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The Ferghana Valley at the crossroads of world history: the rise of Khoqand, 1709–1822

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2007

Scott C. Levi
Scott C. Levi
Affiliation:
Department of History, 101 Gottschalk Hall, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The Khanate of Khoqand emerged, flourished and collapsed during the era of Chinese and Russian imperial expansion into Central Asia. While eighteenth-century Central Asia has long been considered to have been an unimportant backwater ‘on the margins of world history’, this essay juxtaposes focused research in local primary sources with a world historical perspective in an effort to illuminate some of the ways in which the region remained interactively engaged with its neighbours and, through them, with historical processes unfolding across the globe. The essay argues that these interactions were substantial, and that they contributed to Khoqand’s emergence as a significant regional power and centre of Islamic cultural activity in pre-colonial Central Asia.

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Articles
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Journal of Global History , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 2007 , pp. 213 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 The term Central Asia is used here in reference to the sedentary and steppe areas to the north of Afghanistan and Iran, east of the Caspian Sea, south of Russia, and west of China, but including the westernmost Chinese province of Xinjiang.

2 While Russia officially extinguished the Khanate and annexed the Ferghana Valley in 1876, Khoqand effectively lost its autonomy in 1868.

3 In Uzbek, the word ming means one thousand. It bears no relation to the Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1644).

4 The work of Timur K. Beisembiev stands as an exception. See especially Ta’rikh-i Shakhrukhi: kak istoricheskii istochnik, Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1987Google Scholar, and The life of ‘Alimqul: a native chronicle of nineteenth-century Central Asia, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.Google Scholar

5 See Vladimir Petrovich Nalivkin, Kratkaia istoriia Kokandskago khanstva, Kazan, 1886. See also the French translation, Histoire du Khanat de Khokand, Auguste Dozon, trans., Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1889.Google Scholar

6 For a recent example, see Crews, Robert D., For prophet and tsar: Islam and empire in Russia and Central Asia, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.Google Scholar

7 The author has presented a critical analysis of this historiographical trend in Levi, Scott C., ‘India, Russia and the eighteenth-century transformation of the Central Asian caravan trade’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 42, 4, 1999, pp. 519–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the more recent summary of the debate provided in the Introduction to Levi, Scott C., ed., India and Central Asia: commerce and culture, 1500–1800, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar

8 In addition to the multiple works on Central Asian relations with India and China cited throughout this essay, seeGunder Frank, Andre, ‘The continuing place of Central Asia in the world economy to 1800’, in Ertürk, K. A., ed., Rethinking Central Asia: non-eurocentric studies in history, social structure and identity, Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 1999, pp. 11–38Google Scholar; Burton, Audrey, The Bukharans: a dynastic, diplomatic and commercial history, 1550–1702, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.Google Scholar

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12 Arguments in support of an intensification of India’s relations with Central Asia in this period are summarized in the Introduction to Levi, ed., India and Central Asia. See also James A. Millward, ‘Was there an early modern Silk Road decline’, unpublished paper delivered at the sixth annual meeting of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Ann Arbor, 30 September 2006; Gunder Frank, ‘The continuing place’.

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19 Khodarkovsky, Where two worlds met, p. 28.

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24 Newby, The empire and the Khanate, p. xi.

25 There still exists a small selection of archival records from the era of Khudayar Khan, the last of the Khoqand Khans. SeeTroitskaia, A. L., comp., Katalog Arkhiva Khokandskikh Khanov XIX veka, Moscow, 1968.Google Scholar See also Nabiev, R. N., Iz istorii Kokandskogo Khanstva (feodal'noe khoziaistvo Khudoiar-Khana), Tashkent, 1973.Google Scholar

26 Muhammad Fazil Bek b. Qadi Muhammad Atabek, Mukammal-i tārīkh-i Farghāna (MTF), Oriental Studies Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan (OSIASRU), MS. no. 5971; Muhammad Sālih Khwāja Tāshkandī, Tārīkh-i jadīdah-i Tāshkand (TJT), OSIASRU, MS. no. 5732; Niyaz Muhammad b. ‘Ashur Muhammad Khoqandī, Tārīkh-i Shahrukhī (TS), OSIASRU, MS. no. 1787; Hajji Muhammad Hakim Khan, b. Said Ma’sum Khan, Muntakhab al-tawarikh (MT), ed. by Mukhtarov, A., Dushanbe: Donish, 1985Google Scholar; Mulla ‘Avaz Muhammad b. Mulla Ruzi Muhammad Sufi (‘Attar-i Khoqandi), Tārīkh-i jahān-nūma-ī (TJN), OSIASRU, MS. no. 9455/I.

27 The area known today as southern Xinjiang was commonly known as Altishahr.

28 See Jo-Ann Gross and Asom Urunbaev, The letters of Khwajah ‘Ubayd Allah Ahrar and his associates, Leiden, 2002; Gross, Jo-Ann, ‘Multiple roles and perceptions of a Sufi Shaykh: symbolic statements of political and religious authority’, in Gaborieau, Marc, Popovic, Alexandre and Zarcone, Thierry, eds, Naqshbandis: cheminements et situation actuelle d’un ordre mystique musulman, Istanbul and Paris: IFEA et Éditions ISIS, 1990, pp. 109–21.Google Scholar

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30 Ironically, the order to install them as such came from the Dalai Lama.

31 TS, fols. 12a–16b; MTF, fols. 15a–18a.

32 TS, fol. 14a; TJT, fol. 18b.

33 Cf. TJT, fols. 18b–19a; TS, fol. 14b; MTF, fol. 17a–b.

34 For a thorough treatment of one of these, see the chapter ‘Jahangir Khoja and revolt in Altishahr’ in Newby, The empire and the Khanate, pp. 95–123.

35 Cf. TS, fol. 21a–b; TJT, fol. 21a; MTF, fols. 22b–23b.

36 TJN, fol. 25a. See also MT, pp. 391, 700.

37 TJN, fol. 25a.

38 This event seems to have escaped notice in the Chinese records. For valuable insights into the Qing Empire’s relations with the Jungars, see Perdue, China marches west, pp. 256–92.

39 TJN, fol. 25a.

40 Cf. TS, fol. 22a; TJT, fol. 21b. More exactly, Jungar Mongols were involved, and this took place before 1771, when most Qalmaqs in the west abandoned Russia for Jungaria, suffering heavy mortality.

41 Newby, The empire and the Khanate, pp. 27–9.

42 Tōru, Saguchi, ‘The eastern trade of the Khoqand Khanate’, Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko (The Oriental Library), 24, 1965, pp. 47–114.Google Scholar

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44 Newby, The empire and the Khanate, pp. 48–50.

45 Ibid., pp. 45–50, 64–6.

46 Newby, The empire and the Khanate, pp. 129–35.

47 Ibid., p. 135.

48 TS, fol. 22a–b; TJT, fols. 21b–22a.

49 TS, fols. 23a–24b.

50 MTF, fol. 25a.

51 TJN, fol. 38a.

52 TS, fol. 25a.

53 TS, fol. 27a–29b.

54 Askarov et al., eds., Istoriya Uzbekistana, tom III: XVI–pervaya polovina XIX Veka, Tashkent: Fan, 1993, p. 228.

55 V. V. Bartol’d, ‘K istorii orosheniia Turkestana’, in Sochineniia, 9 vols., Moscow: Nauka, 1965, vol. 3, pp. 97–233. For later developments in the global cotton market, including Central Asia, see Beckert, Sven, ‘Emancipation and empire: reconstructing the worldwide web of cotton production in the age of the American Civil War’, in American Historical Review, 109, 5, 2004, pp. 1405–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 Thurman, Michael, ‘Irrigated agriculture and economic development in the Ferghana Valley under the Qoqand Khanate’, MA thesis, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1995, pp. 12–13Google Scholar. See also N. N. Negmatov, ‘Iz istorii pozdnesrednevekovogo Khodzhenta’, in S. P. Tolstov et al., eds., Materialy vtorogo soveshchaniia arkheologov i etnografov Srednei Azii. 29 oktiabria–4 noiabria 1956 g., Stalinabad, Moscow, 1959, pp. 71–2.

57 Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. ‘Central Asia in the 12th–13th/18th–19th centuries’, p. 195; Mary Holdsworth, ‘Turkestan in the nineteenth century’, Central Asian Research Centre, 1959, p. 8.

58 TS, fol. 31a–b.

59 TJT, fol. 23a. This effort is explored further in Scott C. Levi, ‘The legend of the Golden Cradle: Babur’s legacy and political legitimacy in the Ferghana Valley’, unpublished paper delivered at the 120th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Philadelphia, 8 January 2006.

60 TS, fol. 31a–b; MT, p. 403.

61 TJT, fol. 48a; TS, 45b.

62 TS, fol. 31a–b.

63 Beisembiev, Tarikh-i Shahrukhi, p. 67.

64 TS, fols. 32b–34a; TJN, fol. 39a. Ghalcha refers to mountain Tajiks who speak non-standard dialects.

65 TS, fols. 34b–37b.

66 TS, fol. 81b.

67 MT, pp. 410–13.

68 TJT, fol. 25a; MT, p. 407.

69 MT, p. 415.

70 Newby, The empire and the Khanate, pp. 60–2, 67–8.

71 TJT, fols. 43b–46b.

72 MT, p. 431; TS, fol. 64b; MTF, fol. 42a.

73 TJT, fol. 49b; TS, fols. 65b–69b.

74 TS, fol. 69a.

75 MTF, fol. 44a–b.

76 There has been debate regarding the date, but it seems likely that ‘Alim Khan died in January 1811. Chinese records show him ruling until 1811, Niyazi reported that ‘Umar Khan succeeded his brother during the winter in the year 1225 AH, and the first day of the first month of 1226 AH corresponds to 26 January 1811. Newby, The empire and the Khanate, pp. 32, 60, 68; TS, fol. 72a.

77 MTF, fol. 46a; TJT, fol. 49b; TS, fol. 71b.

78 MT, pp. 449–51.

79 Newby, The empire and the Khanate, p. 49.

80 MT, p. 452. The title is a deliberate variation on the Arabic ‘amīr al-mu’minīn’, ‘Commander of the Faithful’.

81 Khoqand’s efflorescence during ‘Umar’s reign has attracted some attention in English-language publications. See Nettleton, Susanna S., ‘Ruler, patron, poet: ‘Umar Khan in the blossoming of the Khanate of Qoqan, 1800–1820’, International Journal of Turkish Studies, 2, 2, 1981–2, pp. 127–40.Google Scholar I am grateful to Shawn Lyons for bringing this article to my attention.

82 Beisembiev, Timur K., ‘Farghana’s contacts with India in the 18th and 19th centuries (according to the Khokhand Chronicles)’, Journal of Asian History, 28, 2, 1994, pp. 124–35.Google Scholar

83 N. I. Potanin, ‘Zapiski o Kokanskom khanstvie khorunzhago Potanina’, Viestnik Imperatorskago Ruskago geograficheskago obshchestva, pt. 18, no. 2, 1856, p. 281. Cited in Nettleton, ‘Ruler, patron, poet’, p. 135.