136

The Khāns of Astrakhan (Astrakhān, Ashtarkhān)

871–964/1466–1557

The lower Volga and the adjacent steppelands

871/1466

Qāsim b. Maḥmūd b. Küchük Muḥammad

895/1490

‘Abd al-Karīm b. Maḥmūd b. Küchük Muḥammad

909/1504

Qāsim or Qasay b. Sayyid Ahmad

938/1532

Aq Köbek b. Murtaḍā, first reign

941/1534

‘Abd al-Raḥmān b.‘Abd al-Karīm

945/1538

Shaykh Ḥaydar b. Shaykh Aḥmad

948/1541

Aq Köbek, second reign

951/1544

Yaghmurchi b. Birdi Beg

961/1554

Russian conquest

961–4/1554–7

Darwīsh ‘Alī b. Shaykh Ḥaydar, as a Russian nominee

964/1557

Incorporation of the khanate into Russia

During the decline of the Golden Horde (see above, no. 134), there arose at Astrakhan near the mouth of the Volga (a town long important from its position on the trade route down the Volga to the Caspian Sea and beyond) a line of Noghay Tatar khāns stemming from Or da’s White Horde through Toqtamïsh. The lands of the first khāns extended as far as the Kazan khanate (see below, no. 137) in the north, to Orenburg or Chkalov in the east and the lands of the Crimean Tatar khāns in the west. By the 1530s, ‘Abd al-Rahmān Khān was being pressed by the khāns of Crimea and the Noghays, and appealed for help to the Russian Tsar; but in 961/1554 Ivan IV (‘The Terrible’) conquered Astrakhan, and three years later deposed the puppet Darwīsh ‘Alī Khān when he began seeking support from his Tatar Muslim neighbours, and Astrakhan was incorporated into the Russian empire.

Lane-Poole, 229 and table at p. 240; Zambaur, 247 (fragmentary) and Table S.

İA ‘Astırhan, Astraḫan’ (R. Rahmeti Arat); EI1 Astrakhān’ (B. Spuler).

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