155

The Mangïts

1166–1339/1753–1920

The Khanate of Bukhara

The Mangïts of Bukhara arose from an Özbeg tribe of the same name which became influential under the Toqay Temürids or Jānids (see above, no. 154), so that in the early eighteenth century Khudāyār Biy Mangït became Atalïq or Chief Minister to Abu ’1-Fayḍ Khān, being followed in this office by his son Muḥammad Ḥakīm and his grandson Muḥammad Raḥīm. Very soon the family became the real rulers in Bukhara, although they continued to enthrone puppet khāns from the Jānids until the end of the eighteenth century. Shāh Murād, however, ended this pretence and himself reigned as fully sovereign Amīr; this last title was borne by all the remaining members of his line, indicating that they saw themselves as Islamic monarchs par excellence and not as khāns in the Turkish steppe tradition.

The greatest single event in the history of Central Asia during the nineteenth century was, of course, the territorial and military advance of Imperial Russia. The Amīr Muẓaffar al-Dīn was crushingly defeated by the Russians, lost some of his territory and in effect lost his independence (1285/1868). The Khanate survived, within somewhat shrunken boundaries, with little Russian interference in its internal affairs, so that the Amīrs remained as despotic and capricious and the religious classes as fanatical and ignorant as before. But in September 1920 the Amīr’s rule was overthrown and a ‘People’s Republic of Bukhara’ set up, soon to be replaced by a forcibly imposed Bolshevism; the last ruler, ‘Ālim Khān, fled to exile in Kabul.

Lane-Poole, 276–7; Zambaur, 273–4; Album, 63.

EI² ‘Mangits’ (Y. Bregel); EIR ‘Central Asia. VII. In the 12th–13th/18th–19th centuries’ (Yuri Bregel).

Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, Islam and the Russian Empire, with a list of rulers at p. 193. Edward A. Allworth, Central Asia: 130 Years of Russian Dominance, 3rd edn, Durham NC and London.