1.
Mongolia
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Mongolia /mɒŋˈɡoʊliə/ is a landlocked unitary sovereign state in East Asia. Its area is equivalent with the historical territory of Outer Mongolia. It is sandwiched between China to the south and Russia to the north, while it does not share a border with Kazakhstan, Mongolia is separated from it by only 36.76 kilometers. At 1,564,116 square kilometers, Mongolia is the 18th largest and it is also the worlds second-largest landlocked country behind Kazakhstan and the largest landlocked country that does not border a closed sea. The country contains very little land, as much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to about 45% of the countrys population, approximately 30% of the population is nomadic or semi-nomadic, horse culture is still integral. The majority of its population are Buddhists, the non-religious population is the second largest group. Islam is the dominant religion among ethnic Kazakhs, the majority of the states citizens are of Mongol ethnicity, although Kazakhs, Tuvans, and other minorities also live in the country, especially in the west. Mongolia joined the World Trade Organization in 1997 and seeks to expand its participation in regional economic, the area of what is now Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the Turkic Khaganate, and others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China to establish the Yuan dynasty, after the collapse of the Yuan, the Mongols retreated to Mongolia and resumed their earlier pattern of factional conflict, except during the era of Dayan Khan and Tumen Zasagt Khan. In the 16th century, Tibetan Buddhism began to spread in Mongolia, being led by the Manchu-founded Qing dynasty. By the early 1900s, almost one-third of the male population were Buddhist monks. After the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared independence from the Qing dynasty, shortly thereafter, the country came under the control of the Soviet Union, which had aided its independence from China. In 1924, the Mongolian Peoples Republic was declared as a Soviet satellite state, after the anti-Communist revolutions of 1989, Mongolia conducted its own peaceful democratic revolution in early 1990. This led to a multi-party system, a new constitution of 1992, homo erectus inhabited Mongolia from 850,000 years ago. Modern humans reached Mongolia approximately 40,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic, the Khoit Tsenkher Cave in Khovd Province shows lively pink, brown, and red ochre paintings of mammoths, lynx, bactrian camels, and ostriches, earning it the nickname the Lascaux of Mongolia. The venus figurines of Malta testify to the level of Upper Paleolithic art in northern Mongolia, the wheeled vehicles found in the burials of the Afanasevans have been dated to before 2200 BC
2.
Chagatai Khanate
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The Chagatai Khanate was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that comprised the lands ruled by Chagatai Khan, second son of Genghis Khan, and his descendants and successors. Initially it was a part of the Mongol Empire, but it became a functionally separate khanate with the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259. The Chagatai Khanate recognized the supremacy of the Yuan dynasty in 1304. At its height in the late 13th century, the Khanate extended from the Amu Darya south of the Aral Sea to the Altai Mountains in the border of modern-day Mongolia and China. The khanate lasted in one form or another from 1220s until the late 17th century, the eastern half remained under Chagatai khans, who were, at times, allied or at war with Timurs successors, the Timurid dynasty. Genghis Khans empire was inherited by his son, Ögedei Khan. Tolui, the youngest, the keeper of the hearth, was accorded the northern Mongolian homeland, Chagatai Khan, the second son, received Transoxiana, between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers and the area around Kashgar. He made his capital at Almaliq near what is now Yining City in northwestern China, the transition had to be ratified in a kurultai, which was duly celebrated, but without the presence of Batu Khan, the independent-minded khan of the Golden Horde. The Ögedite ulus was dismembered, only the Ögedites who did not immediately go into opposition were given minor fiefs, Chagatai died in 1242, shortly after his brother Ögedei. For nearly twenty years after this the Chagatai Khanate was little more than a dependency of the Mongol central government, the cities of Transoxiana, while located within the boundaries of the khanate, were administrated by officials who answered directly to the Great Khan. Most of the Chagatayids first supported Kublai but in 1269 they joined forces with the House of Ögedei, baraq was soon confined to Transoxiana and forced to become a vassal of Kaidu. At the same time, he was at odds with Abaqa Khan, the Ilkhan, baraq attacked first, but was defeated by the Ilkhanate army and forced to return to Transoxiana, where he died not long after. The next several Chagatayid khans were appointed by Kaidu, who maintained a hold upon the khanate until his death and he finally found a suitable khan in Baraqs son Duwa, who participated in Kaidus wars with Kublai khan and his successors of the Yuan dynasty. The two rulers also were active against the Ilkhanate, after Kaidus death in 1301, Duwa threw off his allegiance to his successor. He also made peace with the Yuan dynasty and paid tributes to the Yuan court, Duwa left behind numerous sons, many of whom became khans themselves. Included among these are Kebek, who instituted a standardization of the coinage and selected a sedentary capital, and Tarmashirin, Tarmashirin, however, was brought down by a rebellion of the tribes in the eastern provinces, and the khanate became increasingly unstable in the following years. In 1346 a tribal chief, Amir Qazaghan, killed the Chagatai khan Qazan Khan ibn Yasaur during a revolt, the Chagatai Khanate split into two parts in the 1340s. In Transoxiana in the west, the mostly Muslim tribes, led by the Qaraunas amirs, seized control
3.
Genghis Khan
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Genghis Khan, born Temüjin, was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death. He came to power by uniting many of the tribes of Northeast Asia. After founding the Empire and being proclaimed Genghis Khan, he started the Mongol invasions that conquered most of Eurasia, campaigns initiated in his lifetime include those against the Qara Khitai, Caucasus, and Khwarazmian, Western Xia and Jin dynasties. These campaigns were accompanied by large-scale massacres of the civilian populations – especially in the Khwarazmian. By the end of his life, the Mongol Empire occupied a portion of Central Asia. Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ögedei Khan as his successor and he died in 1227 after defeating the Western Xia. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia, many of these invasions repeated the earlier large-scale slaughters of local populations. As a result, Genghis Khan and his empire have a reputation in local histories. Beyond his military accomplishments, Genghis Khan also advanced the Mongol Empire in other ways and he decreed the adoption of the Uyghur script as the Mongol Empires writing system. He also practiced meritocracy and encouraged religious tolerance in the Mongol Empire, present-day Mongolians regard him as the founding father of Mongolia. This brought communication and trade from Northeast Asia into Muslim Southwest Asia and Christian Europe, Temüjin was related on his fathers side to Khabul Khan, Ambaghai, and Hotula Khan, who had headed the Khamag Mongol confederation and were descendants of Bodonchar Munkhag. When the Jurchen Jin dynasty switched support from the Mongols to the Tatars in 1161, Temüjins father, Yesügei, emerged as the head of the ruling Mongol clan. This position was contested by the rival Tayichiud clan, who descended directly from Ambaghai, when the Tatars grew too powerful after 1161, the Jin switched their support from the Tatars to the Keraites. Little is known about Temüjins early life, due to the lack of written records. The few sources that give insight into this period often contradict, Temüjins name was derived from the Mongol word temür meaning of iron, while jin denotes agency thus temüjin means blacksmith. Temüjin was probably born in 1162 in Delüün Boldog, near the mountain Burkhan Khaldun, the Secret History of the Mongols reports that Temüjin was born grasping a blood clot in his fist, a traditional sign that he was destined to become a great leader. He was the son of his father Yesügei who was a Kiyad chief prominent in the Khamag Mongol confederation. Temüjin was the first son of his mother Hoelun, according to the Secret History, Temüjin was named after the Tatar chief Temüjin-üge whom his father had just captured
4.
Baidar
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Baidar was the second son of Chagatai Khan. He participated in the European campaign with his nephew Büri from 1235-1241 and he commanded the Mongol army assigned to Poland with Kadan and, probably, Orda Khan. Baidar defeated many Poles, Russians, Germans and Moravians, on 13 February 1241 the Mongols crossed the frozen Vistula. The town of Sandomierz was taken and plundered, further to the west, on 18 March Orda and Baidar met the Polish army under the command of Duke Boleslaw V at the battle of Chmielnik. The Poles were heavily defeated and Boleslaw with a part of his troops fled to Moravia, on 22 March the Mongols stood before Kraków, many of whose inhabitants had already made their escape. On Palm Sunday the Mongols set the town on fire and took large numbers of the people who had remained. Moving further west, Orda and Baidar reached a place east of Opole, near Racibórz they crossed the Oder. Racibórz was burnt by its inhabitants when they left the town, wrocław fell into the hands of the Mongols, although the citadel itself did not surrender. Their first assault against the fortress having failed, the Mongols wasted no time on a siege and they bypassed the citadel and pushed forward to the west. After defeating a force of Poles, Czechs, and Templars at Liegnica. Early in May 1241 they entered Moravia, then continued via Brno, to join Batu Khans main army in Hungary. Although Bohemia remained unmolested, Moravia had much to endure, the destruction in Poland, Silesia and Moravia was all much of the same kind. Baidar participated in the election of Güyük Khan in 1247, genghis Khan, Conqueror of the World
5.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
6.
Borjigin
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Borjigin, is the last name of the imperial clan of Genghis Khan and his successors. The senior Borjigids provided ruling princes for Mongolia and Inner Mongolia until the 20th century, the clan formed the ruling class among the Mongols and some other peoples of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Today, the Borjigid are found in most of Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, the patrilineage began with Blu-grey Wolf and Fallow Doe. As in The Secret History of the Mongols, their 11th generation descendant Dobu Mergens widow Alan Gua the Fair was impregnated by a ray of light and her youngest son became the ancestor of the later Borjigid. He was Bodonchar Munkhag, who along with his brothers sired the entire Mongol nation, according to Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, many of the older Mongolian clans were founded by members of the Borjigin — Barlas, Urud, Manghud, Taichiut, Chonos, Kiyat, etc. The first Khan of the Mongol was Bodonchar Munkhags great-great-grandson Khaidu Khan, khaidus grandsons Khabul Khan and Ambaghai Khan succeeded him. Thereafter, Qabuls sons, Hotula Khan and Yesugei, and great-grandson Temujin ruled the Khamag Mongol, by the unification of the Mongols in 1206, virtually all of Temujins uncles and first cousins died, and from then on only the descendants of Yesugei Baghatur formed the Borjigid. The Borjigin family ruled over the Mongol Empire from the 13th to 14th century, the rise of Genghis narrowed the scope of the Borjigid-Kiyad clans sharply. This separation was emphasized by the intermarriage of Genghiss descendants with the Barlas, Baarin, Manghud, in the western regions of the Empire, the Jurkin and perhaps other lineages near to Genghiss lineage used the clan name Kiyad but did not share in the privileges of the Genghisids. The Borjigit clan had dominated large lands stretching from Java to Iran. In 1335, with the disintegration of the Ilkhanate in Iran, descendants of Genghis Khans brothers, Hasar and Belgutei, surrendered to the Ming in the 1380s. By 1470 the Borjigin lines were weakened, and Mongolia was almost in chaos. After the breakup of the Golden Horde, the Khiyat continued to rule the Crimea and they were annexed by the Russian Empire and the Chinese. In Mongolia, the Kublaids reigned as Khagan of the Mongols, however, descendants of Ögedei, under Dayan Khan a broad Borjigid revival reestablished Borjigid supremacy among the Mongols proper. His descendants proliferated to become a new ruling class, the Borjigin clan was the strongest of the 49 Mongol banners from which the Bontoi clan proper supported and fought for their Khan and for their honor. The eastern Khorchins were under the Hasarids, and the Ongnigud, Abagha Mongols were under the Belguteids, a fragment of the Hasarids deported to Western Mongolia became the Khoshuts. The Qing dynasty respected the Borjigin family and the early emperors married the Hasarid Borjigids of the Khorchin, even among the pro-Qing Mongols, traces of the alternative tradition survived. Aci Lomi, a general, wrote his History of the Borjigid Clan in 1732–35
7.
Tengrism
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Tengrism, also known as Tengriism or Tengrianism, is a Central Asian religion characterized by shamanism, animism, totemism, poly- and monotheism and ancestor worship. In Irk Bitig, Tengri is mentioned as Türük Tängrisi, Tengrism has been advocated in intellectual circles of the Turkic nations of Central Asia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the 1990s. Still practiced, it is undergoing a revival in Sakha, Khakassia, Tuva. Burkhanism, a movement similar to Tengrism, is concentrated in Altay, Khukh tengri means blue sky in Mongolian, Mongolians still pray to Munkh Khukh Tengri and Mongolia is sometimes poetically called the Land of Eternal Blue Sky by its inhabitants. In modern Turkey, Tengrism is known as the Göktanrı dini, according to Hungarian archaeological research, the religion of the Hungarians until the end of the 10th century was Tengrism. Tengrists view their existence as sustained by the blue sky, the fertile mother-earth spirit. Heaven, earth, spirits of nature and ancestors provide for every need, by living an upright, respectful life, a human will keep his world in balance and perfect his personal. The Huns of the northern Caucasus reportedly believed in two gods, Tangri Han, considered identical to the Persian Aspandiat and for horses were sacrificed. Tengrism is practised in Sakha, Buryatia, Tuva and Mongolia in parallel with Tibetan Buddhism and Burkhanism, Kyrgyz means we are forty in the Kyrgyz language, and Kyrgyzstans flag has 40 uniformly-spaced rays. Tengrist Khazars aided Heraclius by reportedly sending 40,000 soldiers during a joint Byzantine-Göktürk operation against the Persians, several Kyrgyz politicians are advocating Tengrism to fill a perceived ideological void. Dastan Sarygulov, secretary of state and former chair of the Kyrgyz state gold-mining company, established the Tengir Ordo, Sarygulov also heads a Tengrist society in Bishkek claiming nearly 500,000 followers and an international scientific center of Tengrist studies. Articles on Tengrism have been published in journals in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev and former Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev have called Tengrism the national, natural religion of the Turkic peoples, Turkish worship of Tengri was mocked by the Muslim Turk Mahmud al-Kashgari, who wrote, The infidels - may God destroy them. It lost importance when the Uighuric kagans proclaimed Manichaeism the state religion in the eighth century, Tengrism also played a large role in the religion of the Gok-Turk and Mongol Empires. Genghis Khan and several generations of his followers were Tengrian believers until his descendant, Uzbeg Khan. The original Mongol khans, followers of Tengri, were known for their tolerance of other religions. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, said, We believe that there is only one God, by whom we live and by whom we die, and for whom we have an upright heart. But as God gives us the different fingers of the hand, a revival of Tengrism has played a role in Central Asian Turkic nationalism since the 1990s
8.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
9.
Turkish language
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Outside of Turkey, significant smaller groups of speakers exist in Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Greece, the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested that the European Union add Turkish as an official EU language, in 1928, as one of Atatürks Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with a Latin alphabet. The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination, the basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb. Turkish has no classes or grammatical gender. Turkish has a strong T–V distinction and usage of honorifics, Turkish uses second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a person out of respect. Turkic languages belong to the Altaic language group, the Turkic family comprises some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Siberia. Turkish is a member of the Oghuz group of languages, a subgroup of the Turkic language family, there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Oghuz Turkic languages, including Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish. The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions are the three monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia, erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khagan, these date back to the second Turk Kaghanate. The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, following the adoption of Islam c. Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry, was influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a reform to replace loanwords of Arabic. By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the terms of Arabic or Persian origin. The past few decades have seen the work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance, however, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka, political party—also failed to meet with popular approval, some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings, for example betik is now used to mean script in computer science
10.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
11.
Chagatai people
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The Chagatai are one of the Tajik peoples of Uzbekistan. The Chagatai live in the Surxondaryo Province in south-east Uzbekistan and in southern Tajikistan, together with the Kharduri, the Chagatai are one of the ethnographic groups of Tajiks who maintain a distinct identity. The origin of the people is unknown, although the name Chagatai is of Mongol origin, the Turkic Chagatai language is not the language of the Chagatai Tajiks. The Peoples of the USSR, An Ethnographic Handbook
12.
Central Asia
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Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also referred to as the -stans as the five countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix -stan. Central Asias five former Soviet republics are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Central Asia has historically been closely tied to its nomadic peoples and the Silk Road. It has acted as a crossroads for the movement of people, goods, the Silk Road connected Muslim lands with the people of Europe, India, and China. This crossroads position has intensified the conflict between tribalism and traditionalism and modernization, in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Central Asia was predominantly Iranian, peopled by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Parthians. Central Asia is sometimes referred to as Turkestan, the idea of Central Asia as a distinct region of the world was introduced in 1843 by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The borders of Central Asia are subject to multiple definitions, historically built political geography and geoculture are two significant parameters widely used in the scholarly literature about the definitions of the Central Asia. The most limited definition was the one of the Soviet Union. This definition was also used outside the USSR during this period. However, the Russian culture has two terms, Средняя Азия and Центральная Азия. Since then, this has become the most common definition of Central Asia, the UNESCO general history of Central Asia, written just before the collapse of the USSR, defines the region based on climate and uses far larger borders. An alternative method is to define the region based on ethnicity and these areas include Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five republics, and Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan as a whole, the northern and western areas of Pakistan, the Tibetans and Ladakhi are also included. Insofar, most of the peoples are considered the indigenous peoples of the vast region. Central Asia is a large region of varied geography, including high passes and mountains, vast deserts. The vast steppe areas of Central Asia are considered together with the steppes of Eastern Europe as a geographical zone known as the Eurasian Steppe. Much of the land of Central Asia is too dry or too rugged for farming, the Gobi desert extends from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° E, to the Great Khingan Mountains, 116°–118° E. Central Asia has the following geographic extremes, The worlds northernmost desert, at Buurug Deliin Els, Mongolia, the Northern Hemispheres southernmost permafrost, at Erdenetsogt sum, Mongolia, 46°17′ N
13.
Mongol Empire
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The Mongol Empire existed during the 13th and 14th centuries and was the largest contiguous land empire in history. The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of tribes in the Mongol homeland under the leadership of Genghis Khan. The empire grew rapidly under the rule of him and his descendants, the Toluids prevailed after a bloody purge of Ögedeid and Chagataid factions, but disputes continued even among the descendants of Tolui. Kublai successfully took power, but civil war ensued as Kublai sought unsuccessfully to control of the Chagatayid and Ögedeid families. The Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 marked the point of the Mongol conquests and was the first time a Mongol advance had ever been beaten back in direct combat on the battlefield. In 1304, the three western khanates briefly accepted the suzerainty of the Yuan dynasty, but it was later taken by the Han Chinese Ming dynasty in 1368. What is referred to in English as the Mongol Empire was called the Ikh Mongol Uls, in the 1240s, one of Genghiss descendants, Güyük Khan, wrote a letter to Pope Innocent IV which used the preamble Dalai Khagan of the great Mongolian state. After the succession war between Kublai Khan and his brother Ariq Böke, Ariq limited Kublais power to the part of the empire. Kublai officially issued an edict on December 18,1271 to name the country Great Yuan to establish the Yuan dynasty. Some sources state that the full Mongolian name was Dai Ön Yehe Monggul Ulus, the area around Mongolia, Manchuria, and parts of North China had been controlled by the Liao dynasty since the 10th century. In 1125, the Jin dynasty founded by the Jurchens overthrew the Liao dynasty, in the 1130s the Jin dynasty rulers, known as the Golden Kings, successfully resisted the Khamag Mongol confederation, ruled at the time by Khabul Khan, great-grandfather of Temujin. The Mongolian plateau was occupied mainly by five powerful tribal confederations, Keraites, Khamag Mongol, Naiman, Mergid, khabuls successor was Ambaghai Khan, who was betrayed by the Tatars, handed over to the Jurchen, and executed. The Mongols retaliated by raiding the frontier, resulting in a failed Jurchen counter-attack in 1143, in 1147, the Jin somewhat changed their policy, signing a peace treaty with the Mongols and withdrawing from a score of forts. The Mongols then resumed attacks on the Tatars to avenge the death of their late khan, the Jin and Tatar armies defeated the Mongols in 1161. During the rise of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century and it is thought that as a result, a rapid increase in the number of war horses and other livestock significantly enhanced Mongol military strength. Known during his childhood as Temujin, Genghis Khan was the son of a Mongol chieftain, when he was young he was from one of Yesugis orphaned and deserted families, he rose very rapidly by working with Toghrul Khan of the Kerait. Kurtait was the most powerful Mongol leader during this time and was given the Chinese title Wang which means Prince, Temujin went to war with Wang Khan. After Temujin defeated Wang Khan he gave himself the name Genghis Khan and he then enlarged his Mongol state under himself and his kin
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Jochi
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Jochi was the eldest son of Genghis Khan, and presumably one of the four sons by his principal wife Börte, though issues concerning his paternity followed him throughout his life. An accomplished military leader, he participated in his fathers conquest of Central Asia, along with his brothers, there is some question as to Jochis true paternity. Shortly after her marriage to Genghis Khan, Börte was abducted by members of the Mergid confederation and she was given to a certain Chilger Bökh, who was the brother of the Yehe Chiledu, as a spoil of war. She remained in Chilger Bökhs captivity for a few months before she was recovered by Temüjin, shortly afterwards she gave birth to Jochi. By all accounts, Genghis Khan treated Jochi as his first son and this uncertainty about his paternity was not without consequences. In 1207 Jochi conquered several of the forest peoples in Siberia, on behalf of his father, Jochi led two campaigns against the Kyrgyz, in 1210 and in 1218. Jochi played a role in the Khwarezm war of 1219–1221 in Central Asia – his forces captured the towns of Signak, Jand. Subsequently he was given the command of operation against the city of Urgench, here the siege of the town suffered delays because Jochi engaged in extensive negotiation with the town to persuade it to surrender peacefully and to save it from destruction. Jochis brother Chagatai regarded this action as militarily unsound, Chagatai wanted to destroy the city and this difference of opinion on military affairs deepened a rift between Jochi and Chagatai. Genghis Khan intervened in the campaign and appointed Ögedei as the commander of the operation, Ögedei resumed the operations vigorously – capturing, sacking and thoroughly destroying the town and massacring its inhabitants. The differences in tactics between Jochi and Chagatai in early 1221 added to their personal quarrel about the succession, to settle the matter, Genghis Khan called the political and military council called a kurultai - a formal meeting used both in familial matters and in matters of state. As Genghis Khans first-born son, Jochi was favored to rule the clan, at the familial kurultai called in 1222, Chagatai raised the issue of Jochis legitimacy. At that meeting, Genghis Khan made it clear that Jochi was his legitimate first-born son, however, he worried that the quarrelsome nature of the two would split the empire. By early 1223 Genghis Khan had selected Ögedei, his third son, for the sake of preserving the Empire, both Jochi and Chagatai agreed, but the rift between them never healed. Their rift would later divide the European part of the Mongol Empire from its Asian part permanently. During the autumn of 1223 Genghis Khan started for Mongolia after completing the Khwarezm campaign, Ögedei, Chagatai and Tolui went with him but Jochi withdrew to his territories north of Aral and Caspian Seas. There he remained until his death and would not see his father again in his lifetime, perhaps the selection of Ögedei as a successor to Genghis Khan had greatly disappointed him, this is a probable explanation for Jochis withdrawal from court life. Though the histories are unclear, there is evidence that Jochi conspired against Genghis, when Genghis Khan returned home he sent for Jochi
15.
Khagan
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Khagan or Qagan is a title in the Mongolian language equal to the status of emperor and used to refer to someone who rules a khaganate or empire. The title was adopted by Ögedei Khan from the Turkic title kaɣan and it may also be translated as Khan of Khans, equivalent to King of Kings. In modern Mongolian, the title became Khaan with the g sound becoming almost silent or non-existent, since the division of the Mongol Empire, emperors of the Yuan dynasty held the title of Khagan and their successors in Mongolia continued to have the title. Kağan and Kaan are common Turkish names in Turkey, the common western rendering as Great Khan, notably in the case of the Mongol Empire, is translation of Yekhe Khagan. In the speech one of the Murongs general named Yinalou addressed him as kehan, the Rouran Khaganate was the first people to use the titles Khagan and Khan for their emperors, replacing the Chanyu of the Xiongnu, whom Grousset and others assume to be Turkic. However, many believe the Rouran were proto-Mongols. The Avar Khaganate, who may have included Rouran elements after the Göktürks crushed the Rouran ruling Mongolia, the Avars invaded Europe, and for over a century ruled the Carpathian region. Westerners Latinized the title Khagan into Gaganus or Cagan, Khagan or Khaan refers to Emperor or King in the Mongolian language, however, Yekhe Khagan means Great Khagan or Grand Emperor. Thus, the Yuan is sometimes referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan, coexisting with the independent Mongol khanates in the west, including the Chagatai Khanate, only the Ilkhanate truly recognized the Yuans overlordship as allies. Later Yuan emperors made peace with the three khanates of the Mongol Empire and were considered as their nominal suzerain. The nominal supremacy, while based on nothing like the foundations as that of the earlier Khagans, did last for a few decades. After the breakdown of Mongol Empire and the fall of the Yuan dynasty in the mid-14th century, dayan Khan once revived Emperors authority and recovered its reputation in Mongolia, but with the distribution of his empire among his sons and relatives as fiefs it again caused decentralized rule. The last Khagan of the Chahars, Ligdan Khan, died in 1634 while fighting the Qing dynasty founded by the Manchu people, in contemporary Mongolian language the word Khaan and Khan have different meanings, while English language usually does not differentiate between them. The title is used as a generic term for a king or emperor. Minor rulers were rather relegated to the title of khan. Khagan is the title of Safavid and Qajar shahs of Iran. For example, Agha Muhammad Khan Qajar, Fath Ali Shah, the nickname of Shah Ismail and other Safavid shahs is Kagan-i Suleyman shan. Emperor Taizong of Tang was crowned Tian Kehan, or heavenly Khagan after defeating the Tujue, a later letter sent by the Tang court to the Yenisei Kirghiz Qaghan explained that the peoples of the northwest had requested Tang Taizong to become the Heavenly Qaghan
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Bukhara
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Bukhara, is one of the cities of Uzbekistan. Bukhara is a city-museum, with about 140 architectural monuments, the nations fifth-largest city, it had a population as of 31 August 2016 of approximately 247,644. Humans have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, the mother tongue of the majority of people of Bukhara is yet Persian Language. Located on the Silk Road, the city has served as a center of trade, scholarship, culture. UNESCO has listed the center of Bukhara as a World Heritage Site. Bukhara was known as Bokhara in 19th- and early 20th-century English publications, according to the Encyclopædia Iranica the name Bukhara is possibly derived from the Soghdian βuxārak Muhammad ibn Jafar Narshakhi in his History of Bukhara mentions, Bukhara has many names. One of its name was Numijkat and it has also been called Bumiskat. It has 2 names in Arabic, one is Madinat al Sufriya meaning - the copper city and another is Madinat Al Tujjar meaning - The city of Merchants. But, the name Bukhara is more known than all the other names, in Khorasan, there is no other city with so many names Since the Middle Ages, the city has been known as Buḫārā / بخارا in Arabic and Persian sources. The modern Uzbek spelling is Buxoro, the history of Bukhara stretches back millennia. It is now the capital of Bukhara Region of Uzbekistan, located on the Silk Road, the city has long been a center of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion. During the golden age of the Samanids, Bukhara became an intellectual center of the Islamic world. The historic center of Bukhara, which contains numerous mosques and madrassas, has been listed by UNESCO as one of the World Heritage Sites, Bukhara has been one of the main centres of world civilisation from its early days in 6th century BCE. From the 6th century CE, Turkic speakers gradually moved in and its architecture and archaeological sites form one of the pillars of Central Asian history and art. The region of Bukhara was a part of the Persian Empire for a long time, the origin of many of its current inhabitants goes back to the period of Aryan immigration into the region. The Samanid Empire seized Bukhara, the capital of Greater Khorasan, Genghis Khan besieged Bukhara for fifteen days in 1220 CE. Bukhara was the last capital of the Emirate of Bukhara and was besieged by the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. During the Bukhara operation of 1920, an army of well-disciplined, on 31 August 1920, the Emir Alim Khan fled to Dushanbe in Eastern Bukhara
17.
Islam
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Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
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Transoxiana
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Geographically, it is the region between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. The area had been known to the Romans as Transoxania, to the Arabs as Mawarannahr, and to the Iranians as Turan, the region was one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia under the name Sogdiana. Early Arab geographers named it Bilād al-Turk or Turkestan, both of which mean the lands of the Turks, during the Sassanid Empire, it was often called Sogdiana, a provincial name taken from the Achaemenid Empire, and used to distinguish it from nearby Bactria. The Chinese explorer Zhang Qian, who visited the countries of Bactria and Parthia along with Transoxiana in 126 BC. Zhang Qian clearly identifies Parthia as an advanced civilisation that farmed grain and grapes, made silver coins. It was ruled successively by Seleucids, Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, Parthian Empire, in Sassanid times, the region became a major cultural and scientific centre 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, many Persian nobles and landlords escaped to this region after the Muslim invasion. Before the Muslim invasion it was ruled by Göktürks. After that it was ruled by Tang China until the Arab conquest between 705 and 715, the became known as Mā warāʼ al-Nahr, sometimes rendered as Mavarannahr. Transoxianas major cities and cultural centres are Samarkand and Bukhara, both are in the southern portion of Transoxiana, and the majority of the region was dry but fertile plains. 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 Abbasids. The Tang dynasty also controlled the part of the region until about the same time. 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, Transoxiana was known to be flourishing in the mid-14th century
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Christianity
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Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
20.
Nestorianism
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Nestorianism is a Christological doctrine that emphasizes a distinction between the human and divine persons of Jesus. It was advanced by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431, following that, many of Nestoriuss supporters relocated to the Sasanian Empire, where they affiliated with the local Christian community, known as the Church of the East. Over the next decades the Church of the East became increasingly Nestorian in doctrine, Nestorianism is a form of dyophysitism. It can be seen as the antithesis to monophysitism, which emerged in reaction to Nestorianism, where Nestorianism holds that Christ had two loosely united natures, divine and human, monophysitism holds that he had but a single nature, his human nature being absorbed into his divinity. Both Nestorianism and monophysitism were condemned as heretical at the Council of Chalcedon, monophysitism survived and developed into the Miaphysitism of the Oriental Orthodoxy. Nestorianism never again became prominent in the Roman Empire or later Europe, though the diffusion of the Church of the East in and after the seventh century, despite this initial Eastern expansion, the Nestorians missionary success was eventually deterred. Isolated pockets of Christianity survived only in India, Nestorius took his Antiochene leanings with him when he was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople by Byzantine emperor Theodosius II in 428. Nestoriuss teachings became the root of controversy when he challenged the long-used title Theotokos for Mary. He suggested that the title denied Christs full humanity, arguing instead that Jesus had two persons, the divine Logos and the human Jesus, as a result of this duality, he proposed Christotokos as a more suitable title for Mary. Nestorius opponents found his teaching too close to the heresy of adoptionism – the idea that Christ had been born a man who had later been adopted as Gods son. Nestorius was especially criticized by Cyril of Alexandria, Patriarch of Alexandria, a more elaborate Nestorian theology developed from there, which came to see Christ as having two natures united, or hypostases, the divine Logos and the human Christ. However, this formulation was never adopted by all churches termed Nestorian, indeed, the modern Assyrian Church of the East, which reveres Nestorius, does not fully subscribe to Nestorian doctrine, though it does not employ the title Theotokos. Nestorianism became a distinct sect following the Nestorian Schism, beginning in the 430s, Nestorius had come under fire from Western theologians, most notably Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril and Nestorius asked Pope Celestine I to weigh in on the matter, Celestine found that the title Theotokos was orthodox, and authorized Cyril to ask Nestorius to recant. Cyril, however, used the opportunity to further attack Nestorius, in 431 Theodosius called the Council of Ephesus. However, the council sided with Cyril, who, being a monophysite. The council accused Nestorius of heresy, and deposed him as patriarch, Nestorianism was officially anathematized, a ruling reiterated at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. However, a number of churches, particularly associated with the School of Edessa, supported Nestorius – though not necessarily his doctrine –
21.
Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture
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Ili or Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in northernmost Xinjiang is the only Kazakh autonomous prefecture in China. Capital, Yining Geographic coordinates, 79º5030″ – 84º5650″ East, 42º1416″ – 44º5030″ North The Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture is west of Mongolia, south of Russia and east of Kazakhstan. Its foreign boundary is 2,000 km, generally located between Altai Mountains and the range of Tian Shan, occupying most of the Dzungarian Basin in northern Xinjiang. The prefecture-level city of Karamay is completely surrounded and divided by the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture but is not part of it, the upper course of the Ili River and that of Irtysh River flow through the prefecture. The directly administrated region is coterminous with the historical area that in the past was often called by Russians. Before the advent of the Qin dynasty, Ili was occupied by the Ussuns, the Ussuns were driven away in the 6th century AD by the northern Xiongnu, who established the Turkic Khaganate in 552. Later this Khulja territory became a dependency of Dzungaria, during the Tang dynasty, the khanate became the Protectorate General to Pacify the West of the Tang Empire. The Uyghur Khaganate, and in the 12th century the Kara-Khitai, genghis Khan conquered Kulja in the 13th century, and the Mongol Khans resided in the valley of the Ili. It is supposed that the Oirats conquered it at the end of the 16th or the beginning of the 17th century. The Oirats, or more precisely Dzungars, controlled both Dzungaria and the Ili Basin until 1755 as the Dzungar Khanate, when it was annexed by the Manchu-run Qing dynasty under the Qianlong Emperor. Having defeated the Dzungars in the Dzungarian and Ili Basins, as well as the Afaqi Khojas in Kashgaria and it was provided with a large penal establishment and a strong garrison. This city was called New Kulja, Manhcu Kulja, Chinese Kulja, or Ili by the Russians and Westerners, to distinguish it from Nigyuan/Yining, the first General of Ili was Ming Rui. The Qing tradition, unbroken until the days of Zuo Zongtang in the 1870s, was to only appoint Manchus as officials in Xinjiang, during the insurrection of 1864 the Dungans and Taranchis of the area formed the Taranchi Sultanate. Huiyuan was the last Qing fortress in the Ili Valley to fall to the rebels, the insurgent Dungans massacred most of Manchu Kuljas inhabitants, Governor General Mingsioi assembled his family and staff in his mansion, and blew it up, dying under its ruins. The sultanate led to the occupation of the Ili basin by the Russians in 1871, ten years later the territory was restored to China, and its boundary with Russia was assigned in accordance to the Treaty of Saint Petersburg. After Chinese authority was restored, the Manchu Kuldja was rebuilt as the city of Suiding, on January 7,1912, Yang Cuanxu of Ili occupied Huiyuan Town and shot the last Qing General of Ili, Zhi Rui. In July 1945, Chingil, Bole and Quanxi of Ili were made into a new autonomous prefecture now not part of Ili, in 1949, Ili was made a special area of Xinjiang, with one city and nine counties, and was upgraded to a city in 1952. On November 27,1954, the Ili Autonomous Prefecture was established to include the prefectures of Ili, Altay, the Ili Prefecture was abolished in 1955
22.
Yining
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Yining, also known as Ghulja, and formerly Ili and Kulja, is a county-level city in northwestern Xinjiang, Peoples Republic of China, and the seat of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. Historically, Yining is the successor to the city of Almaliq in neighbouring Huocheng County. The city of Yining is an administrative unit located along Ili River. As of 2015, it has an population of 542,507. It is the most populous city in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, from 13-15th century it was under the control of Chagatai Khanate known as Mughulistan empire with its capital Almaligh, Turpan, Tashkent, Yarkent and Kashgar. Another Mongul empire—the Zunghar Khanate—established around Ili area, suidun, or more specifically New Kulja, Manchu Kulja, or Ili, the Chinese fortress and the regional capital. Yining was the site of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Kulja 1851, in 1864-66, the city suffered severely from fighting during the Dungan Revolt. The city and the rest of the Ili River basin were seized by the Russians in 1871 during Yakub Begs independent rule of Kashgaria and it was restored to the Chinese under the terms of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg. Had the Taranjis and Kalmuks been left to themselves, or had they remained in a preponderating majority, finally among the tradesmen we may mention millers, vinegar manufacturers and potters. The number of factories amount to-day at Kulja to 38, wherein over 131 hands are occupied. To this of course other tradespeople have to be added, such as 169 boot-makers,50 blacksmiths,48 carpenters,11 brass-founders,3 silversmiths,26 stone-cutters, and 2 tailors. During the Ili Rebellion, the Chinese Muslim officer Liu Bin Di engaged in combat against Soviet backed Turkic Muslim rebels, Yining became the capital of an autonomous district in 1954. In 1962, major Sino-Soviet clashes took place along the Ili River, Yining is located on the northern side of the Ili River in the Dzungarian basin, about 70 km east of the border with Kazakhstan, and about 710 km west of Ürümqi. The Ili River valley is far wetter than most of Xinjiang and has rich grazing land, the City of Yining borders on Huocheng County in the west and the Yining County in the east, across the river in the south is Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County. Yining has a climate, without the strong variation in seasonal precipitation seen across most of China. Dry and sunny weather dominates year-round, winters are cold, with a January average of −8.8 °C. Yet the influence of the Dzungarian Altau to the northwest and Boroboro Mountains to the northeast helps keep the city warmer than more easterly locales on a similar latitude, summers are hot, with a July average of 23.1 °C. Diurnal temperature ranges tend to be large from April to October, the annual mean temperature is 8.98 °C
23.
Samarkand
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Samarkand, alternatively Samarqand or Samarcand, is a city in modern-day Uzbekistan and is one of the oldest inhabited cities in Central Asia. Prospering from its location on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean, at times Samarkand was one of the greatest cities of Central Asia, by the time of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, it was the capital of the Sogdian satrapy. The city was taken by Alexander the Great in 329 BC, the city was ruled by a succession of Iranian, Persian, and Turkic peoples until the Mongols under Genghis Khan conquered Samarkand in 1220. Today, Samarkand is the capital of Samarqand Region, and Uzbekistans second largest city, the city is noted for being an Islamic centre for scholarly study. In the 14th century it became the capital of the empire of Timur and is the site of his mausoleum, the Bibi-Khanym Mosque remains one of the citys most notable landmarks. The Registan was the ancient center of the city, the city has carefully preserved the traditions of ancient crafts, embroidery, gold embroidery, silk weaving, engraving on copper, ceramics, carving, and painting on wood. In 2001, UNESCO added the city to its World Heritage List as Samarkand – Crossroads of Cultures, the name probably originates in the Sogdian words asmara, stone, rock and kand, fort, town. Along with Bukhara, Samarkand is one of the oldest inhabited cities in Central Asia, archeological excavations held within the city limits as well as suburban areas unearthed evidence of human activity as early as 40,000 years old, in the late Paleolithic era. A group of Mesolithic era archeological sites were discovered at Sazagon-1, Zamichatosh, the Syob and Dargom canals, supplying the city and its suburbs with water, appeared around the 7th to 5th centuries BC. There is no evidence when Samarkand was founded. Researchers of the Institute of Archeology of Samarkand argue for the existence of the city between the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Samarkand has been one of the main centres of Sogdian civilization from its early days. By the time of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia it had become the capital of the Sogdian satrapy, Alexander the Great conquered Samarkand in 329 BC. The city was known as Maracanda by the Greeks, written sources offer small clues as to the subsequent system of government. They tell of an Orepius who became ruler not from ancestors, while Samarkand suffered significant damage during Alexanders initial conquest, the city recovered rapidly and under the new Hellenic influence flourished. There were also major new construction techniques, oblong bricks were replaced with square ones and superior methods of masonry, Alexanders conquests introduced into Central Asia classical Greek culture, at least for a time the Greek models were followed closely by the local artisans. After the Kushan era the city declined, it did not really revive until the 5th century, Samarkand was conquered by the Sassanians around 260 AD. Under Sassanian rule, the became an essential site for Manichaeism. After the Hephtalites conquered Samarkand, they controlled it until the Göktürks, in an alliance with the Sassanid Persians, the Turks ruled over Samarkand until they were defeated by the Sassanids during the Göktürk–Persian Wars
24.
Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat
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Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat Beg was a Chagatai Turko-Mogol military general, ruler of Kashmir, and a historical writer. He was a Turkic speaking Dughlat prince who wrote in Persian, Prince Haider was a first cousin of Prince Zahir. He first campaigned in Kashmir in 1533, on behalf of Sultan Said Khan and he drove out Kamran, second son of Babur. However, he did not stay long in Kashmir, leaving after making a treaty with the local sultan, Mirza suffered a military defeat and then made a treaty with the Kashmiris. His short stay may have had something to do with the fact that Said Khan died in that year and this was shortly after Humayuns 1540 defeat at the battle of Kanauj, where Dughlat was also on the losing side. He had also attacked Tibet through Ladakh but had failed, arriving in Kashmir, Haidar installed as sultan the head of the Sayyid faction, Nazuk. In 1546, after Humayun recovered Kabul, Haidar removed Nazuk Shah and he died in 1550 after being killed in battle with the Kashmiris. The Mughals were soundly defeated by the Kashmiris now and fled Kashmir and he lies buried in the Gorstan e Shahi in Srinagar, Kashmir, India. His historical work Tarikh-i-Rashidi is a personal memoir combined with a Central Asian history and it was translated into English in 1895 by Ney Elias and Edward Denison Ross. Among other events, the Tarikh-i-Rashidi describes the founding of the Kazakh Khanate in 1465 and Muhammad Haidar Dughlats personal encounter with one of the early Kazakh rulers and he belonged to the family of hereditary rulers of Kashgaria - dughlat Amirs. Amir Pulaji was a descendant of Dughlat Tarkhan Babdaghan, who was granted the country Mangalai Suyah or Kashgaria by Chagatai Khan, second son of Chengiz Khan, in 1219 or 1220. His mother was Khub Nigar Khanim, third daughter of Yunus Khan by Isan Daulat Begum, Mirza Muhammad Haidar governed Kashmir from 1540 to 1551, when he was killed in battle. Muhammad Haidar Mirza Dughlat was his grandfather, in 2007, Kazakhfilm Studio released the documentary Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, directed by Kalila Umarov. Mansura Haidar, Mirza Haidar Dughlat as Depicted in Persian Sources Karim, in Islam, Sirajul, Jamal, Ahmed A. Banglapedia, National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh
25.
Karakorum
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Karakorum was the capital of the Mongol Empire between 1235 and 1260, and of the Northern Yuan in the 14–15th centuries. Its ruins lie in the corner of the Övörkhangai Province of Mongolia, near todays town of Kharkhorin. They are part of the part of the World Heritage Site Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape. The Orkhon valley was a center of the Xiongnu, Göktürk, to the Göktürks, the nearby Khangai Mountains had been the location of the Ötüken, and the Uighur capital Karabalgasun was located close to where later Karakorum would be erected. This area is also one of the oldest farming areas in Mongolia. Ögedei Khan gave the decree to build the Tumen Amgalan Ord in 1235 the year after he defeated the Jin Dynasty and it was finished in one year. In the Yuanshi it is written in the section for Taizong Ögedei Khan, In the seventh year, the name Karakorum or Kharkhorin in Mongolian language might be translated as black quarter/space or literally black imprisonment. Khar means black and khorin probably shares the root as the verb khori as in khorigdoh that means to be imprisoned/held. Khori also means twenty like khorin mori, but it is unlikely there would be a black twenty. Under Ögedei and his successors, Karakorum became a site for world politics. Möngke Khan had the enlarged, and the great stupa temple completed. They also commissioned the famous Silver Tree of Karakorum at the city center, the sculptor was the Parisian Guillaume Bouchier. A large tree sculpted of silver and other precious metals rose up from the middle of the courtyard and loomed over the palace, william of Rubruck, a Flemish Franciscan missionary and papal envoy to the Mongols reached Karakorum in 1254. He has left one of the most detailed, though not always flattering and he compared it rather unfavourably to the village of Saint-Denis near Paris, and was of the opinion that the royal abbey there was ten times as important as the Khans palace. When Kublai Khan claimed the throne of the Mongol Empire in 1260—as did his brother, Ariq Böke—he relocated his capital to Shangdu. Karakorum was reduced to the center of a provincial backwater of the Yuan dynasty founded in China in 1271. Even worse, the ensuing Toluid Civil War with Ariq Böke, in 1260, Kublai disrupted the towns grain supply, in 1277 Kaidu took Karakorum, only to be ousted by Yuan troops and Bayan of the Baarin in the following year. In 1298–99 prince Ulus Buqa looted the markets and the grain storehouses
26.
Bamyan
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Bamyan, also spelled Bamiyan and Bamian, is the capital of Bamyan Province in central Afghanistan. Bamyan was the site of an early Hindu–Buddhist monastery from which Bamyan takes its name, bamyans name is translated as ‘The Place of Shining Light’. Many statues of Buddha are carved into the sides of cliffs facing Bamyan city, in 2008, Bamyan was found to be the home of the worlds oldest oil paintings. The city of Bamyan has a population of 100,000 and it has four districts and a total land area of 3,539 hectares. The total number of dwellings in this city are 4,435, the Bamiyan valley marked the most westerly point of Buddhist expansion and was a crucial hub of trade for much of the second millennium CE. It was a place where East met West and its archaeology reveals a blend of Greek, Turkish, Persian, Chinese and Indian influence. Situated on the ancient Silk Route, the town was at the crossroads between the East and West when all trade between China and the Middle East passed through it, the Hunas made it their capital in the 5th century. Because of the cliff of the Buddhas, the ruins of the Monks caves, Shar-i-Gholghola, and its local scenery, it is one of the most visited places in Afghanistan. The Shar-i-Zohak mound ten miles south of the valley is the site of a citadel that guarded the city, the town is the cultural center of the Hazara ethnic group of Afghanistan. Most of the lives in downtown Bamyan. The valley is cradled between the mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush and the Koh-i-Baba. Bamyan is a town with a bazaar at its center. It has no infrastructure of electricity, gas, or water supplies, according to Sister Cities International, Bamyan has established a sister city relationship with Gering, Nebraska, United States. It has an airport with a gravel runway, mountains cover ninety percent of the province, and the cold, long winter, lasting for six months, brings temperatures of three to twenty degrees Celsius below zero. Mainly Daizangi Hazara people live in the area, transportation facilities are increasing, but sparse. Notably Bamyan is now connected by road to Kabul through Parwan province, the connection between Maidan Shar and Bamyan –136 km long – makes it possible to reach Kabul in a 2 hour drive. The connection is almost completed missing just 15 km of paving The main crops are wheat, barley, mushung, when crops are damaged by unusually harsh weather, residents herd their livestock down to Ghazni and Maidan Provinces to exchange for food. The city and the province are served by Bamyan Airport, a new airport has been completed in 2015 with an asphalt runway
27.
Kashgar
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Kashgar is an oasis city in Xinjiang and is the westernmost Chinese city, located near the border with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Located historically at the point of widely varying cultures and empires, Kashgar has been under the rule of the Chinese, Turkic, Mongol. The city has also been the site of a number of battles between various groups of people on the steppes. The city itself has a population of 506,640, and its area covers 15 km2. The city was made into a Special Economic Zone in 2010, Kashgar also forms a terminus of the Karakoram Highway, whose reconstruction is considered a major part of the multi-billion dollar China–Pakistan Economic Corridor. The modern Chinese name is 喀什, a form of the longer. Ptolemy, in his Geography, Chapter 15. 3A, refers to Kashgar as “Kasi” and its western and probably indigenous name is the Kāš, to which the East Iranian -γar, cf. Pashto and Middle Persian gar/ġar, from Old Persian/Pahlavi girīwa was attached. Alternative historical Romanizations for Kashgar include Cascar and Cashgar, non-native names for the city, such as the old Chinese name Shule 疏勒 and Tibetan Śu-lig may have originated as an attempts to transcribe the Sanskrit name for Kashgar, Śrīkrīrāti. - The postal romanization was 疏附 Shufu 1900s/50s, bilingual postmarks readingSHUFU /date/疏附 were used in this period, 疏附 Shufu was also used on contemporary bilingual maps. The earliest mention of Kashgar occurs when a Chinese Han dynasty envoy traveled the Northern Silk Road to explore lands to the west, ptolemy speaks of Scythia beyond the Imaus, which is in a “Kasia Regio”, probably exhibiting the name from which Kashgar and Kashgaria are formed. The country’s people practised Zoroastrianism and Buddhism before the coming of Islam. In the Book of Han, which covers the period between 125 BC and 23 AD, it is recorded there were 1,510 households,18,647 people and 2,000 persons able to bear arms. By the time covered by the Book of the Later Han, the Book of the Later Han provides a wealth of detail on developments in the region, In the period of Emperor Wu, the Western Regions1 were under the control of the Interior. The Imperial Government established a Colonel Envoys there to direct and protect these countries, Emperor Xuan changed this title to Protector-General. Emperor Yuan installed two Wuji Colonels to take charge of the garrisons on the frontiers of the king of Nearer Jushi. During the time of Emperor Ai and Emperor Ping, the principalities of the Western Regions split up, wang Mang, after he usurped the Throne, demoted and changed their kings and marquises. Following this, the Western Regions became resentful, and rebelled and they, therefore, broke off all relations with the Interior and, all together, submitted to the Xiongnu again. The Xiongnu collected oppressively heavy taxes and the kingdoms were not able to support their demands, in the middle of the Jianwu period, they each, sent envoys to ask if they could submit to the Interior, and to express their desire for a Protector-General
28.
Yarkant County
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Shache County or Yarkand County is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, located on the southern rim of the Taklamakan desert in the Tarim Basin. It is one of 11 counties administered under Kashgar Prefecture, Yarkant, usually written Yarkand in English, was the seat of an ancient Buddhist kingdom on the southern branch of the Silk Road. The county sits at an altitude of 1,189 metres, the fertile oasis is fed by the Yarkand River which flows north down from the Karakorum mountains and passes through Kunlun Mountains known historically as Congling mountains. The oasis now covers 3,210 square kilometres, but was far more extensive before a period of desiccation affected the region from the 3rd century CE onwards. Today, Yarkant is a predominantly Uyghur settlement, the irrigated oasis farmland produces cotton, wheat, corn, fruits, and walnuts. Yak and sheep graze in the highlands, mineral deposits include petroleum, natural gas, gold, copper, lead, bauxite, granite and coal. The territory of Yārkand is first mentioned in the Book of Han as Shaju, descriptions in the Hou Hanshu contain insights into the complex political situation China faced in attempting to open up the Silk Routes to the West in the 1st century CE. According to the Chapter on the Western Regions in the Hou Hanshu, Going west from the kingdom of Suoju, to the east, it is 10,950 li from Luoyang. The Chanyu of the Xiongnu took advantage of the caused by Wang Mang. Only Yan, the king of Suoju, who was powerful than the others. Previously, during the time of Emperor Yuan, he was a hostage prince and he admired and loved the Middle Kingdom and extended the rules of Chinese administration to his own country. He ordered all his sons to serve the Han dynasty generation by generation. Yan died in the fifth Tianfeng year and he was awarded the posthumous title of Faithful and Martial King. His son, Kang, succeeded him on the throne, at the beginning of Emperor Guangwus reign, Kang led the neighbouring kingdoms to resist the Xiongnu. He escorted, and protected, more than a people including the officers, the soldiers. He sent a letter to Hexi to inquire about the activities of the Middle Kingdom, and personally expressed his attachment to, and admiration for, in the ninth year Kang died. He was awarded the title of “Greatly Accomplished King. ”His younger brother, Xian. Xian attacked and conquered the kingdoms of Jumi and Xiye and he killed both their kings, and installed two sons of his elder brother, Kang, as the kings of Jumi and Xiye
29.
Hotan
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Hotan, also transliterated from Chinese as Hetian, is a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, an autonomous region in western China. The city proper of Hotan broke off from the larger Hotan County to become an area in its own right in August 1984. It is the seat of Hotan Prefecture, with a population of 322,300, Hotan is situated in the Tarim Basin some 1,500 kilometres southwest of the regional capital, Ürümqi. It lies just north of the Kunlun Mountains, which are crossed by the Sanju, Hindutash, the town, located southeast of Yarkant County and populated almost exclusively by Uyghurs, is a minor agricultural center. The White Jade River still provides water and irrigation for the town and it provided a convenient meeting place where not only goods, but technologies, philosophies, and religions were transmitted from one culture to another. Tocharians lived in this region over 2000 years ago, several of the Tarim mummies were found in the region. At Sampul, east of the city of Hotan, there is a series of cemeteries scattered over an area about 1 kilometre wide and 23 km long. The excavated sites range from about 300 BCE to 100 CE, the tapestry had been cut up and fashioned into trousers worn by one of the deceased. An Anthropological study of 56 individuals showed a primarily Caucasoid population, DNA testing on the mummies found in the Tarim basin showed that they were an admixture of Western Europeans and East Asian. There is an abundance of information on Hotan readily available for study. The ancient Kingdom of Khotan was one of the earliest Buddhist states in the world and its capital was located to the west of the modern city of Hotan. The inhabitants of the Kingdom of Khotan, like those of early Kashgar and Yarkant, spoke Saka, khotans indigenous dynasty governed a fervently Buddhist city-state boasting some 400 temples in the late 9th/early 10th century—four times the number recorded by Xuanzang around 630. The kingdom was independent but was intermittently under Chinese control during the Han, after the Tang dynasty, Khotan formed an alliance with the rulers of Dunhuang. Through the 10th century, Khotanese royal portraits were painted in association with an number of deities in the caves. In the 10th century, Khotan began a struggle with the Kara-Khanid Khanate, some Khotanese Buddhist works were unearthed. The rulers of Khotan were aware of the menace they faced since they arranged for the Mogao grottoes to paint a number of divine figures along with themselves. Yūsuf Qadr Khān was a brother or cousin of the Muslim ruler of Kashgar and Balasagun, Khotan lost its independence, later it fell to the Kara-Khitan Khanate, after which it was ruled by the Mongols. When Marco Polo visited Khotan in the 13th century, he noted that the people were all Muslim and he wrote that, Khotan was a province eight days’ journey in extent, which is subject to the Great Khan
30.
Aksu City
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Aksu, is a city in and the seat of Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, lying at the northern edge of the Tarim Basin. The name Aksu literally means water, and is used for both the oasis town and the river. The economy of Aksu is mostly agricultural, with cotton, in particular long-staple cotton, also produced are grain, fruits, oils, and beets. The industry mostly consists of weaving, cement, and chemical industries, the land currently under the administration of the Aksu City is divided in two parts, separated by the Aral City. The northern part hosts the city center, while the part is occupied by the Taklamakan Desert. The name Aksu comes from the Uyghur word for white water and it is also transliterated Akesu, Ak-su, Akshu, Aqsu. It is also known as Bharuka and Bolujia, Po-lu-chia From the Former Han dynasty at least until the early Tang dynasty, the ancient capital town of Nan was likely well south of the present town. During the Han dynasty, Gumo is described as a kingdom containing 3,500 households and 24,500 individuals and it is said to have produced copper, iron and orpiment. The territory of Gumo was roughly situated in the counties of Baicheng and Wensu, the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited this kingdom in 629 CE and referred to it as Baluka. He recorded that there were tens of Sarvastivadin Buddhist monasteries in the kingdom and he said the kingdom was 600 li from east to west, and 300 li from north to south. Its capital was said to be six li in circumference and he also stated that fine cotton and hemp cloth made in the area was traded in neighbouring countries. In the 7th, 8th, and early 9th centuries, control of the region was often contested by the Chinese Tang dynasty, the Tibetan Empire. Tibet seized Aksu in 670, but Tang forces reconquered the region in 692, tibet regained the Tarim Basin in the late 720s, and the Tang dynasty again annexed the region in the 740s. The Battle of Talas led to the withdrawal of Chinese forces. Aksu was positioned on a junction of routes, the northern-Tarim route Silk road. In 1207–08, they submitted to Genghis Khan, around 1220, Aksu became the capital of the Kingdom of Mangalai. The area had been part of the whole Mongol Empire before it was occupied by the independent-minded Chagatai Khanate under the House of Ogedei in 1286 from the hands of Kublais Yuan Dynasty. After the decline of the Yuan Dynasty in the century and subsequently the Chagatai Khanate in the late 14th century, Aksu fell under the power of Turkic
31.
Tian Shan
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The Tian Shan, meaning the Mountain of Heaven or the Heavenly Mountain, is a large system of mountain ranges located in Central Asia. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Jengish Chokusu,7,439 metres, the Chinese name for Tian Shan may have been derived from the Xiongnu word Qilian – according to Tang commentator Yan Shigu, Qilian is the Xiongnu word for sky or heaven. The Tannu-Ola mountains in Tuva has the meaning in its name. Tian Shan is sacred in Tengrism, and its second-highest peak is known as Khan Tengri which may be translated as Lord of the Spirits. Tian Shan is north and west of the Taklamakan Desert and directly north of the Tarim Basin in the region of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. In the south it links up with the Pamir Mountains and to north, Chinese cartography from the Han Dynasty to the present agrees, with the Tian Shan including the Bogda Shan and Barkol ranges. The Tian Shan are a part of the Himalayan orogenic belt and they are one of the longest mountain ranges in Central Asia and stretch some 2,800 kilometres eastward from Tashkent in Uzbekistan. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is the Victory Peak which, the Tian Shans second highest peak, Khan Tengri, straddles the Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan border and at 7,010 metres is the highest point of Kazakhstan. Mountaineers class these as the two most northerly peaks over 7,000 metres in the world, the Torugart Pass, at 3,752 metres, is located at the border between Kyrgyzstan and Chinas Xinjiang province. The forested Alatau ranges, which are at an altitude in the northern part of the Tian Shan, are inhabited by pastoral tribes that speak Turkic languages. The Tian Shan are separated from the Tibetan Plateau by the Taklimakan Desert, the major rivers rising in the Tian Shan are the Syr Darya, the Ili River and the Tarim River. The Aksu Canyon is a feature in the northwestern Tian Shan. Continuous permafrost is found in the Tian Shan starting at the elevation of about 3. One of the first Europeans to visit and the first to describe the Tian Shan in detail was the Russian explorer Peter Semenov, who did so in the 1850s. Glaciers in the Tian Shan Mountains have been shrinking and have lost 27%, or 5.4 billion tons annually. It is estimated that by 2050 half of the glaciers will have melted. The Tian Shan have a number of named ranges which are mentioned separately. In China the Tian Shan starts north of Kumul City with the U-shaped Barkol Mountains, then the Bogda Shan run from 350 to 40 kilometres east of Ürümqi
32.
East Turkestan
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Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a provincial-level autonomous region of China in the northwest of the country. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and the 8th largest country subdivision in the world and it contains the disputed territory of Aksai Chin, which is administered by China. Xinjiang borders the countries of Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the rugged Karakoram, Kunlun, and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiangs borders, as well as its western and southern regions. Xinjiang also borders Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu, the most well-known route of the historical Silk Road ran through the territory from the east to its northwestern border. In recent decades, abundant oil and mineral reserves have been found in Xinjiang and it is home to a number of ethnic groups, including the Han, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Hui, Uyghur, Kyrgyz, Mongols, and Russians. More than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for minorities are in Xinjiang, older English-language reference works often refer to the area as Chinese Turkestan. Xinjiang is divided into the Dzungarian Basin in the north and the Tarim Basin in the south by a mountain range, only about 4. 3% of Xinjiangs land area is fit for human habitation. With a documented history of at least 2,500 years, the territory came under the rule of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century, which was later replaced by the Republic of China government. Since 1949, it has been part of the Peoples Republic of China following the Chinese Civil War, in 1954, Xinjiang Bingtuan was set up to strengthen the border defense against the Soviet Union, and also promote the local economy. In 1955, Xinjiang was turned into a region from a province. In the last decades, there have been tensions regarding Xinjiangs political status, amnesty International said that activists in Xinjiang have been arrested and tortured. Under the Han dynasty, which drove the Xiongnu empire out of the region in 60 BC, Xinjiang was previously known as Xiyu or Qurighar and this was in an effort to secure the profitable routes of the Silk Road. Dzungaria was known as Zhunbu and the Tarim Basin was known as Huijiang during the Qing dynasty before both regions were merged and became the region of Gansu Xinjiang, later simplified as Xinjiang. The name Xinjiang, which literally means New Frontier or New Borderland, was given during the Qing dynasty, according to the Chinese statesman Zuo Zongtangs report to the Emperor of Qing, Xinjiang means an old land newly returned. For instance, present-day Jinchuan County was known as Jinchuan Xinjiang, in the same manner, present-day Xinjiang was known as Xiyu Xinjiang and Gansu Xinjiang. After 1821, the Qing changed the names of the other regained regions, the name East Turkestan was created by Russian sinologist Hyacinth to replace the term Chinese Turkestan in 1829. East Turkestan was used traditionally to only refer to the Tarim Basin, in 1955, Xinjiang province was renamed Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The name that was proposed was simply Xinjiang Autonomous Region
33.
Batu Khan
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Batu Khan, also known as Sain Khan and Tsar Batu, was a Mongol ruler and founder of the Golden Horde, division of the Mongol Empire. Batu was a son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan and his ulus was the chief state of the Golden Horde, which ruled Rus, Volga Bulgaria, Cumania, and the Caucasus for around 250 years, after also destroying the armies of Poland and Hungary. Batu or Bat literally means firm in the Mongolian language, after the deaths of Genghis Khans sons, he became the most respected prince called agha in the Mongol Empire. After his son Jochis death, Genghis Khan assigned Jochis appanages to his sons, but the Great Khan installed Batu as Khan of the Golden Horde. Jochis eldest son, Orda Khan, also agreed that Batu should succeed their father, Genghis Khans youngest brother Temüge attended the coronation ceremony as an official representative of Genghis. When Genghis Khan died in 1227, he left 4,000 Mongol men to Jochis family, Jochis lands were divided between Batu and his older brother Orda. Ordas White Horde ruled the lands roughly between the Volga river and Lake Balkhash, while Batus Horde ruled the lands west of the Volga, in 1229, Ögedei dispatched three tumens under Kukhdei and Sundei to conquer the tribes on the lower Ural River. Despite heavy resistance of their enemies, the Mongols conquered major cities of the Jurchens, at the kurultai in Mongolia after the end of the Mongol-Jin War, the Great Khan Ögedei ordered Batu to conquer western nations. In 1235 Batu, who earlier had directed the conquest of the Crimean Peninsula, was assigned an army of possibly 130,000 to oversee an invasion of Europe. His relatives and cousins Güyük, Büri, Möngke, Khulgen, Khadan, Baidar and notable Mongol generals Subutai, Borolday, the army, actually commanded by Subutai, crossed the Volga and invaded Volga Bulgaria in 1236. It took them a year to extinguish the resistance of the Volga Bulgarians, Kypchaks, in November 1237 Batu Khan sent his envoys to the court of Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal and demanded his allegiance. When Yuri refused to surrender the Mongols besieged Ryazan, after six days of bloody battle, the city was totally annihilated and never restored to its former glory. Alarmed by the news, Yuri II sent his sons to detain the horde, having burnt Kolomna and Moscow, the horde laid siege to the capital of Vladimir-Suzdal on February 4,1238. Three days later the city was taken and burnt to the ground, the royal family perished in the fire, while the grand prince hastily retreated northward. Crossing the Volga, he mustered a new army, which was exterminated by the Mongols on the Sit River on March 4. The most difficult to take was the town of Kozelsk, whose boy-prince Titus. As the story goes, at the news of Mongol approach, the city of Kitezh was submerged in a lake with all its inhabitants, Khadan and Buri stormed the city in three days after they joined Batu. Batu sent an envoy to his uncle Ögedei to complain of his cousins rude behavior, Ögedei got angry on hearing the news and recalled Buri and Güyük
34.
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine
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He is the author of the earliest important Western account of northern and central Asia, Rus, and other regions of the Mongol dominion. He was the Primate of Serbia, based in Antivari, from 1247 to 1252, Giovanni appears to have been a native of Umbria, in central Italy. His surname was derived from Pian del Carpine, an area known later as Magione and he was one of the companions and disciples of his near-contemporary and countryman Saint Francis of Assisi. Giovanni was provincial of Germany at the time of the great Mongol invasion of eastern Europe, the defeat of European forces at Legnica led almost to Ögedei, Khan of the Mongol Empire, controlling most of Europe. In Europe, dread of the Tatars was still four years later. The missionaries were sent partly in protest at the Mongol invasion of Christendom and partly to gain information regarding the Khans intentions, Pope Innocent IV chose Friar Joannes to head this mission. Joannes was around sixty-five at the time, and apparently was in charge of everything in the mission. As a papal legate, he bore a letter from the Pope to the Great Khan, Cum non solum. Joannes started from Lyon, where the Pope then resided, on Easter day, accompanied by another friar, Stephen of Bohemia, who broke down at Kaniv near Kiev and was left behind. After seeking counsel of an old friend, Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, Joannes was joined at Wrocław by another Franciscan, Benedykt Polak, the route passed by Kiev, entered the Tatar posts at Kaniv, and then ran across the Nepere to the Don and Volga. Joannes is the first Westerner to give us the names for these rivers. On the Volga stood the Ordu, or camp, of Batu and he was one of the most senior princes of the house of Genghis Khan. Here the envoys, with their presents, had to pass between two fires to remove possible injurious thoughts and poisons, before being presented to the prince, Batu ordered them to proceed to the court of the supreme Khan in Mongolia. On Easter day once more, they started on the second, then they went along the shores of the Dzungarian lakes until, on the feast of St Mary Magdalene, they reached the imperial camp called Sira Orda, near Karakorum and the Orkhon River. Joannes and his companions rode an estimated 3000 miles in 106 days, since the death of Ögedei Khan, the imperial authority was in interregnum and Güyük, Ögedeis eldest son, was designated to the throne. On the 24th of August, they witnessed the formal enthronement at another camp in the vicinity called the Golden Ordu, after which they were presented to the new emperor. The great Khan, Güyük, refused the invitation to become Christian, the Khan did not dismiss the expedition until November. He gave them a letter to the Pope—written in Mongol, Arabic and they began a long winter journey home
