Khwarezm- The Iranian pearl oasis in Central Asia

[Charon 2]

Khwarezm /kwəˈrɛzəm/ or Chorasmia /kəˈræzmiə/ (Persian: خوارزم) is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, bordered on the north by the (former) Aral Sea, on the east by the Kyzylkum desert, on the south by the Karakum desert, and on the west by the Ustyurt Plateau. It was the center of the (indigenous) Khwarezmian civilization and a series of kingdoms such as the Persian empire, whose capitals were (among others) Kath, Gurganj(the modern Köneürgenç) and, from the 16th century on, Khiva. Today Khwarezm belongs partly to Uzbekistan, partly to Kazakhstan and partly to Turkmenistan.

Biruni, a native speaker of Chorasmian (an Iranian language),[8][9][10] says that the land belonging to Afrasiab was first colonised 980 years before Alexander the Great, sc. before the Seleucid era, i.e. in 1292 B.C., when the hero of the Iranian epic Siyavash came to Khwarezm; his son Kay Khusraw was established on the throne 92 years later, in 1200 B.C. He starts giving names only with the Afrighid line of Khwarazmshahs, having placed the ascension of Afrighids in 616 of the Seleucid era, i.e. in 305 A.D.


An East Iranian language, known as Khwarezmian language, was spoken in Khwarezm proper (i.e., the lower Amu Darya region) until soon after the Mongol invasion, when it was replaced by Turkic languages.[13][14][15][16] It was closely related toSogdian. Other than the astronomical terms used by the native Iranian Chorasmian speaker Biruni,[10] our other sources of Khwarezmian include Zamakhshari's Arabic-Persian–Khwarezmian dictionary and several legal texts that use Khwarezmian terms to explain certain legal concepts.

In the very early part of its history, the inhabitants of the area were from Iranian[17][18] stock and they spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Khwarezmian. The famous scientist Biruni, a Khwarezm native, in his Athar ul-Baqiyah (الآثار الباقية عن القرون الخالية) (p. 47), specifically verifies the Iranian origins of Khwarezmians when he wrote (in Arabic):

أهل خوارزم [...] کانوا غصناً من دوحة الفرس
The people of the Khwarezm were a branch from Persian tree.

The area of Khwarezm was under Afrighid and then Samanid control until the 10th century before it was conquered by theGhaznavids. The Iranian Chorasmian language and culture felt the pressure of Turkic infiltration from northern Khwarezm southwards, leading to the disappearance of the original Iranian character[10] of the province and its complete turkicisation today, but Khwarezmian speech[10] probably lasted in upper Khwarezm, the region round Hazarasp, till the end of the 8th/14th century.[10]

The Iranian Chorasmian language survived for several centuries after Islam until the Turkification of the region, and so must some at least of the culture and lore of ancient Khwarezm, for it is hard to see the commanding figure of Biruni, a repository of so much knowledge, appearing in a cultural vacuum.[10]


Khwarezm and her cities appear in Persian literature in abundance, in both prose and poetry. Dehkhoda for example defines the name Bukhara itself as "full of knowledge", referring to the fact that in antiquity, Bukhara was a scientific and scholarship powerhouse.Rumi verifies this when he praises the city as such:

Other examples illustrate the eminent status of Khwarezmid and Transoxianian cities in Persian literature in the past 1500 years:

عالم جانها بر او هست مقرر چنانک
The world of hearts is under his power in the same manner that
دولت خوارزمشاه داد جهان را قرار
The Khwarazmshahs have brought peace to the world.

—Khaqani Shirvani
یکی پر طمع پیش خوارزمشاه
A greedy one went to Khwarezm-shah
شنیدم که شد بامدادی پگاه
early one morning, so I have heard

—Saadi
Yaqut al-Hamawi, who visited Khwarezm and its capital in 1219, wrote: "I have never seen a city more wealthy and beautiful than Gurganj". The city, however, was destroyed during several invasions, in particular when the Mongol army broke the dams of the Amu Darya which flooded the city. He reports that for every Mongol soldier, four inhabitants of Gurganj were killed. Najmeddin Kubra, the great Sufi master, was among the casualties. The Mongol army that devastated Gurganj was estimated to have been near 80,000 soldiers. The verse below refers to an early previous calamity that fell upon the region:

آخر ای خاک خراسان داد یزدانت نجات
Oh land of Khorasan! God has saved you,
از بلای غیرت خاک ره گرگانج و کات
from the disaster that befell the land of Gurganj and Kath

—Divan of Anvari
Nevertheless the beauty and fame of Bukhara and Samarqand are well known in Persian literature. The following famouscosmopolitan ode perhaps best provides a notable example of this:

اگر آن ترک شیرازی به دست آرد دل ما را
If that Shirazi Turk can win my heart,
به خال هندویش بخشم سمرقند و بخارا را
I would sell even the jewel cities of Samarqand and Bukhara for the Indian mole on her cheek.

—Hafiz
Legend has it that Tamerlane sent for Hafiz regarding this verse and asked angrily: "Are you he who was so bold as to offer my two great cities Samarkand and Bukhara for the mole on thy mistress's cheek?" Hafiz then replied, "Yes, sire, and it is by such acts of generosity that I have brought myself to such a state of destitution that I have now to solicit your bounty." Tamerlane is written to have been so pleased at his ready wit that he dismissed the poet with a handsome present.

Khwarezm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia​

 

[Charon 2]

As I'm a huge fan of Iranian history , ancient Eastern Iranic peoples like Choresmians, Sogdians... and espeically my interest about the culture of Iranian peoples in Central Asia, I will post later something about Sogdians and Sogdia, another Eastern Iranic people.

 

[Charon 2]

The Afrighids (Persian: آفریغیان-آل آفریغ‎) were a native Chorasmian (i.g. Iranian) [8][22][23] dynasty which ruled over the kingdom of Khwarezm (according to Biruni) from 305 until 995 A.D. Sometimes it was under Sassanid control.

In 712 Khwarezm was conquered by the Arab Umayyads. It thus came vaguely under Muslim suzerainty, but it was not until the end of the 8th century or the beginning of the 9th century that an Afrighid Shah was first converted to Islam appearing with the popular convert’s name of ʿAbdallah (slave of God). In the course of the 10th century, when some geographers such as Istakhri in his Al-Masalik wa-l-mamalik mention Khwarezm as part of Khorasan andTransoxiania, the local family of the Ma'munids who were based in Gurganj, on the left bank of the Amu Darya grew in economic and political importance due to trade caravans. In 995, they violently overthrew the Afrighids of Kath and themselves assumed the traditional title of Khwarazm-Shah. Briefly, the area was under Samanidsuzerainty, before it passed to Mahmud of Ghazna in 1017. From then on, Turco-Mongolian invasions and long rule by Turco-Mongol dynasties supplanted the Iranian character of the region[23] although the title of Khwarezm-Shah was maintained well up to the 13th century.[23]

1. ” ĀL-E AFRĪḠ” IN Encyclopedia Iranica by C. E. Bosworth
2. 1. C.E. Bosworth, “The Ghaznavids” in History of Civilization: Central Asia in History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume IV: The Age of Achievement : A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century : Part One : The Historical Social and Economic Setting/edited by M.S. Asimov and C.E. Bosworth. Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1999, 485 pages. (Vol. IV, Pt. I). ISBN 81-208-1595-5. Excerpt from page 101: “The ancient Iranian kingdom of Khwarazm had been ruled until 995 by the old established line of Afrighids of Kath, but control subsequently passed to the new line of Khwarazm Shahs, the Ma'munids of Gurganj”
   2. Clifford Edmund Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual, Columbia University, 1996.

 

[jammersat]

In our history books the khwarazmids were most famous for killing the mongol emissary and hence unleashing the mongol wrath on baghdad and muslims eventually,

 

[Targon]

In our history books the khwarazmids were most famous for killing the mongol emissary and hence unleashing the mongol wrath on baghdad and muslims eventually,

Is the information about Khwarezm is more concentrated on Turkic period in your history books ? I thought it would be more about Post-Islamic Iranian rule.

 

[jammersat]

Is the information about Khwarezm is more concentrated on Turkic period in your history books ? I thought it would be more about Post-Islamic Iranian rule.

It was more about islam and the post islamic iran sadly as you've guessed correctly , but nevertheless when we were kids they used to teach us a little about pre-islam too , just a little but enough to get me interested personally...