Khwarazm

History

Legendary

The Khwarezmian scholar Al-Biruni (973–1048) says that the land belonging to the mythical king Afrasiab was first colonised 980 years before Alexander the Great (thus c. 1292 BCE, well before the Seleucid era) when the hero of the Iranian epic Siyavash came to Khwarazm; his son Kay Khusraw came to the throne 92 years later, in 1200 BCE. Al-Biruni starts giving names only with the Afrighid line of Khwarazmshahs, having placed the ascension of Afrighids in 616 of the Seleucid era, i.e. in 305 CE.

Early people

Like Sogdia, Khwarazm was an expansion of the Bactria–Margiana culture during the Bronze Age, which later fused with Indo-Iranians during their migrations around 1000 BCE. Early Iron Age states arose from this cultural exchange. List of successive cultures in Khwarazm region 3000–500 BCE:

• Kelteminar culture c. 3000 BCE
• Suyarganovo culture c. 2000 BCE
• Tazabagyab culture c. 1500 BCE
• Amirabad Culture c. 1000 BCE
• Saka c. 500 BCE

During the final Saka phase, there were about 400 settlements in Khwarazm. Ruled by the native Afrighid dynasty, it was at this point that Khwarazm entered the historical record with the Achaemenid expansion.

Khwarezmian language and culture

An Eastern Iranian language, Khwarezmian was spoken in Khwarazm proper (i.e., the lower Amu Darya region) until soon after the Mongol invasion, when it was replaced by Turkic languages. It was closely related to Sogdian. Other than the astronomical terms used by the native Iranian Khwarezmian speaker Al-Biruni, Our other sources of Khwarezmian include al-Zamakhshari's Arabic–Persian–Khwarezmian dictionary and several legal texts that use Khwarezmian terms to explain certain legal concepts.

For most of its history, up until the Mongol conquest, the inhabitants of the area were from Iranian stock, and they spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Khwarezmian. The scientist Al-Biruni, a Khwarazm native, in his Athar ul-Baqiyah, specifically verifies the Iranian origins of Khwarezmians when he wrote (in Arabic):

أهل خوارزم [...] کانوا غصناً من دوحة الفرس
("The people of Khwarezm were a branch from the Persian tree.")

The area of Khwarazm was under Afrighid and then Samanid control until the 10th century before it was conquered by the Ghaznavids. The Iranian Khwarezmian language and culture felt the pressure of Turkic infiltration from northern Khwarazm southwards, leading to the disappearance of the original Iranian character of the province and its complete Turkicization today. Khwarezmian speech probably lasted in upper Khwarazm, the region around Hazarasp, till the end of the 8th/14th century.

The Khwarezmian language survived for several centuries after Islam until the Turkification of the region, and so must some at least of the culture and lore of ancient Khwarazm, for it is hard to see the commanding figure of Al-Biruni, a repository of so much knowledge, appearing in a cultural vacuum.

Achaemenid period

The Achaemenid Empire took control of Chorasmia during the time of King Darius I (ruled 522–486 BCE). And the Persian poet Ferdowsi mentions Persian cities like Afrasiab and Chach in abundance in his epic Shahnama. The contact with the Achaemenid Empire had a great influence on the material culture of Chorasmia, starting a period of rich economic and cultural development.

Chorasmian troops participated in the Second Persian invasion of Greece by Xerxes in t80 BCE, under the command of Achaemenid general and later satrap Artabazos I of Phrygia. By the time of the Persian king Darius III, Khwarazm had already become an independent kingdom.

Hellenistic period

Chorasmia was involved in the conquests of Alexander the Great in Central Asia. When the king of Khwarazm offered friendship to Alexander in 328 BCE, Alexander's Greek and Roman biographers imagined the nomad king of a desert waste, but 20th-century Russian archeologists revealed the region as a stable and centralized kingdom, a land of agriculture to the east of the Aral Sea, surrounded by the nomads of Central Asia, protected by its army of mailed horsemen, in the most powerful kingdom northwest of the Amu Darya (the Oxus River of antiquity). The king's emissary offered to lead Alexander's armies against his own enemies, west over the Caspian towards the Black Sea (e.g. Kingdom of Iberia and Colchis).

Khwarazm was largely independent during the Seleucid, Greco-Bactrian and Arsacid dynasties. Numerous fortresses were built, and the Khwarazm oasis has been dubbed the "Fifty fortresses oasis". Chorasmia remained relatively sheltered from the interests of the Seleucid Empire or Greco-Bactria, but various elements of Hellenistic art appear in the ruins of Chorasmian cities, particularly at Akchakhan-Kala, and the influence of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, reflecting the rise of Kushan Empire, appears at Toprak-Kala. The early rulers of Chorasmia first imitated the coinage of the Greco-Bactrian ruler Eucratides I. Parthian artistic influences have also been described.

From the 1st century BCE, Chorasmia developed original coins inspired frbyreco-Bactrian, Parthian, and Indo-Scythian types. Artav (Artabanus), a Chorasmian ruler of the 1st–2nd century, whose coins were discovered in the capital city of Toprak-Kala, imitated the type of the Kushan Heraios and was found together with coins of the Kushan rulers Vima Kadphises and Kanishka.

From the 2nd century CE, Chorasmia became part of the vast cultural sphere corresponding to the rise of the Kushan Empire in the east.

Sassanid period

Under Shapur I, the Sasanian Empire spread as far as Khwarazm. Yaqut al-Hamawi verifies that Khwarazm was a regional capital of the Sassanid empire. When speaking of the pre-Islamic "Khusraw of Khwarazm" (خسرو خوارزم), the Islamic "Emir of Khwarazm" (امیر خوارزم), or even the Khwarazmid Empire, sources such as Al-Biruni and Ibn Khordadbeh and others clearly refer to Khwarazm as being part of the Iranian (Persian) empire. During the reign of Khosrow II, extensive areas of Khwarazm were conquered.

The fact that Pahlavi script, which was used by the Persian bureaucracy alongside Old Persian, passed into use in Khwarazmia where it served as the first local alphabet about the 2nd century CE, as well as evidence that Khwarazm-Shahs such as ʿAlā al-Dīn Tekish (1172–1200) issued all their orders (both administrative and public) in the Persian language, corroborates Al-Biruni's claims. It was also a vassal kingdom during periods of Kushans, Hephthalites and Gokturks power before the coming of the Arabs.

Afrighids

Per Al-Biruni, the Afrighids of Kath (آفریغیان آل آفریغ) were a native Khwarezmian Iranian dynasty which ruled as the Shahs of Khwarazm from 305 to 995 AD. At times they were under Sassanian suzerainty.

In 712, Khwarazm was conquered by the Arab Caliphate (Umayyads and Abbasids). It thus came vaguely under Muslim control, but it was not till the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the 9th century that an Afrighid Shah first converted to Islam, appearing with the popular convert's name of ʿAbdullah ('slave of God'). In the course of the 10th century—when some geographers such as Istakhri in his Al-Masalik wa-l-mamalik mention Khwarazm as part of Khorasan and Transoxiania—the local Ma'munids, based in Gurganj on the left bank of the Amu Darya, grew in economic and political importance due to trade caravans. In 995, they violently overthrew the Afrighids and themselves assumed the traditional title of Khwarazm-Shah.

Briefly, the area was under Samanid suzerainty before it passed to Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017. From then on, Turko-Mongolian invasions and long rule by Turko-Mongol dynasties supplanted the Iranian character of the region although the title of Khwarazm-Shah was maintained well up to the 13th century.

Khwarazmian Empire

The date of the founding of the Khwarazmian dynasty remains debatable. During a revolt in 1017, Khwarezmian rebels murdered Abu'l-Abbas Ma'mun and his wife, Hurra-ji, sister of the Ghaznavid sultan Mahmud. In response, Mahmud invaded and occupied the region of Khwarazm, which included Nasa and the ribat of Farawa. As a result, Khwarazm became a province of the Ghaznavid Empire from 1017 to 1034. In 1077, the governorship of the province, which since 1042/1043 belonged to the Seljuqs, fell into the hands of Anushtegin Gharchai, a former Turkic slave of the Seljuq sultan. In 1141, the Seljuq Sultan Ahmed Sanjar was defeated by the Qara Khitai at the battle of Qatwan, and Anush Tigin's grandson Ala ad-Din Atsiz became a vassal to Yelü Dashi of the Qara Khitai.

Sultan Ahmed Sanjar died in 1156. As the Seljuk state fell into chaos, the Khwarazm-Shahs expanded their territories southward. In 1194, the last Sultan of the Great Seljuq Empire, Toghrul III, was defeated and killed by the Khwarazm ruler Ala ad-Din Tekish, who conquered parts of Khorasan and western Iran. In 1200, Tekish died and was succeeded by his son, Ala ad-Din Muhammad, who initiated a conflict with the Ghurids and was defeated by them at Amu Darya (1204). Following the sack of Khwarizm, Muhammad appealed for aid from his suzerain, the Qara Khitai, ai who sent him an army. With this reinforcement, Muhammad won a victory over the Ghorids at Hezarasp (1204) and forced them out of Khwarizm.

Mongol conquest by Genghis Khan

The Khwarazmian Empire ruled over all of Persia in the early 13th century under Shah ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muhammad II (1200–1220). From 1218 to 1220, Genghis Khan conquered Central Asia including the Kara-Khitai Khanate, thus ending the Khwarazmian Empire. Sultan Muhammad died after retreating from the Mongols near the Caspian Sea, while his son Jalal ad-Din, after being defeated by Genghis Khan at the Battle of Indus, sought refuge with the Delhi Sultanate, and was later assassinated after various attempts to defeat the Mongols and the Seljuks.

Khwarazm during the rule of Qunghrat dynasty (1360–1388)

In 1360 there arose in Khwarazm an independent minor dynasty of Qunghrat Turks, the Ṣūfīs, but Solaymān Ṣūfī was crushed by Timur in 1388.

The Islamization of Khwarazm was reflected in the creation of literary, scientific and religious works and in the translation of Arabic works into the Turkic language. In the Suleymaniye Library in Istanbul, the Koran is kept with an interlinear translation into Turkic, written in Khwarazm and dated (January – February 1363).

The region of Khwarazm was split between the White Horde and Jagatai Khanate, and its rebuilt capital Gurganj (modern Kunya Urgench, "Old Gorganj" as opposed to the modern city of Urgench some distance away) again became one of the largest and most important trading centers in Central Asia. In the mid-14th century K, Khwarazm gained independence from the Golden Horde under the Sufid dynasty. However, Timur regarded Khwarazm as a rival to Samarkand, and over the course of five campaigns, destroyed Urganch in 1388.

Khwarazm during the reign of the Ibanids – Arabshahids

Control of the region was disputed by the Timurids and the Golden Horde, but in 1511 it passed to a new, local Uzbek dynasty, the ʿArabshahids.

This, together with a shift in the course of the Amu-Darya, caused the center of Khwarazm to shift to Khiva, which became in the 16th century the capital of the Khanate of Khiva, ruled over by the dynasty of the Arabshahids.

Khiva Khanate is the name of Khwarazm adopted in the Russian historical tradition during the period of its existence (1512–1920). The Khiva Khanate was one of the Uzbek khanates. The term "Khiva Khanate" was used for the state in Khwarazm that existed from the beginning of the 16th century until 1920. The term "Khiva Khanate" was not used by the locals, who used the name Khwarazm. In Russian sources, the term Khiva Khanate began to be used from the 18th century.

The rumors of gold on the banks of the Amu Darya during the reign of Russia's Peter the Great, together with the desire of the Russian Empire to open a trade route to the Indus (modern day Pakistan), prompted an armed trade expedition to the region, led by Prince Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky, which was repelled by Khiva.

Khwarazm during the reign of the Uzbek dynasty of Qungrats

During the reign of the Uzbek Khan Said Muhammad Khan (1856–1864) in the 1850s, for the first time in the history of Khwarazm, a general population census of Khwarazm was carried out.

Khwarazm in 1873–1920

It was under Tsars Alexander II and Alexander III that serious efforts to annex the region started. One of the main pretexts for Russian military expeditions to Khiva was to free Russian slaves in the khanate and to prevent future slave capture and trade.

Early in The Great Game, Russian interests in the region collided with those of the British Empire in the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1839.

The Khanate of Khiva was gradually reduced in size from Russian expansion in Turkestan (including Khwarazm) and, in 1873, a peace treaty was signed that established Khiva as a quasi-independent Russian protectorate.

In 1912, the Khiva Khanate numbered up to 440 schools and up to 65 madrasahs with 22,500 students. More than half of the madrasahs were in the city of Khiva (38).

Soviet period

After the Bolshevik seizure of power in the October Revolution, a short-lived Khorezm People's Soviet Republic (later the Khorezm SSR) was created out of the territory of the old Khanate of Khiva, before in 1924 it was finally incorporated into the Soviet Union, with the former Khanate divided between the new Turkmen SSR, Uzbek SSR and Karakalpakstan ASSR (initially part of Kazakh ASSR as Karakalpak Oblast).

The larger historical area of Khwarazm is further divided. Northern Khwarazm became the Uzbek SSR, and in 1925 the western part became the Turkmen SSR. Also, in 1936 the northwestern part became the Kazakh SSR. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, these became Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan respectively. Many of the ancient Khwarazmian towns now lie in Xorazm Region, Uzbekistan.

Today, the area that was Khwarazm has a mixed population of Uzbeks, Karakalpaks, Turkmens, Tajiks, Tatars, and Kazakhs.

In Persian literature

Khwarazm and her cities appear in Persian literature in abundance, in both prose and poetry. Dehkhoda for example defines the name Bukhara itself as "full of knowledge", referring to the fact that in antiquity, Bukhara was a scientific and scholarly powerhouse. Rumi verifies this when he praises the city as such.

Other examples illustrate the eminent status of Khwarazmian and Transoxianian cities in Persian literature in the past 1500 years:

عالم جانها بر او هست مقرر چنانک
The world of hearts is under his power in the same manner that
دولت خوارزمشاه داد جهان را قرار
The Khwarazmshahs have brought peace to the world.

—Khaqani Shirvani

یکی پر طمع پیش خوارزمشاه
A greedy one went to the Khwarazmshah
شنیدم که شد بامدادی پگاه
early one morning, so I have heard.

—Saadi

Yaqut al-Hamawi, who visited Khwarazm and its capital in 1219, wrote: "I have never seen a city more wealthy and beautiful than Gurganj". The city, however, was destroyed during several invasions, in particular when the Mongol army broke the dams of the Amu Darya, which flooded the city. He reports that for every Mongol soldier, four inhabitants of Gurganj were killed. Najmeddin Kubra, the great Sufi master, was among the casualties. The Mongol army that devastated Gurganj was estimated to have been near 80,000 soldiers. The verse below refers to an earlier calamity that fell upon the region:

آخر ای خاک خراسان داد یزدانت نجات
Oh land of Khorasan! God has saved you,
از بلای غیرت خاک ره گرگانج و کات
from the disaster that befell the land of Gurganj and Kath.

—Divan of Anvari

Notable people

The following either hail from Khwarazm, or lived and are buried there:

• Al-Biruni, outstanding scholar
• Ma'mun II, Khwarazm Shah and founder of an academy
• Najm al-Din Kubra, Sufi mystic
• Rashid al-Din Vatvat, panegyrist and epistolographer
• Fakhr al-Din Razi
• Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, 11th century descendant of Ali al-Uraydi
• Ala al-Din Atsiz, Khwarazm Shah
• Ala al-Din Muhammad, Khwarazm Shah
• Jalal ad-Din Menguberdi, Khwarazm Shah
• Qutuz, Grandson of Ala Al-Din Muhammad who later become Mamluk Sultan of Egypt and Syria
• Abaaq al-Khwarazmi
• Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, mathematician (for whom the term algorithm is named)
• Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi, 10th century encyclopedist who wrote Mafatih al-'Ulum ("Key to the Sciences")
• Zamakhshari, scholar
• Qutb al-zaman Muhammad ibn Abu-Tahir Marvazi, philosopher
• Al-Marwazi, astronomer
• Mahmud Yalavach, ambassador and governor of Mavaraunnahr (1224–1238)
• Abu l-Ghazi Bahadur, Khan and historian