Transoxiana

Last updated January 24, 2024

Transoxiana or Transoxania ("Land beyond the Oxus") is the Latin name for the region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Turkmenistan and southern Kyrgyzstan. The name was first coined by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC when Alexander's troops were able to conquer the region. The region may have had a similar Greek name in the days of Alexander the Great, but the earlier Greek name is no longer known.^[1] Geographically, it is the region between the rivers Amu Darya to its south and the Syr Darya to its north.^[2]

Historically known in Persian as Farā-rūd (Persian : فرارود, [fæɾɒːˈɾuːd̪] – 'beyond the [Amu] river'), Faro-rüd (Tajik : Фарорӯд), and Varaz-rüd (Tajik : Варазрӯд), the area had been known to the ancient Iranians as Turan , a term used in the Persian national epic Shahnameh .^[3] The corresponding Chinese term for the region is Hezhong (Chinese :河中地区 - land between rivers (Amu and Syr) ). The Arabic term Mā Warāʾ an-Nahr (Arabic : ما وراء النهر, [ˈmaːwaˈraːʔanˈnahr] , which means "what is beyond the [Jayhūn] river") passed into Persian literary usage and stayed on until post-Mongol times.^[4]

The region of Transoxiana was one of the satrapies (provinces) of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia under the name Sogdia. It was defined within the classical world of Persia to distinguish it from Iran proper, especially its northeastern province of Khorasan,^[5] a term originating with the Sasanians,^[6] although early Arab historians and geographers tended to subsume the region within the loosely defined term "Khorasan" designating a much larger territory.^[7]^[8] The territories of Khwarazm, Sogdiana, Chaghaniyan, and Khuttal were located in the southern part of Transoxiana; Chach, Osrushana, and Farghana were located in the northern part.^[9]

History

Pre-Islamic period

The name Transoxiana stuck in Western consciousness because of the exploits of Alexander the Great, who extended Greek culture into the region with his invasion in the 4th century BCE. Alexander's successors would go on to found the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, ushering in a distinct Greek cultural presence within Transoxiana that existed for over two hundred years. The city of Ai-Khanoum, situated on the Oxus in northern Afghanistan, remains the only Graeco Bactrian city to have been found and extensively excavated.^[10]

During the Sasanian (Sassanid) Empire, it was often called Sogdia, a provincial name taken from the Achaemenid Empire, and used to distinguish it from nearby Bactria.

The Chinese explorer Zhang Qian, who visited the neighbouring countries of Bactria and Parthia along with Transoxiana in 126 BCE, made the first known Chinese report on this region. Zhang Qian clearly identifies Parthia as an advanced urban civilisation that farmed grain and grapes, and made silver coins and leather goods.^[11] It was ruled successively by Seleucids, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, the Parthian Empire and the Kushan Empire before Sassanid rule.

In Sasanian times, the region became a major cultural center due to the wealth derived from the Northern Silk Road. Sassanid rule was interrupted by the Hephthalite invasion at the end of the 5th century and didn't return to the Sassanids until 565.

Islamic period

Many Persian nobles and landlords escaped to this region after the Muslim conquest of Persia. It was also ruled by Göktürks until the Arab conquest between 705 and 715, the area became known by the Arabic phrase Mā warāʼ al-Nahr "what is beyond the river", sometimes rendered as "Mavarannahr".

Transoxiana's major cities and cultural centers are Samarkand and Bukhara. Both are in the southern portion of Transoxiana (though still to the north of the Amu Darya itself, on the river Zarafshan) and Uzbekistan, and the majority of the region was dry but fertile plains. Both cities remained centres of Persian culture and civilisation after the Islamic conquest of Iran, and played a crucial role in the revival of Persian culture with establishment of the Samanid Empire.

Part of this region was conquered by Qutayba ibn Muslim between 706 and 715 and loosely held by the Umayyads from 715 to 738. The conquest was consolidated by Nasr ibn Sayyar between 738 and 740, and continued under the control of the Umayyads until 750, when it was replaced by the Abbasid Caliphate. The Tang dynasty of China also controlled the eastern part of the region until the An Lushan Rebellion broke out.

In the early Islamic period, the people of Transoxania spoke Sogdian (an Iranian language) and were divided among several principalities.^[12] The Arab conquest resulted in the spread of Arabic elite culture, and, more paradoxically, of Persian "as a spoken and eventually written language" in the region.^[12] The Arab conquest also resulted in contacts with Tang China, where fragments of the Sasanian ruling elite, including Peroz III, had taken shelter after Iran's conquest by the Arabs.^[12] However, it did not result in Transoxania having major interactions with Chinese culture.^[12]

Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire, invaded Transoxiana in 1219 during his conquest of Khwarezm. Before his death in 1227, he assigned the lands of Western Central Asia to his second son Chagatai, and this region became known as the Chagatai Khanate. In 1369, Timur, of the Barlas tribe, became the effective ruler and made Samarkand the capital of his future empire. Transoxiana was known to be flourishing in the mid-14th century.^[13]

Religion

The historian Mark Dickens notes:^[9]

Transoxiana's principal pre-Islamic religion was Zoroastrianism, albeit in local manifestations. However, Buddhism, [Nestorian] Christianity, Manichaeism, and Mazdakism also had many adherents, especially in urban areas. This initial religious diversity was gradually eroded after the Arab conquest.

Muslims had conquered Transoxiana by the 7-8th century. There were multiple figures in the Muslim world who had conquered these lands. Some include the Umayyad and Abbasid Arabs that took over lands that are now Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Transoxania was a great center of Muslim civilization; it was the centre of the Timurid Empire and saw influential Muslim leaders like Oghuz Khan.

An excerpt from a dynastic history commissioned by Eltüzer Khan of Khwarazm: "Oghuz Khan, who could speak at the age of one and whose first word was "Allah." He rebelled against his father, eventually slaying him, before embarking on a series of conquests that brought Islam to all of "Transoxiana and Turkestan."^[14]^[15]

Related Research Articles

Tajikistan harkens to the Samanid Empire (819–999). The Tajik people came under Russian rule in the 1860s. The Basmachi revolt broke out in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and was quelled in the early 1920s during the Russian Civil War. In 1924, Tajikistan became an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union, the Tajik ASSR, within Uzbekistan. In 1929, Tajikistan was made one of the component republics of the Soviet Union – Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic – and it kept that status until gaining independence 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Uzbekistan</span>

Uzbekistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It is itself surrounded by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south, Turkmenistan to the south-west. Its capital and largest city is Tashkent. Uzbekistan is part of the Turkic languages world, as well as a member of the Organization of Turkic States. While the Uzbek language is the majority spoken language in Uzbekistan, Russian is widely used as an inter-ethnic tongue and in government. Islam is the majority religion in Uzbekistan, most Uzbeks being non-denominational Muslims. In ancient times it largely overlapped with the region known as Sogdia, and also with Bactria.

The Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group native to the wider Central Asian region, being among the largest Turkic ethnic group in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to Kazakh and Karakalpak minorities, and are also minority groups in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia, and China. Uzbek diaspora communities also exist in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United States, Ukraine, and other countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bactria</span> Historical region in Central Asia

Bactria, or Bactriana, was an ancient Iranian civilization in Central Asia based in the area south of the Oxus River and north of the mountains of the Hindu Kush, an area within the north of modern Afghanistan. Bactria was strategically located south of Sogdia and the western part of the Pamir Mountains. The extensive mountain ranges acted as protective "walls" on three sides, with the Pamir on the north and the Hindu Kush on south forming a junction with the Karakoram ranges towards the east.

Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan, is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang.

Khwarazm or Chorasmia is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, bordered on the north by the (former) Aral Sea, on the east by the Kyzylkum Desert, on the south by the Karakum Desert, and on the west by the Ustyurt Plateau. It was the center of the Iranian Khwarezmian civilization, and a series of kingdoms such as the Afrighid dynasty and the Anushtegin dynasty, whose capitals were Kath, Gurganj and—from the 16th century on—Khiva. Today Khwarazm belongs partly to Uzbekistan and partly to Turkmenistan.

The Fergana Valley in Central Asia lies mainly in eastern Uzbekistan, but also extends into southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khorasan province</span> Former province of Iran

Khorasan, also called Traxiane during Hellenistic and Parthian times, was a province in northeastern Iran until September 2004, when it was divided into three new provinces: North Khorasan, South Khorasan, and Razavi Khorasan.

The Samanid Empire, also known as the Samanian Empire, Samanid dynasty, Samanid amirate, or simply as the Samanids, was a Persianate Sunni Muslim empire, of Iranian dehqan origin. The empire was centred in Khorasan and Transoxiana; at its greatest extent encompassing Persia and Central Asia, from 819 to 999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muslim conquest of Persia</span> 7th-century conquest of the Sassanid Empire

The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, was carried out by the Rashidun Caliphate from 632 to 654 and led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire, as well as the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion.

Greater Khorāsān, or Khorāsān is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau between Western and Central Asia.

Greater Iran or Greater Persia, also known as Persosphere, is a sociocultural region in which Iranian traditions and Iranian languages have had a significant impact. It spans parts of West Asia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia, and parts of East Asia, specifically Xinjiang, China. The region is defined by having been long-ruled by the dynasties of various Iranian empires, under whom the local populaces gradually incorporated some degree of Iranian influence into their cultural and/or linguistic traditions; or alternatively as where a considerable number of Iranian peoples settled to still maintain communities who patronize their respective cultures, geographically corresponding to the areas surrounding the Iranian plateau. It is referred to as the "Iranian Cultural Continent" by Encyclopædia Iranica.

The SasanianEmpire or Sassanid Empire, also known as the Second Persian Empire or Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th–8th centuries AD. Named after the House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 AD, making it the second longest-lived Persian imperial dynasty, after the Arsacids. The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire, and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside its neighbouring arch-rival, the Roman Empire. The empire ended with the Arab conquest of Iran.

Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿĀmir ibn Kurayz was a Rashidun politician and general, serving as governor of Basra from 647 to 656 AD during the reign of Rashidun Caliph Uthman ibn Affan. He was a cousin of the Caliph through his father. He is known for his administrative and military prowess including his successful campaigns of reconquest and pacification of former territories of the Sasanian Empire in what is now Iran and Afghanistan.

The Battle of Oxus River was a significant battle in the 7th century, fought between the combined armies of the Sassanid and Göktürk Empires against the Muslim Arab army that had overrun Persia. Following his defeat, the last Sassanid Emperor, Yazdegerd III, became a hunted fugitive who fled to Central Asia and then to China.

The history of Bukhara stretches back millennia. The origin of its inhabitants goes back to the period of Aryan immigration into the region. The city itself, currently the capital of the Bukhara Region (viloyat) of Uzbekistan, is about two and a half thousand years old. Located on the Silk Road, the city has long been a centre of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion. During the Golden age of Islam, under the rule of Samanids, Bukhara became the intellectual centre of the Islamic world. In medieval times, Bukhara served as the capital of the Khanate of Bukhara and was the birthplace of Imam Bukhari.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mongol invasion of Persia and Mesopotamia</span>

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The Muslim conquest of Transoxiana or Arab conquest of Transoxiana were the 7th and 8th century conquests, by Umayyad and Abbasid Arabs, of Transoxiana, the land between the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers, a part of Central Asia that today includes all or parts of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

During the mid-eighteenth century the Afsharid empire of Nader Shah embarked upon the conquest and annexation of the Khanates of Bukhara and Khiva. The initial engagements were fought in the late 1730s by Nader Shah's son and viceroy Reza Qoli Mirza who gained a few notable victories in this theatre while Nader was still invading India to the south. Reza Qoli's invasions of Khiva angered Ilbars Khan, the leader of Khiva. When Ilbars threatened to make a counter-attack Nader ordered hostilities to cease despite his son's successes and later returned victoriously from Delhi to embark on a decisive campaign himself.

The Muslim conquest of Khorasan, or Arab conquest of Khorasan, was the last phase of the heavy war between the Arab Rashidun caliphate against the Sassanid Empire.

References

↑ Connection of the Genetic, Cultural and Geographic Landscapes of Transoxiana Nature.com. By Maxat Zhabagin et. al. 08 June 2017. Accessed 23 January 2024.
↑ "Transoxania (historical region, Asia)". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2017-11-10.
↑ Sabloff, Paula L.W. (2011). Mapping Mongolia: Situating Mongolia in the World from Geologic Time to the Present. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. p. 62. ISBN 978-1934536186. OCLC 794700604.
↑ C. Edmund Bosworth, (2002), 'CENTRAL ASIA iv. In the Islamic Period up to the Mongols' Encyclopaedia Iranica (online)
↑ Svat Soucek, A History of Inner Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.4
↑ "Khorāsān". britannica.com. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
↑ C. Edmund Bosworth, (2002), 'CENTRAL ASIA iv. In the Islamic Period up to the Mongols' Encyclopaedia Iranica "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 Šāh-nāma of Ferdowsī is regarded as the land allotted to Ferēdūn's son Tūr... At the outset, however, those nearby parts of Central Asia with which the Arabs were familiar were often subsumed into the vast and ill-defined province of Khorasan, embracing all lands to the east of Ray, Jebāl, and Fārs". (online)
↑ C. Edmund Bosworth, (2011), 'MĀ WARĀʾ AL-NAHR' Encyclopaedia Iranica "It was defined by the early Arabic historians and geographers as the lands under Muslim control lying to the north of the middle and upper Oxus or Āmu Daryā, in contrast to Iran proper and its eastern province of Khorasan, sometimes called Mā dun al-nahr (lit. "what lies this side of the river"), although from the perspective of Arab historians writing in distant Iraq, the term "Khorasan" might extend to all lands beyond the Oxus, including Khwarazm and Transoxiana." (online)
1 2 Dickens 2018, pp. 1531–1532.
↑ Rachel Mairs, The Hellenistic Far East
↑ Silk Road, North China, C. Michael Hogan, The Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnham (2007)
1 2 3 4 Cook, Michael (2015). "The centrality of Islamic civilization". In Kedar, Benjamin Z.; Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. (eds.). The Cambridge World History (Vol. V): Expanding Webs of Exchange and Conflict, 500 CE–1500 CE. Cambridge University Press. p. 401. ISBN 978-0-521-19074-9.
↑ The Timurid Empire Archived 2009-08-16 at the Wayback Machine
↑ Khalid, Adeeb (2014-02-08). "1. Islam in Central Asia". Islam after Communism. University of California Press. pp. 19–33. doi:10.1525/9780520957862-004. ISBN 978-0-520-95786-2. S2CID 240691206.
↑ https://content.ucpress.edu/chapters/12768.ch01.pdf

Sources

Dickens, Mark (2018). "Transoxiana". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity . Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8.