The heart of Asia

It has been acutely observed that we bring back from foreign countries no more than we take thither. In other words, we view them through the medium of our own personality, whic...

The 141 miles which separate Merv from the Bokhāran frontier were the costliest and the most depressing section of the Transcaspian Railway. It includes that terror of Russian e...

Samarkand is 150 miles by rail from Bokhārā. The line follows the course of the Zarafshān, and passes through a carefully tilled country, a large proportion of which is under co...

The reduction of Khiva marks a new era in the history of the Russian advance. The last semblance of organised opposition to the movement had disappeared, and the Tsar saw himsel...

The ignominious campaign of 1861 was the last organised effort put forward by Persia to protect her northern provinces. Secure in a splendid strategic position,[609] the Tekkes...

The intense activity displayed in railway construction did not imply neglect of the primary duty of a civilised state towards subject peoples--that of giving them peace and orde...

Krasnovodsk, the western terminus of the Transcaspian Railway, stands on the northern side of the Balkan Bay, through which the Oxus once discharged into the Caspian. It is prot...

The conception of a railway between the Caspian and the heart of Asia took shape, as we have seen, during the campaign of Geok Teppe, when a little portable line between the bas...

During the long dark centuries whose annals we have endeavoured to reconstruct, the tide of conquest ran westwards. It was checked at times by the might of civilisation or fanat...

The Ural range had hitherto been the eastern boundary of Russia. Beyond lay a region of steppes and rivers, peopled towards the polar seas by tribes of Tartar and Esquimaux orig...

Thus was a third stage reached in Russia’s advance. Her Siberian frontier extended from the north-eastern shore of the Caspian to the borders of China. It had been pushed forwar...

The history of Central Asia during the earlier centuries of our era is bound up in that of Persia, and its course was moulded by the fortunes of the great dynasty called after t...

In writing of the monkish Haydar’s successor, Vambéry appositely quotes an old Uïghūr proverb, “The princes of an age are its mirrors.”[485] Nasrullah Khān epitomised the vices...

The Mongol dynasty, established in China and known as the Yuen, founded by Kubilāy Khān[423] _cir._ 1260, began to decline very soon after his death (1294); and in 1353 a native...

At the end of the sixth century the western shore of Arabia was inhabited by tribes of Semitic descent, who possessed a complex religion and some literary culture. The capital w...

Among the Mongol chiefs who struggled for mastery in Eastern Russia at the epoch of Tīmūr’s intervention[454] was a descendant of Chingiz, named Kutluk, who rose to fame by defe...

The arrival of Kutayba on the scene marks a new epoch in the history of Mohammedan conquests in Central Asia. Though the Arabs had been for many years masters of Khorāsān, with...

On the death of Kutayba, Wakī`, who had been a ringleader in the revolt, took upon himself the direction of affairs in Khorāsān. After a lapse of nine months, however, a new gov...

The method taken by Chingiz Khān of assuring the continuance of sovereignty in his house was inspired by statesmanlike prescience. It is well-nigh impossible for a single indivi...

It is to Chinese sources that we must turn for an account of the tribes which overthrew Græco-Bactrian rule, and were a constant thorn in the side of the Parthian Empire. These...

While the Sāmānides were thus harassed by the powerful Daylamites in the west, by the growing power of Sabuktagin in the south, and the fear of insubordination in their own stat...

In the year A.H. 733 Kazān Khān[392] mounted the throne of the western Chaghatāy family. He is described by his contemporaries as a cruel and tyrannical villain, who inspired so...

El-Mansur’s troubles did not end with the defeat of `Abdullah and the murder of Abū Muslim. The rebellious Mesopotamians, under their leader Mulabbab esh-Shaybāni, more than onc...

Among Kutayba’s followers was a certain noble named Nīzek, prince of Bādghīs, and a minister of Jighāya, ruler of Tokhāristān, who was in all probability attached temporarily to...

The history of Central Asia is that of the cradle of mankind. He who seeks to evolve it from the mass of nebulous tradition is brought into contact with the traces of widely div...

In A.H. 120 (737)[162] Asad died, and was succeeded by Nasr ibn Sayyār, one of the ablest rulers and generals ever sent to the East in Mohammedan times. He was as generous as he...

The family thus raised to royal rank by the ambition of Rahīm Bi[466] belonged to the great Uzbeg tribe of Mangit, which had been brought from the north-east of Mongolia by Chin...

The country of Khwārazm[300] was one of the first conquests of the Seljūks. On becoming masters of Khorāsān, the `Irāks, Persia, and Syria, they chose men from among their Turki...

Toghrul Beg’s career of conquest is admirably epitomised by Gibbon in the 57th chapter of his immortal work. After driving the Ghaznavides back to India, he overthrew the powerf...

The Umayyad Caliph at last recognised the gravity of the situation, and sent all the forces he could muster to oppose Kahtaba. But the Hāshimite troops carried all before them....

During the Caliphate of Mutawakkil[218] the government of the province of Sīstān was usurped by a man named Sālih ibn Nasr, who, under the pretext of putting down a rising of th...

The struggles between Mahmūd of Ghazna and Ilik Khān of Kāshghar continued till the year A.H. 401 (1010), when the latter, owing to a quarrel with his brother Toghān, was oblige...

Tāi Yāng Khān, king of the Christian tribe of Naimans, alarmed at the growing power of the young ruler, sent Alakush-Tekin, chief of the Onguts, or white Tatars, an invitation t...

On the death of Hārūn er-Rashīd, A.H. 193 (809), a serious dispute arose between his two sons, Amīn and Ma´mūn. The former, probably on the advice of his vezīr, Fadhl ibn Rabī`a...

It is not within the scope of the present work to trace in any detail the meteor-like path of Chingiz; for we are concerned with it only in so far as it affected the internal af...

The realm of Arabic literature contains no more vivid picture of contemporary life and manners than that given us by Tabari in his account of Kutayba’s fall.[137] Many circumsta...

On the death of Melik Shāh in A.H. 485 (1092) a civil war broke out between the brothers Berkiyāruk and Mohammad, which resulted in the formation of separate semi-independent st...

On the death of Nasr ibn Ahmed, A.H. 279 (892), Isma`īl became the acknowledged lord of Transoxiana and Khwārazm, with Bokhārā as his capital. His succession was furthermore con...

“The Mongol armies,” writes Mr. S. Lane-Poole, “divided into several immense brigades, swept over Khwārazm, Khorāsān, and Afghanistān, on the one hand; and on the other, over Āz...

At the epoch of Alexander’s death the satrapy of Bactria and Soghdiana was held by his general, Amyntas. The death of the young conqueror was the signal for a mutiny among the M...

A time when Russia’s movements in the East are being watched by all with such keen interest seems a fitting one for the appearance of a work dealing with her Central Asian posse...