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
Nezak Huns
The Nezak Huns were one of the four groups of Huna people in the area of the Hindu Kush. The Nezak kings, with their characteristic gold bull's - head crown, ruled from Kapisa. While their history is obscured, the Nezak's left significant coinage documenting their polity's prosperity, they are called Nezak because of the inscriptions on their coins, which bear the mention "Nezak Shah". They were the last of the four major "Hunic" states known collectively as Xionites or "Hunas", their predecessors being, in chronological order, the Kidarites, the Hephthalites, the Alchon; the term'Hun' may cause confusion. The word has three basic meanings: 1) the Huns proper, that is, Attila's people. Here the word has the second meaning with elements of the third; the Nezaks enter the historical record in the late 5th century, with their minting of coins in Ghazni, controlled by the Sassanian Persians, the Indo-Sasanians. Their emergence may have been a consequence of the weakening of Persian influence in the region after the defeat of the Persian king Peroz by the Hephthalites, in Bactria in 484 CE.
From that point, the Nezaks consolidated their power in Zabulistan and in the 6th century expanded into Kabulistan, deposing the Alchon Huns from Kapisa. Nezak coins with the bull's crown appear well into the 8th century, at which time it appears that a confederacy emerges between the Nezaks and the Alchons against Turkic invaders. Around the middle of the 6th century CE, the Alchons, after having extensively invaded the heartland of India, had withdrawn from Kashmir and Gandhara, going back west across the Khyber pass they resettled in Kabulistan. There, their coinage suggests; the Nezak-Alchons were replaced by the Turk shahi dynasty, first in Zabulistan and in Kabulistan. The last Nezak king known by name was Ghar-ilchi, confirmed by the Chinese emperor. Between 661 and 665, Chinese and Arab sources indicate. Having lost Ghazni and Kabul, the Nezak dynasty declined as indicated by the progressive elimination of Nezak symbols from the historical coin record. Napki Malka. Shri Shahi, circa 560-620 CE.
Ghar-ilchi, 653-665 Xionites Kidarites Hephthalites Alchon Huns Iranian Huns http://pro.geo.univie.ac.at/projects/khm/showcases/showcase11?language=en http://grifterrec.rasmir.com/huns/huns2.html
Umayyad Caliphate
The Umayyad Caliphate spelt Omayyad, was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty; the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, was a member of the Umayyad clan. The family established dynastic, hereditary rule with Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, long-time governor of Syria, who became the sixth Caliph after the end of the First Muslim Civil War in 661. After Mu'awiyah's death in 680, conflicts over the succession resulted in a Second Civil War and power fell into the hands of Marwan I from another branch of the clan. Syria remained the Umayyads' main power base thereafter, Damascus was their capital; the Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorporating the Transoxiana, the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula into the Muslim world. At its greatest extent, the Umayyad Caliphate covered 11,100,000 km2 and 33 million people, making it one of the largest empires in history in both area and proportion of the world's population.
The dynasty was overthrown by a rebellion led by the Abbasids in 750. Survivors of the dynasty established themselves in Cordoba in the form of an Emirate and a Caliphate, lasting until 1031; the Umayyad Caliphs were considered too secular by some of their Muslim subjects. Christians, who still constituted a majority of the Caliphate's population, Jews were allowed to practice their own religion but had to pay a head tax from which Muslims were exempt. There was, the Muslim-only zakat tax, earmarked explicitly for various welfare progammes. Muawiya's wife Maysum was a Christian. Relations between the caliphate's Muslim and Christian subjects were stable in this time; the Umayyads were involved in frequent battles with the Christian Byzantines without being concerned with protecting themselves in Syria, which had remained Christian like many other parts of the empire. Prominent positions were held by Christians, some of whom belonged to families that had served in Byzantine governments; the employment of Christians was part of a broader policy of religious accommodation, necessitated by the presence of large Christian populations in the conquered provinces, as in Syria.
This policy boosted Muawiya's popularity and solidified Syria as his power base. According to tradition, the Umayyad family and Muhammad both descended from a common ancestor, Abd Manaf ibn Qusai, they came from the city of Mecca in the Hijaz. Muhammad descended from Abd Manāf via his son Hashim, while the Umayyads descended from Abd Manaf via a different son, Abd-Shams, whose son was Umayya; the two families are therefore considered to be different clans of the same tribe. While the Umayyads felt deep animosity towards the Hashimites before Muhammad, their animosity deepened after the Battle of Badr of 624; the battle saw. This fueled the opposition of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, the grandson of Umayya, to Muhammad, his family, Islam as a whole. Abu Sufyan sought to exterminate the adherents of the new religion by waging another battle against the Medina-based Muslims only a year after the Battle of Badr, he did this to avenge the defeat at Badr. Scholars regard the Battle of Uhud as the first defeat for the Muslims, since they incurred greater losses than the Meccans.
After the battle, Abu Sufyan's wife Hind, the daughter of Utba ibn Rabi'ah, is reported to have cut open the corpse of Hamza, taking out his liver which she attempted to eat. In 629, within five years of the defeat in the Battle of Uhud, Muhammad took control of Mecca and announced a general amnesty for all. Abu Sufyan and his wife Hind embraced Islam on the eve of the conquest of Mecca; the Umayyad's ascendancy began when Uthman ibn Affan, an early companion, second cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad became the third Caliph. Uthman placed some members of his clan at positions of power. Most notably, he appointed his first cousin, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, as his top advisor, which created a stir among the Hashimite companions of Muhammad, as Marwan had been permanently exiled from Medina by Muhammad. Uthman appointed his half-brother, Walid ibn Uqba, whom Hashimites accused of leading prayer while under the influence of alcohol, governor of Kufa and appointed his foster-brother Abdullah ibn Saad as the Governor of Egypt, replacing Amr ibn al-As.
Most notably, Uthman consolidated Muawiyah's governorship of Syria by granting him control over a larger area. Muawiyah proved a successful governor, he built up a loyal and disciplined army composed of Syrian Arabs and befriended Amr ibn al-As, the ousted governor of Egypt. In 639 Muawiyah was appointed as the governor of Syria after the previous governor Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah died in a plague along with 25,000 other people. In 649 Muawiyah set up a navy manned by Monophysite Christian and Jacobite Syrian Christian sailors and Muslim troops, who defeated the Byzantine navy at the Battle of the Masts in 655, opening up the Mediterranean. Uthman's rule saw the relaxing of restrictions instituted by the second Caliph Umar ibn Al-Khatt
Saffarid dynasty
The Saffarid dynasty was a Muslim Persian dynasty from Sistan that ruled over parts of eastern Iran, with its capital at Zaranj. Khorasan and Sistan from 861 to 1003. One of the first indigenous Persian dynasties to emerge after the Arab Islamic invasions, its founder was Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar, born in 840 in a small town called Karnin, located east of Zaranj and west of Bost, in what is now Afghanistan - a native of Sistan and a local ayyār, who worked as a coppersmith before becoming a warlord, he seized control of the Sistan region and began conquering most of Iran and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Pakistan and Uzbekistan. The Saffarids used their capital Zaranj as a base for an aggressive expansion westward, they first invaded the areas south of the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan and overthrew the Persian Tahirid dynasty, annexing Khorasan in 873. By the time of Ya'qub's death, he had conquered the Kabul Valley, Tocharistan, Kerman, Fars and nearly reached Baghdad but suffered a defeat by the Abbasids.
The Saffarid empire did not last long after Ya'qub's death. His brother and successor, Amr bin Laith, was defeated at the Battle of Balkh against Ismail Samani in 900. Amr bin Laith was forced to surrender most of his territories to the new rulers; the Saffarids were subsequently confined to their heartland of Sistan, with their role reduced to that of vassals of the Samanids and their successors. The dynasty began with Ya ` a coppersmith who moved to the city of Zaranj, he left work to become an Ayyar and got the power to act as an independent ruler. From his capital Zaranj he moved east into al-Rukhkhadj and Zamindawar followed by Zunbil and Kabul by 865, he invaded Bamyan, Balkh and Ghor. In the name of Islam, he conquered these territories which were ruled by Buddhist tribal chiefs, he took vast amounts of plunder and slaves from this campaign. Nancy Dupree in her book An Historical Guide to Afghanistan describes Yaqub's conquests as such: Arab armies carrying the banner of Islam came out of the west to defeat the Sasanians in 642 and they marched with confidence to the east.
On the western periphery of the Afghan area the princes of Herat and Sistan gave way to rule by Arab governors but in the east, in the mountains, cities submitted only to rise in revolt and the hastily converted returned to their old beliefs once the armies passed. The harshness and avariciousness of Arab rule produced such unrest, that once the waning power of the Caliphate became apparent, native rulers once again established themselves independent. Among these Saffarids of Sistan shone in the Afghan area; the fanatic founder of this dynasty, the coppersmith’s apprentice Yaqub ibn Layth Saffari, came forth from his capital at Zaranj in 870 and marched through Bost, Ghazni, Bamyan and Herat, conquering in the name of Islam. The Tahirid city of Herat was captured in 870 and his campaign in the Badghis region led to the capture of Kharidjites which formed the Djash al-Shurat contingent in his army. Ya'qub turned his focus to the west and began attacks on Khorasan, Khuzestan and Fars; the Saffarids seized Khuzestan and parts of southern Iraq, in 876 came close to overthrowing the Abbasids, whose army was able to turn them back only within a few days' march from Baghdad.
These incursions, forced the Abbasid caliphate to recognize Ya'qub as governor of Sistan and Kerman, Saffarids were offered key posts in Baghdad. In 901, Amr Saffari was defeated at the battle of Balkh by the Samanids, which reduced the Saffarid dynasty to a minor tributary in Sistan. In 1002, Mahmud of Ghazni invaded Sistan, dethroned Khalaf I and ended the Saffarid dynasty; the Saffarids gave great care to the Persian culture. Under their rule, the eastern Islamic world witnessed the emergence of prominent Persian poets such as Fayrouz Mashriqi, Abu Salik al-Jirjani, Muhammad bin Wasif al-Sistani, a court poet. In the 9th century, the Saffarids gave impetus to a renaissance of New Persian literature and culture. Following Ya'qub's conquest of Herat, some poets chose to celebrate his victory in Arabic, whereupon Ya'qub requested his secretary, Muhammad bin Wasif al-Sistani, to compose those verses in Persian. From silver mines in the Panjshir Valley, the Saffarids were able to mint silver coins.
Iranian Intermezzo Nasrid dynasty Mihrabanids Samanids Ghaznavids List of kings of Persia List of Sunni Muslim dynasties Encyclopædia Iranica Saffarids
Kabul Shahi
The Kabul Shahi dynasties called Shahiya ruled the Kabul Valley and the old province of Gandhara during the Classical Period of India from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 11th century. They are split into two eras: the Buddhist Turk Shahi and the Hindu-Shahis with the change-over occurring around 870 CE; when Xuanzang visited the region early in the 7th century, the Kabul region was ruled by a Kshatriya king, identified as the Shahi Khingal, whose name has been found in an inscription found in Gardez. These Hindu kings of Kabul and Gandhara may have had links to some ruling families in neighboring Kashmir and other areas to the east; the Shahis were rulers of predominantly Buddhist and Hindu populations and were thus patrons of numerous faiths, various artifacts and coins from their rule have been found that display their multicultural domain. At the end period the last Shahi emperors Jayapala and Tirlochanpala fought the Muslim Turk Ghaznavids of Ghazna and were defeated.
Their remaining army were exiled into northern India. Xuanzang describes the ruler of Kapisa/Kabul, whom he had met, as a devout Buddhist and a Kshatriya; the 11th-century Persian Muslim scholar Alberuni recorded folklore concerning the early history of the Kabul Shahi rulers, including beliefs that: the kings residing in Kabul, while they practised Hinduism belonged to a Turkic culture. Thus the folklore accounts recorded by Alberuni connect the earlier Shahis of Kabul/Kapisa to Turkish extraction and claim their descent from Kanik. At the same time it is claimed that'their first king Barahatigin had come from Tibet and concealed in a narrow cave in Kabul area.' One can see the above account of Shahi origin as fanciful and fairy tale-like. These statements taken together are confusing and bear the express marks of a folklore and vulgar tradition, hence unworthy of inspiring any confidence in the early history of Shahis; the allegation that the first dynasty of Kabul was Turki is plainly based on the vulgar tradition, which Alberuni himself remarked was absurd.
The historian V. A. Smith speculates – based on Alberuni – that the earlier Shahis were a cadet branch of the Kushanas who ruled both over Kabul and Gandhara until the rise of the Saffarids. H. M. Elliot relates the early Kabul Shahis to the Kators and further connects the Kators with the Kushanas. Charles Frederick Oldham traces the Kabul Shahi lineage to the Kators—whom he identifies with the Kathas orTakkhas—Naga worshipping collective groups of Hinduism lineage, he further speaks of the Urasas, Daradas, Kambojas, et al. as allied tribal groups of the Takkhas belonging to the Sun-worshiping races of the north-west frontier. D. B. Pandey traces the affinities of the early Kabul Shahis to the Hunas. Other accounts suggest Punjabi Kshatriya origins for the Shahi dynasty. Xuanzang describes the ruler of Kapisa/Kabul, whom he had met, as a devout Buddhist and a Kshatriya and not a Tu-kiue/Tu-kue; the fact that Xuanzang describes the ruler of Kapisa as Kshatriya, that of Zabul at this time being known as Shahi casts serious doubt about the speculated connections of the first Shahis of Kabul/Kapisa to the Kushanas or the Hephthalites.
Neither the Kushanas, the Hunas/Hephthalites nor the Turks have been designated or classified as Kshatriyas in any ancient Indian tradition. Therefore, the identification of the first line of Shahi kings of Kapisa/Kabul with the Kushanas, Hunas, or Turks seems to be in gross error, it is interesting that Alberuni calls the early Shahi rulers "Turks", but this should be interpreted to mean Turkicised, rather than Turkic in origin. The Shahi rulers of Kapisa/Kabul who ruled from the early 4th century until 870 CE were Hindu Brahmins; the Shahis of Afghanistan were discovered in 1874 to be connected to the Kamboja "race" by E. Vesey Westmacott. E. Vesey Westmacott, Bishan Singh, K. S. Dardi, et al. connect the Kabul Shahis to the ancient Indian Kshatriya clans of the Kambojas/Gandharas. George Scott Robertson writes that the Kators/Katirs of Kafiristan belong to the well known Siyaposh tribal group of the Kams and Kamtoz tribes, but numerous scholars now agree that the Siyaposh tribes of Hindukush are the modern representatives of the ancient Iranian cis-Hindukush Kambojas.
The powerful evidence from Xuanzang attesting that the ruler of Kabul/Kapisa was a devout Buddhist and belonged to Kshatriya caste would rather connect this ruling dynasty either to the erstwhile Gandharas or more to Ashvaka clan of the Kambojas, the eminent Kshatriya clan of the Mauryan times from the neighbouring region in India. The name of the last king of the so-called first Shahi line of Kabul/Kapisa reveals a trace of Tukh
Abbasid Caliphate
The Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic caliphates to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib, from whom the dynasty takes its name, they ruled as caliphs for most of the caliphate from their capital in Baghdad in modern-day Iraq, after having overthrown the Umayyad Caliphate in the Abbasid Revolution of 750 CE. The Abbasid Caliphate first centred its government in Kufa, modern-day Iraq, but in 762 the caliph Al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad, near the ancient Sasanian capital city of Ctesiphon; the Abbasid period was marked by reliance on Persian bureaucrats for governing the territories as well as an increasing inclusion of non-Arab Muslims in the ummah. Persianate customs were broadly adopted by the ruling elite, they began patronage of artists and scholars. Baghdad became a centre of science, culture and invention in what became known as the Golden Age of Islam. Despite this initial cooperation, the Abbasids of the late 8th century had alienated both non-Arab mawali and Iranian bureaucrats.
They were forced to cede authority over al-Andalus to the Umayyads in 756, Morocco to the Idrisid dynasty in 788, Ifriqiya to the Aghlabids in 800 and Egypt to the Isma'ili-Shia caliphate of the Fatimids in 969. The political power of the caliphs ended with the rise of the Iranian Buyids and the Seljuq Turks, who captured Baghdad in 945 and 1055, respectively. Although Abbasid leadership over the vast Islamic empire was reduced to a ceremonial religious function, the dynasty retained control over its Mesopotamian domain; the Abbasids' period of cultural fruition ended in 1258 with the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols under Hulagu Khan. The Abbasid line of rulers, Muslim culture in general, re-centred themselves in the Mamluk capital of Cairo in 1261. Though lacking in political power, the dynasty continued to claim religious authority until after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517; the Abbasid caliphs were Arabs descended from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad and of the same Banu Hashim clan.
The Abbasids claimed to be the true successors of Prophet Muhammad in replacing the Umayyad descendants of Banu Umayya by virtue of their closer bloodline to Muhammad. The Abbasids distinguished themselves from the Umayyads by attacking their moral character and administration in general. According to Ira Lapidus, "The Abbasid revolt was supported by Arabs the aggrieved settlers of Merv with the addition of the Yemeni faction and their Mawali"; the Abbasids appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as mawali, who remained outside the kinship-based society of the Arabs and were perceived as a lower class within the Umayyad empire. Muhammad ibn'Ali, a great-grandson of Abbas, began to campaign in Persia for the return of power to the family of Prophet Muhammad, the Hashimites, during the reign of Umar II. During the reign of Marwan II, this opposition culminated in the rebellion of Ibrahim the Imam, the fourth in descent from Abbas. Supported by the province of Khorasan though the governor opposed them, the Shia Arabs, he achieved considerable success, but was captured in the year 747 and died assassinated, in prison.
On 9 June 747, Abu Muslim, rising from Khorasan initiated an open revolt against Umayyad rule, carried out under the sign of the Black Standard. Close to 10,000 soldiers were under Abu Muslim's command when the hostilities began in Merv. General Qahtaba followed the fleeing governor Nasr ibn Sayyar west defeating the Umayyads at the Battle of Gorgan, the Battle of Nahāvand and in the Battle of Karbala, all in the year 748; the quarrel was taken up by Ibrahim's brother Abdallah, known by the name of Abu al-'Abbas as-Saffah, who defeated the Umayyads in 750 in the battle near the Great Zab and was subsequently proclaimed caliph. After this loss, Marwan fled to Egypt; the remainder of his family, barring one male, were eliminated. After their victory, As-Saffah sent his forces to Central Asia, where his forces fought against Tang expansion during the Battle of Talas; the noble Iranian family Barmakids, who were instrumental in building Baghdad, introduced the world's first recorded paper mill in the city, thus beginning a new era of intellectual rebirth in the Abbasid domain.
As-Saffah focused on putting down numerous rebellions in Mesopotamia. The Byzantines conducted raids during these early distractions; the first change the Abbasids, under Al-Mansur, made was to move the empire's capital from Damascus, in Syria, to Baghdad in Iraq. This was to both appease as well to be closer to the Persian mawali support base that existed in this region more influenced by Persian history and culture, part of the Persian mawali demand for less Arab dominance in the empire. Baghdad was established on the Tigris River in 762. A new position, that of the vizier, was established to delegate central authority, greater authority was delegated to local emirs; this meant that many Abbasid caliphs were relegated to a more ceremonial role than under the Umayyads, as the viziers began to exert greater influence, the role of the old Arab aristocracy was replaced by a Persian bureaucracy. During Al-Mansur's time control of Al-Andalus was lost, the Shia revolted and were defeated a year at the Battle of Bakhamra.
The Abbasids had depended on the support of Persians in their overthrow of the Umayyads. Abu al-'Abbas' successor, Al-Mansur welcomed non-Arab Musli
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
Afghanistan
Sar-e Pol Province
