- published: 27 Jun 2009
- views: 8050
Sart is a name for the settled inhabitants of Central Asia which has had shifting meanings over the centuries. Sarts, known sometimes as Ak-Sart ("White Sart") in ancient times, did not have any particular ethnic identification, and were usually (though not always) town-dwellers.
There are several theories about the origin of the term. It may be derived from the Sanskrit "sarthavaha" (merchant, caravan leader), a term supposedly used by nomads to described settled townspeople.[citation needed]. Or it may be a corruption of the Sogdian ethnonym "Soghd."[citation needed]
The earliest known use of the term is in the Turkic text Kudatku Bilik ("Blessed Knowledge"), dated 1070, in which it refers to the settled population of Kashgaria[citation needed]. In that period the term apparently referred to all settled Muslims of Central Asia, regardless of language.
Rashid-al-Din Hamadani in the Jami' al-Tawarikh writes that Genghis Khan commanded that Arslan Khan, prince of the Muslim Turkic Karluks, be given the title "Sartaqtai", which he considered to be synonymous with "Tajik"[citation needed] (It is possible[original research?], however, that Rashid al-din, who was Persian, misunderstood the meaning of this, as "Sartaqtai" was the name of one of the Genghis Khan's sons).
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.