Kara-Khanid Khanate

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

The Karakhanids founded the first Muslim Turkic empire. It lay on both sides of the Tianshan.^[1] Their state grew out of a federation of Turkic tribes west of the Tianshan. These included the Yaghma, the Karluks and the Tukhsi. For a century the young men of these tribes had been sold as slaves in Chach and Ferghana.^[2] According to some scholars, the Turkmen of the tenth-century Talas were a remnant of the Ten Arrows and a people apart from the Oghuz. Al-Muqaddasi names them as the only Turkic people that had turned Muslim.^[3] Minorsky took the Tukhsi for a remnant of the Türgesh.^[4] The state began in the land of Argu, between Isfijab and Balasaghun. This was a Sogdian and Turkic country. The first conversions of Turks to Islam had taken place there, in the zone of Sogdian trade north of the Syr Darya.^[5]

How the dynasty began is uncertain. Some scholars have the first Karakhanid khan claim the khaganate after the fall of the Uyghur khaganate in 840. Others see the dynasty in the pagan Turks who took Balasaghun around 943. According to them, they became Muslims within a generation.^[6] A third group takes the Yaghma for the founders of the dynasty. The Yaghma were a people related to the Uyghur ruling house. They moved west after 840 and took the Kashgar region from the Karluks.^[7] A last group denies that the dynasty belonged to any tribe. It makes the house a line of the Ashina kind, like the khans of the Göktürks, the Türgesh and the Toquz Oghuz, resting on the Yaghma and Chigil tribes of the Kashgar region.^[8] Satuq Bughra Khan died around 955. He was the first of the house to convert to Islam.^[6] The western branch ended in 1212. In that year the Khwarazmshah took Samarkand. He killed every member of the house he could find.^[9]

In 999 the Karakhanids took Transoxiana and ended the Samanids.^[1] There they proclaimed a very orthodox Sunnism. They may have done so to win over the elites of the towns.^[10] In 1006 they took Khotan. Through Khotan they supplied the Ghaznavids with musk and silk.^[11] Mahmud al-Kashgari came from their eastern kingdom. He wrote the Dīwān Lughāt at-Turk at Baghdad in 1076–1077.^[11]

The Kutadgu Bilig is a mirror for princes in verse. It was written at the Karakhanid court. In 1069 or 1070 it was presented to the ruler of Kashgar, whom the poem calls Tavgach Ulug Bughra Khan.^[12] The poet quotes a sage of the Chigil. The Chigil were one of the tribes of the confederation.^[13] The court kept the Uyghur script alongside the Arabic one. It called the Uyghur script the Turkish script.^[14]

References

^ a b de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 267
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 331
^ Sümer 1972, p. 28–29
^ Sümer 1972, p. 28
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 330
^ a b c d Golden 1992, p. 214
^ Sümer 1972, p. 30
^ Togan 1981, p. 58
^ a b Golden 1992, p. 227
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 327
^ a b de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 321
^ Kutadgu Bilig; Dankoff 1983, couplets 88, 6495
^ Kutadgu Bilig
^ Dankoff 1983, p. 2–3
^ Golden 1992, p. 215
^ Golden 1992, p. 214–215
^ Golden 1992, p. 216

Sources

Literature

Étienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders: A History (2005)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Faruk Sümer, Oğuzlar (Türkmenler). Tarihleri, boy teşkilâtı, destanları (1972)
Zeki Velidi Togan, Umumi Türk Tarihine Giriş I (1981)