- published: 23 Sep 2011
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- author: peteless73
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- Abbasid Caliphate
- Abbasids
- Abu'l-Khayr Khan
- Afghanistan
- Al-Mamun
- Al-Mu'tadid
- Alexander the Great
- Ali Shir Nava'i
- Alisher Usmanov
- Altay people
- Amr-i Laith Saffari
- Amu Darya
- Anjelika Akbar
- Arabic
- Arabs
- Aral Sea
- Asia Minor
- Australia
- Azerbaijani people
- Bactria
- Bactrians
- Baghdad
- Bahram Chobin
- Bai people
- Balkars
- Balkh
- Bashkirs
- Battle of Issus
- Battle of Talas
- Blang
- Bonan
- Bronze Age
- Bukhara
- Buyei
- Buyids
- Cairo
- Caliph
- Caspian Sea
- Caucasus
- Central Asia
- Chagatai Khan
- Chagatai language
- Chaghatai dialect
- China
- Chinese Tatars
- Chulyms
- Chuvash people
- Cotton
- Crimean Karaites
- Crimean Tatars
- Cuman people
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- Córdoba, Spain
- Dai people
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- Dong people
- Dongxiang people
- East China
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- Eurasian Avars
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- Fergana
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- Gagauz people
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Afghanistan
Afghanistan
i/æfˈɡænɨstæn/ (Persian/Pashto: افغانستان, Afġānistān), officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming part of South Asia, Central Asia, and Greater Middle East, it is also considered to be part of a broader West Asia. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of 647,500 km2 (250,001 sq mi), making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and the east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast.
Afghanistan has been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration. Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation from as far back as 50,000 BC. Urban civilization may have begun in the area as early as 3,000 to 2,000 BC. Sitting at an important geostrategic location that connects the Middle East with Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, the land has been home to various peoples through the ages and witnessed many military campaigns, notably by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and in modern era Western forces. The land also served as a source from which the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Timurids, Mughals and many others have risen to form major empires.
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Australia
Australia (
/əˈstreɪljə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent as well as the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.
For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.
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Baghdad
Baghdad (Arabic: بغداد, Baġdād, IPA: [bæɣˈdæːd]) is the capital of Republic of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Province. The population of Baghdad as of 2011 is approximately 7,216,040, making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab World (after Cairo, Egypt), and the second largest city in Western Asia (after Tehran, Iran).
Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic World. This in addition to housing several key academic institutions (e.g. House of Wisdom) garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". Throughout the High Middle Ages, Baghdad was considered to be the largest city in the world with an estimated population of 1,200,000 people. The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state (formerly the British Mandate of Mesopotamia) in 1938, Baghdad gradually regained some of its former prominence as a significant center of Arabic culture.
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Balkh
Balkh (Persian: بلخ Ancient Greek: Baktra or Zariaspa), was an ancient city and centre of Zoroastrianism in what is now northern Afghanistan. Today it is a small town in the province of Balkh, about 20 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif, and some 74 km (46 mi) south of the Amu Darya. It was one of the major cities of Khorasan. Marco Polo described Balkh as a "noble and great city".
The ancient city of Balkh was under the Greeks renamed Bactra, giving its name to Bactria. It was mostly known as the centre and capital of Bactria or Takharistan. Balkh is now for the most part a mass of ruins, situated some 12 km from the right bank of the seasonally flowing Balkh River, at an elevation of about 365 m (1,200 ft).
Balkh is one of the oldest cities in the world and is considered to be the first city to which the Indo-Iranian tribes moved from the North of Amu Darya, between 2000 - 1500 BC. The Arabs called it Umm Al-Belaad or Mother of Cities due to its antiquity. The city was traditionally a center of Zoroastianism. The name Zariaspa, which is either an alternate name for Balkh or a term for part of the city, may derive from the important Zoroastrian fire temple Azar-i-Asp. Balkh was regarded as the first place where Zoroaster first preached his religion, as well as the place where he died.
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Battle of Issus
Coordinates: 36°50′16″N 36°12′40″E / 36.837894°N 36.211109°E / 36.837894; 36.211109
The Battle of Issus occurred in southern Anatolia, in November 333 BC. The invading troops, led by the young Alexander of Macedonia, defeated the army personally led by Darius III of Achaemenid Persia in the second great battle for primacy in Asia. After Alexander's forces successfully forced a crossing of the Hellespont (the Dardanelles) and defeated the Persian satraps led by a Greek mercenary, Memnon of Rhodes, in a prior encounter, the Battle of the Granicus, Darius took personal charge of his army, gathered a large army from the depths of the empire, and maneuvered to cut the Macedonian line of supply, requiring Alexander to countermarch his forces, setting the stage for the battle near the mouth of the Pinarus River and south of the town of Issus.
Eventual accounts tell of bodies piled within the waters high enough to dam its flow, and the river running red with blood. So while Alexander is known to have repeatedly emphasized the importance of maintaining contact with the beach to his sub-commander on the left (seaward) flank, it is safe to assume a lot of action that day along all the water course in its 2.5 km travel through the narrow and hilly coastal plain that prevented the Persians, with their greater numbers, from outflanking the attacking Greeks.
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Battle of Talas
The Battle of Talas (or Battle of Artlakh) (怛罗斯会战) (معركة نهر طلاس) in 751 AD was an especially notable conflict between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Dynasty, then under Emperor Xuanzong (together with various other peoples and nations associated with the geographical territory involved) for control not only of the Syr Darya region, but also a strategic area of Central Asia. The Battle of Talas marked the end of the Tang Dynasty's western expansion of their territory, this representing the furthest point of territorial expansion to the west by the Tang, or any prior or subsequent Chinese dynasties. Leading up to this battlefield showdown, the Tang army had proceeded further and further westward, in a series of military events during the course of which various cities and states were conquered or overthrown. Meanwhile, a new power had arisen in the region. Beginning with a revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate, largely centered in Khurasan, not too far from Talas, the rising Abbasid Caliphate decisively defeated the rival Umayyad Caliphate, in the Battle of the Zab, in 750, which thus freed up their armies for other purposes, one of which would be challenge the Tang expansion into the region. In July, 751, both the Tang troops and the Abbasid troops met in the valley of the Talas River, where the Tang forces were defeated. The Battle of Talas is important because of the resulting changes in the political fortunes of the rival sides, and in the region generally, not to mention the economic importance of control over this strategic region along the Silk Road. There is also a tradition that Chinese prisoners captured as the result of the battle allowed for the transference of paper-making technology to the Middle East and eventually Europe.
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Bukhara
Bukhara (Tajik: Бухоро Bukhoro, Persian: بخارا; Uzbek: Buxoro; Russian: Бухара Bukhara), from the Soghdian βuxārak ("lucky place"), is the capital of the Bukhara Province (viloyat) of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 (2009 census estimate). The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time. Located on the Silk Road, the city has long been a center of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion. The historic center of Bukhara, which contains numerous mosques and madrassas, has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Ethnic Uzbek may constitute the largest element in Bukhara, with the native Tajiks being as numerous. The city long has had a mixed population including Jews and other ethnic minorities.
Bukhara was known as Bokhara in 19th and early 20th century English publications and as Buhe/Puhe（捕喝） in Tang Chinese.
Persian-speaking Soghdians inhabited the area, and some centuries later the Persian language became dominant among them. Encyclopædia Iranica mentions that the name Bukhara is possibly derived from the Soghdian βuxārak (Place of Good Fortune).
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Cairo
Cairo ( /ˈkaɪroʊ/ KYE-roh; Arabic: القاهرة al-Qāhira, literally "The Vanquisher" or "The Conqueror"), is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Located near the Nile Delta, it was founded in the year 969 A.D. making it 1,043 years old. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life. Cairo was founded by the Fatimid dynasty in the 10th century AD.; but the land composing the present-day city was the site of national capitals whose remnants remain visible in parts of Old Cairo. Cairo is also associated with Ancient Egypt due to its proximity to the ancient cities of Memphis, Giza and Fustat which are nearby to the Great Sphinx and the pyramids of Giza.
Egyptians today often refer to Cairo as Maṣr (Arabic: مصر), the Arabic pronunciation of the name for Egypt itself, emphasizing the city's continued role in Egyptian influence. Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industries in the Arab World, as well as the world's second-oldest institution of higher learning, al-Azhar University. Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in the city, and the Arab League has had its headquarters in Cairo for most of its existence.
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Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia (for endonyms, see below), is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europe's highest mountain, Mt. Elbrus. Politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts.
The northern portion of the Caucasus is known as the Ciscaucasus and the southern portion as the Transcaucasus.
The Ciscaucasus contains the larger majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range, also known as the Major Caucasus mountains. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands. All of Armenia, Azerbaijan (excluding the northern parts) and Georgia (excluding the northern parts) are in South Caucasus.
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China
China (i/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.
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Fergana
Coordinates: 40°23′11″N 71°47′11″E / 40.38639°N 71.78639°E / 40.38639; 71.78639 Fergana (Uzbek: Farg'ona/Фарғона; Persian: فرغانه Farghāneh; Russian: Фергана́) is a city (population: 214,000), the capital of Fergana Province in eastern Uzbekistan, at the southern edge of the Fergana Valley in southern Central Asia, cutting across the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Fergana is about 420 km east of Tashkent, and about 75 km west of Andijan.
The fertile Fergana Valley was an important conduit on the Silk Roads (more precisely the North Silk Road), which connected the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an to the west over the Wushao Ling Mountain Pass to Wuwei and emerging in Kashgar before linking to ancient Parthia, or on to the north of the Aral and Caspian Seas to ports on the Black Sea.
The ancient kingdom referred to as Dayuan (大宛, "Great Yuan", literally "Great Ionians") in the Chinese chronicles is now generally accepted as being in the Ferghana Valley. It is sometimes, though less commonly, written as Dawan (大宛). Dayuan were Greeks, the descendants of the Greek colonists that were settled by Alexander the Great in Ferghana in 329 BCE, and prospered within the Hellenistic realm of the Seleucids and Greco-Bactrians, until they were isolated by the migrations of the Yuezhi around 160 BCE. It has been suggested that the name "Yuan" was simply a transliteration of the words “Yona”, or “Yavana”, used throughout antiquity in Asia to designate Greeks (“Ionians”). Their capital was Alexandria Eschate.
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Fergana Valley
The Fergana Valley or Farghana Valley (Uzbek: Farg‘ona vodiysi, Kyrgyz: Фергана өрөөнү [ferʁana œrœːny], Tajik: водии Фaрғонa, Russian: Ферганская долина, Persian: وادی فرغانه) is a region in Central Asia spread across eastern Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Divided into three subdivisions of the former Soviet Union, the valley is ethnically diverse, and in the early 21st century was the scene of ethnic conflict. A large triangular valley in what is an often dry part of Central Asia, the Fergana owes its fertility to two rivers, the Naryn and the Kara Darya, which run from the east, joining near Namangan, forming the Syr Darya river. The valley's history stretches back over 2300 years, when its population was conquered by Greco-Bactrian invaders from the west. Chinese chroniclers date its towns to more than 2100 years ago, as a path between Greek, Chinese, Bactrian and Parthian civilizations. In the path of the Northern Silk Road, the area was converted by Muslim invaders from the west, and was home to Babur, famous conqueror and founder of the Mughal Empire in India, tying the region to modern Afghanistan and South Asia. The Russian Empire conquered the valley at the end of the 19th century, and it became part of the Soviet Union from the beginning of the 20th. Its three soviet regional states gained independence in 1991. The area remains Muslim, populated by ethnically Uzbek, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz, often intermixed and not matching modern borders. As well there historically have been substantial Russian, Kashgarians, Kipchaks, Bukharan Jews and Romani minorities. Mass cotton cultivation, introduced by the Soviets, remains central to the economy, along with a wide range of grains, fruits and vegetables. There is a long history of stock breeding, leatherwork, and a growing mining sector, including deposits of coal, iron, sulfur, gypsum, rock-salt, lacustrine salt, naphtha, and some small known oil reserves.
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Ghazni
For the Province of Ghazni see Ghazni Province
Ghazni (Persian/Pashto: غزنی - Ġaznī; historically known as غزنین / Ġaznīn and غزنه / Ġazna) is a city in central-east Afghanistan with a population of about 141,000 people. Situated on a plateau at 7,280 feet (2,219 m) above sea level, the city is considered more like a town by international standard and serves as the capital of Ghazni Province. It is linked by a highway with Kandahar to the south-west, Kabul to the northeast and Gardez to the east. It is located 143 kilometes by road southwest of Kabul.
Just like other cities of Afghanistan, Ghazni is very old and has witnessed many military invasions. In pre-Islamic days, the area was inhabited by Buddhists and Hindus until the Saffarids from Zarang in the east came to spread Islam in the 9th century. Sabuktigin made it the capital of the Ghaznvid Empire in the 10th century. It was later destroyed by the Ghurids, when one of its rulers completely burned the city to the ground. During the First Anglo-Afghan War in the 19th century, it was again destroyed by the British-Indian forces. The city is currently being rebuilt by the NATO states, mainly by the United States.
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Gorgan
Gorgan (Persian: گرگان, also Romanized as Gorgān and Gūrgān; Caspian: Vergen; formerly, Astarabad (Persian: اَستِر آباد, also Romanized as Asterābād), is the capital of Golestan Province, Iran. It lies approximately 400 km (250 mi) to the north east of Tehran, some 30 km (19 mi) away from the Caspian Sea. At the 2006 census, its population was 269,226, in 73,702 families.
Some 150 km (93 mi) east of Gorgan is the Golestan National Park. The city has a regional airport and several universities. Gorgan Airport was opened in September 2005.
The city was named Hyrcania, Hyrcani or Hyrcana in ancient Greek records, which comes from Pahlavi Varkâna -- "Land of the Wolves". Although modern Gorgan is only a city and county (sharing the same name), ancient Hyrcania was the name of a greater region on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea (encompassing all of the present day Golestan province, as well as some eastern parts of the Mazandaran province, and some southern parts of the present day Republic of Turkmenistan). In modern times and until 1937 the city used to be known as Astarabad.
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Herat
Herāt (Persian / Pashto: هرات) is the capital of Herat province in Afghanistan. It is the third largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 397,456 as of 2006. It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan. The city is linked with Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif via highway 1 or the ring road that stretches across the country. It is also linked to the city of Mashad in Iran through the border town of Islam Qala.
Situated in a fertile area, Herāt dates back to the Avestan times and was traditionally known for its wine. The city has a number of historic sites, including the Citadel of Alexander and the Mosallah Complex. During the Middle Ages Herāt became one of the important cities of Khorasan, as it was known as the pearl of Khorasan. It was made independent in 1717 from the Safavid dynasty by the Afghans until 1736 when the Hotaki dynasty was defeated by the Afsharids, which finally became part of the Durrani Empire in 1747. It saw some actions during the 19th century Anglo-Afghan wars. Much of the city has been spared from destructions that occurred in other cities of Afghanistan during the 1978-present wars.
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India
India (i/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.
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Iran
Coordinates: 32°N 53°E / 32°N 53°E / 32; 53
Iran (i/ɪˈrɑːn/ or /aɪˈræn/;Persian: ایران [ʔiˈɾɒn] (
listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ایران Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia ( /ˈpɜrʒə/ or /ˈpɜrʃə/). Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.
The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km2 (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Iran has the second largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth largest proven petroleum reserves.
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Iraq
Iraq (/ɪˈræk/ or
i/ɪˈrɑːk/; Arabic: العراق al-‘Irāq); officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic: 
جمهورية العراق (help·info) Jumhūriyyat al-‘Irāq), is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.
Iraq borders Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Jordan to the southwest and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south. Iraq has a narrow section of coastline measuring 58 km (36 mi) on the northern Persian Gulf. The capital city, Baghdad is in the center-east of the country.
Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through the center of Iraq, flowing from northwest to southeast. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the steppe and desert landscape that covers most of Western Asia.
Historically, Iraq was the center of the Abbasid Arabic Islamic Empire. Iraq has been known to the west by the Greek toponym 'Mesopotamia' (Land between the rivers) and has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the 6th millennium BC. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is often referred to as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of writing, law and the wheel. At different periods in its history, Iraq was the center of the indigenous Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid empires. It was also part of the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires, and under British control as a League of Nations mandate.
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Isfahan
Isfahan (Persian: اصفهان Esfahān), historically also rendered in English as Ispahan, Sepahan or Hispahan, is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran, located about 340 km south of Tehran. It has a population of 1,583,609 and is Iran's third largest city after Tehran and Mashhad. The Isfahan metropolitan area had a population of 3,430,353 in the 2006 Census, the second most populous metropolitan area in Iran after Tehran.
The cities of Zarrinshahr, Fooladshahr and Najafabad, Se-deh , Shahin-shahr, Mobarakeh, Falavarjan and chiarmahin all constitute the metropolitan city of Isfahan.
Isfahan is located on the main north-south and east-west routes crossing Iran, and was once one of the largest cities in the world. It flourished from 1050 to 1722, particularly in the 16th century under the Safavid dynasty, when it became the capital of Persia for the second time in its history. Even today, the city retains much of its past glory. It is famous for its Islamic architecture, with many beautiful boulevards, covered bridges, palaces, mosques, and minarets. This led to the Persian proverb "'Esfahān nesf-e jahān ast" (Isfahan is half of the world).
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Kabul
Kabul ( /ˈkɑːbəl/, /ˈkɑːbuːl/; Pashto: کابل Kābəl, IPA: [kɑˈbəl]; Persian: کابل Kābol, IPA: [kɒːˈbol]), also spelled Cabool, Caubul or Cabul, mostly in historical contexts, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Kabul is the 5th fastest growing city in the world [2] and the world's 64th largest city [3]. It is also the capital of Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan. According to latest estimates, the population of the Kabul metropolitan area is over 4 million.
The city serves as the nation's cultural and learning centre, situated 1,791 metres (5,876 ft) above sea level in a narrow valley, wedged between the Hindu Kush mountains along the Kabul River. It is linked with Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-e Sharif via the circular Highway 1 that stretches across Afghanistan. It is also the start of the main road to Jalalabad and further to Peshawar, Pakistan. The Kabul International Airport is located about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from the center of the city, next to the Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood. Bagram Airfield is about 40 kilometres (25 mi) northeast of Kabul.
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Kandahar
Kandahar, occasionally Candahar, or Qandahar, (Pashto: کندهار Kandahār) is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m (3,297 feet) above sea level. The Arghandab River runs along the west of the city.
Kandahar is the original and most culturally significant city of the Pashtuns and has always been their traditional seat of power. It is a major trading center for sheep, wool, cotton, silk, felt, food grains, fresh and dried fruit, and tobacco. The region produces fine fruits, especially pomegranates and grapes, and the city has plants for canning, drying, and packing fruit. Kandahar has an international airport and extensive road links with Farah and Herat to the west, Kabul and Peshawar to the northeast, Tarinkot to the north, and Quetta in neighboring Balochistan (Pakistan) to the south.
The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known human settlements. Alexander the Great is said to have laid-out the foundation of what is now Old Kandahar in the 4th century BC and gave it the Ancient Greek name Αλεξάνδρεια Aραχωσίας (Alexandria of Arachosia). Many empires have long fought over the city due to its strategic location along the trade routes of southern, central and western Asia. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak made the region an independent kingdom and turned Kandahar into the first capital of the Hotaki dynasty. In 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the last Afghan empire, made it the capital of modern Afghanistan.
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Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan (i/ˌkɑːzəkˈstɑːn/ or /ˌkæzəkˈstæn/) (Kazakh: Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, pronounced [qɑzɑqstɑ́n]; Russian: Казахстан [kəzɐxˈstan]), officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Europe. The ninth largest country in the world by land area, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of 2,727,300 square kilometres (1,053,000 sq mi) is larger than Western Europe. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and also borders on a significant part of the Caspian Sea. Although Kazakhstan does not share a border with Mongolia, its most easterly point is only 38 kilometres (24 mi) from Mongolia's western tip. The terrain of Kazakhstan ranges from flatlands, steppes, taigas, rock-canyons, hills, deltas, and snow-capped mountains to deserts. With 16.6 million people (2011 estimate) Kazakhstan has the 62nd largest population in the world, though its population density is less than 6 people per square kilometre (15 per sq. mi.). The capital was moved in 1998 from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, to Astana.
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Kerman
Kerman (Persian: كرمان, also Romanized as Kermān and Kirman; also known as Carmania) is a city in and capital of Kerman Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 515,114, in 127,806 families, being 13th most populous city in Iran at that time. It's the largest and most developed city in the Kerman Province and also the major city in South-East of Iran. It is one of the largest cities of Iran in terms of area. Kerman is famous for its long history and strong cultural heritage. The city is home to many historic mosques and Zoroastrian fire temples. Kerman is in the list of recent world record of 1000 clean cities. Kerman was formerly the capital of Iran during several periods of time. Located in a large and flat plain, this city is located 1,036 km (643 mi) south of Tehran, the capital of Iran.
Kerman was founded as a defensive outpost, with the name Behdesīr, by Ardeshir I, founder of the Sassanid Empire, in the 3rd century AD. After the Battle of Nahāvand in 642, the city came under Muslim rule. At first the city's isolation allowed Kharijites and Zoroastrians to thrive there, but the Kharijites were wiped out in 698, and the population was mostly Muslim by 725. Already in the eighth century the city was famous for its manufacture of cashmere wool shawls and other textiles. The Abbasid Caliphate's authority over the region was weak, and power passed in the tenth century to the Buyid dynasty, which maintained control even when the region and city fell to Mahmud of Ghazna in the late tenth century. The name Kerman was adopted at some point in the tenth century.
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Khanate of Khiva
The Khanate of Khiva (Persian: خانات خیوهUzbek: خیوه خانلیگی) was the name of an Uzbek state that existed in the historical region of Khwarezm from 1511 to 1920, except for a period of Persian occupation by Nadir Shah between 1740–1746. The Khans were the patrilineal descendants of Shayban (Shiban), the fifth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan. Centered in the irrigated plains of the lower Amu Darya, south of the Aral Sea, with the capital in Khiva City, the country was ruled by the Kungrads, a branch[citation needed] of the Astrakhans, themselves a Genghisid dynasty. It covered present western Uzbekistan, southwestern Kazakhstan and much of Turkmenistan before Russian arrival at second half of 19th century.
In 1873, the Khanate of Khiva was much reduced in size and became a Russian protectorate. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Khiva had a revolution too, and in 1920 the Khanate was replaced by the Khorezm People’s Soviet Republic. In 1924, the area was formally incorporated into the Soviet Union and today is largely a part of Karakalpakstan and Xorazm Province in Uzbekistan.
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Khanate of Kokand
The Khanate of Kokand (Persian: خانات خوقند) was a state in Central Asia that existed from 1709–1876 within the territory of modern Kyrgyzistan, eastern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and southeastern Kazakhstan. The name of the city and the khanate is also often spelled as Khoqand in modern scholarly literature.
The Khanate of Kokand was established in 1709 when the Shaybanid emir Shahrukh of the Minglar Uzbeks declared independence from the Khanate of Bukhara, establishing a state in the eastern part of the Fergana Valley. He built a citadel to be his capital in the small town of Kokand, thus starting the Khanate of Kokand.
His son Abd al-Karim and grandson Narbuta Beg enlarged the citadel. However, both Abd al-Karim and Narbuta Beg were forced to submit as protectorate and pay tribute to the Qing dynasty in China between 1774 and 1798.
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Khiva
Khiva (Uzbek: Xiva / Хива; Persian: خیوه / Khiveh; Russian: Хива; alternative or historical names include Khorasam, Khoresm, Khwarezm, Khwarizm, Khwarazm, Chorezm, and Persian: خوارزم) is a city of approximately 50,000 people located in Xorazm Province, Uzbekistan. It is the former capital of Khwarezmia and the Khanate of Khiva. Itchan Kala in Khiva was the first site in Uzbekistan to be inscribed in the World Heritage List (1991).
In the early part of its history, the inhabitants of the area were from Iranian stock and spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Khwarezmian. Subsequently the Iranic ruling class was replaced by Turks in the 10th century A.D, and the region gradually tuned into an area with a majority of Turkic speakers.
The city of Khiva was first recorded by Muslim travellers in the 10th century, although archaeologists assert that the city has existed since the 6th century. By the early 17th century, Khiva had become the capital of the Khanate of Khiva, ruled by a branch of the Astrakhans, a Genghisid dynasty.
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Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan ( /ˈkɜrɡɨstæn/ KUR-gi-stan;Kyrgyz & Russian: Кыргызстан, Kyrgyzstan, or Киргизия, Kirgiziya), officially the Kyrgyz Republic is a nation located in Central Asia. Landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east. Its capital and largest city is Bishkek.
Kyrgyzstan is officially a democratic parliamentary republic. A revolution in April 2010 overthrew the former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev and resulted in the adoption of a new constitution and the appointment of an interim government. Presidential elections were held in November 2011.
Kyrgyzstan is one of the active members of the Turkic Council and the TÜRKSOY community. The national language, Kyrgyz, is also closely related to the other Turkic languages, with which it shares strong cultural and historical ties.
Additionally, Kyrgyzstan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Eurasian Economic Community, the Non-aligned movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
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Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States of America, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in four buildings in Washington, D.C., as well as the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and number of books. The head of the Library is the Librarian of Congress, currently James H. Billington.
The Library of Congress was instituted for Congress in 1800, and was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century. After much of the original collection had been destroyed during the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson sold 6,487 books, his entire personal collection, to the library in 1815. After a period of decline during the mid-19th century the Library of Congress began to grow rapidly in both size and importance after the American Civil War, culminating in the construction of a separate library building and the transference of all copyright deposit holdings to the Library. During the rapid expansion of the 20th century the Library of Congress assumed a preeminent public role, becoming a "library of last resort" and expanding its mission for the benefit of scholars and the American people.
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Merv
Merv (Persian: مرو, Marv), formerly Achaemenid Satrapy of Margiana, and later Alexandria and Antiochia in Margiana (Greek: Αντιόχεια της Μαργιανής), was a major oasis-city in Central Asia, on the historical Silk Road, located near today's Mary in Turkmenistan. Several cities have existed on this site, which is significant for the interchange of culture and politics at a site of major strategic value. It is claimed that Merv was briefly the largest city in the world in the 12th century. The site of ancient Merv has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. (See List of World Heritage Sites in Turkmenistan)
Merv's origins are prehistoric: archaeological surveys have revealed many survivals of village life as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. Under the name of Mouru, Merv is mentioned with Bakhdi (Balkh) in the geography of the Zend-Avesta (commentaries on the Avesta). Under the Achaemenid dynasty Merv is mentioned as being a place of some importance: under the name of Margu it occurs as part of one of the satrapies in the Behistun inscriptions (ca 515 BC) of the Persian monarch Darius Hystaspis. The ancient city appears to have been re-founded by Cyrus the Great (559 - 530 BC), but the Achaemenid levels are deeply covered by later strata at the site. (See also Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex.)
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Mongolia
Mongoliai/mɒŋˈɡoʊliə/ (Mongolian: Монгол улс (help·info), literally Mongol country/state) is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only 38 kilometres (24 mi) from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest city, is home to about 45% of the population. Mongolia's political system is a parliamentary republic.
The area of what is now Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the Gökturks and others. The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206. After the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols returned to their earlier pattern of constant internal conflict and occasional raids on the Chinese borderlands. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Mongolia came under the influence of Tibetan Buddhism. At the end of the 17th century, all of Mongolia had been incorporated into the area ruled by the Qing Dynasty. During the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared independence, but had to struggle until 1921 to firmly establish de facto independence from the Republic of China, and until 1945 to gain international recognition.
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Pakistan
Pakistan (i/ˈpækɨstæn/ or i/pɑːkiˈstɑːn/; Urdu: پاکستان) (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪˈst̪aːn] (
listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریۂ پاکستان), is a sovereign country in South Asia. It sits at the crossroads of the strategically important regions of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west and north, Iran to the southwest and China in the far northeast. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, and it shares a marine border with Oman.
The territory of modern Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures, including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, and has undergone invasions or settlements by Hindu, Persian, Indo-Greek, Islamic, Turco-Mongol, Afghan and Sikh cultures. Thus the area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Indian Mauryan Empire, the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the Arab Umayyad Caliphate, the Mongol Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Durrani Empire, the Sikh Empire and the British Empire. As a result of the Pakistan Movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and India's struggle for independence, Pakistan was created in 1947 as an independent nation for Muslims from the regions in the east and west of India where there was a Muslim majority. Initially a dominion, Pakistan adopted a new constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic. A civil war in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh.
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Pamir Mountains
Coordinates: 39°N 72°E / 39°N 72°E / 39; 72
The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range in Central Asia formed by the junction or knot of the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges. They are among the world’s highest mountains and since Victorian times they have been known as the "Roof of the World" a probable translation from the Persian.
In other languages they are called: Kyrgyz Памир тоолору; Persian: رشته کوه های پامیر Reshte Kūh-hāye Pāmīr; Tajik: Кӯҳҳои Помир; Pashto: د پامير غرونه; Uyghur: پامىر ئېگىزلىكى; Urdu: پامیر کوهستان; Hindi: पामीर पर्वतमाला; Chinese: 帕米尔高原; pinyin: Pàmǐ'ěr Gāoyuán. Another Chinese name is Congling (cōnglǐng 葱嶺) (Wade-Giles: Ts'ung-ling) or "Onion Range" (after the wild onions growing in the region).
The precise extent of the Pamir Mountains is debatable. They lie mostly in Gorno-Badakhshan province, Tajikistan and Badakshan Province, Afghanistan. To the north they join the Tian Shan mountains along the Alay Valley of Kyrgyzstan. To the south they join the Hindu Kush mountains along the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and also Gilgit–Baltistan in Pakistan. To the east they may end on the Chinese border or extend to the range that includes Kongur Tagh which is sometimes included in the Kunlun Mountains.
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Parthian Empire
The Parthian (pronounced /ˈpɑrθiən/) Empire (247 BC – 224 AD), also known as the Arsacid (/ˈɑrsəsɪd/) Empire (Modern Persian: اشکانیان Ashkāniān), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Persia. Its latter name comes from Arsaces I of Parthia who, as leader of the Parni tribe, founded it in the mid-3rd century BC when he conquered the Parthia region in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) in rebellion against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I of Parthia (r. c. 171–138 BC) greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now south-eastern Turkey, to eastern Iran. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and Han Empire of China, became a center of trade and commerce.
The Parthians largely adopted the art, architecture, religious beliefs, and royal insignia of their culturally heterogeneous empire, which encompassed Persian, Hellenistic, and regional cultures. For about the first half of its existence, the Arsacid court adopted elements of Greek culture, though it eventually saw a gradual revival of Iranian traditions. The Arsacid rulers were titled the "King of Kings", as a claim to be the heirs to the Achaemenid Empire; indeed, they accepted many local kings as vassals where the Achaemenids would have had centrally appointed, albeit largely autonomous, satraps. The court did appoint a small number of satraps, largely outside Iran, but these satrapies were smaller and less powerful than the Achaemenid potentates. With the expansion of Arsacid power, the seat of central government shifted from Nisa, Turkmenistan to Ctesiphon along the Tigris (south of modern Baghdad, Iraq), although several other sites also served as capitals.
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Russia
Russiai/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the US state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation with 143 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.
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Safavid Dynasty
The Safavid dynasty (Persian: سلسلهٔ صفويان; Azerbaijani: صفویلر) was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Iran. They ruled one of the greatest Persian empires since the Muslim conquest of Persia and established the Twelver school of Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in Muslim history. The Safavids ruled from 1501 to 1722 (experiencing a brief restoration from 1729 to 1736) and at their height, they controlled all of modern Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of Azerbaijan and Republic of Armenia, most of Iraq, Georgia, Afghanistan, and the Caucasus, as well as parts of Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey. Safavid Iran was one of the Islamic "gunpowder empires", along with its neighbours, the Ottoman and Mughal empires.
The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safaviyya Sufi order, which was established in the city of Ardabil in the Azerbaijan region. It was of mixed ancestry (Azerbaijani,Kurdish and Turkmen, which included intermarriages with Georgian and Pontic Greek dignitaries). From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established control over all of Greater Iran and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region, thus becoming the first native dynasty since the Sassanid Empire to establish a unified Iranian state.
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Samarkand
Coordinates: 39°39′15″N 66°57′35″E / 39.65417°N 66.95972°E / 39.65417; 66.95972
Samarkand (Tajik: Самарқанд; Persian: سمرقند; Uzbek: Samarqand; from Sogdian: "Stone Fort" or "Rock Town") is the second-largest city in Uzbekistan and the capital of Samarqand Province. The city is most noted for its central position on the Silk Road between China and the West, and for being an Islamic centre for scholarly study. In the 14th century it became the capital of the empire of Timur (Tamerlane) and is the site of his mausoleum (the Gur-e Amir). The Bibi-Khanym Mosque remains one of the city's most notable landmarks. The Registan was the ancient center of the city.
In 2001, UNESCO added the city to its World Heritage List as Samarkand – Crossroads of Cultures.
The city was known by an abbreviated name of Marakanda when Alexander the Great took it in 332BC. There are various theories of how Marakanda evolved into Samarkanda/Samarkan. One derives the name from the Old Persian asmara, "stone", "rock", and Sogdian kand, "fort", "town". Others less convincingly derive the name from the old Turkic "Semiz-Kent" meaning "Rich City".[citation needed]. Since the name Marakanda was already in existence 2300 years ago and long before anyone had heard of Turks in that region of Transoxiana, this version is likely a folk etymology.
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Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia (i/ˌsaʊdi əˈreɪbi.ə/ or i/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbi.ə/; Arabic: السعودية as-Su‘ūdīyah[citation needed] or incorrectly as-Sa‘ūdīyah, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Arabic: المملكة العربية السعودية al-Mamlakah al-‘Arabīyah as-Su‘ūdīyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab world, after Algeria. It is bordered by Jordan, and Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south. The Red Sea lies to its west, and the Persian Gulf lies to the east. Saudi Arabia has an area of approximately 2,250,000 km2 (870,000 sq mi), and it has an estimated population of 27 million, of which 9 million are registered foreign expatriates and an estimated 2 million are illegal immigrants. Saudi nationals comprise an estimated 16 million people.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, referred to in Arabic as the Al Saud. The Saudi Arabian government, which has been an absolute monarchy since its inception, refers to its system of government as being Islamic, though this is contested by many due to its strong basis in Salafism, a minority school of thought in Islam. The kingdom is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam.
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Soviet Union
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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Sulaiman Mountains
Coordinates: 30°30′N 70°10′E / 30.5°N 70.167°E / 30.5; 70.167
The Sulaiman Mountains (Pashto: د سليمان غر; Balochi/Urdu/Persian: کوه سليمان Koh-e Sulaimān), or the Kesai Mountains (Pashto: د كسي غرونه), are a major geological feature of southeastern Afghanistan (Zabul, most of Loya Paktia and northeastern Kandahar province), South Waziristan, and most of northern Balochistan province of Pakistan. The Sulaiman Mountains form the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau where the Indus River separates it from the Indian Subcontinent. Bordering the Sulaiman Range to the north are the arid highlands of the Hindu Kush, where more than 50 percent of the lands lie above 2,000 meters.
In Balochistan, the most famous peaks of the Sulaiman Mountains are Takht-e-Sulaiman (3,487 meters), Taunsa Sharif, the Khilafat Hills (3,475 meters) in Ziarat, Kesai Ghar (3,444 meters) near Zhob and Zarghun Ghar (3,578 meters) near Quetta.
Rivers that flow from the Sulaiman mountain system include the Dori River and the Gomal River. Takht-e-Sulaiman at 3,483 metres (11,427 ft), Koh-i-Takatu at 3,472 metres (11,391 ft), the Kesai Ghar at 3,444 metres (11,299 ft) and Giandari are some of the mountain peaks in the Sulaiman range. The mountain range runs north in Loya Paktia and meets the Spin Ghar range northeast of Gardez in Paktia province. To the east, the mountain range enters Punjab in Dera Ghazi Khan district and Dera Ismail Khan(Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa), and approaches the Indus River near Mithankot in Rajanpur district of Punjab. The eastern slopes drop very quickly to the Indus River, but towards west, the mountain range drops more gradually to the Sistan Basin.
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Tajikistan
Tajikistan (i/tɑːˈdʒiːkɨstɑːn/, /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/, or /tæˈdʒiːkiːstæn/; Тоҷикистон [ˈtɔjikɪsˈtɔn]), officially the Republic of Tajikistan (Tajik: Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Cumhuriyi Tocikiston; Persian: جمهوری تاجیکستان Jomhuri-ye Tajikestan; Russian: Республика Таджикистан, Respublika Tadzhikistan), is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. It borders Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. Gilgit Baltistan as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan are separated from Tajikistan by the narrow Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan in the south.
Most of Tajikistan's population belongs to the Persian-speaking Tajik ethnic group, who share language, culture and history with Afghanistan and Iran. Once part of the Samanid Empire, Tajikistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union in the 20th century, known as the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik SSR). Mountains cover over 90% of this Central Asian republic.
After independence, Tajikistan suffered from a devastating civil war which lasted from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability and foreign aid have allowed the country's economy to grow. Trade in commodities such as cotton, aluminium and uranium has contributed greatly to this steady improvement.
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Tashkent
Tashkent (/ˌtæʃˈkɛnt/; Uzbek: Toshkent, Тошкент; Russian: Ташкент, [tɐʂˈkʲent]; literally "Stone City") is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.
During its long history, Tashkent has had various changes in names and political and religious affiliations.
Tashkent started as an oasis on the Chirchik River, near the foothills of the West Tian Shan Mountains. In ancient times, this area contained Beitian, probably the summer "capital" of the Kangju confederacy.
In pre-Islamic and early Islamic times the town and the province were known as "Chach". The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi also refers to the city as Chach. Later the town came to be known as Chachkand/Chashkand, meaning "Chach City".[citation needed] The principality of Chach, whose main town had a square citadel built around the 5th to 3rd centuries BC, some 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) south of the Syr Darya River. By the 7th century AD, Chach had over 30 towns and a network of over 50 canals, forming a trade center between the Sogdians and Turkic nomads. The Buddhist monk Xuánzàng 玄奘 (602/603? – 664 CE), who travelled from China to India through Central Asia, mentioned the name of the city as Zhěshí 赭時. The Chinese chronicles Suí shū 隋書 (Book of Suí), Běi shǐ 北史 (History of Northern Dynasties) and Táng shū 唐書 (Book of Táng) mention a possession called Shí 石 or Zhěshí 赭時 with a capital of the same name since the fifth century AD [Bichurin, 1950. v. II]. The region came under the sway of Islam in the early parts of the 8th century.
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Turkey
Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims. The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population.
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Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan (i/tɜrkˈmɛnɨstæn/ or i/tɜrkmɛnɨˈstɑːn/; Turkmen: Türkmenistan), formerly also known as Turkmenia (Russian: Туркмения), is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR). Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, Uzbekistan to the east and northeast, Kazakhstan to the north and northwest and the Caspian Sea to the west.
Turkmenistan's GDP growth rate of 11% in 2010[update] ranks 4th in the world, but these figures are subject to wide margins of error. It possesses the world's fourth largest reserves of natural gas resources. Although it is wealthy in natural resources in certain areas, most of the country is covered by the Karakum (Black Sand) Desert.
The Turkmen government operates as a single-party system. Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov (called "Türkmenbaşy" — "leader of the Turkmens") until his sudden death on 21 December 2006. Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov was elected the new president on 11 February 2007.
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Ukraine
Ukraine (i/juːˈkreɪn/ yew-KRAYN; Ukrainian: Україна, transliterated: Ukrayina, [ukrɑˈjinɑ]; Russian: Украина; Crimean Tatar: Ukraina) is a country in Central and Eastern Europe. Ukraine borders the Russian Federation to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after the Russian Federation.
According to a popular and well established theory, the medieval state of Kievan Rus was established by the Varangians in the 9th century as the first historically recorded East Slavic state which emerged as a powerful nation in the Middle Ages until it disintegrated in the 12th century. By the middle of the 14th century, Ukrainian territories were under the rule of three external powers—the Golden Horde, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Kingdom of Poland. After the Great Northern War (1700–1721) Ukraine was divided between a number of regional powers and, by the 19th century, the largest part of Ukraine was integrated into the Russian Empire with the rest under Austro-Hungarian control. A chaotic period of incessant warfare ensued, with several internationally recognized attempts at independence from 1917 to 1921, following World War I and the Russian Civil War. Ukraine emerged from its own civil war, and on December 30, 1922 Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian SSR's territory was enlarged westward during the civil war shortly before, and after World War II, and further south in 1954 with the Crimea transfer. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding members of the United Nations.
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United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
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Uzbekistan
Uzbekistani/ʊzˌbɛkɨˈstɑːn/, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi, Ўзбекистон Республикаси) is the only doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of only two such countries worldwide. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. Before 1991, it was part of the Soviet Union.
Uzbekistan is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia.
Once part of the Persian Samanid and later Timurid empires, the region was conquered in the early 16th century by Uzbek nomads, who spoke an Eastern Turkic language. Most of Uzbekistan’s population today belong to the Uzbek ethnic group and speak the Uzbek language, one of the family of Turkic languages.
Uzbekistan was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 19th century, and in 1924 became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, known as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR). It became independent on 31 August 1991 (officially, from the following day).
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Xinjiang
Xinjiang (XUAR) (Uyghur: شىنجاڭ, ULY: Shinjang; Mandarin pronunciation: [ɕíntɕjɑ́ŋ]; Chinese: 新疆; pinyin: Xīnjiāng; Wade–Giles: Hsin1-chiang1; Postal map spelling: Sinkiang) is an autonomous region (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2. Xinjiang borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.
It is home to a number of different ethnic groups including the Uyghur, Han, Kazakh, Hui, Kyrgyz, and Mongol. More than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for minorities are located in Xinjiang. Older English-language reference works often refer to the area as Chinese Turkestan, Sinkiang, and East 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 Xinjiang's land area is fit for human habitation.
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Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας, Aléxandros ho Mégas from the Greek αλέξω alexo "to defend, help" + ανήρ aner "man"), was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders.
Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II of Macedon, to the throne in 336 BC after Philip was assassinated. Upon Philip's death, Alexander inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. He was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's military expansion plans. In 334 BC, he invaded Persian-ruled Asia Minor and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.
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Alisher Usmanov
Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov (Uzbek: Alisher Usmonov, Алишер Бурханович Усмонов) (born 9 September 1953, Chust, Namangan Province, Uzbek SSR, USSR) is an Uzbek-born Russian business magnate. According to the 2011 edition of Forbes magazine, the oligarch is one of Russia's richest men, with a fortune estimated at US$18.1 billion, and the world's 28th richest person.
He has accrued his wealth from mining, lumber and investment. He is the majority shareholder of Metalloinvest, a Russian industrial conglomerate, which he founded to manage Gazprom's metals interests.[dead link]
He is also a co-owner of the media holding which comprises 7TV and Muz-TV federal television channels and 33 regional TV broadcasting stations. Besides this, Alisher Usmanov personally owns the Kommersant and Sekret Firmy Publishing Houses, shares in the company SUP, which controls Internet website Livejournal.com and internet newspaper «Gazeta.ru». Mr.Usmanov is a co-owner of Russia's second-largest mobile telephone operator MegaFon and Russian investment fund Digital Sky Technologies (DST), which owns stakes in popular web portals like Mail.ru, Odnoklassniki.ru, Vkontakte.ru, Facebook.com and others.
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Altay people
The Altay or Altai are a conglomerative ethnic group of Mongolic, Tungusic and Turkic peoples living in the Siberian Altai Republic and Altai Krai and surrounding areas of Tuva and Mongolia and Manchuria. For alternative ethnonyms see also Teleut, Tele, Telengit, Mountain Kalmuck, White Kalmuck, Black Tatar, Oirat/Oirot.
The Uriankhai people were annexed by the Oirat Zunghars in the 16th century. After the fall of the Zunghar Khanate in the 18th century, the Uriankhai were subjugated by the Qing Dynasty; and their one part, Altayans, was called by the Qing court as Altan Nuur Uriyangkhai. They have had skills in metalworking dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. The Altay came into contact with Russians in the 18th century. In the tsarist period, the Altay were known as oirot or oyrot (this name means oirat and would later be carried on for the Oyrot Autonomous Oblast). The Altay report that many of them became addicted to the Russians' vodka, which they called "fire water".
The Altay were originally nomadic, with a lifestyle based on hunting / trapping and pastoralism (mainly cattle, sheep, goats), but many of them settled as a result of Russian influence. In regard to religion, some of the Altay remain Tengriists or Shamanists, while others (in a trend beginning in the mid-19th century) have converted to the Orthodox. (The Altai mission took shape under Saint Makarii Glukharev, Apostle to the Altai.) In 1904, a religious movement called Ak Jang or Burkhanism arose, perhaps in response to Russian colonization.
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Anjelika Akbar
Anjelika Akbar (born 1969 in Karaganda, Kazakhstan) is a Turkish[citation needed]composer and pianist of Uzbek[citation needed] descent.
She was born Anjelika Rosenbaum Akbar to a family of a Jewish musician-philosopher father and an musician mother. She could play the piano and read music at the age of 2,5. Akbar began taking private piano lessons when she became 3 years old. Her first master was V.Lipovetsky, one of the founders of Chinese Harbin Conservatory and a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory.
At the age of 4, she was discovered to possess the Absolute Pitch, and admitted to the school for gifted children (child prodigies) at the age of 4.5, drawing the interest of the Moscow State Conservatory academicians. She continued her education at the Tashkent division of the same school. (Uspkensky State Music School- offering 11 year-education for gifted children).
The unique trait of the school for gifted children was that lessons were taught by the most brilliant professors of the conservatory. Like the world-renowned Alexei Sultanov and Stanislav Ioudenitch, Akbar has claimed her place among the best students of the school.
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Azerbaijani people
The Azerbaijanis ( /ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒɑːni/; Azerbaijani: Azərbaycanlılar, Азәрбајҹанлылар, آذربایجانلیلار ) or Azarbaijanis are Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighboring states, Georgia, Russia (Dagestan) and formerly Armenia. Also referred to as Azeris or Azaris (Azərilər, Азәриләр, آذریلر ) or Azerbaijani Turks (Azərbaycan türkləri), they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to the Iranian plateau. The Azerbaijanis are predominantly Shi'a Muslim and have a mixed cultural heritage including Turkic, Iranic and Caucasian elements.
Following the Russo-Persian Wars of 1813 and 1828, the territories of the Qajar Persian Empire in the Caucasus were ceded to the Russian Empire and the treaties of Gulistan in 1813 and Turkmenchay in 1828 finalized the borders between Czarist Russia and Qajar Iran. The formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Despite living on two sides of an international border, the Azeris form a single ethnic group. However, northerners and southerners differ due to nearly two centuries of separate social evolution in Iranian Azerbaijan and Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani language unifies Azerbaijanis, and is mutually intelligible with Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz and Anatolian Turkish (including the dialects spoken by the Iraqi Turkmen), all of which belong to the Oghuz, or Western, group of Turkic languages.
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Balkars
The Balkars (Karachay-Balkar: sg. Alan or таулу - tawlu, pl. таулула - tawlula) are a Turkic people of the Caucasus region, one of the titular populations of Kabardino-Balkaria. They are possibly Bulgars or are descended from them. Their Karachay-Balkar language is of the Ponto-Caspian subgroup of the Northwestern (Kipchak) group of Turkic languages.
The origins of the Balkar people have not yet been definitively established: various hypotheses have associated them with the Huns, the Khazars, the Bulgars (most probable theory, as the name Balkar and Bulgar are nearly identical), the Alans, the Zikhs, the Brukhs, the Kipchaks and Cumans the Vengrians, the Chekhs, the Mongol Tatars, the Crimean Tatars, and Turkicized Japhetic groups. Some contemporary scholars attribute their origin to a cultural conglomeration of northern Caucasian tribes with the Iranian-speaking Alans and with Turkish-speaking tribes, among which the most significant were probably the Black Bulgars and the Western Kipchaks. Elements of Balkar culture indicate a long association with the Near East, the Mediterranean, the rest of the Caucasus, and Russia. In the pre-Mongol period (before the thirteenth century) the Balkars were part of the Alan union of tribes, but after the Mongol invasion they retreated into the canyons of the central Caucasus.
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Bashkirs
The Bashkirs (Bashkir: Башҡорттар, Başqorttar) are a Turkic people indigenous to Bashkortostan extending on both parts of the Ural mountains, on the place where Europe meets Asia. Groups of Bashkirs also live in the republic of Tatarstan, Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Samara and Saratov Oblasts of Russia, as well as in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and other countries. They speak the Kypchak-based Bashkir language. The Bashkirs are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab.
There is no universally accepted etymology of the word "Bashqort". Several suggested theories are:
The Bashkirs as a Kipchak group form in the early medieval period in the context of the Turkic migrations. Besides their Turkic ancestry,Ugrian and Iranian contributions have also been discussed in Russian ethnographic literature. Genetically, R1b1a1 (2011 name) has been found to occur with comparatively high frequency among the Bashkirs in Bashkortostan (62/471 = 13.2%). Accordance with all paleontological and anthropological findings presume the roots of the Bashkir people likely to the Andronovo culture.
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Chagatai Khan
Chagatai Khan (Mongolian: Цагадай, Tsagadai; c. 1183–1241 or 1242) was the second son of Genghis Khan and first khan and origin of the names of the Chagatai Khanate, Chagatai language and Chagatai Turks.
He inherited most of what are now the five Central Asian states after the death of his father and ruled until his death in 1241. He was also appointed by Genghis Khan to oversee the execution of the Yassa, the written code of law created by Genghis Khan, though that lasted only until Genghis Khan was crowned Khan of the Mongol Empire. The Empire later came to be known as the Chagatai Khanate, a descendant empire of the Mongol Empire.
The true founder of the state was Chagatai's grandson Alghu. The state was much less influenced by Islam than the Ilkhanate to the southwest, but there were Muslims within the state and some did convert. However, they kept to old nomadic traits much longer. Some historians have said this was a major reason for the decline in urbanism and agriculture in this area which is known to have occurred. The first ruler who actually converted to Islam was Mubarak Shah (note the Arab name). His conversion occurred in 1256. However, this was very problematic because in less than 30 years other rulers would renounce Islam and return to older beliefs, although Tarmashirin converted to Islam and tried to turn the dynasty back toward Islam. His conversion provoked a huge backlash from nomadic groups in the eastern part of the realm who eventually killed him in 1334. After his death the Chagatai state lost its status and disintegrated. Tamerlane would later marry into this family. By the early 16th century they had reasserted themselves in the region that is present-day Uzbekistan and maintained a realm there until the 18th century as the Shaybanid ruling house of the Uzbeks.
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Chinese Tatars
The Chinese Tatars (simplified Chinese: 塔塔尔族; traditional Chinese: 塔塔爾族; pinyin: Tǎtǎěrzú; Tatar language: Кытай татарлары) form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China.
Their ancestors are Volga Tatar tradesmen who settled mostly in Xinjiang.
The number of Chinese Tatars is close to 5000 as of 2000, and they live mainly in the cities of Aletai, Changji, Yili, Ürümqi, Tacheng and other places in Xinjiang.
Chinese Tatars speak an archaic variant of the Tatar language, free from 20th-century loanwords and use Arabic variant of the Tatar alphabet, declined in USSR in 1930s. Being surrounded by speakers of other Turkic languages, Chinese Tatar partially reverses the Tatar high vowel inversion. They do not have a writing system.
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Chulyms
The Chulyms, also Chulym Tatars, (Чулымцы in Russian; self-designation: Чулымские люди, the Russian phrase for Chulymian people) are a Turkic people in the Tomsk Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Krai in Russia.
The Chulym Tatars first came to the Chulym River when they were driven from their homes in the Sibir Khanate by the forces of Ermak Timofeevich.
They used to live along the middle and lower reaches of the Chulym River (tributary of the Ob River). The Russians used to call them the Chulymian Tatars. The Chulyms appeared in the 17th - 18th century as a result of mixing of some of the Turkic groups, who had migrated to the East after the fall of the Siberia Khanate, partially Teleuts and Yenisei Kyrgyz with the small groups of Selkups and Kets. The Chulyms were not a nomadic tribe. They adopted farming and cattle breeding from the Russian peasants in that area. Most of the Chulyms' descendants blended with the Khakas and Russians.
According to the 2002 census, there were 656 Chulyms in Russia. They speak Chulym-Turkic language known as Ös and adhere to Russian Orthodoxy mixed with their original Shamanist beliefs.
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Chuvash people
The Chuvash people (Chuvash: Чăвашсем; Russian: Чуваши) are a Turkic ethnic group, native to an area stretching from the Volga Region to Siberia. Most of them live in Republic of Chuvashia and surrounding areas, although Chuvash communities may be found throughout all Russia.
There is no universally accepted etymology of the word Chuvash. However, there are two main theories that try to explain it.
According to one theory, "Chuvash" is a Shaz-Turkic adaptation of Lir-Turkic Suvar, an ethnonym of people that are widely considered to be the ancestors of modern Chuvashes. Compare Lir-Turkic Chuvash: huran to Shaz-Turkic Tatar: qazan (cauldron).
Another theory suggests that the word "Chuvash" may be derived from Common Turkic jăvaš ("friendly", "peaceful") as opposed to şarmăs ("warlike").
There are rival schools of thought on the origin of Chuvash people. One is that they originated from a mixing between the Turkic Suar and Sabir tribes of Volga Bulgaria with local Mari tribes and also the Finno-Ugrian population of the Volga Basin. Another is that the Chuvash are a remainder of the pre-Volga Bulgar population of the Volga region, merged with Scythians, Volga Bulgars and Mari.
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Crimean Karaites
The Crimean Karaites (Crimean Karaim: sg. къарай - qaray, pl. къарайлар - qaraylar; Trakai Karaim: sg. karaj, pl. karajlar, Hebrew קָרָאִים - qara'im, 'readers', tr. Karaylar), also known as Karaim and Qarays, are a community of ethnic Turkic adherents of Karaite Judaism in Eastern Europe. "Qaray" is a Romanized spelling of the original name "къарай", while "Karaim" is a Russian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Polish name for the community. Originally centered in Crimea, Karaim were established in Lithuania and elsewhere in Europe from late medieval times.
The name "Crimean Karaites" has often been considered as something of a misnomer, as many branches of this community found their way to locations throughout Europe and the Middle East. Historians distinguish between Karaite Jews and Jews who simply left the Levant before the canonization of the Talmud and therefore had no way of being Rabbinic Jews. Whether descended from the non-Rabbinic sects of the Second Temple Period, or from Rabbinate families rebelling against Talmudic rules, these communities started in present day Iran.
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Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars (sg. Qırımtatar, pl. Qırımtatarlar) or Crimeans (sg. Qırım, Qırımlı, pl. Qırımlar, Qırımlılar) are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language. They are not to be confused with the Volga Tatars.
In modern times, in addition to living in Crimea, Ukraine, there is a large diaspora of Crimean Tatars in Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Western Europe, the Middle East and North America, as well as small communities in Finland, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus and Poland. (See Crimean Tatar diaspora)
Today, more than 240,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea and about 150,000 remain in exile in Central Asia, mainly in Uzbekistan. There is an unspecified number of people of Crimean Tatar origin living in Turkey, descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Dobruja region straddling Romania and Bulgaria, there are more than 27,000 Crimean Tatars: 24,000 on the Romanian side, and 3,000 on the Bulgarian side[citation needed].
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Dai people
The Dai people are valley-dwelling rice cultivators of China's southwest frontier. The name "Dai" has been used officially since 1953 to replace "Tai" or "Thai." (Tai Lü: ᦑᦺᦟ; [d̥ai˥˩], Tai Nüa: ᥖᥭᥰ; [d̥ai˥], Chinese: 傣族; pinyin: Dǎizú) is one of several ethnic groups living in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture (both in southern Yunnan, China), but by extension can apply to groups in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Burma when Dai is used to mean specifically Tai Lue, Chinese Shan or even Tai in general. For other names, see the table below.
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Daur people
The Daur people (simplified Chinese: 达斡尔族; traditional Chinese: 達斡爾族; pinyin: Dáwò'ěr zú; the former name "Dahur" is considered derogatory[citation needed]) are a Mongolic-speaking sub-ethnic group. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized in the People's Republic of China. They numbered 132,394 according to the latest census (2000), and most of them live in the Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner (Mòlì Dáwǎ Dáwò'ěrzú Zìzhìqí 莫力達瓦達斡爾族自治旗/莫力达瓦达斡尔族自治旗) in Hulun Buir, Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China. There are also some near Tacheng in Xinjiang, where their ancestors were moved during the Qing Dynasty.
Daur is a Mongolic language. There is no written standard, although a Pinyin-based orthography has been devised by the native Daur scholar Merden Enhebatu. The Daur language retains some Khitan substratal features, including a number of lexemes not found in other Mongolic languages. It is made up of three dialects: Bataxan, Hailar, Qiqihar.
Genetically, the Daurs are descendants of the Khitan, as recent DNA analyses have proven. In the Qianlong Emperor's "钦定《辽金元三史语解》" he retranslates "大贺", a Khitan clan described in 《辽史》, as "达呼尔". That's the earliest theory claim Daurs are descendants of Khitans.
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Dolgans
Dolgans (Russian: долганы; self-designation: долган, тыа-кихи, саха) are a Turkic-speaking people, who mostly inhabit Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. The 2002 Census counted 7,261 Dolgans. This number includes 5,517 in former Taymyr Autonomous Okrug. There are 26 Dolgans in Ukraine, four of whom speak Dolgan (2001 Ukrainian Census).
Dolgans speak Dolgan language. Some believe that it is a dialect of Yakut language. Dolgan identity emerged in the 19th – early 20th century, when some of the Evenks, Yakuts, Enets, and the so-called Tundra peasants migrated to the region away from the Lena River and Olenyok River. Originally, the Dolgans were nomadic reindeer breeders and hunters. They were eventually forced to settle and form kolkhozes during the Soviet times, engaging in reindeer breeding, hunting, fishing, dairy farming as well as market gardening.
Most Dolgans are Orthodox Christians, belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church; old shamanistic beliefs, however, survive among them.
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Dongxiang people
The Dongxiang people (autonym: Sarta or Santa (撒尔塔); simplified Chinese: 东乡族; traditional Chinese: 東鄉族; pinyin: Dōngxiāngzú) are one of 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. Most of the Dongxiang live in the Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture and surrounding areas of Gansu Province in northwestern China, while others groupings can also be found in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Qinghai Province, and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. According to the 2000 census, their population numbers 513,805.
The Dongxiang are closely related to the Mongolians. Scholars speculate that their identity as an independent ethnic group arose through contact with Central Asians, due to whom the Dongxiang converted to Sunni Islam in the 13th century.
One possible origin is that they are descendants of Mongolian troops posted in the Hezhou area by Genghis Khan (1162-1227 AD) during his journey westward, while another possibility is that they could be a mixture of many peoples including Mongolian, Han, and Tibetan groups.
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Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars ( /ˈævɑrz/) were a Turkic people from the steppes of Central Asia, and later they became a confederation of Eurasian tribes of mixed origin. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors. Although the name Avar first appeared in the mid-fifth century, the Avars of Europe enter the historical scene in the mid-sixth century AD, when they established a pax spanning considerable areas of Central and Eastern Europe. Their state was the Avar Khaganate. The rule of their country over much of the Pannonian Plain persisted until the early 9th century.
The origin of the Eurasian Avars is unclear. Information about origins is derived primarily from the works of Byzantine historians Menander Protector and Theophylact Simocatta. John of Ephesus used the term "those, who are called "Avars," because of their long hair." The confusion is compounded by the fact that many clans carried a particular name because they believed it to be prestigious, or it was attributed to them by outsiders describing their common characteristics, believed place of origin or reputation.[citation needed] Such a case has been seen repeatedly for many nomadic confederacies.
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Evenks
The Evenks (Ewenti or Eventi) (autonym: Эвэнкил Evenkil; Russian: Эвенки Evenki; Chinese: 鄂温克族 Èwēnkè Zú; formerly known as Tungus or Tunguz; Mongolian: Хамниган Khamnigan) are a Tungusic people of Northern Asia. In Russia, the Evenks are recognized as one of the Indigenous peoples of the Russian North, with a population of 35,527 (2002 Census). In China, the Evenki form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, with a population of 30,505, as per 2000 Census. There are also 535 Mongolized Evenki in Mongolia, referred to as Khamnigan.
The Evenki or Ewenki are sometime conjectured to be connected to the Shiwei people who inhabited the Greater Khingan Range in the 5-9th centuries, although the native land of the majority of Evenki people is in the vast regions of Siberia between Lake Baikal and the Amur River. The Ewenki language forms the northern branch of the Manchu-Tungusic language group and is closely related to Even and Negidal in Siberia. By 1600 the Ewenkis or Evenkis of the Lena and Yenisey valleys were successful reindeer herders. By contrast the Solons and the Khamnigans (Ewenkis of Transbaikalia) had picked up horse breeding and the Mongolian deel from the Mongols. The Solons (ancestors of the Evenkis in China) nomadized along the Amur River. They were closely related to the Daur people. To the west the Khamnigan were another group of horse breeding Evenkis in the Transbaikalia area. Also in the Amur valley a body of Siberian Evenki-speaking people were called Orochen by the Manchus.
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Gagauz people
The Gagauz people are a Turkic group living mostly in southern Moldova (Gagauzia), southwestern Ukraine (Budjak), south-eastern Romania (Dobrogea), northeastern Bulgaria, Greece, Brazil, America and Canada. Unlike most other Turkic speaking people, the Gagauz are predominantly Orthodox Christians. There is a related ethnic group also called Gagavuz (or Gajal) living in the European part of northwestern Turkey.
Today Gagauz people outside Moldova live mainly in the Ukrainian regions of Odesa and Zaporizhia, as well as in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Romania, Brazil, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Turkey and the Russian region of Kabardino-Balkaria.
There are also nearly 20,000 descendants of Gagauzes living in the Balkan country of Bulgaria, as well as upwards of 2,000 living in the United States of America, Brazil and Canada. Most of Gagauz immigrants in the USA are Evangelical Christians, who left their homeland in Moldova as refugees. They were persecuted by the communist government of the Soviet Union. Gagauz immigrants live in Sacramento, California; Salem, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; Broken Arrow, Oklahoma; Tacoma, Washington; Charlotte, North Carolina; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and in Massachusetts. The official figures in the latter group of countries cited in this article are much lower due to the loss of Gagauz identity during the last century.
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Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan (/ˈɡɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/ or /ˈdʒɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/,Mongol: [tʃiŋɡɪs xaːŋ] ( listen); 1162? – August 1227), born Temujin, was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.
He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being proclaimed "Genghis Khan", he started the Mongol invasions that resulted in the conquest of most of Eurasia. These included raids or invasions of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, Caucasus, Khwarezmid Empire, Western Xia and Jin dynasties. These campaigns were often accompanied by wholesale massacres of the civilian populations – especially in Khwarezmia. By the end of his life, the Mongol Empire occupied a substantial portion of Central Asia and China.
Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ögedei Khan as his successor and split his empire into khanates among his sons and grandsons. He died in 1227 after defeating the Western Xia. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia at an unknown location. His descendants went on to stretch the Mongol Empire across most of Eurasia by conquering or creating vassal states out of all of modern-day China, Korea, the Caucasus, Central Asian countries, and substantial portions of modern Eastern Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Many of these invasions resulted in the large-scale slaughter of local populations, which have given Genghis Khan and his empire a fearsome reputation in local histories.
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Gin people
Some areas of the southwestern People's Republic of China are inhabited by a small population of an ethnic minority which immigrated from Vietnam hundreds of years ago. They are referred to in Chinese as the Jīng (京族; pinyin: Jīngzú), although the transcription Gin people is the standard romanization of ethnic name in China. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. They speak Vietnamese, mixed with Cantonese dialect, and some Mandarin. They mainly live on 3 islands off the coast of Dongxing city, Fangchenggang, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The population of the Vietnamese native to China was just over 20,000 in 2000. This number does not include the 36,205 Vietnamese nationals studying or working in Mainland China recorded by the 2010 national population census.
Their connection to Vietnam is based on stories and documents which told that they moved from mainland Dai Viet to three sparsely inhabited islands in the 16th century. They are reported to speak a dialect of Vietnamese. In addition to using Hanzi, the Gin have their unique Zinan script called Chu Nom in Vietnamese, dating back to the 13th century.
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Hani people
The Hani people (Hani: Haqniq; Chinese: 哈尼族; pinyin: Hānízú; Vietnamese: Người Hà Nhì) are an ethnic group. They form one of the 56 nationalities officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. They also form one of the 54 officially recognized ethnic groups of Vietnam. There are 12,500 Hanis living in the Lai Chau and Lao Cai provinces of Vietnam.
Over ninety percent of the Hani live in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan, scattered across the Ailao Mountains between the Mekong River and the Red River (Yuanjiang).
The origins of the Hani are not precisely known, though their ancestors, the ancient Qiang tribe, are believed to have migrated southward from the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau prior to the third century AD.
The Hani oral traditions state that they are descended from the Yi people, and that they split off as a separate tribe fifty generations ago. One of their oral traditions is the recital of the names of Hani ancestors from the first Hani family down to oneself.
The Hani are polytheists and they profess a special adoration toward the spirits of their ancestors. They are used to practicing rituals to venerate to the different gods and thus to obtain their protection.
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House of Mihran
The House of Mihrān was a leading Iranian noble family (šahrdārān), one of the Seven Great Houses of the Sassanid Persian Empire which claimed descent from the earlier Arsacid dynasty. A branch of the family formed the Mihranid line of the kings of Caucasian Albania and the Chosroid Dynasty of Kartli.
First mentioned in a mid-3rd-century CE trilingual inscription at the Ka'ba-i Zartosht, concerning the political, military, and religious activities of Shapur I, the second Sassanid king of Iran, the family remained the hereditary "margraves" of Ray throughout the Sassanid period. Several members of the family served as generals in the Roman–Persian Wars, where they are mentioned simply as Mihran or Μιρράνης, mirranēs, in Greek sources. Indeed, Procopius, in his History of the Wars, holds that the family name Mihran is a title equivalent to General.
Notable generals from the Mihran clan included: Perozes, the Persian commander-in-chief during the Anastasian War and the Battle of Dara, Golon Mihran, who fought against the Byzantines in Armenia in 572–573, and his son Bahram Chobin, who led a coup against Khosrau II and briefly usurped the crown from 590 to 591.
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Hui people
The Hui people (Chinese: 回族; pinyin: Huízú, Xiao'erjing: حُوِ ذَو / حواري) are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group in China. Hui people are found throughout the country, though they are concentrated mainly in the provinces of Ningxia, Qinghai, and Gansu. According to a 2000 census, China is home to approximately 9.8 million Hui people, the majority of whom are Chinese-speaking practitioners of Islam, though some practice other religions. Although many Hui people are ethnically similar to Han Chinese, the group has retained some Persian and Central Asian features, their ethnicity and culture having been shaped profoundly by their position along the Silk Road trading route.
In the People's Republic of China, the Hui people are one of 56 officially recognized ethnic groups. Under this definition, the Hui people are defined to include all historically Muslim communities in People's Republic of China that are not included in China's other ethnic groups. Since China's Muslims speaking various Turkic, Mongolic, or Iranian languages are all included into those other groups (e.g., Uyghurs, Dongxiang, or Tajiks) the "officially recognized" Hui ethnic group consists predominantly of Chinese speakers. In fact, the "Hui nationality" is unique among China's officially recognized ethnic minorities in that it does not have any particular non-Chinese language associated with it.
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Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns, considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. However, there is no scholarly consensus on a direct connection between the dominant element of the Xiongnu and that of the Huns.Priscus mentions that the Huns had a language of their own; little of it has survived and its relationships have been the subject of debate for centuries. Most authorities suppose that it may have been a member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family, with the languages Bulgar, Khazar, Turkic Avar and Chuvash. Numerous other languages were spoken within the Hun pax including East Germanic, which was widely used as a lingua franca in the Hunnic territories. Their main military technique was mounted archery.
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Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples (Iranic peoples) are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group that comprise the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of the Indo-European-speaking peoples. Their historical areas of settlement were on the Iranian plateau, and comprised most of Iran and certain areas of Central Asia such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and most of Afghanistan, some parts of western Pakistan, northern Iraq and eastern Turkey, and scattered parts of the Caucasus Mountains. Their current distribution spreads across the Iranian plateau, and stretches from Pakistan's Indus River in the east to eastern Turkey in the west, and from Central Asia and the Caucasus in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south – a region that is sometimes called the Iranian cultural continent, or Greater Persia by scholars, and represents the extent of the Iranian languages and influence of the Persian People, through the geopolitical reach of the Persian empire.
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Iraqi Turkmens
The Iraqi Turkmens (also spelled Turcomans, Turkomens, and Iraqi Turkmans), Iraqi Turks, or Turks of Iraq (Turkish: Irak Türkmenleri/Irak Türkleri) are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq who are the ethnic kin of the Turks. They mainly reside in northern Iraq and share close cultural and linguistic ties with Turkey.
The Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of various waves of Turkic migration to Mesopotamia dating from the 7th century until Ottoman rule. The first wave of migration dates back to the 7th century when some 1,000 Turkmen soldiers were recruited in the Muslim armies of Ubayd-Allah ibn Ziyad; however, most of today's descendants of these first migrants have been assimilated into the local Arab population. The second wave of migrants were the Turks of the Great Seljuq Empire; finally, the third wave, and largest number of Turkmen migrants into Iraq arose during the Ottoman Empire. With the conquest of Iraq by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534, followed by Sultan Murad IV's capture of Baghdad in 1638, a large influx of Turks settled down in the region. Thus, most of today's Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers, traders and civil servants who were brought into Iraq during the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
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Islam Karimov
Islom Abdug‘aniyevich Karimov (Cyrillic Uzbek: Ислом Абдуғаниевич Каримов; Russian: Ислам Абдуганиевич Каримов Islam Abduganiyevich Karimov) (born January 30, 1938) is the first President of Uzbekistan, serving since 1990.
Karimov, placed in an orphanage in Samarkand at birth, grew up to study economics and engineering at school. He became an official in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, becoming the party's First Secretary in Uzbekistan in 1989. On March 24, 1990 he became President of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Karimov's election to the Uzbek Communist Party resulted after his predecessor Rafik Nishanov failed to quell inter-ethnic clashes and instability in the Fergana region. He declared Uzbekistan an independent nation on August 31, 1991 and subsequently won Uzbekistan's first presidential election on December 29, 1991, with 86% of the vote. The election was called unfair[citation needed], with state-run propaganda and a falsified vote count, although the opposing candidate and leader of the Erk (Freedom) Party, Muhammad Salih, had a chance to participate. Karimov permitted the participation of the opposition organizations Birlik ("popular movement") and the Islamic Renaissance Party until his efforts to consolidate power over Shukrullo Mirsaidov, a former Communist Party elite who had originally supported Karimov's rise to the Party presidency. The period of political thaw was brief; Karimov began to complicate the registration process of opposition parties during elections. As Birlik grew in strength as a "popular movement", it was denied the ability to register as a "political party" without the required 60,000 signatures. The Karimov government allowed Birlik one day to gather these signatures, 25,000 of which they rejected. Karimov effectively took authoritarian measures to block any meaningful opposition.
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Ismail Samani
Isma'il ibn Ahmad (ابو ابراهیم اسماعیل بن احمد, Abu Ibrahim Ismail ibn Ahmad, d. November 907) also referred to as, "Amir Adil" (the Just Commander) was the Persian Samanid amir of Transoxiana (892-907) and Khorasan (900-907). His reign saw the emergence of the Samanids as a powerful force. He was the son of Ahmad ibn Asad and a descendant of Saman Khuda, the founder of the Samanid dynasty who renounced Zoroastrianism and embraced Islam. Ismail is considered the father of the Tajik nation.[citation needed]
Gaining approval of the local population, Ismail was described as good natured devout Muslim, relying exclusively on Allah in accordance with the Islamic principle of tawheed. During his brother Nasr's reign, Isma'il was sent to take control of Bukhara, which had been devastated by looting on the part of forces from Khwarazm. The citizens of the city welcomed Isma'il, seeing him as someone who could bring stability.
Soon afterwards, a disagreement over where tax money should be distributed caused a falling out between Nasr and Isma'il. A struggle ensued, in which Isma'il proved victorious. Although he took effective control of the state, he did not formally overthrow his brother, instead remaining in Bukhara. He did so because Nasr had been the one whom the Caliph had given the formal investiture of Transoxiana to; in the caliph's eyes, Nasr was the only legitimimate ruler of the region. Furthermore, the Saffarids of Sistan had claims on Transoxiana; the overthrow of Nasr would have given the Saffarids a pretext for invading. Isma'il therefore continued to formally recognize Nasr as ruler until the latter's death in August 892, at which point he officially took power.
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Karachays
The Karachays are Turkic speaking people of the North Caucasus, mostly situated in the Russian Karachay–Cherkess Republic.
The Karachays (Къарачайлыла, Qaraçaylıla) are a Turkic speaking people descending from the Alans and native Caucasians; their Turkic language is the same as the Kumyks from Daghestan. The Kipchaks and Cumans came to the area of the Caucasus in 11th century A.D, the state of Alania established in the Middle Ages had its capital in Maghas, which some authors locate in Arkhyz, the mountains currently inhabited by the Karachay (others place it in modern Ingushetia or North Ossetia). In the 14th century, Alania was destroyed by Timur and the decimated population dispersed in the mountains. Timur's intervention to the North Caucasus introduced the local nations to Islam; the name "Karachay" means "Black River".
In 1828 the Russian army invaded the area of the Karachay. On October 20, 1828 was the Battle of Hasaukinskoe, the bloodiest of these battles in which the king's troops (which were under the personal command of General Emanuel), equipped with artillery, managed to win. Emanuel's troops lost and injured 163 people, which exceeded the loss of the Russians in the battle with the 30 thousandth shell-Batal Pasha. Karachaevskij elders had taken steps to prevent the massacres of their villages. The day after the battle, when troops are already Emanuel approached to-Dzhurtu, they went to meet the delegation of elders. As a result of negotiations, an agreement was reached on the inclusion of Karachi in the Russian Empire. After the annexation the internal self-government of Karachi had been left intact: the officials and courts. Proceedings of the neighboring Muslim peoples continued to take place on folk customs and Sharia law. In Karachay even assigned arms, but were taken from Karachai Amanat pledge their loyalty oath.
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Karakalpaks
The Karakalpaks (also Qaraqalpaqs) are a Turkic speaking people. They mainly live in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya and in the (former) delta of Amu Darya on the southern shore of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan. The name "Karakalpak" comes from two words: "qara" meaning black, and "qalpaq" meaning hat. The Karakalpaks probably number about 650,000 worldwide, out of which about 500,000 live in the Republic of Karakalpakstan. Karakalpaks are not to be confused with Karapapaks.
The Karakalpak population is mainly confined to the central part of Karakalpakstan that is irrigated by the Amu Darya. The largest communities live in Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, and the surrounding large towns, such as Khodzheli, Shimbay, Takhtaitash, and Kungrad. Rural Karakalpaks mainly live on former collective or state farms, most of which have been recently privatised. Many rural Karakalpaks have been seriously affected by the desiccation of the Aral Sea, which has destroyed the local fishing industry along with much of the grazing and agricultural land in the north of the delta. Karakalpaks have nowhere to go. The majority of Karakalpakstan is occupied by desert - the Kyzyl Kum on the eastern side, the barren Ustyurt plateau to the west, and now the growing Aral Kum to the north, once the bed of the former Aral Sea.
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Karapapak
The Karapapak (Qarapapaq, Terekeme, Tərəkəmə) (meaning Black Hat) are a small ethnic group of Turkic-speaking people who mainly live in Azerbaijan, in Georgia, in the northeast of Turkey near the border with Georgia and Armenia, primarily in the provinces of Ardahan (around Lake Çıldır), Kars and Iğdır, and in Iran. The exact number for the Karapapak population worldwide is unknown but is likely to be in the hundred thousands. Karapapaks are not to be confused with Karakalpaks.
Sometimes referred to as Terekeme or Tarakama (a derivation from the words "Turcoman" or "Turkmen", meaning Oghuz Turks), Karapapaks are often identified as a sub-ethnic group of Azerbaijanis, even though in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary they are sometimes listed as a separate ethnic group. Theories of Karapapaks descending from Kumyks (a Turkic-speaking ethnic group in Dagestan) have also been brought forward by scholars like Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu and Zeki Velidi Togan. The Terekeme originally populated territories in what is now southern Georgia, northwestern Armenia, southern Dagestan, and central and northwestern Azerbaijan, but almost entirely migrated to the Ottoman Empire and Persia upon Russia's conquest of the South Caucasus between 1813 and 1828. Here they were given the name Karapapakh ("black hat") by the Anatolians reflecting the element of the Terekeme ethnic outfit that distinguished them from the local population.
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Kazakhs
The Kazakhs (also spelled Kazaks, Qazaqs; Kazakh: Қазақтар [qɑzɑqtɑ́r]; the English name is transliterated from Russian) are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia (largely Kazakhstan, but also found in parts of Uzbekistan, China, Russia, and Mongolia).
Kazakhs are descendants of the Turkic tribes - Argyns, Khazars, Qarluqs; and of the Kipchaks and Cumans (the Kipchaks and Cumans being one of their major ancestors) Proto-Tatar groups (Kiyat, Dughlat, Naimans, Kerait, Onggirat, Manghud, Jalayir) and other Proto Turkic tribes such as the Kankalis, origin and Iranian tribes like the Sarmatians, Saka and Scythians. Kazakhs populated the territory between Siberia and the Black Sea and remained in Central Asia when the Turkic and Turko-Tatar groups started to invade and conquer the area between the 5th and 13th centuries AD.
The Kazakhs began using this name during either the 15th or 16th centuries. There are many theories on the origin of the word Kazakh or Qazaq. Some speculate that it comes from the Turkish verb qaz (to wander), because the Kazakhs were wandering steppemen; or that it derives from the prototurk word khasaq (a wheeled cart used by the Kazakhs to transport their yurts and belongings).
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Khakas people
The Khakas, or Khakass (Khakas: Тадарлар), are a Turkic-speaking people, who live in Russia, in the republic of Khakassia in southern Siberia. They speak the Khakas language.
The origin of the Khakas people is disputed. Some scholars see them as descendants of the Yenisei Kirghiz, while others believe that, at the behest of the medieval Mongol Khans, the Yenisei Kirghiz migrated to Central Asia.
In the 17th century, the Khakas formed Khakassia in the middle of the lands of Yenisei Kirghiz, who at the time were vassals of a Mongolian ruler. The Russians arrived shortly after the Kirghiz left, and an inflow of Russian agragian settlers began. In the 1820s, gold mines started to be developed around Minusinsk, which became a regional industrial center.
During the 19th century, many Khakas accepted the Russian ways of life, and most were converted en masse to Russian Orthodox Christianity under threat of death by Russian soldiers. Shamanism with Buddhist influences, however, is still common, and many Christians practice Shamanism with Christianity. In Imperial Russia, the Khakas used to be known under other names, used mostly in historic contexts: Minusinsk Tatars (Russian: минуси́нские тата́ры), Abakan Tatars (абака́нские тата́ры), and Yenisei Turks.
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Khalaj people
The Khalaj people are a Turkic people that speak the Khalaj language, which is thought to be one of the closest languages to Old Turkic.
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Khorasani Turks
Khorasani Turks or Turks of Khorasan (Persian: ترکان خراسانی), or Qizilbash Turks are Turks native to northeastern Iran, and in the neighboring regions of Turkmenistan up to beyond the Amu Darya River; and speak the Khorasani Turkic, and live in the North Khorasan, Razavi Khorasan and Golestan provinces of Iran.
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Kimek tribe
The Kimek or Kimak (Yemek, Yamak, Djamuk) were one of the Turkic tribes known from Arab and Persian medieval geographers as one of the seven tribes in the Kimek Khanate in the period of 743-1050 AD. The other six constituent tribes, according to Abu Said Gardizi (d. 1061), were the Yamak, Kipchaks, Tatars, Bayandur, Lanikaz, and Ajlad.
The name Kimek arose from the union of the twin tribes Imi and Imek, named after the river Imi in the valley of the Argun ("Silver") river, a tributary of the Amur. Marquart suggested a Turkic etymology as Kimäk Iki Imäk (Two Imeks). No separate tribe was self-described as "Kimek", they were always mentioned as a pair. Medieval Chinese geographers did not know the ethnonym Kimaks, always referring to them as Yueban.
From 155 to 166 AD the Xianbei organized a state, and took over the lands of the Xiongnu empire. After that, the Dingling, the future Kipchaks, were pushed into the Sayan Mountains. The strongest tribes of the Xiongnu confederacy, known by the Chines as "Strong Huns", moved westward. With new Tocharian, Iranian, Ugrian and Caucasian allies they eventually reached Europe as the Huns, where they dominated the Alans and the Goths.
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Koreans in China
The population of Koreans in China include millions of descendants of Korean immigrants with citizenship of the People's Republic of China, as well as smaller groups of South and North Korean expatriates, with a total of roughly 2.3 million people as of 2009[update], making it the largest ethnic Korean population living outside the Korean Peninsula.
Chaoxianzu (Simplified Chinese: 朝鲜族) or Joseonjok (Korean: 조선족), also referred to as Chinese people of Korean descent (Korean: 조선계 중국인, Hanja: 朝鮮系中國人), form one of the 56 ethnicities officially recognized by the Chinese government. Their total population was estimated at 1,923,842 as of 2005[update]. Most of them live in Northeast China, especially in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, which had 854,000 ethnic Koreans living there as of 2000.
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Kumandins
The Kumandins (also Kumandy, Kumanda, Qumandy, Qumanda) are an indigenous people of southern Siberia. They reside mainly in the Altai Republic. Their language is related to the Turkic Uigur language of the Karluk branch.
According to the 1926 census, in the territory of Russia lived 6,335 Kumandy. In the 2002 census, the number was only 3,114, but possibly the 1926 census included some related peoples. A part of Kumandy living on the banks of river Biya from river Kuu (Swan, Russ. "Lebed") downstream, almost to the city of Biysk, and also along the lower course of the river Katun by the present time (1969) conflated with the local Russian population..
Kumandy is a branch of the historical Kumans that fled to the Altai mountains and found shelter by joining with the local people as a separate seok. In the 17th century, before migrating to Altai, Kumandy lived along the river Charysh, near its confluence with the river Ob. Their relocation was driven by their unwillingness to pay yasak tribute to the Russian sovereign.N.Aristov linked Kumandy and their clan Chelkandy with the descendants of the ancient Türks (Modern Chinese Pinyin Tujue 突 厥 ), "who in the 6th-8th cc. CE created in the Central Asia a powerful nomadic state, which received in history a name Türkic Kaganate".
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Kumyks
Kumyks (Kumyk: къумукълар, qumuqlar, Russian: кумыки) are a Turkic people living in the Kumyk plateau in north Dagestan and south Terek, and the lands bordering the Caspian Sea. They comprise 14% of the population of the Russian republic of Dagestan. They speak the Kumyk language. Kumyks practice folk Islam, with some religious rituals that trace back to pre-Islamic times.
Various explorers[who?] see in them descendants of the Khazars. Ármin Vámbéry (Hungarian) supposes that they settled in their present quarters during the flourishing period of the Khazar kingdom in the 8th century.
During the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries CE the Kumyks had an independent kingdom, based at Tarki, and ruled by a leader called Shamkhal.
The Russians built forts in their territory in 1559 and under Peter I. The upper terraces of the Kumyk plateau, which the Kumyks occupy, leaving its lower parts to the Nogais, are very fertile.
In recent years Kumyk nationalists such as Salau Aliev have agitated for Kumyk dominance within Daghestan, citing Khazar history as their inspiration. This is part of a wider trend in Dagestan of the non-dominant but still major groups (such as Kumyks, Lezgins, Laks, etc.) producing ideological backlashes to the near-institutionalized dominance of Avars, Dargins and Russians in Dagestan (together, Avars, Dargins and Russians form a weak majority of the population, but their dominance is widely resented by others).
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Kyrgyz people
The Kyrgyz (also spelled Kirgiz, Kirghiz) are a Turkic people living primarily in Kyrgyzstan.
There are several etymological theories on the ethnonym "Kyrgyz."
The word "Kyrgyz" is derived from the Turkic word "forty", with -Iz being an old plural suffix, referring to a collection of forty tribes.
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Manchu people
The Manchus (Manchu:
Manju; simplified Chinese: 满族; traditional Chinese: 滿族; pinyin: Mǎnzú) are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria (northeastern China).
For centuries, the Manchu ethnicity has acculturated with the majority Han ethnicity of China. Most Manchu today speak Standard Chinese, while the Manchu language is only spoken by elderly people in remote northeastern China and a few scholars; there are around ten thousand speakers of Xibe, a closely related language spoken in the Ili region of Xinjiang. In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in Manchu culture among both ethnic Manchus and Han. The number of Chinese today with some Manchu ancestry is quite large—with 10.68 million members (in China), Manchu is the 3rd largest ethnic group in China after the Han and the Zhuang. The adoption of favorable policies towards ethnic minorities (such as preferential university admission, government employment opportunities and exemption from the one child policy) has encouraged some people with mixed Han and Manchu ancestry to re-identify themselves as Manchu.
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Manghit
The Manghit or Mangit also called Manġhud (Mangghud) or Mangudai (Mongolian: Mangudai) were a Mongol tribe of the Urud-Manghud federation. They established the Nogai Horde in the 14th c. and the Manghit Dynasty to rule the Emirate of Bukhara in 1785. The clan name was used for Mongol vanguards as well. Their descendants live in several regions of the former Mongol Empire.
According to ancient sources, they were derived from the Khiyad Mongols. The Manghuds and the Uruuds were war-like people from the Mongolian plateau. Some notable Manghud warriors supported Genghis Khan (1162–1227) while a body of them resisted his rise to power. When the Mongol Empire began to expand westward, the Manghud people were spread westward into the Middle East along with many other Mongol tribes. In the Golden Horde, the Manghuds supported Nogai (d.1299) and established their own semi-independent horde from the khans in Sarai. After Nogai's death in 1299 AD, the majority of Manghud warriors joined the service of Tokhta Khan. Their chieftain Edigu, the powerful warlord of the Golden Horde, officially founded Nogai Horde or Manghit Horde in the 14th-15th century. Turkish historians would record their tribal name as Manghit or Nogais, as opposed to the original Manghud or Mangudai.
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Manichaeism
Manichaeism ( /ˈmænɨkiːɪzəm/; in Modern Persian آیین مانی Āyin e Māni; Chinese: 摩尼教; pinyin: Móní Jiào) was a major gnostic religion, originating in Sassanid era Babylonia. Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani (in Persian: مانی, Syriac: ܡܐܢܝ, Latin: Manichaeus or Manes) (c. 216–276 CE) have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived.
Manichaeism taught an elaborate cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light from which it came. Its beliefs, based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements, contained elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism.
Manichaeism thrived between the third and seventh centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire. It was widespread among the legions of the Roman Empire, who considered it a soldier's religion, and it was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism. Manichaeism survived longer in the East than in the West, and it appears to have finally faded away after the 14th century in southern China, contemporary to the decline in China of the Church of the East – see Ming Dynasty.
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Massagetae
The Massageteans[pronunciation?] (Greek: Μασσαγέται, Massagetai; Latin: Massagetae) or Massagetaeans were an Iranian nomadic confederation in antiquity known primarily from the writings of Herodotus. Their name was probably akin to Thyssagetae.
About the origin of the name Massagetae, scholars have emphasized that:
According to Herodotus:
A number of different versions have been transmitted concerning the death of Cyrus the Great. One version reported:
According to Herodotus, Cyrus the Great of Persia met his death in a battle with the Massagetae living beyond the Araxes river. They were a people from the southern deserts of Khwarezm in today's Bukhara, Uzbekistan. The queen of the Massagetae, Tomyris, prevailed, although Cyrus had defeated Tomyris's son Spargapises. Herodotus mentions: Of all the combats in which the barbarians have engaged among themselves, I reckon this to have been the fiercest.
The name Araxes probably means "rapid stream". In the context of the Massagetae "Araxes" refers to Jaxartes.
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Meskhetian Turks
Meskhetian Turks also known as Meskheti Turks, Turkish Meskhetians, and Ahiska Turks (Turkish: Ahıska Türkleri; Georgian: თურქი მესხები, t'urk'i meskhebi) are the ethnic Turks formerly inhabiting the Meskheti region of Georgia, along the border with Turkey. The Turkish presence in Meskhetia began with the Ottoman invasion of 1578, although Turkic tribes had settled in the region as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Today, the Meskhetian Turks are widely dispersed throughout the former Soviet Union (as well as in Turkey and the United States) due to forced deportations during World War II. At the time, the Soviet Union was preparing to launch a pressure campaign against Turkey and Joseph Stalin wanted to clear the strategic Turkish population in Meskheti who were likely to be hostile to Soviet intentions. In 1944, the Meskhetian Turks were accused of smuggling, banditry and espionage in collaboration with their kin across the Turkish border; nationalistic policies at the time encouraged the slogan: "Georgia for Georgians" and that the Meskhetian Turks should be sent to Turkey "where they belong". Approximately 115,000 Meskhetian Turks were deported to Central Asia and only a few hundred have been able to return to Georgia ever since.
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Mongols
Mongols (Mongolian: Монголчууд (help·info)), Mongolchuud) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. Owing to wars and migrations, Mongols are also found in some Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia (a smaller number of Mongols can also be found in Xinjiang in northwest China). The Buryat branch of the Mongol ethnic group can be found in the autonomous republic of Buryatia, Russia. Ethnic Mongols are bound together by a common language and culture. They speak languages belonging to the Mongolic languages. The contiguous territories inhabited by ethnic Mongols is also known as Greater Mongolia[disambiguation needed 
]. There are approximately 10 million ethnic Mongols in total.
A definition includes the Mongols proper, who can be approximately divided into the eastern Mongols (the Khalkha Mongols, the Inner Mongolians, the Buryats), and the Oirats. In a wider sense, the Mongol people includes all people who speak a Mongolic language, such as the Kalmyks of eastern Europe.
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Mongols in China
Mongols in China (Chinese: 蒙古族 Ménggǔzú) are citizens of the People's Republic of China who are ethnic Mongols. They form one of the 55 ethnic minorities officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. There are approximately 5.8 million ethnic Mongols living in China. Most of them live in Inner Mongolia, Northeast China, Xinjiang, etc. The Mongol population in China is over twice that of the sovereign state of Mongolia.
The Mongols in China are divided between autonomous regions and provinces as follows:
Besides the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, there are other Mongol autonomous administrative subdivisions in China.
On prefecture level:
On county level:
Not all groups of people related to the medieval Mongols are officially classified as Mongols under the current system. Other official ethnic groups in China which speak Mongolic languages include:
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Muhammad Shaybani
Muhammad Shayabak Khan Uzbek (Persian: شایبک خان ازبک, Uzbek: Muhammad Shayboniy), known in later centuries as Abul-Fath Shaybani Khan (c. 1451 – 2 December 1510), was an Uzbek Khan who consolidated various Uzbek tribes and laid the foundations for their ascendance in Transoxiana and the establishment of the Khanate of Bukhara. He was a descendant of Genghis Khan and considered the Timurids as usurpers of the Genghisid heritage in Central Asia.
Shaybani was initially a warrior leading a contingent of 3000 men in the army of Ahmad Mirza, the Timurid emir of Samarkhand. However, when Ahmad Mirza went to war against Sultan Mahmud Khan, the khan of Moghulistan, to reclaim Tashkent from him, Shaybani secretly met the Moghul Khan and agreed to betray and plunder Ahmad's army. He did so at the battle of the river Chir, resulting in a decisive victory for Moghulistan. Sultan Mahmud Khan gave Turkistan to Shaybani as a reward. Here, however, Shaybani oppressed the local Kazakhs, resulting in a war between Moghulistan and the Kazakh Khanate. Moghulistan was defeated in this war, but Shaybani gained power among the Uzbeks. He decided to conquer Samarkhand and Bukhara from Ahmad Mirza. Sultan Mahmud's subordinate emirs convinced him to aid Shaybani in doing so, and together they marched on Samarkhand.
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Naimans
The Naimans, also Naiman Turkics, (kazakh language: Найман хандығы) Naiman in Mongolian language means "eight", because Naimans were direct descendants of the Segiz Ogyz poeple, "segiz" means "eight" in the Kazakh language. They were a Mongolian name given to a group of Turkic tribes dwelling on the steppe of Central Asia, having diplomatic relations with the Kara-Khitan, and subservient to them until 1177. The Naimans are most often classified as a Turkic people from Segiz Oghyz (means 'Eight Oghuz' in Turkic),
Like the Khitans and the Uyghurs, many of them were Nestorian Christians or Buddhists. When last Tayan Khan was killed after a battle with Genghis Khan in 1203, his son Kuchlug with his remaining Naiman troops fled to the Kara-Khitan. Kuchlug was well received there and the Khitan Khan gave him his daughter in marriage. Kuchlug soon began plotting against his new father-in-law, and after he usurped the throne, he began to persecute Muslims in the Hami Oases. But his action was opposed by local people and he was later defeated by the Mongols under Jebe.
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Nanai people
The Nani people (self name нани, Nani means 'natives'; self name Hezhen means 'people of the Orient'; Russian: нанайцы, nanaitsy; Chinese: 赫哲族, Hèzhézú; formerly also known as Golds and Samagir) are a Tungusic people of the Far East, who have traditionally lived along Heilongjiang (Amur), Songhuajiang (Sunggari) and Ussuri rivers on the Middle Amur Basin. The ancestors of the Nanais were the Jurchens of northernmost Manchuria.
The Nanai/Hezhe language belongs to the Manchu-Tungusic branch of the Altai languages.
Own names are [kilən] ([nanio] and [nabəi]) and [χədʑən] ([nanai]).[na] means native and [nio], [bəi], [nai] means people in different dialects.
The Russian linguist L.I. Sem gives the self-name [xədʑən] in the Cyrillic form, хэǯэ най ( Hezhe nai ) or хэǯэны (Hezheni), and explains it as the self-name of the Nanais of the lower Amur, meaning, "people who live along the lower course of the river". It is the source of the Chinese name for the Nanais, formerly "黑斤" (Heijin), "赫哲哈喇" (Hezhehala), and modern Chinese name "赫哲" (Hezhe).
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Nogais
The Nogai people (also written as Nogay or Noghai) are a Turkic ethnic group who live in southern Russia. Most are found in northern Dagestan and Stavropol Krai, as well as in Karachay–Cherkessia and the Astrakhan Oblast; an unknown number live in Chechnya. They speak the Nogai language and are descendants of various Turkic tribes, mainly Kipchaks, who formed the Nogai Horde.
From the sixteenth century until their removal in the mid-nineteenth century the Nogais were divided into the following sub-groups (west to east along the Black Sea coast of present-day Ukraine):
The name Nogai is derived from Nogai Khan, a general of the Golden Horde.. The Nogais are a ethnic Turkic speaking group of Kipchak descent and live in southern Russia of Dagestan, anthropologically they are an racial mixture of both Mongoloid and Caucasoid and have origins from the Golden horde. The Nogai Horde supported the Astrakhan Khanate, and after the conquest of Astrakhan in 1556 by Russians, they transferred their allegiance to the Crimean Khanate. The Nogais protected the northern borders of the khanate, and through organized raids to the northern steppes prevented Slavic settlement. Many Nogais migrated to the Crimean peninsula to serve as khan's cavalry. Settling there, they contributed to the formation of the Crimean Tatars. However, Nogais were not only good soldiers, they also had considerable agricultural skills. The Nogais mastered skills of growing grain and irrigating on the dry steppes they inhabited. They cultivated spring wheat and drought resistant millet. They raised various herds and migrated seasonally in search of better pastures for their animals. Nogais were proud of their nomadic traditions and independence, which they considered superior to settled agricultural life.
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Oghuz Turks
The Turkomen also known as Oghuz Turks (a linguistic term designating the Western Turkic or Oghuz languages from the Oghur languages) were a historical Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia during the early medieval Turkic expansion. The name Oghuz is just the Common Turkic word for "tribe". They are referred to as "Western Turks" because they moved west from other Turkic peoples after the Göktürk empire collapsed, and because the majority of the areas in which they inhabit today (except Turkmenistan and the Turkmen Sahra) are west of the Caspian Sea, while those referred to as "Eastern Turks" live east of the Caspian Sea. The founders of the Ottoman Empire were also Oghuz Turks.
In the 9th century, the Oghuz Turks from the Aral steppes drove the Pecheneg Turks, of the Emba region and the Ural River, toward the west. In the 10th century they inhabited the steppe of the rivers Sari-su, Turgai, and Emba to the north of Lake Balkhash of modern day Kazakhstan. A clan of this nation, the Seljuks, embraced Islam and in the 11th century entered Persia, where they founded the Great Seljuk Empire. Similarly, in the 11th century a Tengriist Oghuz clan—referred to as Uzes or Torks in the Russian chronicles—overthrew Pecheneg supremacy in the Russian steppe. Harried by another Turkic horde, the Kipchaks—a branch of the Kimaks of the middle Irtysh or of the Ob—these Oghuz penetrated as far as the lower Danube, crossed it and invaded the Balkans, where they were either crushed or struck down by an outbreak of plague, causing the survivors either to flee or to join the Byzantine imperial forces as mercenaries (1065).
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Oroqen people
The Oroqen people (simplified Chinese: 鄂伦春族; traditional Chinese: 鄂倫春族; pinyin: Èlúnchūn zú; Mongolian: Orčun; also spelt Orochen or Orochon) are an ethnic group in northern China. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. According to the 2000 Census, 44.54% live in Inner Mongolia and 51.52% along the Heilongjiang River (Amur) in the province of Heilongjiang. The Oroqin Autonomous Banner is also located in Inner Mongolia.
The Oroqens are mainly hunters, and it is customary of them to use animal fur and skins for clothing. Many of them have given up hunting and adhered to laws that aimed to protect wildlife in the People's Republic of China. The government is said to have provided modern dwellings for those who have left behind the traditional way of life. The Oroqen are represented in the People's Congress by their own delegate and they are a recognized ethnic minority.
The Oroqen language is a Northern Tungusic language. Their language is very similar to the Evenki language and it is believed that speakers of these two languages can understand 70% of the other language. Their language is still unwritten; however, the majority of the Oroqen are capable of reading and writing Chinese, and some can also speak the Daur language.
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Qashqai people
Qashqai (pronounced [qaʃqaːʔiː]; also spelled Ghashghai, Ghashghay, Gashgai, Gashgay, Kashkai , Qashqay, Qashqa'i and Qashqai: قشقایی) are a semi-nomadic Turkic people who mainly live in the provinces of Fars, Khuzestan and southern Isfahan, especially around the city of Shiraz in Fars. They are bilingual and speak the Persian language and the Qashqai language which is a member of the Turkic family of languages. The Qashqai were originally nomadic pastoralists and some remain so today. The traditional nomadic Qashqai travelled with their flocks each year from the summer highland pastures north of Shiraz roughly 480 km or 300 mi south to the winter pastures on lower (and warmer) lands near the Persian Gulf, to the southwest of Shiraz. The majority, however, have now become partially or wholly sedentary. The trend towards settlement has been increasing markedly since the 1960s.
The Qashqai are made up of a number of tribes and sub-tribes including the Amalaeh, Darreh-Shuri, Kashkuli, Shesh(6) Baluki, Farsimadan, Qaracheh, Rahimi and Safi -Khani.
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Qiang people
The Qiang people (Chinese: 羌族; Mandarin Pinyin: qiāng zú; Jyutping: goeng1 zuk6) are an ethnic group of China. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, with a population of approximately 200,000, living mainly in northwestern part of Sichuan province.
At present, the Qiang have a self-identity, referring to themselves as Qiang zu (羌族) and erma or rma (尔玛). There are about 200,000 Qiang people today in western Sichuan, predominantly in the five counties of Maoxian, Wenchuan, Lixian, Beichuan and Heishui, of the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. On 12 May 2008, the Qiang people were heavily affected by the major Sichuan earthquake, whose epicenter was in Wenchuan County.
The Qiang today are mountain dwellers. A fortress village, zhai 寨, composed of 30 to 100 households, in general, is the basic social unit beyond the household. An average of two to five fortress villages in a small valley along a mountain stream, known in local Chinese as gou 溝, make up a village cluster (cun 村). The inhabitants of fortress village or village cluster have close contact in social life. In these small valleys, people cultivate narrow fluvial plains along creeks or mountain terraces, hunt animals or collect mushrooms and herbs (for food or medicine) in the neighboring woods, and herd yaks and horses on the mountain-top pastures. In the past, warfare between villages was common.
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Roxana
Roxana (Avestan: Raoxshna or Roshanak, "luminous beauty"; Persian: رخسانه Rokhsāna; Pashto: روښانه Rox̌āna), sometimes Roxanne and Roxane, was a Bactrian princess and a wife of Alexander the Great. She was born earlier than the year 343 BC, though the precise date remains uncertain.
Roxana was the daughter of a Bactrian named Oxyartes of Balkh in Bactria (around modern-day Balkh province of Afghanistan), and married Alexander at the age of 16 after he visited the fortress of Sogdian Rock. Balkh was the last of the Persian Empire's provinces to fall to Alexander. Ancient sources describe Alexander's professed love for Roxana. She accompanied him on his campaign in Pakistan and northern India in 326 BC.
After Alexander's sudden death at Babylon in 323 BC, she bore him a posthumous son called Alexander IV Aegus. Also, after Alexander's death, Roxana murdered Alexander's other widow, Stateira II, as well as either Stateira's sister Drypteis or Parysatis II (Alexander's third wife).
Roxana and her son were protected by Alexander's mother, Olympias, in Macedonia, but her assassination in 316 BC allowed Cassander to seek kingship. Since Alexander IV Aegus was the legitimate heir to the Alexandrian empire, Cassander ordered him and Roxana assassinated about 310 BC.
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Rustam Kasimdzhanov
Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzbek: Rustam Qosimjonov; Russian: Рустам Касымджанов) (born December 5, 1979) is an Uzbekistani chess Grandmaster, best known for winning the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004. He was born in Tashkent, in the former Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. He is an ethnic Uzbek.
His best results include first in the 1998 Asian Championship, second in the World Junior Chess Championship in 1999, first at Essen 2001, first at Pamplona 2002 (winning a blitz playoff against Victor Bologan after both had finished the main tournament on 3.5/6), first with 8/9 at the Vlissingen Open 2003, joint first with Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu with 6/9 at Pune 2005, a bronze-medal winning 9.5/12 performance on board one for his country at the 2000 Chess Olympiad and runner-up in the FIDE Chess World Cup in 2002 (losing to Viswanathan Anand in the final). He has played in the prestigious Wijk aan Zee tournament twice, but did not perform well either time: in 1999 he finished 11th of 14 with 5/13, in 2002 he finished 13th of 14 with 4.5/13.
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Saka
The Saka (Old Persian Sakā, Latinized Sacae; Greek Σάκαι; Sanskrit शक [śaka]; Chinese 塞; Old Chinese *sək) were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes of Iranian origin.
Greek and Latin texts suggest that the term Scythians referred to a much more widespread grouping of Central Asian peoples.
Accounts[which?] of the Indo-Scythian wars often assume that the Scythian protagonists were a single tribe called the Saka (Sakai or Sakas).[original research?] But in earlier Greek and Latin texts the term Scythians referred to a much more widespread grouping of Central Asian peoples.
"Scythia" was a generic term loosely applied to a vast area of Central Asia spanning numerous groups and diverse ethnicities. Ptolemy writes that Skuthia was not only "within the Imaos" (the Himalayas) and "beyond the Imaos" (north of the Himalayas), but also speaks of a separate "land of the Sakais" within Scythia.[original research?] He also notes that the Komedes inhabited "the entire mountainous land of the Sakas".[citation needed]
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Salar people
Salar people (Salar: Salır, Turkic: Salar, Chinese: 撒拉族, Pinyin: Sālāzú) are a Turkic people. Their language belongs to the Oghuz group, classified within the Turkic language family.
The Salars are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China.
The Salar people numbered 104,503 people in the last census of 2000. They live mostly in the Qinghai-Gansu border region, on both sides of the Yellow River, namely in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County (循化撒拉族自治縣) and Hualong Hui Autonomous County (化隆回族自治縣) of Qinghai and the adjacent Jishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County of Gansu. There are also Salars in Xinjiang (in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture).
The Salars' ancestors were migrating Oghuz Turks who intermarried with Han Chinese, Tibetans, and Hui. They are a patriarchal agricultural society and are predominantly Muslim.
According to Salar tradition, they are the descendants of the Salur tribe, belonging to the Oghuz Turks tribe of the Western Turkic Khaganate. The word Salur meant "those who wave swords, spears and hammers everywhere." During the Tang Dynasty period, the Salur tribe dwelt within China's borders — later moving west towards Central Asia.
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Saman Khuda
Saman Khuda (Saman Khoda, Saman-khudat) was the founder of the Samanid dynasty – The House of Saman. He was a landowner from the village of Saman in Balkh province in northern Afghanistan, who arrived in the early 8th century in Merv to the court of the Caliphal governor of Khorasan, Asad ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Qasri (723-727), adopted Islam under his patronage, and named his son Asad in his honor. Caliph al-Mamun (786-833) subsequently appointed Asad's four sons – Saman Khuda's grandsons – to be rulers of Samarqand, Ferghana, Shash and Ustrushana, and Herat in recognition of their role in the suppression of a revolt against the Caliph. The Samanid dynasty was thus started, rising to its peak of glory during the rule of Saman Khuda's great-grandson Ismail Samani (892-907).
Saman was also a descendant of the Sasanian general Bahram Chobin in 4th or 5th generation, a noble of the ancient Iranian Mehran clan, who played an important role in the history of the later Sasanians. Saman was originally a Zoroastrian noble from Balkh province, who became so impressed with the piety of Asad ibn 'Abd-Allah al-Qasri, the Caliphal governor of Khorasan, that he converted to Islam.
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Shatuo
The Shatuo (Chinese: 沙陀; pinyin: shātuó or Chinese: 沙陀突厥; pinyin: shātuó tūjué , also: Shato, Sha-t'o, Sanskrit Sart ) were a Turkic tribe that heavily influenced northern Chinese politics from the late ninth century through the tenth century. They are noted for founding 3 of the 5 dynasties and 1 of the kingdoms during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period.
The Shato tribes descended from the Chigil tribes, belonging to a group of six Chu tribes collectively known as Chuban.[citation needed]
Some argue that early Chinese sources identify them as the Xueyantuo. Others even claim they emerged as part of the Üç-Oğuz confederation of Oghuz Turks.
A detailed analysis of the term Shato (Sanskrit Sart) is given by prof. Chjan Si-man. Their social and economic life was studied by W. Eberhard. In "Tanghuyao" the Shato tamga is depicted as
The Shatuo Turks were gradually assimilated, and held onto their power base in Shanxi (central region of modern-day China). They gained in strength through the 910s until finally in 923, they were able to overcome the Later Liang Dynasty with Khitan assistance to found The Later Tang Dynasty
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Shaybanids
The Shaybanids (Persian: سلسله شیبانیان) were a Persianized dynasty of Mongolian origin in central Asia. They were the patrilineal descendants of Shiban, the fifth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan. Until the mid-14th century, they acknowledged the authority of the descendants of Batu Khan and Orda Khan, such as Uzbeg Khan. The Shaybanid horde was converted to Islam in 1282 and gradually assumed the name of Uzbeks.
As the lineages of Batu and Orda died out in the course of the great civil wars of the 14th century, the Shaybanids under Abu'l-Khayr Khan declared themselves the only legitimate successors to Jochi and put forward claims to the whole of his enormous ulus, which included parts of Siberia and Kazakhstan. Their rivals were the Timurids, who claimed descent from Jochi's thirteenth son by a concubine. Several decades of strife left the Timurids in control of the Great Horde and its successor states in Europe, namely, the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Crimea.
Under Abu'l-Khayr Khan (who led the Shaybanids from 1428 to 1468), the dynasty began consolidating disparate Uzbek tribes, first in the area around Tyumen and the Tura River and then down into the Syr Darya region. His grandson Muhammad Shaybani (ruled 1500-10), who gave his name to the Shaybanid dynasty, wrested Samarkand, Herat (for a time) and Bukhara from Babur's control and established the short-lived Shaybanid Empire. After his death at the hands of Shah Ismail I, he was followed successively by an uncle, a cousin, and a brother, whose Shaybanid descendants would rule the Khanate of Bukhara from 1505 until 1598 and the Khanate of Khwarezm (Khiva) from 1511 until 1695.
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Sogdiana
Sogdiana or Sogdia ([pronunciation?]; Old Persian: Suguda-; Ancient Greek: Σογδιανή, Sogdianē; Persian: سغد Soġd; Tajik: Суғд, سغد Suġd; Uzbek: Sơģd; Chinese: 粟特 Sùtè) was the ancient civilization of an Iranian people and a province of the Achaemenid Empire, eighteenth in the list on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great (i. 16). Sogdiana is "listed" as the second of the "good lands and countries" that Ahura Mazda created. This region is listed second after Airyana Vaeja, Land of the Aryans, in the Zoroastrian book of Vendidad or "Videvdat", indicating the importance of this region from ancient times. Sogdiana, at different times, included territories around Samarkand, Bukhara, Khujand and Shahrisabz in modern Uzbekistan. The inhabitants of Sogdiana were the Sogdians, an Eastern Iranian people who are among the ancestors of modern-day Tajik, Pashun and Yaghnobi peoples.
The Sogdian states, although never politically united, were centered around the main city of Samarkand. Sogdiana lay north of Bactria, east of Khwarezm, and southeast of Kangju between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya), embracing the fertile valley of the Zeravshan (ancient Polytimetus). Sogdian territory corresponds to the modern provinces of Samarkand and Bokhara in modern Uzbekistan as well as the Sughd province of modern Tajikistan.
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Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines (Chinese: 原住民; pinyin: yuánzhùmín; Wade–Giles: yüan2-chu4-min2; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: gôan-chū-bîn; literally "original inhabitants") is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han Chinese immigration began in the 17th century (Blust 1999). Taiwanese aborigines are Austronesian peoples, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian ethnic groups, such as peoples of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Madagascar, Polynesia, and Oceania (Hill et al. 2007; Bird, Hope & Taylor 2004). The issue of an ethnic identity unconnected to the Asian mainland has become one thread in the discourse regarding the political status of Taiwan.
For centuries, Taiwan's aboriginal peoples experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing peoples. Centralized government policies designed to foster language shift and cultural assimilation, as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, intermarriage and other dispassionate intercultural processes, have resulted in varying degrees of language death and loss of original cultural identity. For example, of the approximately 26 known languages of the Taiwanese aborigines (collectively referred to as the Formosan languages), at least ten are extinct, five are moribund (Zeitoun & Yu 2005:167) and several are to some degree endangered. These languages are of unique historical significance, since most historical linguists consider Taiwan to be the original homeland of the Austronesian language family (Blust 1999).
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Tajiks of Xinjiang
Tajiks (Sariquli Tajik: [tudʒik], Tujik; Chinese: 塔吉克族; pinyin: Tǎjíkè Zú), are an ethnic group that lives in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China. They are one of the 56 nationalities officially recognized by the government of China.
During the Tang dynasty, the members of the ethnic group were referred to as "Cina-deva-gotra" (from Sanskrit; Chinese transcription: 至那提婆瞿呾羅, 支那提婆瞿怛羅, or 脂那提婆瞿怛羅). The name literally means "descendant of Han and the sun-god" (漢日天种 or 日漢天种).
The name originates from a story about the Persian (波利剌斯) emperor seeking a Chinese princess' hand in marriage, followed by the bride-to-be's unexpected pregnancy in a mountainous and bandit-infested area en route to Persia.
During the Qing dynasty, the Tajiks were administered by a system of Begs like the rest of Xinjiang.
The Tajiks of Xinjiang practiced slavery, selling some of their own as a punishment. Submissive slaves were given wives and settled with the Tajiks. They were considered property and could be sold anytime. Their slaves came from numerous sources, enslaving Sunni captives such as Kirghiz in retaliation for Kirghiz slave raids, or from Kunjud, Gilgit, Chitral. The Tajiks also sold some slaves to Bukhara. The Sunnis called them Rafidites and did not consider them Muslim.
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Tatars
Tatars (Tatar: Tatarlar / Татарлар, sometimes spelled Tartars) are a Turkic people, numbering around 7 million. The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of 5.5 million, 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan, 1 million in the republic of Bashkortostan and other 2.5 million in different regions of Russia. Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine.
The Tatars originated with the Tatar confederation in the north-eastern Gobi desert in the 5th century. After subjugation in the 9th century by the Khitans, they migrated southward. In the 13th century Mongol Empire, they were subjugated under Genghis Khan and reassigned once again particularly by his son Jochi. Under the leadership of his grandson Batu Khan, they moved westwards, forming part of the Golden Horde which dominated the Eurasian steppe during the 14th and 15th centuries. In Europe, they were assimilated by the local populations or their name spread to the conquered peoples: Kipchaks, Kimaks and others; and elsewhere with Uralic-speaking peoples, as well as with remnants of the ancient Greek colonies in the Crimea and Caucasians in the Caucasus.
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Teleuts
Teleuts are a Turkic people people living in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. According to the 2002 census, there were 2,650 Teleuts in Russia. Their language is classified as a southern dialect within the group of dialects called the Altay language.
To read about early history of Teleuts proceed to Tiele people.
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Tibetan people
The Tibetan people (Tibetan: བོད་པ།་, Wylie: Bodpa; Chinese: 藏族; pinyin: Zàng Zú) are an ethnic group that is native to Tibet, which is mostly in the People's Republic of China. They number 5.4 million and are the 10th largest ethnic group in the country. Significant Tibetan minorities also live in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. The Khampas of Tibet are originally from Mongolia.
Tibetans speak the Tibetan language, which belongs to the Sino-Tibetan languages and has many mutually unintelligible dialects. The traditional, or mythological, explanation of the Tibetan people's origin is that they are the descendants of the monkey Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa and rock ogress Ma Drag Sinmo. Most Tibetans practice Tibetan Buddhism, though some observe the indigenous Bön and others are Muslims. Tibetan Buddhism influences Tibetan art, drama, and architecture, while the harsh geography of Tibet has produced an adaptive culture of Tibetan medicine and cuisine.
As of 2008, there are 5.4 million Tibetans in China. The SIL Ethnologue in 2009 documents an additional 189,000 Tibetan language speakers living in India, 5,280 in Nepal, and 4,800 in Bhutan. The Central Tibetan Administration's (CTA) own refugee register counts 145,150 Tibetans outside Tibet: a little over 100,000 in India; in Nepal there are over 16,000; over 1,800 in Bhutan and more than 25,000 in other parts of the world. There are Tibetan communities in the Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Norway, Taiwan, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and USA.[citation needed]
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Timur
Timur (Turkish: Demir "iron", Persian: تمور Timūr, Chagatai: Temür "iron"; 8 April 1336 – 18 February 1405), historically known as Tamerlane (from Persian: تيمور لنگ, Timūr-i Lang, Aksak Timur "Timur the Lame" in Turkish), was a Turkic, who conquered West, South and Central Asia, and the founder of the Timurid dynasty. He was the grandfather of Ulugh Beg, who ruled Central Asia from 1411 to 1449, and the great-great-grandfather of Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire, which ruled South Asia for centuries.
Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. Unlike his predecessors Timur was also a devout Muslim and referred to himself as the Sword of Islam. His armies were inclusively multi-ethnic and multicultural. During his lifetime Timur would emerge as the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world after defeating the formidable Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire and the declining Sultanate of Delhi; Timur had also decisively defeated the Knights Hospitaler at Smyrna and since then referred to himself as a Ghazi. By the end of his reign Timur had also gained complete suzerainty over all the remnants of the Chagatai Khanate, Ilkhanate, Golden Horde and even the Yuan Khanate.
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Tofalar
Tofalars (Тофалары, тофа (tofa) in Russian; formerly known as карагасы, or karagas); or the "Tof people" are a Turkic people in the Irkutsk Oblast in Russia. Their origins, Tofa language, and culture are close to those of the eastern Tuvans-Todzhins. Before the 1917 October Coup, the Tofalars used to be engaged in nomadic, living in the taiga; they engaged in reindeer husbandry and hunting. The Tofalars were resettled by the Soviet government by 1932. Young Tofalars learned Russian at new Soviet-built schoherdingols, while cultural traditions such as hunting and shamanism were discouraged or prohibited. According to the 2002 census, there were 837 Tofalars in Russia (2,828 in 1926, 476 in 1959, 570 in 1970, 576 in 1979 and 722 in 1989).
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Turgesh
The Türgesh, Turgish or Türgish (Old Turkic: Türügesh, 突騎施/突骑施, Pinyin: tūqíshī, Wade-Giles: t'u-ch'i-shih) were a Turkic tribal confederation who emerged from the ruins of the Western Turkic Kaganate. In time, the Turgesh, themselves a branch of the greater Tardush (Tulu, Dulo) subdivision of the On Okh (Onoq, Ten Arrows) or Western Turks, managed to build up a considerable if short-lived Kaganate (699-766), attested by minting of Türgesh coins. Presently, the ethnonym Türgesh survived in the name of seok (modern tribe) Tirgesh among Altaians.
The Turgesh were a group of Duolu tribes believed to have originated from the Turuhe tribe, who had appeared earlier on the banks of the Tuul River.
Among them were the Chebishi (车鼻施), who were related to the Qibi tribe. The Qibi were dispersed shortly after the defeat of chief Gelang. In the east they were put under the rule of a tudun (吐屯) named Ashina Hubo (阿史那斛勃), who became known as the Chebi Qaghan.
According to the epigraphy of Qibi Song (契苾嵩), a Tiele mercenary in Chinese service (730), The origin of the Qibi can be traced to the Khangai Mountains prior to their presence at the Bogda Mountains in the 6th century. They were related to the Jiepi (解批) of Gaoche, who were situated east of the Fufuluo.
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Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty-five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.
Turkic languages are spoken as a native language by some 165 to 200 million people; and the total number of Turkic speakers is over 300 million, including speakers of a second language. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper, or Anatolian [and Balkan] Turkish, the speakers of which account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers.
Characteristic features of Turkish, such as vowel harmony, agglutination, and lack of grammatical gender, are universal within the Turkic family. There is also a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the various Oghuz languages, which include Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, Balkan Gagauz Turkish and Oghuz influenced Crimean Tatar.
The characteristic features of the Turkic languages are vowel harmony, extensive agglutination by means of suffixes and other affixes, and lack of noun classes or grammatical gender. Subject–object–verb word order is universal within the family. All of these distinguishing characteristics are shared with the Mongolic, Tungusic, and Korean language families, as well as (with the exception of vowel harmony) with Japonic, which are considered by some linguists to be genetically linked with the Turkic languages in an Altaic language family.
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Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethnic groups that live in northern, central and western Asia, northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds. The term Turkic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people including existing societies such as the Turkish, Azerbaijani, Chuvashes, Kazakhs, Tatars, Kyrgyzs, Turkmens, Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Bashkirs, Qashqai, Gagauzs, Yakuts, Crimean Karaites, Krymchaks, Karakalpaks, Karachays, Nogais and as well as past civilizations such as the Göktürks, Kumans, Kipchaks, Avars, Bulgars, Turgeshes, Khazars, Seljuk Turks, Ottoman Turks, Mamluks, Timurids and possibly Huns and the Xiongnu.
The distribution of people of Turkic cultural background ranges from Siberia, across Central Asia, to Eastern Europe. As of 2011[update] the largest groups of Turkic people live throughout Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan, in addition to Turkey and Iran. Additionally, Turkic people are found within Crimea, East Turkistan region of western China, northern Iraq, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, Afghanistan, and the Balkans: Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, and former Yugoslavia. A small number of Turkic people also live in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Small numbers inhabit eastern Poland and the south-eastern part of Finland. There are also considerable populations of Turkic people (originating mostly from Turkey) in Germany, United States, and Australia, largely because of migrations during the 20th century.
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Turkish Cypriots
Turkish Cypriots (Turkish: Kıbrıs Türkleri or Kıbrıslı Türkler Greek: Τουρκοκύπριοι) are the ethnic Turks and members of the Turkish-speaking ethnolinguistic community of the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The term is used to refer explicitly to the indigenous Turkish Cypriots, whose Ottoman Turkish forbears colonised the island in 1571. About 30,000 Turkish soldiers were given land once they settled in Cyprus, which bequeathed a significant Turkish community; today's Turkish Cypriots.
Ottoman troops landed in Cyprus in mid-May 1570 and conquered it within a year from Venetian rule. The Turkish arrival to the island was welcomed by the Greek Cypriots as it was an improvement on Catholic domination and on the hope that 'anybody was better than the Venetians.' After the defeat of the Venetians in 1571, the Turkish commander, Lala Mustafa Paşa, chose 12,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalrymen to stay behind as colonists. Furthermore, a substantial number of Turkish soldiers and their families from the Mediterranean region of Turkey, approximately 20,000, went to Cyprus and were given fiefs on the island. A fief was a parcel of real estate given by Sultan Selim II to his soldiers in return for their service to him. By the late sixteenth century there was an estimated 40,000-60,000 Turks in Cyprus.
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Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" (Turkish: singular: Türk, plural: Türkler), are a nation and ethnic group primarily living in Turkey, and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities have been established in the Balkans, the island of Cyprus, the Levant, Meskhetia, and North Africa. The Turkish minorities are the second largest ethnic groups in Bulgaria and Cyprus. In addition, due to modern migration, a Turkish diaspora has been established, particularly in Western Europe (see Turks in Europe), where large communities have been formed in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. There are also Turkish communities living in Australia, the former Soviet Union and the United States.
Although Turkic languages may have been spoken as early as 600 BC, the name "Turk" first appeared in Chinese sources and derives from the term "Tujue" (T’u-chue), meaning "strong" or "powerful", which was used in the 6th century C.E. to refer to the Göktürks.
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Turkmen people
The Turkmen (Turkmen: Türkmen/Түркмен, plural Türkmenler/Түркменлер) are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, Syria, Iraq and North Caucasus (Stavropol Krai). They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai, Gagauz and Salar.
Originally, all Turkic tribes that were not part of the Turkic dynastic mythological system (for example, Uigurs, Karluks, Kalaches and a number of other tribes) were designated "Turkmens". Only later did this word come to refer to a specific ethnonym. The etymology of the term derives from Türk plus the Sogdian affix of similarity -myn ,-men, and means "resembling a Türk" or "co-Türk". A prominent Turkic scholar, Mahmud Kashgari, also mentions the etymology Türk manand (like Turks). The language and ethnicity of the Turkmen were much influenced by their migration to the west. Kashgari calls the Karluks Turkmen as well, but the first time the etymology Turkmen was used was by Makdisi in the second half of the 10th-century AD. Like Kashgari, he wrote that the Karluks and Oghuz Turks were called Turkmen. Some modern scholars have proposed that the element -man/-men acts as an intensifier, and have translated the word as "pure Turk" or "most Turk-like of the Turks". Among Muslim chroniclers such as Ibn Kathir the etymology was attributed to the mass conversion of two hundred thousand households in AH 349 (971 CE), causing them to be named Turk Iman, which is a combination of "Turk" and "Iman" إيمان (faith, belief), meaning "believing Turks", with the term later dropping the hard-to-pronounce hamza.
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Turks in Bulgaria
The Turks in Bulgaria constitute the largest ethnic minority in the country. They are also known as Bulgarian Turks (Turkish: Bulgaristan Türkleri, Bulgarian: български турци [bɤɫɡɐrski turtsi]) which name in addition to the Turks in Bulgaria, refers also to the Turks in any country that were born in Bulgaria.
The Turks in Bulgaria are descendants of Turkic settlers who came from Anatolia across the narrows of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, as well as Bulgarian converts to Islam who became Turkified during the centuries of Ottoman rule. It has also been suggested that some Turks living today in Bulgaria may be direct ethnic descendants of earlier medieval Pecheneg, Oğuz, and Cuman Turkic tribes. The Turkish community became an ethnic minority when the Principality of Bulgaria was established after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. This community is of Turkish ethnic consciousness and differs from the majority Bulgarian ethnicity and the rest of the Bulgarian nation by its own language, religion, culture, customs, and traditions. DNA research investigating the three largest population groups in Bulgaria: Bulgarians, Bulgarian Turks and Gypsies confirms with Y-chromosomal STR haplotype analysis that there are significant differences between the three ethnic groups. The study revealed a high number of population-specific haplotypes and a low degree of haplotype sharing between the three ethnic communities.
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Turks in Kosovo
The Turks in Kosovo, also known as Kosovo Turks, Kosovan Turks and Kosovar Turks (Turkish: Kosova Türkleri) are the ethnic Turks who constitute a minority group in Kosovo.
Turkish settlement into Kosovo began in the early fourteenth century after the medieval Serbian state lost the Battle of Kosovo and the territory came under Ottoman rule. Substantial waves of Turkish colonisers began from 1389-1455 when, during the Ottoman conquest, soldiers, officials, and merchants began to make their appearance in the major towns of Kosovo. However, the Ottoman Turks lost control over Kosovo in 1912, and Kosovo came under the de facto authority of the Kingdom of Serbia. Following the Austrian and Bulgarian occupation during World War I, Kosovo became part of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918. When the Axis powers occupied Yugoslavia in 1941, Kosovo became part of Albania, which was itself controlled by Italy. With the defeat of the Axis powers, Yugoslavia, then ruled by Communists led by Josip Broz Tito, regained control over Kosovo. Meanwhile, the Turks became an officially recognised minority by Yugoslavia; as a result, the number of registered Turks in Kosovo jumped from a mere 1,313 (or 0.2% of the population) in 1948 to 34,343 (4.3% of Kosovo's population) in the 1953 census. However, many Turkish inhabitants began to emigrate to Turkey until 1958 on the basis of a bilingual contract between Yugoslavia and Turkey.
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Turks of Romania
The Turks of Romania, also known as Romanian Turks, (Turkish: Romanya Türkleri, Romanian: Turcii din România) are ethnic Turks who form an ethnic minority in Romania. According to the 2011 census, there were 28,226 Turks living in the country, forming a minority of some 0.15% of the population. Of these, 81.1% were recorded in the Dobruja region of the country's southeast, near the Black Sea, in the counties of Constanța (21,014) and Tulcea (1,891), with a further 8.5% residing in the national capital Bucharest (2,388).
The presence of the Turkish community in Romania goes back to the thirteenth century when about 12,000 Turks settled in the Dobruja region. Another wave of Turkish colonisers emerged in the same region during the fifteenth century, and by the seventeenth century most of the settlements in Dobruja had Turkish names. In the nineteenth century, Turks and Tatars were more numerous in Dobruja than the Romanians.
The majority of Turks live in the historical region of Northern Dobruja (Turkish: Dobruca), particularly in Constanţa County, where they number 21,014 and make up 3.3% of the population, Tulcea County with 1,891 (0.94%) and Bucharest with 2,388 (0.14%). As an officially-recognised ethnic minority, Turks have one seat reserved for them in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies.
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Tuvans
The Tuvans or Tuvinians (Tuvan: Тывалар, Tyvalar; Mongolian: Tuva Uriankhai) are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group living in southern Siberia. They are historically known as one of the Uriankhai, from the Mongolian designation. Tuvans' recent ethnic history is rooted in Mongol, Turkic, and Samoyedic groups of peoples.
Tuvans have historically been cattle-breeding nomads, tending to their herds of goats, sheep, camels, reindeer, cattle and yaks for the past thousands of years. They have traditionally lived in yurts covered by felt or chums covered with birch bark or hide that they relocate seasonally as they move to newer pastures. Traditionally Tuvans divided into nine regions called Khoshuun, namely the Tozhu, Salchak, Oyunnar, Khemchik, Khaasuut, Shalyk, Nibazy, Daavan & Choodu, and Beezi. The first four were ruled by Uriankhai Mongol princes, while the rest were administered by Borjigit Mongol princes.
Besides prehistoric rock-carvings to be found especially along the Yenisei banks, the first internationally important archaeological findings have been near Arzhan, in the north central Tuva. Here Scythian kurgan burials are being researched, revealing the earliest (7th, 6th century BC) and easternmost remains of these people who spread all the way to Europe. They may be the origin of the occasional and remarkable blond, freckled, green- and blue-eyed Tuvans. Their story and fantastic gold treasures can be appreciated in the National Museum in Kyzyl.
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Ulugh Beg
Ulugh Beg (Uzbek: Muhammad Tarag'ay Ulug'beg, Муҳаммад Тарағай Улуғбек; Persian: میرزا محمد طارق بن شاہرخ الغبیگ – Mīrzā Muhammad Tāraghay bin Shāhrukh Uluġ Beg) (March 22, 1394 in Sultaniyeh (Persia) – October 27, 1449 (Samarkand)) was a Timurid ruler as well as an astronomer, mathematician and sultan. His commonly-known name is not truly a personal name, but rather a moniker, which can be loosely translated as "Great Ruler" or "Patriarch Ruler" and was the Turkic equivalent of Timur's Perso-Arabic title Amīr-e Kabīr. His real name was Mīrzā Mohammad Tāraghay bin Shāhrokh. Ulugh Beg was also notable for his work in astronomy-related mathematics, such as trigonometry and spherical geometry. Being an genius astronomer he built the great Ulugh Beg Observatory in Samarkand between 1424 and 1429. It was considered by scholars to have been one of the finest observatories in the Islamic world at the time and the largest in Central Asia. He also build the Ulugh Beg Madrasah (1417–1420) in Samarkand and Bukhara, transforming the cities into cultural center of learning in Central Asia. He was also a mathematics genius of the 15th century — albeit his mental aptitude was perseverance rather than any unusual endowment of intellect. He ruled Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, southern Kazakhstan for almost half an century from 1411 to 1449 and occupied the Herat province in Afghanistan for an short time in 1448.
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Uyghur people
The Uyghurs (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر, ULY: Uyghur; [ʔʊjˈʁʊː]; simplified Chinese: 维吾尔; traditional Chinese: 維吾爾; pinyin: Wéiwú'ěr) are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China. An estimated 80% of Xinjiang's Uyghurs live in the southwestern portion of the region, the Tarim Basin.
The largest community of Uyghurs outside Xinjiang in China is in Taoyuan County, in south-central Hunan province. Outside of China, significant diasporic communities of Uyghurs exist in the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Smaller communities are found in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey.
Uyghur is often pronounced /ˈwiːɡər/ by English speakers, though the most acceptable English pronunciation is ooy-goor. Several alternate romanizations also appear: Uighur, Uygur and Uigur. The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region provincial government recommends that the generic ethnonym [ʔʊjˈʁʊː], adopted in the early 20th century for this Turkic people, be transcribed as "Uyghur".
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Uzbek language
Uzbek (O‘zbek tili or O‘zbekcha in Latin script, Ўзбек тили or Ўзбекча in Cyrillic script; اوزبیک تیلی or اوزبیکچه in Arabic script) is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 40 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia. Uzbek belongs to the southeastern Turkic or Uyghur family of Turkic languages, and consequently its lexicon and grammar are most closely linked to the Uyghur language, while other influences rose from Persian, Arabic and Russian.
One of the most distinguishing aspects of Uzbek from other Turkic languages is its rounding of the vowel /a/ to /ɒ/ or /ɔ/, a feature influenced by Persian.
Turkic speakers have probably settled in the Amu-Darya, Syr-Darya and Zeravshan river basins since at least AD 600–700, gradually ousting or assimilating the speakers of Eastern Iranian languages who previously inhabited Soghdiana, Bactria and Chorasmia. The first Turkic dynasty in the region was that of the Karakhanids in the 9th–12th centuries AD, who were a confederation of Karluks (Qarluq), Chigil, Yaghma and other tribes.
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Uzbeks
The Uzbeks (Oʻzbek, pl. Oʻzbeklar) are a major Turkic-speaking ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Smaller diaspora populations of Uzbeks from Central Asia, mainly from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, are also found in Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, North America, and Western Europe.
The origin of the name Uzbek remains disputed. One view holds that it is eponymously named after Uzbeg Khan. Another states that the name means independent or the lord itself, from Oʻz (self) and Bek/Bey/Beg (from the Turkic root meaning a noble title). However there is another theory that the pronunciation of Uz comes from one of the Oghuz Turks variously known as Uz or Uguz united with the word Bey or Bek to form uguz-bey, meaning "leader of an oguz".
Although Turko-Mongol infiltration into Central Asia had started early, as late as the 13th century AD when Turkic and Mongol armies finally conquered the entire region, the majority of Central Asia's peoples were Iranic peoples such as Sogdians, Bactrians and, more ancient, the Saka–Massagetae tribes. It is generally believed that these ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples were linguistically assimilated by smaller but dominant Turkic-speaking groups while the sedentary population finally adopted the Persian language, the traditional lingua franca of the eastern Islamic lands. The language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an elite dominance process. This process was dramatically boosted during the Mongol conquest when millions were either killed or pushed further south to the Pamir region.
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Yakuts
Yakuts (Yakut language: Саха, Saxa) are a Turkic people associated with the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic.
The Yakut or Sakha language belongs to the Northern branch of the Turkic family of languages. There are about 444,000 ethnic Yakuts (Russian census, 2002) mainly in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenki Autonomous Districts. Their share of the population of Yakutia lowered during Soviet rule due to forced immigration, and other relocation policies, but has slightly increased since.
The Yakuts are divided into two basic groups based on geography and economics. Yakuts in the north are historically semi-nomadic hunters, fishermen, reindeer breeders, while southern Yakuts engage in animal husbandry focusing on horses and cattle.
Yakuts originally lived around Olkhon and the region of Lake Baikal. But beginning in the 13th century they migrated to the basins of the Middle Lena, the Aldan and Vilyuy rivers under the pressure of the rising Mongols, where they mixed with other northern indigenous peoples of Russia such as the Evens and Evenks.
wn.com/Yakuts -
Yao people
The Yao nationality (its great majority branch is also known as Mien; Traditional Chinese: 瑤族, Simplified Chinese: 瑶族, Pinyin: Yáo zú; Vietnamese: người Dao) is a government classification for various minorities in China. They form one of the 55 ethnic minority groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, where they reside in the mountainous terrain of the southwest and south. They also form one of the 54 ethnic groups officially recognized by Vietnam. In the last census in 2000, they numbered 2,637,421 in China, and roughly 470,000 in Vietnam.
The origins of the Yao can be traced back 2,000 years ago, starting in Hunan Province. The Yao and Miao people were among the rebels during the Miao Rebellions against the Ming dynasty. Around 1890 the Guangdong government started taking action against Yao in northwestern Guangdong.
Some members of the Yao minority live in Wugang, Hunan. One branch of the Wugang Yao were known as "Tang" (擋). The hill lands of Hunan are home to Yao tribes. Yao working in agriculture usually learn the dialect of Chinese of the Han Chinese who employed them.
wn.com/Yao_people -
Yi people
The Yi or Lolo people (Nuosu: ꆈꌠ [nɔ̄sū]; Chinese transcription: 诺苏, pinyin: Nuòsū; Chinese: 彝族; pinyin: Yízú; Vietnamese: Lô Lô; Thai: โล-โล, Lo-Lo) are an ethnic group in China, Vietnam, and Thailand. Numbering 8 million, they are the seventh largest of the 55 ethnic minority groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. They live primarily in rural areas of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi, usually in mountainous regions. As of 1999, there were 3,300 "Lô Lô" people living in Hà Giang, Cao Bằng, and Lào Cai provinces in northeastern Vietnam. Most Yi are farmers; herders of cattle, sheep and goats; and nomadic hunters.[citation needed]
The Yi speak Yi, a mixture of Tibeto-Burman languages closely related to Burmese. The prestige dialect is Nuosu, which is written in the Yi script and Chinese transliteration.
Of the more than 8 million Yi people, over 4.5 million live in Yunnan Province, 2.5 million live in southern Sichuan Province, and 1 million live in the northwest corner of Guizhou Province. Nearly all the Yi live in mountainous areas,[citation needed] often carving out their existence on the sides of steep mountain slopes far from the cities of China.
wn.com/Yi_people -
Yuezhi
The Yuezhi, or Rouzhi (Chinese: 月氏; pinyin: Yuèzhī or Ròuzhī; Old Chinese: Tokwar), were an ancient Central Asian people. They are believed by most scholars to have been an Indo-European people and may have been the same as or closely related to the Tocharians (Τοχάριοι) of Classical sources. They were originally settled in the arid grasslands of the eastern Tarim Basin area, in what is today Xinjiang and western Gansu, in China, before they migrated to Transoxiana, Bactria and then northern South Asia, where they may have had a part in forming the Kushan Empire.
Since the character yuè (月) can stand for the character ròu (肉) in pictograms, it may not mean "moon" here. The character seems to have derived originally from ròu, "meat", as a character component. However, if the form Yuezhi (月氏) is accepted, the name translates literally as "moon clan", from yuè (月), "moon" and shì (氏), "clan" or "race". According to the Kangxi Dictionary, the name came from that of a country beyond China's borders.
wn.com/Yuezhi -
Zhuang people
The Zhuang people (Chinese: 壮族; pinyin: Zhuàngzú; Zhuang: Bouxcuengh) are an ethnic group who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. Some also live in the Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou and Hunan provinces. They form one of the 55 minority ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. With the Buyi, Tay–Nùng, and other northern Tai speakers, they are sometimes known as the Rau or Rao. Their population, estimated at 18 million people, puts them second only to the Han Chinese and makes the Zhuang the largest minority in China.
The Zhuang also have their own oral epic, the Baeu Rodo.
The Chinese character used for the Zhuang people has changed several times. Their autonym, "Cuengh" in Standard Zhuang, was originally written with the rare character Zhuàng 獞 (or tóng, meaning "a variety of wild dog").). Chinese characters typically combine a semantic element or radical and a phonetic element. John DeFrancis calls Zhuàng 獞, with the "dog radical" 犭 and a tóng 童 phonetic, an ethnic slur and describes how the People's Republic of China removed it. In 1949, after the Chinese civil war, the logograph 獞 was officially replaced with Zhuàng 僮 (or tóng "child; boy servant"), with the "human radical" 亻and the same phonetic. Later, during the standardization of simplified Chinese characters, Zhuàng 僮 was changed to a completely different character Zhuàng 壮 (meaning "strong; robust").
wn.com/Zhuang_people
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SCTV Uzbeks CCCP1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:43
- Updated: 27 Dec 2012
The weak link in the great chain socialism.
http://wn.com/SCTV_Uzbeks_CCCP1
Uzbek Picnic (Washington DC, 2012)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:46
- Updated: 16 Dec 2012
vatandosh.com
http://wn.com/Uzbek_Picnic_Washington_DC,_2012
Who Are Uzbeks?? (Part1)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:26
- Updated: 26 Nov 2012
About Uzbek's In Afghanistan (Part1)
http://wn.com/Who_Are_Uzbeks??_Part1
Uzbek Massacre - Kyrgyzstan
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:28
- Updated: 29 Dec 2012
November 2010 In June this year ethnic tensions in Kyrgystan overflowed and a conflict ensued which killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands. Now it is emerging that the government may have been behind the attacks. Months after the conflict in June and the Kyrg government has yet to respond to calls for an investigation. Kuranda Seyit's report suggests government involvement in attacks on Uzbeks might be why. "although the initial violence was between two groups...the overall violence was much, much, much worse and was perpetrated against Uzbeks. It was clear that it was systematic. It was planned". Seyit brings us footage, smuggled out of Kyrgystan, of the aftermath of attacks on Uzbeks. Kyrgs always claimed the conflict was instigated by Uzbeks, "the Uzbeks started this". However Seyit and Human Rights Watch in their investigations have found evidence that the government may have been at the heart of this ethnic cleansing "there are serious concerns...government forces either actively participated in, or facilitated, attacks on Uzbek neighbourhoods". Produced By SBS Distributed By Journeyman Pictures
http://wn.com/Uzbek_Massacre_Kyrgyzstan
November 2010 In June this year ethnic tensions in Kyrgystan overflowed and a conflict ensued which killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands. Now it is emerging that the government may have been behind the attacks. Months after the conflict in June and the Kyrg government has yet to respond to calls for an investigation. Kuranda Seyit's report suggests government involvement in attacks on Uzbeks might be why. "although the initial violence was between two groups...the overall violence was much, much, much worse and was perpetrated against Uzbeks. It was clear that it was systematic. It was planned". Seyit brings us footage, smuggled out of Kyrgystan, of the aftermath of attacks on Uzbeks. Kyrgs always claimed the conflict was instigated by Uzbeks, "the Uzbeks started this". However Seyit and Human Rights Watch in their investigations have found evidence that the government may have been at the heart of this ethnic cleansing "there are serious concerns...government forces either actively participated in, or facilitated, attacks on Uzbek neighbourhoods". Produced By SBS Distributed By Journeyman Pictures
- published: 15 Nov 2010
- views: 31371
- author: journeymanpictures
New Uzbek Song 2012 By Sohrab Halim - NEW UZBEK SONGS
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:04
- Updated: 25 Dec 2012
www.facebook.com www.RaminMansour.com New Uzbek Song 2012 By Sohrab Halim - AFGHAN NEW UZBEK SONG MP3 Download: www.Afghansaaz.com New Afghan Mast Songs december 2011 new afghan song december 2011 Sohrab Halim Music Rashed Atash Director: Ramin & Mansour RMP Production december 2011
http://wn.com/New_Uzbek_Song_2012_By_Sohrab_Halim_NEW_UZBEK_SONGS
www.facebook.com www.RaminMansour.com New Uzbek Song 2012 By Sohrab Halim - AFGHAN NEW UZBEK SONG MP3 Download: www.Afghansaaz.com New Afghan Mast Songs december 2011 new afghan song december 2011 Sohrab Halim Music Rashed Atash Director: Ramin & Mansour RMP Production december 2011
- published: 12 Dec 2011
- views: 61824
- author: TheRaminMansour
смотрите что творит Узбек... Uzbek!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:31
- Updated: 01 Jan 2013
Klub "Mega Sport" Tashkent
http://wn.com/смотрите_что_творит_Узбек_Uzbek!
КАК УЗБЕК И в МОСКВЕ ГОТОВИЛИ ПЛОВ.HOW UZBEKS cooked pilaf
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:05
- Updated: 26 Dec 2012
don't forget subscribe me! Obuna bolishni unutmang Uzbek pilaf is a very famous food among people of Past Soviet Union countries, and in every town or city there exists at least one uzbek cafe where you can order uzbek pilaf , and people of this countries say If you have not tried uzbek pilaf , then you never lived. History says; Peter-1-heimself loved pilaf so much that he brought a Chef of cooking pilaf, and the uzbek chef tried to teach a russian to make pilaf but it was ineffectually, that is why if you want to try a real pilaf you have to visit Uzbekistan Узбекская кухня по своей популярности в российской столице занимает одно из ведущих позиций. По этой причине подобные презентации, мастер-классы и ярмарки плова всегда пользуются повышенным интересом, как у простых москвичей, так и у профессиональных поваров ведущих ресторанов, которые приходят на подобные мероприятия, чтобы повысить свое мастерство и перенять у узбекских поваров секреты приготовления этого блюда. узбек узбек узбек узбек узбек узбек узбек узбек узбек Andijan Uzbekistan Kazakhstan Russia Tashkent Moscow Almaty Astana Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan Bishkek Osh Dushanbe USA Great Britain Azerbaijan Armenia Андижанская Узбекистан Казахстан Россия Ташкент Москва Алматы Астана Таджикистан Киргизия Бишкек-Ош Душанбе Азербайджан Армения Кавказ Тбилиси Belarus Tbilisi Kavkaz Georgia China Canada Netherlands Sweden Norway Belgium Greece India Pakistan Delhi France Paris London England Mexico Morocco Saudi Arabia ...
http://wn.com/КАК_УЗБЕК_И_в_МОСКВЕ_ГОТОВИЛИ_ПЛОВHOW_UZBEKS_cooked_pilaf
don't forget subscribe me! Obuna bolishni unutmang Uzbek pilaf is a very famous food among people of Past Soviet Union countries, and in every town or city there exists at least one uzbek cafe where you can order uzbek pilaf , and people of this countries say If you have not tried uzbek pilaf , then you never lived. History says; Peter-1-heimself loved pilaf so much that he brought a Chef of cooking pilaf, and the uzbek chef tried to teach a russian to make pilaf but it was ineffectually, that is why if you want to try a real pilaf you have to visit Uzbekistan Узбекская кухня по своей популярности в российской столице занимает одно из ведущих позиций. По этой причине подобные презентации, мастер-классы и ярмарки плова всегда пользуются повышенным интересом, как у простых москвичей, так и у профессиональных поваров ведущих ресторанов, которые приходят на подобные мероприятия, чтобы повысить свое мастерство и перенять у узбекских поваров секреты приготовления этого блюда. узбек узбек узбек узбек узбек узбек узбек узбек узбек Andijan Uzbekistan Kazakhstan Russia Tashkent Moscow Almaty Astana Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan Bishkek Osh Dushanbe USA Great Britain Azerbaijan Armenia Андижанская Узбекистан Казахстан Россия Ташкент Москва Алматы Астана Таджикистан Киргизия Бишкек-Ош Душанбе Азербайджан Армения Кавказ Тбилиси Belarus Tbilisi Kavkaz Georgia China Canada Netherlands Sweden Norway Belgium Greece India Pakistan Delhi France Paris London England Mexico Morocco Saudi Arabia ...
- published: 21 Aug 2012
- views: 13303
- author: ilkhamharzmiy
Uzbek Muslim Hayrulla Hamidov_ about Uzbek girls
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:26
- Updated: 24 Nov 2012
http://wn.com/Uzbek_Muslim_Hayrulla_Hamidov_about_Uzbek_girls
Kyrgyzstan Uzbeks under threat
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:32
- Updated: 28 Oct 2012
Last year, violence between rival ethnic groups in Kyrgyzstan left hundreds of people dead. Tensions continue, with allegations that security forces in the south have unfairly targeted minority Uzbeks with routine abuses of power. Rights groups back up claims of a campaign of intimidation, but Kyrgz security forces refute the allegations. Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker reports exclusively from Osh.
http://wn.com/Kyrgyzstan_Uzbeks_under_threat
Last year, violence between rival ethnic groups in Kyrgyzstan left hundreds of people dead. Tensions continue, with allegations that security forces in the south have unfairly targeted minority Uzbeks with routine abuses of power. Rights groups back up claims of a campaign of intimidation, but Kyrgz security forces refute the allegations. Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker reports exclusively from Osh.
- published: 16 Mar 2011
- views: 21003
- author: AlJazeeraEnglish
Uzbeks
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:32
- Updated: 29 Dec 2012
Comedy Sketch made by SCTV Networks
http://wn.com/Uzbeks
UZBEK KABAB
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 12:33
- Updated: 30 Jun 2012
Uzbek halal food
http://wn.com/UZBEK_KABAB
Texasdagi o'zbeklar/Uzbeks in Texas. 2-qism. College Station & Houston. O'zbek oilalari
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:45
- Updated: 22 Nov 2012
Texasdagi o'zbeklar haqidagi turkum lavhalarimizni davom ettiramiz. Odil Ruzaliev bu safar Kollej Steyshn va Xyustondagi o'zbek oilalarida bo'ldi.
http://wn.com/Texasdagi_o'zbeklar_Uzbeks_in_Texas_2-qism_College_Station_Houston_O'zbek_oilalari
Texasdagi o'zbeklar haqidagi turkum lavhalarimizni davom ettiramiz. Odil Ruzaliev bu safar Kollej Steyshn va Xyustondagi o'zbek oilalarida bo'ldi.
- published: 13 Oct 2012
- views: 1955
- author: AmerikaOvoziUZBEK
guney turkistan music(afghan uzbek)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:45
- Updated: 09 Dec 2012
khair m chavoosh afghan uzbek song guney turkistan qataghani afg uzbek rap music
http://wn.com/guney_turkistan_musicafghan_uzbek
khair m chavoosh afghan uzbek song guney turkistan qataghani afg uzbek rap music
- published: 08 Mar 2012
- views: 4945
- author: youssufu officialtv
Uzbeks fear spreading violence
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:14
- Updated: 01 Jun 2012
Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks are blaming each other for starting the violence, which has killed about 100 people in southern Kazakhstan. The interim government is struggling to stop the unrest from spreading. Al Jazeera's Clayton Swisher reports from the capital, Bishkek.
http://wn.com/Uzbeks_fear_spreading_violence
Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks are blaming each other for starting the violence, which has killed about 100 people in southern Kazakhstan. The interim government is struggling to stop the unrest from spreading. Al Jazeera's Clayton Swisher reports from the capital, Bishkek.
- published: 13 Jun 2010
- views: 14495
- author: AlJazeeraEnglish
Beauty of Uzbek Culture
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:38
- Updated: 21 Oct 2012
The Uzbeks are a major Turkic ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Smaller diaspora populations of Uzbeks from Central Asia, mainly from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, are also found in Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, North America, and Western Europe.
http://wn.com/Beauty_of_Uzbek_Culture
The Uzbeks are a major Turkic ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Smaller diaspora populations of Uzbeks from Central Asia, mainly from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, are also found in Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, North America, and Western Europe.
- published: 05 May 2012
- views: 489
- author: Oyrad58
Uzbeks flee Kyrgyzstan violence
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:07
- Updated: 05 Nov 2012
Thousands of ethnic Uzbeks are trying to escape southern Kyrgyzstan after clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks killed dozens of people in the city of Osh. The Uzbeks are trying to cross the border into Uzbekistan. The Kyrgyz interim government has admitted that it has lost control of Osh, the country's second largest city, and has asked for Russian help to quell the violence. Al Jazeera's Robin Forstier-Walker reports from the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border.
http://wn.com/Uzbeks_flee_Kyrgyzstan_violence
Thousands of ethnic Uzbeks are trying to escape southern Kyrgyzstan after clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks killed dozens of people in the city of Osh. The Uzbeks are trying to cross the border into Uzbekistan. The Kyrgyz interim government has admitted that it has lost control of Osh, the country's second largest city, and has asked for Russian help to quell the violence. Al Jazeera's Robin Forstier-Walker reports from the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border.
- published: 12 Jun 2010
- views: 92244
- author: AlJazeeraEnglish
Uzbeks accuse Kyrgyz army of murder
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:56
- Updated: 01 Jun 2012
Whole neighbourhoods in the city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan have been destroyed as result of fighting between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks that has left more than 130 people killed. The ethnic Uzbeks accuse the Kyrgyz military of playing a part in the violence. But the provincial governor denies those claims, saying third parties are trying to destroy peace between the two communities. Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker reports from Osh.
http://wn.com/Uzbeks_accuse_Kyrgyz_army_of_murder
Whole neighbourhoods in the city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan have been destroyed as result of fighting between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks that has left more than 130 people killed. The ethnic Uzbeks accuse the Kyrgyz military of playing a part in the violence. But the provincial governor denies those claims, saying third parties are trying to destroy peace between the two communities. Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker reports from Osh.
- published: 14 Jun 2010
- views: 32162
- author: AlJazeeraEnglish
8ми л-й. узбек -пианист шокировал весь мир! 8-old uzbek-piano player
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:13
- Updated: 29 Dec 2012
Born in 1996 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nuron Mukumiy started his piano lessons at the age of 6 at the Uspensky Institute of Music in 2002 in the class of Tamara Popovich. He has won several international competitions, such as : 2003 1 Prize of the International Russian Music Piano Competition in San Jose, CA., 1 Prize of the Uzbekistan Republic Junior competition, Tashkent, in 2004 Nuron was named Laureate of Tashkent Festival, Found Forum and in 2005 he received a Special Prize from Cantu International Piano Competition. Further success were offers of full scholarship in three major music institutions of London: The Guildhall School, The Purcell School and the North London Piano School. In the year 2006 Nuron successfully entered the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt into the Meisterklasse Prof. Lev Natochenny. In May of the same year Nuron won the 1 Prize of the "New Names" Piano Competition and in October of the same year performed in Millenium Centre in London. The year 2007 continued to bring competition successes, thus he won the 1 Prize and a Special Prize in the "Mozart International Piano Competition" in Rome and was offered a distinguished opportunity to conduct the "Moscow Virtuosi" at the international Festival of "Vladimir Spivakov"Fund. In the years of 2007-2009 Nuron is a student at the Purcell School in London, again on full scholarship and is invited to perform twice in the St. Martin's-in-the-fields, Steinway Hall, London North Music Hall and Royal ...
http://wn.com/8ми_л-й_узбек_-пианист_шокировал_весь_мир!_8-old_uzbek-piano_player
Born in 1996 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nuron Mukumiy started his piano lessons at the age of 6 at the Uspensky Institute of Music in 2002 in the class of Tamara Popovich. He has won several international competitions, such as : 2003 1 Prize of the International Russian Music Piano Competition in San Jose, CA., 1 Prize of the Uzbekistan Republic Junior competition, Tashkent, in 2004 Nuron was named Laureate of Tashkent Festival, Found Forum and in 2005 he received a Special Prize from Cantu International Piano Competition. Further success were offers of full scholarship in three major music institutions of London: The Guildhall School, The Purcell School and the North London Piano School. In the year 2006 Nuron successfully entered the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt into the Meisterklasse Prof. Lev Natochenny. In May of the same year Nuron won the 1 Prize of the "New Names" Piano Competition and in October of the same year performed in Millenium Centre in London. The year 2007 continued to bring competition successes, thus he won the 1 Prize and a Special Prize in the "Mozart International Piano Competition" in Rome and was offered a distinguished opportunity to conduct the "Moscow Virtuosi" at the international Festival of "Vladimir Spivakov"Fund. In the years of 2007-2009 Nuron is a student at the Purcell School in London, again on full scholarship and is invited to perform twice in the St. Martin's-in-the-fields, Steinway Hall, London North Music Hall and Royal ...
- published: 21 Jul 2012
- views: 3579
- author: ilkhamharzmiy
Uzbek Dance
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:38
- Updated: 07 Jul 2012
First time in Australia Uzbek children from Uzbek Ethnic School performing their traditional costumes and dance at the Festival in Adeliade.
http://wn.com/Uzbek_Dance
First time in Australia Uzbek children from Uzbek Ethnic School performing their traditional costumes and dance at the Festival in Adeliade.
- published: 31 Oct 2011
- views: 4346
- author: uzbekasutralia
Bashir Wafa Uzbeks Song Mix YouTube
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:42
- Updated: 14 Nov 2012
http://wn.com/Bashir_Wafa_Uzbeks_Song_Mix_YouTube
Genocide of Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:05
- Updated: 04 May 2012
The 2010 Kyrgyz revolution began in April 2010 with the ousting of Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. It was followed by increased ethnic tension involving the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the south of the country, which escalated in June 2010. The killings of Uzbeks in the riots have been called "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" by the UN and international media. The Uzbek minority was targeted by assailants of the Kyrgyz ethnicity, as evidenced by survivors and field reports of the media. Approximately 100000 Uzbeks -- mainly women, elder people and children fleeing the violence -- found refuge in Uzbekistan and some 400000 became internally displaced. Victims interviewed by media and aid workers testify to mass killing, gang rape and torture. Then-head of the Interim government Roza Otunbayeva indicated that the death toll is tenfold higher than was previously reported, which brings the number of the dead to 2000 people. **Source: Wikipedia Central Asia Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed to support people of Central Asia. Weblink for Donations through Facebook: goo.gl PayPal Verified Status: www.paypal.com Checks can be mailed to: Central Asia Foundation 3291 Kennedy Blvd Jersey City, NJ 07307 501(c)(3) Tax exempt Status: docs.google.com
http://wn.com/Genocide_of_Uzbeks_in_Kyrgyzstan
The 2010 Kyrgyz revolution began in April 2010 with the ousting of Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. It was followed by increased ethnic tension involving the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the south of the country, which escalated in June 2010. The killings of Uzbeks in the riots have been called "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" by the UN and international media. The Uzbek minority was targeted by assailants of the Kyrgyz ethnicity, as evidenced by survivors and field reports of the media. Approximately 100000 Uzbeks -- mainly women, elder people and children fleeing the violence -- found refuge in Uzbekistan and some 400000 became internally displaced. Victims interviewed by media and aid workers testify to mass killing, gang rape and torture. Then-head of the Interim government Roza Otunbayeva indicated that the death toll is tenfold higher than was previously reported, which brings the number of the dead to 2000 people. **Source: Wikipedia Central Asia Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed to support people of Central Asia. Weblink for Donations through Facebook: goo.gl PayPal Verified Status: www.paypal.com Checks can be mailed to: Central Asia Foundation 3291 Kennedy Blvd Jersey City, NJ 07307 501(c)(3) Tax exempt Status: docs.google.com
- published: 05 Jan 2012
- views: 718
- author: centralasiaf
Abdul Rashid Dostum uzbek
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:33
- Updated: 09 Dec 2012
Abdul Rashid Dostum
http://wn.com/Abdul_Rashid_Dostum_uzbek
photo: AP / New York City Police Department
30 Dec 2012
A woman who told police she shoved a man to his death off a subway platform because she has hated Muslims since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US and thought he was one was charged on Saturday with murder as a hate crime, prosecutors said ... Menendez, 31, was awaiting arraignment on the charge on Saturday evening, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. She faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted ... On Dec ... ....(size: 3.0Kb)
photo: WN / Bhaskar Mallick
30 Dec 2012
Comet Ison is likely to light up the skies in 2013. David Shukman, science editor, BBC News Continue reading the main story Related Stories. A science news preview of 2012. As the Philippines, New Jersey and Britain count the cost of ferocious flooding, expect another year in which extreme weather exacts a human toll. Partly this is because more and more of us live in harm's way on coasts and flood plains ... ....(size: 9.2Kb)
photo: AP / Felicia Fonseca
01 Jan 2013
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. For good reason Mark Charles, a member of the Navajo Nation, is deeply offended that buried on page 45 of the 2010 Defense Appropriation Act (after pages on the maintenance and operation of the United States Military) is an "official" apology to Native American People ... political leaders and officials find it extremely difficult in expressing remorse for past mistakes ... Escorted by the U.S....(size: 5.6Kb)
photo: AP / John MacDougall
31 Dec 2012
Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that the German economic climate in 2013 will be "even more difficult". In her new year message, she also cautioned that the eurozone debt crisis was far from over. However, she did say that reforms designed to address the roots of the problem were beginning to bear fruit ... In a taped interview to be broadcast later on Monday, Mrs Merkel urged Germans to be more patient ... Voters 'wary' ... ....(size: 2.3Kb)
photo: AP / Shaam News Network
30 Dec 2012
London. UN-Arab League envoy to Damascus, Lakhdar Brahimi, has said that a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria seemed far away, adding that the country risked being slithering into ‘hell’ ... (ANI). For Zee News’s Updates, follow us on Twitter , Facebook, Google+, Pinterest. First Published ... ....(size: 1.7Kb)
noodls
01 Jan 2013
(Source. ATP Tour Inc). BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL 2013 Brisbane, Australia. Denis Istomin dismissed eighth seed Martin Klizan 6-1, 6-2 in the first round of the Brisbane International on Tuesday ... The Uzbek sealed the upset win in 70 minutes against the 2012 ATP Newcomer of the Year ... to Tomic) ... Falla advances to play No ... TV Schedule . Buy Tickets....(size: 2.3Kb)
The Examiner
01 Jan 2013
Secret Weapon to Say Happy New Year in Any Language. By Michelle Carr-Crowe, Silicon Valley, Calif. guide and San Jose real estate agent. Are you looking for a Secret Weapon to Say Happy New Year in Any Language?. It’s almost the New Year and time to wish your friends, co-workers, neighbors and family members a Happy New Year ... It’s your Secret Weapon to Help You Say Happy New Year in Any Language ... UZBEK yangi yilingiz qutlug' bo'lsin ... ....(size: 7.9Kb)
The Guardian
31 Dec 2012
Russian says he was kidnapped on street, taken across border and tortured into making a false confession ... Photograph. Mikhail Metzel/AP ... His lawyers deny this. Razvozzhayev remains in detention in Russia ... Maksym Bukkevych, a human rights campaigner for Ukraine with the No Borders initiative, recalled a similar story about an event in late 2009 relating to an Uzbek citizen, Hamidullo Turgunov, who had sought refugee status in Ukraine ... ....(size: 5.8Kb)
The Hindu
31 Dec 2012
Persistent efforts by multiple western players finally paid off. The Taliban and the Kabul government met officially in Chantilly, a suburb of Paris, on December 20 and 21 under the aegis of a French think tank called the Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique ... It is noteworthy that the Kabul delegation included a sprinkling of non-Pashtun tribes — Massoud, a Tajik, Mohaqqeq, a Hazara leader, and Faizullah Zaki, an Uzbek. Mr ... Mr....(size: 8.1Kb)
Fox News
30 Dec 2012
25, 2012, photo, Talgat Batalov, a native of Uzbekistan who directed "The Uzbek," a play on his life and experience, poses at the Teatr.doc theater in Moscow ... An ethnic Uzbek, Usmanov is perhaps the most successful native of ex-Soviet Central Asia to make a fortune in Russia ... The undisputed star among Russia's Central Asian business figures is ethnic Uzbek Alisher Usmanov....(size: 12.4Kb)
The Himalayan
30 Dec 2012
25, 2012, photo, Talgat Batalov, a native of Uzbekistan who directed "The Uzbek," a play on his life and experience, poses at the Teatr.doc theater in Moscow ... The undisputed star among Russia's Central Asian business figures is ethnic Uzbek Alisher Usmanov ... Uzbek native Mirzakarim Norbekov has penned half a dozen bestsellers based on the medical teachings of Muslim medieval scholar Avicenna, who was born in what is now Uzbekistan....(size: 12.8Kb)
Denver Post
30 Dec 2012
25, 2012, photo, Talgat Batalov, a native of Uzbekistan who directed "The Uzbek," a play on his life and experience, poses at the Teatr.doc theater in Moscow ... The undisputed star among Russia's Central Asian business figures is ethnic Uzbek Alisher Usmanov ... Uzbek native Mirzakarim Norbekov has penned half a dozen bestsellers based on the ......(size: 10.3Kb)
Seattle Post
30 Dec 2012
The undisputed star among Russia's Central Asian business figures is ethnic Uzbek Alisher Usmanov ... Uzbek native Mirzakarim Norbekov has penned half a dozen bestsellers based on the medical teachings of Muslim medieval scholar Avicenna, who was born in what is now Uzbekistan ... Uzbek restaurants, fast-food joints and clay-oven bakeries that churn out ......(size: 8.8Kb)
Sacramento Bee
30 Dec 2012
The undisputed star among Russia's Central Asian business figures is ethnic Uzbek Alisher Usmanov ... Uzbek native Mirzakarim Norbekov has penned half a dozen bestsellers based on the medical teachings of Muslim medieval scholar Avicenna, who was born in what is now Uzbekistan ... Uzbek restaurants, fast-food joints and clay-oven bakeries that churn out ......(size: 8.9Kb)
The Guardian
30 Dec 2012
• British No2 beats Romanian 6-2, 6-1. • Serena Williams stomps to first-round win in Brisbane ... Photograph. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images ... The American threw her hands in the air, shook her head, gesticulated towards her coach and stomped her feet in petulant protest – but that did little to help the Uzbek-American Varvara Lepchenko who lost 6-2, 6-1 in the first-round ... I think I definitely feel that way." ... ....(size: 4.1Kb)
Denver Post
30 Dec 2012
ISLAMABAD — They are dead men talking, and they know it. Gulping nervously, the prisoners stare into the video camera, spilling tales of intrigue, betrayal and paid espionage on behalf of the United States ... Others look resigned ... Since it emerged in 2009, the group, which is led by Arab and Uzbek militants, has carefully cultivated a sinister image through video theatrics and the ruthless application of violence ... ....(size: 3.6Kb)
Taipei Times
30 Dec 2012
Timur Bulgakov has a black belt in karate, two university degrees, a powerful SUV and a small yet thriving construction company. The 28-year-old’s success is impressive for a Muslim migrant from Uzbekistan whose first job in Moscow 10 years ago was as a delivery boy. However, his story is no longer that unusual ... The undisputed star among Russia’s Central Asian business figures is ethnic Uzbek Alisher Usmanov ... ....(size: 3.5Kb)
The Times of India
30 Dec 2012
NEW DELHI. India's pet project to link south with central Asia got support from Russian president Vladimir Putin. During their talks in New Delhi last week, Singh and Putin agreed to unfreeze the north-south corridor through Iran within the next year ... Again, here, the delay is on the Iranian side ... Uzbek and Kazakh leaders have pressed India to complete the project because it would open up the Indian energy market to these countries ... ....(size: 4.7Kb)
This article is about Uzbeks as an ethnic group. For information about citizens of Uzbekistan, see Demographics of Uzbekistan.
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neighbouring Turkic- and Iranian peoples |
The Uzbeks (Oʻzbek, pl. Oʻzbeklar) are a major Turkic-speaking ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Smaller diaspora populations of Uzbeks from Central Asia, mainly from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, are also found in Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, North America, and Western Europe.
Contents |
Name[link]
The origin of the name Uzbek remains disputed. One view holds that it is eponymously named after Uzbeg Khan.[13] Another states that the name means independent or the lord itself, from Oʻz (self) and Bek/Bey/Beg (from the Turkic root meaning a noble title). However there is another theory that the pronunciation of Uz comes from one of the Oghuz Turks variously known as Uz or Uguz united with the word Bey or Bek to form uguz-bey, meaning "leader of an oguz".[14]
Origins[link]
Although Turko-Mongol infiltration into Central Asia had started early,[15] as late as the 13th century AD when Turkic and Mongol armies finally conquered the entire region, the majority of Central Asia's peoples were Iranic peoples such as Sogdians, Bactrians and, more ancient, the Saka–Massagetae tribes. It is generally believed that these ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples were linguistically assimilated by smaller but dominant Turkic-speaking groups while the sedentary population finally adopted the Persian language, the traditional lingua franca of the eastern Islamic lands.[16] The language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an elite dominance process.[17][18] This process was dramatically boosted during the Mongol conquest when millions were either killed or pushed further south to the Pamir region.
The modern Uzbek language is largely derived from the Chagatai language which gained prominence in the Timurid Empire. The position of Chagatai (and later Uzbek) was further strengthened after the fall of the Timurids and the rise of the Shaybanid Uzbek Khaqanate that finally shaped the Turkic language and identity of modern Uzbeks, while the unique grammatical[19] and phonetical features of the Uzbek language as well as the modern Uzbek culture reflect the more ancient Iranic roots of the Uzbek people.[16][20][21][22]
Genetic origins[link]
The modern Uzbek population represents varying degrees of diversity derived from the high traffic invasion routes through Central Asia. Once populated by Iranian tribes and other Indo-European people, Central Asia experienced numerous invasions emanating out of Mongolia that would drastically affect the region. According to recent genetic genealogy testing from a University of Oxford study, the genetic admixture of the Uzbeks clusters somewhere between the Iranian peoples and the Mongols.
From the 3d century B.C., Central Asia experienced nomadic expansions of Altaic-speaking oriental-looking people, and their incursions continued for hundreds of years, beginning with the Hsiung-Nu (who may be ancestors of the Huns), in ~300 B.C., and followed by the Turks, in the 1st millennium A.D., and the Mongol expansions of the 13th century. High levels of haplogroup 10 and its derivative, haplogroup 36, are found in most of the Altaic-speaking populations and are a good indicator of the genetic impact of these nomadic groups. The expanding waves of Altaic-speaking nomads involved not only eastern Central Asia—where their genetic contribution is strong, [...]—but also regions farther west, like Iran, Iraq, Anatolia, and the Caucasus, as well as Europe, which was reached by both the Huns and the Mongols. In these western regions, however, the genetic contribution is low or undetectable (...), even though the power of these invaders was sometimes strong enough to impose a language replacement, as in Turkey and Azerbaijan (...). The difference could be due to the population density of the different geographical areas. Eastern regions of Central Asia must have had a low population density at the time, so an external contribution could have had a great genetic impact. In contrast, the western regions were more densely inhabited, and it is likely that the existing populations were more numerous than the conquering nomads, therefore leading to only a small genetic impact. Thus, the admixture estimate from northeast Asia is high in the east, but is barely detectable west of Uzbekistan.[23]
History[link]
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This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability. |
Ancient History[link]
Uzbeks are inhabitants of Uzbekistan, the heart of Central Asia history goes back to the earliest Bronze Age colonists of the Tarim Basin were people of Caucasoid physical type who entered probably from the north and west, and probably spoke languages that could be classified as Pre- or Proto-Tocharian, ancestral to the Indo-European Tocharian languages documented later in the Tarim Basin. These early settlers occupied the northern and eastern parts of the Tarim Basin, where their graves have yielded mummies dated about 1800 BC. They participated in a cultural world centered on the eastern steppes of central Eurasia, including modern northeastern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
The first people known to have inhabit Central Asia were Iranian nomads who arrived from the northern grasslands of what is now Uzbekistan sometime in the first millennium BC. These nomads, who spoke Iranian dialects, settled in Central Asia and began to build an extensive irrigation system along the rivers of the region. At this time, cities such as Bukhoro (Bukhara) and Samarqand (Samarkand) began to appear as centers of government and culture. By the 5th century BC, the Bactrian, Soghdian, and Tokharian states dominated the region.
As China began to develop its silk trade with the West, Iranian cities took advantage of this commerce by becoming centers of trade. Using an extensive network of cities and settlements in the province of Mawarannahr (a name given the region after the Arab conquest) in Uzbekistan and farther east in what is today China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Soghdian intermediaries became the wealthiest of these Iranian merchants. Because of this trade on what became known as the Silk Route, Bukhoro and Samarqand eventually became extremely wealthy cities, and at times Mawarannahr (Transoxiana) was one of the most influential and powerful Persian provinces of antiquity.[24]
Alexander the Great conquered Sogdiana and Bactria in 327 BC, marrying Roxana, daughter of a local Bactrian chieftain. The conquest was supposedly of little help to Alexander as popular resistance was fierce, causing Alexander's army to be bogged down in the region that became the northern part of Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. For many centuries the region of Uzbekistan was ruled by Persian empires, including the Parthian and Sassanid Empires.
Early Islamic period[link]
The conquest of Central Asia by Islamic Arabs, which was completed in the eighth century AD, brought to the region a new religion and culture that continue to be dominant.[citation needed] The Arabs first invaded Mawarannahr in the middle of the seventh century through sporadic raids during their conquest of Persia. Available sources on the Arab conquest suggest that the Soghdians and other Iranian peoples of Central Asia were unable to defend their land against the Arabs because of internal divisions and the lack of strong indigenous leadership. The Arabs, on the other hand, were led by a brilliant general, Qutaybah ibn Muslim, and they also were highly motivated by the desire to spread their new faith (the official beginning of which was in AD 622). Because of these factors, the population of Mawarannahr was easily conquered. The new religion brought by the Arabs spread gradually in the region. The native cultures, which in some respects already were being displaced by Persian influences before the Arabs arrived, were displaced farther in the ensuing centuries. Nevertheless, the destiny of Central Asia as an Islamic region was firmly established by the Arab victory over the Chinese armies in 750 in a battle at the Talas River.[25]
Under Arab rule, Central Asia retained much of its Iranian character, remaining an important center of culture and trade for centuries after the Arab conquest. However, until the tenth century the language of government, literature, and commerce was Arabic. Mawarannahr continued to be an important political player in regional affairs, as it had been under various Persian dynasties. In fact, the Abbasid Caliphate, which ruled the Arab world for five centuries beginning in 750, was established thanks in great part to assistance from Central Asian supporters in their struggle against the then-ruling Umayyad Caliphate.[25]
During the height of the Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth and the ninth centuries, Central Asia and Mawarannahr experienced a truly golden age. Bukhoro became one of the leading centers of learning, culture, and art in the Muslim world, its magnificence rivaling contemporaneous cultural centers such as Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba. Some of the greatest historians, scientists, and geographers in the history of Islamic culture were natives of the region.[25]
As the Abbasid Caliphate began to weaken and local Islamic Iranian states emerged as the rulers of Iran and Central Asia, the Persian language began to regain its preeminent role in the region as the language of literature and government. The rulers of the eastern section of Iran and of Mawarannahr were Persians. Under the Samanids and the Buyids, the rich culture of Mawarannahr continued to flourish.[25]
The Samanid Empire[link]
The Samanids were a Persian state that reigned for 180 years, encompassing a territory which included Khorasan (including Kabul),[26] Ray, Transoxiania, Tabaristan, Kerman, Gorgan, and west of these provinces up to Isfahan. At the peak of their power, the Samanids controlled territory extending as far south as the Sulaiman Mountains, Ghazni and Kandahar.[27] The Samanids were descendants of Bahram Chobin,[28][29] and thus descended from the House of Mihrān, one of the Seven Great Houses of Iran. In governing their territory, the Samanids modeled their state organization after the Abbasids, mirroring the caliph's court and organization.[30] They were rewarded for supporting the Abbasids in Transoxania and Khorasan, and with their established capitals located in Bukhara, Balkh, Samarkand, and Herat, they carved their kingdom after defeating the Saffarids.[28]
The Samanid Empire was the first native Persian dynasty to arise after the Muslim Arab conquest. The four grandsons of the dynasty's founder, Saman Khuda, had been rewarded with provinces for their faithful service to the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun: Nuh obtained Samarkand; Ahmad, Fergana; Yahya, Shash; and Elyas, Herat. Ahmad's son Nasr became governor of Transoxania in 875, but it was his brother and successor, Ismail Samani who overthrew the Saffarids and the Zaydites of Tabaristan, thus establishing a semiautonomous rule over Transoxania and Khorasan, with Bukhara as his capital.
The Samanids defeat the Saffarids and Zaydids[link]
Samanid rule in Bukhara was not formally recognized by the caliph until the early 900s when the Saffarid ruler 'Amr-i Laith had asked the caliph for the investiture of Transoxiana. The caliph, Al-Mu'tadid however sent the Samanid amir, Ismail Samani, a letter urging him to fight Amr-i Laith and the Saffarids whom the caliph considered usurpers. According to the letter, the caliph stated that he prayed for Ismail who the caliph considered as the rightful ruler of Khorasan.[31] The letter had a profound effect on Ismail, as he was determined to oppose the Saffarids.
The two sides fought in Balkh, northern Afghanistan during the spring of 900. During battle, Ismail was significantly outnumbered as he came out with 20,000 horsemen against Amr's 70,000 strong cavalry.[32] Ismail's horsemen were ill-equipped with most having wooden stirrups while some had no shields or lances. Amr-i Laith's cavalry on the other hand, were fully equipped with weapons and armor. Despite fierce fighting, Amr was captured as some of his troops switched sides and joined Ismail.[33]
Isma'il thereafter sent an army to Tabaristan in accordance with the caliph's directive.[34] The area at that time was then controlled by the Zaydids. The Samanid army defeated the Zaydid ruler and the Samanids gained control of the region.
Turkification of Mawarannahr[link]
In the ninth century, the continued influx of nomads from the northern steppes brought a new group of people into Central Asia. These people were the Turks who lived in the great grasslands stretching from Mongolia to the Caspian Sea. During the Samanid Dynasty, these Turks served in the armies of all the states of the region, including the Abbasid army. In the late tenth century, as the Samanids began to lose control of Mawarannahr and northeastern Iran, some of these soldiers came to positions of power in the government of the region, and eventually they established their own states. With the emergence of a Turkic ruling group in the region, other Turkic tribes began to migrate to Mawarannahr.[35]
The first of the Turkic states in the region was the Ghaznavid Empire, established in the last years of the tenth century. The Ghaznavid state, which ruled lands south of the Amu Darya, was able to conquer large areas of Iran, Afghanistan, and northern India during the reign of Sultan Mahmud. The dominance of Ghazna was curtailed, however, when large-scale Turkic migrations brought in two new groups of Turks who undermined the Ghaznavids. In the east, these Turks were led by the Qarakhanids, who conquered the Samanids. Then the Seljuk family led Turks into the western part of the region, conquering the Ghaznavid territory of Khorazm (also spelled Khorezm and Khwarazm).[35]
Attracted by the wealth of Central Asia as were earlier groups, the Seljuks dominated a wide area from Asia Minor to the western sections of Mawarannahr, in Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq in the eleventh century. The Seljuk Empire then split into states ruled by various local Turkic and Iranian rulers. The culture and intellectual life of the region continued unaffected by such political changes, however. Turkic tribes from the north continued to migrate into the region during this period.[35]
In the late twelfth century, a Turkic leader of Khorazm, which is the region south of the Aral Sea, united Khorazm, Mawarannahr, and Iran under his rule. Under the rule of the Khorazm shah Kutbeddin Muhammad and his son, Muhammad II, Mawarannahr continued to be prosperous and rich. However, a new incursion of nomads from the north soon changed this situation. This time the invader was Genghis Khan with his Mongol armies.[35]
Mongol period[link]
The Mongol conquest of Central Asia, which took place from 1219 to 1225, led to a wholesale change in the population of Mawarannahr . The conquest quickened the process of Turkification in the region because, although the armies of Genghis Khan were led by Mongols, they were made up mostly of Turkic tribes that had been incorporated into the Mongol armies as the tribes were encountered in the Mongols' southward sweep. As these armies settled in Mawarannahr, they intermixed with the local populations, increasingly making the Iranians a minority. Another effect of the Mongol conquest was the large-scale damage the warriors inflicted on cities such as Bukhoro and on regions such as Khorazm. As the leading province of a wealthy state, Khorazm was treated especially severely. The irrigation networks in the region suffered extensive damage that was not repaired for several generations.[36]
Rule of Mongols and Timurids[link]
Following the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, his empire was divided among his four sons and his family members. Despite the potential for serious fragmentation, Mongol law of the Mongol Empire maintained orderly succession for several more generations, and control of most of Mawarannahr stayed in the hands of direct descendants of Chaghatai, the second son of Genghis. Orderly succession, prosperity, and internal peace prevailed in the Chaghatai lands, and the Mongol Empire as a whole remained strong and united.[37]
In the early fourteenth century, however, as the empire began to break up into its constituent parts, the Chaghatai territory also was disrupted as the princes of various tribal groups competed for influence. One tribal chieftain, Timur (Tamerlane, as he was most commonly known as in Europe), emerged from these struggles in the 1380s as the dominant force in Mawarannahr. Although he was not a descendant of Genghis, Timur became the de facto ruler of Mawarannahr and proceeded to conquer all of western Central Asia, Iran, Asia Minor, and the southern steppe region north of the Aral Sea. He also invaded Russia before dying during an invasion of China in 1405.[37] Timur initiated the last flowering of Mawarannahr by gathering in his capital, Samarqand, numerous artisans and scholars from the lands he had conquered. By supporting such people, Timur imbued his empire with a very rich culture. During Timur's reign and the reigns of his immediate descendants, a wide range of religious and palatial construction projects were undertaken in Samarqand and other population centers. Timur also patronized scientists and artists; his grandson Ulugh Beg was one of the world's first great astronomers. It was during the Timurid dynasty that Turkish, in the form of the Chaghatai dialect, became a literary language in its own right in Mawarannahr—although the Timurids also patronized writing in Persian. Until then only Persian had been used in the region. The greatest Chaghataid writer of Uighur origin, Ali Shir Nava'i, was active in the city of Herat, now in northwestern Afghanistan, in the second half of the fifteenth century.[37] Much of modern Uzbekistan took shape during the reign of Tamerlane, a prominent Turkic conqueror who reigned over a vast empire from his capital at Samarkand.[citation needed] Baraq Khan with his war-like Uzbeks forced Olug Moxammat, Kepek and Devlet-Berdi flee and enthroned himself as the Khan of Golden Horde in Sarai in 1422. After the murder of Borak, the Uzbegs, which is known as the Shaybanids sometimes, under Abu'l-Khayr Khan became the dominant power in the White Horde.[38] Later, between the 15th and 16th centuries, various nomadic tribes arrived from the steppes including the Kipchaks, Naymans, Kanglis, Kungrats, Manġits and others and these tribes were led by Muhammad Shaybani who was the Khan of the Uzbeks. This period marked the beginnings of the modern Uzbek nationality and formation of an Uzbek state in what is today Uzbekistan,[citation needed] as these tribes were the first to use the name 'Uzbek'.[citation needed] This early Uzbek state challenged the Safavids and Mughals, for control over the land that is now modern Afghanistan.
Uzbek period[link]
By 1510 the Uzbeks had completed their conquest of Central Asia, including the territory of the present-day Uzbekistan. Of the states they established, the most powerful, the Khanate of Bukhoro, centered on the city of Bukhoro. The khanate controlled Mawarannahr, especially the region of Tashkent, the Fergana Valley in the east, and northern Afghanistan. A second Uzbek state, the Khanate of Khiva was established in the oasis of Khorazm at the mouth of the Amu Darya. The Khanate of Bukhoro was initially led by the energetic Shaybanid Dynasty. The Shaybanids competed against Iran, which was led by the Safavid Dynasty, for the rich far-eastern territory of present-day Iran. The struggle with Iran also had a religious aspect because the Uzbeks were Sunni Muslims, and Iran was Shia.[39]
Near the end of the sixteenth century, the Uzbek states of Bukhoro and Khorazm began to weaken because of their endless wars against each other and the Persians and because of strong competition for the throne among the khans in power and their heirs. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Shaybanid Dynasty was replaced by the Janid Dynasty.[39]
Another factor contributing to the weakness of the Uzbek khanates in this period was the general decline of trade moving through the region. This change had begun in the previous century when ocean trade routes were established from Europe to India and China, circumventing the Silk Route. As European-dominated ocean transport expanded and some trading centers were destroyed, cities such as Bukhoro, Merv, and Samarqand in the Khanate of Bukhoro and Khiva and Urganch (Urgench) in Khorazm began to steadily decline.[39]
The Uzbeks' struggle with Iran also led to the cultural isolation of Central Asia from the rest of the Islamic world. In addition to these problems, the struggle with the nomads from the northern steppe continued. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Kazakh nomads and Mongols continually raided the Uzbek khanates, causing widespread damage and disruption. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Khanate of Bukhoro lost the fertile Fergana region, and a new Uzbek khanate was formed in Quqon.[39]
Russian conquest[link]
In the nineteenth century, Russian interest in the area increased greatly, sparked by nominal concern over British designs on Central Asia; by anger over the situation of Russian citizens held as slaves; and by the desire to control the trade in the region and to establish a secure source of cotton for Russia. When the United States Civil War prevented cotton delivery from Russia's primary supplier, the southern United States, Central Asian cotton assumed much greater importance for Russia.[40]
As soon as the Russian conquest of the Caucasus was completed in the late 1850s, therefore, the Russian Ministry of War began to send military forces against the Central Asian khanates. Three major population centers of the khanates—Tashkent, Bukhoro, and Samarqand—were captured in 1865, 1867, and 1868, respectively. In 1868 the Khanate of Bukhoro signed a treaty with Russia making Bukhoro a Russian protectorate. Khiva became a Russian protectorate in 1873, and the Quqon Khanate finally was incorporated into the Russian Empire, also as a protectorate, in 1876.[40]
Russian rule[link]
By 1876 Russia had incorporated all three khanates (hence all of present-day Uzbekistan) into its empire, granting the khanates limited autonomy. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Russian population of Uzbekistan grew and some industrialization occurred.[41]
Moscow’s control over Uzbekistan weakened in the 1970s as Uzbek party leader Sharaf Rashidov brought many cronies and relatives into positions of power. In the mid-1980s, Moscow attempted to regain control by again purging the entire Uzbek party leadership. However, this move increased Uzbek nationalism, which had long resented Soviet policies such as the imposition of cotton monoculture and the suppression of Islamic traditions. In the late 1980s, the liberalized atmosphere of the Soviet Union under Mikhail S. Gorbachev (in power 1985–91) fostered political opposition groups and open (albeit limited) opposition to Soviet policy in Uzbekistan. In 1989 a series of violent ethnic clashes involving Uzbeks brought the appointment of ethnic Uzbek outsider Islam Karimov as Communist Party chief. When the Supreme Soviet of Uzbekistan reluctantly approved independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Karimov became president of the Republic of Uzbekistan.[41] On August 31, 1991, Uzbekistan declared independence, marking September 1 as a national holiday.
Language[link]
|
This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability. |
The Uzbek language is a Turkic language of the Karluk group. Modern Uzbek is written in wide variety of scripts including Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic. After the independence of Uzbekistan from the former Soviet Union, the government decided to replace the Cyrillic script with a modified Latin alphabet, specifically for Turkic languages.
Religion[link]
Main article: Islam in Uzbekistan
Uzbeks come from a predominantly Sunni Muslim background, usually of the Hanafi school,[42] but variations exist between northern and southern Uzbeks. According to a 2009 Pew Research Center report, Uzbekistan's population is 96.3% Muslim.[43] The majority of Uzbeks from the former USSR came to practice religion with a more liberal interpretation due to the official Soviet policy of atheism, while Uzbeks in Afghanistan and other countries to the south have remained more conservative adherents of Islam. However, with Uzbek independence in 1991 came an Islamic revival amongst segments of the population. People living in the area of modern Uzbekistan were first converted to Islam as early as the 8th century AD, as Arabs conquered the area, displacing the earlier faith of Manichaeism. The Arab victory over the Chinese in 751, at the Battle of Talas, ensured the future dominance of Islam in Central Asia.
See also[link]
Notes[link]
- ^ Государственный комитет Республики Узбекистан по статистике : Сведения о Республике Узбекистан:...Узбекистан :граничит с пятью государствами: с Казахстаном, Туркменистаном, Таджикистаном, Кыргызстаном и Афганистаном на общем протяжении 6621 км;провозгласил свою государственную независимость 31 августа 1991 г.;в административно-территориальном отношении состоит из Республики Каракалпакстан, 12 областей и столичного города Ташкент;располагается на площади, равной 448,9 тыс. км2;более чем на 2/3 состоит из равнин и на 1/3 - из гор и предгорий ;на 01.01.2010г. составило более 28 миллионов человек ; имеет положительный прирост численности (1,7% в год);включает 48,5% сельских жителей и 51,5% горожан (к крупнейшим городам страны относятся Ташкент,Самарканд, Бухара, Наманган, Андижан, Фергана, Нукус, Коканд, Карши);полиэтнично (более 100 национальностей, имеющих равные гражданские права и возможности);на 81,7% состоит из нации, которая дала стране название. Узбекский народ, внесший достойный вклад в развитие цивилизации, издавна привержен родному очагу, принципам социальной справедливости ;Занимая 55-е место по территории и 39-е место по населению, Узбекистан находится ; по площади искусственно орошаемых земель - на 11 -м месте в мире;по экспорту хлопка-волокна - на втором, урана - третьем месте в мире; в числе мировых лидеров по обеспеченности запасами серебра, вольфрама и фосфоритов, калийной соли, редкоземельных металлов и других ценных минералов, в частности, по разведанным запасам золота на четвертом, урана - седьмом, молибдена - восьмом, по подтвержденным запасам меди - на 10-м, природного газа - 14-м месте в мире...
- ^ CIA World Factbook – Tajikistan
- ^ CIA World Factbook – Afghanistan
- ^ CIA World Factbook – Kyrgyzstan
- ^ Rhoda Margesson (January 26, 2007). "Afghan Refugees: Current Status and Future Prospects" p.7. Report RL33851, Congressional Research Service.
- ^ Ethnic groups in Kazakhstan, official estimation 2010-01-01 based on National Census 2009
- ^ CIA World Factbook – Turkmenistan
- ^ (Russian) Russia Census 2002
- ^ Chinese National Minorities
- ^ State Statistics Committee of Ukraine: The distribution of the population by nationality and mother tongue
- ^ [1]
- ^ Census of Mongolia, slide# 23. http://www.toollogo2010.mn/doc/Main%20results_20110615_to%20EZBH_for%20print.pdf
- ^ Findley, Carter Vaughn. The Turks in World History, Oxford University Press (2005), p. 104.
- ^ Calum MacLeod, Bradley Mayhew. “Uzbekistan. Golden Road to Samarkand” – Page 31[unreliable source?]
- ^ “Irano-Turkish Relations in the Late Sasanian Period,” in Camb. Hist. Iran III/1, 1983, pp. 613–24
- ^ a b Richard H. Rowland, Richard N. Frye, C. Edmund Bosworth, Bertold Spuler, Robert D. McChesney, Yuri Bregel, Abbas Amanat, Edward Allworth, Peter B. Golden, Robert D. McChesney, Ian Matley, Ivan M. Steblin-Kamenskij, Gerhard Doerfer, Keith Hitchins, Walter Feldman. Central Asia, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, v., Online Edition, 2007, (LINK)
- ^ A. H. Nauta, “Der Lautwandel von a > o and von a > ä in der özbekischen Schriftsprache,” Central Asiatic Journal 16, 1972, pp. 104–18.
- ^ A. Raun, Basic course in Uzbek, Bloomington, 1969.
- ^ A. von Gabain, "Özbekische Grammatik", Leipzig and Vienna, 1945
- ^ J. Bečka, “Tajik Literature from the 16th Century to the Present,” in Rypka, Hist. Iran. Lit., pp. 520–605
- ^ A. Jung, Quellen der klassischen Musiktradition Mittelasiens: Die usbekisch-tadshikischen maqom-Zyklen und ihre Beziehung zu anderen regionalen maqam-Traditionen im Vorderen and Mittleren Orient, Ph.D. dissertation, Berlin, 1983.
- ^ T. Levin, The Music and Tradition of the Bukharan Shashmaqam in Soviet Uzbekistan, Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton, 1984
- ^ Tatjana Zerjal et al. (2002). "A Genetic Landscape Reshaped by Recent Events: Y-Chromosomal Insights into Central Asia". The American Journal of Human Genetics 71 (3): 466–482. DOI:10.1086/342096. PMC 419996. PMID 12145751. //www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=419996.
- ^ Lubin, Nancy. "Early history". In Curtis.
- ^ a b c d Lubin, Nancy. "Early Islamic period". In Curtis.
- ^ Tabaḳāt-i-nāsiri: a general history of the Muhammadan dynastics of Asia, pg.31, By Minhāj Sirāj Jūzjānī
- ^ The historical,social and economic setting By M. S. Asimov, pg.79
- ^ a b Iran and America: Re-Kind[l]ing a Love Lost By Badi Badiozamani, Ghazal Badiozamani, pg. 123
- ^ History of Bukhara by Narshakhi, Chapter XXIV, Pg 79
- ^ The Monumental Inscriptions from Early Islamic Iran and Transoxiana By Sheila S. Blair, pg. 27
- ^ The book of government, or, Rules for kings: the Siyar al-Muluk, or, Siyasat-nama of Nizam al-Mulk, Niẓām al-Mulk, Hubert Darke, pg.18-19
- ^ History of Islam (Vol 3) By Akbar Shah Najeebabadi, pg. 330
- ^ Ibn Khallikan's biographical dictionary By Ibn Khallikān, pg.329
- ^ Tabaḳāt-i-nāsiri: a general history of the Muhammadan dynastics of Asia, pg.32, By Minhāj Sirāj Jūzjānī
- ^ a b c d Lubin, Nancy. "Turkification of Mawarannahr". In Curtis.
- ^ Lubin, Nancy. "Mongol period". In Curtis.
- ^ a b c Lubin, Nancy. "Rule of Timur". In Curtis.
- ^ History of the Mongols from the 9th to the 19th Century. Part 2. The So-Called Tartars of Russia and Central Asia. Division 2, ISBN 978-1-4021-7771-2
- ^ a b c d Lubin, Nancy. "Uzbek period". In Curtis.
- ^ a b Lubin, Nancy. "Russian conquest". In Curtis.
- ^ a b "Country Profile: Uzbekistan". Library of Congress Federal Research Division (February 2007). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ "Ozbek". Encyclopaedia of Islam (CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0 ed.). Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV. 1999.
- ^ http://pewforum.org/uploadedfiles/Topics/Demographics/Muslimpopulation.pdf
References[link]
- Allworth, Edward. The Modern Uzbeks: From the 14th Century to the Present, Hoover Institution Press (July 1990).
- Calum MacLeod, Bradley Mayhew “Uzbekistan. Golden Road to Samarkand” page31.
- Critchlow, James. Nationalism in Uzbekistan: Soviet Republic's Road to Sovereignty, Westview Press (October 1991).
- Noble, Ivan. BBC News, DNA analysis tracks Silk Road forbears
- Rashid, Ahmad. The Resurgence of Central Asia : Islam or Nationalism? Zed Books (April 15, 1995)
- Zerjal, Tatiana, et al. A Genetic Landscape Reshaped by Recent Events: Y-Chromosomal Insights into Central Asia, Am. J. Hum. Genet., 71:466-482, 2002.
- Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Part 9, pages 483–489
External links[link]
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| Abdul Rashid Dostum | |
|---|---|
| Native name | عبدالرشید دوستم |
| Born | 1954[1] Jowzjan, Afghanistan |
| Allegiance |  Islamic Republic of Afghanistan |
| Years of service | 1978 – |
| Rank | General |
| Battles/wars | Soviet war in Afghanistan Civil war in Afghanistan NATO war in Afghanistan |
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Abdul Rashid Dostum (Persian: عبدالرشید دوستم) is a former government army general during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and is considered by many to be the leader of Afghanistan's Uzbek community. He is currently part of the leadership council of National Front of Afghanistan along with Ahmad Zia Massoud and Mohammad Mohaqiq, and chairman of his own political party Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan (National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan) or commonly known as Jumbish. He is also Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Afghan National Army, a role often viewed as ceremonial.[2] He participated in battles against the Jihadi fighters in the 1980s as well as against the Taliban in the 1990s.
Contents |
Political and social views[link]
While Dostum was ruling northern Afghanistan before the Taliban took over in 1998, women were able to go about unveiled, girls were allowed to go to school and study at the University of Balkh in Mazar-i Sharif, cinemas showed Indian films and music played on television, activities which were all banned by the Taliban.[3]
He views the NATO attempt to crush the Taliban as ineffective and has gone on record saying that he could mop up the Taliban "in six months"[2] if allowed to raise a 10,000 strong army of Afghan veterans.[2] Senior Afghan government officials do not trust Dostum as they are concerned that he might be secretly rearming his forces.[2]
Some human rights groups have accused his troops of human rights violations of the Taliban prisoners, charges which he denies.[4][5][6][7][8]
Military career[link]
Early life[link]
Dostum was born in Khvajeh Do Kuh, Afghanistan. In 1970 he began to work in a state-owned gas refinery in Sheberghan, Jowzjan Province, participating in union politics, as the new government started to arm the staff of the workers in the oil and gas refineries. The reason for this was to create "groups for the defense of the revolution". Because of the new communist ideas entering Afghanistan in the 1970s, he enlisted himself in the army in 1978. Dostum received his basic military training in Jalalabad. His squadron, was deployed in the rural areas around Sheberghan, under the auspices of the Ministry of National Security.[9]
By the mid 1980s his platoon had grown in stature, reaching a company level and by the mid-1980s he was in command of over 20,000 militia and had reached a regimental level.[10] While the unit recruited throughout Jowzjan and had a relatively broad base, many of its early troops and commanders came from Dostum's home village, Khoja Dukoh, and these represented the core of the unit at that juncture and again when it was reconstituted after the American Invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. He left the army after the purge of Parchamis, but returned after the Soviet occupation began.[9]
Soviet war in Afghanistan[link]
Main article: Soviet war in Afghanistan
As the situation in the Republic of Afghanistan deteriorated with massive uprising occurring all over the country, the then prime minister Hafizullah Amin, seized control when he overthrew president Nur Mohammad Taraki.[citation needed] The KGB reported that Amin sought to cut ties with the Soviet Union and instead ally itself with the People's Republic of China and Pakistan.[citation needed] This prompted the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan and assassinate president Amin in 1979.[citation needed] Soviet military commander announced to Radio Kabul that Afghanistan had been "liberated" from Amin's rule.[citation needed]
Mujahideen attacks were still a problem in the country. By this time Dostum was commanding a militia battalion to fight and rout rebel forces. This eventually became a regiment and later became incorporated into the defense forces as the 53rd Infantry Division. Dostum and his new division reported directly to then-President Mohammad Najibullah. Later on he became the commander of the military unit 374 in Jowzjan. He defended the communist Republic of Afghanistan against the American and Pakistani-backed Jihadi militias in the 1980s. While he was only a regional commander, he had largely raised his forces by himself. The Jowzjani militia Dostum controlled was one of the few militia forces in the country which was able to be deployed outside its own region. They were deployed in Qandahar in 1988 when Soviet forces withdrew in 1989.[11]
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the communist regime faced economic problems. The new Russian government did not want anything to do with their old communist allies. So they stopped sending supplies to the country, which began an economic crisis in the country. The Soviet Union was Afghanistan's main trading partner from the start in 1978. This eventually led to government officials swapping allegiances and would eventually lead to Mohammad Najibullah's governments fall in 1992.[12]
Post communist era[link]
Main articles: Civil war in Afghanistan (1992–1996) and Civil war in Afghanistan (1996–2001)
Dostum's men would become an important force in the fall of Kabul in 1992. In April 1992 the opposition forces began their march to Kabul against the government of Najibullah. Dostum had allied himself with the opposition commanders Ahmad Shah Massoud, Sayed Jafar Naderi,[13] the head of the Isma'ili community and together they captured the capital city. He and Masoud fought in a coalition against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.[11] Masoud and Dostum's forces joined together to defend Kabul against Hekmatyar, with some 4000-5000 of his troops, units of his Shiberghan-based 53rd Division and Balkh-based Guards Division garrisoning Bala Hissar fort, Maranjan Hill, and Khwaja Rawash International Airport.[14] In 1994, Dostum allied himself with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar against the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud.[11]
Taliban era[link]
Following the rise of the Taliban and their capture of Kabul, Dostum aligned himself with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. He stationed his troops in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif.[11] The United Front, commonly known as the Northern Alliance, was established in late 1996 by Dostum, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Karim Khalili against the Pakistan-backed Taliban. They vowed to set up a non-fundamentalist government in the provinces under their control.[citation needed]
At this point he is said to have had a force of some 50,000 men supported by both aircraft and tanks. He ruled what was, in effect, an independent region. He printed his own Afghan currency and ran a small airline named Balkh Air.[15] Unlike the Taliban controlled south, people in the North were able to watch television, play music and women were able to attend classes at the University of Balkh.[citation needed]
Much like other northern alliance leaders, Dostum also faced infighting within his group and was later forced to surrender his power to General Abdul Malik Pahlawan one of his military commanders who accused Dostum for the murder of his brother Rasul. Malik entered into secret negotiations with the Taliban, who promised to respect his authority over much of Northern Afghanistan, in exchange for Ismail Khan, one of their enemies.[16][17] Accordingly, on 25 May 1997 Malik arrested Khan and handed him over and let the Taliban enter Mazari Sharif, giving them control over most of Northern Afghanistan. Because of this, Dostum was forced to flee to Turkey.[18] However, Malik soon realized that the Taliban were not sincere with their promises as he saw his men being disarmed. He then rejoined Northern Alliance, and turned against his erstwhile allies, driving them from Mazar-i-Sharif. In October 1997, Dostum returned from exile and retook charge. Malik escaped to Iran. After Dostum briefly regained control of Mazar-i-Sharif, the Taliban returned in 1998 and he fled to Turkey.[11][19]
US invasion of Afghanistan[link]
Main articles: War in Afghanistan (2001–present) and Battle of Qala-i-Jangi
Dostum returned in 2001 to join the campaign against Taliban. Along with General Fahim, Ismail Khan and Mohammad Mohaqiq.[10] In November 2001, with the beginning of the US invasion of Afghanistan, and against the wishes of the CIA who distrusted Dostum, a team including Johnny Micheal Spann landed to set up communications in the Dar-e-Suf. A few hours later 23 men of Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 595 landed to begin the war.[20][21]
On 24 November 2001, 300 Taliban soldiers retreated after the Siege of Kunduz by American and Afghan military forces. The Taliban laid down their weapons a few miles from the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. They eventually surrendered to Dostum. A small group of armed foreign fighters were transferred to the 19th century prison fortress, Qala-i-Jangi. These hardcore jihadis used concealed weapons to start the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi against the Northern Alliance and British and American forces. The uprising was eventually was brought under control.[citation needed]
There were unproven allegations in 2001 that Dostum's men, who were fighting the Taliban alongside the US Special Forces, intentionally suffocated as many as 2,000 prisoners in container trucks following the Taliban surrender of Kunduz in an incident that has become known as the Dasht-i-Leili massacre.[22][23] Dostum however, strongly denies the allegations.
Political career[link]
Afghan Government[link]
Dostum served as deputy defense minister in Karzai government. In March 2003, He established a North Zone of Afghanistan, against the wishes of interim president Hamid Karzai. On 20 May 2003, Dostum narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.[citation needed]
In the aftermath of Taliban's removal from northern Afghanistan, forces loyal to Dostum frequently clashed with forces loyal to Tajik General Ustad Atta Mohammed Noor. Atta's men kidnapped and killed a number of Dostum's men and constantly agitated to gain control of Mazar i Sharif. Through the political mediations of the Karzai regime, the U.S.-led international military coalition, and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, as well as the UN-run Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration program, the Dostum-Atta feud has largely ended. The two are now generally politically allied as part of a broader ideological effort to protect the interests of Afghanistan's war veterans like themselves.[citation needed]
Time in Turkey[link]
Some media reports stated earlier that Dostum was "seeking political asylum" in Turkey [24] while others said he was exiled.[25] One Turkish media outlet said Dostum was visiting after flying there with Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan during a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).[26]
Return to Afghanistan[link]
Late at night on 16 August 2009, Dostum made a requested return from exile to Kabul to support President Hamid Karzai in his bid for re-election. The next day, on the last day of campaigning, he flew by helicopter to his northern stronghold of Sheberghan, where he was greeted by thousands of his supporters in the local stadium.[27] He subsequently made overtures to the United States, promising he could "destroy the Taliban and al Qaeda" if supported by the U.S., saying that "the U.S. needs strong friends like Dostum."[28]
See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ "Big fish among the Afghan warlords". The Washington Times. 12 October 2008. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/12/big-fish-among-the-Afghan-warlords/?page=all. "Gen. Dostum, 54"
- ^ a b c d David Pugliese (10 May 2007). "Former Afghan warlord says he can defeat Taliban". CanWest News Service. Archived from the original on 21 May 2008. http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=1acb5330-dfe8-4f0e-8a1b-4f581478244f&k=44800&p=1. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
- ^ Vogelsang (2002) p. 232.
- ^ Filkins, Dexter; Gall, Carlotta (2001-11-23). "A Nation challenged: Siege; Fierce Fighting Erupts Near Kunduz, Despite Surrender Deal". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/23/world/nation-challenged-siege-fierce-fighting-erupts-near-kunduz-despite-surrender.html?pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2010-03-30.
- ^ Oppel Jr, Richard A. (2009-08-08). "Afghan Leader Courts the Warlord Vote". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/world/asia/08warlords.html. Retrieved 2010-03-30.
- ^ Gall, Carlotta; Landler, Mark (2002-01-05). "A Nation challenged: The captives; Prison Packed With Taliban Raises Concern". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/05/world/a-nation-challenged-the-captives-prison-packed-with-taliban-raises-concern.html?pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2010-03-30.
- ^ Rich Oppel (2009-07-18). "Afghan Warlord Denies Links to '01 Killings". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/world/asia/18dostum.html?scp=6&sq=Taliban%20general&st=cse. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
- ^ Dostum, Abdul Rashid (2009-07-17). "It Is Impossible Prisoners Were Abused". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Archived from the original on 1 August 2009. http://www.rferl.org/content/It_Is_Impossible_Prisoners_Were_Abused/1779291.html. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
- ^ a b "Abdul Rashid Dostum". Global Security. Archived from the original on 1 March 2009. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/dostum.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-18.
- ^ a b "Profile: General Rashid Dostum". BBC News. 2001-09-25. Archived from the original on 8 April 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1563344.stm. Retrieved 2009-03-18.
- ^ a b c d e "Abdul Rashid Dostum". Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Archived from the original on 10 March 2009. http://www.islamicrepublicofafghanistan.com/abdul-rashid-dostum/. Retrieved 2009-03-18.
- ^ "The Demise of the Soviet Union". lcweb2.loc.gov/. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+af0119). Retrieved 2009-03-18.
- ^ Vogelsang (2002), p. 324.
- ^ Anthony Davis, 'The Battlegrounds of Northern Afghanistan,' Jane's Intelligence Review, July 1994, p.323-4
- ^ Vogelsang (2002), p. 232.
- ^ Johnson, Thomas H.. "Ismail Khan, Herat, and Iranian Influence". Center for Contemporary Conflict. Archived from the original on 29 March 2007. http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2004/jul/johnsonJul04.asp. Retrieved 2007-03-20.
- ^ De Ponfilly, Christophe(2001); Massoud l'Afghan; Gallimard; ISBN 2-07-042468-5; p. 75
- ^ page 6-8 - Nate Hardcastle. American Soldier: Stories of Special Forces from Grenada to Afghanistan (2002 ed.). Thunder's Mouth Press. pp. 364. ISBN 1-56025-438-6.
- ^ UN Security Council report. "La situation en Afghanistan et ses conséquences pour la paix et la sécurité internationales". Human Rights Internet ( http://www.hri.ca/index.aspx ). Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. http://web.archive.org/web/20070930165006/http://www.hri.ca/forthereCord1998/bilan1998/documentation/security/s-1998-222.htm. Retrieved 2007-03-20.
- ^ Robert Young Pelton (2007). "The Legend of Heavy D & the Boys:In the Field With an Afghan Warlord". national geographic. Archived from the original on 6 April 2008. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0203/story.html#story_3. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
- ^ "ODA 595". PBS. 2007. Archived from the original on 29 April 2008. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/campaign/interviews/595.html. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
- ^ Dehghanpisheh, Babak; Barry, John; Gutman, Roy (2002-08-22). "The Death Convoy Of Afghanistan: Witness Reports And The Probing Of A Mass Grave Point To War Crimes. Does The United States Have Any Responsibility For The Atrocities Of Its Allies?". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/65473. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ "PHR Activities and Investigations Concerning the Mass Gravesite at Dasht-e-Leili Near Sheberghan, Afghanistan". Physicians for Human Rights. http://afghanistan.phrblog.org/get-the-facts/chronology/. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ "Dostum seeking asylum in Turkey - media reports," Quqnoos.com, 6 December 2008, retrieved 6 December 2008
- ^ "Afghan general Rashid Dostum flies to exile in Turkey," Deutsche Presse-Agentur via earthtimes.org, 4 December 2008, retrieved 6 December 2008
- ^ "Afghan warlord in Turkey but not in exile, official says," Today's Zaman, 5 December 2008, retrieved 6 December 2008
- ^ Times Online. "Afghan warlord General Dostum returns to boost Karzai’s campaign."
- ^ Motlagh, Jason; Carter, Sara A. (2009-09-22). "Afghan warlords will fight if U.S. gives weapons". Washington Times. http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/22/afghan-warlords-will-fight-if-us-gives-aid/?feat=home_headlines&. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
Bibliography[link]
- Vogelsang, Willem. (2002). The Afghans. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. ISBN 0-631-19841-5.
External links[link]
|
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Abdul Rashid Dostum |
- [1] General Abdul Rashid Dostums Official Website
- Article on Abdul Rashid Dostum on Islamic Republic Of Afghanistan (.com)
- BBC online profile
- Biography about Dostum
- CNN Presents: House of War
- Afghanistan Mass Grave: The Dasht-e Leili War Crimes Investigation
- As possible Afghan war-crimes evidence removed, U.S. silent
- Obama Calls for Probe into 2001 Massacre of Suspected Taliban POWs by US-Backed Afghan Warlord - video by Democracy Now!
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Dostum, Abdul Rashid |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 1954 |
| Place of birth | Khvajeh Do Kuh, Afghanistan |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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The Uzbeks (Oʻzbek, pl. Oʻzbeklar) are a major Turkic-speaking ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Smaller diaspora populations of Uzbeks from Central Asia, mainly from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, are also found in Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, North America, and Western Europe.
The origin of the name Uzbek remains disputed. One view holds that it is eponymously named after Uzbeg Khan. Another states that the name means independent or the lord itself, from Oʻz (self) and Bek/Bey/Beg (from the Turkic root meaning a noble title). However there is another theory that the pronunciation of Uz comes from one of the Oghuz Turks variously known as Uz or Uguz united with the word Bey or Bek to form uguz-bey, meaning "leader of an oguz".
Although Turko-Mongol infiltration into Central Asia had started early, as late as the 13th century AD when Turkic and Mongol armies finally conquered the entire region, the majority of Central Asia's peoples were Iranic peoples such as Sogdians, Bactrians and, more ancient, the Saka–Massagetae tribes. It is generally believed that these ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples were linguistically assimilated by smaller but dominant Turkic-speaking groups while the sedentary population finally adopted the Persian language, the traditional lingua franca of the eastern Islamic lands. The language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an elite dominance process. This process was dramatically boosted during the Mongol conquest when millions were either killed or pushed further south to the Pamir region.
