Turko-Persian tradition
Encyclopedia
The composite Turko-Persian tradition was a variant of Islamic culture. It was Persianate in that it was centered on a lettered tradition of Iranian
origin; it was Turkic
insofar as it was for many generations patronized by rulers of Turkic background; it was Islam
ic in that Islamic notions of virtue, permanence, and excellence infused discourse about public issues as well as the religious affairs of the Muslim
s, who were the presiding elite.
Muslim conquest of Persia
, Middle Persian
, the language of Sassanids, continued in wide use well into the second Islamic century
(8th century) as a medium of administration in the eastern lands of the Caliphate
. Despite Arabization
of public affairs, the peoples retained much of their pre-Islamic outlook and way of life, adjusted to fit the demands of the Islamic religion. Towards the end of the first Islamic century, population began resenting the cost of sustaining the Arab Caliph
s, the Umayyads - who become oppressive and corrupt, and in the second Islamic century (8th c. AD), a generally Persian-led uprising - led by the Iranian national hero Abu Muslim Khorasani
- brought another Arab clan, the Abbasids, to the Caliphal throne. Under the Abbasids, the Persianate
customs of their Barmakid
vizier
s became the style of the ruling elite. Politically, the Abbasids soon started losing their control, causing two major and lasting consequences. First, the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutasim (833-842) greatly increased the presence of Turkic mercenaries
and Mamluk
slaves in the Caliphate, and they eventually displaced Arabs and Persians from the military, and therefore from the political hegemony, starting an era of Turko-Persian symbiosis. Second, the governors in Khurasan
, Tahirids, were factually independent; then the Saffarids from Sistan
freed the eastern lands, but were replaced by independent Samanids, although they showed perfunctory deference to the Caliph. Separation of the eastern lands from Caliphate was expressed in a distinctive Persianate culture that became a dominant culture in West, Central
and South Asia
, and the source of innovations elsewhere in the Islamicate world. This culture would persist, at least in the modified form of the Ottoman Empire
, into the 20th century. The Persianate culture was marked by the use of the new Persian language
as a medium of administration and literature, by the rise of Persianized Turks to military control, by new political importance of non-Arab ulama
, and by development of ethnically composite Islamicate society.
Middle Persian was a lingua franca
of the region before the Arab invasion, but afterwards Arabic became a preferred medium of literary expression. Instrumental in the spread of the Persian language as a common language along the Silk Road
between China
and Parthia
in the 2nd century BCE, that lasted well into the 16th century, were many Bukharian Jews who flocked to Bukhara
in the Central Asia
and as a merchant class played a great role in the operation of the Silk Road. In the ninth century emerged a new Persian language as the idiom of administration and literature. Tahirids and Saffarids continued using Persian as an informal language, although for them Arabic was the "only proper language for recording anything worthwhile, from poetry to science", but the Samanids made Persian a language of learning and formal discourse. The language that appeared in the ninth and tenth centuries was a new form of Persian, based on the Middle Persian of pre-Islamic times, but enriched by ample Arabic vocabulary and written in Arabic script. The Samanids began recording their court affairs in Arabic and in this language, and they used it as the main public idiom. The earliest great poetry in New Persian was written for the Samanid court. Samanids encouraged translation of religious works from Arabic into Persian. Even the learned authorities of Islam, the ulama
, began using the Persian lingua franca in public, although they still used Arabic as a medium of scholarship. The crowning literary achievement in the early New Persian language, The Persian "Book of Kings"
of Firdowsi, presented to the court of Mahmud of Ghazni
(998-1030), was more than a literary achievement; it was a kind of Iranian
nationalistic memoir, Firdowsi galvanized Persian nationalistic sentiments by invoking pre-Islamic Persian heroic imagery. Firdowsi enshrined in literary form the most treasured stories of popular folk-memory.
Before the Ghaznavids broke away, the Samanid rulership was internally falling to its Turkic servants. The Samanids had their own guard of Turkic Mamluk
mercenaries (the ghilman
), who were headed by a chamberlain, and a Persian and Arabic speaking bureaucracy, headed by a Persian vizier
. The army was largely composed of mostly Turkic Mamluks. By the latter part of the tenth century, Samanid rulers gave the command of their army to Turkic generals. These generals eventually had effective control over all Samanid affairs. The rise of Turks in Samanid times brought a loss of Samanid southern territories to one of their Mamluks, who were governing on their behalf. Mahmud of Ghazni
ruled over southeastern extremities of Samanid territories from the city of Ghazni
. Turkic political ascendancy in the Samanid period in the tenth and eleventh century resulted in the fall of Samanid ruling institution to its Turkic generals; and in a rise of Turkic pastoralists in the countryside. The Ghaznavids (989-1149) founded empire which became a most powerful in the east since Abbasid Caliphs at their peak, and their capital at Ghazni became second only to Baghdad
in cultural elegance. It attracted many scholars and artists of the Islamic world. Turkic ascendance to power in the Samanid court brought Turks as the main patrons of Persianate culture, and as they subjugated Western and Southern Asia, they brought along this culture.
The Kara-Khanid Khanate
(999-1140) at that time were gaining pre-eminence over the countryside. The Kara-Khanids were pastoralists of noble Turkic backgrounds, and they cherished their Turkic ways. As they gained strength they fostered development of a new Turkish literature alongside the Persian and Arabic literatures that had arisen earlier.
, the learned scholars of Islam. Ulama grew in prominence as the Samanids gave special support to Sunnism, in contrast with their Shiite neighbors, the Buyids. They enjoyed strong position in the city of Bukhara
, and it grew under the Samanids' successors Kara-Khanid Khanate. Kara-Khanids
established a dominance of ulama in the cities, and the network of recognized Islamic authorities became an alternative social instrument for the maintenance of public order. In the Kara-Khanid Khanate formed an ethnically and dogmatically diverse society. The eastern lands of the Caliphate were ethnically and religiously very diverse. Christians, Jews
, and Zoroastrians were numerous, and also several minority Islamic sects had considerable following. These diverse peoples found refuge in the cities. Bukhara and Samarkand
swelled and formed ethnic and sectarian neighborhoods, most of them surrounded by walls, each with its own markets, caravansaraies, and public squares. The religious authorities of these non-Muslim communities became their spokesmen, just as the ulama were for the Muslim community, they also began overseeing internal communal affairs. Thus, alongside the rise of the ulama, there was a corresponding rise in the political importance of the religious leaders of other doctrinal communities.
The ruling institution was dominated by Turks from various tribes, some highly urbanized and Persianized, some rural and still very Turkic. It was managed by bureaucrats and ulama who used both Persian and Arabic, its literati participated in both the Arabic and Persian traditions of high culture of the wider Islamicate world. This composite culture was the beginning of the Turko-Persian variant of Islamicate culture. As "Persianate
" it was centered on a lettered tradition of Persian origin, it was Turkic because for many generations it was patronized by rulers of Turkic ancestry, and it was "Islamicate" because the Islamic notions of virtue, permanence, and excellence channeled the discourse about public issues and religious affairs of the Muslims, who were a presiding elite. The combination of these elements in the Islamic society had a strong impact on the religion, because Islam was disengaged from its Arabic background and Bedouin
traditions and became a far richer, more adaptable, and universal culture. The appearance of New Persian, ascendancy of Turks to power in place of the Persian Samanids, rise of the non-Arabic ulama in the cities, and development of ethnically and confessionally complex urban society marked an emergence of a new Turko-Persian Islamic culture. As the Turko-Persian Islamic culture was exported into the wider region of Western and Southern Asia, the transformation became increasingly evident.
The early stages of Turko-Persian cultural synthesis in the Islamic world are marked by cultural, social and political tensions and competition among Turks, Persians, and Arabs, despite the egalitarianism of Islamic doctrine. The complex ideas around non-Arabs in the Muslim world lead to debates and changing attitudes that can be seen in numerous Arabic, Persian and Turkic writings before the Mongol expansion.
The Perso-Islamic tradition was a tradition where the Turkic groups played an important role in its military and political success while the culture raised both by and under the influence of Muslims used Persian as its cultural vehicle. In short, the Turko-Persian tradition features Persian culture patronized by Turkophone rulers
.
was carried by succeeding dynasties into Western and Southern Asia, in particular, by the Seljuks (1040-1118), and their successor states, who presided over Persia, Syria
, and Anatolia
until the thirteenth century, and by the Ghaznavids, who in the same period dominated Greater Khorasan
and India
. These two dynasties together drew the center of the Islamic world eastward. The institutions stabilized Islamic society into a form that would persist, at least in Western Asia, until the twentieth century.
The Turko-Persian variant of Islamicate culture was a composite tradition of the Islamic era. It was "Persianate" in that it was centered on a lettered tradition of Iranian origin; it was Turkish insofar as it was for many generations patronized by rulers of Turkic ancestry; and it was "Islamicate" in that Islamic notions of virtue, permanence, and excellence infused discourse about public issues as well as the religious affairs of the Muslims, who were the presiding elite. (Hodgson 1974 i:58)..
The Turko-Persian distinctive Islamicate culture flourished for hundreds of years, and then faded under imposed modern Europe
an influences. Turko-Persian Islamicate culture is an ecumenical mix of Arabic
, Persian, and Turkic
elements blended in the ninth and tenth centuries, and eventually became a predominant culture of the ruling and elite classes of West, Central
and South Asia
.
The Ghaznavids moved their capital from Ghazni to Lahore
, which they turned into another center of Islamic culture. Under Ghaznavids poets and scholars from Kashgar
, Bukhara
, Samarkand
, Baghdad
, Nishapur
, and Ghazni
congregated in Lahore. Thus, the Turko-Persian culture was brought deep into India and carried further in the thirteenth century.
The Seljuq
successors of Kara-Khanid Khanate in Transoxiana
brought this culture westward into Persia, Iraq, and Syria. Seljuqs won a decisive battle with the Ghaznavids and then swept into Khurasan
, they brought Turko-Persian Islamic culture westward into western Persia and Iraq. Persia and Central Asia became a heartland of Persianate language and culture. As Seljuks came to dominate Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia, they carried this Turko-Persian culture beyond, and made it the culture of their courts in the region to as far west as the Mediterranean Sea
. Under Seljuks and the Ghaznavids the Islamic religious institutions became more organized and Sunni orthodoxy became more codified. The great jurist and theologian al-Ghazali
proposed a synthesis of Sufism
and sharia
that became a basis of a richer Islamic theology. Formulating the Sunni concept of division between temporal and religious authorities, he provided a theological basis for the existence of Sultanate, a temporal office alongside the Caliphate, which by that time was merely a religious office. The main institutional means of establishing a consensus of the ulama on these dogmatic issues were the madrasas, formal Islamic schools that granted licensure to teach. First established under Seljuqs, these schools became means of uniting Sunni ulama which legitimized the rule of the Sultans. The bureaucracies were staffed by graduates of the madrasas, so both the ulama and the bureaucracies were under the influence of esteemed professors at the madrasas.
The eleventh to the thirteenth century's period was a cultural blossom time in Western and Southern Asia. A shared culture spread from Mediterranean to the mouth of Ganges, despite political fragmentation and ethnic diversity.
under Genghis Khan
(1220-58) and Timur
(Tamerlane, 1336-1405) had effect of stimulating development of Persianate culture of Central and West Asia, because of the new concentrations of specialists of high culture created by the invasions, for many people had to seek refuge in few safe havens, primarily India, where scholars, poets, musicians, and fine artisans intermingled and cross-fertilized, and because the broad peace secured by the huge imperial systems established by the Il-Khans
(in the thirteenth century) and Timurids (in the fifteenth century), when travel was safe, and scholars and artists, ideas and skills, and fine books and artifacts circulated freely over a wide area. Il-Khans and Timurids deliberately patronized Persianate high culture. Under their rule developed new styles of architecture, Persian literature was encouraged, and flourished miniature painting and book production, and under Timurids prospered Turkic poetry, based on the vernacular known as Chaghatai
(today called Uzbek
; of Turkic Qarluq
origin).
In that period prospered the Turko-Persian culture of India. Mamluk guards, mostly Turks
and Mongols, along with Persians (now known as Tajiks), Khaljis and Afghans, dominated India from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, ruling as Sultans in Delhi
. Their society was enriched by influx of Islamic scholars, historians, architects, musicians, and other specialists of high Persianate culture that fled the Mongol devastations of Transoxiana and Khurasan. After the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258, Delhi became the most important cultural center of the Muslim east. The Delhi Sultans modeled their life-styles after the Turkic and Persian upper classes, who now predominated in most of Western and Central Asia. They patronized literature and music, but became especially notable for their architecture, because their builders drew from Muslim world architecture to produce a profusion of mosques, palaces, and tombs unmatched in any other Islamic country.
In Mongol and Timurid times the predominant influences on Turko-Persian culture were imposed from Central Asia, and in this period Turko-Persian culture became sharply distinguishable from the Arabic Islamic world to the west, the dividing zone fell along Euphrates
. Socially the Turko-Persian world was marked by a system of ethnologically defined elite statuses: the rulers and their soldiery were Turkic or Turkic-speaking
Mongols; the administrative cadres and literati were Persian. Cultural affairs were marked by characteristic pattern of language use: New Persian was the language of state affairs and literature; New Persian and Arabic the languages of scholarship; Arabic the language of adjudication; and Turkic the language of the military.
In the sixteenth century arose the Turko-Persian empires of the Ottomans in Asia Minor
, Safavids in Persia, and Mughals in India. Thus, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries the territories from Asia Minor
to East Bengal
were dominated by Turko-Persian dynasties.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century the Ottomans rose to predominance in Asia Minor, and developed an empire that subjugated most of the Arab Islamic world as well as south-eastern Europe. The Ottomans patronized Persian literature for five and a half centuries and, because Asia Minor was more stable than eastern territories, they attracted great numbers of writers and artists, especially in the sixteenth century. The Ottomans developed distinctive styles of arts and letters. Unlike Persia they gradually shed some of their Persianate qualities. They gave up Persian as the court language, using Turkish instead; a decision that shocked the highly Persianized Mughals in India.
The Safavids of the fifteenth century were leaders of a Sufi order, venerated by Turkmen
tribesmen in eastern Anatolia
. As Safavids ascended to predominance in Persia in the sixteenth century - as the first native Iranian dynasty after more than 800 years of Arab, Turkic, and Mongol rule, they patronized Persian culture in the manner of their predecessors. Safavids erected grand mosques and built elegant gardens, collected books (one Safavid ruler had a library of 3,000 volumes) and patronized whole academies. The Safavids introduced Shiism into Persia to distinguish Persia society from the Ottomans, their Sunni rivals to the west.
The Mughals, Persianized Turks who had invaded India from Central Asia and claimed descent from both Timur
and Genghis Khan
, strengthened the Persianate
culture of Muslim India. They cultivated art, enticing to their courts artists and architects from Bukhara
, Tabriz
, Shiraz
, and other cities of Islamic world. The Taj Mahal
was commissioned by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan
. The Mughals dominated India from 1526 until the eighteenth century, when Muslim successor states and non-Muslim powers of Sikh
, Maratha
, and British replaced them.
The Ottoman
, Safavid, and Mughal
empires developed variations of a broadly similar Turko-Persian tradition. A remarkable similarity in culture, particularly among the elite classes, spread across territories of Western, Central and South Asia. Although populations across this vast region had conflicting allegiances (sectarian, locality, tribal, and ethnic affiliation) and spoke many different languages (mostly either Indo-Iranian languages
like Persian
, Urdu
, Hindi
, Pushtu, Baluchi
, or Kurdish
, or Turkic languages
like Turkish
, Azeri, Turkmen
, Uzbek
, or Kyrgyz), people shared a number of common institutions, arts, knowledge, customs, and rituals. These cultural similarities were perpetuated by poets, artists, architects, artisans, jurists, and scholars, who maintained relations among their peers in the far-flung cities of the Turko-Persian world, from Istanbul
to Delhi
.
As the broad cultural region remained politically divided, the sharp antagonisms between empires stimulated appearance of variations of Turko-Persian culture. The main reason for this was Safavids’ introduction of Shiism into Persia, done to distinguish themselves from their Sunni neighbors, especially Ottomans. After 1500, the Persian culture developed distinct features of its own, and interposition of strong Shiite culture hampered exchanges with Sunni peoples on Persia's western and eastern frontiers. The Sunni peoples of eastern Mediterranean in Asia Minor, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Sunnis of Central Asia and India developed somewhat independently. Ottoman Turkey grew more like its Arab Muslim neighbors in West Asia; India developed a South Asian style of Indo-Persian culture; and Central Asia, which gradually grew more isolated, changed relatively little.
By identifying the cultural regions of Asia as the Middle East
, South Asia
, Russian Asia
, and East Asia
, the European
s in effect dismembered the Turko-Persian Islamic world that had culturally united a vast expanse of Asia for nearly a thousand years. The imposition of European influences on Asia affected social affairs throughout the region where Persianate culture had once been patronized by Turkic rulers. But in informal relations the social life remained unaltered. Also, popular customs and notions of virtue, sublimity, and permanence, ideas that were entailed in Islamic religious teaching, persisted relatively unchanged. Unlike the European images of them, people saw themselves as the heirs of illustrious past, and still situated on a central stage of history.
of public ideals captured interest of peoples throughout Islamic world, including the area where in public affairs Turko-Persian culture once was prominent. The Islamic moral imagery that survived in informal relations emerged as the model of ideology expressed in its most virile form in the Islamic revolution of Iran and in the Islamic idealism of the Afghanistan mujahedin resistance movement.
The Islam
ic resurgence has been less a renewal of faith and dedication than a public resurfacing of perspectives and ideals previously relegated to less public, informal relations under impact of Europe
an secular influences. They are not medieval Islamic ideals, but ideas from the past that remained vital to many of these peoples, and now are used to interpret the problems of contemporary times. The Turko-Persian Islamic tradition provided the elements they have used to express their shared concerns.
', the diverse native traditions were transformed to a uniform mold that crossed borders and customs. The original diverse traditions were consistently shaped to conform to specific norms embedded in the Islamic law. One notable exception in the Turko-Persian tradition was the attitude to the women. The original attitude of respect to the mothers, and protection of the sisters and daughters overcame the tenets imposed by the new religion, and survived as an inherent component of the learned new society. The idea of slaughtering mothers and daughters, incessantly proclaimed from the pulpits, remained a call for action, but not the action in the majority sphere of the Turko-Persian tradition. While the best of the Turko-Persian literature is venerated and admired, the respect for the women and the old traditions of equality generally survived to the present times, except for the areas where the Arab Islamic tradition managed to entirely replace the original native traditions. The early Turkish Muslims accepted and embraced the pre-Islamic traditions and combined them with their own in a form of Sufi mysticism. Less prominent were the strict Islamic law (Sharia
) and concept of waging violent external jihad
against nonbelievers. Instead, as Islam was diffused into the Turkic world through Persian Sufi influences, it sought to establish a commonality of belief with the indigenous religious practices. Despite a myriad of attempts to curb it, Sufism
has survived in the Turkic zone as an underlying institution of revival and alternative thinking throughout the centuries.
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
origin; it was Turkic
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
insofar as it was for many generations patronized by rulers of Turkic background; it was Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic in that Islamic notions of virtue, permanence, and excellence infused discourse about public issues as well as the religious affairs of the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s, who were the presiding elite.
Origins
After the ArabArab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
Muslim conquest of Persia
Islamic conquest of Persia
The Muslim conquest of Persia led to the end of the Sassanid Empire in 644, the fall of Sassanid dynasty in 651 and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia...
, Middle Persian
Middle Persian
Middle Persian , indigenously known as "Pârsig" sometimes referred to as Pahlavi or Pehlevi, is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as a...
, the language of Sassanids, continued in wide use well into the second Islamic century
Islamic calendar
The Hijri calendar , also known as the Muslim calendar or Islamic calendar , is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to date events in many Muslim countries , and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic...
(8th century) as a medium of administration in the eastern lands of the Caliphate
Caliphate
The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
. Despite Arabization
Arabization
Arabization or Arabisation describes a growing cultural influence on a non-Arab area that gradually changes into one that speaks Arabic and/or incorporates Arab culture...
of public affairs, the peoples retained much of their pre-Islamic outlook and way of life, adjusted to fit the demands of the Islamic religion. Towards the end of the first Islamic century, population began resenting the cost of sustaining the Arab Caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
s, the Umayyads - who become oppressive and corrupt, and in the second Islamic century (8th c. AD), a generally Persian-led uprising - led by the Iranian national hero Abu Muslim Khorasani
Abu Muslim
- External links :* *...
- brought another Arab clan, the Abbasids, to the Caliphal throne. Under the Abbasids, the Persianate
Persianate
A Persianate/Persified society is a society that is either based on, or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, art, and/or identity....
customs of their Barmakid
Barmakids
The Barmakids were a noble Persian family from Balkh that came to great political power under the Abbasid caliphs. Khalid, the son of Barmak became the Prime Minister or Wazir of Al Saffah, the first Caliph of the Abbasid dynasty. His son Yahya aided Harun Al-Rashid in capturing the throne and...
vizier
Vizier
A vizier or in Arabic script ; ; sometimes spelled vazir, vizir, vasir, wazir, vesir, or vezir) is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in a Muslim government....
s became the style of the ruling elite. Politically, the Abbasids soon started losing their control, causing two major and lasting consequences. First, the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutasim (833-842) greatly increased the presence of Turkic mercenaries
Kimek Khanate
The Kimek Khanate, also spelled Kimäk Khanate and Kimak Kaganate was a prominent medieval Turkic state formed by the Kimek and Kipchak people in the area between the Ob-Irtysh....
and Mamluk
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...
slaves in the Caliphate, and they eventually displaced Arabs and Persians from the military, and therefore from the political hegemony, starting an era of Turko-Persian symbiosis. Second, the governors in Khurasan
Greater Khorasan
Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan is a historical region of Greater Iran mentioned in sources from Sassanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khorasan in Iran...
, Tahirids, were factually independent; then the Saffarids from Sistan
Sistan
Sīstān is a border region in eastern Iran , southwestern Afghanistan and northern tip of Southwestern Pakistan .-Etymology:...
freed the eastern lands, but were replaced by independent Samanids, although they showed perfunctory deference to the Caliph. Separation of the eastern lands from Caliphate was expressed in a distinctive Persianate culture that became a dominant culture in West, Central
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
and South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
, and the source of innovations elsewhere in the Islamicate world. This culture would persist, at least in the modified form of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, into the 20th century. The Persianate culture was marked by the use of the new Persian language
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
as a medium of administration and literature, by the rise of Persianized Turks to military control, by new political importance of non-Arab ulama
Ulama
-In Islam:* Ulema, also transliterated "ulama", a community of legal scholars of Islam and its laws . See:**Nahdlatul Ulama **Darul-uloom Nadwatul Ulama **Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal**Jamiat ul-Ulama -Other:...
, and by development of ethnically composite Islamicate society.
Middle Persian was a lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
of the region before the Arab invasion, but afterwards Arabic became a preferred medium of literary expression. Instrumental in the spread of the Persian language as a common language along the Silk Road
Silk Road
The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...
between China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Parthia
Parthia
Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire....
in the 2nd century BCE, that lasted well into the 16th century, were many Bukharian Jews who flocked to Bukhara
Bukhara
Bukhara , from the Soghdian βuxārak , is the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 . The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time...
in the Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
and as a merchant class played a great role in the operation of the Silk Road. In the ninth century emerged a new Persian language as the idiom of administration and literature. Tahirids and Saffarids continued using Persian as an informal language, although for them Arabic was the "only proper language for recording anything worthwhile, from poetry to science", but the Samanids made Persian a language of learning and formal discourse. The language that appeared in the ninth and tenth centuries was a new form of Persian, based on the Middle Persian of pre-Islamic times, but enriched by ample Arabic vocabulary and written in Arabic script. The Samanids began recording their court affairs in Arabic and in this language, and they used it as the main public idiom. The earliest great poetry in New Persian was written for the Samanid court. Samanids encouraged translation of religious works from Arabic into Persian. Even the learned authorities of Islam, the ulama
Ulama
-In Islam:* Ulema, also transliterated "ulama", a community of legal scholars of Islam and its laws . See:**Nahdlatul Ulama **Darul-uloom Nadwatul Ulama **Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal**Jamiat ul-Ulama -Other:...
, began using the Persian lingua franca in public, although they still used Arabic as a medium of scholarship. The crowning literary achievement in the early New Persian language, The Persian "Book of Kings"
Shahnameh
The Shahnameh or Shah-nama is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c.977 and 1010 AD and is the national epic of Iran and related societies...
of Firdowsi, presented to the court of Mahmud of Ghazni
Mahmud of Ghazni
Mahmud of Ghazni , actually ', was the most prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty who ruled from 997 until his death in 1030 in the eastern Iranian lands. Mahmud turned the former provincial city of Ghazni into the wealthy capital of an extensive empire which covered most of today's Iran,...
(998-1030), was more than a literary achievement; it was a kind of Iranian
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
nationalistic memoir, Firdowsi galvanized Persian nationalistic sentiments by invoking pre-Islamic Persian heroic imagery. Firdowsi enshrined in literary form the most treasured stories of popular folk-memory.
Before the Ghaznavids broke away, the Samanid rulership was internally falling to its Turkic servants. The Samanids had their own guard of Turkic Mamluk
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...
mercenaries (the ghilman
Ghilman
Ghilman Ghilman Ghilman (singular ghulam describes either young servants in paradise or slave-soldiers in the Ottoman, Mughal and Persian Empires.-Islamic Theology:...
), who were headed by a chamberlain, and a Persian and Arabic speaking bureaucracy, headed by a Persian vizier
Vizier
A vizier or in Arabic script ; ; sometimes spelled vazir, vizir, vasir, wazir, vesir, or vezir) is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in a Muslim government....
. The army was largely composed of mostly Turkic Mamluks. By the latter part of the tenth century, Samanid rulers gave the command of their army to Turkic generals. These generals eventually had effective control over all Samanid affairs. The rise of Turks in Samanid times brought a loss of Samanid southern territories to one of their Mamluks, who were governing on their behalf. Mahmud of Ghazni
Mahmud of Ghazni
Mahmud of Ghazni , actually ', was the most prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty who ruled from 997 until his death in 1030 in the eastern Iranian lands. Mahmud turned the former provincial city of Ghazni into the wealthy capital of an extensive empire which covered most of today's Iran,...
ruled over southeastern extremities of Samanid territories from the city of Ghazni
Ghazni
For the Province of Ghazni see Ghazni ProvinceGhazni is a city in central-east Afghanistan with a population of about 141,000 people...
. Turkic political ascendancy in the Samanid period in the tenth and eleventh century resulted in the fall of Samanid ruling institution to its Turkic generals; and in a rise of Turkic pastoralists in the countryside. The Ghaznavids (989-1149) founded empire which became a most powerful in the east since Abbasid Caliphs at their peak, and their capital at Ghazni became second only to Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
in cultural elegance. It attracted many scholars and artists of the Islamic world. Turkic ascendance to power in the Samanid court brought Turks as the main patrons of Persianate culture, and as they subjugated Western and Southern Asia, they brought along this culture.
The Kara-Khanid Khanate
Kara-Khanid Khanate
The Kara-Khanid Khanate was a confederation of Turkic tribes ruled by a dynasty known in literature as the Karakhanids or Ilek Khanids, . Both dynastic names represent titles with Kara Kağan being the most important Turkish title up till the end of the dynasty.The Khanate ruled Transoxania in...
(999-1140) at that time were gaining pre-eminence over the countryside. The Kara-Khanids were pastoralists of noble Turkic backgrounds, and they cherished their Turkic ways. As they gained strength they fostered development of a new Turkish literature alongside the Persian and Arabic literatures that had arisen earlier.
The beginning of the Turko-Persian symbiosis
In Samanid times began the growth of the public influence of the ulamaUlama
-In Islam:* Ulema, also transliterated "ulama", a community of legal scholars of Islam and its laws . See:**Nahdlatul Ulama **Darul-uloom Nadwatul Ulama **Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal**Jamiat ul-Ulama -Other:...
, the learned scholars of Islam. Ulama grew in prominence as the Samanids gave special support to Sunnism, in contrast with their Shiite neighbors, the Buyids. They enjoyed strong position in the city of Bukhara
Bukhara
Bukhara , from the Soghdian βuxārak , is the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 . The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time...
, and it grew under the Samanids' successors Kara-Khanid Khanate. Kara-Khanids
Kara-Khanid Khanate
The Kara-Khanid Khanate was a confederation of Turkic tribes ruled by a dynasty known in literature as the Karakhanids or Ilek Khanids, . Both dynastic names represent titles with Kara Kağan being the most important Turkish title up till the end of the dynasty.The Khanate ruled Transoxania in...
established a dominance of ulama in the cities, and the network of recognized Islamic authorities became an alternative social instrument for the maintenance of public order. In the Kara-Khanid Khanate formed an ethnically and dogmatically diverse society. The eastern lands of the Caliphate were ethnically and religiously very diverse. Christians, Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, and Zoroastrians were numerous, and also several minority Islamic sects had considerable following. These diverse peoples found refuge in the cities. Bukhara and Samarkand
Samarkand
Although a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...
swelled and formed ethnic and sectarian neighborhoods, most of them surrounded by walls, each with its own markets, caravansaraies, and public squares. The religious authorities of these non-Muslim communities became their spokesmen, just as the ulama were for the Muslim community, they also began overseeing internal communal affairs. Thus, alongside the rise of the ulama, there was a corresponding rise in the political importance of the religious leaders of other doctrinal communities.
The ruling institution was dominated by Turks from various tribes, some highly urbanized and Persianized, some rural and still very Turkic. It was managed by bureaucrats and ulama who used both Persian and Arabic, its literati participated in both the Arabic and Persian traditions of high culture of the wider Islamicate world. This composite culture was the beginning of the Turko-Persian variant of Islamicate culture. As "Persianate
Persianate
A Persianate/Persified society is a society that is either based on, or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, art, and/or identity....
" it was centered on a lettered tradition of Persian origin, it was Turkic because for many generations it was patronized by rulers of Turkic ancestry, and it was "Islamicate" because the Islamic notions of virtue, permanence, and excellence channeled the discourse about public issues and religious affairs of the Muslims, who were a presiding elite. The combination of these elements in the Islamic society had a strong impact on the religion, because Islam was disengaged from its Arabic background and Bedouin
Bedouin
The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...
traditions and became a far richer, more adaptable, and universal culture. The appearance of New Persian, ascendancy of Turks to power in place of the Persian Samanids, rise of the non-Arabic ulama in the cities, and development of ethnically and confessionally complex urban society marked an emergence of a new Turko-Persian Islamic culture. As the Turko-Persian Islamic culture was exported into the wider region of Western and Southern Asia, the transformation became increasingly evident.
The early stages of Turko-Persian cultural synthesis in the Islamic world are marked by cultural, social and political tensions and competition among Turks, Persians, and Arabs, despite the egalitarianism of Islamic doctrine. The complex ideas around non-Arabs in the Muslim world lead to debates and changing attitudes that can be seen in numerous Arabic, Persian and Turkic writings before the Mongol expansion.
The Perso-Islamic tradition was a tradition where the Turkic groups played an important role in its military and political success while the culture raised both by and under the influence of Muslims used Persian as its cultural vehicle. In short, the Turko-Persian tradition features Persian culture patronized by Turkophone rulers
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
.
Spread of Turko-Persian Tradition
The Turko-Persian Islamicate culture that emerged under the Persianate Samanids, Ghaznavids, and Kara-KhanidsKara-Khanid Khanate
The Kara-Khanid Khanate was a confederation of Turkic tribes ruled by a dynasty known in literature as the Karakhanids or Ilek Khanids, . Both dynastic names represent titles with Kara Kağan being the most important Turkish title up till the end of the dynasty.The Khanate ruled Transoxania in...
was carried by succeeding dynasties into Western and Southern Asia, in particular, by the Seljuks (1040-1118), and their successor states, who presided over Persia, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, and Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
until the thirteenth century, and by the Ghaznavids, who in the same period dominated Greater Khorasan
Greater Khorasan
Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan is a historical region of Greater Iran mentioned in sources from Sassanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khorasan in Iran...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. These two dynasties together drew the center of the Islamic world eastward. The institutions stabilized Islamic society into a form that would persist, at least in Western Asia, until the twentieth century.
The Turko-Persian variant of Islamicate culture was a composite tradition of the Islamic era. It was "Persianate" in that it was centered on a lettered tradition of Iranian origin; it was Turkish insofar as it was for many generations patronized by rulers of Turkic ancestry; and it was "Islamicate" in that Islamic notions of virtue, permanence, and excellence infused discourse about public issues as well as the religious affairs of the Muslims, who were the presiding elite. (Hodgson 1974 i:58)..
The Turko-Persian distinctive Islamicate culture flourished for hundreds of years, and then faded under imposed modern Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an influences. Turko-Persian Islamicate culture is an ecumenical mix of Arabic
Arabic culture
Arab culture refers to the culture in Arab countries of West Asia and North Africa, from Morocco to the Persian Gulf. Language, literature, gastronomy, art, architecture, music, spirituality, philosophy, mysticism are all part of the cultural heritage of the pan-Arab world.-Language:The Arabic...
, Persian, and Turkic
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
elements blended in the ninth and tenth centuries, and eventually became a predominant culture of the ruling and elite classes of West, Central
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
and South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
.
The Ghaznavids moved their capital from Ghazni to Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, which they turned into another center of Islamic culture. Under Ghaznavids poets and scholars from Kashgar
Kashgar
Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately...
, Bukhara
Bukhara
Bukhara , from the Soghdian βuxārak , is the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 . The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time...
, Samarkand
Samarkand
Although a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...
, Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
, Nishapur
Nishapur
Nishapur or Nishabur , is a city in the Razavi Khorasan province in northeastern Iran, situated in a fertile plain at the foot of the Binalud Mountains, near the regional capital of Mashhad...
, and Ghazni
Ghazni
For the Province of Ghazni see Ghazni ProvinceGhazni is a city in central-east Afghanistan with a population of about 141,000 people...
congregated in Lahore. Thus, the Turko-Persian culture was brought deep into India and carried further in the thirteenth century.
The Seljuq
Seljuq dynasty
The Seljuq ; were a Turco-Persian Sunni Muslim dynasty that ruled parts of Central Asia and the Middle East from the 11th to 14th centuries...
successors of Kara-Khanid Khanate in Transoxiana
Transoxiana
Transoxiana is the ancient name used for the portion of Central Asia corresponding approximately with modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, southern Kyrgystan and southwest Kazakhstan. Geographically, it is the region between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers...
brought this culture westward into Persia, Iraq, and Syria. Seljuqs won a decisive battle with the Ghaznavids and then swept into Khurasan
Greater Khorasan
Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan is a historical region of Greater Iran mentioned in sources from Sassanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khorasan in Iran...
, they brought Turko-Persian Islamic culture westward into western Persia and Iraq. Persia and Central Asia became a heartland of Persianate language and culture. As Seljuks came to dominate Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia, they carried this Turko-Persian culture beyond, and made it the culture of their courts in the region to as far west as the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
. Under Seljuks and the Ghaznavids the Islamic religious institutions became more organized and Sunni orthodoxy became more codified. The great jurist and theologian al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali
Abu Hāmed Mohammad ibn Mohammad al-Ghazzālī , known as Algazel to the western medieval world, born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia was a Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic....
proposed a synthesis of Sufism
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
and sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
that became a basis of a richer Islamic theology. Formulating the Sunni concept of division between temporal and religious authorities, he provided a theological basis for the existence of Sultanate, a temporal office alongside the Caliphate, which by that time was merely a religious office. The main institutional means of establishing a consensus of the ulama on these dogmatic issues were the madrasas, formal Islamic schools that granted licensure to teach. First established under Seljuqs, these schools became means of uniting Sunni ulama which legitimized the rule of the Sultans. The bureaucracies were staffed by graduates of the madrasas, so both the ulama and the bureaucracies were under the influence of esteemed professors at the madrasas.
The eleventh to the thirteenth century's period was a cultural blossom time in Western and Southern Asia. A shared culture spread from Mediterranean to the mouth of Ganges, despite political fragmentation and ethnic diversity.
Through the centuries
The culture of the Turko-Persian world in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries was tested by invading armies of inland Asia. The MongolsMongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
under Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
(1220-58) and Timur
Timur
Timur , historically known as Tamerlane in English , was a 14th-century conqueror of West, South and Central Asia, and the founder of the Timurid dynasty in Central Asia, and great-great-grandfather of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty, which survived as the Mughal Empire in India until...
(Tamerlane, 1336-1405) had effect of stimulating development of Persianate culture of Central and West Asia, because of the new concentrations of specialists of high culture created by the invasions, for many people had to seek refuge in few safe havens, primarily India, where scholars, poets, musicians, and fine artisans intermingled and cross-fertilized, and because the broad peace secured by the huge imperial systems established by the Il-Khans
Ilkhanate
The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate , was a Mongol khanate established in Azerbaijan and Persia in the 13th century, considered a part of the Mongol Empire...
(in the thirteenth century) and Timurids (in the fifteenth century), when travel was safe, and scholars and artists, ideas and skills, and fine books and artifacts circulated freely over a wide area. Il-Khans and Timurids deliberately patronized Persianate high culture. Under their rule developed new styles of architecture, Persian literature was encouraged, and flourished miniature painting and book production, and under Timurids prospered Turkic poetry, based on the vernacular known as Chaghatai
Chagatai language
The Chagatai language is an extinct Turkic language which was once widely spoken in Central Asia, and remained the shared literary language there until the early twentieth century...
(today called Uzbek
Uzbek language
Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 25.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...
; of Turkic Qarluq
Karluk
Karluk can refer to many different things:* HMCS Karluk, a ship crushed and sunk by Arctic ice in January 1914* Karluk, Alaska, a town in the USA* Karluk River, a river on Kodiak Island in Alaska...
origin).
In that period prospered the Turko-Persian culture of India. Mamluk guards, mostly Turks
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
and Mongols, along with Persians (now known as Tajiks), Khaljis and Afghans, dominated India from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, ruling as Sultans in Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
. Their society was enriched by influx of Islamic scholars, historians, architects, musicians, and other specialists of high Persianate culture that fled the Mongol devastations of Transoxiana and Khurasan. After the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258, Delhi became the most important cultural center of the Muslim east. The Delhi Sultans modeled their life-styles after the Turkic and Persian upper classes, who now predominated in most of Western and Central Asia. They patronized literature and music, but became especially notable for their architecture, because their builders drew from Muslim world architecture to produce a profusion of mosques, palaces, and tombs unmatched in any other Islamic country.
In Mongol and Timurid times the predominant influences on Turko-Persian culture were imposed from Central Asia, and in this period Turko-Persian culture became sharply distinguishable from the Arabic Islamic world to the west, the dividing zone fell along Euphrates
Euphrates
The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...
. Socially the Turko-Persian world was marked by a system of ethnologically defined elite statuses: the rulers and their soldiery were Turkic or Turkic-speaking
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
Mongols; the administrative cadres and literati were Persian. Cultural affairs were marked by characteristic pattern of language use: New Persian was the language of state affairs and literature; New Persian and Arabic the languages of scholarship; Arabic the language of adjudication; and Turkic the language of the military.
In the sixteenth century arose the Turko-Persian empires of the Ottomans in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, Safavids in Persia, and Mughals in India. Thus, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries the territories from Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
to East Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
were dominated by Turko-Persian dynasties.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century the Ottomans rose to predominance in Asia Minor, and developed an empire that subjugated most of the Arab Islamic world as well as south-eastern Europe. The Ottomans patronized Persian literature for five and a half centuries and, because Asia Minor was more stable than eastern territories, they attracted great numbers of writers and artists, especially in the sixteenth century. The Ottomans developed distinctive styles of arts and letters. Unlike Persia they gradually shed some of their Persianate qualities. They gave up Persian as the court language, using Turkish instead; a decision that shocked the highly Persianized Mughals in India.
The Safavids of the fifteenth century were leaders of a Sufi order, venerated by Turkmen
Turkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...
tribesmen in eastern Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
. As Safavids ascended to predominance in Persia in the sixteenth century - as the first native Iranian dynasty after more than 800 years of Arab, Turkic, and Mongol rule, they patronized Persian culture in the manner of their predecessors. Safavids erected grand mosques and built elegant gardens, collected books (one Safavid ruler had a library of 3,000 volumes) and patronized whole academies. The Safavids introduced Shiism into Persia to distinguish Persia society from the Ottomans, their Sunni rivals to the west.
Timur
Timur , historically known as Tamerlane in English , was a 14th-century conqueror of West, South and Central Asia, and the founder of the Timurid dynasty in Central Asia, and great-great-grandfather of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty, which survived as the Mughal Empire in India until...
and Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
, strengthened the Persianate
Persianate
A Persianate/Persified society is a society that is either based on, or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, art, and/or identity....
culture of Muslim India. They cultivated art, enticing to their courts artists and architects from Bukhara
Bukhara
Bukhara , from the Soghdian βuxārak , is the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 . The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time...
, Tabriz
Tabriz
Tabriz is the fourth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quri River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former...
, Shiraz
Shiraz
Shiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...
, and other cities of Islamic world. The Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal is a white Marble mausoleum located in Agra, India. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal...
was commissioned by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan
Shah Jahan
Shah Jahan Shah Jahan (also spelled Shah Jehan, Shahjehan, , Persian: شاه جهان) (January 5, 1592 – January 22, 1666) Shah Jahan (also spelled Shah Jehan, Shahjehan, , Persian: شاه جهان) (January 5, 1592 – January 22, 1666) (Full title: His Imperial Majesty Al-Sultan al-'Azam wal Khaqan...
. The Mughals dominated India from 1526 until the eighteenth century, when Muslim successor states and non-Muslim powers of Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
, Maratha
Maratha
The Maratha are an Indian caste, predominantly in the state of Maharashtra. The term Marāthā has three related usages: within the Marathi speaking region it describes the dominant Maratha caste; outside Maharashtra it can refer to the entire regional population of Marathi-speaking people;...
, and British replaced them.
The Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, Safavid, and Mughal
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
empires developed variations of a broadly similar Turko-Persian tradition. A remarkable similarity in culture, particularly among the elite classes, spread across territories of Western, Central and South Asia. Although populations across this vast region had conflicting allegiances (sectarian, locality, tribal, and ethnic affiliation) and spoke many different languages (mostly either Indo-Iranian languages
Indo-Iranian languages
The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani...
like Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
, Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, Pushtu, Baluchi
Balochi language
Balochi is a Northwestern Iranian language. It is the principal language of the Baloch of Balochistan, Pakistan, eastern Iran and southern Afghanistan. It is also spoken as a second language by some Brahui. It is designated as one of nine official languages of Pakistan.-Vowels:The Balochi vowel...
, or Kurdish
Kurdish language
Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
, or Turkic languages
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
like Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, Azeri, Turkmen
Turkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...
, Uzbek
Uzbeks
The Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China...
, or Kyrgyz), people shared a number of common institutions, arts, knowledge, customs, and rituals. These cultural similarities were perpetuated by poets, artists, architects, artisans, jurists, and scholars, who maintained relations among their peers in the far-flung cities of the Turko-Persian world, from Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
to Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
.
As the broad cultural region remained politically divided, the sharp antagonisms between empires stimulated appearance of variations of Turko-Persian culture. The main reason for this was Safavids’ introduction of Shiism into Persia, done to distinguish themselves from their Sunni neighbors, especially Ottomans. After 1500, the Persian culture developed distinct features of its own, and interposition of strong Shiite culture hampered exchanges with Sunni peoples on Persia's western and eastern frontiers. The Sunni peoples of eastern Mediterranean in Asia Minor, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Sunnis of Central Asia and India developed somewhat independently. Ottoman Turkey grew more like its Arab Muslim neighbors in West Asia; India developed a South Asian style of Indo-Persian culture; and Central Asia, which gradually grew more isolated, changed relatively little.
Disintegration
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Turko-Persian empires weakened by the Europeans' discovery of a sea route to India, and introduction of hand guns, which gave the horsemen of the pastoral societies greater fighting capability. In India, the Mughal Empire decayed into warring sister states. Only Ottoman Turkey survived into the twentieth century. The European powers encroached into the Turko-Persian region, contributing to the political fragmentation of the region. By the nineteenth century, the European secular concepts of social obligation and authority, along with superior technology, shook many established institutions of Turko-Persia. The rulers began emulating western models of governance, and cultural similarities that were formerly so apparent among the peoples of Turko-Persia were overlaid by western political ideas.By identifying the cultural regions of Asia as the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
, Russian Asia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
, the European
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
s in effect dismembered the Turko-Persian Islamic world that had culturally united a vast expanse of Asia for nearly a thousand years. The imposition of European influences on Asia affected social affairs throughout the region where Persianate culture had once been patronized by Turkic rulers. But in informal relations the social life remained unaltered. Also, popular customs and notions of virtue, sublimity, and permanence, ideas that were entailed in Islamic religious teaching, persisted relatively unchanged. Unlike the European images of them, people saw themselves as the heirs of illustrious past, and still situated on a central stage of history.
Present
The twentieth century saw an ocean of changes in inland Asia that further exposed contradictory cultural trends in the region. Islamic ideals became predominant model for discussions about public affairs. The new rhetoricRhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
of public ideals captured interest of peoples throughout Islamic world, including the area where in public affairs Turko-Persian culture once was prominent. The Islamic moral imagery that survived in informal relations emerged as the model of ideology expressed in its most virile form in the Islamic revolution of Iran and in the Islamic idealism of the Afghanistan mujahedin resistance movement.
The Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic resurgence has been less a renewal of faith and dedication than a public resurfacing of perspectives and ideals previously relegated to less public, informal relations under impact of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an secular influences. They are not medieval Islamic ideals, but ideas from the past that remained vital to many of these peoples, and now are used to interpret the problems of contemporary times. The Turko-Persian Islamic tradition provided the elements they have used to express their shared concerns.
Influence
With the firm guidance of 'ulemaUlema
Ulama , also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
', the diverse native traditions were transformed to a uniform mold that crossed borders and customs. The original diverse traditions were consistently shaped to conform to specific norms embedded in the Islamic law. One notable exception in the Turko-Persian tradition was the attitude to the women. The original attitude of respect to the mothers, and protection of the sisters and daughters overcame the tenets imposed by the new religion, and survived as an inherent component of the learned new society. The idea of slaughtering mothers and daughters, incessantly proclaimed from the pulpits, remained a call for action, but not the action in the majority sphere of the Turko-Persian tradition. While the best of the Turko-Persian literature is venerated and admired, the respect for the women and the old traditions of equality generally survived to the present times, except for the areas where the Arab Islamic tradition managed to entirely replace the original native traditions. The early Turkish Muslims accepted and embraced the pre-Islamic traditions and combined them with their own in a form of Sufi mysticism. Less prominent were the strict Islamic law (Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
) and concept of waging violent external jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
against nonbelievers. Instead, as Islam was diffused into the Turkic world through Persian Sufi influences, it sought to establish a commonality of belief with the indigenous religious practices. Despite a myriad of attempts to curb it, Sufism
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
has survived in the Turkic zone as an underlying institution of revival and alternative thinking throughout the centuries.
See also
- Persianate society
- Culture of the Ottoman EmpireCulture of the Ottoman EmpireThe culture of the Ottoman Empire evolved over several centuries as the ruling administration of the Turks absorbed, adapted and modified the cultures of conquered lands and their peoples...
- PersianizationPersianizationPersianization or Persianisation is a sociological process of cultural change in which something non-Persian becomes Persianate. It is a specific form of cultural assimilation that often includes linguistic assimilation...
- TurkificationTurkificationTurkification is a term used to describe a process of cultural or political change in which something or someone who is not a Turk becomes one, voluntarily or involuntarily...