Product Code Database
Transoxiana or Transoxania (, now called the Amu Darya) is the Latin name for the Sogdia located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Turkmenistan and southern Kyrgyzstan. The name was first coined by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC when Alexander's troops conquered the region. The region may have had a similar Greek name in the days of Alexander the Great, but the earlier name is no longer known. Geographically, it is the region between the rivers Amu Darya to its south and the Syr Darya to its north.
The region of Transoxiana was one of the satrapies (provinces) of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia under the name Sogdia. It was defined within the classical world of Persia to distinguish it from Iran proper, especially its northeastern province of Khorasan,Svat Soucek, A History of Inner Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.4 a term originating with the Sasanian Empire, although early Arab historians and geographers tended to subsume the region within the loosely defined term Greater Khorasan.C. Edmund Bosworth, (2002), 'CENTRAL ASIA iv. In the Islamic Period up to the Mongols' Encyclopaedia Iranica "In early Islamic times Persians tended to identify all the lands to the northeast of Khorasan and lying beyond the Oxus with the region of Turan, which in the Šāh-nāma of Ferdowsī is regarded as the land allotted to Ferēdūn's son Tūr... At the outset, however, those nearby parts of Central Asia with which the Arabs were familiar were often subsumed into the vast and ill-defined province of Khorasan, embracing all lands to the east of Ray, Jibal, and Fars province". (online)C. Edmund Bosworth, (2011), 'MĀ WARĀʾ AL-NAHR' Encyclopaedia Iranica "It was defined by the early Arabic historians and geographers as the lands under Muslim control lying to the north of the middle and upper Oxus or Āmu Daryā, in contrast to Iran proper and its eastern province of Khorasan, sometimes called Mā dun al-nahr (), although from the perspective of Arab historians writing in distant Iraq, the term "Khorasan" might extend to all lands beyond the Oxus, including Khwarazm and Transoxiana." (online) The territories of Khwarazm, Sogdia, Chaghaniyan, and Khuttal were located in the southern part of Transoxiana; Tashkent, Osrushana, and Fergana Valley were located in the northern part.
During the Sasanian Empire, it was often called Sogdia, a provincial name taken from the Achaemenid Empire, and used to distinguish it from nearby Bactria.
The Chinese explorer Zhang Qian, who visited the neighbouring countries of Bactria and Parthia along with Transoxiana in 126 BCE, made the first known Chinese report on this region. Zhang Qian identifies Parthia as an advanced urban civilisation that farmed grain and grapes and made silver coins and leather goods. Silk Road, North China, C. Michael Hogan, The Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnham (2007) It was ruled successively by Seleucids, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, the Parthian Empire and the Kushan Empire before Sassanid rule.
In Sasanian times, the region became a major cultural center due to the wealth of the Northern Silk Road. Sassanid rule was interrupted by the Hephthalite invasion at the end of the 5th century and didn't return to the Sassanids until 565.
Transoxiana's major cities and cultural centers are Samarkand and Bukhara. Both are in the southern portion of Transoxiana (though still to the north of the Amu Darya itself, on the Zarafshon) and Uzbekistan. The majority of the region was dry but fertile plains. Both cities remained centres of Persian culture and civilisation after the Muslim conquest. They played a crucial role in the revival of Persian culture by establishing the Samanid Empire.
Part of this region was conquered by Qutayba ibn Muslim between 706 and 715 and loosely held by the Umayyad Caliphate from 715 to 738. The conquest was consolidated by Nasr ibn Sayyar between 738 and 740 and continued under the control of the Umayyads until 750, when it was replaced by the Abbasid Caliphate. The Tang dynasty of China also controlled the eastern part of the region until the An Lushan Rebellion broke out.
In the early Islamic period, the people of Transoxania spoke Sogdian language (an Iranian language) and were divided among several principalities. (2025). 9780521190749, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521190749 The Arab conquest resulted in the spread of Arabic elite culture, and, more paradoxically, of New Persian "as a spoken and eventually written language" in the region. The Arab conquest also resulted in contacts with Tang China, where fragments of the Sasanian ruling elite, including Peroz III, had taken shelter after Iran's conquest by the Arabs. However, it did not result in Transoxania having significant interactions with Chinese culture.
Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire, invaded Transoxiana in 1219 during his conquest of Khwarezm. Before he died in 1227, he assigned the lands of Western Central Asia to his second son, Chagatai Khan, and this region became known as the Chagatai Khanate. In 1369, Timur, of the Barlas tribe, became the effective ruler and made Samarkand the capital of Timurid Empire. Transoxiana was known to be flourishing in the mid-14th century.
Muslims had conquered Transoxiana by the 7-8th century. Multiple figures in the Muslim world had conquered these lands. Some include the Umayyad and Abbasid Arabs, who took over lands that are now Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Apart from a presence in Kushan Empire, the Mīmāṃsā school of Hinduism, unlike Buddhism, seems to have made little inroads into Central Asia north of Bactria. Even when are depicted in the art of Central Asia, this is within the setting of Buddhist art, where we can even observe a tendency to present such figures as caricatures, quite in line with the criticism of them in the Buddhist scriptures.
Transoxania was a great center of Muslim civilization; it was the centre of the Timurid Empire and saw influential Muslim leaders like Oghuz Khan.
An excerpt from a dynastic history commissioned by Eltüzer Khan of Khwarazm: "Oghuz Khan, who could speak at the age of one and whose first word was "Allah." He rebelled against his father, eventually slaying him, before embarking on a series of conquests that brought Islam to all of "Transoxiana and Turkestan".
|
|
