Sogdia

Coordinates: 40°24′N 69°24′E / 40.4°N 69.4°E / 40.4; 69.4
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Sogdia, Sogdiana
6th century BC to 11th century AD
Sassanian coins and Chinese cash coins as well as "hybrids" of both.[2][3]

Sogdia or Sogdiana was an ancient

Hephthalite Empire, the Western Turkic Khaganate and the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana
.

The

Yaghnobis of Tajikistan. It was widely spoken in Central Asia as a lingua franca and served as one of the First Turkic Khaganate
's court languages for writing documents.

Sogdians also lived in

Nestorian Christianity from West Asia, the gradual conversion to Islam among the Sogdians and their descendants began with the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana in the 8th century. The Sogdian conversion to Islam was virtually complete by the end of the Samanid Empire in 999, coinciding with the decline of the Sogdian language, as it was largely supplanted by Persian
.

Geography

Sogdiana lay north of

Issyk Kul, such as that at the archeological site of Suyab
.

Name

assimilation).[7]

History

Left: Bead necklace from the tomb of the so-called “Sarazm princess” in Sarazm, Sogdia, middle 4th millennium BC.
Right: 12-petalled flower from the cult structure in Sarazm, Sogdia, early 3rd millennium BC
Further information: Ethnic groups in Chinese history, Ethnic minorities in China, and Western Regions

Prehistory

Further information: Indo-Iranians

Sogdiana possessed a

Bulungur, Uzbekistan, from at least the 15th century BC.[8]

This original culture was gradually displaced by the Indo-European migrations of the Iron Age, forming the Andronovo culture (c. 2000–1450 BC), which included Eastern Iranian speaking peoples such as the historical Sogdians.[9]

Young Avestan period (c. 900–500 BC)

Further information: Avestan period and Avestan geography

In the

toponym of Gava (gava-, gāum) is mentioned as the land of the Sogdians. Gava is, therefore, interpreted as referring to Sogdia during the time of the Avesta.[10] Although there is no universal consensus on the chronology of the Avesta, most scholars today argue for an early chronology, which would place the composition of Young Avestan texts like the Mihr Yasht and the Vendiad in the first half of the first millennium BCE.[11]

Overview over the geographical horizon of the Young Avestan period. Sources for the different localizations are given in the file description.

The first mention of Gava is found in the Mihr Yasht, ie., the hymn dedicated to the Zoroastrian deity Mithra. In verse 10.14 it is described how Mithra reaches Mount Hara and looks at the entirety of the Airyoshayan (airiio.shaiianem, 'lands of the Arya'),

where navigable rivers rush with wide a swell
towards Parutian Ishkata,

Chorasmia
.

— Mihr Yasht 10.14 (translated by Ilya Gershovitch).[12]

The second mention is found in the first chapter of the Vendidad, which consists of a list of the sixteen good

Zarathustra
and the Iranians, according to Zoroastrian tradition:

The second of the good lands and countries which I, Ahura Mazda, created, was the Gava of the Sogdians (gāum yim suγδō.shaiianəm).
Thereupon came

Angra Mainyu
, who is all death, and he counter-created the locust, which brings death unto cattle and plants.

— Vendidad 1.4 (translated by James Darmesteter).[13]

While it is widely accepted that Gava referred to the region inhabited by the Sogdians during the Avestan period, its meaning is not clear.[14] For example, Vogelsang connects it with Gabae, a Sogdian stronghold in western Sogdia and speculates that during the time of the Avesta, the center of Sogdia may have been closer to Bukhara instead of Samarkand.[15]

Achaemenid period (546–327 BC)

Sogdian soldier circa 338 BCE, tomb of Artaxerxes III.

Achaemenid ruler

Darius I introduced the Aramaic writing system and coin currency to Central Asia, in addition to incorporating Sogdians into his standing army as regular soldiers and cavalrymen.[17] Sogdia was also listed on the Behistun Inscription of Darius.[18][19][20] A contingent of Sogdian soldiers fought in the main army of Xerxes I during his second, ultimately-failed invasion of Greece in 480 BC.[20][21] A Persian inscription from Susa claims that the palace there was adorned with lapis lazuli and carnelian originating from Sogdiana.[20]

During this period of Persian rule, the western half of

Asia Minor
was part of the Greek civilization. As the Achaemenids conquered it, they met persistent resistance and revolt. One of their solutions was to ethnically cleanse rebelling regions, relocating those who survived to the far side of the empire. Thus Sogdiana came to have a significant Greek population.

Darius I
, 5th century BC

Given the absence of any named

Khwarezm, allied with the Macedonians and sent troops to Alexander in 329 BC for his war against the Scythians of the Black Sea region (even though this anticipated campaign never materialized).[23]

During the Achaemenid period (550–330 BC), the Sogdians lived as a

king of kings.[25] Although the Sogdians were at times independent and living outside the boundaries of large empires, they never formed a great empire of their own like the Yuezhi, who established the Kushan Empire (30–375 AD) of Central and South Asia.[25]

Hellenistic period (327–145 BC)

Further information:
Hellenistic civilization
Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus I, from the region of Sogdiana; the legend on the reverse is in Aramaic
script.

A now-independent and warlike Sogdiana formed a border region insulating the Achaemenid Persians from the nomadic Scythians to the north and east.[26] It was led at first by Bessus, the Achaemenid satrap of Bactria. After assassinating Darius III in his flight from the Macedonian Greek army,[27][28] he became claimant to the Achaemenid throne. The Sogdian Rock or Rock of Ariamazes, a fortress in Sogdiana, was captured in 327 BC by the forces of Alexander the Great, the basileus of Macedonian Greece, and conqueror of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.[29] Oxyartes, a Sogdian nobleman of Bactria, had hoped to keep his daughter Roxana safe at the fortress of the Sogdian Rock, yet after its fall Roxana was soon wed to Alexander as one of his several wives.[30] Roxana, a Sogdian whose name Roshanak means "little star",[31][32][33] was the mother of Alexander IV of Macedon, who inherited his late father's throne in 323 BC (although the empire was soon divided in the Wars of the Diadochi).[34]

After an extended campaign putting down Sogdian resistance and founding military outposts manned by his Macedonian veterans, Alexander united Sogdiana with Bactria into one satrapy. The Sogdian nobleman and warlord

Apamea).[38][39]

The military power of the Sogdians never recovered. Subsequently, Sogdiana formed part of the

Aramaic inscriptions.[42] The Greco-Bactrian king Eucratides I
may have recovered sovereignty of Sogdia temporarily.

Saka and Kushan periods (146 BC–260 AD)

Saka warrior, as a defeated enemy of the Yuezhi, from Khalchayan, northern Bactria, 1st century BCE.[43][44][45]

Finally Sogdia was occupied by

Kushans. From then until about 40 BC the Yuezhi tepidly minted coins imitating and still bearing the images of the Greco-Bactrian kings Eucratides I and Heliocles I.[46]

The Yuezhis were visited in Transoxiana by a Chinese mission, led by Zhang Qian in 126 BC,[47] which sought an offensive alliance with the Yuezhi against the Xiongnu. Zhang Qian, who spent a year in Transoxiana and Bactria, wrote a detailed account in the Shiji, which gives considerable insight into the situation in Central Asia at the time.[48] The request for an alliance was denied by the son of the slain Yuezhi king, who preferred to maintain peace in Transoxiana rather than seek revenge.

Noin-Ula carpet, 1st century BC/AD.[49]

Zhang Qian also reported:

the Great Yuezhi live 2,000 or 3,000 li [832–1,247 kilometers] west of

Jaxartes/Syr Darya]. They are a nation of nomads, moving from place to place with their herds, and their customs are like those of the Xiongnu. They have some 100,000 or 200,000 archer warriors.

— Shiji, 123[50]

From the 1st century AD, the Yuezhi morphed into the powerful Kushan Empire, covering an area from Sogdia to eastern India. The Kushan Empire became the center of the profitable Central Asian commerce. They began minting unique coins bearing the faces of their own rulers.[46] They are related to have collaborated militarily with the Chinese against nomadic incursion, particularly when they allied with the Han dynasty general Ban Chao against the Sogdians in 84, when the latter were trying to support a revolt by the king of Kashgar.[51]

Sasanian satrapy (260–479 AD)

Historical knowledge about Sogdia is somewhat hazy during the period of the

Hephthalite Empire.[54]

Hephthalite conquest of Sogdiana (479–557 AD)

tamgha on the reverse.[56]

The Hephthalites conquered the territory of Sogdiana, and incorporated it into their Empire, around 479 AD, as this is the date of the last known independent embassy of the Sogdians to China.[57][58]

The Hephthalites may have built major fortified

Panjikent, as they had also in Herat, continuing the city-building efforts of the Kidarites.[58] The Hephthalites probably ruled over a confederation of local rulers or governors, linked through alliance agreements. One of these vassals may have been Asbar, ruler of Vardanzi, who also minted his own coinage during the period.[59]

Relief of a hunter, Varahsha, Sogdia, 5th–7th century CE.

The wealth of the Sasanian ransoms and tributes to the Hephthalites may have been reinvested in Sogdia, possibly explaining the prosperity of the region from that time.

Sogdians to carry on the trade of silk and other luxury goods between the Chinese Empire and the Sasanian Empire.[61]

Because of the Hephthalite occupation of Sogdia, the original coinage of Sogdia came to be flooded by the influx of Sasanian coins received as a tribute to the Hephthalites. This coinage then spread along the Silk Road.[57] The symbol of the Hephthalites appears on the residual coinage of Samarkand, probably as a consequence of the Hephthalite control of Sogdia, and becomes prominent in Sogdian coinage from 500 to 700 AD, including in the coinage of their indigenous successors the Ikhshids (642–755 AD), ending with the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana.[62][63]

Turkic Khaganates (557–742 AD)

An Jia with a Turkic Chieftain in his yurt
. 579 AD.

The Turks of the

Battle of Bukhara, perhaps in 557.[64] The Turks retained the area north of the Oxus, including all of Sogdia, while the Sasanians obtained the areas south of it. The Turks fragmented in 581, and the Western Turkic Khaganate
took over in Sogdia.

Archaeological remains suggest that the

Anxi Protectorate of the Tang dynasty, until the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana.[69]

Western Turk Khagan Shekui, under the massive presence of Turkic officers and courtiers. Afrasiab murals, Samarkand, 648–651 AD.[69]

Arab Muslim conquest (8th century AD)

Main article: Muslim conquest of Transoxiana
Further information: Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri and Sogdian city-states
Devashtich, found in Mount Mugh
Wealthy Arab, Palace of Devashtich, Penjikent murals

Umayyads (−750)

Kattakurgan, Uzbekistan), fled to the Principality of Farghana, where their ruler at-Tar (or Alutar) promised them safety and refuge from the Umayyads. However, at-Tar secretly informed al-Harashi of the Sogdians hiding in Khujand, who were then slaughtered by al-Harashi's forces after their arrival.[72]

From 722, following the Muslim invasion, new groups of Sogdians, many of them

Semirechye, where they continued to flourish into the 10th century with the rise of the Karluks and the Kara-Khanid Khanate. These Sogdians are known for producing beautiful silver plates with Eastern Christian iconography, such as the Anikova dish.[73][74][75]

Abbasid Caliphate (750–819)

Decorated niche from the Abbasid mosque of Afrasiab, Samarkand, 750–825 CE.[76]

The Umayyads

Nestorian Christianity disappeared in the region by the end of the Samanid period.[77] The Samanids were also responsible for converting the surrounding Turkic peoples to Islam
.

Samanids (819–999)

Main article: Samanid Empire

The Samanids occupied the Sogdian region from circa 819 until 999, establishing their capital at Samarkand (819–892) and then at Bukhara (892–999).

Turco-Mongol conquests: Kara-Khanid Khanate (999–1212)

Muḥammad b. Tekish took over Samarkand.[80]

In 999 the Samanid Empire was conquered by an Islamic Turkic power, the Kara-Khanid Khanate (840–1212).[81]

  • Kara-Khanid band of inscription containing a fragment of poetry reading kām-i dil, Afrasiab, Samarkand, circa 1200 CE.[82]
    Kara-Khanid band of inscription containing a fragment of poetry reading kām-i dil, Afrasiab, Samarkand, circa 1200 CE.[82]
  • Kara-Khanid medallion with fighting birds, Afrasiab, circa 1200 CE.[82]
    Kara-Khanid medallion with fighting birds, Afrasiab, circa 1200 CE.[82]
  • Kara-Khanid bands of inscription with running animals, Afrasiab, circa 1200 CE.[82]
    Kara-Khanid bands of inscription with running animals, Afrasiab, circa 1200 CE.[82]

From 1212, the Kara-Khanids in Samarkand were conquered by the

Khwarezmia was invaded by the early Mongol Empire and its ruler Genghis Khan destroyed the once vibrant cities of Bukhara and Samarkand.[83] However, in 1370, Samarkand saw a revival as the capital of the Timurid Empire. The Turko-Mongol ruler Timur forcefully brought artisans and intellectuals from across Asia to Samarkand, transforming it not only into a trade hub but also one of the most important cities of the Islamic world.[84]

Economy and diplomacy

Central Asia and the Silk Road

Main articles:
Sino-Persian relations and Cities along the Silk Road
Left image: a Sogdian silk brocade textile fragment, dated c. 700 AD
Right image: and a Sogdian silver wine cup with mercury gilding, 7th century AD

Most merchants did not travel the entire

Khotan or Dunhuang. The Sogdians, however, established a trading network across the 1500 miles from Sogdiana to China. In fact, the Sogdians turned their energies to trade so thoroughly that the Saka of the Kingdom of Khotan called all merchants suli, "Sogdian", whatever their culture or ethnicity.[85] The Sogdians had learnt to become expert traders from the Kushans, together with whom they initially controlled trade in the Ferghana Valley and Kangju during the 'birth' of the Silk Road. Later, they became the primary middlemen after the demise of the Kushan Empire.[86][87]

Unlike the empires of antiquity, the Sogdian region was not a territory confined within fixed borders, but rather a network of

Indochina and China.[88] Sogdian contacts with China were initiated by the embassy of the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian during the reign of Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 BC) of the former Han dynasty. Zhang wrote a report of his visit to the Western Regions in Central Asia and named the area of Sogdiana as "Kangju".[89]

Left image: Sogdian men feasting and eating at a banquet, from a wall mural of Panjakent, Tajikistan, 7th century AD
Right image: Detail of a mural from Varakhsha, 6th century AD, showing elephant riders fighting tigers and monsters.

Following Zhang Qian's embassy and report, commercial Chinese relations with Central Asia and Sogdiana flourished,

Shiji published in 94 BC, Chinese historian Sima Qian remarked that "the largest of these embassies to foreign states numbered several hundred persons, while even the smaller parties included over 100 members ... In the course of one year anywhere from five to six to over ten parties would be sent out."[91] In terms of the silk trade, the Sogdians also served as middlemen between the Chinese Han Empire and the Parthian Empire of the Middle East and West Asia.[92] Sogdians played a major role in facilitating trade between China and Central Asia along the Silk Roads as late as the 10th century, their language serving as a lingua franca for Asian trade as far back as the 4th century.[93][94]

Left image: An Jia, a Sogdian trader and official in China, depicted on his tomb in 579 AD.
Right image: ceramic figurine of a Sogdian merchant in northern China, Tang dynasty, 7th century AD
Kelpin
, 8th century, British Museum

Subsequent to their domination by Alexander the Great, the Sogdians from the city of Marakanda (

Jin emperor fled the capital, there was no worthwhile business there for Indian and Sogdian merchants.[21][97] Furthermore, in 568 AD, a Turko-Sogdian delegation travelled to the Roman emperor in Constantinople to obtain permission to trade and in the following years commercial activity between the states flourished.[98] Put simply, the Sogdians dominated trade along the Silk Road from the 2nd century BC until the 10th century.[85]

Urals and the northeastern one toward the nearby Turkic tribes.[101]

During the 5th and 6th century, many Sogdians took up residence in the

Sassanian silverware, as well as glass containers, Mediterranean coral, brass Buddhist images, Roman wool cloth, and Baltic amber. These were exchanged for Chinese paper, copper, and silk.[85] In the 7th century, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang noted with approval that Sogdian boys were taught to read and write at the age of five, though their skill was turned to trade, disappointing the scholarly Xuanzang. He also recorded the Sogdians working in other capacities such as farmers, carpetweavers, glassmakers, and woodcarvers.[107]

Trade and diplomacy with the Byzantine Empire

Further information:
Byzantine-Mongol alliance, and Europeans in Medieval China
Chinese silk in Sogdia: Tang dynasty emissaries at the court of the Ikhshid of Sogdia Varkhuman in Samarkand, carrying silk and a string of silkworm cocoons, circa 655 CE, Afrasiab murals, Samarkand.

Shortly after the

Göktürk ruler of the First Turkic Khaganate, was approached by Sogdian merchants requesting permission to seek an audience with the Sassanid king of kings for the privilege of traveling through Persian territories in order to trade with the Byzantines.[92] Istämi refused the first request, but when he sanctioned the second one and had the Sogdian embassy sent to the Sassanid king, the latter had the members of the embassy poisoned.[92] Maniah, a Sogdian diplomat, convinced Istämi to send an embassy directly to Byzantium's capital Constantinople, which arrived in 568 and offered not only silk as a gift to Byzantine ruler Justin II, but also proposed an alliance against Sassanid Persia. Justin II agreed and sent an embassy to the Turkic Khaganate, ensuring the direct silk trade desired by the Sogdians.[92][108][109]

A lion motif on Sogdian polychrome silk, 8th century AD, most likely from Bukhara.

It appears, however, that direct trade with the Sogdians remained limited in light of the small amount of

Turfan persisted long after the Tang campaign against Karakhoja and Chinese conquest of 640, with a gradual adoption of Chinese bronze coinage over the course of the 7th century.[113] The fact that these Eastern Roman coins were almost always found with Sasanian Persian silver coins and Eastern Roman gold coins were used more as ceremonial objects like talismans, confirms the pre-eminent importance of Greater Iran in Chinese Silk Road commerce of Central Asia compared to Eastern Rome.[115]

Sogdian traders in the Tarim Basin

Central Asian foreigner worshipping Maitreya, Cave 188

The Kizil Caves near Kucha, mid-way in the Tarim Basin, record many scenes of traders from Central Asia in the 5–6th century: these combine influence from the Eastern Iran sphere, at that time occupied by the Sasanian Empire and the Hephthalites, with strong Sogdian cultural elements.[116][117] Sogdia, at the center of a new Silk Road between China to the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire became extremely prosperous around that time.[118]

The style of this period in Kizil is characterized by strong Iranian-Sogdian elements probably brought with intense Sogdian-Tocharian trade, the influence of which is especially apparent in the Central-Asian

caftans with Sogdian textile designs, as well as Sogdian longswords of many of the figures.[119] Other characteristic Sogdian designs are animals, such as ducks, within pearl medallions.[119]

  • Dragon-King Mabi saving traders, Cave 14, Kizil Caves
    Dragon-King Mabi saving traders, Cave 14, Kizil Caves
  • Two-headed dragon capturing traders, Cave 17
    Two-headed dragon capturing traders, Cave 17
  • Sab leading the way for the 500 traders, Kizil Cave 17.
    Sab leading the way for the 500 traders, Kizil Cave 17.

Sogdian merchants, generals, and statesmen in Imperial China

Further information: Iranians_in_China § Sogdians, Ethnic groups in Chinese history, Ethnic minorities in China, and Western Regions
Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, near Turpan in the eastern Tarim Basin, China, 8th century
Right image: Sogdians having a toast, with females wearing Chinese headdresses. Anyang funerary bed, 550–577 AD.[120]

Aside from the Sogdians of Central Asia who acted as middlemen in the Silk Road trade, other Sogdians settled down in China for generations. Many Sogdians lived in Luoyang, capital of the Jin dynasty (266–420), but fled following the collapse of the Jin dynasty's control over northern China in 311 AD and the rise of northern nomadic tribes.[97]

Aurel Stein discovered 5 letters written in Sogdian known as the "Ancient Letters" in an abandoned watchtower near Dunhuang in 1907. One of them was written by a Sogdian woman named Miwnay who had a daughter named Shayn and she wrote to her mother Chatis in Sogdia. Miwnay and her daughter were abandoned in China by Nanai-dhat, her husband who was also Sogdian like her. Nanai-dhat refused to help Miwnay and their daughter after forcing them to come with him to Dunhuang and then abandoning them, telling them they should serve the Han Chinese. Miwnay asked one of her husband's relative Artivan and then asked another Sogdian man, Farnkhund to help them but they also abandoned them. Miwnay and her daughter Shayn were then forced to became servants of Han Chinese after living on charity from a priest. Miwnay cursed her Sogdian husband for leaving her, saying she would rather have been married to a pig or dog.[121][122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129] Another letter in the collection was written by the Sogdian Nanai-vandak addressed to Sogdians back home in Samarkand informing them about a mass rebellion by Xiongnu Hun rebels against their Han Chinese rulers of the Western Jin dynasty informing his people that every single one of the diaspora Sogdians and Indians in the Chinese Western Jin capital Luoyang died of starvation due to the uprising by the rebellious Xiongnu, who were formerly subjects of the Han Chinese. The Han Chinese emperor abandoned Luoyang when it came under siege by the Xiongnu rebels and his palace was burned down. Nanai-vandak also said the city of Ye was no more as the Xiongnu rebellion resulted in disaster for the Sogdian diaspora in China.[130][131] Han Chinese men frequently bought Sogdian slave girls for sexual relations.[132]

The Yingpan man, Xinjiang, China, 4th-5th century CE. He may have been a Sogdian trader.[133][134]

Still, some Sogdians continued living in Gansu.[97] A community of Sogdians remained in the Northern Liang capital of Wuwei, but when the Northern Liang were defeated by the Northern Wei in 439 AD, many Sogdians were forcibly relocated to the Northern Wei capital of Datong, thereby fostering exchanges and trade for the new dynasty.[135] Numerous Central Asian objects have been found in Northern Wei tombs, such as the tomb of Feng Hetu.[136]

Other Sogdians came from the west and took positions in Chinese society. The

Zoroastrian temples to service their communities once they reached the threshold of roughly 100 households.[96] From the Northern Qi to Tang periods, the leaders of these communities, the sabao, were incorporated into the official hierarchy of state officials.[96]

During the 6–7th centuries AD, Sogdian families living in China created important tombs with funerary epitaphs explaining the history of their illustrious houses. Their burial practices blended both Chinese forms such as carved funerary beds with Zoroastrian sensibilities in mind, such as separating the body from both the earth and water.[139] Sogdian tombs in China are among the most lavish of the period in this country, and are only inferior to Imperial tombs, suggesting that the Sogdian Sabao were among the wealthiest members of the population.[140]

Sogdian Huteng dancer, Xiuding temple pagoda, Anyang, Hunan, China, Tang dynasty, 7th century.

In addition to being merchants, monks, and government officials, Sogdians also served as soldiers in the Tang military.

and defeated rival Yan dynasty forces under the Turk Ashina Chengqing,[143][144] High nosed Sogdians were slaughtered in Youzhou in 761. Youzhou had Linzhou, another "protected" prefecture attached to it and Sogdians lived there in great numbers.[145][146] because Gao Juren, like Tian Shengong wanted to defect to the Tang dynasty and wanted them to publicly recognize and acknowledge him as a regional warlord and offered the slaughter of the Central Asian Hu "barbarians" as a blood sacrifice for the Tang court to acknowledge his allegiance without him giving up territory. according to the book, "History of An Lushan" (安祿山史記).[147][148] Another source says the slaughter of the Hu barbarians serving Ashina Chengqing was done by Gao Juren in Fanyang in order to deprive him of his support base, since the Tiele, Tongluo, Sogdians and Turks were all Hu and supported the Turk Ashina Chengqing against the Mohe, Xi, Khitan and Goguryeo origin soldiers led by Gao Juren. Gao Juren was later killed by Li Huaixian, who was loyal to Shi Chaoyi.[149][150] A massacre of foreign Arab and Persian Muslim merchants by former Yan rebel general Tian Shengong happened during the An Lushan rebellion in the Yangzhou massacre (760),[151][152] since Tian Shengong was defecting to the Tang dynasty and wanted them to publicly recognized and acknowledge him, and the Tang court portrayed the war as between rebel hu barbarians of the Yan against Han Chinese of the Tang dynasty, Tian Shengong slaughtered foreigners as a blood sacrifice to prove he was loyal to the Han Chinese Tang dynasty state and for them to recognize him as a regional warlord without him giving up territory, and he killed other foreign Hu barbarian ethnicities as well whose ethnic groups were not specified, not only Arabs and Persians since it was directed against all foreigners.[153][154]

Sogdians continued as active traders in China following the defeat of the rebellion, but many of them were compelled to hide their ethnic identity. A prominent case was An Chongzhang, Minister of War, and Duke of Liang who, in 756, asked

surname Li.[141]

The

Nestorian Stele.[155][156][157][158][159][160]

cakravartin by Amoghavajra after victory against An Lushan in 759 and he had invoked the Acala vidyaraja against An Lushan. The Tang dynasty crown prince Li Heng (later Suzong) also received important strategic military information from Chang'an when it was occupied by An Lushan though secret message sent by Amoghavajra.[163]

Epitaphs were found dating from the Tang dynasty of a Christian couple in Luoyang of a Nestorian Christian Sogdian woman, who Lady An (安氏) who died in 821 and her Nestorian Christian Han Chinese husband, Hua Xian (花献) who died in 827. These Han Chinese Christian men may have married Sogdian Christian women because of a lack of Han Chinese women belonging to the Christian religion, limiting their choice of spouses among the same ethnicity.[164] Another epitaph in Luoyang of a Nestorian Christian Sogdian woman also surnamed An was discovered and she was put in her tomb by her military officer son on 22 January 815. This Sogdian woman's husband was surnamed He (和) and he was a Han Chinese man and the family was indicated to be multiethnic on the epitaph pillar.[165] In Luoyang, the mixed raced sons of Nestorian Christian Sogdian women and Han Chinese men has many career paths available for them. Neither their mixed ethnicity nor their faith were barriers and they were able to become civil officials, a military officers and openly celebrated their Christian religion and support Christian monasteries.[166]

Xi'an City Museum
.

During the Tang and subsequent

Eastern Iranian language native to the region), Uyghur, and Sanskrit.[170]

There were nine prominent Sogdian clans (昭武九姓). The names of these clans have been deduced from the

Zeravshan River), and Hé (何, from Kushaniyah).[171][173] Confucius is said to have expressed a desire to live among the "nine tribes" which may have been a reference to the Sogdian community.[174]

A Tang dynasty sancai statuette of Sogdian merchants riding on a Bactrian camel, 723 AD, Xi'an.

The influence of

Fall of the Sasanian Empire in 651, followed by the Islamic conquest of Samarkand in 712.[171]

Language and culture

The 6th century is thought to be the peak of Sogdian culture, judging by its highly developed artistic tradition. By this point, the Sogdians were entrenched in their role as the central Asian traveling and trading merchants, transferring goods, culture and religion.

Loulan was "Kroraina", possibly from Greek due to nearby Hellenistic influence.[178] However, centuries later in 664 AD, the Tang Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang labelled it as "Nafupo" (納縛溥), which according to Hisao Matsuda is a transliteration of the Sogdian word Navapa meaning "new water."[179]

Art

Main article:
Art of Central Asia

The

gilded bronze plaques on a Buddhist temple show a pairing of a male and female deity with outstretched hands holding a miniature camel, a common non-Buddhist image similarly found in the paintings of Samarkand and Panjakent.[182]

Language

Main article: Sogdian language
Wirkak
, a Sogdian merchant and official who died in China in 580 CE.

The Sogdians spoke an

Gokturks.[109][183]

Sogdian was written largely in three scripts: the

Manichaean alphabet, each derived from the Aramaic alphabet,[184][185] which had been widely used in both the Achaemenid and Parthian empires of ancient Iran.[17][186] The Sogdian alphabet formed the basis of the Old Uyghur alphabet of the 8th century, which in turn was used to create the Mongolian script of the early Mongol Empire during the 13th century.[187] Later in 1599, the Jurchen leader Nurhaci decided to convert the Mongolian alphabet to make it suitable for the Manchu people
.

The

Western Iranian language
.

Clothing

Sogdians, depicted on the Anyang funerary bed, a Sogdian sarcophagus in China during the Northern Qi dynasty (550–577 AD). Guimet Museum.

Early medieval Sogdian costumes can be divided in two periods:

Gökturks but only in c. 620 when, especially following Western Turkic Khagan Ton-jazbgu's reforms, Sogd was Turkized and the local nobility was officially included in the Khaganate's administration.[190]

For both sexes clothes were tight-fitted, and narrow waists and wrists were appreciated. The silhouettes for grown men and young girls emphasized wide shoulders and narrowed to the waist; the silhouettes for female aristocrats were more complicated. The Sogdian clothing underwent a thorough process of Islamization in the ensuing centuries, with few of the original elements remaining. In their stead, turbans, kaftans, and sleeved coats became more common.[190]

Religious beliefs

Further information: Silk Road transmission of Buddhism, Mar Ammo, and Bible translations into Sogdian

The Sogdians practiced a variety of religious faiths. However, Zoroastrianism was most likely their main religion, as demonstrated by material evidence, such as the discovery in Samarkand, Panjakent and Er-Kurgan of murals depicting votaries making offerings before fire altars and

Turfan, Sogdian burials shared similar features with traditional Chinese practices, yet they still retained essential Zoroastrian rituals, such as allowing the bodies to be picked clean by scavengers before burying the bones in ossuaries.[171] They also sacrificed animals to Zoroastrian deities, including the supreme deity Ahura Mazda.[171] Zoroastrianism remained the dominant religion among Sogdians until after the Islamic conquest, when they gradually converted to Islam, as is shown by Richard Bulliet's "conversion curve".[191]

Tomb of Anjia, a Sogdian merchant in China.[193]

The Sogdian religious texts found in China and dating to the Northern dynasties, Sui, and Tang are mostly Buddhist (translated from Chinese sources), Manichaean, and Nestorian Christian, with only a small minority of Zoroastrian texts.[194] But, tombs of Sogdian merchants in China dated to the last third of the 6th century show predominantly Zoroastrian motifs or Zoroastrian-Manichaean syncretism, while archaeological remains from Sogdiana appear fairly Iranian and conservatively Zoroastrian.[194]

However, the Sogdians epitomized the religious plurality found along the trade routes. The largest body of Sogdian texts are Buddhist, and Sogdians were among the principal translators of Buddhist sutras into Chinese. However, Buddhism did not take root in Sogdiana itself.

Buddha and holy stupas in addition to their full names, in hopes that the Buddha would grant them his protection.[197]

The Sogdians also practiced Manichaeism, the faith of

Uyghur Bezeklik Buddhist murals of Xinjiang, China, particularly Scene 6 from Temple 9 showing Sogdian donors to the Buddha.[199][200]

trisula), attended by Sogdian devotees. Penjikent, 7th–8th century AD. Hermitage Museum
.

In addition to

fire altars can be "associated" with Mahadeva-Veshparkar, Brahma-Zravan, and Indra-Abdab, according to Braja Bihārī Kumar.[201]

Among the Sogdian Christians known in China from inscriptions and texts were An Yena, a Christian from An country (Bukhara). Mi Jifen a Christian from Mi country (Maymurgh), Kang Zhitong, a Sogdian Christian cleric from Kang country (Samarkand), Mi Xuanqing a Sogdian Christian cleric from Mi country (Maymurgh), Mi Xuanying, a Sogdian Christian cleric from Mi country (Maymurgh), An Qingsu, a Sogdian Christian monk from An country (Bukhara).[202][203][204]

Uyghur rule (9th–13th century).[171]

When visiting

Christian churches had been built there. His claim is confirmed by a Chinese text of the 14th century explaining how a Sogdian named Mar-Sargis from Samarkand founded six Nestorian Christian churches there, in addition to one in Hangzhou during the second half of the 13th century.[205] Nestorian Christianity had existed in China earlier during the Tang dynasty when a Persian monk named Alopen came to Chang'an in 653 to proselytize, as described in a dual Chinese and Syriac language inscription from Chang'an (modern Xi'an), dated to the year 781.[206] Within the Syriac inscription is a list of priests and monks, one of whom is named Gabriel, the archdeacon of "Xumdan" and "Sarag", the Sogdian names for the Chinese capital cities Chang'an and Luoyang, respectively.[207] In regards to textual material, the earliest Christian gospel texts translated into Sogdian coincide with the reign of the Sasanian Persian monarch Yazdegerd II (r. 438–457), and were translated from the Peshitta, the standard version of the Bible in Syriac Christianity.[208]

Slave trade

Further information:
History of slavery in China and Iranians in China

concubine and not as the wife of her former master.[213]

Astana Tomb No. 135.[214]

Sogdian and Chinese merchants regularly traded in slaves in and around Turpan during the Tang dynasty.

Khotan.[215] The Sogdian-language contract buried at the Astana graveyard demonstrates that at least one Chinese man bought a Sogdian girl in 639 AD. One of the archaeologists who excavated the Astana site, Wu Zhen, contends that, although many households along the Silk Road bought individual slaves, as demonstrated in the earlier documents from Niya, the Turpan documents point to a massive escalation in the volume of the slave trade.[216] In 639 a female Sogdian slave was sold to a Chinese man, as recorded in an Astana cemetery legal document written in Sogdian.[217] Khotan and Kucha were places where women were commonly sold, with ample evidence of the slave trade in Turfan thanks to contemporary textual sources that have survived.[218][219] In Tang poetry Sogdian girls also frequently appear as serving maids in the taverns and inns of the capital Chang'an.[220]

Sogdian slave girls and their Chinese male owners made up the majority of Sogdian female-Chinese male pairings, while free Sogdian women were the most common spouse of Sogdian men. A smaller number of Chinese women were paired with elite Sogdian men. Sogdian man-and-woman pairings made up eighteen out of twenty-one marriages according to existing documents.[219][221]

A document dated 731 AD reveals that precisely forty bolts of silk were paid to a certain Mi Lushan, a slave dealing Sogdian, by a Chinese man named Tang Rong (唐榮) of Chang'an, for the purchase of an eleven-year-old girl. A person from Xizhou, a Tokharistani (i.e. Bactrian), and three Sogdians verified the sale of the girl.[219][222]

Central Asians like Sogdians were called "Hu" (胡) by the Chinese during the Tang dynasty. Central Asian "Hu" women were stereotyped as barmaids or dancers by Han in China. Han Chinese men engaged in mostly extra-marital sexual relationships with them as the "Hu" women in China mostly occupied positions where sexual services were sold to patrons like singers, maids, slaves and prostitutes.[223][224][225][226][227][228] Southern Baiyue girls were exoticized in poems.[229] Han men did not want to legally marry them unless they had no choice such as if they were on the frontier or in exile since the Han men would be socially disadvantaged and have to marry non-Han.[230][231][232] The task of taking care of herd animals like sheep and cattle was given to "Hu" slaves in China.[233]

Modern historiography

Further information: German Turfan expeditions and Albert von Le Coq
crowned king on the obverse, and a Zoroastrian fire altar
on the reverse.

In 1916, the French

linguists of the Sogdian language, were able to reconstruct Sogdian names from forty-five different Chinese transliterations, noting that these were common in Turfan whereas Sogdians living closer to the center of Chinese civilization for generations adopted traditional Chinese names.[171]

Notable people
Sogdian musicians and attendants on the tomb of Wirkak, 580 AD.

Diaspora areas

See also

Ancient history
Preceded by prehistory
Near East
Europe
Horn of Africa
List
Central Asia
East Asia
South Asia
Northern America
Mesoamerica
Andes
Caribbean
West Africa and Central Africa
Southeast Asia and Oceania
See also
  • Ancient Iranian peoples
  • Buddhism in Afghanistan
  • Buddhism in Khotan
  • Étienne de La Vaissière
  • History of Central Asia
  • Huteng
  • Iranian languages
  • Margiana
  • List of ancient Iranian peoples
  • Philip (satrap)
  • Poykent
  • Sogdian Daēnās
  • Sughd Province
  • Kangju
  • Tocharians
  • Tomb of Wirkak
  • Tomb of Yu Hong
  • Yaghnobi people
  • Yagnob Valley
  • Yazid ibn al-Muhallab

    • References

    Citations

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    9. ^ a b c Antoine Simonin. (8 January 2012). "Sogdiana." World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
    10. ^ Grenet 2005, p. 30: "Of a total of sixteen countries, seven have always been identified beyond doubt, as they kept their name until historical times or even to the present day. Five of these countries are at the beginning of the list, directly following Airyanem Vaējah: Gava "inhabited by the Sogdians", Merv, Bactria, Nisāya said to be "between Margiana and Bactria" and therefore corresponding at least in part to medieval Juzjān in northwest Afghanistan. Then comes the sixth country, Harōiva [.]"
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      . Peintures murales qui ornaient (...) la résidence privée des derniers souverains qarakhanides de Samarkande (fin du 12ième - début du 13ième siècle (...) le souverain assis, les jambes repliées sur le trône, tient une flèche, symbole du pouvoir (Fig.171).
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    134. PMID 35027587
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      . It is evident that when the Northern Wei defeated Northern Liang and seized its capital (439), they captured a large number of Sogdian merchants living in Wuwei and resettled them in Pingcheng (present-day Datong), the capital of the Northern Wei.
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    153. ^ Chamney, Lee. The An Shi Rebellion and Rejection of the Other in Tang China, 618–763 (PDF) (A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History and Classics). University of Alberta Libraries. pp. 91, 92, 93. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 February 2020.
    154. Old Tang History
      "至揚州，大掠百姓商人資產，郡內比屋發掘略遍，商胡波斯被殺者數千人" "商胡大食, 波斯等商旅死者數千人波斯等商旅死者數千人."
    155. S2CID 164239427
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    156. ISBN 978-3-643-90329-7
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    157. ISSN 1754-517X
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    158. ISBN 978-1-78672-316-1
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    159. doi:10.3390/rel10100551.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: location (link
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    160. ISBN 978-1-351-67277-1
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    163. ISBN 978-90-04-15830-6
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    164. ^ Morrow, Kenneth T. (May 2019). Negotiating Belonging: The Church of the East's Contested Identity in Tang China (PDF) (Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Ideas). THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS. pp. 109–135, viii, xv, 156, 164, 115, 116.
    165. ^ Morrow, Kenneth T. (May 2019). Negotiating Belonging: The Church of the East's Contested Identity in Tang China (PDF) (Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Ideas). The University of Texas at Dallas. pp. 155–156, 149, 150, viii, xv.
    166. ^ Morrow, Kenneth T. (May 2019). Negotiating Belonging: The Church of the East's Contested Identity in Tang China (PDF) (Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Ideas). The University of Texas at Dallas. p. 164.
    167. ^ Galambos, Imre (2015), "She Association Circulars from Dunhuang", in Antje Richter, A History of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture, Brill: Leiden, Boston, pp 870–71.
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    169. ^ Zizhi Tongjian, vol. 249.
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    174. ^ Chung, Ha-Sung H. "Traces of the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel in Chinese and Korean Sources". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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    177. ISBN 962-217-721-2
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    178. ^ Kazuo Enoki (1998), "Yü-ni-ch'êng and the Site of Lou-Lan", and "The Location of the Capital of Lou-Lan and the Date of the Kharoshthi Inscriptions", in Rokuro Kono (ed.), Studia Asiatica: The Collected Papers in Western Languages of the Late Dr. Kazuo Enoki, Tokyo: Kyu-Shoin, pp 200, 211–57.
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    183. ^ a b c Tafazzoli, A. (2003), "Iranian Languages", in C. E. Bosworth and M. S. Asimov, History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume IV: The Age of Achievement, A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, p 323.
    184. ^ Tafazzoli, A. (2003), "Iranian Languages", in C. E. Bosworth and M. S. Asimov, History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume IV: The Age of Achievement, A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, pp 325–26.
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    187. ^ Tafazzoli, A. (2003), "Iranian Languages", in C. E. Bosworth and M. S. Asimov, History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume IV: The Age of Achievement, A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, p 325.
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    189. ISBN 0-520-03765-0
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    190. ^ a b Yatsenko, Sergey A. (2003). "The Late Sogdian Costume (the 5th – 8th centuries)". Transoxiana (Webfestschrift Marshak).
    191. ^ Tobin 113–115
    192. ^ Lee Lawrence. (3 September 2011). "A Mysterious Stranger in China". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
    193. ^ Jin, Xu 徐津 (1 January 2019). "The Funerary Couch of An Jia and the Art of Sogdian Immigrants in Sixth-century China". The Burlington Magazine: 824.
    194. ^
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    195. ISBN 0-520-03765-0
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    196. ^ J. Rose, 'The Sogdians: Prime Movers between Boundaries', Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, vol. 30, no. 3 (2010), pp. 416–7
    197. ^ Liu, Xinru (2010), The Silk Road in World History, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p 67–8.
    198. ISBN 0-521-24699-7
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    199. ^ a b Gasparini, Mariachiara. "A Mathematic Expression of Art: Sino-Iranian and Uighur Textile Interactions and the Turfan Textile Collection in Berlin", in Rudolf G. Wagner and Monica Juneja (eds), Transcultural Studies, Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg, No 1 (2014), pp 134–163
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    203. ^ S.V.D. Research Institute, Monumenta Serica Institute (2009). Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies, Volume 57. H. Vetch. p. 120. The first one is the funerary inscription of another Bukharan Christian, who died during the Jinglong JptH era (707–710) in Guilin ££^, southern China, and whose name was An Yena^Wffi (see Jiang Boqin 1994). The second is the epitaph of the Sogdian gentleman Mi Jifen ^Iffi^ (714–805) from Maymurgh; in his study Ge Chengyong has discovered that Mi's son was a Christian monk and that his family was therefore most probably Christian, too (see Ge Chengyong 2001). Generally ...
    204. ISBN 88-8227-212-5
      . ... di almeno un testo cristiano in cinese, il rotolo P. 3847, contenente la traduzione cinese dell'inno siriaco Gloria in excelsis Deo, di cui fu redatta anche una traduzione sogdiana(giunta a noi in frammenti) a Bulayìq (Turfan). L'unico elemento che ci conferma, infine, una assai probabile presenza cristiana in quest'epoca nel sud della Cina, legata ai commerci marittimi, è il ritrovamento presso Guilin (odierno Guangxi) dell'epitaffio funebre del cristiano An Yena, morto tra il 707 e il 709.
    205. ^ Emmerick, R. E. (2003) "Iranian Settlement East of the Pamirs", in Ehsan Yarshater, The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol III: The Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian Periods, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 275.
    206. ^ Emmerick, R. E. (2003) "Iranian Settlement East of the Pamirs", in Ehsan Yarshater, The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol III: The Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian Periods, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 274.
    207. ^ Emmerick, R. E. (2003) "Iranian Settlement East of the Pamirs", in Ehsan Yarshater, The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol III: The Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian Periods, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 274–5.
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    209. ISBN 0-521-24327-0
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    210. ISBN 0-8047-0887-8
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    211. ^ For specific figures in regards to percentage of the population being enslaved, see Frier, Bruce W. (2000). "Demography", in Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Dominic Rathbone (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History XI: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 827–54.
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    213. ISBN 90-04-10596-4
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    214. ^ Pei, Chengguo (2017). "The Silk Road and the Economy of Gaochang: Evidence on the Circulation of Silver Coins" (PDF). The Silk Road. 15: 40. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 May 2021.
    215. ^ Xin Tangshu 221a:6230. In addition, Susan Whitfield offers a fictionalized account of a Kuchean courtesan's experiences in the 9th century without providing any sources, although she has clearly drawn on the description of the prostitutes' quarter in Chang'an in Beilizhi; Whitfield, 1999, pp. 138–154.
    216. ^ Wu Zhen 2000 (p. 154 is a Chinese-language rendering based on Yoshida's Japanese translation of the Sogdian contract of 639).
    217. ISBN 978-0-19-973413-9
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    218. ISBN 978-2-85539-653-8
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    219. ^ a b c Hansen, Valerie. "Les Sogdiens en Chine: The Impact of the Silk Road Trade on a Local Community: The Turfan Oasis, 500–800" (PDF). History.yale.edu. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
    220. ^ Rong, Xinjiang, "New light on Sogdian Colonies along the Silk Road : Recent Archaeological Finds in Northern China (Lecture at the BBAW on 20 September 2001)", in Berichte und Abhandlungen (17 December 2009); 10, S., p. 150.
    221. ISBN 978-2-85539-653-8
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    222. ISBN 978-2-85539-653-8
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    223. ISBN 978-0812201017
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    224. ISBN 978-0812201017
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    225. ISBN 978-0812201017
      . Katô Hakushi Kanreki Kinen Ronbunshû Kankôkai. 83–91. Tokyo: Fuzanbô. ———. 1948. Tôshi sôshô. Tokyo: Kaname Shohô. ———. 1961. "The hu-chi, mainly Iranian girls, found in China during the Tang period.
    226. ^ Light, Nathan (1998). Slippery Paths: The Performance and Canonization of Turkic Literature and Uyghur Muqam Song in Islam and Modernity. Indiana University. p. 303. ... see Mikinosuke ISHIDA, " Etudes sino – iraniennes, I : A propos du Hou – siuan – wou, " AIRDTB, 6 ( 1932 ) 61–76, and " The Hu – chi, Mainly Iranian Girls, found in China during the Tang Period, " MRDTB, 20 ( 1961 ) 35–40 .
    227. ISSN 0742-6836
      . ... 1033 Chinese Mohammedans, " 9012 " How Can We Best Reach the Mohammedan Women ?, " 6025 " How Islam Entered China, " 1057 " The Hu - Chi, Mainly Iranian Girls Found in China during the Tang Period, " 2010 " The Hui and the ...
    228. ISBN 9575475399
      . ... 1033 Chinese Mohammedans, " 9012 " How Can We Best Reach the Mohammedan Women ?, " 6025 " How Islam Entered China, " 1057 " The Hu - Chi, Mainly Iranian Girls Found in China during the Tang Period, " 2010 " The Hui and the ...
    229. ^ 李, 白. "卷184#越女詞五首 卷一百八十四". 全唐詩.
    230. ISBN 978-0812201017
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    231. ISBN 978-0812201017
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    232. ^ 劉, 昫. "卷193 卷一百九十三". 舊唐書.
    233. ISBN 978-0812201017
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    234. ^ a b c Rong, Xinjiang, "New light on Sogdian Colonies along the Silk Road : Recent Archaeological Finds in Northern China (Lecture at the BBAW on 20 September 2001)", in Berichte und Abhandlungen (17 December 2009); 10, S., p. 148.
    235. ^ Rong, Xinjiang, "New light on Sogdian Colonies along the Silk Road : Recent Archaeological Finds in Northern China (Lecture at the BBAW on 20 September 2001)", in Berichte und Abhandlungen (17 December 2009); 10, S., pp 148–9.
    236. ^ Lehnert, Martin (2010). Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Brill. p. 351.
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    237. ^ Yang, Zeng (2010). A Biographical Study on Bukong 不空 (aka. Amoghavajra, 705–774) : Networks, Institutions, and Identities (Thesis). University of British Columbia. p. 23.
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    238. ^ Vohidov, Rahim; Eshonqulov, Husniddin (2006). "III-BOB X X II ASRLAR O'ZBEK ADABIYOTI 3 .1 . X -X II asrlardagi madaniy hayot". O'zbek Mumtoz Adabiyoti Tarixi (Eng qadimgi davrlardan XVI asr oxirigacha) (PDF). O'zbekiston Respublikasi Oliy Va O'rta Maxsus Ta'lim Vazirligi. p. 52.
    239. ISBN 978-0-521-49781-7
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    240. ISBN 978-1-56518-098-7
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    241. ^ Chen (陈), Boyi (博翼) (2011). "10 跋《明秦府承奉正康公墓志铭》"A Sogdian Descendant?—Study of the Epitaph of Kang Jing: The Man Who Served at Ming Prince Qin's Mansion"". Collected Studies on Ming History 明史研究论丛. Vol. 9. China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House. pp. 283–297.
    242. ISBN 978-7-5010-0662-5
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    243. ISBN 978-0-8156-0195-1
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    244. ^ Ibn Taghribirdi, Jamal al-Din Abu al-Mahasin Yusuf (1930), Nujum al-zahira fi muluk Misr wa'l-Qahira, Volume II, Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya, p. 218.
    245. ISBN 978-962-7956-20-4. Mi Fu (1052-1107), a Northerner by birth (and of Sogdian heritage) developed a passionate attachment to [...]{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
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    246. ISBN 0-7914-4795-2
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    247. ISBN 81-269-0775-4
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    248. ^ Barenghi, Maddalena (2014). Historiography and Narratives of the Later Tang (923–936) and Later Jin (936–947) Dynasties in Tenth- to Eleventh century Sources (PhD). p. 3-4.
    249. ^ Clifford Edmund Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual, Columbia University, 1996. pg 147: "The Sajids were a line of caliphal governors in north-western Persia, the family of a commander in the 'Abbasid service of Soghdian descent which became culturally Arabised."
    250. ISBN 978-0-521-49781-7
      .
    251. JSTOR 4528925
      .
    252. ISBN 978-0-19-021842-3
      .
    253. JSTOR 4527336
      .

    Sources

    Further reading

    External links

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    40°24′N 69°24′E / 40.4°N 69.4°E / 40.4; 69.4

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