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Kara-Khanid Khanate

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Kara-Khanid Khanate
840–1212
Kara Khanid Khanate, c. 1000.
Kara Khanid Khanate, c. 1000.
CapitalKashgar
Religion
Islam
GovernmentMonarchy
Kara Khan 
History 
• Established
840
• Disestablished
1212
Area
1025 est.3,000,000 km2 (1,200,000 sq mi)
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Uyghur Empire
Samanid
Mongol Empire File:White Sulde of the Mongol Empire.jpg
This article refers to the Turkic state Kara-Khanid Khanate (also designated as Qarakhanids). For the Khitan Khanate, see Kara-Khitan Khanate.

The Kara-Khanid Khanate was a confederation of Turkic tribes ruled by a dynasty known in literature as the Karakhanids or Ilek Khanids, (Turkish: Karahanlılar, Chinese: 黑汗, 桃花石). Both dynastic names represent titles with Kara Kağan being the most important Turkish title up till the end of the dynasty.[1] The Khanate ruled Transoxania in Central Asia from 840-1211.[2] Their capitals included Kashgar, Balasagun, and Uzgen.

Origins

Early history

Despite continuity from the first Uyghur Empire and affinity with the Kara-Khojas, the Kara-Khanids claimed descent from the legendary Afrasiab dynasty.[citation needed] The use of the vertical Uyghur script among Muslim Turks extended well into Timurid times in western Turkistan, and well into Manchu times in some enclaves in Eastern Turkistan. The Anatolian Turkish beyliks in Ilkhanid times and early Ottoman times still retained scribes trained in the vertical script in order to do transactions with the Timurids. These scribes were called "bakshy", a name possibly of Chinese origin, meaning "great scholar", one of the titles of the Confucian soldier-scholar Yelu Dashi, or of Sanskrit origin.

The Muslim, Persianized [citation needed] , sedentary elements of the Kara-Khanid culture are preserved today among the Uyghur, Tajik, Uzbek, Afghan, and Hui nations. The nomadic elements of the two of which speak Chagatay Turkic languages.Kara-Khanid and Kara-Khitan states, the Karluk and Naiman hordes, laid the foundation for the modern Kypchak Turkic-speaking cultures of the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Tatars.

Early migrations

Kara-Khanid Khanate in 1025 AD.

A branch of the Uyghurs migrated to oasis settlements of Tarim Basin and Gansu, such as Gaochang (Khoja) and Hami (Kumul) and set up a confederation of decentralized Buddhist states called Kara-Khoja. Others, occupying western Tarim Basin, Ferghana Valley, Jungaria and parts of Kazakhstan bordering the Muslim Khwarazm Sultanate, converted to Islam no later than 10th century and built a federation with Muslim institutions called Kara-Khanlik, whose princely dynasties are called Kara-Khanids by historians.

In 999 Harun (or Hasan) Bughra Khan, grandson of the paramount tribal chief of the Uyghur-Karluk confederation, occupied Bukhara, the Samanid capital. The Samanid domains were split up between the Ghaznavids, who gained Khorasan and Afghanistan, and the Karakhanids, who received Transoxania; the Oxus River thus became the boundary between the two rival empires. During this period the Kara-Khanids were converted to Islam.

Early in the 11th century the unity of the Kara-Khanid dynasty was fractured by constant internal warfare. In 1041 Muhammad 'Ayn ad-Dawlah (reigned 1041–52) took over the administration of the western branch of the family, centred at Bukhara. After the rise of the Seljuks at the end of the 11th century in Iran, the Kara-Khanids became nominal vassals of the Seljuks. Later they would serve the dual suzerainty of both the Kara-Khitans to the north and the Seljuks to the south.[2]

With a decline in Seljuk power, the Kara-Khanids in 1140 fell under domination of the Mongol[3] Kara-Khitan Khanate, centred in northern China.[4] Uthman (reigned 1204–11) briefly re-established the independence of the dynasty, but in 1211 the Karakhanids were defeated by the Khwarezm-Shah 'Ala' ad-Din Muhammad and the dynasty was extinguished.

Famous Kara-Khanid rulers

The restored mausoleum of Ayshah bibi near Taraz.

Historically influential Kara-Khanid rulers include Mahmoud Tamgach of Kashgar. After the defeat of the Khitan dynasty by the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) in Northern China, the great Khitan mandarin Yelu Dashi escaped from China with a small band of Khitan soldiers, recruited warriors from Tangut, Tibetan, Karluk, Kara-Khoja, Naiman areas and marched westward in search of asylum.

Yelu Dashi was accommodated by the hospitable Tangut Western Xia Kingdom and the Buddhist Kara-Khojas. However, he was shut out by the Muslim Kara-Khanids near Gulja and Kashgar. Enraged, he subjugated Karakhanid states one by one and set up the Kara-Khitan suzerainty in Balasagun on the Chu River. Several military commanders of Kara-Khanid lineages such as the father of Osman of Khwarezm, escaped from Kara-Khanid lands during the Kara-Khitan invasion. In 1244, upon the invitation of the Egyptian Mamluks, Osman of Khwarezm marched on Jerusalem and liberated the holy city, on behalf of Islam, from the Crusaders.


Kara-Khitan Invasion

Asia in 1200 AD, showing Kara-Khitan and neighbors.

The Kara-Khitan Khanate, though harsh on the Muslim Turks, did not dispossess all of the Kara-Khanid domains. Instead, the Khitans (most of them were actually Naimans, Tanguts and Karluks speaking the same Turkic language as the Kara-Khanids)[citation needed] retreated to the northern steppes and had the Kara-Khanids act as their tax-collectors and administrators on Muslim sedentary populations (the same practice was adopted by the Golden Horde on the Russian Steppes). The Kara-Khitans even incorporated Kara-Khanid Muslim generals such as Muhammad Tai, who surrendered to the Naiman usurper Kuchlug at the end of the Kara-Khitan Dynasty. Kuchlug, the last ruler of the Kara-Khitan Dynasty, was especially harsh on the Muslim populations under his suzerainty. He went so far as to forcing conversions from Islam to Buddhism, the dominant religion of the ruling Kara-Khitans. The elite Kara-Khitans and their Naiman soldiers, on an interesting note, were very often Nestorian Christians, as suggested by the Syriac names of the Gur-Khans (Emperors), who at the same time had Confucian titles and patronized Buddhist establishments. Kuchlug's Naimans were perhaps largely Nestorian Christian. The reason for forced conversions to Buddhism was perhaps the underdevelopment of Nestorian institutions, making Nestorianism unsuitable as a tool for ruling sedentary populations.

Downfall

In the early 13th century Kara-Khitan ruler Kuchlug, a sworn foe of Genghis Khan, was crushed by the advancing Mongol army along with his Kara-Khitan military state. His vassals, the Kara-Khanids, offered meager resistance to the Mongols. Kuchlug put an end to eastern part of Kara-Khanid state in 1211. Also, Khwarezmian Empire demolished western part of the Kara-Khanid state in 1212.

Culture

11-12th century Karakhanid mausolea in Uzgen, Kyrgyzstan.

It is perhaps because of the similarities between Kara-Khanid and Kara-Khoja cultures that during the Yuan and Ming periods former Kara-Khoja and Xixia lands were populated by converts to Islam indistinguishable from Chagatay and Timurid lands. These Turkic Muslims under Chinese influence later adopted the Chinese language while still maintaining extensive trade relations with Turkestan. They were designated "Hui" in Chinese, obviously derived from "Huihui" or "Huihu", an archaic transliteration of "Uyghur". The Kara-Khanid culture started as a literate tradition, with a body of Muslim subjects recorded in the vertical Sogdian script of the first Uyghur Empire.

The Islamized Karluk princely clan, the Balasaghunlu Ashinalar (the Kara-Khanids) gravitated toward the Persian Islamic cultural zone [citation needed] after their political autonomy and suzerainty over Central Asia was secured during the 9-10th century. As they became increasingly Persianized[citation needed] (to the point of adopting "Afrasiab"[citation needed], a Shahnameh mythical figure as the ancestor of their lineage), they settled in the more Indo-Iranian[citation needed] sedentary centers such as Kashgar, and became detached[citation needed] from the nomadic traditions of fellow Karluks, many of whom retained[citation needed] the Nestorian-Mahayana-Manichaean[citation needed] religious mixture of the former Uyghur Khanate[citation needed].

Legacy

Kara-Khanid legacy is arguably the most enduring cultural heritage among coexisting cultures in Central Asia from the 9th to the 13th century. The Karluk-Uyghur dialect spoken by the nomadic tribes and turkified sedentary populations under Kara-Khanid rule branched out into two major branches of the Turkic linguistic family, the Chagatay and the Kypchak. The Kara-Khanid cultural model that combined nomadic Turkic culture with Islamic, sedentary institutions spread east into former Kara-Khoja and Tangut territories and west and south into the subcontinent, Khorasan (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Northern Iran), Golden Horde territories (Tataristan) and Turkey. The Chagatay , Timurid and Uzbek states and societies inherited most of the cultures of the Kara-Khanids and the Khwarezmians without much interruption.

Kara-khanid dynasty

Tomb of Sultan Satuk Bughra Khan in Artush, Xinjiang

Western Karakhanids

Eastern Karakhanids

See also

References

  1. ^ Davidovich, E. A. (1998), "The Karakhanids", in Bosworth, C.E. (ed.), History of Civilisations of Central Asia, vol. 4 part I, UNESCO Publishing, p. 119, ISBN 92-3-103467-7
  2. ^ a b Encyclopædia Britannica
  3. ^ Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, (Rutgers University Press, 2002), 165.
  4. ^ Grousset, 166.
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