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40 Abu’l-Ghazi: Reasons for Writing the Genealogies of the Turks and Turkmens Introduction Abu’l-Ghazi Bahadur Khan, ruler of Khiva from 1644–66, was the son of ῾Arab Muhammad Khan and a descendant of Chinggis Khan. Having quarreled with his brother Isfandiyar, Abu’l-Ghazi fled to Tashkent, where he lived with the Qazaqs for two years, before attempting to retake Khiva for himself . His effort failed, and he spent the next ten years in exile, in Persia, where he acquired a thorough knowledge of Persian and Persian sources, and later dwelled with Qalmaqs for several years. He finally returned to Khiva after his brother’s death and became not only a powerful khan, but also a prolific author. Abu’lGhazi is unusual in the literary landscape of Central Asia at the time, in that he was a khan who wrote the chronicles himself without commissioning other authors and scribes to do so. He gives the reasons for it below. The following excerpts are taken from the author’s introductions to his two main works, the Shajara-yi tarakima (Genealogy of the Turkmens) and the Shajara-yi turk (Genealogy of the Turks), both written in Chaghatay. They represent attempts to make order and sense of pre-existing oral and literary traditions in the middle of the seventeenth century, authored with unusual authority by one versed in Persian, Turkic, and Mongolian, as well as enjoying thorough acquaintance with both written and oral sources. Central Asia in the Seventeenth Century B 228 Central Asia in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries The Shajara-yi tarakima, completed in 1660–61, tries to settle the disparities between the many different versions of the Oghuz-nama, the folkloric—some say epic—story of the early Turks, as well as the history of the Turks presented in other sources, mainly in Rashid al-Din’s work. The work has received several editions and translations into modern Turkish, as well as Russian (by A. N. Kononov). The Shajara-yi turk was written in the genre of a general history, from Creation to the author’s time, and still serves as the most important source for the history of Khorezm in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The work reached the West in the eighteenth century, when a Swedish prisoner of war in Siberia somehow obtained a manuscript and brought it back with him to Europe upon his release. The Shajara was edited and translated several times in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the most famous publication (with a French translation) by Baron Desmaisons in 1874. From the Shajara-yi tarakima Here are the words of Abu’l-Ghazi Khan, of the descendants of Chinggis Khan and son of Urganchi ῾Arab Muhammad Khan: Having seen many tribulations, at the age of thirty-nine, in the year 1051, in the year of the snake, I have sat on my father’s throne in the Kingdom of Khorezm and was engaged in the business of the country. At that time, the Turkmens were living in Manghishlaq and in Abu’l-Khan and on the bank of the river Tajan [Tezhen]. Having heard of our arrival, those of them who had lived in Khorezm escaped to those three aforementioned places. After that, some by way of nomadizing and some by road, migrated, and in the three yurts not one household remained. And so, some of them came to Khorezm and became subjects: nobles, commoners , and military men. Since then many years passed. Turkmen mullas and shaykhs and beks heard that I knew history well. One day, they all came and petitioned me, “Among us there are many Oghuz-namas, but none of them is good. Some have mistakes in them, and do not agree with one another. Each one is of its own kind. It would be good if there was one correct history to rely on.” They made their request. I then accepted their request and the reason for which this book was written is that, seventeen years before that, all the Turkmens were our enemies. For that reason we fought them a great deal. In Khurasan, near Durun, we drew up our ranks and battled them on the banks of the river Burma. God came to our aid. From then until the end our cause was virtuous, and from the nobles and commoners twenty thousand people died, among them were guilty and innocent, just as the Prophet’s words [in Arabic], “Said the Prophet— Peace be upon Him...

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