Turco-Persian tradition
The composite Turko-Persian, Turco-Persian,[1] or Turco-Iranian (Persian: فرهنگ ایرانی-ترکی) is the distinctive culture that arose in the 9th and 10th centuries AD in Khorasan and Transoxiana (present-day Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and minor parts of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan).[2] According to the modern historian Robert L. Canfield, the Turco-Persian tradition "was "Persianate" in that it was centered on a lettered tradition of Iranian origin; it was Turkish in so far as it was for many generations patronized by rulers of Turkic ancestry; and it was "Islamicate" in that Islamic notions of virtue, permance, and excellence infused discourse about public issues as well as the religious affairs of the Muslims, who were the presiding elite."[3]
In subsequent centuries, the Turco-Persian culture was carried on further by conquering peoples to neighbouring regions, eventually becoming the predominant culture of the ruling and elite classes of South Asia (where it evolved into Indo-Persian tradition), Central Asia and the Tarim Basin, as well as large parts of West Asia.[4]
Origins
Turkic-Persian tradition was a variant of Islamic culture.[5] Islamic notions of virtue, permanence, and excellence permeated discussions on public issues and the religious affairs of the presiding Muslim elite.[1]
After the
Politically, the Abbasids soon started losing their control, causing two major lasting consequences. First, the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutasim (833-842) greatly increased the presence of
Second, the governors in
Language
Middle Persian was a
In the ninth century a new Persian language emerged as the idiom of administration and literature. Tahirids and Saffarids continued using Persian as an informal language, although for them Arabic was the "only proper language for recording anything worthwhile, from poetry to science",
The Samanids began recording their court affairs in Arabic and in this language, and they used it as the main public idiom. The earliest great poetry in New Persian was written for the Samanid court. Samanids encouraged translation of religious works from Arabic into Persian. Even the learned authorities of Islam, the
Before the Ghaznavids broke away, the Samanid rulership was internally falling to its Turkic servants. The Samanids had their own guard of Turkic Mamluk mercenaries (the ghilman), who were headed by a chamberlain, and a Persian and Arabic speaking bureaucracy, headed by a Persian vizier. The army was largely composed of mostly Turkic Mamluks. By the latter part of the tenth century, Samanid rulers gave the command of their army to Turkic generals.[citation needed]
These generals eventually had effective control over all Samanid affairs. The rise of Turks in Samanid times brought a loss of Samanid southern territories to one of their Mamluks, who were governing on their behalf. Mahmud of Ghazni ruled over southeastern extremities of Samanid territories from the city of Ghazni. Turkic political ascendancy in the Samanid period in the tenth and eleventh centuries resulted in the fall of Samanid ruling institution to its Turkic generals; and in a rise of Turkic pastoralists in the countryside.[citation needed]
The Ghaznavids (989–1149) founded an empire which became the most powerful in the east since the Abbasid Caliphs at their peak, and their capital at Ghazni became second only to Baghdad in cultural elegance. It attracted many scholars and artists of the Islamic world. Turkic ascendance to power in the Samanid court brought Turks as the main patrons of Persianate culture, and as they subjugated Western and Southern Asia, they brought along this culture.[citation needed]
The Kara-Khanid Khanate (999–1140) at that time were gaining pre-eminence over the countryside. The Kara-Khanids were pastoralists of noble Turkic backgrounds, and they cherished their Turkic ways. As they gained strength they fostered development of a new Turkish literature alongside the Persian and Arabic literatures that had arisen earlier.[citation needed]
Historical outline
Early Turkic-Iranian interactions
Beginning of the Turco-Persian symbiosis
In Samanid times began the growth of the public influence of the
The ruling institution was dominated by Turks from various tribes, some highly urbanized and Persianized, some rural and still very Turkic. It was managed by bureaucrats and ulama who used both Persian and Arabic, its literati participated in both the Arabic and Persian traditions of high culture of the wider Islamicate world. This composite culture was the beginning of the Turko-Persian variant of Islamicate culture. As "
The early stages of Turco-Persian cultural synthesis in the Islamic world are marked by cultural, social and political tensions and competition among Turks, Persians, and Arabs, despite the egalitarianism of Islamic doctrine. The complex ideas around non-Arabs in the Muslim world[13][14] lead to debates and changing attitudes that can be seen in numerous Arabic, Persian and Turkic writings before the Mongol expansion.[15]
The Perso-Islamic tradition was a tradition where the Turkic groups played an important role in its military and political success while the culture raised both by and under the influence of Muslims used Persian as its cultural vehicle.
Spread of Turco-Persian tradition
The Turco-Persian Islamic culture that emerged under the Persianate Samanids, Ghaznavids, and
The Turco-Persian distinctive Islamic culture flourished for hundreds of years, and then faded under imposed modern
The Ghaznavids moved their capital from Ghazni to Lahore, which they turned into another center of Islamic culture. Under Ghaznavids poets and scholars from Kashgar, Bukhara, Samarkand, Baghdad, Nishapur, and Ghazni congregated in Lahore. Thus, the Turco-Persian culture was brought deep into India[18] and carried further in the thirteenth century.[citation needed]
The
The period from the eleventh to thirteenth century was a cultural blossom time in Western and Southern Asia. A shared culture spread from
Through the centuries
The culture of the Turco-Persian world in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries was tested by invading armies of inland Asia. The
The historian
In Mongol and Timurid times the predominant influences on Turco-Persian culture were imposed from Central Asia, and in this period Turco-Persian culture became sharply distinguishable from the Arabic Islamic world to the west, the dividing zone fell along Euphrates. Socially, the Turco-Persian world was marked by a system of ethnologically defined elite statuses: the rulers and their soldiery were Turkic or Turkic-speaking Mongols; the administrative cadres and literati were Persian. Cultural affairs were marked by characteristic pattern of language use: New Persian was the language of state affairs and literature; New Persian and Arabic the languages of scholarship; Arabic the language of adjudication; and Turkic the language of the military.[18]
In the sixteenth century several Turko-Persian empires arose: the
At the beginning of the fourteenth century the Ottomans rose to predominance in Asia Minor, and developed an empire that subjugated most of the Arab Islamic world as well as south-eastern Europe. The Ottomans patronized Persian literature for five and a half centuries and, because Asia Minor was more stable than eastern territories, they attracted great numbers of writers and artists, especially in the sixteenth century.[29] The Ottomans developed distinctive styles of arts and letters. Unlike Persia they gradually shed some of their Persianate qualities. They gave up Persian as the court language, using Turkish instead; a decision that shocked the highly Persianized Mughals in India.[30]
The Safavids of the fifteenth century were leaders of a
The Mughals, Persianized Turks who had invaded India from Central Asia and claimed descent from both Timur and Genghis Khan, strengthened the
The Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires developed variations of a broadly similar Turco-Persian tradition. A remarkable similarity in culture, particularly among the elite classes, spread across territories of Western, Central and South Asia. Although populations across this vast region had conflicting allegiances (sectarian, locality, tribal, and ethnic affiliation) and spoke many different languages (mostly
As the broad cultural region remained politically divided, the sharp antagonisms between empires stimulated appearance of variations of Turco-Persian culture. The main reason for this was Safavids' introduction of Shiism into Persia, done to distinguish themselves from their Sunni neighbors, especially Ottomans. After 1500, the Persian culture developed distinct features of its own, and interposition of strong Shiite culture hampered exchanges with
Disintegration
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Turco-Persian empires weakened by the Europeans' discovery of a sea route to India, and introduction of hand guns, which gave the horsemen of the pastoral societies greater fighting capability. In India, the Mughal Empire decayed into warring states. The European powers encroached into the Turco-Persian region, contributing to the political fragmentation of the region. By the nineteenth century, the European secular concepts of social obligation and authority, along with superior technology, shook many established institutions of Turco-Persia.[1] [clarification needed]
By identifying the cultural regions of Asia as the
Present
The twentieth century saw many changes in inland Asia that further exposed contradictory cultural trends in the region. Islamic ideals became predominant model for discussions about public affairs. The new
The Islamic resurgence has been less a renewal of faith and dedication than a public resurfacing of perspectives and ideals previously relegated to less public, informal relations under the impact of European secular influences. They are not medieval Islamic ideals, but important ideological traditions that survived an era of great change, and now are used to interpret the problems of contemporary times.[39][40] The Turco-Persian Islamic tradition provided the elements they have used to express their shared concerns.
Influence
"The work of Iranians can be seen in every field of cultural endeavor, including Arabic poetry, to which poets of Iranian origin composing their poems in Arabic made a very significant contribution. In a sense, Iranian Islam is a second advent of Islam itself, a new Islam sometimes referred to as Islam-i Ajam. It was this Persian Islam, rather than the original Arab Islam, that was brought to new areas and new peoples: to the Turks, first in Central Asia and then in the Middle East in the country which came to be called Turkey, and of course to India. The Ottoman Turks brought a form of Iranian civilization to the walls of Vienna. [...] By the time of the great Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, Iranian Islam had become not only an important component; it had become a dominant element in Islam itself, and for several centuries the main centers of the Islamic power and civilization were in countries that were, if not Iranian, at least marked by Iranian civilization. [...] The center of the Islamic world was under Turkish and Persian states, both shaped by Iranian culture. [...] The major centers of Islam in the late medieval and early modern periods, the centers of both political and cultural power, such as India, Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, were all part of this Iranian civilization. Although much of it spoke various forms of Turkish, as well as other local languages, their classical and cultural language was Persian. Arabic was of course the language of scripture and law, but Persian was the language of poetry and literature."
— Bernard Lewis[41]
List of Turko-Persian states and dynasties
Greater Iran
Name | Years | Map | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Ghaznavids | 977–1186 |
| |
Seljuk Empire | 1037–1194 |
| |
Khwarazmian Empire | 1077–1231 |
| |
Timurid Empire | 1370–1507 |
| |
Qara Qoyunlu | 1374–1468 |
| |
Aq Qoyunlu | 1378–1503[a] |
|
Asia
Name | Years | Map | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Qutb Shahi dynasty | 1518–1687 |
| |
Mughal Empire | 1526–1857 |
Anatolia and Balkans
Name | Years | Map | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Sultanate of Rûm | 1077–1308 |
|
See also
- Hazaras
- Persianate society
- Culture of the Ottoman Empire
- Persianization
- Turkification
- Islam in Iran
- Turco-Mongol tradition
- Indo-Persian culture
- Turkic culture
- Theories of Kurds having Turkic origin
- Greater Iran
Notes
Bibliography
- Subtelny, Maria E. (2007). Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran. Brill.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Robert L. Canfield, Turko-Persia in historical perspective, Cambridge University Press, 1991
- ISBN 0-521-52291-9.
- ISBN 0-521-52291-9.
- ISBN 0-521-52291-9.
- ^ a b c d Hodgson, Marshall G. S. 1974. The Venture of Islam. 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
- ^ Bernard Lewis, "The Middle East", 1995, p. 87
- JSTOR 4390312.
- Frye, R.N.1975. The Golden Age of Persia: The Arabs in the East. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, and New York: Barnes and Noble, 1921
- ^ The Persianate World: The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca, ed. Nile Green, (University of California Press, 2019), 10.
- ^ Lars Johanson; Christiane Bulut; Otto Harrassowitz Verlag (2006). Turkic-Iranian Contact Areas: Historical and Linguistic Aspects. p. 1.
- ISBN 978-84-125278-5-8.
Fig. 181- Prince en trône flanqué de deux courtisans -Iran- vers 1170-1220 Samarcande, Musée National d'histoire (...) Des vaisselles de typologie iranienne (...) ont été mises à jour à Afrasiab. Des coupes lustrées et des fragments à décor polychrome (...) y ont également été découverts (fig. 181)
- Frye, R.N.1965. Bukhara, the Medieval Achievement. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, vii
- ^ Roy P. Mottahedeh. The Shu'ubiyah Controversy and the Social History of Early Islamic Iran. International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2. (Apr., 1976), pp. 161-182
- ^ Najwa Al-Qattan. Dhimmis in the Muslim Court: Legal Autonomy and Religious Discrimination. International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol. 31, No. 3. (Aug., 1999), pp. 429-444
- ^ Nathan Light, "Turkic Literature and the Politics of Culture in Islamic World", Ch.3 in Slippery Paths: the performance and canonization of Turkic literature and Uyghur muqam song in Islam and modernity, Thesis (Ph.D.), Indiana University, 1998.
- ^ Francis Robinson, "Perso-Islamic culture in India", in R.L. Canfield, "Turko-Persia in historical perspective", Cambridge University Press, 1991. Quotation:"... In describing the second great culture of the Islamic world as Perso-Islamic we do not wish to play down the considerable contribution of the Turkish peoples to its military and political success, nor do we wish to suggest that it is particularly the achievement of the great cities of the Iranian plateau. We adopt this term because it seems best to describe that culture raised both by and under the influence of Muslims who used Persian as a major cultural vehicle."
- ^ Daniel Pipes: "The Event of Our Era: Former Soviet Muslim Republics Change the Middle East" in Michael Mandelbaum,"Central Asia and the World: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkemenistan and the World", Council on Foreign Relations, pg 79. Quotation: "...In short, the Turko-Persian tradition featured Persian culture patronized by Turcophone rulers...."
- ^ a b c d Ikram, S. M. 1964. Muslim Civilization in India. New York: Columbia University Press
- ^ Rugiadi, Martina. "Ceramic Technology in the Seljuq Period: Stonepaste in Syria and Iran in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries". www.metmuseum.org. Metropolitan Museum of Art (2021). Retrieved 1 February 2023.
- ISBN 9231028138p 734
- ISBN 1438110251p 322
- Frye, R.N.1975. The Golden Age of Persia: The Arabs in the East. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, and New York: Barnes and Noble, 224-30
- ISBN 978-0-521-85031-5.
- ISBN 9788171690695.
- JSTOR 44252438.
- ISBN 978-81-241-1064-5.
- ISBN 978-0-7006-3263-3.
- ISBN 978-1-59884-337-8.
- ^ Yarshater, Ehsan. 1988. The development of Iranian literatures. In Persian Literature, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, pp. 3—37. (Columbia Lectures on Iranian Studies, no. 3.) Albany: Bibliotheca Persica and State University of New York, 15
- ^ Titley, Norah M. 1983. Persian Miniature Painting and its Influence on the Art of Turkey and India. Austin: University of Texas, 159
- ^ Titley, Norah M. 1983. Persian Miniature Painting and its Influence on the Art of Turkey and India. Austin: University of Texas, 105
- ^ Robert L. Canfield, Turko-Persia in historical perspective, Cambridge University Press, 1991. pg 20. Excerpt: The Mughas, Persianized Turks who had invaded from Central Asiaand claimed descent from both Timur and Genghis strengthened the Persianate culture of Muslim India.
- ^ S. Shamil, "The City of Beauties in Indo-Persian Poetic Landscape" - Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. 24, 2004, Duke University Press
- ^ F. Delvoye, "Music in the Indo-Persian Courts of India (14th-18th century), Studies in Artistic Patronage, The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), 1995-1996.
- ^ Mottahedeh, Roy., 1985. The Mantle of the Prophet. New York: Simon and Schuster, 161-2
- ^ Roger M. Savory, Encyclopaedia of Islam, "Safawids", Online Edition, 2005
- ^ Roger M. Savory, "The consolidation of Safawid power in Persia", in Isl., 1965
- ^ Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, Vol. XII, p.873, original German edition, " Persien (Geschichte des neupersischen Reichs)".
- ^ Roy, Olivier., 1986. Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan. New York: Cambridge University Press
- ^ Ahmed, Ishtiaq 1987. The Concept of the Islamic State: An Analysis of the Ideological Controversy in Pakistan. New York: St. Martin's Press
- ^ Iran in History by B. Lewis Archived 2007-04-29 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Ziad, Homayra (2006). "Ghaznavids". In Meri, J. (ed.). Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 294: "The Ghaznavids inherited Samanid administrative, political, and cultural traditions and laid the foundations for a Persianate state in northern India."
- ^ Meisami, Julie Scott (1999). Persian Historiography to the end of the Twelfth Century. Edinburgh University Press. p. 143: "Nizam al-Mulk also attempted to organise the Saljuq administration according to the Persianate Ghaznavid model.."
- ^ Anatoly M. Khazanov, and André Wink. 2001. Nomads in the Sedentary World. (Richmond, VA: Curzon), 12: "The Persianized Ghaznavids and some later dynasties, just like their mamluk-type elite troops, were of Turkic origin"
- ^ Robert L. Canfield, 1991. Turko-Persia in historical perspective. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 8: "The Ghaznavids (989-1149) were essentially Persianized Turks who in manner of the pre-Islamic Persians encouraged the development of high culture."
- ISBN 978-1-135-15369-4.
The Ghaznavids claimed descent from the last Sasanian shah, Yazdagird III...
- ^ Subtelny 2007, pp. 40–41. "Nevertheless, in the complex process of transition, members of the Timurid dynasty and their Turko-Mongolian supporters became acculturated by the surrounding Persianate millieu adopting Persian cultural models and tastes and acting as patrons of Persian language, culture, painting, architecture and music. [...] The last members of the dynasty, notably Sultan-Abu Sa'id and Sultan-Husain, in fact came to be regarded as ideal Perso-Islamic rulers who devoted as much attention to agricultural development as they did to fostering Persianate court culture."
- ^ Roxburgh, David J. (2005). The Persian Album, 1400–1600: From Dispersal to Collection. Yale University Press. p. 130: "Persian literature, especially poetry, occupied a central role in the process of assimilation of Timurid elite to the Perso-Islamicate courtly culture, and so it is not surprising to find Baysanghur commissioned a new edition of Firdawsi's Shanameh."
- ^ a b Roy, Kaushik (2014). Military Transition in Early Modern Asia, 1400-1750. Bloomsbury. "Post-Mongol Persia and Iraq were ruled by two tribal confederations: Akkoyunlu (White Sheep) (1378–1507) and Qaraoyunlu (Black Sheep). They were Persianate Turkoman Confederations of Anatolia (Asia Minor) and Azerbaijan."
- ^ .
The disintegration of Timur's empire into a growing number of Timurid principalities ruled by his sons and grandsons allowed the remarkable rebound of the Ottomans and their westward conquest of Byzantium as well as the rise of rival Turko-Mongolian nomadic empires of the Aq Qoyunlu and Qara Qoyunlu in western Iran, Iraq, and eastern Anatolia. In all of these nomadic empires, however, Persian remained the official court language and the Persianate ideal of kingship prevailed.
- ^ Charles Melville (2021). Safavid Persia in the Age of Empires: The Idea of Iran. Vol. 10. p. 33.
Only after five more years did Esma'il and the Qezelbash finally defeat the rump Aq Qoyunlu regimes. In Diyarbakr, the Mowsillu overthrew Zeynal b. Ahmad and then later gave their allegiance to the Safavids when the Safavids invaded in 913/1507. The following year the Safavids conquered Iraq and drove out Soltan-Morad, who fled to Anatolia and was never again able to assert his claim to Aq Qoyunlu rule. It was therefore only in 1508 that the last regions of Aq Qoyunlu power finally fell to Esma'il.
- ^ "AQ QOYUNLŪ" at Encyclopædia Iranica; "Christian sedentary inhabitants were not totally excluded from the economic, political, and social activities of the Āq Qoyunlū state and that Qara ʿOṯmān had at his command at least a rudimentary bureaucratic apparatus of the Iranian-Islamic type. [...] With the conquest of Iran, not only did the Āq Qoyunlū center of power shift eastward, but Iranian influences were soon brought to bear on their method of government and their culture."
- ^ Christoph Marcinkowski, Shi'ite Identities: Community and Culture in Changing Social Contexts, 169-170; "The Qutb-Shahi kingdom could be considered 'highly Persianate' with a large number of Persian-speaking merchants, scholars, and artisans present at the royal capital."
- ^ Lehmann, F (1998). BĀBOR, ẒAHĪR-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD. Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. III, Fasc. 3, pp. 320–323.
- ^ Robert L. Canfield, Turko-Persia in historical perspective, Cambridge University Press, 1991. pg 20: "The Mughals – Persianized Turks who invaded from Central Asia and claimed descent from both Timur and Genghis – strengthened the Persianate culture of Muslim India"