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ABSTRACT
In 1740, Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747) conquered the Central Asian Khanate of Bokhara. He gave de facto control of the Bokharan polity to a vassal clan, the Manghits, who established their own dynasty after the collapse of Nader’s empire. This article examines the imperial legacy of Nader as reflected in the two chronicles of Manghit history from the eighteenth century, the Tohfeh-ye Khani by Karminagi, and the Taj al-Tavarikh by Mohammad-Sharif. The major themes of Nader’s conquest, his relationship to the Manghits, and his legitimacy as an imperial overlord, are examined from the perspective of these two chronicles. These themes are then put in context by discussing the political, religious, and rhetorical assumptions and precedents with which Manghit historiographers produced their work. This allows for a nuanced understanding of how Manghit historiography revisited, and leveraged, Nader’s imperial legacy in the region in order to establish a legitimate mandate for the new reigning dynasty.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the British Institute of Persian Studies who provided funds for travelling and field-research at the al-Biruni Library of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The Award letter was issued on 17 December 2018.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For an overview of Nader’s imperial frontiers in Central Asia, see Marvi, ‘Alam Aray-e Naderi, 1111, 1137–71. Marvi was a Naderid officer and military scribe who participated in several campaigns in the region, and was involved in drafting imperial decrees to conquered territories and peoples “up to the frontiers of Kashghar”.
2 These names are used interchangeably throughout the primary sources, and also in this article.
3 Though the Timurid interregnum can be considered a break in the Chinggisids’ reign, all Timurids in Central Asia ruled in the name of a Chinggisid khan. Whether as de facto rulers, or mere de jure figureheads, the Chinggisid household reigned in Transoxiana until the Manghit takeover.
4 Wilde and Allaeva, “Lost in Khvārazm”; Rahmati, “Ravabet-e khan-neshin-e Khiveh.”
5 Pickett, “Nadir Shah’s Peculiar Central Asian Legacy.”
6 Levi, The Bukharan Crisis, see 27–35 for an overview of the scholarship on eighteenth-century Bokhara.
7 Wilde, What is Beyond the River?, particularly chapters 3 and 4 which deal with the establishment of the Manghits as vice-regents to the khan, and later, as khans themselves who reigned over the long eighteenth century and into the period of Russian domination. The aforementioned studies have advanced the field significantly since the influential publications by Jürgen Paul, Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler; Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society; and von Kügelgen, Die Legitimierung der mittelasiatischen Mangitendynastie.
8 The manuscripts I consulted for these two histories are from the following archives, libraries, and institutions: For the Tohfat ol-Khani I use MS No. 16, and to a much lesser extent MS No. 2271, both kept at the Biruni Library of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences in Tashkent. I have also consulted MS No.89 of the same work at the Tajik National University’s archives. Later, the published edition was brought to my attention; the Tuḥfat al-Khānī or Tāriḳh-i Raḥim Khānī: An Early Manghit Chronicle in Central Asia, ed. Mansur Sefatgol, Nobuaki Kondo (Tokyo, 2013), and I have changed the footnotes in this article accordingly for ease of reference by the interested readers. For the Taj al-Tavarikh, I have drawn on MS 4363 at the Biruni Library of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, while having consulted the various manuscripts at the Manuscript Heritage Centre of the Tajik Academy of Sciences in Dushanbe.
9 See Sefatgo’s “Dibacheh,” 1–40; Çelik, “Mangitlar Devri Yerli Vakayinameleri,” 784–5; and Kügelgen, Die Legitimierung, 106–11.
10 Kügelgen, Die Legitimierung, 106–11.
11 For an overview of both these chronicles see Bregel’s The Administration of Bukhara; and Çelik, “Mangitlar,” 784–6.
12 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 68–9; Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 276v and throughout both manuscripts.
13 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 31v, where the author explicitly cites Rashid ol-Din’s history.
14 Ibid., fol. 44r.
15 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 68.
16 Ibid., 70.
17 Mitchell, The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran, 120–4.
18 This inscription has been, rather quite imperfectly, transcribed and translated by Tourkhan Ganjei in his article “The Turkish inscription of Kalāt-i Nādirī.” I visited the site in the winter of 2019, and the translation herein is my own.
19 Tusi, Shahnameh-ye Naderi, 35.
20 For an analysis of the sahebqeran, and specifically its relation to Timur, see Chann, “Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction.”
21 Marvi, ‘Alam, 14–17.
22 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 73.
23 Astarabadi, Jahangosha-ye Naderi, 26.
24 These are the Borumand manuscript which has been published as a facsimile, Astarabadi, Tarikh-e Jahangosha-ye Naderi; and an illustrated manuscript, also dated 1170 AH, sold at auction by Sotheby’s in London.
25 Levi, Bukharan Crisis, 169–70; Sela, The Legendary Biographies of Tamerlane, 6.
26 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 68–9. See also 87.
27 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 211v.
28 Biran, “The Mongol Imperial Space,” 222–31; Amitai, “Political Legitimation in the Ilkhanate,” 209–48.
29 Moin, The Millenial Sovereign, 11–12.
30 Torkaman, Tarikh-e ‘Alam Ara-ye ‘Abbasi, Vol. I, 13. For further references to the sun as an allegory for universal kingship, see Vol. I, 2–3, Vol. II, 634, 757, and Vol. III, 1083.
31 Such as Safvat ol-Safa and Habib ol-Siyar. See Quinn, Historical Writing during the Reign of Shah ‘Abbas, 63–91.
32 Fendereski, Tohfeh-ye ‘Alam, 49, 58 for the chapter headings, and all throughout the work.
33 Nasiri, Dastur-e Shahriyaran, 11–12, 16–19, 23, 31, 41, and throughout.
34 Bukhari Sufiyani, Muḥiṭ al-Tavārīkh, 16.
35 Ibid., 117.
36 Bukhari, Tarikh-e ‘Obeydollah Khan, fol. 197v; for a brief overview of this history refer to Mowajjeni and ‘Ali-Mardan, Fehrest-e Nosakh-e Khatti-ye Farsi-ye, Vol. I, 34.
37 Tale’, Abulfayz-Nameh, fol. 168r.
38 Ibid., fol. 170r.
39 Hoseyni, Tarikh-e Ahmad Shahi, 2–3.
40 Ibid., 3.
41 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 68–70.
42 Ibid., 71.
43 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fols. 211v–213r.
44 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 97.
45 See the anonymous history of the Naderid civil servant and general “Ahval-e Nader Shah,” 23.
46 Astarabadi, Jahangosha, 352.
47 Ibid., 2.
48 Mostowfi, Zobdat al-Tavarikh, 35–6.
49 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 73, 94.
50 The Turkmenid clan has been analysed in Ernest Tucker’s Nadir Shah's Quest for Legitimacy, who interprets this discourse primarily in terms of ethnic identity, and ideas of imagined community and common descent. In my forthcoming “Nader and Imperial Iran: Emergence of Iranian Identity and Empire,” PhD diss. (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2021), I argue against this, interpretation, and seek to demonstrate how it was primarily a dynastic ideology which restricted political legitimacy to the four ruling houses of the Islamic world, rather than ethnic Turkmens.
51 This discourse is thoroughly explored in Part I of my doctoral dissertation, “Nader and Imperial Iran.”
52 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 241v.
53 Ibid., fol. 232r. Also see fols. 237r, 272v, 311r.
54 Indeed, the Taj’s account of Nader’s origins, and his conquests stretch across dozens of folios, while the Tohfeh is much briefer, though no less flattering in its treatment of Nader.
55 Yazdi, Zafarnameh, Vol. 1, 168–70.
56 Shami, Zafarnameh, 10.
57 Ibid.
58 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 50.
59 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 208r.
60 Woods, “Timur’s Genealogy.”
61 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 208r.
62 Hoseyni, Tarikh, 2–3.
63 Sarvar Homayun, “Moqaddameh.”
64 Hoseyni, Tarikh, 9–10, 17–19.
65 Mir Rabi’, ‘Omdat al-Tavarikh-e Khaqani. For an overview of this history refer to Mowajjeni and ‘Ali-Mardan’s Fehrest, 63.
66 Mir Rabi’, ‘Omdat al-Tavarikh, fols. 4v, 57r–60v for Nader, and 62v–64r for Ahmad Shah’s chapter.
67 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 69–70.
68 Ibid.
69 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fols. 246r–246v, 272r.
70 For an overview of the historical use of the pejorative term rafezeh, see Kohlberg, “The Term ‘Rāfida’ in Imāmī Shīʿī Usage.”
71 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 73–83; Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fols. 219v–300r, 257r, 316v, and throughout.
72 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 82–3.
73 Ibid., 83–4.
74 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 221r.
75 For Nader’s religious policy, and his invention of the Ja’fari school, see Tucker, “Nadir Shah and the Ja’fari Madhhab Reconsidered,” 163–79; ‘Abdi, Zahra, “Andisheh-ye taqrib-e Shi’eh va Sonni”; Ebrahimi and Radmanesh, “Mazhab-e Nader Shah.”
76 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 165–84.
77 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fols. 215v–216r.
78 Moojan, An Introduction to Shi’i Islam, 183.
79 See Ja’farian, Khazari, and Rafi’i, “‘Abdollah Soveydi va revayati salafi az kongereh-ye” for a detailed discussion of this conference and its political significance.
80 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fols. 305r–315v, especially 306v, and 310r.
81 Ibid., fol. 317r.
82 This is in fact a common derogatory phrase used for the Safavids and their followers dating back to the beginning of the sixteenth century. Virtually all Central Asian chronicles from the early modern period contain this phrase.
83 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 188–9.
84 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 230v.
85 Ibid., fol. 257r.
86 Ibid., fol. 272v.
87 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 68.
88 Ibid., 68–69. See also 87.
89 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 211v.
90 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 87.
91 Ibid., 115.
92 Ibid., 88–91, 94, 101–2.
93 Ibid., 90.
94 See Floor, “Kel’at” for the significance of the khel’at in the context of lord-vassal relations.
95 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 91.
96 Ibid., 101–2.
97 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 260v.
98 See the contemporary history of the Naderid officer Mohammad-Kazem Marvi, ‘Alam, Vol. III, 854–62, 866–70 for his role in the Dagestan campaigns.
99 Levi, Bukharan Crisis, 168–9.
100 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 98.
101 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 277r. Also see 288r–v.
102 Ibid., 277r–v.
103 For a summary, see Wilde, “Manghit Dynasty.”
104 Karminagi, Tohfeh, 366.
105 Ibid. Both Karminagi and Mohammad-Sharif use a variety of political designations for Turan under the Manghits.
106 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fols. 4r, 400r–v.
107 See for example Soucek, A History of Inner Asia, 179–81; Mowjani, Heydary, and Chinar, in Bokharayi, ‘Abdol-Karim, Ahval-i Afghanistan va Kabul, 83, n. 1. This view has already been corrected to some extent by Wilde’s “The Emirate of Bukhara” and Bregel’s “The New Uzbek States,” 396–7.
108 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 404v.
109 Bokharayi, Ahval, 93–4.
110 Manghit Bokharayi, Golshan ol-Moluk, fol. 83v. For an overview of the both the Golshan, and the aforementioned Ahval by Bokhararyi, consult Çelik, “Mangitlar,” 786–8.
111 For instance, see Pickett, “Nadir Shah’s Peculiar Legacy,” 492–5.
112 Mohammad-Sharif, Taj, fol. 404v.