Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
two factions met in battle in 1468; Abylkayyr was killed and his army
defeated.
After this setback, Abylkayyr's grandson Mohammed Shaybani
brought the Uzbek khans to power once more and established Uzbek
control in Transoxiana, modern-day Uzbekistan. Abylkayyr's rebellious
kinsmen became the forefathers of the Kazakh khans.
The Uzbeks gradually adopted the sedentary agricultural life best
suited to the fertile river valleys they occupied. Settled life involved cit-
ies, which entailed administration, literacy, learning and, wrapped up
with all of these, Islam. The Shaybanid dynasty, which ruled until the
end of the 16th century, attempted to outdo the Timurids in religious
devotion and to carry on their commitment to artistic patronage. But the
Silk Road had withered away, usurped by spice ships, and Central Asia's
economy had entered full decline. As prosperity fell, so did the region's
importance as a centre of the Islamic world.
The Kazakhs, meanwhile, stayed home on the range, north of the Syr-
Darya, and flourished as nomadic herders. Their experience of urban
civilisation and organised Islam remained slight compared with their
Uzbek cousins. By the 16th century the Kazakhs had solidly filled a
power vacuum on the old Scythian steppes between the Ural and Irtysh
Rivers and established what was to be the world's last nomadic empire,
divided into three hordes: the Great Horde, the Middle Horde and the
Little Horde. The Great Horde roamed the steppes of the Zhetisu region
(Russian: Semireche), north of the Tian Shan; the Middle Horde occu-
pied the grasslands east of the Aral Sea; and the Little Horde took the
lands to the west, as far as the Ural River.
One effect of the Shaybanid expansion was to force Andijon-born ruler
Zahiruddin Babur (1483-1530) out of Fergana and Samarkand and into
exile in Kabul. In 1526 Babur continued into India, adding his name to
the long list of empire builders who have driven armies over the Khyber
Pass, where he ultimately founded the magnificent Mughal empire. The
word Mughal (a corruption of 'Mongol') is not the only legacy of Babur's
rule in India; you don't have to look too hard to see the shape of a Central
Asian medressa in the lines of the Taj Mahal.
Babur never
returned to his
beloved Fergana
Valley and his
whistful memoirs,
the
Baburname
are full of
nostalgic laments
to the joys of his
lost homeland;
mostly melons
and women, in
that order.
The Zhungarian Empire
The Oyrats were a western Mongol clan who had been converted to
Tibetan Buddhism. Their day in the sun came when they subjugated
eastern Kazakhstan, the Tian Shan, Kashgaria and western Mongolia
to form the Zhungarian (Dzungarian or Jungarian) empire (1635-1758).
Russia's frontier settlers were forced to pay heavy tribute and the Ka-
zakh hordes, with their prize pasturage filling the mountain gap known
For more on the
extraordinary life
of Timur see
Tamerlane:
Sword of Islam,
Conqueror of the
World
by Justin
Marozzi.
1510
Sheybani Khan dies at
Merv ighting for the
Ottomans against the
Safarvids of Iran. The
Safarvid general stufs
Sheybani's decapitated
head with straw and
sends it to the sultan as
a gruesome warning.
16th century
The 16th and 17th cen-
turies see the formation
of the Turkmen identity,
as tribal groupings such
as the Tekke, Salor and
Yomud emerge from the
earlier Oghuz Turks.
1635-1758
Zhungarian (Oyrat)
empire terrorises Ka-
zakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
and China. When the
Oyrats are inally
defeated by Manchu
China, Kyrgyzstan
comes nominally under
Chinese rule.
1717
First Russian expedi-
tion to Khiva ends in
a massacre of 4000
tsarist troops; the
decapitated Russian
leader's head is sent
to the Emir of Bukhara
as a gift.
