Tuesday, January 15, 2019

The siege and the fall of Merv in 1785 (Arminius Vambéry, 1873)


The siege and the fall of Merv in 1785




The scene of his activity outside the border of Transoxania was first Persia, or more properly speaking, its north-eastern provinces. Here from the times of past centuries, enthusiastic religious robbers had been accustomed to make forays as in the land of heretics, and here Emir Maasum would gather his first bays as a gazi1. This millennial road of Turanian forays was, however, at that time by no means so defenceless as it is at present. A few strong places, such as Merv and Sarakhs, were in the hands of the valiant Shiites, who often disturbed the pious Özbeg highwaymen in their occupation and placed serious hindrances in the way of their carrying out the Sunnite duty of devastating Khorasan and replenishing the slave-market of Bokhara. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that Emir Maasum, or Begdjan, as he is called by the Persian authors — whose expedition, although his army consisted of thousands of horsemen, was really nothing more than a Turkoman alaman on a large scale — especially wished to sweep away these hindrances, in other words to make the road clear. In the very year of his accession he made an expedition against Merv, which since the rule of the Sefides had been entrusted to the tribe of Kadjar, and was commanded by the chiefs of the branch of Izzeddinlu. We have already mentioned that this branch of the Kadjars was related to the Ashtarkhanides2. Nevertheless sectarian hatred had fostered feelings of the bitterest hostility between the two families, and the purposes of the Özbegs and the Turkomans, when intent on more than mere plunder, had failed against the determination of the garrison at Merv. When Emir Maasum appeared before the walls of the fortress, its commander was one Baïram Ali Khan, a man who had for years held the robber hordes of the neighbourhood in check, but now defended himself in vain against the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. Another member of his tribe, the ambitious and unwearied Aga Mehemmed Khan, was engaged in the south of Persia, in a struggle for the crown of the house Keyyan, against the valiant Lutf Ali Khan. Khorasan was divided amongst several princes, all seeking independence, and engaged in continual feuds with one another. Herat, the surest bulwark against Turanian invasion, was in the possession of Sharukh Mirza, a grandson of Nadir Shah, who, true to the alliance which his grandfather had contracted with Ebulfeïz, now saw with pleasure the ruin that was falling on a Kadjar, one of the principal enemies of his house. Baïram Ali Khan, thus abandoned to his fate, was at last overpowered in spite of his heroic exertions, in spite of the bravery of his warriors, even now celebrated in song, who were accompanied in their desperate sallies by armed women and girls. Baïram Ali Khan fell beneath the walls of Merv,3 and after the Özbegs had wasted the surrounding country, had carried off the whole population into slavery, and in order to prevent the future cultivation of the country had even broken down the dam of the ancient irrigation works of Bend-i-Merv,4 their pious and god-fearing leader returned to Bokhara. This first invasion was only the beginning of a series of forays which Emir Maasum undertook one after another through several years of his reign.5
Merv, where after the fall of Baïram Ali Khan his valiant son, Mehemmed Huseïn, with some assistance from the Afghan Timour Shah maintained himself for some time, was at last laid entirely in ruins.6 Its Turkish inhabitants were transferred by force to Bokhara, where they still bear the name of Mervi.7 Since that time nothing remains of the proud Margiana of antiquity to testify to its lost greatness but a few mounds of earth rising amidst the monotonous landscape of the steppe.8 In the year 1205 (1790) the Sarik, and after them, about the year 1250 (1834), the Tekke-Turkomans, who lived before that to the westward in Akhal, took possession of the ruins. In the place where once had flourished Persian science and Persian industry are now only to be heard, mingled with the rattle of their chains, the Persian lamentations of those unfortunate Iranians, who, in heavy bondage under the tents of the Turkomans turn their longing eyes towards their near but lost country. In the following year came the turn of Meshed, but as the fortifications of that place offered an unexpected resistance, the pious commander of the invading army declared that the saint Imam Riza had appeared to him in a dream and had bidden him spare Meshed, the place of his martyrdom, together with its environs. ‘I know that the Imam lives,’ said Emir Maasum, ‘and he shall not reproach me with having disturbed his repose.’ With that he retired, after visiting with still greater devastation the villages of the neighbourhood. Since the incursions of Sheïbani and of Abdulmumin Khan the north-east of Iran had never suffered so much from the Turanian hordes as during the reign of this beggar-prince. According to the account of Mirza Sadik 20,000 was the smallest number of Özbegs and Turkomans that took part in a foray, and people in Bokhara relate that the slave-market was so glutted that able-bodied Shiites could not be disposed of for a few tenghes, or somewhat less than a franc, a-piece.9 How many tears of ruined families were shed on account of this man, who rode on a sorry beast, clothed in filthy rags, by way of showing his contempt for earthly splendour, and under a miserable tent on a threadbare carpet was absorbed for hours in the contemplation of the Godhead! And this cruel course towards Iran the bigoted ruler of Bokhara carried on for nearly twelve years. At last, in the year 1212 (1797), when Aga Mehemmed Khan, the founder of the present dynasty of Persia, had established peace in Fars and Azerbaïdjan, he betook himself to Khorasan, determined to put a stop to this terrible plague. But a campaign beyond the Oxus appeared to the Persian king neither prudent nor practicable, considering the insecurity of his position in the interior of his dominions. He therefore determined to try by diplomatic means to teach the Özbeg something better. He sent him, by the hand of Mehemmed Huseïn Izzeddinlu, the following letter, which is interesting, as in it we find for the first time an allusion to the national unity of the Turkish people.10 The letter, as partially communicated by the ‘Rauzat es Sefa,’ ran as follows : —

... It is unnecessary to recapitulate the history of the Sefides and of the contemporaries of Mehemmed Sheïbani Khan, down to the Afshar Nadir Shah. I well know, and it is sufficiently well known to thee also, that Belkh, Merv, Zemindaver, Sistan, Kandahar, and Kabul, were from the earliest times integral portions of the Iranian empire. Well then, how has it occurred to thee to conquer Belkh and Merv, and in the last-named place to slay Baïram Ali Khan the kinsman of his illustrious house? Dost thou perchance wish to renew the old wars between Iran and Turan? For such a task thou art verily not sufficient.11 To play with the tail of the lion, to tickle the tiger in the ear, is not the part of a prudent man. Yet all men are descended from Adam and Eve, and if thou art proud of thy relationship to Turanian princes know that my descent is also from the same. The origin and the derivation of Kadjar Noyan12 is not only nobler and more distinguished than that of the family of Manghit and Kungrat, but even surpasses in glory the renowned houses of Solduz and Djelaïr.13 We all of us owe thanks to God, the Almighty, that he hath given the dominion over Turan and Iran, over Rum, Rus, China, and India, to the exalted family of Turk. Let each be content with the position that hath fallen to him, and not stretch out his hand over the frontier of his own kingdom. I also will dwell in peace within the ancient boundaries of Iran, and none of us will pass over the Oxus.’
As we are told by another Persian authority, the document in question was composed in an entirely different tone, for it contained threats in case Mir Maasum did not immediately send back the Persian captives. And the answer was of like nature. Begdjan even allowed himself to trifle with the name of the greatest of the Kadjars, for instead of Aga Khan, he called him Akhta Khan, i.e., Eunuch Khan, and certainly did not send back eighty thousand Persian captives, as the author of the ‘Nasih et Tevarikh’ would persuade us he did. Aga Mehemmed Khan was at that time attacked by the Empress Catherine of Russia, who would exact vengeance for the cruel fate of the Georgians under her protection. The Persian king was therefore obliged to direct his attention and his army to the banks of the Araxes, otherwise the world would have witnessed the strange spectacle of a bitter struggle for superiority between the two bizarre chieftains of the Mohammedan world of Inner Asia, one of whom was a eunuch, the other an old beggar-monk. But just then a third power intervened, which was later to overthrow them both, but which for the moment enabled the bigoted Özbeg to continue his plundering incursions into Persia. But it was not only on Shiite heretics that Emir Maasum stilled his religious lust for war. He found himself engaged with orthodox Sunnites, where he could not earn the merit of a gazi, and the weapon of conquest in vain sought concealment beneath the mantle of the dervish.

1 Properly speaking a man becomes gazi only in war against unbelievers (kafir), i. e., Christians, Jews, and Idolators; but we have already mentioned that the Sunnites of Central Asia consider Shiite Mohammedans as unbelievers. The Ottoman Turks have never recognised this theory, considering the Persians as only heretics (rafiz, mulhid).
2 I would here repeat that both families were fully aware of the relationship ; and in later times, relying on this circumstance, Shahrukh Mirza, a cousin of the present shah of Persia, when obliged to fly on account of treason or conspiracy, sought hospitality at the court of Bokhara.
3 According to Mirza Sadik, Emir Maasum had the head of the fallen Baïram Ali severed from its trunk and fastened to a gallows in Bokhara.
4 This dam, or more properly speaking the reservoir which it protected, was situated in a north-easterly direction from Merv, and derived its waters from the Murgab. Since its destruction, from want of the precious water, the whole agriculture of Merv has been reduced to a few fields of melons and vegetables.
5 Mirza Sadik mentions four more important expeditions commanded by Emir Maasum in person.
6 According to the Rauzat es Sefa, the ruler of Bokhara left behind him his son, Nasr-eddin, with a garrison in the citadel of Merv.
7 In consequence of inaccurate information, I have mentioned, in my Travels in Central Asia, p. 370, Emir Said as the one who forcibly transferred the inhabitants of Merv to Bokhara.
8 The ruins of Merv have been visited by Burnes, Wolf, Richmond Shakespear, J. Abbot, and Thomson — the two last-mentioned were entrusted with a mission to the Khan of Khiva; a Neapolitan adventurer of the name of Flores Naselli, who, in spite of all advice to the contrary, went to Bokhara, and was there executed; and lastly Bloqueville, who spent a whole year there as a prisoner in the hands of the Turkomans.
9 In modern times this has only happened once again in Bokhara, when Nasr-eddin Shah sent an army of 20,000 men against Turkestan, which was disgracefully defeated in the neighbourhood of Merv, by only 3,000 Tekke-Turkomans. Only a few hundred Persians escaped, the rest were taken prisoners, and sold for ridiculously low prices in the slave markets of Bokhara and Khiva.
10 The Mohammedan expression Kulli muminin ihvetun, ‘all true believers are brethren,’ has, it is well known, always made the idea of nationality impossible. So much the less should we have expected that a rough Kadjar, or his mirza (scribe), had an idea of the ethnical unity of the dynasties of China, India, and Rum.
11 What excellent irony to make an Efrasiab out of the monkish Emir Maasum!
12 Noyan is the title which was given to the superior officers in the Mongol army. Whether the ancestor of the Kadjars really enjoyed this title is not made out, for in Persia I have heard several Turks distinguish their original ancestor by this title. The Kashkais in Shiraz are especially proud of this title.
13 I do not know why Solduz and Djelaïr are described as renowned. Both tribes have always dwelt in the land on the further side of the Oxus, and like most of the Turks came with Djenghiz from the east.


Arminius Vambéry, History of Bokhara. From the earliest period down to the present. — London: Henry S. King & Co., 1873. Pp. 350—356.

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