Khwarezm

Khwarezmid Empire (1190-1220)

Khwarezm (Uzbek: Xorazm, Russian: Хорезм Khorezm, Persian: خوارزم Khwārazm, Arabic: خوارزم Khwārizm, Chinese: 花剌子模 Hualazimo) was a state centred on the Amu Darya river delta of the former Aral Sea, in modern Uzbekistan, extending across the Ust-Urt plateau and possibly as far west as the eastern shores of the northern Caspian Sea.

Also known as Chorasmia, to the south it bordered Khorasan, to the north the kingdom of Alans, to the southeast Kangju and Sogdian Transoxiana, and on the northeast with the Huns of Transiaxartesia. Its capitals were Urgench (Urganj) and, from the 17th century on, Khiva when Khwarezmia became known as the Khanate of Khiva. Khwarezm has been known also as Khwarezmia, Khwarizm, Khwarazm, Khorezm, Khoresm, Khorasam, Chorezm, or (most recurringly) Chorasmia.

Etymology

The Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi in his Mu'jem al-baladan wrote that the name "Khwarazm" is a compound name of "Khwar" (خور), and "-razm" (زم), referring to the abundance of cooked fish meat as a main diet of the peoples of this area. (V2, p395)

C.E. Bosworth however, believes the name to be made up of (خور) meaning "the sun" and (زم) meaning "Earth", designating "the land from which the sun rises".(Bosworth, p1061)

The name also appears in Achaemenid inscriptions as "Huvarazmish", and declared to be part of the Persian Empire. Except for the Parthian and Seleucid periods when the region was ruled by local chiefdoms, Khwarazm more or less remained politically part of Persia throughout many centuries either as a satrap, allied khanates, a constituent of Greater Khorasan, or simply as a direct province until 1878, when the powerful invading Imperial Russia annexed the entire region. Khwarazm has always been part of the Persian cultural sphere, even til the present day.

Many scholars believe Khwarazm to be what ancient Avestic texts refer to as "Ariyaneh Waeje" or "Iran vij". (Farahvashi, p8) These sources claim that Urgandj, which was the capital of ancient Khwarazm for many years, was actually "Ourva": the eighth land of Ahura Mazda mentioned in the Pahlavi text of Vendidad.(Javan, p24) However, Michael Witzel, a researcher in early Indo-European history, believes that Iran vig was located in what is now Afghanistan [1], the northern areas of which were a part of Ancient Khwarezm and Greater Khorasan. Others however disagree. University of Hawaii historian Elton L. Daniel believes Khwarazm to be the "most likely locale" corresponding to the original home of the Avestan people (Elton, p.28), and Dehkhoda calls Khwarazm "the cradle of the Aryan tribe" (مهد قوم آریا).

Early history

According to Ancient Khorezm (Moscow 1948), written by the head of the Soviet archaeological-ethnographic expedition of 1945 - 1948, Sergei Pavlovich Tolstov (1907-1976), the first inhabitants of the area were Hurrians from the area of Transcaucasian Iberia, and he explains the etymology of "Chorezm" as Hurri-Land. The first two names of rulers we have for the area are Sijavus c.1300 BC (synonymous with Afrasiab c.1100 BC) and Aurvat-Aspa, usually placed in the late 600s BC though dating is very difficult. Nonetheless, in the very early part of its history, the inhabitants of the area were from Iranian stock and they spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Khwarezmian. The famous scientist Biruni, a Khwarazmian native, in his Athar ul-Baqiyah (الآثار الباقية عن القرون الخالية) (p.47), specifically verifies the Iranian origins of Khwarazmians when he wrote (in Arabic):

"اهل خوارزم ... کانوا غصنا, من دوحه الفرس"

Translation::"The parents (forefathers) of the Khwarezm were a branch from a [region] of Persia."

Other geographers such as Istakhri in his Al-masalik wa al-mamalik mention it to be part of Khorasan and part of Transoxiania.

Classical times

During the Achaemenid period, Khwarazm was governed by Cambyses Bardiya along with Bactriana, Carmania, and the other eastern provinces of the empire. (Huart, p. 46) And the Persian poet Ferdowsi mentions Persian cities like Afrasiab and Chach in abundance in his epic Shahnama.

When the King of Khwarezmia offered friendship to Alexander the Great in 328 BC, Alexander's Greek and Roman biographers imagined the nomad king of a desert waste, but 20th century Russian archeologists revealed the region as a stable and centralized kingdom, a land of agriculture to the east of the Aral Sea, surrounded by the nomads of Central Asia, protected by its army of mailed horsemen, in the most powerful kingdom northwest of the Amu Darya (the Oxus River of antiquity). The king's emissary offered to lead Alexander's armies against his own enemies, west over the Caspian towards the Black Sea. Alexander politely refused.

Although largely independent during the Arsacid and Seleucid dynasties, it is known that Khwarazm and neighboring Bactriana were part of the Sassanid empire during the time of Bahram II. Yaqut al-Hamawi verifies that Khwarazm was a regional capital of the Sassanid empire. When speaking of the pre-Islamic "Khosrau of Khwarazm" (خسرو خوارزم), or post-Islamic "Amir of Khwarazm" (امیر خوارزم), or even the Khwarezmid Empire, sources such as Biruni and Ibn Khordadbeh and others clearly refer to Khwarazm as being part of the Iranian (or Persian) empire. (Nasser Takmil Homayoun, p.35) The fact that Pahlavi script which was used by the Persian bureaucracy alongside Old Persian, passed into use in Khwarezmia where it served as the first local alphabet about the AD 2nd century, as well as evidence that Khwarezmid Shahs such as Ala ad-Din Tekish (1172-1200) issued all their orders (both administrative and public) in Persian language (see A.A. Simonov), corroborates Biruni's claims.

Middle ages

According to Biruni the area was ruled by the Afrigid dynasty from the 4th century to the 8th century CE. The resurgent kingdom was established around Khiva in 410 by Avar tribes possibly under Hephthalites influence. The inhabitants were called Khwalis or Kaliz by the Magyars after the eastern-most Kabars of Hungary, who dwelt in Carpathian Galicia. They were also called Khalisioi in Greek, Khvalis (and often associated with Khazars) in Russian, and Huālázǐmó (花剌子模) or perhaps Guali or Helisimijia in Chinese. The etymology of the name is unknown but may pertain to a kingdom of the Aral Sea or the Hua people.

In the late 7th century, Khwarezmia was conquered by the Arab Abbasids and was the birthplace of the great Persian mathematician of the Abbasid period, al-Khwarezmi. According to some historians, Khwarezmians were the people mentioned as Khalyzians in contemporary Byzantine sources.

In the 11th century, Khwarezmid Empire was founded and, in the early 13th century, ruled over all of Persia under the Shah Allah al-Din Muhammad II. Around 1141 Yelü Dashi took control of Khwarezmia, making it part of the Kara-Khitan Khanate. Then from 1218 to 1220 Genghis Khan and his Mongols launched the invasion of Central Asia and destroyed the Kara-Khitan Khanate and the Khwarezmid Empire, including the capital of the latter, Old Urgench (Kunya).Image:Bukhara07.jpg|Madresh-i Chahor Minor ("the school of four minarets" in Persian), BukharaImage:Bukhara14.jpg|Mausoleum of the founder of the great Samanid dynasty.Image:Gure Amir.JPG|The magnificent Gur-e Amir ("tomb of the Amir" in Persian)Image:Tajikestan.JPG|Masjed-i Bibi-khanum ("Mosque of The Lady" in Persian), SamarkandImage:Prokudin-Gorskii-17.jpg|Masjed-i Shah-i Zendeh ("Mosque of the immortal King" in Persian), SamarkandImage:Bukhara16.jpg|Taq-i zargaran ("Arch of the goldsmiths" in Persian), BukharaImage:Bukhara ark.jpg|Arg-i Bukhara ("Citadel of Bukhara" in Persian), is not unsimilar to Arg-é Bam or Arg-i Rayen in CarmaniaImage:Bukhara03.jpg|Madraseh-i Mir-i Arab ("School of the son of the Arab" in Persian)

Modern Age

The region of Khwarezmia became part of the Jagatai Khanate, and its capital of Old Urgench was rebuilt and again became one of the largest and most important trading centers in Central Asia. However, Timur regarded Khwarezm as a rival to Samarkand, and over the course of 5 campaigns, he destroyed Old Urgench completely in 1388. This together with a shift in the course of the Amu-Darya caused the center of Khwarezmia to shift to Khiva and, in the 16th century, the area came to be known as the Khanate of Khiva, ruled over by a branch of the Astrakhans, a Genghisid dynasty..

The discovery of gold on the banks of the Amu Darya during the reign of Imperial Russia's Peter the Great, together with the desire of Russia to open a trade route to India, prompted an armed trade expedition to the region, led by Prince Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky, and consisting of 4,000 men.

Upon receiving the men, the Khivan khan set up camp under the pretense of goodwill, then ambushed and slaughtered the envoys, leaving ten alive to send back. Peter the Great, indebted after wars with the Ottoman Empire and Sweden, did nothing.

Tsar Paul I also attempted to conquer the city, but his expedition was woefully undermanned and undersupplied, and was recalled en route due to his assassination. Tsar Alexander I had no such ambitions, and it is under Tsars Alexander II and Alexander III that serious efforts to annex the city started.

A curious episode during The Great Game involved a Russian expedition, in name to free the slaves captured and sold by Turkmen raiders from the Russian frontiers on the Caspian Sea, but also as an attempt to extend its borders while the British Empire entangled itself in the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1839. The expedition, led by General Perovsky, the commander of the Orenburg garrison, consisted of 5,200 infantry, and 10,000 camels. Due to poor planning and a bit of bad luck, they set off in November 1839, into one of the worst winters in memory, and was forced to turn back on 1 February 1840, arriving back into Orenburg in May, suffering over 1,000 casualties without firing a single shot.

The painter Vasily Vereshchagin was present at the taking of Khiva by Russian forces.

At the same time, the British, anxious to remove the pretext for the Russian attempt to annex Khiva, launched its own effort to free the slaves - a lone officer stationed in Herat, now in Afghanistan. Captain James Abbott, disguised as an Afghan, set off on Christmas Eve, 1839, for Khiva. He arrived in late January, 1840, and although the khan was suspicious of his identity, he succeeded in talking the khan into allowing him to carry a letter for the tsar regarding the slave issue. He left on 7 March 1840, for Fort Alexandrovsk (Aqtau), and was subsequently betrayed by his guide, robbed, then released when the bandits realized the origin and destination of his letter. Yet his superiors in Herat, not knowing of his fate, sent another officer, Lieutenant Richmond Shakespear, after him. Shakespear was evidently more successful than Abbott in that he somehow talked the Khan into not only freeing all Russian subjects under his control, but also making the ownership of Russian slaves a crime punishable by death. The freed slaves and Shakespear arrived in Fort Alexandrovsk on 15 August 1840, and Russia lost its primary motive for the conquest of Khiva, for now.

Flag of Khanate of Khiva, prior to 1917

The Khanate was graudually reduced in size from Russian expasion in Turkestan (including Khwarezmia) and, in 1873, after Russia conquered the neighbouring cities of Tashkent and Samarkand, General Von Kaufman launched an attack on Khiva consisting of 13,000 infantry and cavalry. The city of Khiva fell on 28 May 1873 and, on 12 August 1873, a peace treaty was signed that established Khiva as a quasi-independent Russian protectorate.

After the Bolshevik seizure power in the October Revolution, a short lived Khorezm People's Soviet Republic (later the Khorezm SSR) was created out of the territory of the old Khanate of Khiva, before in 1924 it was finally incorporated into the Soviet Union, with the former Khanate divided between the new Turkmen SSR and Uzbek SSR.

Flag of Khiva Khanate, 1917-1920

The larger historical area of Khwarezmia is further divided. Northern Khwarezmia became the Uzbek SSR, in 1925 the western part became the Turkmen SSR, and in 1936 eastern Khwarezmia became the Tajik SSR. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, these became Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan respectively. Southern Khwarezmia is today a part of Iran. Many of the ancient Khwarezmian towns are situated currently in Xorazm Province, Uzbekistan.

Today, the area that was Khwarezmia has a mixed population of Uzbeks, Karakalpaks, Turkmens, Persians, Tajiks, and Kazakhs.

Khwarazm in Persian literature

Khwarazm and her cities appear in Persian literature in abundance, in both prose and poetry. Dehkhoda for example defines the name Bukhara itself as "full of knowledge", referring to the fact that in antiquity, Bukhara was a scientific and scholarship powerhouse. Rumi verifies this when he praises the city as such:

آن بخارا معدن دانش بود
"Bukhara was a mine of knowledge,
پس بخاراییست هرک آنش بود
Of Bukhara is he who possesses knowledge."

Other examples illustrate the eminent status of Khwarazmid and Transoxianian cities in Persian literature in the past 1500 years:

ای بخارا شاد باش و دیر زی
"Oh Bukhara! Joy to you and live long!
شاه زی تو میهمان آید همی
Your King comes to you in ceremony."
---Rudaki

عالم جانها بر او هست مقرر چنانک
"He bestows life to the universe in this manner.
دولت خوارزمشاه داد جهان را قرار
He blessed the world with the House of Khwarazm"
---Khaqani Shirvani

یکی پر طمع پیش خوارزمشاه
"I have heard that early one morning,
شنیدم که شد بامدادی پگاه
an ambitious one was summoned to Khwarazm-shah"
---Sa'di

Yaqut al-Hamawi wrote: "I have never seen a city more wealthy and beautiful than Urganj". The city however was destroyed during several invasions, in particular when the Mongolian army broke the dams of the Amu Darya which flooded the city. He reports that for every Mongolian soldier, four inhabitants of Urganj were killed. Najmeddin Kubra was among the casualties. The Mongolian army that devastated Urganj was estimated to have been near 80,000 soldiers. The verse below refers to an early previous calamity that fell upon the region:

آخر ای خاک خراسان داد یزدانت نجات
"Oh Khorasan! God has saved your land,
از بلای غیرت خاک ره گرگانج و کات
and your dusty roads of Urganj and Kath from envy and jealousy"
---Divan of Anvari

Nevertheless the beauty and fame of Bukhara and Samarqand are well known in Persian literature. The following famous cosmopolitan ode perhaps best provides a notable example of this:

اگر آن ترک شیرازی به دست آرد دل ما را
"If that Shirazi Turk heeds my heart's call for love,
به خال هندویش بخشم سمرقند و بخارا را
I would sell even the jewel cities of Samarkand and Bukhara for the Indian mole on her cheek."
---Hafez

Legend has it that Tamerlane sent for Hafez regarding this verse and asked angrily: "Are you he who was so bold as to offer my two great cities Samarkand and Bokhara for the mole on thy mistress's cheek?". "Yes, sire" replied Hafez, "and it is by such acts of generosity that I have brought myself to such a state of destitution that I have now to solicit your bounty." Tamerlane is written to have been so pleased at his ready wit that he dismissed the poet with a handsome present.

Notables of Khwarazm

The following either hail from Khwarazm, or lived and are buried there:
*Najmeddin Kubra, Sufi mystic
*Tureh Beig Khanum, wife of Tamerlane
*Khwajeh Mashad
*Imam Fakhreddin Razi
*Ala ad-Din Tekish, King of Khwarezmid Empire
*AbulHasan Sa'eedeh ibn Sa'deh, commentary writer on the writings of Sibawayh.
*Abaaq al-Khwarazmi
*Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, mathematician.
*Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi, 10th century encyclopedist who wrote Mafatih al-'Ulum ("Key to the Sciences").
*Abu Bakr al-Khwarizmi
*Biruni, scientist
*Zamakhshari
*Qutb al-zaman Muhammad ibn Abu-Tahir Marvazi, philosopher
*Al-Marwazi, astronomer
*Najmeddin Razi, Sufi mystic
*Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur, khan and historian

References

*Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great, pp 308ff etc.
*C.E. Bosworth, The Encyclopedia of Islam, VolIV, 1978.
*Elton L. Daniel, The History of Iran. 2001. ISBN 0313307318
*Farahvoshi, Bahram. Iranovich, Tehran University Press. 1991.
*Huart, Clement. Ancient Persia and Iranian Civilization. 1972. ISBN 0710072422
*Javan, Musa. Tarikh-i Ijtima'i Iran-i Bastan (The social history of ancient Iran), 1961.
*Shir Muhammad Mirab Munis & Muhammad Reza Mirab Agahi Firdaws al-Iqbal. History of Khorezm (Leiden: Brill) 1999 Trans & Ed. Yuri Bregel
*Yuri Bregel "The Sarts in the Khanate of Khiva" Journal of Asian History Vol.12 1978 pp121-151
*Nasser Takmil Homayoun, Kharazm: What do I know about Iran?. 2004. ISBN 9643790231

See also

*Khwarezmian language
*Khorezm SSR
*Khwarezmian Empire

External links

*Jona Lendering, Chorasmia, on the ancient history of Khwarezmia
*E. Nerazik, on Central Asia in the Early Middle Ages