CHAPTER XXVII
The House of Astrakhan
Among the Mongol chiefs who struggled for mastery in Eastern Russia at the epoch of Tīmūr’s intervention[454] was a descendant of Chingiz, named Kutluk, who rose to fame by defeating Tīmūr’s great rival, Tokhtamish Khān, near Kiev in 1399.[455] His offspring vegetated in obscurity for nearly two centuries in the Khānate of Astrakhan, on the lower reaches of the Volga, and were then driven eastwards by the growing power of the Russian princes. Thus, towards the close of the sixteenth century, the head of this ancient line, Yār Mahammad Khān, sought refuge in Transoxiana, and was received with honour by the Shaybānides, whose pride in their descent from Tīmūr was flattered by the exile’s recognition of their claims to kinship. Iskandar Khān gave his daughter, the sister of `Abdullah, greatest of the Shaybānide line, in marriage to the Astrakhan chief’s son, Jāni Khān.
The new-comer soon showed that he possessed the warrior’s instincts, and took a prominent part in his brother-in-law `Abdullah’s campaigns. And so it came to pass that when the last of the Shaybānides, `Abd ul-Mū´min, was slain, the nobles of Transoxiana offered the crown to Jāni Khān. He, being well stricken in years, declined it in favour of his son Dīn Mahammad, who united the blood of Chingiz and of the fallen dynasty. He did not long survive to enjoy his fortune; perishing in battle with the Persians, who attempted to drive the Uzbegs from Khorāsān. His successor, A.H. 1007 (1598) was his brother Bāki Mohammad, while Vāli Mohammad, another of old Jāni’s sons, took possession of Balkh and the country west of the Oxus. A third brother was murdered in A.H. 1011 (1602) by the Kara Turkomans who dwelt at Kunduz, and from them Bāki Mahammad exacted a terrible vengeance. Kunduz was taken by storm, and the entire garrison was put to the sword. This punishment brought Shāh `Abbās of Persia into the field, determined to guard his north-eastern frontier from foes who threatened the existence of his authority. He met with a crushing defeat near Balkh, and escaped with the greatest difficulty from capture. The remainder of Bāki Mohammad’s reign was disturbed only by those insurrections, fomented by kinsmen, from which few Eastern princes were free. He died in A.H. 1014 (1605), and was succeeded by his brother Vāli Mohammad, the erstwhile lord of Balkh. Vāli Mohammad’s rule was brief and inglorious. He wallowed in debauchery, and surrendered all power to an unscrupulous vezīr, whose fiendish cruelties aroused fierce resentment, and led to his master’s defeat and death at the hands of a kinsman, Imām Kulī Khān (1611). The new ruler was of sterner and purer mould. He courted the society of the learned and pious, and laboured to secure his country’s prosperity. And so, under his wise and just régime, Bokhārā regained a share of her ancient glory. She grew rapidly in wealth, and again became a beacon-light in the darkness of Central Asia. At length, after a reign of thirty-eight years, the good Imām Kulī Khān felt himself unequal to the task of governing, and sought the repose which is the ideal of all true Musulmans. He summoned his brother Nāzir Mohammad from Balkh and surrendered his realm to him.[456] Then, taking a pilgrim’s staff, he set out for Medīna, where he died in the odour of sanctity, leaving traces of his munificence which have endured to the present day.
His successor (1642) found it impossible to secure a place in his people’s affections. He was immensely rich, and endeavoured to win public regard by his largesses; but Bokhārā sighed for the good times of old Imām Kulī Khān, and the popular feeling found vent in a revolt which raged in the northern provinces. Nāzir Mohammad sent his son `Abd el-`Azīz to quell it, but the faithless prince placed himself at the head of the rebels and marched on Bokhārā. The unhappy father fled to Balkh, leaving his capital at his unnatural foe’s mercy, and `Abd el-`Azīz took up the fallen sceptre (1647). Nāzir Mohammad, in despair, divided the rest of his realms among his sons who had remained faithful to him—the fourth, Subhān Kulī Khān, receiving in fief the country round the ford of Khwāja Sālū on the Upper Oxus. But his old age was still embittered by his children’s contests for supremacy. Worn out at last by the unequal struggle, he resolved to spend the brief remainder of his days in the sacred soil of Medīna, and died, broken-hearted, on his pilgrimage thither.[457] His death served only to increase the hostility between his sons. Subhān Kulī Khān, who had established himself at Balkh, became a thorn in the side of his brother `Abd el-`Azīz of Bokhārā. A third brother, Kāsim Mohammad,[458] was despatched with an army to reduce him to submission; but he was defeated, and driven to take refuge at Hisār, and peace was restored on the masterful Subhān Kulī Khān being recognised as heir to the throne. Hardly had the clouds of civil war been dissipated ere Bokhārā became the prey of foreign invasion (1663). Khiva had long been a province of the southern Khānate, but its prince, Abū-l-Ghāzi, a man whose life had been one long romance, determined to throw off the hated yoke. He drove the Bokhārans from the Lower Oxus, and carried the war into the enemy’s camp. Defeated with great slaughter by `Abd el-`Azīz near Kerminé, he escaped with a grievous wound by swimming across the great river. Nothing daunted, he soon took the field again, and carried his ravages to the very gates of Bokhārā.
His son and successor, Anūsha Khān, was still more venturesome. He invaded `Abd el-`Azīz’s territory at the head of a great force, A.H. 1076 (1665), and actually gained possession of the capital during the sovereign’s temporary absence at Kerminé. The latter hastened to his people’s aid. With only forty devoted followers he hewed his way to the citadel, and summoned his subjects to oust the invader. The call was but too eagerly obeyed: all classes rose as a man against the abhorred Khivans. The Sicilian Vespers were repeated, and but few escaped to tell the tale of disaster. This splendid heroism exhausted `Abd el-`Azīz’s stock of mental vigour.[459] He determined to abdicate in favour of his brother Subhān Kulī Khān, and seek the secure refuge which Medīna offered to those oppressed with the carking cares of life. His temperament, indeed, predisposed him in favour of a course which had become traditional in his family. It was a rare mixture of the adventurous and the contemplative. Daring in battle, prompt in action, `Abd el-`Azīz inherited a tendency to asceticism, and was wont to withdraw himself from worldly affairs and remain plunged in prolonged meditation on the ineffable goodness of his Maker. Without regret he laid down his crown and betook himself as a humble pilgrim to the Holy City, which is the goal of every true follower of the Prophet.
Subhān Kulī Khān assumed the insignia of royalty on his brother’s departure; but gratified ambition brought with it no accession of happiness. The Astrakhanides, with many virtues, were deficient in filial love, and Subhān Kulī’s heart was wrung by the jealousy and disrespect of his children. His neighbour of Khiva, too, did not take to heart the terrible lesson taught him in the preceding reign. In A.H. 1095 (1683) he invaded Bokhārā, and, though defeated by a loyal chief named Mohammad Bi, he repeated his incursions in the following year. In A.H. 1100 (1688) his successor advanced to the very gates of Bokhārā; but he, too, was soundly beaten by Mohammad Bi, and Khiva fell for a time under Subhān Kulī Khān’s dominion. This age witnessed the apogee of Bokhārā’s greatness in the estimation of the Mohammedan world. Aurangzīb, the narrow-minded zealot who sat on the throne of Akbar, sent thither ambassadors with elephants and other costly gifts; and Ahmad II. of Turkey, whose lust for conquest far exceeded his military genius, did not disdain to address his Bokhāran brother a grandiloquent epistle describing mythical successes against the Frankish unbelievers.[460]
In spite of endless trouble with rebellious nobles, Subhān Kulī Khān found a leisure to cultivate the Muses; and he was also the author of a book on medicine which epitomises the lore of Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna, but suggests nostrums in the shape of prayers and talismans of which none of those worthies would have approved. He was now eighty years of age, and felt that a time had come when he must bid adieu to ambition. He called around him his nobles, and publicly designated his son Mukīm Khān, who ruled at Balkh, as his successor. Then he peacefully resigned his breath after a reign of twenty-four years, A.H. 1114 (1702).
Mukīm Khān found an obstacle in his path in the person of his elder brother `Ubaydullah, and a civil war broke out in which the great Uzbeg nobles of Bokhārā found their account. The faithful Mohammad Bi took up the gauntlet for Mukīm, while the elder pretender’s cause was espoused by Rahīm Bi, the chief of the powerful Mangit tribe. It lasted for five years, when, thanks to his nominal vassal’s support, `Ubaydullah triumphed. He chafed under the dictation of the Mangit king-maker, and was promptly suppressed by poison; another brother named Abū-l-Fayz being elevated to the throne in his stead, A.H. 1130 (1717).
The new sovereign’s character was wholly deficient in the strength of purpose so needful in one who aspires to rule his fellow-men, and he owed to his utter insignificance his recognition by the turbulent nobles who surrounded him. It is the fate of all long-lived dynasties to end miserably with a succession of rois fainéants; and the Astrakhanides were no exception to the rule. Not only did Abū-l-Fayz meekly submit to the dictation of Rahīm Bi; he bowed the neck to a foreign potentate, and disgraced his country in the eyes of Islām.