating subject which deserves a study for its own sake. I only made this short historiographical digression because the theme has been treated mainly in Soviet historiography. Unfdrtunately, it is often biased and unreliable and its approach to the subject is_mostly fallacious. It seems to me that, with all respect for the famous people

2 and their outstanding achievements, it would be much more important to examine the role of Central Asia in the general development (political, social, economic and cultural) of the Islamic world and its contribution to this development as a region and a cultural entity, and not merely as the birthplace of a dozen or more eminent persons. IV

As a geographical and cultural region Central Asia has had two important characteristic features: (1) It occupied a central position on the Eurasian continent; a fact quite evident from the first glance at the map and which needs no further explanation. (2) It was at the same time, both ecologically and culturally, a frontier region - on the one hand, the eastern border of the Iranian cultural area and, on the other, a region of contacts and confrontation between Niddle Eastern sedentary civilization (both pre-Islamic and Islamic) and the nomadic civilization of greater Inner Asia. These two features supplemented each other in affecting the course of the history of Central Asia and determining its historical role for the Islamic world.

The first and most immediate consequence of the position of Central Asia on the Eurasian continent was that it beca,'Ue the region where the main routes of international trade crossed: the so-called great silk route from China and Hongolia to Iran, the route from theVolga basin to India and Chi:-ia, the routes from the northern Siberian regions to South and Southwest Asia. As long as continental trade was dominant, that is, up to the great geographical discoveries of the late 15th century, Central Asia enjoyed the economic and political advantages of its central position on the international trade routes. The results of this situation were the grov1th of its cities as centers of transit trade and, to a certain extent, the concentration of political power in some:, of these centers ~ pm·rer which expanded beyonc::. the borders of Central Asia.

The second, and not less important, consequence of this situation for Central Asia was th21.t it bccar::e a cro~;sroads on the patb~; of e;,:p;;,nsion of various civili2,atio:,s: · Chinese civilization and the nomadic civilization of Inner Asia to the central Islamic lands and the 1"!cst; the opposite movcr,1ent of, first, pre-Islamic Iranian, and then Islamic-Iranian cultural influence eastwcJ.rd to l-'!:ongolia and Cl1ina; and Indian cultural influence which was transmitted through Central Asia further west.

Central Asia became a "melting pot" of various cultures, a region where a "fusion" of major Asian cultures was achieved, at least partially. In the first centuries of its Islamic history the fusion of old Iranian and Islamic culture occurred. Later, and for a much longer period, the fusion of Islamic-Irani,m and nomadic Turkish (or Tur}:o-Mongolian) cultures took place. 'J.'his second process had special importance for the historical destiny of Central Asia. Here, in Central l,sia, these two worlds, Islamic-Iranian and nomadic Turko-Mongolian, came into immediate, close contact with each other; here lay the border between them - a border not always easy to define because of its shifting nature, but Hhich always existed.

This brings us to the second characteristic feature of Central Asia: its frontier position.

For the Turkish and Mongol nomads Central Asia was one of the two places where they met higher sedentary civilization and it became one of the two centers of gravity for the nomads. The first one was, of course, China, which defended herself by the Great Wall as well as by other strategic and political devices- For a long period the sedentary pD.rt of Central Asia also had defcnc;c ,·,alls but they were by no means impenetrable and infiltration, both peaceful and military, of nomads into seacntary regions of Central Asia can probably be traced from the time of the appearance cf nomadism, Compared with China, Central Asia had at leust two major handicaps I"la.king

3 rt less defensible against the penetration of barbarian nomads: lack of political unity- and strong central authority during the greater part of its history and the low density of its sedentary population (the second feature was probably one of the causes for the first). One should keep in mind that this sedentary part of Central Asia was never a compact tract of cultivated land~ but consisted of separate oases (or chains of oases) surrounded by desert and steppe; pasture areas were much larger than cultivated areas and they were interspersed. The nomads in. Central Asia were both outside and inside the cultivated area; the latter were "enclosed nomads," to use the term proposed by Lattimore. 7 Normally both sides profited from this situation as long as the number of nomads did not reach a certain critical point and the political situation was stable. The situation be­ came critical at the time of the nomadic invasions from the north and east.

At such. times the sedentary part of Central Asia became a buffer zone for the lands of Islam facing nomadic invasion; Central Asia received the first blow. In this re$pect its role became similar to that of Russia for Europe. The difference between them lay mainly in their natural conditions. Those of Russia (except in her southernmost part) made her a much more formidable barrier to the nomadic ~invasion$, The Mongols could subjugate Russi~but they could not turn her into a.base for further expansion into the West. 8

Central Asia was much more easily penetrable and passable for the nomads but, nonetheless, when there were smaller invasions, Central Asia absorbed the nomads, liko. a· porous sponge, in its inner pasture areas 9 and when there were large-scale invasions it mitigated the blow, receiving the first thrust and at least delaying further advance.

The position of Central Asia as a border region was no less important for her in­ ternal evolution~. which, in its turn, affected the evolution of the Islamic world in general.

The most significant factor of this evolution was the presence of nomads, both outside and inside its settled regions. Central Asia became the area where the main integration of Turkish, later also Turko-Mongolian, nomads into Islamic culture took place - or at least began. Already before Islam, in the period of the great Turkish empire of the 6th century, Central Asia, mainly in its eastern part (Chinese Turkestan), was the area of inte~sive cultural contact of the Turks with the seden1ary Iranians, especially the Soghdians; the Iranian cultural heritage of the Turks who first met the Arabs in Mawarannahr was very considerable. 10 Later, in Islamic times, the Turks, advancing westwards, brought with them not only their steppe traditions but also the part of their Islamic-Iranian heritage which they had assimilated during their contacts with the sedentary population of Central J.l.sia. It is very difficult to assess, from existing sources, what exactly this Central Asian influence was (though this task is probably·not quite impossible). But one thing is more or less clear: that the Turkish nomads embraced Islam in the form which they found either in the neighboring sedentary regions or received from the missionaries in the steppe. In both cases it appeared to be a militant orthodox Sunni Islam. It seems that this can be attributed to the importance of the frontier in the life of Central Asia in the early centuries of Islam. The political and ideological importance of the ghazis, who fought the infidel nomads from many hundreds and even thousands of fortresses (ribats) on the border, was very sig­ nificant. The ghazi ideology must have heavily influenced the development of Islam in Central Asia, and it also affected the nomads who were copverted on or near the frontier and who, after their conve 11ion, very often became themselves ghazis and fought their still infidel kinsmen.

4 Central Asia almost from the time of its Islamization became a bastion of Sunni orthodoxy and remained that way until modern times. And the Turks, who established their political hegemony throughout the Islamic world, became a political instrument of reinforcing orthodoxy outside Central Asia.12 After the Mongol invasion it was also Central Asia which became the starting point of a new movement for the defense of Islam and the Sunni orthodoxy; this will be discussed below.

Those were, in my opinion, the main characteristics of Central Asian history that determined, generally, the place of this region in the history of the Islamic world. But, of course, the actual role of Central Asia did not remain the same throughout the Islamic period and now I shall try to make a very brief survey of several periods of Islamic history and to "locate" the place of Central Asia in each of them.

V

The first period, from the Arab conquest to the fall of the Samanids at the end of the 10th. century, was marked by the formation of the new Islamic-Iranian culture. A special part that Central Asia, together with other eastern Iranian regions, played in this process was stressed by Barthold 13 and lately by Professor Frye, who in two of his books discusses at some length the exceptionally important role of Central Asia and Khorasan in this period. Therefore I shall not dwell on this subject. Prof. Frye's explanation of the fact that eastern [and not western) Iranian regions became the center of the Islamic-Iranian renaissance 14 can be generally accepted, and the fact itself is beyond any doubt. It was in this period that Central Asia produced most of its great people in letters and science.

However,. already in this period the importance of Central Asia lay not only in the in~en­ si ve cultural activity of the Iranians but also, and not to a lesser degree, in bringing t:-. Turks into the cultural snd political sphere of Islam, first as slaves, later as converted tribesmen. The immense military irnportance of the Turks, especially as the backbone of the 1-larr.luk system, \·ras recently shown by Prof. Ayalon in his article in Der Islam.15 Central Asia became at the same time both a barrier against infidel nomads and a gate through which Turkish slaves \·,ere supplied for the Nuslim armies. And if, indeed, these Turks saved Islam by their military prowess, as medieval Muslim writers believed and as Prof. Ayalon is claiming now, it was due to Central Asia. Thus, if Frye is right in considering "the fusion of Iran and Islam" one of the great accomplishments of the Samanids, their second and equaJ:ly important accomplishment was, I would say, the "infusion" of Turks into the lands of Islam.

One remark, however, should be made in this connection. For the Turks themselves their exceptional military qualities had, in the long run, rather negative effects. For centuries the Turks remained a military estate in Central Asia and Iran, socially clearly divided from the sedentary Iranian population despite all the processes of cultural and linguistic assimilation and amalgamation. Civil administration and learning remained in the hands of the Iranians; these occupations \·;ere considered inferior to the military service and Turkish aristocracy as a rule had no incentive to engngc in any activity other than a military one (and, of course, r~ling, which was another aspect of the same military activity). 'This was, no doubt, one i:r.portant reason (if not the reason) for the.fact that the cultural level, even of those Turks who lived within the borders of Dar al-Islam and in sedentary surroundings for cen­ turies, remained relatively low. (This situation does not pertain to the Ottoman Turks; their situation was different.}

5 VI

The second period, from the beginning of the 11th century up to the Mongols, was marked by the establishment of Turkish political hegemony throughout the Islamic Fast. To appreciate the historical role of Central Asia since this time is, to some extent, to appreciate the role of the Turks (despite the fact that the majority of the population were still Iranians). To be sure, at that time, Central Asia was only a part, and not the most important part, of Turkish dominions. But the roots of Turkish power were still there: the Seldjuks received new reinforcements, both Mamluks and new tribesmen, all the time from Central Asia and, on the remnants of the Seldjuk empire, new centers of political power appeared in Central Asia which dominated the Huslim east, reaffirming the outstanding role of the Central Asian frontier for Islam.

In the ~phere of cultural activity, however, the picture was different. Both literary and scholarly output in Central Asia decreased significantly._ The Persian literature at the courts of the Khorezmshahs and the Qarakhanids cannot be equated with its brill.i,ant. predecessors at the time of the Sarnanids and early Ghaznavids, or with the contemporary Persian literature in Seldjukid Iran. As to the scientists and scholars, most mathematicians, astronomers and phi:losophers left, one by one, for the center of the caliphate and never returned. Barthold has pointed out that the activity of .Muslim scholars in Central Asia, even of such persons as al-Biruni, did not establish a local scholarly tradition. 16

The cultural decline of Central Asia, however, was not absolute. There was one field of cultural activity in which the role of Central Asia increased: religious teaching and orthodox Sunni theology. It was probably during this perioc1 that most of the important classical works of Centru.l Asian authors in Sunni fiqh and theology were written. 7 As Barthold observed, theologians, as disti~1ct fro~-scientists, did not leave Central Asia but founded local schools which became very influential. Religious leaders in Central Asia also acquired signific, 0.nt political power in the cities. 'l'he influence of Centra.l Asicrn orthodo.:-: thccoloJ'y and Jave durir.~r this period ahJo bE:g,rn to be felt strongly in other parts of the Islrunic world, for instance, Inc1ia.1 8

A satisfactory explanation of the relative. cultural decline of Central Asia from the 11th century has not yet been proposed. Prof. Frye assumes that the shifting of the center of culture from Central Asia and IJ1orasan to Western Iran was a result of an economic crisis in the east and the decline of the class of c1ihqans.19 But the nature of this economic crisis (if there was one) is not quite clea;::-;-zcr~a, as recent re­ search shmvs, during most of this period there was a considerable growth of cities in various regions of Central Asia; the cities reached their maximum size in the 12th century. 21 The expansion of cities and city life:: usually implies a cultural boom rathez than decline. Moreover, this was a period of significant achievement i~ architecture wi1ich was certainly connected with the increased building activity in the cities and tends to indicate that the cultural decline was still relative.

I would rather share the view that ascribes the relative cultural decline of Central Asia in this period to the political ascendancy of the Turks and the gradual "nomadi­ zation" of IsL:i;nic society - d1icb rc~ca.ns not t:-:at the sedentary popul2tion bc,cc'.:T,c nomads, but that the nomads became relatively rnort? nuincrous and penetrated "into the structure of urban life and civilization. 11 22 'This penetration deeply affected the social, economic and cultural life of Central Asia and the Hiddle East. As I mentioned before, this infiltration could be profitable to both sides - up to a certain critical or saturation point. ,·le see it, in particular, in the history of the Seldjuk period. The authors of some recent studies 2 3 claim that the Seldjuk invasion did not bring about demographic anc1 economic dislocatio:1s in Iran; on the contrary, it nay well have contributed to the prosperity of the country. As long as there was E::nough pasture land around or between the sedentary oases to accommodate the arriving nomads, this

6 arrival could be favorable to the development of commerce and industry and to the growth of cities - which we actually see in Iran and Central Asia during this period (the 11th and 12th centuries) .24 But as soon as the saturation point was reached, the situation became precarious. Political stability was upset by the fight for pas­ ture lands between various groups of nomads; the nomads began to encroach upon the cultivated lands; this led to a decay not only of agriculture but, ultimately,·also·of city life because cities were dependent on their rural surroundings. These factors contributed to a decline in cultural life as did the inevitable decay of civil ad­ ministration, the weakening of the old city aristocracy - which had been the main bearer and transmitter of cultural tradition - and the often lack of interest on the part of the new Turkish rulers in science, scholarship and Iranian literature. It seems that in the Seldjuk period the general situation was still not so grave but, in some places, especially Khorasan and Central Asia, it was already reaching or even passing the critical point and it began to be felt by the end of this period.

VII

At the beginning of the 13th,century the Mongol invasion affected both Central Asia and other parts of the Muslim East. At this time the importance of Central Asia as a buffer against the nomadic invasions was especially clear. True, the .Mongols con­ quered Central Asia in three years; but after that the Islamic world had another quarter of a century to try to organize its defense, while the Mongols had to digest the piece they swallowed.

If we consider, however, not only the first years of the .Mongol advance but also the subsequent period of their domination in the Musli'U\ Last, we can see that it was the Mongol conquest itself that st~essed a special role for Central Asia, rather than absorbing property of its sedentary regions. ":'he .Mongols themselves came from outside Central Asia, from "Inner Asia proper," and they were an alien element to Muslim Central Asia. But, as r have said before, Central Asia was a frontier region which belonged to two coexisting and competing civilizations: sedentary Islamic-Irc:1.nian and nomadic Inner Asian. The Mongols were but a small part of the vast Inner Asian nomadic world and it was acknowledged long ago that the Turks of the Central Asian ~teppe (Dashb·i Qipchaq) formed the bulk of the invading Mongol armies and eventually assimilated the ruling Mongols. As Bernard Lewis aptly put it, the comparatively brief period of Mongol conquest and domination must be seen against a broader back­ ground, involving a much longer period of the movement of more nu..~erous peoples than the Mongols ... that is, the Turks.25

I shall not go into the details of the old and still continuing polemic about the impact of the Mongol conquest which was only a culminating point (or, better, wave) of the mo,ement of the steppe peoples upon the Islamic world. I am convinced that it is im­ possible to draw a balance bBtween the advantages of.the large-scale international trade and broader cultural contacts- made possible by the Mongol invasion, and the disadvantages brought on by the damage and destruction caused by the invasion itself. There is, however, one point on which most (if not all) scholars agree: that the in­ vasions of the steppe peoples, of v1hich the Mongol conquest was but the fi;;al st2ge, brought about profound changes in Islamic state and society. But beyond this point another controversy begins: how can these changes be defined and what among them can be ascribed to the direct influence of Turkish and .Mongol nomads.

Barthold repeatedly stated that in post-Mongol times more strong, stable and long­ lasting states emerged in all regions which came under direct Mongol rule or were influenced by Mongols - from Russia to China. Barthold ascribed it to the influence of the Mongol system of government. 26 He did not elaborate, however, on the precise nature of this system. Prof. Lewis assumed, in the already cited article, that the

7 basis tor reinforcement of political power in the Islamic world as a result of Turkish and Mongol invasions was the nomadic principle of dynastic succession, the Turkish conception of inherited and divinely sanctioned imperial sovereignty - sovereignty as a family possession as distinct from the elective principle in Islam (which prevented the establishment of any regular and accepted rule of succession) and from the personal autocracy of the Persian monarchy. 27

I cannot agree with this thesis. To begin with, the idea that the Turkish (by the way, not exclusively Turkish) conception of sovereignty as a family or, better, a clan possession could contribute to stability and continuity of government seems to me erroneous. Just the opposite is true. Wherever we see this concept put into practice more or less consistently, from the great Turkish Qaghanate to the Shey­ banids of Central Asia, we see a very rapid decay of central power and the disin­ tegration of empires. To create a stable and lasting state Turkish rulers did not keep to their steppe traditions of dynastic succession, but violated and abandoned them al­ together. Examples are too numerous to cite; suffice it to remember the history of the Great Seldjuks, the Ottomans and the last Uzbek khanates of the 19th century. The same applies to the Mongols.also. It is a wide-spread and very stable illusion that the Mongol empire was :better organized and more stable than any of-its pre­ decessors, both i.n Inner Asia and the Muslim East, and tr1at the Eungols established a long lasting "pax i:iongolica." 28 In fact, the first signs of t:::ouble appeared even before the death of Chingis Khan himself, in his conflict with his eldest son Djochi. And in only thirty years after his death the empire disintegrated; it was rather "bellum mongolicum" than "pax mongolica" that followed. Prof. Ayalon in his important work on the "Great Yasa" of Chingis Khan showed that the ordinances of Yasa con- cerning the rules of government were in practice constantly violated and circumvented by the members of the Mongol royal family from the very beginning.29 But more than that, the very system of government which existed in the Mongol empire contributed to its rapid dissolution, as was very well demonstrated by P. Jackson. 30 The Mongol states (ulus), successors of the great empire in Iran, Central Asia and even China, existed ~)out 100 years or a little more - not any longer (even less) than the powerful Muslim states befor 31the Mongols, such as the Samanids, the Buyids, the Ghaznavids and the Seldjuks. It is true that for several centuries the descendants of Chingis Khan were considered as exclusive bearers of the royal charisma in the steppe and in Transoxania, but that had nothing to do with the stability of political order in these regions; probably it even had an opposite effect.32

And a last, but not least, consideration: if Turkish and Mongol traditions, whatever they might have been, contributed to greater political stability in the lands con­ quered by these nomads, the effect should have been felt first of all in the region where the presence of Turks and Mongols was most noticeable - that is, in Central Asia. 33 In fact, however, Central Asia had the least stable political order among all the Chingisid states; the constant wars between various branches of the ruling house and various tribal groups brought about its economic and cultural decay, probably, even more than the Mongol invasion itself. 34

Claude Cahen finished one of his articles with a question: 1·Jhy are some nomads creators of empires, while others are agents of political fragmentation? 35 It seeras to me that such ari. opposition is groundless. The same nomads who were the builders of empires were agents of political fragmentation; both tendencies were within the same nomadic political tradition. The nomads were capable of building a powerful empire, but they were incapable of keeping it from breaking apart unless a certain fusion of two ·political traditions was achieved: steppe imperial tradition and the state and ad- ministrative tradition of sedentary civilization.36 -

I

8 VIII

We should now examine the role of Central Asia in the post-Mongol period which, traditionally and conveniently, we can divide into the Timurid and the Uzbek periods.

In the Timurid period, as before, its central position on the Eurasian continent and its role as a frontier between the sedentary and nomadic worlds were of major im­ portance for the course of its history and for the Islamic world as a whole.

Recovering from the devastation of the Mongol invasion, Central Asia, due to its geographic position, became especially important for the expanding international trade. The old city centers, destroyed by the invasion, emerged anew as the centers of this trade. Apparently there was a significant accumulation of wealth and economic power in such centers as Sarnarqand, Herat and other places and this . became an economic basis for the creation of the empire of Timur. At the same time the frontier position of Central Asia gave its rulers the double advantage of being supported by the re­ viving sedentary economy and of having at their disposal the military manpower of the steppe, a large nUir.ber of nomads brought into this region by the .Mongol invasion. ITn becoming the center of Timur's empire, Central Asia once more (and for the last time} played a prominent political role in the Islamic world. I shall not dwell upon the political significance of Timur's conquests; instead I would like to consider some inner processes which took place in Central Asia at the same time and which bore no less (and, in the long run, probably even more} importance for the Islamic world than the creation of Timur's empire.

First of all, in the Timurid period the final Islamization of the Central Asian nomads took place. It was a decisive step in the process of integration of Turko-Mongolian nomads into Islamic culture. One of the indicators of the increased intensity of this process was the emergence of Chaghatay literature, literature in Eastern Turki. It is true that the first Muslim literary works .in a Turki language had appeared in the 11th century, in Qarakhanid state, and that this tradition was continued later in the Golden Horde, especially in Khorezm. But Chag})atay literature was a major step further, . both .i.n the quality and the quu.ntity of the writing. Only since this tin~e did the eastern Turks receive a means of literary expression which, together with the emergc:!nce of Ottoman Turkish literature begun sorne.-,bat earlier, 37 made the Turkish language one of the three major literary languages of the Islamic world, after Arabic and Persian. But the cultural assimilation of Turks by Islamic-Iranian culture (or, better, the fusior. of nomadic and sedentary cultures of Central Asia) did not end at this stwge; it dragged on for several ce~turies more and did not end until the final sedentarization of nomads in our century.

The second important phenomenon in Central Asia in the Timurid period was the emergence and spread of the Sufi order of the 1Jaqshbandiya. A characteristic feature of the Naqshbandiya, besides its Sunni orthodoxy, was a particular emphasis on the implemen­ tation of the Sharita through an active involvement of its members in political life and the affairs of state. In Central Asia it manifested itself especially in the ,activity of K110dj a Ahrar and his iT'.lJUcdiate followers. 38 Later (until modern times) in various parts of tbe I:-;larr.ic world the Naqshbandiya was the ba~:is of popular funda.1"cntalist and radic2l movcr.1ents, ,,:bere den121ncL for restoration of religious purity were combined Hith the ficrht.: for liber2.tion fror:1 foreign rule - not so rcci.:ch "national liberation" but rather liberation from the voke of the infidels, a sacred war. 39 If one compares this feature of the modern Naqshbandiya with the activity of Khodja Ahrar, who fought especially against the violation of the Shari~a as a result of the preser­ vation of heathen Nongol traditions by the 'I'irnurid rulers and elite, it is very tempting to surmise that the Naqshbandiya emerged in Central Asia as a popular resp6nse to Mongol do~inat5on and was, in a sense, a contin~ation of the old Central Asian tradition of ghu.zi ideology and militant orthodoxy. An additional argument in favor of this assum}?t.ion is that we have some indications that the Naqshbandiya

9 in{tially grew mainly among the Iranian speaking urban population of Central Asia. Also taking into account the evidence of the sources that Central Asia in the Mongol time was the r:e~i,on where heathen nomadic customs and customary law (Yasa) were ob­ served more-than in other parts of tne Mongol empire, one can understand why the response of the indigenous Muslim population of Central Asia with its old tradition of religious orthodoxy should have acquired the form of a fight for the Sharira. All this, of course, is only a surmise because the sources for the history of the Naqshbandiya before Khodja Ahrar are too scanty; ~ut such an assumption, in my opinion, is consistent with our general knowledge of the political and cultural history of Central Asia. IX

The next, Uzbek, period of the history of Central Asia is usually considered a period of gradual political and cultural decay and stagnation. 40 However, the explanations for this decay differ.

Prof. Spuler in his chapter on Central .Asia in The Cambridge History of Islam explains this phenomenon of decay by stressing the political and cultural isolation of Ct~ntral Asia which resulted frcm the emergence of a strong Shi

Asia and especially interrupted '.0 itc1l exchange in the literary field, \·,hich brought about the decline of the Persian language in Transoxania and the domination of Turkish. "'l'he shift of language and the weakening of links with Persian culture brought the <:1evelopment of the count1--y down, from the high level that had been ensured by the commo.n cultural development of the Middle Ages." 41 ·

This is hardly a satisfactory explanation and, in any case, a very one-sided one, though it is interesting in at least one respect: it shows once more how inad2quately Central Asia is treated in modern general works on the history of Islam published in the \'Jest.

'l'he political and cultural rift bet·,. 1 ecn Cent:cal Asia and Iran froE, the beginning of the, 16th century, hmvever, vrns quite obvious and it. was suggested long ago as one possible cause of Central Asia's cultural decay - but, of course, not the cause. 42 Despite the hostilities between Central Asian khanates and Safavid and Qadjar Iran trade bet·deen them continued, though, probably, on a lesser scale. Cultural exchange suffered severely indeed, but cultural life in Iran in this period was itself gradually de­ clining, and lack of exchange with a declining culture could not be the main cause of a culturul decuy. More important, probably, ,:as the political isolation of Central Asia as a result of the emergence of the Safavid state in Iran, though this isolation alsc was not absolute (there were certain pol 5.tical ties with Ottoman Turkey and !-:oghul India) ,43

It is sometimes forgotten by historians that this relative political isolation from the rest of the Islamic world was supplemented by an a1most complete break of com­ mercial, cultural and diplomatic ties with China. T:he~oe ties ,·,ere important for Central Asia througl-:o,it its previom: hist:01:y und they were interrupted in the ni<.lcJ.le of the lGth century a:::; a resn1t of the emergence of the Djlin<:;1,ar 1'.:hanate. 44

Another cause of the decline of Central Asia was especially stressed by Barthold (and, more recently and more emphatically, by Toynbee45): it was the global shift of the m:=tin routes of international trade as a result of the great geographical discoveries of the end of the 15th century. Since new sea routes between Europe and South and East Asia had been established, the old continental routes los.t most of their previous importance and thi,; was a severe blow to the Central Asian economy, the prospcri ty of which was ah:ays tiec1 to thi" iIYternational transit tracic. This,and not the shift of language from Persian to rrurkish, was one of the m:iin reasons why the Ferghar.a of

Sul tan B:=ibur, after being "the center of the oiklm1,,n0 11 as 'l'oynhee wrote (with sonc

10 exaggeration: if any place in Central Asia was indeed the center of the oikumene, it certainly was not Ferghana), suddenly found itself a desolate province.

It should be noticed, however, that neither of the two probably causes of decay men­ tioned above could be decisive by itself. Firstly, both the isolation from Iran and China and the shift in international trade routes happened only at the beginning of the 16th century, while the signs of a cultural (if r~ot yet a political) 46 decline hal been clear before the Mongols. 47 Secondly, the same shift of trade routes af­ fected the whole Muslim East, not only Central Asia although the backwardness of the latter was especially noticeable. Thirdly, the importance of the relative isolation of Central As.a from the surrounding world, noth Muslim and East Asian, should not be overestimated because this surrounding world itself was very far from flourishing.

The decay of Central Asia was by no means unique or exceptional in the Islamic world; in fact, the whole Islamic world was in a state of stagnation and decay which, besi9es ~ome specific causes particular to each region, had conunon causes in its general social and spiritual evolution. These general historical trends were corrunon .to Central Asia and many other Muslim countries. It is not accidental that the deepest political and economic crisis in Central Asia in the mid-18th century co­ incided with a similar crisis in Iran. And if we can admit that Central Asia indeed became a province which, as Prof. Spuler put it, "led an existence on the margin of world history, 11 48 we should also keep in mind that many other parts of the Islamic world (almost all Arab countries, for instance} became not less provincial and "marginal." As a matter of fact the whole Islamic world became, in a global sense, a province in the face of rapidly expanding European civilization.

The social and cultural decline (as well as progress) of a society can be evaluated (if at all) against the background of some other society. For modern history our usual yardstick of evolution is Europe o::-, more broadly, "tl-.e West," and the evolution of other societies depended mainly on the degree to which they were subject to European impact.49 Until the middle of the 19th century Central Asia was much less subject to this impact than other parts of the Islamic world. Thus, the relative isolation from Europe, and not from its i:rnmediate neighbors, must have contributed to its stagnation and decay. 50

But there was yet another cause of the decay of Central Asia which, probably, should have been mentioned in the first pl ace: the continuing ·nomadization of its sedentary regions. 51 Apparently, even before the Mongols, the number of nomads who penetrated into sedentary regions of Central Asia reached or, in so2e places, even surpassed the critical point. The Mongol invasion brought ~Jout the most drastic increase of the nomadic population throughout the Middle East and especially - for obvious geographical reasons - in Central Asia. The wars of Timur were not a part of "the gi;:eat movement of the steppe peoples, 1152 though they caused many dislocations and relocations of the nomads already in the Middle East. It was the Mongol invasion that crowned tftis movement as far as the Micdle East was concerned. But sedentary central As.a suffered from one more invasion, of the Sheybanid Uzbeks and, though some Soviet scholars try to belittle the scale of this last invc1sion and the nur,ilier of nomads wlio participated in it, historical sources show clearly th2t it brought about a new devastation of many cultivated lands, turning them into pastures and displacing sedentary population, 53 In addition, the Uzbek invasion was later followed by several minor, or partial, invasions and by penetration into the settled regions of Central Asia by Kazakhs, Kirghiz and Kalmuks. Even if these events, considered in isolation, could not have been a sufficient cause for the subsequent decay, together with the preceding process they had a definite cumulative effect. 54 I would add to these one more consideration: If previous nomadic invasions from the Inner Asian steppe resulted in·the creation of more or less large empires embracing a number of regions

11 and promoting international trade and cultural exchange, the Uzbek invasion did not even bring this benefit; it finished in a dead end, it was exhausted in a cul-de-sac into which Central Asia now turned. This cul-de-sac was open only to the north and when, just at the same time, in the middle of the 16th century, a new and mighty political power appeared on this front, Central Asia inevitably drifted into its orbit and was eventually swallowed by Russia.

One more remark, however, should be made about the nature of the decline of Central Asia in modern times: it was not a process which enveloped the whole of the area to the same extent and which continued uninterrupted through four centuries. It was uneven and relative both in space and time. Some areas degraded considerably (though not simultaneously), almost to the disappearance of sedentary culture and city lifc, 55 while in others some level of the economy and culture was maintained and, in some periods, they even advanced and flourished.56 The lowest point of decline was reached in the mid-18th century but it did not affect all regions of Central Asia to the same degree. From the end of the 18th century one can see clearly many signs of a new political consolidation, economic growth and a certain cultural revival. 57 Various factors contributed to it but probably the most important one was the proqressive sedentarization of the r.cmads - their final integration into sedentary Central Asian Islamic culture. Only at the end of this period did the Central Asian Turks, retaining their political ·importance now only on a local scale, become cul­ turally more or less equals with the Iranians. 58 Unfortunately for them and for Central Asia in general, the process was much belated. For this time when Central Asia re­ appeared as a significant factor in world politics, it was not as an independent force but as a sphere of competing imperial aspirations of European powers, and its further independent evolution was interrupted by the Russian conquest.

X

In this last (and still continuing) period of Central Asian history, despite many cardinal changes in its situation, some very general features remain which are reminiscent of previous periods, largely because its geographical position remains the same. Central Asia is still a double periphery - this time not for the Inner Asian nomadic world (which has almost disappeared) and the Islamic world, but for the Soviet communist world ( a very special branch of European civilization) and the Islamic world. It is regaining its importance as a geographically connecting link between various cultures and the Soviet Union tries to make it an outpost of Soviet political and cultural influence in Asia presenting it, in particular, as a model of development for the so-called Third World and, especially, for the Muslim countries. Central Asia has received a new, strategic importance in a power game between Russia and China. As before, a cultural frontier is cutting Central Asia, but now this is a frontier between Russian culture, which is on the offensive, and traditional Islamic culture which is retreating.

Curiously enough, it is the Turks who are once more emerging as a force of major political importance in this situation, but this time from the southern and l1uslim side of the line of confrontation. 1:ow, as in former times, it is especially their number that counts so much. Prof. Ayalon wrote about the Turks in the early cen­ turies of Islam: " ... Those Turks enjoyed one great and decisive advantage. They were very numerous.,, 59 These words may be repeated in the context of r~odern Central Asia. After Turkey, Central Asia has become the region with the largest concentration of Turks, and, what is more significant, their number is growing much more rapidly than that of any other population group in the USSR, including the still predominant Russians. There are some indications that the Soviet leaders arc becoming increasingly worried about this situation, fearing that this growth will upset the balance between Slavic and non-Slavic, especially Muslim, nationalities in the Soviet Union and that

12 it will have far-r~~~~i~~ economic, social and political consequences. GO

\ ~ : . . . . ·.?',(. Th,.us, the famous hadith','·"Leave the Turks in peace so long as they leave you in peace" (Utruku ~-Turka ma ta_rc1kukum) probably is receiving a new meaning in this situation.

NOTES

1. By some curious coincidence, the head of the Center for Middle East Studies just happened to visit Abu Dhabi when this lecture was given, but I did not know about it at that time.

2. See The Camb~idge History of Islam, vol. 1, Cambridge,1970, p. 47~

3. There appeared, however, a nwnber of useful works on political, commercial and cultural relations between Central Asia and the neighboring countries, especially India, e.g., Vzaimootnosheniya_narodov _Sredney __Azii_ i sopredel 'n"ikh stran Vostoka v _XVIII - Il9~hale XX v. [coll. papers], Tashkent, 1963; N.B. Baykova, Rol' Sredney Azii v !~.~k

Tashkent,. 1968; I-. Nizamutdinov I Iz ist~rii sredneaziatsko-indi_yskikh otnosh.eniy {IX-XVIII_vv.J, Tashkent, 1969. In the publisher's annotation at the back of the title page of the last of the above-mentioned books there is a very characteristic statement: "Every research devoted to the history of the friendly relations of the peoples of the Soviet Union with tl1e peoples of tlie neighboring foreign countries becomes not only significant for scholarship, but also politically topical." Similar (and sometimes literally the same) passages are found in the prefaces to all these books.

4. To what extent some Soviet scholars can go in this search is shown by the following curious story. Once, when I was just beginning my editorial career at the Publishing House of Oriental Literature (Izdatel 'stvo vostochnoy literatur"i) in Moscow, I edited the new edition of the Russian translation of the Turkish anecdotes about tJasreddin Khodja, made by Gordlevskiy. The publishers invited Prof. Braginskiy to provide a new introduction ~o the book. Prof. Braginskiy, as a true socialist scholar, not only met his commitments, but exceeded them: besides a new introduction, he provided an ap­ pendix, where he included a Russian translation of about two dozen anecdotes about Nasreddin Khodja in the Central Asian Tadjik version, picked up from_ other publications. In his introduction, analyzing the image of Turkish Nasreddin Khodja, Prof. Braginskiy rioted that this· character had, in fact, two images: sometimes he appeared as a smart, witty man who makes fools of his adversaries, whereas in ~ther stories he appears as a fool and simpleton. Unlike this, Bragin_?kiy stated, ·in the Central Asian version c!: ·the stories Nasreddin l~odja appears only as a sreart person and this was easily seen from the anecdotes in the appendix. Braginskiy ascribed this tact to strong aemoc­ ratic traditions which existed in Central Asian folklore as distinct from that of Tl_rrkey. Editing the introduction I checked these words against the appendix and found that in several of the Central Asian versions of the anecdotes, Nasreddin Khodja appeared as a fool and a simpleton. When I pointed this out to Braginskiy, he crossed out not his false patriotic conclusion, but the texts which did not prove it. In the end, however, he "moderated" his position slightly: Central Asian l~asreddin remained very progressive while his Turkish counterpart is simply not mentioned in this connection ( see Anekc}gt.i Q __khgdzhe __1 *3-sreddine., Perevod s turetzkogo V.A. Gordlevskogo, 2d ed., Moscow, 1957, p. 13). 13 5. Cf. G.F. Blagova, in TYurkologicheskiy sbornik 1971, Moscow, 1972, pp. 190-191.

6. Cf., for instance, A.A. Ivanov, "Istoriya izucheniya maverannakhrskoy (sredneaziat­ skoy} shkoli' miniatyurl" in ~redlJY~ Aziya v drevnosti i srednevekov 'ye (coll. papers), Moscow, 1977, pp. 144-159.

7. 0. Lattimore, Studies in f;-_gntj.er history, London, 1962, p. 487; M. Rowton, "En­ closed nomadism," Journal of the E~!1omic and Social History of the Orient 17/1, 1974, p. 1 sq.

8. The steppe of southern Russia, a western continuation of the Central Asian ~asht-i Qipchaq, was always a corridor for the steppe peoples moving from Asia westwards, but when the Mongols conquered the woodlands of central Russia, they could not stay there and they had to rule over it from the Volga basin.

9. It happened, for instance, with the invasions of the Qarakhanid Turks in the 10th century and the Qarakhitays in the 12th century.

10. See, for instance, S .G. Klyashtorn'iy, Drevnctyurkskiye __runich~skiy_e __pamyatniki, Moscow, 1964, pp. 111-135; cf. B. Lewis, "The Mongols, the Turks and the Muslim Polity" in his Islam in History, London, 1973, p. 192.

11. Cf. B. Lewis, op. cit., p. 190 ("the simple inten:'3ity of the faith as they en­ countered it on the frontiers of Islam and heathendom").

12. Paradoxically, the Turkish tribesmen themselves in many cases have been considered bad Muslims by the sedentary people, and they have kept many of their heathen beliefs and customs until modern times. It did not prevent them from being, or considering themselves, zealous Muslims, be they Sunnis or (as a part of the Turkmen tribes in the post-Mongol period) Shi'is. It was the "intensity of faith" that did matter, and not the details of religious practice and customary law. The "vigorous upholders of the Sunna and its Hanafi madhhab_" (thus C.E. Bosworth, in Islo.mic c~':'il_:L~,;:ation, __25()_=.J:150, ed. D.S. Richards, Oxford, 1973, p. 15) were apparently Turkish political leaders, while the "ran}' nnd file" tribesmen were hardly much interested or versed in the problems of dogmatics.

" t 13. See W. Barthold, "Die persische Su 'nbija und die moderne i'lissenschaft II in ~0.c...t- ~.c..hr.t;f_t_:fU:r:._l1~.9y;r_i.ologi_e_26, 1912, pp. 262-263 (= V.V. Bartol'd, Sochine_ri:i,.ya, vol,. VI, Moscow, 1966, p. 368) ; idem, "Vostochnoiranskiy vopros II in ~~chineniya, vol. VII, Moscow, 1971, pp. 434-436; idem, 11 Istoriya kul 'turnoy zhizni Turkestana" in ~<~__c:12i1:1''_1.1J..Y2l:, vol. II/1, Noscow, 1963, pp. 221-223; idem, "A short history of Turkestan" in V.V. Barthold, Four studies on_ the_history of_ Central Asi

14. R.N. Frye, The ool.9_€:n_age_of__Persia._The lffabs __in the l''.a5_t, London, 1975, pp. 102, 165-168, 211-213; idcr.i, 21' 1:hara. The h:,dircval a.chievc"10.nt, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1965, pp. 100-101, 109-110, 191-l'.02.

15. D. Ayalon, "Aspects of the Mamluk phenomenon " in Der_J;slam 53/2, 1976, pp. 196-225.

16. See V.V. Bartol'd, Scichineniya, vol. I!/1, p. 223; cf. also R.N. Frye, Bukhara, pp. 172-173.

17. Suffice it to mention such authors as al-Pazdawi (d. 1089), cumar b. cAbd al-CAziz al.,..Bukhari (d. 1141), and, especially, Burhan al-Din Marghinani (d. 1197) and Abu Hafs Nasafi (d. 1142Y. Central Asian jurists dominated in the Hanafi fiqh; of 47 14 Hanafi jurists who flourished from the 11th centu....---ytill 1240, registered by c. Brockelmann (Geschichte der ArabischenLiteratur, 12 , 459-473, Supp. I, 636-653), 27 lived in Central Asia.

18. Cf. K.A. Nizarni, "India's cultural relations with Central Asia during the medieval period·" in Central Asia._Movements_of__p§Qples_and_ideas from times_prehistoric to m.~, ed. by A. Guha, New Delhi, 1970, p. 160.

19. R.N. Frye, Th.~_g_gJden age of Persia, p. 228.

20. Cf. E .A. Davidovich in Mc:i._t~::i;:_j,_c1],"i_ytorogq __soveshchaniya, __ar_kl)_eol,og9_v_J_~_tr1o_g:r:_a.,_t_q__y__~J;:.s\Qn~_y Azii, Moscow-Leningrad, 1959, pp. 38-46; idem, in Numizmatika i eEi:_92:.afika, II, Moscow, 1960, pp. 92-117. ·

21. 0. G. Bol 'shakov , in A .M. Beleni tzkiy, I. B. Bentovich, O. G. Bol 'shakov, Srednevekov'iy g_orod Sr_edney_Azi~, Leningrad, 1973, pp. 171, 195, 2CO, 209, 210.

22. B. Lewis, op.cit., p. 190.

23. See A.K.S. Lambton, "Aspects of Saljuq-Ghuzz settlement in Persia" in [slamis;_~i"..t­ lization, 950-1150, ed. D.S. Richards, pp. 113-125; C. Cahen, "Nomades et sedentaires dans le monde musulman du milieu du Mayen Age," ibid., p. 103.

24. It should be noted, however, that the growth of cities was a result not only of the development of commerce and industry, but also of the influx of population from the countryside, who fled from the devastation caused by the-nomads, as well as from the in­ creasing pressure of taxes (the growth of the number of Cayyar in the cities in the Seld-juk period can be connected with· this nhc~nomenon). Thu~the arout.h nf ri ti 0s was probably counterbalanced by the decline in agricultural production wn.ich in the long run contributed to the decrease of revenue of the central government and to political crise::c.

25. B. Lewis, op. cit., p. 186.

26. See V.V. Bartol'd, S0cht_n_~1?iyc1_,vol. II/1, pp. 719-720, 750-751; ibid., vol. VI, p. 190 (= V.V. Bartol'd, .Mussulman cultu:r:e., tr. Sh. Suhrawardy, Calcutta, 1934, pp. 111-112).

27. B. Lewis, op.cit., pp. 194-197.

I' 28. w. Kotwicz, "Les .Mongols, promoteurs de l'idee de paix universelle au debut du XIIIe si~cle," in Rocznik Orientalistyczny 16, 1950, p. 429. B. Lewis, admitting that the enthusiastic evaluation of 1:otwicz is somewhat exaggerated due to "the natural affection of a Mongolis".: fer the Mongols," repeats, nevertheless, that "the pax I]Qngol.ica became a reality in their vast dominions" (B. Lewis, op, cit., p. 184).

29. Set=: D. Ayalon, "The Great Yasa of Chingiz Khan. A reexamination'' in St_udia _i-_~la.12:ica3..;, 1971, pp. 163, 164, 166, 175, 180.

30. P. Jackson, "The Dissolution of the Mongol Empire," Central Asiat_ic JournaJ, 22/3-4, 1978, pp. 186-244. As Jackson demonstrates, not only the steppe principle of dynastic succession, but also the so-called tarn~ sys'.::em, which was specific to the .Mongols, mul­ tiplied the occasions for internal conflict in the empire and accelerated disintegration.

31. 'rhe Sarnanids ruled 124 years (875-999); the Buyids in Iran and Iraq for 130 years (932-1062); the Ghaznavids for 209 years (977-1186), or at least 173 (if counted until the capture of Ghazna by the Ghurids); the Seldjuks for 155 years (1039-1194); the Kt.orezmshahs

15 -(the dynasty of Anush-tegin) for about 154 years (ca. 1077-1231); the Qarakhanids for about 250 years (ca. 960-1211), or at least 170 years (to count only since the split of the qaghanate into two independent parts).

32. Cf. W. Barthold, J ..2._Vorlesungen uber die Geschichte der Turken Mittelasiens, Leipzig, · 1935, p. 166 (=~~<:::hineniy_~., vol. V, Moscow, 1968, p. 135), where the author seems to see a sign of political stability in the dynastic continuity in the steppe region, which is hardly justified. Cf., the same view, apparently, in J.J. Saunders, IIThe Nomad as Empire Builder," Diogenes 52, 1965, p. 93.

33. Al-cumari (14th century) claims that it was the ulus of Chaghatay where the Yasa was·respected most of all. Cf., however, the remark of P. Jackson, op.cit., p. 194, n. 28, who supposes that al-CUmari simply knew more anout the conditions which existed in the two nearer ulus. Jackson's remark concerns the seniority principle in the ruling dynasty, which "was adhered to more closely in the Golden Horde," while al-cumari speaks about the observance of Mongol law as a whole. The reputation of the Chaghatay ulus can probably be attributed also to the personal reputation of Chaghatay, who was considered the main keeper of Yasa in the Chingisid family (see W. Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion, 3rd ed., London, 1968, pp. 467-468J. · · · ·· ··

34. It was repeatedly stressed by Barthold; see, for instance, Sochineni~, vol. II/1, pp. 66, 258, 262, 264; vol. III, Moscow, 1965, pp. 233; vol. v, pp. 152-155, 160-161, 464. The Golden Horde (the ulus of DjochiJ, where the nomadic element was even stronger than in Central Asia, nominally existed longer than any other Mongol state (276 years, 1226- 1502), but, in fact, it was in a state of accelerating decay since the 1410s and there was no stable political order in it after the great disturbance of 1357-1380.

35. C. Cahen, op. cit., p. 104.

36. This idea was formulated by W. Radloff (see Das Kudatku Bilik ·des Jusuf Chass-Hac3.::o<=:1::i~ aus Balasagu1~, hrsg. von W. Radloff, vol. 1, St, Petersburg, 1891, p. LVI); about Bartr.0::..::: 1 ::: objections, cf. above, n. 32. On another occasion, however, Barthold seemed to accept this idea (see his "Istoriya kul'turnoy zhizni Turkestana," Sochineniya, vol. II/1, p. 270;.

37. About the close ties betw0en CLaghatay and Ottoman Turkish literature see A. Bombaci / in Pl1ilologiae turcicae fundamenta, vol. 2, Wiesbaden, 1964 1 pp. XX-XXI; cf., also E. Birnbaum, .. "Th~--6tto;-~-;;;---arid ch"agh;tay literature' II C:entral ___Asiatic, _.:rs::n~:r:n£c120/3 I }976, pp. 157-170.

38. See V.V. Barthold, Ulugh_Beg (== Four ...studies_on the history_ of_ Central Asia, vol.II), Leiden, 1958, pp. 115, 166-176 (= SQG.b..ineni.Yi0 II/2, 1-loscow, 1964, pp. 121-122, 164-173).

39. A very interesting paper on this subject was read by Prof. N. Barili~ate (Paris) at a symposium on Sufi brotherhoods in modern history at the University of Chicago, 3/10/78.

40. Despite a "silent" consensus, which for a long time has existed on this point, the cultural decay of Central Asia has never been a subject of special study and the scholars who dealt with the Uzbek pc,rioc1 usually confined th er.is elves to rather general rernar}:s. V. Barthold described the factors of the decay of the Islamic world in his works "Kul 'tc:~e .. musul'manstva" (see Soch,i.n_epi.Y.£, vol. VI, pp. 199-203 = Mussulman culture, pp. 134-144) and "Musul 'manskiy mir" (see Sq_cJ:l~n_eniy_c1,vol. VI, pp. 227-229), but he did not do the sar,e with regard to Central Asia in particular, except for several separate remarks in various works on some of the causes of its decay (cf. below, notes 43, 46, 50, 51, 54, 56). An attempt at a general evaluation was made by P. P. Ivanov in an introduction to his "Outli,.e of the history of Central Asia" (in Russian) written in 1938-41. In the published versio:-: of this book which appeared much later, posthumously (P.P. Ivanov, .9.~he~ti po istorii E;redney_ll._zii_j~l .. - _s_~!'.'-~?.i~cl....2<.!~·), Moscow, 1958}, Ivarov's ·introduction was excluded,

16 but his opinions were sununarized in the preface to his book written by A.K. Borovkov (pp. 6-7}, as well as several years earlier and better, in an article by A. Yu_. Yakubovskiy ("Pavel Petrovich Ivanov kak istorik Sredney Azii," in Sovetskoye vostokovedenive, V, Moscow-L~ningrad, 1948, p. 320). Ivanov enumerated the following causes of the decay of Central Asia: (1) the shift of the main international trade routes from the end of the 15th century; (2) the [political and cultural] rift between Sunni Central Asia and Shi'i Iran; (3) the disruption of trade relations between Central Asia and China as a result of the emergence of the Kazakh khanates in Dasht-i Qipchaq; all this led to an isolation of Central Asia from the surrounding world and this happened at a [difficult] period initshistory, whe:-:: the masses of the nomadic Uzbeks, the newcomers to Central Asia, underwent a transition to t:-.,:: feudal system. The main idea of Ivanov, that the decay of Central Asia was a result of its isolation, was certainly hvrrowed from Barthold, though the latter did not formulate it in the same way.

In Soviet historiography after Ivanov there were no attempts at a new evaluation of the problem. The ideas of Barthold and Ivanov were some.times repeated (see, for instance B.G. Gafurov, Jstoriya ta_dztiksk9go paroc:l.a, vol. 1, [Moscow], 1949, pp. 359, 371; N.G.

Apollova, in _Q_cherki isi:_c,riL_SSR ....J'~rio_c;L feodalizma .. Konetz XV__ y,_-nachal,9_ XVI.LY...!,t!oscow 1 1955, p. 875, but here "the slow development of productive forces" is mentioned as the main cause of the general stagnation). But more often Soviet historians have preferred not to speak about the general decay, even though they mention some of its causes (cf. :i;storiya taclzhikskogo naroda, vol. II/1, Moscow, 1964, p. 405), or even denied the fact of the decay altogether (O.D. Chekhovich, "K voprosu o periodizatzii istorii Uzbekistana (XVI-XVIII vv.)" in Izvestiya_ l\ls;:ademiJ __J.:1c1uk Y':bekskoy _?_?_13,1954, No. 5, pp. 101-109; here, however, the author discusses rather dogmatic question of the "decay of the feuda.lism" in Central Asia).

41. The Carnbridg~ __Hist~ry_of Islafl}, vo_l. I, p. 468; _the same also in Prof. Spuler's chap­ ter in The _HusJim. __1'10_:i;-lg_._}LII_ist:01'.'ic::cl.i __$_11rvey, pt. III, Tri_~_Jas_:t:_9rea_! -~1uslim. err,pir~~! Leiden, 1969, pp. 226-227. This statement is factually riot correct in at least o~e respect: Turkish did not "become the idiom of western Central Asia'' even in the Uzbek period. Tadjik was the language of literature and chancellary in Bukhara and, to a great extent, also in Khokand until the late 19th century; it was also -':112 snoken language of the majority of the population in the Khanate of Bukhara. Only in Khorezm ,-,as Tadjik (or ancient Khorezmian) practically replaced by Turkish.

42. See note 40 above.

43. It should be noted that V. Barthold seemed to ascribe more importance to the final political rift between Mawarannahr and Iran, which he dated from 1469 (the division of fr,e Timurid empire), than to the cultural rift between the.Central Asian Sunnis and the Iranian Shi'is. In his "History of the cultural life of Turkestan" he wrote: "Since 1469 Turkestan has not been united with the regions of Persia under common rulers, which re­ sulted in even greater decay of culture" (V.V. ;;..>,artol'd, .?ocbJ.c.t:9.EU'._~ vol. II/1, p. 267). As the first cause of cultural decay Barthold mentions in this context the activity of Khodja Ahrar, which had a "decisive effect on the further fate of 'I'ud:estan" (ibid.).

44. P.P. Ivanov was, probably, the only historian who pointed out this fact (see &bove, note 46), but he attributed it to the dor:iy;ation of the Kazakhs in the steppe and the wars between them and the Uzbeks.

45. See A.J. Toynbee, Civiliza!:._~on on_!_:"_i_'.:-2,_,Oxford, 1949, pp. 65-71.

46. Cf. Barthold's remark that, in contrast to the history of Western Europe, in the East cultural decay usually comes before political decay (V.V. Bartol'd, S..9.~.bi!l£.12.i_y~,vol. II/1, p. 751). 17 47 •. The interlude of the brilliant Timurid culture does not contradict this impression because this culture was created mainly outside Central Asia proper or by people who were brought to Central Asia and then left after a short while, though the original political center of the empire was in Central Asia.

48. The _Cambridge History of _Islam-1 vol. 1, p. 470; the same in The Muslim world. Ji. historica_l.._§__urvey, pt. III, p. 229.

49. Cf. The __Cambridge_History_of I,slam, vol. 1, pp. 673-:-675 (D.A. Rustow)_.

50. Cf. V.V. Barthold, "A short history of Turkestan," in Fq~r_studies onthe_hist9cy __q_f Central Asisi, vol. I, p. 66 (=Sochineniya, vol.II/1, p. 165): "In the nineteenth ceriturv, when Europe had definitely assumed cultural leadership, Turkestan stood lowest of all Muslim lands on the cultural scale, being as it was the part of Muslim Asia farthest removed from Europe."

51. Barthold, apparently, put forth the nomadic invasions as a main explanation of cultural decay in Central Asia and the Islamic world in general: "One should look for the explanati~=-­ of the cultural backwardness of Central Asia in the historical conditions pointed out already by Ritter; a lasting development of civilization is impossible in a country which, during its whole historical life, has not ceased to be a battlefield of various peoples" (V.V. Bartol'd, Sochineniysi, vol. V, p. 250J; cf. also his "Muslim culture'' (in ~ochill~l2i-~e::, vol.VI, p. 199 = Mussulman culture, p. 135, about "barbarian invasion").

52 .• Cf. B. Lewis, op. cit., p. 190.

53. The first Soviet general histories of the Central Asian republics, published in the

1940s, mentioned these facts (see: Istoria narodov Uzbekistana 1 vol. 2, Tashkent, 1947, pp. 42-43; B.G. Gafurov, op, cit., pp. 353-354). Later R.G. Mukminova tried to pro,;e that the Uzbek conquest was not a large-scale nomadic inv2sion (see her article ''Y_vo­ prosu o pereselenii kochev'ikh uzbekov v nv.chale )(VI v. 11 in Izvestiy:ci_ Akad.emii nauk Llz-:­ bekskoy SSR, 1954, No. 1, pp. 70-81), though she could not produce any convincing ar­ guments; but she still recognized the negative economic results of this conquest (p. 80). In the subsequent editions of the history of the Uzbek republic (Istoriya l'zbekskoy SSR, vol. I/1, Tashkent, 1955, pp. 391-392, anc\ especially, Istoria Uzb~'}:skoy __SS!2-., vol. I, 'l'ashkent, 1957, pp. 522-523) the authors played down' th; -11~-gicl.ti~econseque,1ces of the conquest, while in the histories of the Tadjik republic the Uzbek invasion is still ,treated not too favorably (see Istoriya_tadzl}_iksk_ogo _narocl~, vol. II/1, p. 371; B.G. Gafurov, '.I'_9 dzhiki, Moscow, 1972, pp. 528-529).

54. About the disastrous consec~ucnces of a prolonged stay of nomads in the vicinity of c:.:1- tivated regions v,hen strong central power was absent, see V. V. Bartb:i. 'd, S0chineni1 1 a, v:::,l, VI p. 227; idem, Sochi!'.g,~J.Y2.1 vol. II/1, p. 258. Cf. C.E. Bosworth, op, cit., pp. 10-11, on the cumulative effect of the penetration of the Turks into Central Asia before the Mongols.

55. This was the fate of the regions to the east of the S'ir-Darya basin already in the late r:on_gol r:crioc1. Later tl1c s~:~1~ t.hi::-tg hapr~cncd t:o sc:·y~ re;;_;i_o:-is i.n the GiclcJ.lc and lower course of the Sir-Darya and to the area of 1-:ortbern Khorasan (modern Southern Turkmenia). In Khorczm sedentary culture was in a very deep decay until the end of the 18th century and "this ancient home of civilisation had become a brigand state" (W. Barthold, KhWarizm, in EncycloJ?acdia _of_ I_slaml, II, p. 910) .

56. The relative character of cultural decline in Central Asia was pointed out by Barthold ( "A short history of Turkestan" in Fo_ur studies on._ the hi story_ of .. Central l\.si_a, vol. I, pp. 65-66 == S0cJ1i_n_cni.:z_.:1.,vol. II/1, p. 164; "Istori.ya kul'turnoy zhizni Turkes­ tana" in _$_o_chin~l"l_:!:):E;,vol. II/1, pp. 268-271). From the middle of the 16th until the

18 middle of the 17th century Bukhara was in a much better condition than Khorezm.

57. See V.V. Bartol'd, Sochinen~, vol II/1, pp. 165--166, 278, 285-286, 289-290; O.D. Chekhovich, "O nekotor'ikh voprosakh istorii Sredney Azii XVIII-XIX vekoY II in YE,p_!os'i istorii, 1956, No. 3, pp. 84-95.

58. At the same time the Central Asian Turks were losing their military qualities. Generally the nomads retained their military prowess in reverse proportion to the degree of their integration into sedentary culture.

59. D. Ayalon, "Aspects of the Marnluk phenomenon," Der Is~ 53/2, 1976, p. 207.

. ~ 60. Cf. now: M. Carrere d'Encausse, L'empire eclate, La r~volte des nations en U.R.S.S., Paris, Flanunarion, 1978 •

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