TaiwanDNA.com

Origins and Diversity of the Taiwanese People

TaiwanDNA.com Homepage

Photograph by Rev. Claude L. Pickens

 

The Salar language has two large dialect groups. The divergence is due to the fact that one branch was influenced by the Tibetan and Chinese languages, and the other branch by the Uyghur and Kazakh languages. Salar is not a written language. There are reported similarities with Turkmen. Amazingly, speakers of Salar and Turkish can generally understand each other to a large degree, even though one ethnic group lives in Central China and the other in Anatolia, thousands of miles away. Linguistic evidence points to a possible western Turkic, Oghuz origin of the Salar.

 

The Oghuz Turks are regarded as one of the major branches of Turkic peoples. The Oghuz Turks are ancestors of today's Southwestern Turks, totalling a combined population of 100 million and ranging from eastern Europe to western Asia. The peoples who identify themselves as descendants of the Oghuz Turks include the Azerbaijanis, Turks (of Turkey), Turkish Cypriots, Balkan Turks, Turkmens, Qashqai, Khorasani, Gagauz and Salar.

During the Turkic mass-migrations of the 9th through the 12th century, the Oghuz were among the indigenous Turks of Central Asia who migrated towards western Asia and eastern Europe via Transoxiana. From the 5th century onward, the Oghuz were the founders and rulers of several important Turkic kingdoms and empires, the most notable of which were the Seljuks and Ottomans.

 

A Seljuk Prince

 

The Art of the Seljuq Period in Anatolia (1081–1307) by MetMuseum.org

 

Links to Articles

* Salar People by Turkmen.com

*  Stone Camels and Clear Springs: The Salar's Samarkand Origins by Jianzhong Ma, et al.

* Exiled by Definition: The Salar of Northwest China by David S G Goodman

* Northwest China: the Salar and Economic Activism  by David Goodman

* The Muslim Nations of the North-west by Anthony Garnaut

* China’s Vulnerability to Minority Separatism by June Teufel Dreyer

* Islam in China: Accommodation or Separatism? By Dru C. Gladney 

* Physical Anthropology and Ethnicity in Asia: The Transition from
Anthropometry to Genome-based Studies by A. H. Bittles, et al.

* Genetic Polymorphisms of 15 STR in Chinese Salar Ethnic Minority Group by J. Zhu, et al.

* Evolution and Migration History of the Chinese Population Inferred from Chinese Y-Chromosome Evidence by Wei Deng, et al. 

* Molecular Evidence for the Temporal Stratification of Chinese Genetic Diversity by M. Black, et al.

* The Origins and Genetic Structure of Three Co-resident Chinese Muslim Populations: the Salar, Bo'an and Dongxiang by Wei Wang, et al.

 

• Origins
  • Aborigine
  • European
    • Portuguese
    • Dutch
    • Spanish
    • Basque
    • Swiss
    • Russian
    • Finnish
    • Romanian
    • French
    • German
    • Italian
    • Bosnian
    • Székely
  • Southeast Asian
    • Thai
    • Malay
    • Filipino
    • Vietnamese
    • Cambodian
    • Javanese
  • East Asian
    • Japanese
    • Korean
    • Guangxi
    • Hui
    • Manchu
    • Chinese
  • Central Asian
    • Salar
    • Mongolian
    • Kyrgyz
    • Evenki
    • Tibetan
  • Middle Eastern/African
    • Tunisian
    • Turkish
    • Arab
    • Jewish
  • South Asian
    • Bhutanese
    • Nepali
    • Indian

Flag of Great Seljuq Empire

 

The Koran
(in English)

 

 

Xinjiang

 

Xinjiang is home to several Muslim Turkic groups including the Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tatars and the Kazakhs, and a few Indo-European Iranic groups, such as the Tajiks and the Sarikolis/Wakhis (often mis-identified as Tajiks). Other PRC minority ethnic groups include Hui Chinese, the Mongols, the Russians, the Xibes, and the Manchus.

* Xinjiang: China Pre- and Post-Modern Crossroad by Dru Gladney

 

Qinghai

 

Qinghai was only relatively recently made a province of China. The area, historically called Kokonor in English until the early 20th century, lies outside of China proper and has been an ethnic melting pot for centuries, mixing Han Chinese, Mongol, Tibetan, and Turkic influences.

* Xunhua Salar Autonomous County

 

Kulun Mountains

 

Gansu

 

Situated along the Silk Road, Gansu was an economically important province, and a cultural transmission path as well. Temples and Buddhist grottoes such as those at Mogao Caves ('Caves of the Thousand Buddhas') and Maijishan Caves contain artistically and historically revealing murals. Many parts of the province saw heavy fighting during the Muslim Rebellion of 1862-77.

 

Dunhuang

 

Mogao Caves Mural

 

Samarkand-Crossroads of Cultures

  

The Silk Road, Samarkand

 

Pan-Turkism

 

Pan-Turkism is a political movement aiming to unite the various Turkic peoples into a modern political state, a confederation, or an economic union closely resembling that of the European Union.

* List of Turkic States and Empires

 

SALAR

Excerpts from Wikipedia.org

The Salar people (撒拉族) are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. They numbered 104,503 people in the last census of 2000 and live mostly in Qinghai (in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County 循化撒拉族自治縣 and Hualong Autonomous County of the Hui Nationality 化隆回族自治縣), in Gansu (in Jishishan Autonomous County of the Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Nationalities 積石山保安族東鄉族撒拉族自治縣) and in Xinjiang (in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture 伊犁哈薩克自治州).

Their ancestors were migrating Oghuz Turks who intermarried with the Tibetans, Han Chinese, and Hui. They are a patriarchal agricultural society and Muslims.

 

History

Their origins are uncertain but according to Salar tradition, during the fourteenth and fifthteenth centuries their ancestors, possibly from an Oghuz tribe of the Seljuk Turk, left Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan and eventually settled in their present location in Gansu province. Over the course of their history, the ancestors of the Salar are believed to have merged with Tibetans, Han Chinese and Mongolians to form the present-day Salar.

In 1781, Qing armies crushed a Salar uprising with the results being disastrous for the Salar. As much as 40% of their entire population was killed in the revolt.

 

The Muslim Rebellion

The Dungan Revolt was a religious war. It also known as the Hui Minorities' War and the Muslim Rebellion. The term is sometimes used to refer to the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan as well. It was an uprising by members of the Hui and other Muslim ethnic groups in China's Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces, as well as in Xinjiang, between 1862 and 1877.

The purpose of this uprising was to develop a Muslim country in the western bank of Yellow River (Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia excluding the Xinjing province). Some people say it was directed against the Qing Dynasty, but there is no evidence at all showing they intent to attack the capital of Beijing. The uprising was actively encouraged by the leaders of the Taiping Rebellion. When it failed, it instigated immigration of some of the Dungan people into Imperial Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Before the war, the population of Shaaxi province was about 13 million, minimum 1,750,000 are Dungan (Hui). After the war, the population dropped to 7 million, 150,000 fled, left to between 50,000, the rest are died in ten years. Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, was the Holy city of Dungan (Hui) in China before the revolt. But once-flourishing Chinese Muslim communities fell 93% in the revolt in Shaaxi province. Between 1648 and 1878, around twelve million Hui and Han Chinese were killed in ten unsuccessful uprisings.

 

Salar Culture

The typical clothing of the Salar very similar to other Muslim peoples in the region. The men are commonly bearded and dress in white shirts and white or black skullcaps.

The young single women are accustomed to dressing in Chinese dress of bright colors. The married women utilize the traditional veil in white or black colors.

Since the early 2000s, a Turkist revival has been gaining some awareness throughout the 300,000 strong Salar community in Qinghai. They have re-surrected the Dede Korkut Destani, Oghuz Han Destani as their own national narrative, and also translated the late Turkmenbashi's work "Ruhnama" into both Salar and Chinese.

 

The Book of Dede Korkut

The Book of Dede Korkut is the most famous epic story of the Oghuz Turks (also known as Turkmens or Turcomans). The book's mythic narrative is part of the cultural heritage of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, as well as to a lesser degree Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Dede Korkut is a heroic dastan (legend) which starts out in Central Asia, continues in Anatolia and Iran, and centers most of its action in the Azerbaijani Caucasus.

For the Turkic peoples, especially people who self-identify as Oghuz, it is the principal repository of ethnic identity, history, customs and the value systems of the Turkic peoples throughout history. It commemorates struggles for freedom at a time when the Oghuz Turks were a herding people. the term 'Oghuz' was gradually supplanted among the Turks themselves as Turkmen, 'Turcoman', from the mid tenth century on.

 

Tilla-Kari Medressa in Samarkand

 

Samarkand

Samarkand (Uzbek: Samarqand, Самарқанд; video), is the second-largest city in Uzbekistan and the capital of Samarqand Province.The city is most noted for its central position on the Silk Road between China and the west and for being an Islamic centre for scholarly study. The Bibi-Khanym Mosque remains one of the city's most famous landmarks. The Registan was the ancient centre of the city. It is located at the altitude of 702 meters. In 2001, UNESCO inscribed the 2750-year-old city on the World Heritage List as Samarkand - Crossroads of Cultures.

 

History of Samarkand

Samarkand is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, prospering from its location on the trade route between China and Europe (Silk Road). At times Samarkand has been one of the greatest city of Central Asia. Founded circa 700 BC it was already the capital of the Sogdian satrapyunder the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia when Alexander the Great conquered it in 329 BC (see Afrasiab, Sogdiana).

The Greeks referred to Samarkand as Maracanda. In the 6th Century it was within the domains of a Turkish kingdom.

At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came under Arab control. Under Abbasid rule, the legend goes, the secret of papermaking was obtained from two Chinese prisoners from the Battle of Talas in 751, which led to the first paper mill in the Islamic world to be founded in Samarkand. The invention then spread to the rest of the Islamic world, and from there to Europe.

From the 6th to the 13th century it grew larger and more populous than modern Samarkand and was controlled by the Western Turks, Arabs (who converted the area to Islam), Persian Samanids, Kara-Khanid Turks, Seljuk Turks, Kara-Khitan, and Khorezmshah before being sacked by the Mongols under Genghis Khan in 1220 . A small part of the population survived, but Samarkand suffered at least another Mongol sack by Khan Baraq to get treasure he needed to pay an army with. The town took many decades to recover from these disasters.

In 1365 a revolt against Mongol control occurred in Samarkand.

In 1370, Timur the Lame, or Tamerlane, decided to make Samarkand the capital of his empire, which extended from India to Turkey. During the next 35 years he built a new city and populated it with artisans and craftsmen from all of the places he had conquered. Timur gained a reputation as a patron of the arts and Samarkand grew to become the centre of the region of Transoxiana. During this time the city had a population of about 150,000.

In 1499 the Uzbek Turks took control of Samarkand. The Shaybanids emerged as the Uzbek leaders at or about this time.

In the 16th century, the Shaybanids moved their capital to Bukhara and Samarkand went into decline. After an assault by the Persian king, Nadir Shah, the city was abandoned in the 18th century, about 1720 or a few years latter.

 

Map of Central Asia

 

The original homeland of the Oghuz, like other Turks, was the Ural-Altay region of Central Asia known as Turkestan or Turan, which has been the domain of Turkic peoples since antiquity. Although their mass-migrations from Central Asia occurred from the 9th century onwards, they were present in areas west of the Caspian Sea centuries prior, although smaller in numbers and perhaps living with other Turks.

In the 8th century, the Oghuz Turks made a new home and domain for themselves in the area between the Caspian and Aral seas, a region that is often referred to as Transoxiana, the western portion of Turkestan. They had moved westward from the Altay mountains through the Siberian steppes and settled in this region, and also penetrated into southern Russia and the Volga.

In his accredited work titled Diwan Lughat al-Turk, Mahmud of Kashgar, a Turkic scholar of the 11th century, described the Karachuk Mountains which are located just east of the Aral Sea as the original homeland of the Oghuz Turks. The Karachuk mountains are now known as the Tengri Tagh (Tian Shan in Chinese) Mountains, and they are adjacent to Syr Darya.

The extension from the Karachuk Mountains towards the Caspian Sea (Transoxiana) was called the "Oghuz Steppe Lands" from where the Oghuz Turks established trading, religious and cultural contacts with the Abbasid Arab caliphate who ruled to the south. This is around the same time that they first converted to Islam and renounced their shamanist belief system. The Arab historians mentioned that the Oghuz Turks in their domain in Transoxiana were ruled by a number of kings and chieftains.

It was in this area that they later founded the Seljuk Empire, and it was from this area that they spread west into western Asia and eastern Europe during Turkic migrations from the 9th until the 12th century. The founders of the Ottoman Empire were also Oghuz Turks.

 

Transoxiana ("河中“ in Chinese) / Ma Wara'un-Nahr (Arabic: ما وراء النهر) / Farārood (Persian: فرارود) is the ancient name used for the portion of Central Asia corresponding approximately with modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and southwest Kazakhstan. Geographically, it means the region between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers.

The name Transoxiana stuck in Western consciousness because of the exploits of Alexander the Great, who extended Greek culture into the region with his conquests of the 4th century BC; Transoxiana was the most northeastern point of the Hellenistic culture, and in fact kept a hybrid Greek/Persian/Chinese/Buddhist culture, dubbed 'Serindian', until the Islamic invasion.

During the Sassanid Empire, it was often called Sogdiana, a provincial name taken from the Achaemenid Empire, and used to distinguish it from nearby Bactria (Bactria is basically what is now northern Afghanistan).

The Chinese explorer Zhang Qian, who visited the neighbouring countries of Bactria and Parthia along with Transoxiana in 126 BCE, made the first known Chinese report on this region.

In Sassanid times, the region became a major cultural and scientific center due to effective royal authority and the wealth derived from the Northern Silk Road. Many Persian nobles and landlords escaped to this region after the Muslim invasion. Following the Arab conquest, the area became known as Ma wara'un-Nahr (Arabic, "what is beyond the river").

Transoxiana's major cities and cultural centers are Samarkand and Bukhara. Both are in the southern portion of Transoxiana, and the majority of the region was dry but fertile plains. Both cities remained centers of Persian culture and civilization after the Islamic conquest of Iran, and played a crucial role in the revival of Persian culture with establishment of the Samanid dynasty.

The region was conquered by Qutaybah ibn-Muslim between 706 and 715 and loosely held by the Umayyads from 715 to 738. This conquest was consolidated by Nasr ibn-Sayyar between 738 and 740. It was under the Umayyads from 740-748; and under the Abbasids after 748.

Genghis Khan invaded Transoxiana in 1219 during his conquest of Khwarazm. Before his death in 1227, he assigned the lands of Western Central Asia to his second son Chagatai, and this region became known as the Chagatai Khanate. In 1369 Timur (commonly called Tamerlane or Timur the Lame; video), of the Barlas tribe, became the effective ruler while continuing the ceremonial authority of Chagatai Khan's dynasty, and made Samarkand the capital of his future empire. Transoxiana was known to be flourishing in the mid 14th century prior to invasion by Timur.

 

Travels in Transoxiana: In the Lands Over the Hindu Kush and Cross the Amu Darya by Jaswant Singh

 

 

 

The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'ang Exotics by Edward H. Schafer

 

 

 

 

The Book of Dede Korkut by Anonymous, Geoffrey Lewis (Translator)

 

 

 

 

Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World by Justin Marozzi

 

 

 

 

After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405 by John Darwin

 

 

 

 

From Samaria to Samarkand: The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel by David A. Law

 

 

 

 

Muslims in China by Aliya Ma Lynn

 

 

 

 

Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang by James A. Millward

 

 

 

 

Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China by Jonathan N. N. Lipman

 

 

 

 

 

Map of Uzbekistan

 

Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi or Ўзбекистон Республикаси), is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. Once part of the Persianized Samanid and later Timurid empires, the region was conquered in the early 16th century by Uzbek nomads, who spoke an Eastern Turkic language. Most of Uzbekistan’s population today belong to the Uzbek ethnic group and speak the Uzbek language, one of the family of Turkic languages.

 

History of Uzbekistan

Early History: The first people known to have occupied Central Asia were Iranian nomads who arrived from the northern grasslands of what is now Uzbekistan sometime in the first millennium B.C. These nomads, who spoke Iranian dialects, settled in Central Asia and began to build an extensive irrigation system along the rivers of the region. At this time, cities such as Bukhoro (Bukhara) and Samarqand (Samarkand) began to appear as centers of government and culture. By the fifth century B.C., the Bactrian, Soghdian, and Tokharian states dominated the region. As China began to develop its silk trade with the West, Iranian cities took advantage of this commerce by becoming centers of trade. Using an extensive network of cities and settlements in the province of Mawarannahr (a name given the region after the Arab conquest) in Uzbekistan and farther east in what is today China's Xinjiang Uygur Auton-omous Region, the Soghdian intermediaries became the wealthiest of these Iranian merchants. Because of this trade on what became known as the Silk Route, Bukhoro and Samarqand eventually became extremely wealthy cities, and at times Mawarannahr was one of the most influential and powerful Persian provinces of antiquity.

The wealth of Mawarannahr was a constant magnet for invasions from the northern steppes and from China. Numerous intraregional wars were fought between Soghdian states and the other states in Mawarannahr, and the Persians and the Chinese were in perpetual conflict over the region. Alexander the Great conquered the region in 328 B.C., bringing it briefly under the control of his Macedonian Empire.

In the same centuries, however, the region also was an important center of intellectual life and religion. Until the first centuries after Christ, the dominant religion in the region was Zoroastrianism, but Buddhism, Manichaeism, and Christianity also attracted large numbers of followers.

Early Islamic Period: The conquest of Central Asia by Islamic Arabs, which was completed in the eighth century A.D., brought to the region a new religion and culture that continue to be dominant. The Arabs first invaded Mawarannahr in the middle of the seventh century through sporadic raids during their conquest of Persia. Available sources on the Arab conquest suggest that the Soghdians and other Iranian peoples of Central Asia were unable to defend their land against the Arabs because of internal divisions and the lack of strong indigenous leadership. The Arabs, on the other hand, were led by a brilliant general, Qutaybah ibn Muslim, and they also were highly motivated by the desire to spread their new faith (the official beginning of which was in A.D. 622). Because of these factors, the population of Mawarannahr was easily conquered. The new religion brought by the Arabs spread gradually in the region. The native cultures, which in some respects already were being displaced by Persian influences before the Arabs arrived, were displaced farther in the ensuing centuries. Nevertheless, the destiny of Central Asia as an Islamic region was firmly established by the Arab victory over the Chinese armies in 750 in a battle at the Talas River.

Under Arab rule, Central Asia retained much of its Iranian character, remaining an important center of culture and trade for centuries after the Arab conquest. However, until the tenth century the language of government, literature, and commerce was Arabic. Mawarannahr continued to be an important political player in regional affairs, as it had been under various Persian dynasties. In fact, the Abbasid Caliphate, which ruled the Arab world for five centuries beginning in 750, was established thanks in great part to assistance from Central Asian supporters in their struggle against the then-ruling Umayyad Caliphate.

During the height of the Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth and the ninth centuries, Central Asia and Mawarannahr experienced a truly golden age. Bukhoro became one of the leading centers of learning, culture, and art in the Muslim world, its magnificence rivaling contemporaneous cultural centers such as Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba. Some of the greatest historians, scientists, and geographers in the history of Islamic culture were natives of the region.

As the Abbasid Caliphate began to weaken and local Islamic Iranian states emerged as the rulers of Iran and Central Asia, the Persian language began to regain its preeminent role in the region as the language of literature and government. The rulers of the eastern section of Iran and of Mawarannahr were Persians. Under the Samanids and the Buyids, the rich culture of Mawarannahr continued to flourish.

Turkification: In the ninth century, the continued influx of nomads from the northern steppes brought a new group of people into Central Asia. These people were the Turks who lived in the great grasslands stretching from Mongolia to the Caspian Sea. Introduced mainly as slave soldiers to the Samanid Dynasty, these Turks served in the armies of all the states of the region, including the Abbasid army. In the late tenth century, as the Samanids began to lose control of Mawarannahr and northeastern Iran, some of these soldiers came to positions of power in the government of the region, and eventually they established their own states. With the emergence of a Turkic ruling group in the region, other Turkic tribes began to migrate to Mawarannahr.

The first of the Turkic states in the region was the Ghaznavid Empire, established in the last years of the tenth century. The Ghaznavid state, which ruled lands south of the Amu Darya, was able to conquer large areas of Iran, Afghanistan, and northern India during the reign of Sultan Mahmud. The dominance of Ghazna was curtailed, however, when large-scale Turkic migrations brought in two new groups of Turks who undermined the Ghaznavids. In the east, these Turks were led by the Qarakhanids, who conquered the Samanids. Then the Seljuk family led Turks into the western part of the region, conquering the Ghaznavid territory of Khorazm (also spelled Khorezm and Khwarazm).

Seljuk (Arabic: السلاجقة, Turkish: Selçuk; also Seldjuk, Seldjuq, Seljuq) was the eponymous hero of the Seljuks. He was the son of a certain Duqaq surnamed Timuryaligh -of the iron bow- and either the chief or an eminent member from the Kınık tribe of the Oghuz Turks. In about 985 the Seljuk clan split off from the bulk of the Tokuz-Oghuz, a confederacy of nine clans long settled between the Aral and Caspian Seas, and set up camp on the right bank of the lower Syr Darya (Jaxartes), in the direction of Jend, near Kzyl Orda in present day south-central Kazakhstan where they were converted to Islam.

The biblical names of his four sons -Mîkâîl, Isrâîl (Arslan), Mûsâ, and Yûnus (Jonah)- suggest previous acquaintance with either Khazar Judaism or Nestorian Christianity. Seljuk died approximately in 1038 and was sacrified in a tomb.

Under Mikail's sons Toghrul and Chaghri the Seljuks migrated into Khurasan. Ghaznavid attempts to stop Seljuks raiding the local Muslim populace led to the Battle of Dandanaqan on 23 May 1040. Victorious Seljuks became masters of Khurasan, expanding their power into Transoxiana and across Iran. By 1055 Toghrul had expanded his control all the way to Baghdad, setting himself up as the champion of the Abbasid caliph, who honored him with the title sultan. Earlier rulers may have used this title but the Seljuks seem to have been the first to inscribe it on their coins.

Map of the Great Seljuq Empire

The Great Seljuq Empire was a medieval Sunni Muslim empire established by the Qynyq branch of Oghuz Turks that once controlled a vast area stretching from the Hindu Kush to eastern Anatolia and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf. From their homelands near the Aral sea, the Seljuqs advanced first into Khorasan and then into mainland Persia before eventually conquering eastern Anatolia. Their advance marked the beginning of Turkic power in the Middle East.

The Seljuq empire was founded by Tugrul Beg in 1037 after the efforts by the founder of the Seljuq dynasty, Seljuq Beg, back in the first quarter of the 11th century. Seljuq Beg's father was in a higher position in the Oghuz Yabgu State, and gave his name both to the state and the dynasty. The Seljuqs united the fractured political scene of the Eastern Islamic world and played a key role in the first and second crusades. Highly Persianized in culture and language, the Seljuqs also played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition.

List of Emperors of the Great Seljuq Empire:

• Seljuk Beg (named after)
• Tuğrul Beg (1037 - 1063) (the founder)
• Alp Arslan (1063 - 1072)
• Melik Şah I (1072 - 1092)
• Mahmud (1092 - 1094)
• Barkiyaruq (1094 - 1105)
• Melik Şah II (1105)
• Mehmed (1105 - 1118)
• Ahmed Sanjar (1118 - 1153)

Attracted by the wealth of Central Asia as were earlier groups, the Seljuks dominated a wide area from Asia Minor to the western sections of Mawarannahr, in Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq in the eleventh century. The Seljuk Empire then split into states ruled by various local Turkic and Iranian rulers. The culture and intellectual life of the region continued unaffected by such political changes, however. Turkic tribes from the north continued to migrate into the region during this period.

In the late twelfth century, a Turkic leader of Khorazm, which is the region south of the Aral Sea, united Khorazm, Mawarannahr, and Iran under his rule. Under the rule of the Khorazm shah Kutbeddin Muhammad and his son, Muhammad II, Mawarannahr continued to be prosperous and rich. However, a new incursion of nomads from the north soon changed this situation. This time the invader was Chinggis (Genghis) Khan with his Mongol armies.

Mongol Period: The Mongol invasion of Central Asia is one of the turning points in the history of the region. That event left imprints that were still discernible in the early twentieth century. The Mongols had such a lasting impact because they established the tradition that the legitimate ruler of any Central Asian state could only be a blood descendant of Chinggis Khan.

The Mongol conquest of Central Asia, which took place from 1219 to 1225, led to a wholesale change in the population of Mawarannahr. The conquest quickened the process of Turkification in the region because, although the armies of Chinggis Khan were led by Mongols, they were made up mostly of Turkic tribes that had been incorporated into the Mongol armies as the tribes were encountered in the Mongols' southward sweep. As these armies settled in Mawarannahr, they intermixed with the local populations, increasingly making the Iranians a minority. Another effect of the Mongol conquest was the large-scale damage the warriors inflicted on cities such as Bukhoro and on regions such as Khorazm. As the leading province of a wealthy state, Khorazm was treated especially severely. The irrigation networks in the region suffered extensive damage that was not repaired for several generations.

Map of the Chagatai Khanate in the Late 13th Century (by MapMaster)

 

The Chagatai Khanate was a Mongol and later more Turko-Islamic in language and culture khanate of the Mongol Empire that comprised the lands ruled by Chagatai Khan, second son of the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan, and his descendents and successors.

At its height in the late 13th century, the Khanate extended from the Amu Darya south of the Aral Sea to the Altai Mountains in the border of modern day Mongolia and China.

The khanate lasted in one form or another from 1220s until the late 17th century, although the western half of the khanate was lost to Tamerlane in the 1360s. The eastern half remained under Chagatai khans who were, at times, allied or at war with Timur's successors. Finally, in the 17th century, the remaining Chagatai domains fell under the theocratic regime of Apaq Khoja and his descendants, the Khojijans, who ruled East Turkestan under Jungar and Manchu overlordships consecutively.

Genghis Khan's empire was inherited by his third son, Ögedei, the designated Great Khan who personally controlled the lands east of Lake Balkash as far as Mongolia. Tolui, the youngest, the keeper of the hearth, was accorded the northern Mongolian homeland. Chagatai, the second son, received Transoxania, between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers in modern Uzbekistan, and the area around Kashgar. He made his capital at Almalik near what is now Kulja in northwestern China. Apart from problems of lineage and inheritance, the Mongol Empire was endangered by the great cultural and ethnic divide between the Mongols themselves and their mostly Islamic Turkic subjects.

Rule of Timur: Following the death of Chinggis Khan in 1227, his empire was divided among his three sons. Despite the potential for serious fragmentation, Mongol law maintained orderly succession for several more generations, and control of most of Mawarannahr stayed in the hands of direct descendants of Chaghatai, the second son of Chinggis. Orderly succession, prosperity, and internal peace prevailed in the Chaghatai lands, and the Mongol Empire as a whole remained strong and united.

In the early fourteenth century, however, as the empire began to break up into its constituent parts, the Chaghatai territory also was disrupted as the princes of various tribal groups competed for influence. One tribal chieftain, Timur (Tamerlane), emerged from these struggles in the 1380s as the dominant force in Mawarannahr. Although he was not a descendant of Chinggis, Timur became the de facto ruler of Mawarannahr and proceeded to conquer all of western Central Asia, Iran, Asia Minor, and the southern steppe region north of the Aral Sea. He also invaded Russia before dying during an invasion of China in 1405.

Timur initiated the last flowering of Mawarannahr by gathering in his capital, Samarqand, numerous artisans and scholars from the lands he had conquered. By supporting such people, Timur imbued his empire with a very rich culture. During Timur's reign and the reigns of his immediate descendants, a wide range of religious and palatial construction projects were undertaken in Samarqand and other population centers. Timur also patronized scientists and artists; his grandson Ulugh Beg was one of the world's first great astronomers. It was during the Timurid dynasty that Turkish, in the form of the Chaghatai dialect, became a literary language in its own right in Mawarannahr--although the Timurids also patronized writing in Persian. Until then only Persian had been used in the region. The greatest Chaghataid writer, Ali Shir Nava'i, was active in the city of Herat, now in northwestern Afghanistan, in the second half of the fifteenth century.

Map of the Timurid Dynasty

 

The Timurids were a Persianate Central Asian Sunni Muslim dynasty of originally Turko-Mongol descent whose empire included the whole of Central Asia, Iran, modern Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as large parts of India, Mesopotamia and Caucasus. It was founded by the legendary conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) in the 14th century.

In the 16th century, Timurid prince Babur, the ruler of Ferghana, invaded India and founded the Mughal Empire, who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent until its decline after Aurangzeb in the early 18th century, and its eventual demise by the British Raj after the Indian rebellion of 1857.

The origin of the Timurid dynasty goes back to the Mongolian nomadic confederation known as Barlas, who were remnants of the original Mongol army of Genghis Khan. After the Mongol conquest of Central Asia, the Barlas settled in Turkistan (which then became also known as Moghulistan - "Land of Mongols") and intermingled to a considerable degree with the local Turkic and Turkic-speaking population, so that at the time of Timur's reign the Barlas had become thoroughly Turkicized in terms of language and habits. Additionally, by adopting Islam, the Central Asian Turks and Mongols also adopted the Persian literary and high culture which has dominated Central Asia since the early days of Islamic influence. Persian literature was instrumental in the assimilation of the Timurid elite to the Perso-Islamic courtly culture. Timur was also steeped in Persian culture and in most of the territories which he incorporated, Persian was the primary language of administration and literary culture. Thus the language of the settled "diwan" was Persian, and its scribes had to be thoroughly adept in Persian culture, whatever their ethnic origin

The Timurid state quickly broke into two halves after the death of Timur. The chronic internal fighting of the Timurids attracted the attention of the Uzbek nomadic tribes living to the north of the Aral Sea. In 1501 the Uzbeks began a wholesale invasion of Mawarannahr (Transoxiana).

Map of Central Asia in Around 1450

The Uzbeks are a Turkic people of Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Smaller diaspora populations of Uzbeks from Central Asia are also found in Iran, Turkey, North America, and Western Europe.

Although Altaic infiltration into Central Asia had started early, as late as the 13th century AD when Turkic and Mongol armies finally conquered the entire region, the majority of Central Asia's peoples were Iranic peoples such as Sogdians, Bactrians and, more ancient, the Saka–Massagetae tribes. It is generally believed that these ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples were linguistically assimilated by smaller but dominant Turkic-speaking groups while the sedentary population finally adopted the Persian language, the traditional lingua franca of the eastern Islamic lands. The language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an elite dominance process. This process was dramatically boosted during the Mongol conquest when millions were either killed or pushed further south to the Pamir region.

Genetic Origins: The modern Uzbek population represents varying degrees of diversity derived from the high traffic invasion routes through Central Asia. According to recent Genetic genealogy testing from a University of Chicago study, the Uzbeks cluster somewhere between the Mongols and the Iranian peoples.

From the 3d century B.C., Central Asia experienced nomadic expansions of Altaic-speaking oriental-looking people, and their incursions continued for hundreds of years, beginning with the Hsiung-Nu (who may be ancestors of the Huns), in ~300 B.C., and followed by the Turks, in the 1st millennium A.D., and the Mongol expansions of the 13th century. High levels of haplogroup 10 and its derivative, haplogroup 36, are found in most of the Altaic-speaking populations and are a good indicator of the genetic impact of these nomadic groups. The expanding waves of Altaic-speaking nomads involved not only eastern Central Asia—where their genetic contribution is strong, as is shown in figure 7d—but also regions farther west, like Iran, Iraq, Anatolia, and the Caucasus, as well as Europe, which was reached by both the Huns and the Mongols. In these western regions, however, the genetic contribution is low or undetectable (Wells et al. 2001), even though the power of these invaders was sometimes strong enough to impose a language replacement, as in Turkey and Azerbaijan (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994). The difference could be due to the population density of the different geographical areas. Eastern regions of Central Asia must have had a low population density at the time, so an external contribution could have had a great genetic impact. In contrast, the western regions were more densely inhabited, and it is likely that the existing populations were more numerous than the conquering nomads, therefore leading to only a small genetic impact. Thus, the admixture estimate from northeast Asia is high in the east, but is barely detectable west of Uzbekistan.

The Uzbek population, according to this study, shows substantial Caucasoid admixture. The Uzbeks display a much closer genetic relationship with Turkic roots traits than with Iranic populations to the south and west. Another study out of Uzbekistan corroborates this genetic evidence as to the origins of the modern Uzbeks and other regional Turk peoples:

These migrations are reflected in the DNA, too, and it is clear that despite the majority of modern Central Asians speaking Turkic languages, they derive much of their genetic heritage from the conquering Mongol warriors of Genghis Khan.

The Turkic people as a whole share common languages and many common cultural traits, but do not have common origins. The Uzbeks are descended to a large degree from Turkic invaders whose invasions span literally millennia from the first millennium CE with the early migrations of the Göktürks to later invasions by the Uzbeks themselves during the early and mid period of the 2nd millennium. Throughout the centuries, these migrating Altaic peoples began to outnumber the native Iranian people of Central Asia and appear to have assimilated the vast majority through intermarriage, while mainly the Tajiks survived albeit with some Turk intermingling as well. Thus, in the case of Uzbekistan and most other Central Asian states, it was not only a process of language replacement, such as what took place in Turkey and Azerbaijan, but also a mass migration and population replacement that helped to shape the modern Turk people of Uzbekistan and other Central Asian states.

* A Genetic Landscape Reshaped by Recent Events: Y-Chromosomal Insights into Central Asia by Tatiana Zerjal, et al.

* DNA Analysis Tracks Silk Road Forbears by Ivan Noble

* Where West Meets East: The Complex mtDNA Landscape of the Southwest and Central Asian Corridor by Lluís Quintana-Murci, et al.

 

Uzbekistan: The Golden Road to Samarkand, Sixth Edition by Calum MacLeod, Bradley Mayhew

 

 

 

 

Fabric Merchant at the Samarkand Market

 

 

Geographic Distribution of Y-chromosome Haplotypes in Selected Eurasian Populations from The Eurasian Heartland: A continental perspective on Y-chromosome diversity by R. Spencern Wells, et al.

The haplotype frequencies in selected populations are shown graphically with related haplotypes combined into common colors.

 

Excerpts from Wikipedia.org

YAP lineage - Haplogroup_DE, Haplogroup D and Haplogroup E. (Haplogroup DE is the original YAP+ haplogroup. Haplogroup DE is an estimated 65,000 years old. The majority of DE male lines can be categorized as being in either haplogroup D, which likely originated in Asia, the only place where it has been found, or haplogroup E, which is believed to have originated either in East Africa or the Near East. The remainder are said to be in the paragroup DE* confirmed cases of which are extremely rare. In a recent study of over 8000 men worldwide including 1247 Nigerians, Haplogroup DE* was observed in only 5 Nigerian males.)

M130 lineage - Haplogroup C (Haplogroup C seems to have come into existence shortly after M168 was introduced, probably at least 60,000 years before present. Although Haplogroup C attains its highest frequencies among the indigenous populations of Mongolia, the Russian Far East, Polynesia, Australia, and at moderate frequency in the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria, it displays its highest diversity among modern populations of India, and therefore it is hypothesized that Haplogroup C either originated or underwent its longest period of evolution and diversification within India or the greater South Asian coastal region.). It represents a great coastal migration along Southern Asia, into Southeast Asia and Australia, and up the Asian coast. It is believed to have migrated to the Americas some 6,000-8,000 years before present, and was carried by Na-Dené speaking peoples into the northwest Pacific coast of America. Some have hypothesized that Haplogroups C and D were brought together to East Asia by a single population that became the first successful modern human colonizers of that region, but at present the distributions of Haplogroups C and D are different, with various subtypes of Haplogroup C being found at high frequency among the Australian aborigines, Polynesians, Vietnamese, Kazakhs, Mongolians, Manchurians, Koreans, and indigenous inhabitants of the Russian Far East and at moderate frequencies elsewhere throughout Asia and Oceania, including India and Southeast Asia, whereas Haplogroup D is found at high frequencies only among the Tibetans, Japanese peoples, and Andaman Islanders, and has been found neither in India nor among the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas or Oceania. Haplogroup C contains the polymorphism, very common in Central Asia, which is believed to be that of Genghis Khan, spread wide during the Mongol conquest of Asia.

M89 lineage - Haplogroup F (This ancient haplogroup may have first appeared in North Africa, the Levant, or the Arabian Peninsula as much as 50,000 years ago: 50,300±6500, Hammer and Zegura 2002; 48,000(38,700-55,700). It is sometimes believed to represent a "second-wave" of expansion out of Africa. However, the location of this lineage's first expansion and rise to dominance appears to have been in ice age Ethiopia or the Middle East or somewhere close to it within South Asia India; all of Haplogroup F's descendant haplogroups also show a pattern of radiation from South Asia (haplogroups H and K) or the Middle East (haplogroups G and IJ). This haplogroup and its subclades contain more than 90% of the world's extant male population, including almost everyone outside of Africa, except for Tibet, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Japan, Polynesia, and communities of indigenous Australians, while also including many men within those regions.

M9 lineage - Haplogroup K (It first appeared approximately 40,000 years ago in Iran or southern Central Asia. Today, haplogroup K and its descendant haplogroups are the patrilineal ancestors of most of the people living in the Northern Hemisphere, including most Europeans, Asians, and Native Americans. Other lineages derived from Haplogroup K are found among Melanesian populations, indicating an ancient link between most Eurasians and some populations of Oceania.)

M45 lineage - Haplogroup P (Haplogroup P (M45) is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. This haplogroup contains the patrilineal ancestors of most Europeans and almost all of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It also contains approximately one third to two thirds of the males among various populations of Central Asia and Southern Asia.)

M173 lineage - Haplogroup R1 (R1 is very common throughout Europe and western Eurasia. Its distribution is believed to be associated with the re-settlement of Eurasia following the last glacial maximum. Its main subgroups are R1a (SRY1532) and R1b (M343).)

M17 lineage - Haplogroup R1a (R1a is a Y-chromosome haplogroup found at high frequency (more than 40%) from the Czech Republic across to the Altai Mountains in Siberia and south throughout Central Asia. R1a arose 15,000 years ago in the vicinity of Ukraine, expanding from either the Ukrainian LGM refuge following the end of the last ice age, or from the Pontic-Caspian steppe as a result of the Kurgan migrations. But some studies question these earlier findings and claim that R1a lineages may have their origins in North India. The expansion of R1a as well as J2 has been associated with the spread of the Indo-European languages

 

 

Neighbor-joining tree of 61 Eurasian populations, based on Y-chromosome biallelic haplotype frequencies from The Eurasian Heartland: A continental perspective on Y-chromosome diversity by R. Spencern Wells, et al.

Cluster I: Greek, Yagnobi, Armenian, Turkmen, Czeck/Slovak, Orkney, British, Basque
Cluster II: Iranian, Turkish, Kazbegi, Azeri
Cluster III: Tuvinian, Nenets
Cluster IV: Mongolian, Kazak, Cambodian, Dungan, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese
Cluster V: Macedonian, Russian/North, Russian/Tashkent, Ukrainian, Kyrgyz, Tajik/Khojant, Ishkashim
Cluster VI: Bartangi, Hunza, Sinte Roman
Cluster VII: Arab/Bukhara, Tajik/Samarkand, Shugnan, Tajik/Dushanbe, Yadhava, Sourashtran, Kallar
Cluster VIII: Uzbek, Tatar, Karakalpak, Uighur

Nei genetic distances were used in a neighbor-joining analysis. Internal numbers are bootstrap values (1000 replicates); values less than 200 are not shown. Roman numerals denote population clusters described in the text.

 

 

Turkic Peoples

 

The Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern, central and western Eurasia who speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. These peoples share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds. The term Turkic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people and includes existing societies such as the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Uyghur, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, and Turkish people, as well as historical societies such as the Xiongnu, Kipchaks, Eurasian Avars, Bulgars, Huns, Seljuks, Khazars, Ottomans and Timurids. (also see the List of Turkic states and empires)

Many of the Turkic peoples have their homelands in Inner Asia, where the Turkic peoples originated from, but since then Turkic languages have spread, through migrations and conquests, to other locations including present-day Turkey. While the term Turk may refer to a member of any Turkic people, the term Turkish usually refers specifically to the people and language of Turkey.

The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China.

Some 180 million people have a Turkic language as their native language. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper, or Anatolian Turkish, the speakers of which account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers. More than one third of these are ethnic Turks of Turkey, dwelling predominantly in Turkey proper and formerly Ottoman-dominated areas of Eastern Europe and West Asia. The remainder of the Turkic people are concentrated in Central Asia, Russia, the Caucasus, China, northern Iraq and northern and northwestern Iran. At present, there are six independent Turkic countries: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan

The first historical text to mention the Turks was from the standpoint of the Chinese, who mentioned trade of Turk tribes with the Sogdians along the Silk Road. The Xiongnu mentioned in Han Dynasty records may have been Proto-Turkic speakers, followed by the Hun hordes of Attila that tried to conquer Europe. On the other hand, recent genetics research dated 2003 confirms the studies indicating that the Turkic people originated from the same area and therefore are possibly related with the Xiongnu.

The first recorded use of "Turk" as a political name is a sixth-century reference to the word now pronounced in Modern Chinese as Tujue. It is believed that some Turkic tribes, such as Khazars and Pechenegs, probably lived as nomads for many years before establishing a political state (Göktürk empire). Turkic peoples originally used their own alphabets, like Orkhon and Yenisey runiform, and later the Uyghur alphabet.

Four hundred years after the collapse of northern Xiongnu power in Inner Asia, leadership of the Turkic peoples was taken over by the Göktürks. Formerly an element of the Xiongnu nomadic confederation, the Göktürks inherited their traditions and administrative experience. From 552 to 745, Göktürk leadership bound together the nomadic Turkic tribes into an empire, which eventually collapsed due to a series of dynastic conflicts. The great difference between the Göktürk Khanate and its Xiongnu predecessor was that the Göktürks' temporary khans from the Ashina clan were subordinate to a sovereign authority that was left in the hands of a council of tribal chiefs. The Khanate received missionaries from the Buddhists, Manicheans, and Nestorian Christians, but retained their original shamanistic religion, Tengriism.

The Turkic peoples and the related groups migrated west towards Eastern Europe, Iranian plateau and Anatolia (Turkic Migration). Turks or Turkish people are among those who migrated early from what is known today as Mongolia to modern Turkey but also among the late-arrival peoples; they also participated in the Crusades. After many battles they established their own state and later created the Ottoman Empire; their tactics were all-out sieges and invasions

The Turkic peoples display a great variety of ethnic types. They possess physical features ranging from Caucasoid to Northern Mongoloid in every Turkic country. In western Turkic lands, such as Turkey, Bulgaria, the Crimea, and Azerbaijan, a great many people look "European" and "Mediterranean". In Turkey, people with light-coloured eyes such as blue, green, hazel, or gray and blond or brown hair are common. Caucasoid and Mongoloid facial structure is common among many Turkic groups, such as Kazakhs and Uzbeks. There has been much debate about the racial nature of the original Turkic-speaking ancestors, with some in the past presuming a "Ural-Altaic race" with Caucasoid features at one end of the spectrum and Mongoloid features at the other. There are also the Turks in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan who look like the local population in those countries, but this is probably due to intermixing with the local populations.

Turkestan (literally meaning "Land of the Turks") is a region in Central Asia, which today is largely inhabited by Turkic peoples. It has been referenced in many Turkic and Persian sagas and is an integral part of Turan (though Turan dwarfs Turkestan in area). Oghuz Turks (also known as Turkmens), Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Khazars, Kyrgyz and Uygurs are some of the Turkic inhabitants of the region who, as history progressed, have spread further into Eurasia forming such Turkic nations as Turkey and Azerbaijan, and subnational regions like Tatarstan in Russia and Crimea in Ukraine. Tajiks and Russians form sizable non-Turkic minorities.

It is subdivided into Afghan Turkestan, Russian Turkestan and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (also known as Chinese Turkestan, East Turkestan or Uyghuristan) in the People's Republic of China. The Tian Shan and Pamir ranges form a rough division between the latter two.

Turkestan has a rich history, dating back to the third millennium BC. Many artifacts were produced in that period, and much trade was conducted. The region was a focal point for cultural diffusion, as the Silk Road traversed it.

Turkestan covers the area of Central Asia that corresponded to eastern Scythia, Transoxania and Greater Khorasan in Antiquity, and acquired its "Turkic" character from the 4th to 6th centuries AD with the incipient Turkic expansion. Turkic sagas, such as the Ergenekon legend, and written sources such as the Orkhon Inscriptions state that Turkic peoples originated in the nearby Altay Mountains, and, through nomadic settlement, started their long journey westwards.

Successive external powers have held the region. Greeks, under Alexander the Great, held the area from 327 BC to 150 BC. Huns conquered the area after they conquered Kashgaria in the early 2nd century BC. With the dissolution of the Huns' empire, Chinese rulers took over Eastern Turkestan. Arab forces captured it in the 8th century. The Persian Samanid dynasty subsequently conquered it and the area experienced economic success. The entire territory was held at various times by Turkic forces, such as the Göktürks until the conquest by Genghis Khan and the Mongols in 1220. Khan gave the territory to his son, Chagatai and the area became the Chagatai Khanate. Tamerlane took over the area in 1369 and the area became the Timurid Empire.

Known as Turan to Iranians, western Turkestan has also been known historically as Sogdiana, Ma wara'u'n-nahr (by its Arab conquerors), and Transoxiana by Western travellers. The latter two names refer to its position beyond the River Oxus when approached from the south, emphasizing Turkestan's long-standing relationship with Iran, the Persian Empires and the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates.

The region became part of the Russian Empire in the 1860s, and is thus sometimes called Russian Turkestan or the Туркестанский Край (Turkestanskii Krai). After the Russian Revolution, a Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union was created, which was eventually split into the Kazakh SSR (Kazakhstan), Kyrgyz SSR (Kyrgyzstan), Tajik SSR (Tajikistan), Turkmen SSR (Turkmenistan) and Uzbek SSR (Uzbekistan). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, these republics gained their independence.

Eastern Turkestan, also known as Chinese Turkestan, was called the Western Regions in Chinese historic records. Turkestan experienced Chinese influence long before Russian influence. The first Chinese military campaigns in Turkestan dates to the Battle of Loulan in the 2nd century BC. From then on, Turkestan was alternately controlled by the Chinese and/or other nomads like the Tujue. The Protectorate of the Western Regions and the