[693] According to Wolff, it numbered 180,000 in 1843 (Bokhara, p. 163).
[694] They are named Imām, Samarkand, Mazār, Kārshi, Salahkhānā, Namāziyya, Shaykh Jalāl, Kārākul, Shīr-Gīrān, Talipash, and Oghlān.
[695] For the ethnology of Bokhārā the reader should consult Meyendorff, p. 189; Khanikoff, chaps. vii., viii., and ix.; and Moser, A Travers l’Asie Centrale, p. 68.
[696] The etymology of Bokhārā is also a moot point. There can be little doubt, however, that the word is derived from the Sanskrit vihára, or hermit-cell, which was adopted by the Buddhists and became búhára in Mongolian. The city clustered round the retreat of an early ascetic.
[697] Ujfalvy states that the Tājiks of the plains, as distinguished from their brethren of the hills, and the branch called Galchas inhabiting the Pamirs, have a triple origin. They are (a) descendants from the Iranian aborigines of Bactriana and Soghdiana, who remained in the level country throughout the successive invasions of Turko-Tartars, Mongols, and Arabs; they accepted the domination of each new-comer, and were compelled to give their daughters in marriage to the conquerors; (b) immigrants who from time to time arrived in Bokhārā from Khorāsān; (c) mixed alliances between the wealthier inhabitants of the Khānate and Persian slaves brought thither during many centuries by Turkoman freebooters. This author adds that many Tājiks show signs of Arab blood in their aquiline noses and brilliant eyes (Les Aryens, Paris, 1896).
[698] An Uzbeg proverb has it: “When a Tājik tells the truth he has a fit of colic!”
[699] The Kirghiz style themselves Kazāk, “warriors.” They roam over the Khānates, and love to shelter themselves from the icy blasts in the long reeds lining the banks of the Sir Daryā. They are cruel, treacherous, and given to rapine. Government is exercised by hereditary Khāns, but the personal equation is everything, and the Khān who derogates is lost. Fighting men are called Bahādurs; the relatives of the tribal Khān, Sultāns.
[700] A native chronicle called “Nassed Nameti Uzbekia,” giving a catalogue of these clans, is quoted by Khanikoff, Bokhara, p. 74.
[701] Wolff’s Bokhara, p. 163. The doctor states that their synagogue possesses an ancient version of the Prophet Daniel, giving the variant “2400” in the place of “2300” in chap. viii. ver. 14.
[702] As is well known, the Mohammedans everywhere are ranged into two sections. The Sunnis are the orthodox, and owe their name to their adhesion to the traditionary teaching, Sunna, of the Prophet. The Shī`as reject it; and are also champions of the claim to succeed Mohammed of `Alī, his cousin and son-in-law, and of his sons in their turn, Hasan and Husayn. With the exception of the Persians, who are Shī`as, almost the whole of the Mohammedan world is Sunni. The two sects hate each other with the true odium theologium.