157

The Mings

1213–93/1798–1876

The Khanate of Khokand (Khoqand)

During the later eighteenth century, a third Özbeg khanate, in addition to those of Bukhara and Khiva (see above, nos 155–6), emerged under leaders of the Ming tribe in Farghāna. The rise of the ruling family is usually traced back to Shāh Rukh Atalïq (d. between 1121 and 1133/1709–21). His son ‘Abd al-Karim Biy in 1153/1740 founded the town of Khokand, which was to become the capital of his family’s khanate. His grandson Nārbūta united Farghāna under Ming rule, so that his son and successor ‘Ālim could assume the title of Khān and formally begin the dynasty. His brother and successor Muḥammad ‘Umar went even further and claimed the title of Amīr al-Mu’minīn on his coins. The Mings soon came to control very extensive territories, beginning with the capture of Tashkent, of great strategic and commercial importance, in 1224/1809, and continuing with expansion northwards into the Qazaq Steppe and across the T’ien Shan into Eastern Turkestan, where the Khāns controlled customs duties from the so-called ‘six towns’ there, and into the Pamirs region. Khokand thus became greater in territory than its two fellow-khanates, if not in population.

Like the other khanates, Khokand was racked by internal tribal and other feuds, and was at one point briefly occupied by Bukhara. It was also threatened by Russian imperial expansion. In 1282/1865, Tashkent was captured and a commercial treaty imposed by Russia on Khokand. In 1292/1875, an internal rebellion brought the Russian army into the Khanate, and early in the next year it was suppressed and its territories annexed to the governorate-general of Turkestan as its Farghānan province.

Lane-Poole, 280; Zambaur, 276; Album, 64.

EI² ‘Khoḳand’ (W. Barthold and C. E. Bosworth); EIR ‘Central Asia. VII. In the 12th–13th/18th–19th centuries’ (Yuri Bregel).

Edward A. Allworth, Central Asia: 120 Years of Russian Rule, 3rd edn.