Khwarazm

Coordinates: 42°11′22.59″N 59°19′34.22″E / 42.1896083°N 59.3261722°E / 42.1896083; 59.3261722
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"Khorezm" redirects here. For the Soviet republic, see Khorezm People's Soviet Republic. For the coextensive state which preceded it, see Khanate of Khiva. For the modern-day region of Uzbekistan, see Khorazm Region.
Not to be confused with Khorasan.
For other uses, see Khwarezmian (disambiguation).

Khwarazm
(Chorasmia)
c. 1292 BCE–1324 AD
Khwarazm is located in West and Central Asia
Khwarazm
Khwarazm
Location of the Khwarazm heartland in Central Asia
Map of Khwarazm during the early Islamic period
Map of Khwarazm during the early Islamic period
CapitalKhiva
History 
• Established
c. 1292 BCE
• Disestablished
1324 AD
Today part ofTurkmenistan
Uzbekistan

Khwarazm (

Kath,[2] Gurganj (now Konye-Urgench) and—from the 16th century on—Khiva. Today Khwarazm belongs partly to Uzbekistan and partly to Turkmenistan
.

Names and etymology

Names

Khwarazm has been known also as Chorasmia, Khaurism,[3] Khwarezm, Khwarezmia, Khwarizm, Khwarazm, Khorezm,[4] Khoresm, Khorasam, Kharazm, Harezm, Horezm, and Chorezm.[5]

In

Modern Chinese Huālázǐmó (花剌子模 / Xiao'erjing: خُوَلاذِمُوْ); in Tajik: Хоразм, Xorazm, خوارَزم; in Kazakh: Хорезм (Xorezm), حورەزم; in Uzbek: Xorazm, Хоразм, خورەزم; in Turkmen: Horezm, Хорезм, خوْرِزم; in Azerbaijani: Xarəzm, Харәзм; in Turkish: Harezm; in Greek language Χορασμία (Chorasmía) and Χορασίμα (Chorasíma) by Herodotus
.

Etymology

Mawara'nnahr, Khwarazm and Greater Khorasan

The Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi in his Muʿǧam al-Buldan wrote that the name was a Persian compound of khwar (خوار), and razm (رزم), referring to the abundance of cooked fish as a main diet of the peoples of this area.[6]

Khor Abdallah, Hor al-Azim, Hor al-Himar, etc.)[citation needed
]

The name also appears in

Persian Empire
.

Some of the early scholars believed Khwarazm to be what ancient

Aryan tribe" (مهد قوم آریا).[11]

History

Legendary

The Khwarezmian scholar Al-Biruni (973–1048)[12][13][14] says that the land belonging to the mythical king

Afrighid line of Khwarazmshahs, having placed the ascension of Afrighids in 616 of the Seleucid era, i.e. in 305 AD.[citation needed
]

Early people

Akcha-Khan Kala), 1st century BC-2nd century AD.[15][16]

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:[17]

During the final Saka phase, there were about 400 settlements in Khwarezm.[18] Ruled by the native Afrighid dynasty, it was at this point that Khwarezm entered the historical record with the Achaemenid expansion.[citation needed]

Khwarezmian language and culture

An East Iranian language, Khwarezmian was spoken in Khwarezm proper (i.e., the lower Amu Darya region) until soon after the Mongol invasion, when it was replaced by Turkic languages.[19][20][21][22] It was closely related to Sogdian. Other than the astronomical terms used by the native Iranian Khwarezmian speaker Al-Biruni,[14] 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.

Zoroastrian Tower of Silence
(Dakhma), 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,[23][24] and they spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Khwarezmian. The scientist Al-Biruni, a Khwarezm native, in his Athar ul-Baqiyah,[25] 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 Khwarezm was under

Hazarasp, till the end of the 8th/14th century.[14]

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.[14]

Achaemenid period

Main article: Chorasmia (satrapy)
Xerxes I tomb, Choresmian soldier circa 470 BC.

The

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.[16]

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.[27][28][29] By the time of the Persian king Darius III, Khwarazm had already become an independent kingdom.[30]

Hellenistic period

tamgha. Circa 1st–2nd century AD.[31][32]

Chorasmia was involved in the conquests of

Kingdom of Iberia and Colchis
).

Khwarezm was largely independent during the

Fifty fortresses oasis".[33] 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.[16] The early rulers of Chorasmia first imitated the coinage of the Greco-Bactrian ruler Eucratides I.[34] Parthian artistic influences have also been described.[35]

From the 1st century BC, Chorasmia developed original coins inspired from Greco-Bactrian, Parthian, and

Artav (Artabanus), 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.[36]

From the 2nd century AD, Chorasmia became part of the vast cultural sphere corresponding to the rise of the Kushan Empire in the east.[16]

  • Koi Krylgan Kala fortress (4th-3rd century BC)
    Koi Krylgan Kala fortress (4th-3rd century BC)
  • Ayaz Kala 1 fortress (4th-3rd century BC)
    Ayaz Kala
    1 fortress (4th-3rd century BC)
  • Toprak-Kala palace city (1st-2nd century AD)
    Toprak-Kala palace city (1st-2nd century AD)
  • Fortress of Kyzyl-Kala, partially restored (1st-4th century AD)
    Fortress of Kyzyl-Kala, partially restored (1st-4th century AD)

Sassanid period

Chorasmian
oasis, 4th century BC-6th century AD

Under

Khwarezmid Empire, sources such as Al-Biruni and Ibn Khordadbeh and others clearly refer to Khwarezm as being part of the Iranian (Persian) empire.[38] During the reign of Khosrow II, extensive areas of Khwarezm were conquered.[39]

The fact that

Gokturks power before the coming of the Arabs.[citation needed
]

Afrighids

Main article: Afrighids
Sassanians, who were ruling the region since early 200's. It displays a fusion of Roman-Hellenistic, Indian and Persian cultural influencies.[42]

Per

Sassanian suzerainty.[citation needed
]

In 712, Khwarezm was conquered by the

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.[44]

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[43] although the title of Khwarezm-Shah was maintained well up to the 13th century.[43]

  • Ayaz Kala 2 fortress (6th to 8th century AD)
    Ayaz Kala
    2 fortress (6th to 8th century AD)
  • Ossuary Lid, Tok-Kala Necropolis, Alabaster. 7th-8th century AD
    Ossuary Lid, Tok-Kala Necropolis, Alabaster. 7th-8th century AD

Khwarezmid Empire

Main articles: Khwarazmian Empire and Anushtegin dynasty
Khwarezmian Empire
Takash mausoleum in Kunya Urgench, Turkmenistan

The date of the founding of the Khwarazmian dynasty remains debatable. During a revolt in 1017, Khwarezmian rebels murdered

Qara Khitan.[47]

Sultan Ahmed Sanjar died in 1156. As the Seljuk state fell into chaos, the Khwarezm-Shahs expanded their territories southward. In 1194, the last Sultan of the

suzerain, the Qara Khitai who sent him an army.[49] With this reinforcement, Muhammad won a victory over the Ghorids at Hezarasp (1204) and forced them out of Khwarizm.[citation needed
]

Mongol conquest by Genghis Khan

Main article:
Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire

The Khwarezmid Empire ruled over all of Persia in the early 13th century under

Seljuks.[citation needed
]

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

In 1360 there arose in Ḵwarazm an independent minor dynasty of Qunghrat Turks, the Ṣūfīs, but Solaymān Ṣūfī was crushed by Timur in 1388.[30]

Turabek khanum mausoleum in Kunya Urgench, Qunghrat dynasty, 1330, Turkmenistan

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).[citation needed]

The region of Khwarezm was split between the

Sufid dynasty. However, Timur regarded Khwarezm as a rival to Samarkand, and over the course of five campaigns, destroyed Urganch in 1388.[citation needed
]

Khwarazm during the reign Shibanids – Arabshahids

Main article: Khanate of Khiva

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.[30]

Khwarezm (Karasm), on a 1734 French map. The Khanate on the map surrounds the Aral Sea (depicted as much smaller than it actually was in those days) and includes much of the Caspian Sea coast of today's Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan

This, together with a shift in the course of the Amu-Darya, caused the center of Khwarezm 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.[citation needed]

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 Khvarazm. In Russian sources the term Khiva Khanate began to be used from the 18th century.[50]

The rumors of

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.[citation needed
]

Khwarazm during the reign 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.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed
]

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

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).[citation needed
]

Soviet period

After the

Kazakh ASSR as Karakalpak Oblast).[citation needed
]

The larger historical area of Khwarezm is further divided. Northern Khwarezm became the

Xorazm Region, Uzbekistan.[citation needed
]

Today, the area that was Khwarezm has a mixed population of Uzbeks, Karakalpaks, Turkmens, Tajiks, Tatars, and Kazakhs.[citation needed]

In Persian literature

Emir Timur and his maiden from Khwarezm.

Khwarezm and her cities appear in

Dehkhoda for example defines the name Bukhara itself as "full of knowledge", referring to the fact that in antiquity, Bukhara was a scientific and scholarship powerhouse. Rumi verifies this when he praises the city as such.[citation needed
]

Other examples illustrate the eminent status of Khwarezmid 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 Khwarezm-shah
شنیدم که شد بامدادی پگاه
early one morning, so I have heard.

—
Saadi

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 early previous 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

Kath
.

—Divan of Anvari

Notable people

The borders of the Russian imperial territories of Khiva, Bukhara and Kokand in the time period of 1902–1903.

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

See also

History of Greater Iran
Pre-Islamic
BCE / BC
Caucasian Iberia
 c. 302 BCE – 580 CE
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom 250–125
Parthian Empire 248 BCE–224 CE
Caucasian Albania 2nd century BCE –
8th century CE
Roman Empire 27 BCE – 330 CE
CE / AD
Kushan Empire 30–275
Sasanian Empire 224–651
Afrighid dynasty 305–995
Hephthalite Empire 425–557
Kabul Shahi kingdom 565–879
Dabuyid dynasty 642–760
Bagratid Armenia 880s – 1045
Alania 8th/9th century – 1238 / 9
Kingdom of Georgia 1008–1490
Qara Qoyunlu Turcomans
 1407–1468
Aq Qoyunlu Turcomans 1378–1508
Safavid Empire 1501–1722
Mughal Empire 1526–1857
Hotak dynasty 1722–1729
Afsharid Iran 1736–1750
Zand dynasty 1750–1794
Durrani Empire 1794–1826
Qajar Iran 1794–1925
Part of a series on the
History of Turkmenistan
"Turkmens at the gates of the ancient city of Merv, 1914"
Antiquity
Middle Ages
Early modern history
Modern history
Related historical regions
flag Turkmenistan portal
  • Battle of La Forbie
    (1244), with decisive Khwarezmian participation; ends Crusader power in Levant
  • Siege of Jerusalem (1244) by Khwarezmian tribes

References

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  2. ^ https://Habib Borjian, "KĀṮ", www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kat-city
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  4. ^ Sharipov, Zhumaniëz (1976). Khorezm, novel. Sovietskiy pisatel'.
  5. ^ a b "Khwarazm" at Encyclopædia Iranica
  6. ^ Yaqut al-Hamawi, Mu'jam al-buldān, Vol2, p395
  7. ^ C. E. Bosworth, The Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol IV, 1978. p. 1061
  8. ^ Bahram Farahvoshi. Iranovich, Tehran University Press. 1991. p. 8
  9. ^ Musa Javan. Tarikh-i Ijtima'i Iran-i Bastan (The social history of ancient Iran), 1961. p. 24
  10. ^ Michael Witzel. "The Home of the Aryans." (.pdf)
  11. ISBN 0-313-30731-8
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  12. ^ a b " ĀL-E AFRĪḠ" IN Encyclopedia Iranica by C. E. Bosworth
  13. Chorasmian, science has as much as chance of becoming perpetuated as a camel has of facing Kaaba
    ."
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  17. ^ MacKenzie, D.N. (1996). "Encyclopædia Iranica". CHORASMIA. Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 29 July 2009.
  18. ^ MacKenzie, 1996
  19. ^ Encyclopedia Iranica, "The Chorasmian Language", D.N.Mackenzie[usurped]
  20. ^ Andrew Dalby, Dictionary of Languages: The definitive reference to more than 400 languages, Columbia University Press, 2004, pg 278
  21. ^ MacKenzie, D. N. "Khwarazmian Language and Literature," in E. Yarshater ed. Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. III, Part 2, Cambridge 1983, pp. 1244–1249
  22. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, "Iranian languages" (Retrieved 29 December 2008)
  23. ^ Encyclopædia Iranica, "CENTRAL ASIA: The Islamic period up to the mongols", C. Edmund Bosworth: "In early Islamic times Persians tended to identify all the lands to the northeast of Khorasan and lying beyond the Oxus with the region of Turan, which in the Shahnama of Ferdowsi is regarded as the land allotted to Fereydun's son Tur. The denizens of Turan were held to include the Turks, in the first four centuries of Islam essentially those nomadizing beyond the Jaxartes, and behind them the Chinese (see Kowalski; Minorsky, "Turan"). Turan thus became both an ethnic and a geographical term, but always containing ambiguities and contradictions, arising from the fact that all through Islamic times the lands immediately beyond the Oxus and along its lower reaches were the homes not of Turks but of Iranian peoples, such as the Sogdians and Khwarezmians."
  24. ^ C.E. Bosworth, "The Appearance of the Arabs in Central Asia under the Umayyads and the establishment of Islam", in History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol. IV: The Age of Achievement: AD 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century, Part One: The Historical, Social and Economic Setting, edited by M. S. Asimov and C. E. Bosworth. Multiple History Series. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1998. excerpt from page 23: "Central Asia in the early seventh century, was ethnically, still largely an Iranian land whose people used various Middle Iranian languages.
  25. ^ الآثار الباقية عن القرون الخالية (p. 47)
  26. ISBN 0-7100-7242-2
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  27. ISBN 978-0-7148-2207-5
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  29. ^ "The Parthians and Chorasmians had for their commander Artabazus son of Pharnaces, the Sogdians Azanes son of Artaeus, the Gandarians and Dadicae Artyphius son of Artabanus." in Herodotus VII 64-66
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  44. ISBN 81-208-1595-5. Excerpt from page 101: "The ancient Iranian kingdom of Khwarazm had been ruled until 995 by the old established line of Afrighids of Kath, but control subsequently passed to the new line of Khwarazm Shahs, the Ma'munids
    of Gurganj"
  45. ^ C.E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids:994-1040, (Edinburgh University Press, 1963), 237.
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Sources

42°11′22.59″N 59°19′34.22″E / 42.1896083°N 59.3261722°E / 42.1896083; 59.3261722

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