No cenral asian migration to Bengal and Timur was not a mongol

[kalu_miah]

You are right in saying that Timur was Turkic. However, since most of these people cannot tell a difference between TURKIC and TURKISH, let me give a definition of TURKIC:

TURKIC : a family of closely related languages of southwest, central, and northern Asia and eastern Europe, including Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uzbek, Kirghiz, Kazakh and Yakut.

Turkish people are also Turkic and they originate from Central Asia, also.

Now lets talk about the connection of Mongols and Turkic tribes. Historically many tribes are described as Turko-Mongols because many Mongol tribes became Turkofied as the moved West, conquering lands of Central Asia. This use to occur quite frequently as armies conquered new territories and settled in their conquered lands and married local girls their future generations were mixed heritage. Timur who was Turkic had such mixed ancestary as well.

Let me further clarify why the Indian Mughals who were descendents of Turkic tribes ( Babar was a descendent of Timur ) had Persian mothers and this mixed ancestary softened their features. In other words, Mughals were Persianized Turks and spoke Persian as their first language ( Babar spoke persian ). The reason for this change was that persians conquered Central Asian cities like Samarkand and Bukhara in the middle ages and the whole area was Persianized.

I know this is too much of a history lesson for most South Asians , especially form India where their successive Hindu Fundamentalist political parties like BJP have totally erased Mughal History from their curriculum during their reign. I just hope that this sets up the perspective so that they can debate intelligently.

Good post. I think I have several points of disagreement.

Babur's mother was Chingisid Chagatai princess, a direct descendant of Chingis Khan:
Qutlugh Nigar Khanum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
daughter of:
Yunus Khan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
a ruler of Moghulistan or eastern Chagatai Khanate, which include parts of today's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region of China, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan:

Moghulistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Babur wrote Babur-nama in his mother tongue, Chagatai Turki, which is the ancestor language to both Uyghur and Uzbek.

All nomadic turks and turko-mongol ruling class looked down upon sedentary Persians/Tajiks also called Sarts, but used their services as clerks, administrators and educators. Persian high culture and language was patronized as Turko-mongols did not have something of their own like this. So it was adopted as lingua franca, official court language and the language of culture and learning. This is the reason they were called Persianized Turks. Persians however did intermingle with Turko-mongol rulers often in inter marriage, when they were far away from their home region, like in India.

To this day nomadic Turkic people like Kazakh and Kyrgyz look down on sedentary Uzbek and Uighur. Recent ethnic pogrom in Osh, Kyrgyzstan was a good example of this animosity.

 

[kalu_miah]

Ok my fault, I accept, Bangladeshis are mongolic(not Mangolic which demands to you to be married with trees) in origin. But according to Akmal chacha 80% of Syllet is Turk, 70% of Barishal is Persian and 75% of Noyakhali is Arab. So I'm pretty confused. :|

I ask Bangladeshis to present a district wise break up of their country of origin in below format :

Syllet - 80% Turk, 5% Persian, 15% Pathan
Barishal - 70% Persian, 20% Pathan, 10% Mongol

and so on ...

Thank you

Bangladeshi's are not Mongolic or Turkic or Turko-Mongol, they are ethnic Bengali. Just like the Brahmin and Kshatrya among Bengali's look slightly different due to Aryan migration, Muslim gentry of Bengal also look slightly different than the rest of the masses because of some foreign ancestry, and the degree varies from person to person and family to family. While the Muslim ruling class did not intermarry much with others initially, since 1757 many family fortunes changed, so this have further reduced the difference between genetic makeup of Bengal Muslim ruling classes and the masses, as money became a more important factor for social mobility.

But the genetic contribution from foreign migrant Muslims is not small or insignificant like many try to imply. The ruling class of foreign origin was significant enough to rule this region for 550 years, before the British finally took over, and convert the masses in large numbers, unlike other regions in rest of India.

Since 1757, the Kolkata based Hindu Bhadrolok lackeys of the British with their Bengal renaissance was able to suppress and change the Bengal Muslim culture from what it used to be pre-1757 to something different. Since it enriched Bengali language and culture, I have no negative feelings about this despite the famously crude Islamphobia of Bangkim Chatujje, most of whose books I read, while Tagore did not show much overt Islamophobia.

 

[Pakistanisage]

Good post. I think I have several points of disagreement.

Babur's mother was Chingisid Chagatai princess, a direct descendant of Chingis Khan:
Qutlugh Nigar Khanum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
daughter of:
Yunus Khan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
a ruler of Moghulistan or eastern Chagatai Khanate, which include parts of today's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region of China, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan:

Moghulistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Babur wrote Babur-nama in his mother tongue, Chagatai Turki, which is the ancestor language to both Uyghur and Uzbek.

All nomadic turks and turko-mongol ruling class looked down upon sedentary Persians/Tajiks also called Sarts, but used their services as clerks, administrators and educators. Persian high culture and language was patronized as Turko-mongols did not have something of their own like this. So it was adopted as lingua franca, official court language and the language of culture and learning. This is the reason they were called Persianized Turks. Persians however did intermingle with Turko-mongol rulers often in inter marriage, when they were far away from their home region, like in India.

To this day nomadic Turkic people like Kazakh and Kyrgyz look down on sedentary Uzbek and Uighur. Recent ethnic pogrom in Osh, Kyrgyzstan was a good example of this animosity.

Chagatai ( more popularly known as Chugtai in the subcontinent - as in Chugtai Art ) is one of the Turkic tribes and the Chagatai language belongs to the uyghar family of Turkic language. Other Turkic tribes were Barlas and Qazilbash. Babar Nama was orginally written in Babar's native Chagatai Turki but later translated into Farsi.

 

[kalu_miah]

Timurid dynasty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mughal empire was considered a continuation of Timurid dynasty in India. It officially ended in 1857.

http://www.defence.pk/forums/bangla...tion-bengal-timur-not-mongol.html#post3056063

The online ebook link in above post has a detailed historical analysis about why Eastern Bengal became majority Muslim region while other places in India did not. The arguments go something like this:

- after take over of Bengal by Mughal's they wanted to develop this region as the bread basket of Hindustan
- so they organized teams for clear cutting of forests and converting jungles into agricultural land
- in these teams, the headman was usually fortune seeking migrant Muslims, while the people below were from local population
- from these clear cutting projects new communities were created and most of local population converted to Islam under the influence of headman
- so the main reason was agrarian expansion which worked as the genesis of new communities, most of which were Muslim
- western part of Bengal was already settled much earlier, so the conversion rate was much smaller

The consequence of the above was that later this part of British India becmae East Pakistan and eventually the sovereign country of Bangladesh. So while Bengal was under Turkic Sultans for about 400 years, it was during Mughal rule that conversion to Islam took a decisive turn because of the above wet rice growing land development project, and made Eastern Bengal a majority Muslim region.

So rather than any great genetic links with Tumurids, it was a cause and effect connection. Eastern Bengal became majority Muslim as a byproduct of Timurid Mughal's rice cultivating land development project, which then gave rise to the sovereign country called Bangladesh.

So this in brief is the Timurid connection of Bangladesh.

 

[Roybot]

This thread = Low self esteem, identiy crisis. Why can't you lots be happy about who you are, Bangladeshis. And whats with praising foreign invaders?

 

[LaBong]

Bangladeshi's are not Mongolic or Turkic or Turko-Mongol, they are ethnic Bengali. Just like the Brahmin and Kshatrya among Bengali's look slightly different due to Aryan migration, Muslim gentry of Bengal also look slightly different than the rest of the masses because of some foreign ancestry, and the degree varies from person to person and family to family. While the Muslim ruling class did not intermarry much with others initially, since 1757 many family fortunes changed, so this have further reduced the difference between genetic makeup of Bengal Muslim ruling classes and the masses, as money became a more important factor for social mobility.

You are reiterating what I have said earlier, that the migration haven't been in such a large scale that could alter the genetic mark up of Muslim Bengalis.

But the genetic contribution from foreign migrant Muslims is not small or insignificant like many try to imply. The ruling class of foreign origin was significant enough to rule this region for 550 years, before the British finally took over, and convert the masses in large numbers, unlike other regions in rest of India.

Now you are contradicting yourself, if genetic contribution of Central Asian origin was such huge, then Bangladeshi wouldn't have looked what they look now(sorry for being blunt).

The ruling don't have to be significant to rule over the majority. Only few thousands Normans conquered England and put an end to Anglo-Saxon England. European invaders to South America weren't even 1% of total South American population.

The fact is ruling Turkic Sultanate had no sympathy or connection to native Bengali Muslims rather depended on Hindus for administrative work. Bulk of landlords were Hindus, there were even Hindu generals.

Since 1757, the Kolkata based Hindu Bhadrolok lackeys of the British with their Bengal renaissance was able to suppress and change the Bengal Muslim culture from what it used to be pre-1757 to something different. Since it enriched Bengali language and culture, I have no negative feelings about this despite the famously crude Islamphobia of Bangkim Chatujje, most of whose books I read, while Tagore did not show much overt Islamophobia.

Yeah if we were lackey then Bengal wouldn't have witnessed most bloodiest chapter of Indian independence struggle and British wouldn't have moved capital from Calcutta to Delhi.

Islamophobic seems to have become favourite word for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis alike. The only thing Bankim ever did was to change the word Yaban to Mlechha from his book Kapalkundala to save himself from British ire. Mlechchha can be loosely translated to Kaffir which is used in any conversation most Muslims have with non Muslims. And you Bangladeshis relentlessly call Hindus malaun and what not and then have the galls to call other Islamophobic.

I'd not be surprised if some of you call even Tagore as Islamophobic.

 

[LaBong]

Just like the Brahmin and Kshatrya among Bengali's look slightly different due to Aryan migration

Aryan Migration didn't alter existing South Asian gene pool which have been pretty consistence since Neolithic time. Brahmins and Kayshthas could look slightly different as they have been historically more wealthy and top of social ladder, so got the best ladies among the bunch.

 

[rubyjackass]

Farsi was official language of Bengal till 1838. What the f happen after that?

I don't know may be later on, for a change, people began to decide official language and not the rulers.

Btw zakir, thanks for changing your flags. They make so much sense now.

 

[kalu_miah]

I can't understand how even those "Muslims" who claim to care about Muslim history don't know the havoc and destruction Timur laid waste to different Muslim empires from Iraq to India. Remeber it was the Tughlaq dynasty that had a vast empire in India that was sacked by Timur. He attacked most of presentday Pakistan ending his campaing witht he sacking of Delhi. He invaded the Ottoman empire and the Mamluks in the west sackling Aleppo and Damascus. He infact, was even more destructive in his campaigns in West Asia than even India. In any case, Timur doesn't have any relation with Bengal so his link doesn't arise here.

Its the height of stupidity to say that Timur was a "great muslim conquerer" when the vat majority of those he attacked and killed were infact Muslims themselves.

His only redeeming factor is that he was able to create a renaisance of sorts in Central Asia as the wealth poured in from most of his conqured territories - which were in any case being ruled by Muslims anyways. The fact is that though they were nominal Muslims, he was just like their non-Muslim forefathers under Chengis Khan and Halaku Khan who created a massive wave of destruction across the Muslim ruled territories.

The correct way to look at it is a geopolitics of the region and the fact that until the invetion of the Gun and artillery, nomads who were expert horsemen and archers had an enduring advantage in military combat against settled societies and empires who did not have this advantage. With the invetion of the gun and artillery around the 18th century this changed in the favour of the settled people and the "nomadic advantage" in miliary combat was lost.

This is more or less correct. Islamic expansion started with Arab bedouins and nomadic traders, while Arabs later settled down and became "civilized and urbane" a new group of Turkic nomads were recruited as slave soldiers or mamelukes from the empires periphery, to protect the dominion. This started the first Turkic phase of Islamic history after Khilafa, then came the Mongols destroying and razing the Islamic civilization to the ground. Mongols converted to Islam and became turkified and Turko-Mongols continued in Central Asia and India till more dynamic Europeans took over, British in Hindustan and the Russians in Central Asia. Loss of nomadic advantage was definitely a factor, but please note that it was due to Pax-Mongolica that Chinese gun-powder technology reached europe. But the dynamism present in European society was able to take this technology and develop it better than all other societies. European dynamism was, in my opinion, a result of historical continuity, which I discuss here:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-...orld-order-road-map-future-8.html#post2758071

Now about Timur's havoc's, some said they were worse than the destruction caused by Chingis Khan's army, but we also need to consider that there is a thing called "judging historical events using present-day standards", it is frowned upon by professional historians:
2. Historical Comprehension — National Center for History in the Schools

students should learn to avoid "present-mindedness" by not judging the past solely in terms of the norms and values of today but taking into account the historical context in which the events unfolded.

Is it fair to judge historical events by todays standards? | History: On learning from and writing history | LibraryThing

Some interesting tidbits about Timur:
Timur - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Timur's military talents were unique. He planned all his campaigns years in advance, even planting barley for horse feed two-years ahead of his campaigns. He used propaganda, in what is now called information warfare, as part of his tactics. His campaigns were preceded by the deployment of spies whose tasks included collecting information and spreading horrifying reports about the cruelty, size, and might of Timur’s armies. Such psychological warfare eventually weakened the morale of threatened populations and caused panic in the regions that he intended to invade.[citation needed]
Although Timur's uncharacteristic (for the time) concern for his troops inspired fierce loyalty, he did not pay them. Their only incentives were from looting captured territory — a bounty that included horses, women, precious metals and stones; in other words whatever they, or their newly captured slaves, could carry away from the conquered lands.

 

[kalu_miah]

Labong and Roybot, you guys should accept the fact that these "foreign invaders" may be foreign to you but to us they are not foreign, those that settled down in this region are very much a part of our ancestry and we are glad that they saved the contemporary population from Brahmanic caste hegemony that made a come back, destroying the Buddhist anti-caste revolution. And your attempt to color and change South Asian history is pathetic attempt at historical revisionism, which is hallmark of Hindutva ideology.

 

[LaBong]

Central Asian war machine stalled the day tanks and artillery made horse cavalry unusable. Arab and Central Asia used to breed the quality Horses while rain-washed subcontinent isn't suitable for quality Horse breeding. Elephants saved India from Greeks, Saks, Hunas and other historic invaders but Turkic invaders were far more technologically advanced and had far superior war strategy derived from Mongols.

Usually in middle ages, nomadic invaders had an obvious edge over sedentary societies like Indian, Persia and China.

We shouldn't judge Historical events by present day standard but Timur was particularly nasty even in his day's standard.

Labong and Roybot, you guys should accept the fact that these "foreign invaders" may be foreign to you but to us they are not foreign, they are very much a part of our ancestry and we are glad that they saved the contemporary population from Brahmanic caste hegemony that made a come back destroying the Buddhist anti-caste revolution. And your attempt to color and change South Asian history is pathetic attempt at historical revisionism, which is hallmark of Hindutva ideology.

You could be glad, it's your prerogative. But let's call a spade a spade, shall we? Over the time I have become bit tired of politically correctness that Indian historians shows while unfolding historical events. History should be told as it happened(while making sure people don'r rage the nearest mosque or temple down to ground because of historical events thousand years back).

 

[Roybot]

Labong and Roybot, you guys should accept the fact that these "foreign invaders" may be foreign to you but to us they are not foreign, those that settled down in this region are very much a part of our ancestry and we are glad that they saved the contemporary population from Brahmanic caste hegemony that made a come back, destroying the Buddhist anti-caste revolution. And your attempt to color and change South Asian history is pathetic attempt at historical revisionism, which is hallmark of Hindutva ideology.

When did we dispute the fact that Bangladeshis are indeed a central asian turkic group That was the whole point of this thread, 70% Bangladeshis are Turkic, 15% Pathans and 5% Arabs sounds about right to me. Carry on

 

[kalu_miah]

Central Asian war machine stalled the day tanks and artillery made horse cavalry unusable. Arab and Central Asia used to breed the quality Horses while rain-washed subcontinent isn't suitable for quality Horse breeding. Elephants saved India from Greeks, Saks, Hunas and other historic invaders but Turkic invaders were far more technologically advanced and had far superior war strategy derived from Mongols.

Usually in middle ages, nomadic invaders had an obvious edge over sedentary societies like Indian, Persia and China.

We shouldn't judge Historical events by present day standard but Timur was particularly nasty even in his day's standard.



You could be glad, it's your prerogative. But let's call a spade a spade, shall we? Over the time I have become bit tired of politically correctness that Indian historians shows while unfolding historical events. History should be told as it happened(while making sure people don'r rage the nearest moscue or temple down to ground because of historical events thousand years back).

I guess you are talking about communists and Thaparites being specially gentle in describing history of Muslim rule in India. There could be good reasons for this, as South Asian population, specially Hindu's with a developed sense of victim complex still has not come to terms with their own history. Also having very low standard of nutrition as well as standard of education makes the population as irrational as they come in any other part of the world. So they can easily be agitated by "telling the history as it happened". So your population may not be ready to handle the subtle factor of avoiding "present-minded ness". May be they should really try to promote this concept among historians, so they can tell the unadulterated history and at the same time teach students how to avoid "present-minded ness", so they do not generate hate for present day Muslims, because of what some Central Asian nomads did centuries ago, according to their own life style and professional war tactics developed over thousands of years.

But that aside, I have seen that there are some Indian sites where people engage in great debates trying to reinterpret meaning from "original source" and revise history so they can use it for their political advantage. This is not just about Muslim rule, but about AIT/AMT/OIT etc. and many other issues. This I must say is height of intellectual dishonesty.

 

[Vinod2070]

Well, we do owe a lot to the turks for bringing Islam to BD. The great turk Ikhtiyar Uddin Khilji was
the first one to burst into bengal with the flag of ISLAM.



great-great-grandfather of Babur and off course a great muslim conquerer who freed West, South and Central Asia from oppression.



Any muslims who contributed to the spread of ISLAM is a hero to all muslims. Its very simple really.

Yeah the way timur freed the citizens of Baghdad from their oppressor was unparalleled. Also his treatment to ottoman king was legendary.

95% of the 30 million odd human beings massacred by that dredge of humanity called Timur were Muslims. He continued building the pyramids of human skulls that was started by Genghis. Most of those pyramids were of Muslim skulls, both by Genghis and Timur.

That he is an Islamic hero to people here tells us something that we already know.

There are some here who consider Genghis a "higher order Muslim" as well.

 

[Vinod2070]

Ok my fault, I accept, Bangladeshis are mongolic(not Mangolic which demands to you to be married with trees) in origin. But according to Akmal chacha 80% of Syllet is Turk, 70% of Barishal is Persian and 75% of Noyakhali is Arab. So I'm pretty confused. :|

I ask Bangladeshis to present a district wise break up of their country of origin in below format :

Syllet - 80% Turk, 5% Persian, 15% Pathan
Barishal - 70% Persian, 20% Pathan, 10% Mongol

and so on ...

Thank you

This thread = Low self esteem, identiy crisis. Why can't you lots be happy about who you are, Bangladeshis. And whats with praising foreign invaders?

Some people who keep jumping from one useless post to another, keep shifting their views as per the need of that post.

One wannabe scholar here would claim in one post that foreigners make 25-30% of the genetic make-up of Indian Muslims when we claim the obvious that the vast majority of Indian Muslims (from undivided India) are native.

Then, when feigning to worry about the security of Indian Muslims, the same wannabe would claim that they are completely native converts!

These people have no legs to stand on, no authenticity, no ideology, no sense of honesty or of truth.

Their only ideology is that of hate. And denial.

Jis thaali me khana, us me chhed karna. And that includes their current Western abode.