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14 al-῾Utbi: The Alliance of the Ghaznavids and Qarakhanids Introduction The Kitab al-Yamini is a chronicle of the early Ghaznavid rise to power during the reigns of Amir Sebuktegin (r. 977–97), a Turkic military slave of high rank during the final years of Samanid rule, and his son, the first independent Ghaznavid ruler, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna (“Yamin al-Dawla,” r. 998–1030). The author of the chronicle, Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn ῾Abd al-Jabbar ῾Utbi (“al-῾Utbi”), was born in the city of Rayy, in northern Iran, in 961. He later found employment in the Ghaznavid administrations of both Sebuktegin and Mahmud, and he completed his chronicle of their reigns around the year 1020. Although the author’s ornate prose makes this a difficult text, even in a simplified English translation, the Kitab al-Yamini provides a unique insight into Central Asia’s political transformation in the years following the collapse of Samanid authority, as power in the region shifted for the first time from Persians to Turkic rulers. Two distinct groups vied for dominance in this environment: the Ghaznavids to the south and the Qarakhanids, known to their contemporaries as the Ilek (or Ilig) Khans, in Transoxiana. The Ghaznavids were a dynasty of Turkic slave-soldiers who had risen to elite status under the Samanids, only to assume regal authority for themselves as their patrons’ authority waned. The Qarakhanids represented a more recent Turkic migration into the region from further to the east. Following the Qarakhanid ruler Satuq Bughra Khan’s conversion in Kashghar in the middle of the tenth century, the Qarakhanids emerged as the first Central Asia in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries C 84 Encounter with the Turks significant Turkic-Muslim power in Central Asia. Several decades later they expanded westward into Farghana and Transoxiana, where they brought Samanid rule to an end and came into conflict with their new neighbors, the Ghaznavids, to the south. The following excerpt describes the establishment of a peace treaty between Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna and the Qarakhanid ruler, or Ilek Khan, Nasr (r. 998– 1015). While the two parties initially agreed that the Amu Darya River (at the time popularly known by its Arabic name, the Jayhun) would serve as the boundary between their two realms, it did not take long for conflict to arise. As the Ghaznavids focused their military conquest eastward, toward India, the Qarakhanids crossed the river and invaded. Our chronicler details how the Ghaznavids managed to reclaim their territory in Afghanistan and Iran. Account of the Alliance of the Sultan with IlekKhan , and Their Subsequent Estrangement When the Sultan had cleansed the Court of Khurasan from his adversaries, and had reduced the enemies of the family of Saman to non-existence, Ilek-Khan succeeded to Mawarannahr, and obtained the princes of the family of Saman, their children and comrades. And these regions were entirely stripped of all that race and pearl-stock. And he wrote to the Sultan, and congratulated him on his inheritance of the kingdom of Khurasan, and proposed a reparation of good-will and the thread of friendship. An alliance was made between them, and motives of good inclination and attachment were established. And his discriminating nature advanced from a sincere affection to a sincere unity; and, at the time when the Sultan went to repulse the attack at Nishapur, he had sent the Imam Abu’l-Ta’ib, who was Imam of hadith (or of the sacred traditions) upon an embassy to Ilek-Khan, and sent (also) Tuganjuk, Prince of Sarkas, to him and expressed a desire for a noble alliance with his nobles (or noble race) and presented before his greatness, his army and his fortress, curious valuables of pieces of pure gold, with jacinths and rubies, and chains of great and small pearls, and gifts of robes and eggs of amber, and vessels of gold and silver full of perfumes of camphor , and other productions of the provinces of India, made from frankincensebearing trees, and Damascus scimitars, and war elephants adorned with many colored trappings and jeweled bits, in describing all which gems the mind would be confused, and in specifying all which incomparable things the eyes would become turbid. And celebrated horses, with ornaments and head-trappings of gold, and various other choice and desirable things. And when the Imam Abu’l-Ta’ib arrived at the Turkish territory they exhibited much agitation and eagerness at his approach, and expressed extreme readiness to pay...

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