Ilaq Tenth Century
Ilaq ( ar, إيلاق) was a medieval region in Transoxiana which was located in modern northeastern Uzbekistan, to the east of the Syr Darya and south of Tashkent. The capital of the district was Tunkath. Geography In the medieval period, Ilaq lay along the valley of the Angren River, to the north of the large bend of the Syr Darya near Khujand. The district, which was composed of a mixed terrain of plains and mountains, was bounded on the west by the Syr Darya and on the north by the region of Shash (modern Tashkent), and it extended to the western edge of the Tian Shan in the east. Due to the proximity of Shash and Ilaq, the two districts were sometimes linked by Muslim geographers, who either treated them as one united area or characterized Ilaq as a dependency of Shash. As a combined unit, Shash-Ilaq constituted one of the five primary sedentary regions of pre-modern Central Asia, along with Sughd, Khwarazm, Farghana, and the area of Balkh. Ilaq was known to feature a larg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Estakhri
Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al-Istakhri () (also ''Estakhri'', fa, استخری, i.e. from the Iranian city of Istakhr, b. - d. 346 AH/AD 957) was a 10th-century travel-author and geographer who wrote valuable accounts in Arabic of the many Muslim territories he visited during the Abbasid era of the Islamic Golden Age. There is no consensus regarding his origin. Some sources describe him as Persian, while others state he was Arab. IV:222b-223b. The ''Encyclopedia Iranica'' states: "Biographical data are very meager. From his ''nesbas'' (attributive names) he appears to have been a native of Eṣṭaḵr in Fārs, but it is not known whether he was Persian". VIII(6):646-647 (I have used the updated online version). Istakhri's account of windmills is the earliest known. Istakhri met the celebrated traveller-geographer Ibn Hawqal, while travelling, and Ibn Hawqal incorporated the work of Istakhri in his book ''Kitab al-Surat al-Ard''. Works Istakhri's two su ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kara-Khanid Khanate
The Kara-Khanid Khanate (; ), also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids or the Afrasiabids (), was a Turkic khanate that ruled Central Asia in the 9th through the early 13th century. The dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek Khanids refer to royal titles with Kara Khagan being the most important Turkic title up until the end of the dynasty. The Khanate conquered Transoxiana in Central Asia and ruled it between 999 and 1211. Their arrival in Transoxiana signaled a definitive shift from Iranian to Turkic predominance in Central Asia, yet the Kara-khanids gradually assimilated the Perso-Arab Muslim culture, while retaining some of their native Turkic culture. The capitals of the Kara-Khanid Khanate included Kashgar, Balasagun, Uzgen and Samarkand. In the 1040s, the Khanate split into the Eastern and Western Khanates. In the late 11th century, they came under the suzerainty of the Seljuk Empire, followed by the Qara Khitai (Western Liao dynasty) in the mid ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bukhara
Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time. Located on the Silk Road, the city has long served as a center of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion. The mother tongue of the majority of people of Bukhara is Tajik language, Tajik, a dialect of the Persian language, although Uzbek language, Uzbek is spoken as a second language by most residents. Bukhara served as the capital of the Samanid Empire, Khanate of Bukhara, and Emirate of Bukhara and was the birthplace of scholar Imam Bukhari. The city has been known as "Noble Bukhara" (''Bukhārā-ye sharīf''). Bukhara has about 140 architectural monuments. UNESCO has listed the historic center of Bukhara (which contains numerous mosques and madrasas) as a List o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Al-Muqanna
Hashim (Arabic/ Persian: هاشم), better known as al-Muqanna‘ ( ar, المقنع "The Veiled", died c. 783.) was leader of an anti Islamic revolt who claimed to be a prophet, and founded a religion which was a mixture of Zoroastrianism and Islam. He was a chemist, and one of his experiments caused an explosion in which a part of his face was burnt. For the rest of his life he used a veil and thus was known as "al-Muqanna‘ ("The Veiled One"). Said Nafisi and Amir-Hossein Aryanpour have written about him in the " Khorrām-Dīnān" armies. Name and early life Before he came to be known by the nickname of "al-Muqanna‘, he was called by his birth name, Hashim. Early scholars believed that he was born in Sogdia. However, it is now agreed that he originally came from Balkh, a city close to Sogdia in modern day northern Afghanistan. Biography Of Iranian stock, Hāshem was from Balkh, originally a clothes pleater. He became a commander for Abu Muslim of the Greater Khorasan pro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nasr II
Nasr ibn Ahmad or Nasr II ( fa, نصر دوم), nicknamed "the Fortunate", was the ruler (''amir'') of Transoxiana and Khurasan as the head of the Samanid dynasty from 914 to 943. His reign marked the high point of the Samanid dynasty's fortunes. He was the son of Ahmad ibn Isma’il. Biography Accession and suppression of revolts Nasr was the son of Ahmad ibn Isma'il (). His father was assassinated on the night of 23 January 914 by his own guards, due to his favouring Arabic-language officials in his court. Nasr thus became emir at the age of eight. Due to his youth, the vizier Abu Abdallah Jayhani undertook the regency. Almost immediately a series of revolts broke out within the state, the most serious being the one led by his great-uncle, Ishaq ibn Ahmad, at Samarkand. Ishaq's sons took part in the rebellion; one son, Abu Salih Mansur, took control of Nishapur and several other cities in Khurasan. Eventually, Ishaq was defeated and surrendered to the general Hamuya ibn A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Samanid Empire
The Samanid Empire ( fa, سامانیان, Sāmāniyān) also known as the Samanian Empire, Samanid dynasty, Samanid amirate, or simply as the Samanids) was a Persianate Sunni Muslim empire, of Iranian dehqan origin. The empire was centred in Khorasan and Transoxiana; at its greatest extent encompassing modern-day Afghanistan, huge parts of Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and parts of Kazakhstan and Pakistan, from 819 to 999. Four brothers— Nuh, Ahmad, Yahya, and Ilyas—founded the Samanid state. Each of them ruled territory under Abbasid suzerainty. In 892, Ismail Samani (892–907) united the Samanid state under one ruler, thus effectively putting an end to the feudal system used by the Samanids. It was also under him that the Samanids became independent of Abbasid authority. The Samanid Empire is part of the Iranian Intermezzo, which saw the creation of a Persianate culture and identity that brought Iranian speech and traditions into the fold of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Al-Nasafi
Abu'l-Hasan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bazdawi al-Nasafi (or al-Bazdahi, al-Nakhshabi) (died 943/945) was an early 10th-century Isma'ili missionary () and theologian. In he succeeded in converting the Samanid emir, Nasr II, to Isma'ilism, and ushered in a period of Isma'ili dominance at the Samanid court that lasted until Nasr's death. In the subsequent persecution of the Isma'ilis, launched by Nuh I, al-Nasafi himself fell victim. As a theologian, he is generally credited with being among those who introduced Neoplatonic concepts into Isma'ili theology. His doctrines dominated indigenous Isma'ilism in the Iranian lands in the 9th–10th centuries, but were denounced as antinomian by Isma'ili theologians aligned with the Fatimid Caliphate. Life Al-Nasafi's life is mainly known through later, and mostly hostile Sunni sources, chiefly the ''Kitāb al-Fihrist'' of Ibn al-Nadim and the '' Siyāsatnāmā'' of Nizam al-Mulk. To these is added al-Tha'alibi's mirror for princes, the ''Ād ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Isma'ilism
Isma'ilism ( ar, الإسماعيلية, al-ʾIsmāʿīlīyah) is a branch or sub-sect of Shia Islam. The Isma'ili () get their name from their acceptance of Imam Isma'il ibn Jafar as the appointed spiritual successor ( imām) to Ja'far al-Sadiq, wherein they differ from the Twelver Shia, who accept Musa al-Kadhim, the younger brother of Isma'il, as the true Imām. Isma'ilism rose at one point to become the largest branch of Shia Islam, climaxing as a political power with the Fatimid Caliphate in the 10th through 12th centuries. Ismailis believe in the oneness of God, as well as the closing of divine revelation with Muhammad, whom they see as "the final Prophet and Messenger of God to all humanity". The Isma'ili and the Twelvers both accept the same six initial Imams; the Isma'ili accept Isma'il ibn Jafar as the seventh Imam. After the death of Muhammad ibn Isma'il in the 8th century CE, the teachings of Ismailism further transformed into the belief system as it is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fire Worship
Worship or deification of fire (also pyrodulia, pyrolatry or pyrolatria) is known from various religions. Fire has been an important part of human culture since the Lower Paleolithic. Religious or animist notions connected to fire are assumed to reach back to such early pre-'' Homo sapiens'' times. Indo-European religions In Indo-European languages, there were two concepts regarding fire: that of an animate type called *''h₁n̥gʷnís'' (cf. Sanskrit ''agni'', English ''ignite'' from Latin ''ignis'', Polish ''ogień'' and Russian ''ogon''), and an inanimate type *''péh₂wr̥'' (cf. English ''fire'', Greek ''pyr'', Sanskrit ''pu''). A similar distinction existed for water. Archaeologically, evidence for Indo-Iranian fire worship and the rite of cremation is found at the transition from the Sintashta-Petrovka to the Andronovo culture around 1500 BC. Fire worship was prevalent in Vedic and the Ancient Iranian religion. Whereas cremation became ubiquitous in Hinduism ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fire Temple
A fire temple, Agiary, Atashkadeh ( fa, آتشکده), Atashgah () or Dar-e Mehr () is the place of worship for the followers of Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Iran (Persia). In the Zoroastrian religion, fire (see ''atar''), together with clean water (see ''aban''), are agents of ritual purity. Clean, white "ash for the purification ceremonies sregarded as the basis of ritual life", which "are essentially the rites proper to the tending of a domestic fire, for the temple ireis that of the hearth fire raised to a new solemnity". For, one "who sacrifices unto fire with fuel in his hand ..., is given happiness". , there were 167 fire temples in the world, of which 45 were in Mumbai, 105 in the rest of India, and 17 in other countries. Of these only 9 (1 in Iran and 8 in India) are the main temples known as '' atash behrams'' and the remaining are the smaller temples known as ''agiarys''. History and development Concept First evident in the 9th century BCE, the Zoroastr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sogdian Language
The Sogdian language was an Eastern Iranian language spoken mainly in the Central Asian region of Sogdia (capital: Samarkand; other chief cities: Panjakent, Fergana, Khujand, and Bukhara), located in modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; it was also spoken by some Sogdian immigrant communities in ancient China. Sogdian is one of the most important Middle Iranian languages, along with Bactrian, Khotanese Saka, Middle Persian, and Parthian. It possesses a large literary corpus. The Sogdian language is usually assigned to a Northeastern group of the Iranian languages. No direct evidence of an earlier version of the language ("Old Sogdian") has been found, although mention of the area in the Old Persian inscriptions means that a separate and recognisable Sogdia existed at least since the Achaemenid Empire (559–323 BCE). Like Khotanese, Sogdian may have possessed a more conservative grammar and morphology than Middle Persian. The modern Eastern Iranian lan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |