Kushan Empire
The Kushan Empire was a syncretic empire, formed by the Yuezhi, in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of Afghanistan, the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi, where inscriptions have been found dating to the era of the Kushan Emperor Kanishka the Great. Emperor Kanishka was a great patron of Buddhism, he played an important role in the establishment of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent and its spread to Central Asia and China. The Kushans were one of five branches of the Yuezhi confederation, a Iranian or Tocharian, Indo-European nomadic people who migrated from Gansu and settled in ancient Bactria; the Kushans used the Greek language for administrative purposes, but soon began to use Bactrian language. Kanishka sent his armies north of the Karakoram mountains, capturing territories as far as Kashgar and Yarkant, in the Tarim Basin of modern-day Xinjiang, China. A direct road from Gandhara to China remained under Kushan control for more than a century, encouraging travel across the Karakoram and facilitating the spread of Mahayana Buddhism to China.
The Kushan dynasty had diplomatic contacts with the Roman Empire, Sasanian Persia, the Aksumite Empire and the Han dynasty of China. While much philosophy and science was created within its borders, the only textual record of the empire's history today comes from inscriptions and accounts in other languages Chinese; the Kushan empire fragmented into semi-independent kingdoms in the 3rd century AD, which fell to the Sasanians invading from the west, establishing the Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom in the areas of Sogdiana and Gandhara. In the 4th century, the Guptas, an Indian dynasty pressed from the east; the last of the Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian kingdoms were overwhelmed by invaders from the north, known as the Kidarites, the Hepthalites. Chinese sources describe the Guishuang, i.e. the Kushans, as one of the five aristocratic tribes of the Yuezhi, with some people claiming they were a loose confederation of Indo-European peoples, though many scholars are still unconvinced that they spoke an Indo-European language.
As the historian John E. Hill has put it: "For well over a century... There have been many arguments about the ethnic and linguistic origins of the Great Yuezhi or Da Yuezhi and the Tochari, still there is little consensus"; the Yuezhi were described in the Records of the Great Historian 史記 and the Book of Han 漢書 as living in the grasslands of Gansu, in the northwest of modern-day China, until their King was beheaded by the Huns from Siberia who were at war with China, which forced them to migrate west in 176–160 BCE. The five tribes constituting the Yuezhi are known in Chinese history as Xiūmì, Guìshuāng, Shuāngmǐ, Xìdùn, Dūmì; the Yuezhi reached the Hellenic kingdom of Greco-Bactria around 135 BC. The displaced Greek dynasties resettled to the southeast in areas of the Hindu Kush and the Indus basin, occupying the western part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom; some traces remain of the presence of the Kushans in the area of Sogdiana. Archaeological structures are known in Takht-I-Sangin, Surkh Kotal, in the palace of Khalchayan.
Various sculptures and friezes are known, representing horse-riding archers, men with artificially deformed skulls, such as the Kushan prince of Khalchayan. The Chinese first referred to these people as the Yuezhi and said they established the Kushan Empire, although the relationship between the Yuezhi and the Kushans is still unclear. On the ruins of ancient Hellenistic cities such as Ai-Khanoum, the Kushans are known to have built fortresses; the earliest documented ruler, the first one to proclaim himself as a Kushan ruler, was Heraios. He calls himself a "tyrant" in Greek on his coins, exhibits skull deformation, he may have been an ally of the Greeks, he shared the same style of coinage. Heraios may have been the father of the first Kushan emperor Kujula Kadphises. Ban Gu's Book of Han tells us the Kushans divided up Bactria in 128 BC. Fan Ye's Book of the Later Han "relates how the chief of the Kushans, Ch'iu-shiu-ch'ueh, founded by means of the submission of the other Yueh-chih clans the Kushan Empire, known to the Greeks and Romans under the name of Empire of the Indo-Scythians."The Chinese Hou Hanshu 後漢書 chronicles gives an account of the formation of the Kushan empire based on a report made by the Chinese general Ban Yong to the Chinese Emperor c. 125 AD: More than a hundred years the prince of Guishuang established himself as king, his dynasty was called that of the Guishuang King.
He invaded Anxi, took the Gaofu region. He defeated the whole of the kingdoms of Puda and Jibin. Qiujiuque was more than eighty years old, his son, became king in his place. He defeated installed Generals to supervise and lead it; the Yuezhi became rich. All the kingdoms call the Guishuang king. In the 1st century BCE, the Guishuang gained prom
History of Afghanistan
The history of Afghanistan, as a state began in 1747 with its establishment by Ahmad Shah Durrani. The written recorded history of the land presently constituting Afghanistan can be traced back to around 500 BCE when the area was under the Achaemenid Empire, although evidence indicates that an advanced degree of urbanized culture has existed in the land since between 3000 and 2000 BCE; the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up to large parts of Afghanistan in the north. Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army arrived at what is now Afghanistan in 330 BCE after conquering Persia. Since many empires have risen from Afghanistan, including the, Greco-Bactrians, Hephthalites, Hindu Shahi, Samanids, Ghurids, Timurids, Mughals and Durranis. Afghanistan has been a strategically important location throughout history; the land served as "a gateway to India, impinging on the ancient Silk Road, which carried trade from the Mediterranean to China". Sitting on many trade and migration routes, Afghanistan may be called the'Central Asian roundabout' since routes converge from the Middle East, from the Indus Valley through the passes over the Hindu Kush, from the Far East via the Tarim Basin, from the adjacent Eurasian Steppe.
The Iranian languages were developed by one branch of these people. Elena E. Kuz'mina argues that the tents of Iranian-speaking nomads of Afghanistan developed from the light surface houses of the Eurasian steppe belt in the Bronze Age; the Arab invasions influenced the culture of Afghanistan, its pre-Islamic period of Zoroastrian, Macedonian and Hindu past has long vanished. Mirwais Hotak followed by Ahmad Shah Durrani unified Afghan tribes and founded the last Afghan Empire in the early 18th century CE. Afghanistan is inhabited by many and diverse peoples: the Pashtuns, Hazaras, Turkmen, Aimak and others; the Pashtuns, with 55% form the largest group, second are the Tajiks with 25%. Excavations of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree and others at Darra-e Kur in 1966 where 800 stone implements were recovered along with a fragment of Neanderthal right temporal bone, suggest that early humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 52,000 years ago. A cave called. Farming communities in Afghanistan were among the earliest in the world.
Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation in Afghanistan from as far back as 50,000 BC. The artifacts indicate that the indigenous people were small farmers and herdsmen probably grouped into tribes, with small local kingdoms rising and falling through the ages. Urbanization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE. Zoroastrianism predominated as the religion in the area. Other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism flourished leaving a major mark in the region. Gandhara is the name of an ancient kingdom from the Vedic period and its capital city located between the Hindukush and Sulaiman Mountains, although Kandahar in modern times and the ancient Gandhara are not geographically identical. Early inhabitants, around 3000 BCE were to have been connected through culture and trade to neighboring civilizations like Jiroft and Tappeh Sialk and the Indus Valley Civilization. Urban civilization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE and it is possible that the early city of Mundigak was a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization.
The first known people were Indo-Iranians, but their date of arrival has been estimated from as early as about 3000 BCE to 1500 BCE. The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization extending from present-day northwest Pakistan to present-day northwest India and present-day northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. Apart from Shortughai, Mundigak is another known site. There are several other smaller IVC sites to be found in Afghanistan as well; the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex became prominent in the southwest region between 2200 and 1700 BCE. The city of Balkh was founded about this time, it is possible that the BMAC may have been an Indo-European culture the Proto-Indo-Aryans. But the standard model holds the arrival of Indo-Aryans to have been in the Late Harappan which gave rise to the Vedic civilization of the Early Iron Age. There have been many different opinions about the extent of the Median kingdom.
For instance, according to Ernst Herzfeld, it was a powerful empire, which stretched from central Anatolia to Bactria, to around the borders of nowadays India. On the other side, Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg insists that there is no real evidence about the existence of the Median empire and that it was an unstable state formation; the region of nowadays Afghanistan came under Median rule for a short time. Afghanistan fell to the Achaemenid Empire; the area was divided into several provinces called satrapies, which were each ruled by a governor, or satrap. These ancient satrapies included: Aria. Alexander the Great arrived in the area of Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year ear
Afsharid dynasty
The Afsharid dynasty were members of an Iranian dynasty that originated from the Turkic Afshar tribe in Iran's north-eastern province of Khorasan, ruling Persia in the mid-eighteenth century. The dynasty was founded in 1736 by the brilliant military commander Nader Shah, who deposed the last member of the Safavid dynasty and proclaimed himself Shah of Iran. During Nader's reign, Iran reached its greatest extent since the Sassanid Empire. At its height it controlled modern-day Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan Republic, parts of the North Caucasus, Bahrain, Turkmenistan and Pakistan, parts of Iraq and Oman. After his death, most of his empire was divided between the Zands, Durranis and the Caucasian khanates, while Afsharid rule was confined to a small local state in Khorasan; the Afsharid dynasty was overthrown by Mohammad Khan Qajar in 1796, who would establish a new native Iranian empire and restore Iranian suzerainty over several of the aforementioned regions. The dynasty was named after the Turcoman Afshar tribe from Khorasan in north-east Iran, to which Nader belonged.
The Afshars had migrated from Turkestan to Azerbaijan in the 13th century. In the early 17th century, Shah Abbas the Great moved many Afshars from Azerbaijan to Khorasan to defend the north-eastern borders of his state against the Uzbeks, after which the Afshars became native to those regions. Nader belonged to the Qereqlu branch of the Afshars. Nader Shah was born into a humble semi-nomadic family from the Afshar tribe of Khorasan, where he became a local warlord, his path to power began when the Ghilzai Mir Mahmud Hotaki overthrew the weakened and disintegrated Safavid shah Sultan Husayn in 1722. At the same time and Russian forces seized Iranian land. Russia took swaths of Iran's Caucasian territories in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, as well as mainland northern Iran, by the Russo-Persian War, while the neighbouring Ottomans invaded from the west. By the 1724 Treaty of Constantinople, they agreed to divide the conquered areas between themselves. On the other side of the theatre, Nader joined forces with Sultan Husayn's son Tahmasp II and led the resistance against the Ghilzai Afghans, driving their leader Ashraf Khan out of the capital in 1729 and establishing Tahmasp on the throne.
Nader fought to regain the lands lost to the Ottomans and Russians and to restore Iranian hegemony in Iran. While he was away in the east fighting the Ghilzais, Tahmasp allowed the Ottomans to retake territory in the west. Nader, had Tahmasp deposed in favour of his baby son Abbas III in 1732. Four years after he had recaptured most of the lost Persian lands, Nader felt confident enough to have himself proclaimed shah in his own right at a ceremony on the Moghan Plain. Nader subsequently made the Russians cede the taken territories taken in 1722–23 through the Treaty of Resht of 1732 and the Treaty of Ganja of 1735. Back in control of the integral northern territories, with a new Russo-Iranian alliance against the common Ottoman enemy, he continued the Ottoman–Persian War; the Ottoman armies were expelled from western Iran and the rest of the Caucasus, the resultant 1736 Treaty of Constantinople forced the Ottomans to confirm Iranian suzerainty over the Caucasus and recognised Nader as the new Iranian shah.
Copied content from Nader Shah article. He thus became a figure of national importance; when Nader discovered that Fath Ali Khan was corresponding with Malek Mahmud and revealed this to the shah, Tahmasp executed him and made Nader the chief of his army instead. Nader subsequently took on the title Tahmasp Qoli. In late 1726, Nader recaptured Mashhad. Nader chose not to march directly on Isfahan. First, in May 1729, he defeated the Abdali Afghans near Herat. Many of the Abdali Afghans subsequently joined his army; the new shah of the Ghilzai Afghans, decided to move against Nader but in September 1729, Nader defeated him at the Battle of Damghan and again decisively in November at Murchakhort, banishing the Afghans from Persian soil forever. Ashraf fled and Nader entered Isfahan, handing it over to Tahmasp in December and plundering the city to pay his army. Tahmasp made Nader governor over many eastern provinces, including his native Khorasan, married him to his sister. Nader pursued and defeated Ashraf, murdered by his own followers.
In 1738, Nader Shah destroyed the last Hotaki seat of power, at Kandahar. He built a new city nearby, which he named "Naderabad". Copied content from Nader Shah article. At the same time, the Abdali Afghans rebelled and besieged Mashhad, forcing Nader to suspend his campaign and save his brother, Ebrahim, it took Nader fourteen months to crush this uprising. Relations between Nader and the Shah had declined as the latter grew alarmed by his general's military successes. While Nader was absent in the east, Tahmasp tried to assert himself by launching a campaign to recapture Yerevan, he ended up losing all of Nader's recent gains to the Ottomans, signed a treaty ceding Georgia and Armenia in exchange for Tabriz. Nader, saw that the moment had come to depose Tahmasp, he denounced the treaty. In Isfahan, Nader got Tahmasp drunk showed him to the courtiers asking if a man in
Kidarites
The Kidarites were a dynasty that ruled Bactria and adjoining parts of Central Asia and South Asia in the 4th and 5th centuries CE. The Kidarites belonged to a complex of peoples known collectively in India as the Huna and/or in Europe as the Xionites.. Named after Kidara, their founding ruler and purported membership of a clan named Ki, the Kidarites appear to have been a part of a Huna horde known in Latin sources as the Kermichiones or "Red Huna"; the Kidarites established the first of four major Xionite/Huna states in Central Asia, followed by the Hephthalites, the Alchon, the Nezak. In 360–370 CE, a Kidarite kingdom was established in Central Asian regions ruled by the Sasanian Empire, replacing the Kushano-Sasanians in Bactria. Thereafter the Sasanian Empire stopped at Merv. A nomadic people, the Kidarites appear to have originated in the Altai Mountains region; some scholars believe that the Kidarites were "Europid" in appearance, with some East Asian admixture. On Kidarite coins their rulers are depicted as beardless or clean-shaven – a feature of Inner Asian cultures at the time.
The Kidarites were depicted as mounted archers on the reverse of coins. They were known to practice artificial cranial deformation; the Kidarites appear to have been synonymous with the Karmir Xyon, – a major subdivision of the Xionites, alongside the Spet Xyon. The name of their eponymous ruler Kidara may be cognate with the Turkic word Kidirti meaning "west", suggesting that the Kidarites were the westernmost of the Xionites, the first to migrate from Inner Asia. Chinese sources suggest that when the Uar were driven westward by the Later Zhao state, circa 320 CE, from the area around Pingyang, it put pressure on Xionite-affiliated peoples, such as the Kidarites, to migrate. Another theory is that climate change in the Altai during the 4th century caused various tribes to migrate westward and southward. Contemporary Chinese and Roman sources suggest that, during the 4th century, the Kidarites began to encroach on the territory of Greater Khorasan and the Kushan Empire – migrating through Transoxiana into Bactria, where they were vassals of the Kushans and adopted many elements of Kushano-Bactrian culture.
The Kidarites initially put pressure on the Sasanian Empire, but served as mercenaries in the Sassanian army, under which they fought the Romans in Mesopotamia, led by a chief named Grumbates. Some of the Kidarites became a ruling dynasty of the Kushan Empire, leading to the epithet "Little Kushans"; the first 4th century evidence are gold coins discovered in Balkh dating from c. 380, where'Kidara' is interpreted in a legend in the Bactrian language. Most other data we have on the Kidarite kingdom are from Chinese and Byzantine sources from the middle of the 5th century; the Kidarites were the first Huna to bother India. Indian records note that the Hūna had established themselves in modern Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province by the first half of the 5th century, the Gupta emperor Skandagupta had repelled a Hūna invasion in 455; the Kidarites are the last dynasty to regard themselves as the inheritors of the Kushan empire, which had disappeared as an independent entity two centuries earlier.
Around 350, the Sasanian Emperor Shapur II had to interrupt his conflict with the Romans, abandon the siege of Nisibis, in order to face nomadic threats in the east: he was attacked in the east by Scythian Massagetae and other Central Asian tribes. Around this time, Xionite/Huna tribes, most the Kidarites, whose king was Grumbates, make an appearance as an encroaching threat upon Sasanian territory as well as a menace to the Gupta Empire. After a prolonged struggle they were forced to conclude an alliance, their king Grumbates accompanied Shapur II in the war against the Romans, agreeing to enlist his light cavalrymen into the Persian army and accompanying Shapur II; the presence of "Grumbates, king of the Chionitae" and his Xionites with Shapur II during campaigns in the Western Caspian lands, in the area of Corduene, is described by the contemporary eyewitness Ammianus Marcellinus: Grumbates Chionitarum rex novus aetate quidem media rugosisque membris sed mente quadam grandifica multisque victoriarum insignibus nobilis."Grumbates, the new king of the Xionites, while he was middle aged, his limbs were wrinkled, he was endowed with a mind that acted grandly, was famous for his many, significant victories."
The presence of Grumbates alongside Shapur II is recorded at the successful Siege of Amida in 359, in which Grumbates lost his son: "Grumbates, king of the Chionitae, went boldly up to the walls to effect that mission, with a brave body of guards. " Later the alliance fell apart, by the time of Bahram IV the Sasanians had lost numerous battles against the Kidarites. The migrating Kidarites settled in Bactria, where they replaced the Kushano-Sasanids, a branch of the Sasanids that had displaced the weakening Kushans in the area two ce
Timurid Empire
The Timurid Empire, self-designated as Gurkani, was a Persianate Turco-Mongol empire comprising modern-day Uzbekistan, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, much of Central Asia, as well as parts of contemporary India, Pakistan and Turkey. The empire was founded by Timur, a warlord of Turco-Mongol lineage, who established the empire between 1370 and his death in 1405, he envisioned himself as the great restorer of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan and, while not descended from Genghis, regarded himself as Genghis's heir and associated much with the Borjigin. The ruling Timurid dynasty, or Timurids, lost most of Persia to the Aq Qoyunlu confederation in 1467, but members of the dynasty continued to rule smaller states, sometimes known as Timurid emirates, in Central Asia and parts of India. In the 16th century, Babur, a Timurid prince from Ferghana, invaded Kabulistan and established a small kingdom there, from there 20 years he invaded India to establish the Mughal Empire. Timur conquered large parts of Central Asia Transoxiana and Khorasan, from 1363 onwards with various alliances, was recognized as ruler over them in 1370.
Acting in the name of Suurgatmish, the Chagatai khan, he subjugated Transoxania and Khwarazm in the years that followed. In the 1360s he had gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate and while as emir he was nominally subordinate to the khan, in reality it was now Timur that picked the khans who became mere puppet rulers; the western Chagatai khans were continually dominated by Timurid princes in the 15th and 16th centuries and their figurehead importance was reduced into total insignificance. Timur began a campaign westwards in 1380. By 1389, he had removed the Kartids from Herat and advanced into mainland Persia where he enjoyed many successes; this included the capture of Isfahan in 1387, the removal of the Muzaffarids from Shiraz in 1393, the expulsion of the Jalayirids from Baghdad. In 1394–95, he triumphed over the Golden Horde, following his successful campaign in Georgia, after which he enforced his sovereignty in the Caucasus. Tokhtamysh, the khan of the Golden Horde, was a major rival to Timur in the region.
He subjugated Multan and Dipalpur in modern-day Pakistan in 1398. Timur gave the north Indian territories to a non-family member, Khizr Khan, whose Sayyid dynasty replaced the defeated Tughlaq dynasty of the Sultanate of Delhi. Delhi became a vassal of the Timurids but obtained independence in the years following the death of Timur. In 1400–1401 he conquered Aleppo and eastern Anatolia, in 1401 he destroyed Baghdad and in 1402 defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Ankara; this made Timur the most preeminent Muslim ruler of the time, as the Ottoman Empire plunged into civil war. Meanwhile, he transformed Samarkand into a major seat of his realm. Timur appointed his sons and grandsons to the main governorships of the different parts of his empire, outsiders to some others. After his death in 1405, the family fell into disputes and civil wars, many of the governorships became independent. However, Timurid rulers continued to dominate Persia, Armenia, large parts of Azerbaijan, Pakistan, minor parts of India, much of Central Asia, though the Anatolian and Caucasian territories were lost by the 1430s.
Due to the fact that the Persian cities were desolated by wars, the seat of Persian culture was now in Samarkand and Herat, cities that became the center of the Timurid renaissance. The cost of Timur's conquests amount to the deaths of 17 million people. Shahrukh Mirza, fourth ruler of the Timurids, dealt with Kara Koyunlu, who aimed to expand into Iran. But, Jahan Shah drove the Timurids to eastern Iran after 1447 and briefly occupied Herat in 1458. After the death of Jahan Shah, Uzun Hasan, bey of the Ak Koyunlu, conquered the holdings of the Kara Koyunlu in Iran between 1469 and 1471; the power of Timurids declined during the second half of the 15th century due to the Timurid tradition of partitioning the empire and by 1500, the divided and wartorn Timurid Empire had lost control of most of its territory, in the following years was pushed back on all fronts. Persia, the Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia fell to the Shiite Safavid dynasty, secured by Shah Ismail I in the following decade. Much of the Central Asian lands was overrun by the Uzbeks of Muhammad Shaybani who conquered the key cities of Samarkand and Herat in 1505 and 1507, who founded the Khanate of Bukhara.
From Kabul, the Mughal Empire was established in 1526 by Babur, a descendant of Timur through his father and a descendant of Genghis Khan through his mother. The dynasty he established is known as the Mughal dynasty though it was directly inherited from the Timurids. By the 17th century, the Mughal Empire ruled most of India but declined during the following century; the Timurid dynasty came to an end as the remaining nominal rule of the Mughals was abolished by the British Empire following the 1857 rebellion. Although the Timurids hailed from the Barlas tribe, of Turkicized Mongol origin, they had embraced Persian culture, converted to Islam, resided in Turkestan and Khorasan. Thus, the Timurid era had a dual character, reflecting both its Turco-Mongol origins and the Persian literary and courtly high culture of the dynasty. During the Timurid era, Central Asian society was bifurcated, with the responsibilities of government and rule divided into militar
Rashidun Caliphate
The Rashidun Caliphate was the first of the four major caliphates established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was ruled by the first four successive caliphs of Muhammad after his death in 632 CE; these caliphs are collectively known in Sunni Islam as the Rashidun. This term is not used in Shia Islam as Shia Muslims do not consider the rule of the first three caliphs as legitimate; the Rashidun Caliphate is characterized by a twenty-five year period of rapid military expansion, followed by a five-year period of internal strife. The Rashidun Army at its peak numbered more than 100,000 men. By the 650s, the caliphate in addition to the Arabian Peninsula had subjugated the Levant, to the Transcaucasus in the north; the caliphate arose out of the death of Muhammad in 632 CE and the subsequent debate over the succession to his leadership. Abu Bakr, a close companion of Muhammad from the Banu Taym clan, was elected the first Rashidun leader and began the conquest of the Arabian Peninsula.
He ruled from 632 to his death in 634. Abu Bakr was succeeded by Umar, his appointed successor from the Banu Adi clan, who began the conquest of Persia from 642 to 651, leading to the defeat of the Sassanid Empire. Umar was assassinated in 644 and was succeeded by Uthman, elected by a six-person committee arranged by Umar. Under Uthman began the conquest of Armenia and Khorasan. Uthman was assassinated in 656 and succeeded by Ali, who presided over the civil war known as the First Fitna; the war was between those who supported Uthman's cousin and governor of the Levant and those who supported the caliph Ali. The civil war permanently consolidated the divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims, with Shia Muslims believing Ali to be the first rightful caliph and Imam after Muhammad. A third faction in the war supported the governor of Egypt; the war was decided in favour of the faction of Muawiyah, who established the Umayyad Caliphate in 661. After Muhammad's death in 632 CE, his Medinan companions debated which of them should succeed him in running the affairs of the Muslims while Muhammad's household was busy with his burial.
Umar and Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah pledged their loyalty to Abu Bakr, with the Ansar and the Quraysh soon following suit. Abu Bakr thus became the first Khalīfaṫu Rasūli l-Lāh, or Caliph, embarked on campaigns to propagate Islam. First he would have to subdue the Arabian tribes which had claimed that although they pledged allegiance to Muhammad and accepted Islam, they owed nothing to Abu Bakr; as a caliph, Abu Bakr never claimed such a title. Rather, their election and leadership were based upon merit. Notably, according to Sunnis, all four Rashidun Caliphs were connected to Muhammad through marriage, were early converts to Islam, were among ten who were explicitly promised paradise, were his closest companions by association and support and were highly praised by Muhammad and delegated roles of leadership within the nascent Muslim community. According to Sunni Muslims, the term Rashidun Caliphate is derived from a famous hadith of Muhammad, where he foretold that the caliphate after him would last for 30 years and would be followed by kingship.
Furthermore, according to other hadiths in Sunan Abu Dawood and Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, towards the end times, the Rightly Guided Caliphate will be restored once again by God. Shortly before his death, Muhammad called all the Muslims who had accompanied him on the final Hajj to gather around at a place known as Ghadir Khumm. Muhammad gave a long sermon; the Muslims responded, "Allah and His messenger." Muhammad said: Behold! Whosoever I am his master, this Ali is his master. O Allah! Stay firm in supporting those who stay firm in following him, be hostile to those who are hostile to him, help those who help him, forsake those who forsake him. O people! This Ali is my brother, the executor of my, the container of my knowledge, my successor over my nation, over the interpretation the Book of Allah, the mighty and the majestic, the true inviter to its, he is the one who acts according to what pleases Him, fights His enemies, causes to adhere to His obedience, advises against His disobedience. He is the successor of the Messenger of Allah, the commander of the believers, the guiding Imam, the killer of the oath breakers, the transgressors, the apostates.
I speak by the authority of Allah. The word with me shall not be changed; this event has been narrated by both Shia and Sunni sources. Further, after the sermon, Abu Bakr and Uthman are all said to have given their allegiance to Ali, a fact, reported by both Shia and Sunni sources. In Medina, after the Farewell Pilgrimage and the event of Ghadir Khumm, Muhammad ordered an army to be mustered under the command of Usama bin Zayd, he commanded all the companions, except for his family, to go with Usama to Syria to avenge the Muslims’ defeat at the Battle of Mu'tah. Muhammad gave Usama the banner of Islam on the 18th day of the Islamic month of Safar in the year 11 A. H. Abu Bakr and Umar were among those. However, Abu Bakr and Umar resisted going under the command of Usama because they thought that he
Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex
The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex known as the Oxus civilization, is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age civilization of Central Asia, dated to c. 2400–1600 BC, located in present-day northern Afghanistan, eastern Turkmenistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan, centred on the upper Amu Darya. Its sites were named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi. Bactria was the Greek name for the area of Bactra, in what is now northern Afghanistan, Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Marguš, the capital of, Merv, in modern-day southeastern Turkmenistan. Sarianidi's excavations from the late 1970s onward revealed numerous monumental structures in many sites, fortified by impressive walls and gates. Reports on the BMAC were confined to Soviet journals until the last years of the Soviet Union, so the findings were unknown to the West until Sarianidi's work began to be translated in the 1990s. There is archaeological evidence of settlement in the well-watered northern foothills of the Kopet Dag during the Neolithic period.
This region is dotted with the multi-period hallmarks characteristic of the ancient Near East, similar to those southwest of the Kopet Dag in the Gorgan Plain in Iran. At Jeitun, mud brick houses were first occupied c. 6000 BC. The inhabitants were farmers who kept herds of goats and sheep and grew wheat and barley, with origins in southwest Asia. Jeitun has given its name to the whole Neolithic period in the northern foothills of the Kopet Dag. At the late Neolithic site of Chagylly Depe, farmers grew the kinds of crops that are associated with irrigation in an arid environment, such as hexaploid bread wheat, which became predominant during the Chalcolithic period. During the Copper Age, the population of this region grew. Archaeologist Vadim Mikhaĭlovich Masson, who led the South Turkmenistan Complex Archaeological Expedition from 1946, sees signs that people migrated to the region from central Iran at this time, bringing metallurgy and other innovations, but thinks that the newcomers soon blended with the Jeitun farmers.
By contrast a re-excavation of Monjukli Depe in 2010 found a distinct break in settlement history between the late neolithic and early chalcolithic eras there. Major chalcolithic settlements sprang up at Namazga-Depe. In addition, there were smaller settlements at Anau and Yassy-depe. Settlements similar to the early level at Anau appeared further east– in the ancient delta of the river Tedzen, the site of the Geoksiur Oasis. About 3500 BC, the cultural unity of the area split into two pottery styles: colourful in the west and more austere in the east at Altyn-Depe and the Geoksiur Oasis settlements; this may reflect the formation of two tribal groups. It seems that around 3000 BC, people from Geoksiur migrated into the Murghab delta and reached further east into the Zerafshan Valley in Transoxiana. In both areas pottery typical of Geoksiur was in use. In Transoxiana they settled at Sarazm near Pendjikent. To the south the foundation layers of Shahr-i Shōkhta on the bank of the Helmand river in south-eastern Iran contained pottery of the Altyn-Depe and Geoksiur type.
Thus the farmers of Iran and Afghanistan were connected by a scattering of farming settlements. In the Early Bronze Age the culture of the Kopet Dag oases and Altyn-Depe developed a proto-urban society; this corresponds to level IV at Namazga-Depe. Altyn-Depe was a major centre then. Pottery was wheel-turned. Grapes were grown; the height of this urban development was reached in the Middle Bronze Age c. 2300 BC, corresponding to level V at Namazga-Depe. It is this Bronze Age culture, given the BMAC name; the inhabitants of the BMAC were sedentary people who practised irrigation farming of wheat and barley. With their impressive material culture including monumental architecture, bronze tools and jewellery of semiprecious stones, the complex exhibits many of the hallmarks of civilisation; the complex can be compared to proto-urban settlements in the Helmand basin at Mundigak in western Afghanistan and Shahr-e Sukhteh in eastern Iran, or at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley. Models of two-wheeled carts from c. 3000 BC found at Altyn-Depe are the earliest complete evidence of wheeled transport in Central Asia, though model wheels have come from contexts somewhat earlier.
Judging by the type of harness, carts were pulled by oxen, or a bull. However camels were domesticated within the BMAC. A model of a cart drawn by a camel of c. 2200 BC was found at Altyn-Depe. Sarianidi regards Gonur as the "capital" of the complex in Margiana throughout the Bronze Age; the palace of north Gonur measures 150 metres by 140 metres, the temple at Togolok 140 metres by 100 metres, the fort at Kelleli 3 125 metres by 125 metres, the house of a local ruler at Adji Kui 25 metres by 25 metres. Each of these formidable structures has been extensively excavated. While they all have impressive fortification walls and buttresses, it is not always clear why one structure is identified as a temple and another as a palace. Mallory points out that the BMAC fortified settlements such as Gonur and Togolok resemble the qila, the type of fort known in this region in the historical period, they may have up to three encircling walls. Within the forts are residential quarters and temples; the people of the BMAC culture were proficient at working in a variety of metals including bronze, silver, and
Afghanistan
Wardak Province
