Kara-Khanid Khanate


The Kara-Khanid Khanate, also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids or the Afrasiabids, was a Karluk Turkic khanate that ruled Central Asia from the 9th to the early 13th century. The dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek Khanids refer to royal titles with Kara Khagan being the most important Turkic title up until the end of the dynasty.
The Khanate conquered Transoxiana in Central Asia and ruled it independently between 999 and 1089. Their arrival in Transoxiana signaled a definitive shift from Iranic to Turkic predominance in Central Asia, yet the Kara-khanids gradually assimilated the Perso-Arab Muslim culture, while retaining some of their native Turkic culture. The Khanate split into the Eastern and Western Khanates in the 1040s. In the late 11th century, they came under the suzerainty of the Seljuk Empire followed by the Qara Khitai who defeated the Seljuks in the Battle of Qatwan in 1141. The Eastern Khanate ended in 1211, and the Western Khanate was extinguished by the Khwarazmian Empire in 1212.
The capitals of the Kara-Khanid Khanate included Kashgar, Balasagun, Uzgen and Samarkand. The history of the Kara-Khanid Khanate is reconstructed from fragmentary and often contradictory written sources, as well as studies on their coinage.

Names

The term Karakhanid was derived from Qara Khan or Qara Khaqan, the foremost title of the rulers of the dynasty. The word "Kara" means "black" and also "courageous" from Old Turkic and khan means ruler. The term was devised by European Orientalists in the 19th century to describe both the dynasty and the Turks ruled by it.
  • Arabic Muslim sources called this dynasty al-Khaqaniya or al Muluk al-Khaniyya al-Atrak.
  • In his linguistic treatise Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, Mahmud al-Kashgari, a native-born Karakhanid, listed two endonyms: "Khāqānī Turks" or just "Turks", the latter he also used to denote Turkic peoples in general.
  • Persian sources often used the term Al-i Afrasiyab based on a supposed link to the legendary though actually unrelated King Afrasiab of pre-Islamic Transoxania. Kashgari refers to him as Alp Er Tunga.
  • They are also referred to as Ilek Khanids or Ilak Khanids in Persian.
  • Chinese sources refer to this dynasty as Kalahan or Heihan or Dashi.

    History

Origin

The Kara-Khanid Khanate originated from a confederation formed some time in the 9th century by Karluks, Yagmas, Chigils, Tuhsi, and other peoples living in Zhetysu, Western Tian Shan, and Western Xinjiang around Kashgar. 10th-century Arab historian Al-Masudi listed two "Khagan of Khagans" of the Karluk horde: Sanah, a possible rendition of Ashina, Aśnas, Ānsa, and Śaba ), and Afrasiab, whom 11th-century Karakhanid scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari identified with Turkic king Alp Er Tunga, the legendary progenitor of the Karakhanid ruling dynasty. Furthermore, Kara-khanid heads of state claimed the title khagan, which indicates that they may have been descended from the Ashina. Even so, the tribal origin of Bilge Kul Qadir Khan, the first Kara-Khan, is still unknown: if Bilge Kul Qadir descended from the Karluk Yabghus, then he indeed belonged to the Ashina dynasty as they did; if Bilge Kul Qadir descended from the Yagma, then he did not, considering that the Hudud al-'Alam stated that "Their king is from the family of the Toġuzġuz kings", that Ashina tribe was not listed among the Toquz Oghuz in Chinese-language sources and that early Uyghur khagans belonged to the Yaglakar clan of Toquz Oghuz and later Uyghur khagans belonged to the Ädiz clan. Alternatively, Bilge Kul Qadir might belong to the Eðgiş or Chigils.

Early history

The Karluks were a nomadic people from the western Altai Mountains who moved to Zhetysu. In 742, the Karluks were part of an alliance led by the Basmyl and Uyghurs that rebelled against the Göktürks and led to the demise of the Second Turkic Khaganate. In the realignment of power that followed, the Karluks were elevated from a tribe led by an Elteber to one led by a yabghu, which was one of the highest Turkic dignitaries and also implies membership in the Ashina clan in whom the "heaven-mandated" right to rule resided. The Karluks and Uyghurs later allied themselves against the Basmyl, and within two years they toppled the Basmyl khagan. The Uyghur yabghu became khagan and the Karluk leader yabghu. This arrangement lasted less than a year. Hostilities between the Uyghur and Karluk forced the Karluk to migrate westward into the western Turgesh lands.
File:Anikova, two horsemen.jpg|thumb|left|Armoured horsemen on the Anikova dish, Semirechye.
By 766 the Karluks had forced the submission of the Turgesh and they established their capital at Suyab on the Chu River. The Karluk confederation by now included the Chigil and Tukshi tribes who may have been Türgesh tribes incorporated into the Karluk union. The Karluks converted to Nestorian Christianity at the end of the 8th century CE, about 15 years after they established themselves in the Semerich'e region. This was the first time the Church of the East received such major sponsorship by an eastern power. Remains of a Nestorian church have been found in the Karluk capital of Suyab, as well as hundreds of tomstones with Nestorian Syriac inscriptions in the Semerich'e region.
By the mid-9th century, the Karluk confederation had gained control of the sacred lands of the Western Türks after the destruction of the Uyghur Khaganate by the Old Kirghiz. Control of sacred lands, together with their affiliation with the Ashina clan, allowed the Khaganate to be passed on to the Karluks along with domination of the steppes after the previous Khagan was killed in a revolt.
During the 9th century southern Central Asia was under the rule of the Samanids, while the Central Asian steppe was dominated by Turkic nomads such as the Pechenegs, the Oghuz Turks, and the Karluks. The domain of the Karluks reached as far north as the Irtysh and the Kimek confederation, with encampments extending to the Chi and Ili rivers, where the Chigil and Tukshi tribes lived, and east to the Ferghana valley and beyond. The area to the south and east of the Karluks was inhabited by the Yagma. The Karluk center in the 9th and 10th centuries appears to have been at Balasagun on the Chu River. In the late 9th century the Samanids marched into the steppes and captured Taraz, one of the headquarters of the Karluk khagan, and a large church was transformed into a mosque.

Formation of the Kara-Khanid Khanate (840 CE)

During the 9th century, the Karluk confederation, Taşlïk, and Sebek, along with Chigils, Charuks, Barskhans, Khalajes, Azkishi and Tuhsis and the Yaghma, possible descendants of the Toquz Oghuz, joined forces and formed the first Karluk-Karakhanid khaganate. The Chigils appear to have formed the nucleus of the Karakhanid army. The date of its foundation and the name of its first khan is uncertain, but according to one reconstruction, the first Karakhanid ruler was Bilge Kul Qadir Khan.
The rulers of the Karakhanids were likely to be from the Chigil and Yaghma tribes – the Eastern Khagan bore the title Arslan Qara Khaqan and the Western Khagan the title Bughra Qara Khaqan. The names of animals were a regular element in the Turkic titles of the Karakhanids: thus Aslan, Bughra, Toghan, Böri, and Toghrul or Toghrïl. Under the Khagans were four rulers with the titles Arslan Ilig, Bughra Ilig, Arslan Tegin and Bughra Tegin. The titles of the members of the
dynasty changed with their position, normally upwards, in the dynastic hierarchy.

Conversion to Islam ()

In the mid-10th century the Kara-Khanids converted to Islam and adopted Muslim names and honorifics, but retained Turkic regnal titles such as Khan, Khagan, Ilek and Tegin. Later they adopted the Arab titles sultan and sultān al-salātīn. According to the Ottoman historian known as Munajjim-bashi, a Karakhanid prince named Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan was the first of the khans to convert. After conversion, he obtained a fatwa which permitted him in effect to kill his presumably-still-pagan father, after which he conquered Kashgar. Later, in 960, according to Muslim historians Ibn Miskawaih and Ibn al-Athir, there was a mass conversion of the Turks, and circumstantial evidence suggests these were the Karakhanids.

Conquest of Transoxiana

The grandson of Satuk Bughra Khan, Hasan b. Sulayman attacked the Samanids in the late 10th century. Between 990 and 992, Hasan took Isfijab, Ferghana, Ilaq, Samarkand, and the Samanid capital Bukhara. However, Hasan Bughra Khan died in 992 due to an illness, and the Samanids returned to Bukhara.
Hasan's cousin Ali b. Musa resumed the campaign against the Samanids, and by 999 Ali's son Nasr had taken Chach, Samarkand, and Bukhara. The Samanid domains were divided between the Ghaznavids, who gained Khorasan and Afghanistan, and the Karakhanids, who received Transoxiana. The Oxus River thus became the boundary between the two rival empires.
The Karakhanid state was divided into appanages, as was common of Turkic and Mongol nomads. The Karakhanid appanages were associated with four principal urban centers, Balasagun in Zhetysu, Kashgar in Xinjiang, Uzgen in Fergana, and Samarkand in Transoxiana. The dynasty's original domains of Zhetysu and Kasgar and their khans retained an implicit seniority over those who ruled in Transoxiana and Fergana.
The four sons of Ali each held their own independent appanage within the Karakhanid state. Nasr, the conqueror of Transoxiana, held the large central area of Transoxiana, Fergana and other areas, although after his death his appanage was further divided. Ahmad held Zhetysu and Chach and became the head of the dynasty after the death of Ali. The brothers Ahmad and Nasr conducted different policies towards the Ghaznavids in the south – while Ahmad tried to form an alliance with Mahmud of Ghazna, Nasr attempted to expand unsuccessfully into Ghaznavid territory.
Ahmad was succeeded by Mansur, and after the death of Mansur, the Hasan Bughra Khan branch of the Karakhanids became dominant. Hasan's sons Muhammad Toghan Khan II, and Yusuf Kadir Khan who held Kashgar, became in turn the head of the Karakhanid dynasty. The two families, i.e., the descendants of Ali Arslan Khan and Hasan Bughra Khan, would eventually split the Karakhanid Khanate in two.
In 1017–1018, the Karakhanids repelled an attack by a large mass of nomadic Turkic tribes in what was described in Muslim sources as a great victory. Around the same time, the Kara-Khanid ruler Ilig Khan reached an agreement with Mahmud of Ghazni, in which they agreed to partition former Samanid territory along the Oxus river.