Khanate of Khiva

Historians know more about the Turkmen tribes in this period because of their greater interaction with literate societies, especially the Khanate of Khiva. Khiva was always smaller and weaker than Bukhara, although it fended off repeated Bukharan attempts to capture it. The khanate consisted of a couple of town centers (primarily the cities of Khiva and Urgench) inhabited by the Uzbek ruling elite and by people referred to as Sarts. The term “Sart” derives from the Sanskrit for “caravan leader,” a hint at how long South Asian Hindus had been active in Eurasian trade. By the 18th century most people designated as Sarts were Farsi-speakers as well as town-dwellers. This makes sense when one realizes that Farsi was the international language of trade in Central Eurasia for over 1000 years. Sart identity derived from their socio-economic location. The Jews of Central Asia, who had arrived in the region following international trade routes, were also Farsi-speakers. However, their distinctive religious practice kept them in a category of their own.
Outside of the towns, the Khanate of Khiva was inhabited by a variety of Turkmen, Kazakh, and Kara-Kalpak tribes who mostly governed themselves and did not bother acknowledging political borders; they traveled in Khiva, Bukhara, the Desht-i Qipchaq and Safavid Iran as they needed.

Kyrgyz, Turkmen, and Karakalpak nomads

The Kyrgyz, a Turkic people who were identified by name in late-15th century Moghulistan records, were pastoralists who herded between the Tien Shan and Pamir mountain ranges. Their territory centered around Lake Issyk Kul; their neighbors sometimes called them “those living in felt tents,” [Millward, p. 79]. In the 16th century, Sufi sheikhs of the Naqshbandiya tariqa convinced Kyrgyz leaders to accept Islam. Kyrgyz tribes absorbed people from the declining Chaghatid kingdoms, as did Kazakh groups in the area. Like the Kazakhs, the Kyrgyz split into three sub-confederations. Unlike the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz tribes did not care about Chingisid lineage and never developed charismatic, conquering leaders. Because they did not leave behind written records, we know very little about them before the arrival of the Russians.

The Turkmen presence in Transoxiana pre-dated the Mongols by many centuries. They lived in seven major tribes, speaking different dialects: Teke, Yomut, Ersary, Gökleng, Salyr, Saryk, and Choudir or Chovdur, of which the first three were the strongest. Each tribe in turn divided into clans with their own genealogical lines. Turkmen tribes preferred a minimal political structure, with tribal elders to mediate disputes but no permanent authorities. They would accept the leadership of respected warriors (serdar) for raids or battles, but the serdar could not command allegiance once the fighting was done. The only permanent authority among Turkmen was customary law (däp or adat), which was determined by councils of elderly male clan leaders. While Turkmen considered themselves Sunni Muslim, däp usually superceded Islamic law (sharia) when there was a contradiction between the two. This situation was common among nomadic Muslims. In this regard historian Adrienne Edgar cites a telling proverb: “You can leave religion if you like, but you can’t leave your people,” [Edgar, p. 26].  Lineage and customary law, rather than sharia, defined Turkmen identity.

Economically, Turkmen lived along a continuum from nomadic herders to settled farmers, depending on their local environment. Groups who lived closer to oases or the Amu Darya River produced most of their food through farming, but also relied on some herding and trade. Groups in the desert regions, especially west toward the Caspian Sea, were mostly pastoralist. While the Turkmen themselves made a distinction between farmers (chomur) and pastoralists (charwa), and regarded the latter as the clearly superior group, there was considerable overlap and shading between settled farmers and nomadic herders. The situation was very different from the general scholarly model of eternal hostility “between the steppe and the sown.”  Another way for Turkmen to earn income was through the slave trade. Raiding parties would seize Iranian Shiites or, especially in the 19th century, Russian Christians, and sell them in the markets of Khiva and Bukhara or sometimes keep them for the tribe. The slave trade reflected the religious aspect of Turkmen identity: infidel Shiites were legitimate targets for Sunni slavers. However, the Iranian slaves of Turkmen tribes assimilated over time and were grafted onto tribes’ genealogies. Descendants of slaves, or unions between slaves and free Turkmen, retained the label gul, signifying their origins, but were regarded as Turkmen. The same “Turkmenification” process could happen to non-slave Farsi-speaking inhabitants of the area.

The Kara-kalpaks (or Qoraqalpogh, “Black Caps”) were the smallest Turkic group in Central Asia; their primary territory was the Amu Darya delta just south of the Aral Sea, although Kara-kalpak tribes also lived in the Bukharan emirate further east. They were nomadic pastoralists who spoke a Qipchaq Turkic language. Unlike Turkmen tribes, Kara-kalpaks recognized long-term tribal chiefs (called biis), but like them appointed military leaders (botyrs) only in time of need. They recognized no khanates until forced to by the Khan of Khiva, Muhammad Rahim, in 1811.

Farsi-speaking settled peoples

The oldest group of inhabitants of Central Eurasia that we can trace were not Turks or Mongols, but people speaking Iranian languages (a branch of the Indo-European language family). The Scythians were Iranian-speaking nomads who inhabited a vast swath of Eurasia approximately 2500 years ago, best known to us from the magnificent animal art they left in bronze, gold, or well-preserved leather.

The Soghdians ruled along the Zerafshan River valley from approximately the fifth century BCE to the sixth century CE (when the Turks arrived), and remained a vitally important merchant population after that. They were known as some of the greatest guides and caravaneers on the Silk Road, and were transmitters of Buddhism and Indian art forms into the oases of the Tarim Basin and thence into China. The tenth-century Samanid dynasty of Bukhara was also Iranian in origin.  When the Uzbek kingdoms were established, Farsi was the language of culture and bureaucracy; running a civilized court in Türki was unheard-of. Farsi also remained the language of trade. For these reasons, the new Uzbek rulers retained the old Timurid Farsi-speaking bureaucrats. Farsi-speakers were called Tajiks, a name that actually derived from an old Arab tribe, the Tayy. The name was applied to converts to Islam in Central Asia after the Arabs invaded in 709 CE. The Arabs themselves were absorbed into the general Turkic and Iranian population, but “Tajik” came to signify Farsi-speaking Muslims [Soucek, p. 32.]

Bukhara and Samarkand were essentially Tajik cities ruled by Uzbeks. Outside the cities, Tajiks were settled farmers rather than pastoralist nomads. Tajik villagers also inhabited the Pamir foothills in the southeastern section of the Emirate of Bukhara. For much of the 16th and 17th centuries this was a border area between Bukhara, the burgeoning Mughal Empire and the Chaghatids, and saw much fighting and upheaval. Further east, the high mountains of Badakhshan in the Pamirs were home to people who spoke other Iranian languages (such as Yagnobi and Shughni) and who at some unknown time had adopted Ismaili (“Sevener”) Shi’i Islam. Since Badakhshan was physically very hard to reach, the people there remained culturally remote from the rest of Central Asia until well into the Soviet period.