The bukharan emirate and turkestan under russian rule in the revolutionary era: 1917-1924

, A History of Inner Asia
, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000),48. 
2
Soucek, Svat
, A History of Inner Asia
, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 48-49. 
3
Ibid, 57. 
4
Ibid, 61-62. 

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5 
kill him! If you find on him a piece of iron or a knife, or anything else, kill him! If you close the gate at night and find any one 
of them inside, kill him! 
5
After the battle of Talas in 751, the whole Persian oriented Central Asia and 
its Iranian natives (Persians, Sogdians, Khwarazmians and Tokharistanians) and also 
Turks were converted in Islam. These main actors of Central Asia soon became 
members of Muslim civilization with the Arab language and script.
6
After the 
dissolution of Abbasid Caliphate, Transoxiana, with its Arabic name Mawarannahr 
meaning “between the two rivers- between Amu Darya and Syr Darya”, came under 
the rule of Samanid Dynasty. The Samanids were the governors of Samarkand, 
Bukhara, Shahs (Tashkent) and Herat, gifted by Abbasids in return to their 
conversion to Islam and services to the Caliphate in the region. Bukhara also became 
Samanid’s capital city. 
7
 
Since the Samanids were Iranian originally, Persian effect in 
cultural and linguistic terms was born out in the region again. In addition, The 
Samanid dynasty’s power and glory peaked under the reign of three great amirs: 
Ismail (892-907), Ahmad (907-13) and Nasr (913-43). It was during their rule that 
Transoxiana emancipated itself from the role of being Khurasan’s subordinate 
province and moved to the forefront of Islamic Central Asia.
8
The Samanids were 
destroyed by the Qarakhanids in 999 thus Bukhara and Samarkand came under the 
rule of Muslim Turkic dynasty after an Iranian based cultural and political 
domination. The linguistic and cultural physiognomy of Samarkand, Bukhara and 
other cities and towns as well as of the agricultural population of the countryside 
remained Iranian, though with an increasing shift from the Sogdian and 
Khwarazmian variants to Persian.
9
After the Qarakhanids ruled the oases, the 
nomadic lifestyle of Turkic tribes began transforming into sedentary at that time. In 
5
Ibid, 61. 
6
Soucek, Svat
, A History of Inner Asia
, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 68-69. 
7
Ibid, 71. 
8
Ibid, 73. 
9
Ibid, 83. 

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6 
addition, the installation of the Qarakhanid Turkic dynasty in the region was 
important in another aspect: the reign of Turkic sovereignty had begun in the region 
of Mawarannahr that continued until the Russian invasion in the middle of the 19
th
century. Most of the glamorous and splendid mosques, madrasahs, mausoleums and 
minarets that made Bukhara and Samarkand the prominent centers of Islamic world 
were built in the reign of Samanids and then Qarakhanids. After the Qarakhanids; the 
Gaznavids, the Seljukids, the Qarakhitayids, the Khwarazmshahs ruled the region of 
Mawarannahr (Transoxiana) until the Mongols emerged from the steppes. After the 
division of Mongolian Empire into four khanates, the lands including Sinkiang, 
Semireche and Transoxiana passed to the rule of Chaghatay Khan and his sons
. 
“About a century after the Mongol invasion, some Chaghataid khans began to 
convert to Islam. This tended to happen when they chose to live not in Semireche but 
in Transoxiana, thus among staunchly Muslim population”.
10
 
The population of 
Transoxiana, especially Turks who had come to the region in times of Kok Turkic 
Kaghanate and then Qarakhanid did not remain nomadic, instead, they adapted the 
local Iranian people’s sedentary situation. Turks were different from nomadic 
Mongols when Genghisid’s armies arrived there. The sedentary population of the 
region, either Turkic or Iranian, conserved the civilization of Islam much more than 
peoples of other neighboring region.
11
“Islam played a fundamental role in the 
resilience of native identity and renaissance during these years of Mongol rule, and 
an especially seminal part was assumed by its Sufi dimension”.
12
 
The 13
th
and 14
th
centuries were important for the strengthening of tariqas and Sufi orders in Central 
Asia, especially Bukhara and Samarkand. The Kubraviyya, Yasaviyya and 
Naqhsibandi tariqas were so common and effective. Kubravi Shaykh Sayf al Din 
10
Soucek, Svat
, A History of Inner Asia
, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 117. 
11
Ibid, 117. 
12
Ibid, 117. 

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7 
Bakharzi of Bukhara was a famous character among religious people in the reign of 
Mongols. Even, Berke Khan of the Golden Horde (1257-67), a convert to Islam, 
came to Bukhara to visit the Shaykh Sayf al Din Bakharzi was so influential that he 
had influence inside the administrative system of the Mongols.
13
The Naqshibandi 
tariqa, founded by Kwaja Baha al Din Naqhsiband of Bukhara (1318-39) was a Sufi 
order and got more influential than other tariqas in following centuries. The 
Naqhsibandi Order continued in a chain through the khalifas of the shayks. After 
Baha al Din Naqhsiband, Khwaja Muhammad Parsa, Khwaja Yusuf Hamadani, 
Khwaja Abd al Khaliq Gijduvani maintained the tradition of the Order. Except the 
shayk of Yasavi tariqa, Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi who was ethnic Turkic originally 
from the city of Yasi; the other khwajas of both Naqhsibandi and Kubravi orders 
were Persian originally. These traditions of maintenance of sufi orders in a chain 
throughout the centuries helped the region consolidate its religious structure. The 
region was governed by Timurids and then first Uzbeks, Sheybanids (1500-99). 
Sheybanid dynasty traced their roots to Genghis Khan. They put an end to the 
Timurid dynasty and conquered almost all the Central Asia.
The Shaybanids were Turks like the Timurids, although they spoke a different 
dialect, Kipchak, in contrast to the local Turki; both led a partly nomadic way of life 
and had a tribal social structure, although again this must have been more 
pronounced among the newcomers; both were Sunni Muslims, like the bulk of the 
sedentary population of the area; and the Uzbeks had been sufficiently exposed to 
Arabo-Persian Islamic culture to ensure a fundamental continuity.
14
 
13
Soucek, Svat
, A History of Inner Asia
, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 117. 
14
Ibid, 149. 

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8 
The Shaybanids weakened because of the wars with the Safavids in Persia. 
The Shaybanid dynasty in Bukhara was replaced by the Janid dynasty (Astrakhanids) 
in the beginning of the 17
th
century through a marriage. Nadir Shah, the ruler of Iran 
and founder of Afsharid Dynasty after the Safavids, made campaigns over Bukhara 
and captured the city in 1747. After that time, the khanate could not secure its 
existence from the Manghit dynasty, a strengthening Uzbek tribe against the Janid 
dynasty. Shah Murad of the Manghits, the first emir of Bukharan Emirate, captured 
the throne from the Janid dynasty and Bukharan Khanate was replaced by the 
Emirate of Bukhara in 1785.