Khwarazm
Khwarazm or Chorasmia is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, bordered on the north by the Aral Sea, on the east by the Kyzylkum Desert, on the south by the Karakum Desert, and on the west by the Ustyurt Plateau. It was the center of the Iranian Khwarezmian civilization until the 9th century, when Turkic tribes moved into and ruled the lands. A series of kingdoms such as the Afrighid dynasty and the Anushtegin dynasty, whose capitals were Kath, Gurganj andfrom the 16th century onKhiva. Today Khwarazm belongs partly to Uzbekistan and partly to Turkmenistan.
Names and etymology
Names
Khwarazm has been known also as Chorasmia, Khaurism, Khwarezm, Khwarezmia, Khwarizm, Khwarazm, Khorezm, Khoresm, Khorasam, Kharazm, Harezm, Horezm, and Chorezm.In Avestan the name is '; in Old Persian ???????? or ???????? ; in Modern '; in ; in Old Chinese * ; in Modern Chinese Huālázǐmó ; in, Xorazm, خوارَزم; in , حورەزم; in, Хоразм, خورەزم; in, Хорезм, خوْرِزم; in, Харәзм; in ; in Greek language Χορασμία and Χορασίμα by Herodotus.
Etymology
The Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi in his Muʿǧam al-Buldan wrote that the name was a Persian compound of ', and ', referring to the abundance of cooked fish as a main diet of the peoples of this area.C.E. Bosworth, however, believed the Persian name to be made up of ' and ', designating 'the land from which the sun rises', although a similar etymology is also given for Khurasan. Another view is that the Iranian compound stands for 'lowland' from ' 'low' and ' 'land'. Khwarazm is indeed the lowest region in Central Asia, located on the delta of the Amu Darya on the southern shores of the Aral Sea. Various forms of are commonly used in the Persian Gulf to stand for tidal flats, marshland, or tidal bays
The name also appears in Achaemenid inscriptions as Huvarazmish, which is declared to be part of the Persian Empire.
Some of the early scholars believed Khwarazm to be what ancient Avestic texts refer to as . These sources claim that Old Urgench, which was the capital of ancient Khwarazm for many years, was actually Ourva, the eighth land of Ahura Mazda mentioned in the Pahlavi text of Vendidad. However, Michael Witzel, a researcher in early Indo-European history, believes that Airyanem Vaejah was in what is now Afghanistan, the northern areas of which were a part of ancient Khwarazm and Greater Khorasan. Others, however, disagree. University of Hawaiʻi historian Elton L. Daniel believes Khwarazm to be the "most likely locale" corresponding to the original home of the Avestan people, and Dehkhoda calls Khwarazm "the cradle of the Aryan tribe".
History
Legendary
The Khwarezmian scholar Al-Birunisays that the land belonging to the mythical king Afrasiab was first colonised 980 years before Alexander the Great when the hero of the Iranian epic Siyavash came to Khwarazm; his son Kay Khusraw came to the throne 92 years later, in 1200 BC. 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 AD.
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 BC. Early Iron Age states arose from this cultural exchange. List of successive cultures in Khwarazm region 3000–500 BC:- Kelteminar culture
- Suyarganovo culture
- Tazabagyab culture
- Amirabad Culture
- Saka
Khwarezmian language and culture
An East Iranian language, Khwarezmian was spoken in Khwarezm proper 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.File:Karakalpakstan Chilpyk Tower of Silence 1st cent BCE-1st cent CE Zoroastrian.jpg|thumb|Chilpyk Zoroastrian Tower of Silence, 1st century BC – 1st century AD
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 Khwarezm native, in his Athar ul-Baqiyah, specifically verifies the Iranian origins of Khwarezmians when he wrote :
أهل خوارزم کانوا غصناً من دوحة الفرس
The area of Khwarezm 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 Khwarezm southwards, leading to the disappearance of the original Iranian character of the province and its complete Turkicization today. Khwarezmian speech probably lasted in upper Khwarezm, the region round 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 Khwarezm, 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. 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 the 480 BC, 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 Khwarezm offered friendship to Alexander in 328 BC, 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 king's emissary offered to lead Alexander's armies against his own enemies, west over the Caspian towards the Black Sea.Khwarezm 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 BC, Chorasmia developed original coins inspired from Greco-Bactrian, Parthian, and Indo-Scythian types. Artav, a Chorasmian ruler of the 1st–2nd century AD, whose coins were discovered in the capital city of Toprak-Kala, imitated the type of the Kushan Heraios and were found together with coins of the Kushan rulers Vima Kadphises and Kanishka.
From the 2nd century AD, 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 Khwarezm. Yaqut al-Hamawi verifies that Khwarezm was a regional capital of the Sassanid empire. When speaking of the pre-Islamic "khosrau of Khwarezm", the Islamic "amir of Khwarezm", or even the Khwarezmid Empire, sources such as Al-Biruni and Ibn Khordadbeh and others clearly refer to Khwarezm as being part of the Iranian empire. During the reign of Khosrow II, extensive areas of Khwarezm were conquered.The fact that Pahlavi script which was used by the Persian bureaucracy alongside Old Persian, passed into use in Khwarezmia where it served as the first local alphabet about the AD 2nd century, as well as evidence that Khwarezm-Shahs such as ʿAlā al-Dīn Tekish issued all their orders 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 were a native Khwarezmian Iranian dynasty which ruled as the Shahs of Khwarezm from 305 to 995 AD. At times they were under Sassanian suzerainty.In 712, Khwarezm was conquered by the Arab Caliphate. 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. In the course of the 10th century—when some geographers such as Istakhri in his Al-Masalik wa-l-mamalik mention Khwarezm 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 Khwarezm-Shah was maintained well up to the 13th century.