Draft:Chaghatays
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|  |
چاغاتاي | |
|---|---|
 Timurid cavalry Zafarnama ("Book of Victories"), 1436 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Transoxiana, Western Turkestan | |
| Religion | |
| Sunni Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Timurids, Moghuls, Uzbeks, Kazakhs |
Chaghatays or Chagatais, Chaghatay people (Chagatay: چاغاتاي) were names used for a part of the nomadic population of the Chagatai Khanate from the second half of the 13th century to the second half of the 15th century.
The name derives from Chagatai Khan, a son of Genghis Khan. By the 14th century, as a result of interaction between nomadic groups and the settled population, a distinct historical and cultural complex had formed, whose bearers came to be referred to as Chagatai Turks. Around the same time, the Chagatai language and the Chagatai literary tradition developed.
Etymology
[edit]The name Chagatai used for the population of the Chagatai Khanate derives from the name of Chagatai Khan.[1]
Origins
[edit]The Turkic peoples known in the post-Mongol period as Chagatais originated from the Chagatai ulus the population of the Mongol Empire formed from the military units assigned to Chagatai Khan (r. 1227–1241) by his father Genghis Khan.[2]
By the time of the rise of Timur in the mid-14th century, the Chagatai ulus included tribes of Mongol and Mongolic origin such as the Barlas, Arlat, Suldus, Jalair and Dughlat, as well as new tribal groupings formed within the Mongol Empire, such as the Qara'unas.[3]
A number of works describe the Chagatai people as being of mixed Turkic–Mongol origin.[4][5] According to I. P. Magidovich, the Chagatai are descendants of the Chagatai Mongols, that is, Turkicized Mongol tribes.[6][7]
Division into Chagatais (Timurids) and Moghuls
[edit]The Chagatai Khanate later divided into eastern and western parts. In the western part, the ethnonym Chagatai was used, whereas in the eastern part the ethnonym Moghul (the Persian form of the word "Mongol") was used.[8]
Despite this division, the Chagatais and the Moghuls shared a common Chagatai-Mongol identity. The Moghul historian Muhammad Haidar Dughlat identified the Chagatais (Timurids) as Moghuls (Mongols). In his work Tarikh-i Rashidi, when discussing the four Chinggisid uluses (Northern Yuan, the Golden Horde, the Ilkhanate and the Chagatai ulus), he wrote:[8]
One of the four was the Moghul. The Moghul then became divided into two sections, the Moghuls and the Chaghatay.
Timurid historians held the same view as well.[8]
History
[edit]In 1224, Transoxiana became part of the Chagatai Ulus. Among Turkic-speaking peoples, it was customary to name clans and tribal subdivisions after their ancestor (or leader). Therefore, not only descendants but also the close entourage, companions, and courtiers of Chagatai Khan began to identify themselves as belonging to the Chagatai lineage.[9]
During this period (13th–14th centuries), the term "Chagatai" initially referred to the nobles associated with Chagatai, the army, and their descendants. According to some scholars, the designation was originally applied to the Mongol tribes that formed Chagatai's army.[10] Turkic or Turkicized nomads in Transoxiana, who in the 15th century constituted a privileged military estate—even after the disappearance of a dynasty descending from Chagatai continued to call themselves "Chagatai".[11]
In addition to the name "Chagatai," various Turco-Mongol ethnonyms are attested in the sources for Transoxiana, including the Barlas, Dörbet, Nukus, Naiman, Polovtsians, Dulat, Kiyat, Jalayir, Suldus, Merkit, Yasavur, Qauchin, Kangly,[12] as well as the Tulikchi, Arlat, Tatars, and others.
After the breakup of the Chagatai Khanate into two separate states in the mid-14th century, the name "Chagatai" was retained only for the western state (the Timurid Empire) and its population.[13] The main force of Timur's army were the Chagatai; they preserved loyalty not only to nomadic traditions but also to certain Mongol customs.[1]
The inhabitants of the two newly formed states, writes Haidar Dughlat, "because of mutual hostility call each other by different derogatory names: the Chagatai call the Moghuls 'jete', while the Moghuls call the Chagatai 'Qaraunas'".[14]
After the death of Timur in 1405, however, the political situation in the country began to change rapidly. Whereas under Timur the term "Chagatai" referred not to the entire population but only to the ruling military estate, by the 15th century it acquired a broader meaning: "Chagatai" came to denote all Turkic inhabitants of Transoxiana, not limited to its nomadic component.[15][16]
Later, during the struggle of the Timurids with Muhammad Shaybani, the population of Transoxiana was in some sources referred to as the "Chagatai people" (Chagatai eli), in contrast to the Uzbeks of the Dasht-i Qipchaq of Shaybani Khan.[16][17]
Under Timur and his descendant Babur, the Chaghatays established the Timurid Empire in Central Asia and the Mughal Empire in South Asia, respectively. In both regions, they formed a ruling elite over the indigenous sedentary populations, including Indo-European-speaking groups such as the Tajiks in Central Asia and various populations in South Asia.[18]
In the 1520s, due to pressure from the Kazakhs, the Chaghatays and Moghul beks were forced to leave Semirechye and migrate to East Turkestan. The clans that remained nomadic in Semirechye were incorporated into the Kazakh people.[19]
Tribal composition
[edit]In the 1260s, Turco-Mongol tribes were resettled into the Chagatai Ulus to provide a military presence, each consisting of a thousand families. Four tribes were of particular importance: the Arlat, Jalayir, Qauchin, and Barlas.[20]
Despite the fact that the Mongol tribes living in the eastern part of the ulus had long begun to speak Turkic and had intermixed with the local population, they preserved and observed ancient Mongol traditions for a long time.[21]
Turkic or Turkicized nomads in Transoxiana in the mid-13th century are recorded in sources under various Turco-Mongol ethnonyms, including the Barlas, Dörbet, Nukus, Naiman, Kipchaks, Dulat, Kiyat, Jalayir, Suldus, Merkit, Yasavur, Qauchin, Kangly, Tulikchi, Arlat, Akhrin, Burkut, Durmen, Iyjan, Khitai, Karluk, Keneges, Uyshun, Tubai, Taymas, Tumen-ming, Shadbakhtli, Shunkarli, and others.[22]
Chaghatays in the 19th – early 20th centuries
[edit]According to ethnographic data, part of the population of Transoxiana still retained the self-designation "Chagatai" as late as the early 20th century.[16]
In the early 20th century, separate groups of Chagatai lived in what are now the Kashkadarya and Surkhandarya regions of Uzbekistan, as well as in southern Tajikistan. A certain number of Chagatai also lived in the Navoi and Samarkand regions of Uzbekistan, as well as in northern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India, where they are referred to as Mughals.
Chaghatays in India
[edit]Chaghatays in India (the Timurid Mughals) also identified themselves as Chagatai. One of the historical chronicles about the Mughal rulers was titled Tazkirat al-salāṭīn-i Chaghatā ("Biographical collection of the Chagatai rulers").
The court historian of the Mughal Empire, Abu'l-Fazl Allami, explained why they were called Chagatai:[23]
Transoxiana, Turkistan, part of Khwarazm, the lands of the Uyghur, Kashgar, Badakhshan, Balkh, and Ghazni up to the Indus River were assigned to Chaghatai. He also gave Chaghatai the covenant of Qabul Khan and Qachulai Bahadur and said: "Never act without the consent of Qarachar Noyan, and always consider him your partner in administration and finance." A pact of a father–son relationship was sworn between them. In consideration of this, this exalted and sacred line [the Timurids] was called "Chaghatai."
In South Asia, the Timurid Mughals who traced their origins to the Chagatays constituted a ruling elite over predominantly non-Turkic populations (the Hindus, among others).[24]
Gallery
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^ a b Sultanov 2017, p. 82.
- ^ Lee 2024, pp. 153–154 "The Turkic people who were known as Chaghatays in post-Mongol Central Asia were none other than the Chaghatayid ulus (people) of the Mongol empire, who were descended from the army units given to Chaghatay Khan (r. 1227–1241) by his father Chinggis Khan (r. 1206–1227)."
- ^ Lee 2024, pp. 153–154.
- ^ Chvyr, L. A. (2006). Rituals and Beliefs of the Uyghurs in the 19th–20th Centuries: Essays on Folk Islam in Turkestan. Vostochnaya literatura RAN. p. 36. ISBN 9785020184930.
- ^ History of the Turkmen SSR. Academy of Sciences of the Turkmen SSR Press. 1957. p. 377.
- ^ Short Communications. N. N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnography. 1957.
- ^ Soviet Ethnography. Academy of Sciences Press. 1969. p. 44.
- ^ a b c Lee 2024, p. 154.
- ^ Karmysheva, B. Kh., Essays on the Ethnic History of the Southern Regions of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Moscow, 1976, p. 323.
- ^ Sultanov, T. I. On the historiography of the ethnopolitical history of the uluses of Jochi and Chagatai. Golden Horde Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 2017, pp. 74–92.
- ^ Blagova, G. F. "Turkic čaġatay — Russian chagatai-/dzhagatai- (A comparative study of an early borrowing)". Turkological Collection, 1971 (in memory of V. V. Radlov). Moscow: Nauka, 1972, pp. 167–205.
- ^ History of Kazakhstan in Persian Sources. Almaty: Daik-Press. 2006. p. 117.
- ^ Sultanov 2017, p. 85.
- ^ Ibragimov, S. K. (1969). Materials on the History of the Kazakh Khanates of the 15th–18th Centuries. Alma-Ata: Nauka. p. 216.
- ^ Peoples of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, Moscow, 1962, p. 171.
- ^ a b c Sultanov 2017, p. 84.
- ^ Trepanov, V. V. "Shibans: an unrealized ethnonym". Golden Horde Review, vol. 7, no. 2, 2019, pp. 351–371.
- ^ Lee 2024, p. 156.
- ^ Sultanov 2017, p. 86.
- ^ Zaytsev 2025, p. 130.
- ^ Zaytsev 2025, p. 131.
- ^ Zaytsev 2025, p. 133.
- ^ Lee 2024, pp. 155–156.
- ^ Lee 2024, p. 156:" Under Temür and his descendant Babur, the Chaghatays established the Timurid empire in Central Asia and the Mughal empire in South Asia, respectively. These Chaghatays formed the elite class ruling over the indigenous sedentary Indo- European-speaking populations in Central Asia (the Tajiks) and South Asia (the Hindus, among others). The Moghuls, who moved their center from Moghulistan to modern-day (southern and eastern) Xinjiang in the early sixteenth century, ruled over a Muslim population, made up of the descendants of the Qarakhanid Türks, the Turfan Uyghurs, and the Turkicized descendants of the local Indo-Europeans until the late seventeenth century."
References
[edit]- Lee, Joo-Yup (2024). "The Turko-Mongols (or "Mongol Turks") of the Qipchaq Steppe and Central Asia". The Turkic Peoples in World History. New York: Routledge. p. 224. ISBN 9781032170015.
- Sultanov, Tursun (2017). "K istoriografii etnopoliticheskoi istorii ulusov Dzhuchi i Chagataia" [On the historiography of the ethnopolitical history of the uluses of Jochi and Chagatai]. Zolotoordynskoe Obozrenie (in Russian). 5 (1): 74–92.
- Collective of authors (2025). Zaytsev, Ilya (ed.). The Turkic World in the 13th–17th Centuries (PDF) (in Russian). Vol. 2. Barnaul: Altai State University Press.