A Moghul khan with a full beard and a Tajik face
Editorial contextA Muslim scholar expected Yunus Khan, as a 'Moghul', to be a beardless desert Turk, and was surprised to find an elegant man with a full beard and a Persian-looking (Tajik) face. The editor uses the story to show how far the ruling Moghul families had mixed with their Turkic and Persian neighbours.
I had heard that Yunus Khan was a Moghul, and I concluded that he was a beardless man, with the ways and manners of any other Turk of the desert. But when I saw him, I found he was a person of elegant deportment, with a full beard and a Tajik face
About Yunus Khan of the Moghuls
Keep in mind
The editor's racial reading ('Aryan') belongs to his time, not to the source.
A mountain chain that crosses 'the land of the Tatars'
Editorial contextTracing the great mountain chain that ends in Syria, al-Umari starts it in China at the encircling ocean and says it cuts across 'the land of the Tatars' along its mines before reaching Fergana. Here 'land of the Tatars' is simply the Mamluk name for Mongol-ruled inner Asia, much as Europeans used 'Tartary'.
Its beginning is in the east, in China, at the Encircling Ocean. It cuts across the land of the Tatars, along its mines, until it reaches Farghana.
Working translation
Original wording
فإن أوله بالمشرق من الصين من البحر المحيط . فيقطع بلاد التتر على معادنها إلى أن يأتى فرغانة
About Tatars (Mongol-ruled inner Asia)
A note on this quote
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR is partly garbled); vowel marks omitted.
Andijan: a stone-faced moat and three gates
Editorial contextBabur begins his memoirs with his own kingdom of Fergana. Its capital Andijan was, he says, the largest fortress in Transoxiana after Samarkand and Kesh, with three gates, a citadel on the south, a stone-faced moat circled by a pebbled road, and suburbs all round. Its people were all Turks and spoke the same Turki that poets wrote in.
In Maweralnaher, after the fortresses of Samarkand and Kesh, none is equal in size to Andejan. It has three gates. The citadel is situated on the south of the city. … Around the fortress, on the edge of the stone-faced moat, is a broad highway covered with pebbles. All round the fort are the suburbs
About Turks of Fergana
Continue in this sourceThe memoirs of Babur, Timurid prince and founder of Mughal India1466 to 1533 · 16 passagesTurks and Kipchaks versus the Kirghiz
Editorial contextNear Andijan, Izzet Ullah passes the spring and summer pastures of the Turks and Kipchaks, some 10,000 to 12,000 families, whom he admires as prosperous, well dressed and soldierly. He is scornful of the poorer Kirghiz. A page earlier he notes 'many Tartar stations' where herds of horses graze, and just after this he meets Kalmaks who 'are Musalmans', a surprise since most Kalmyks were Buddhist.
the adjacent country is divided into the pasture grounds of the Turks and Kapchaks… These two tribes amount here to 10,000 or 12,000 families: they are a strong good-looking people, apparently in a prosperous condition, well dressed, and of military bearing, and present a striking contrast to the Kirghizes, who are a mean-looking race, ill-fed, housed, and clothed,
About Turks, Kapchaks (Kipchaks), Kirghiz and Muslim Kalmaks
Keep in mind
His judgement of the Kirghiz is a townsman's prejudice.
Ferghana: walled cities, rice, wine and blood-sweating horses
Editorial contextIn contrast to the Xiongnu, Zhang Qian reported that the people of Dayuan (Ferghana) were settled farmers growing rice and wheat, made grape wine, and bred fine 'blood-sweating' horses descended from 'heavenly horses'. They had walled cities and houses, some seventy towns large and small, and several hundred thousand people. The same chapter labels the Wusun, Kangju and Yuezhi as 'moving nations' (行國).
Their custom is to stay settled on the land; they plough fields and grow rice and wheat. They have grape wine. They have many fine horses; the horses sweat blood, and their ancestors were the offspring of heavenly horses. They have walled cities and houses; the towns under them, large and small, number over seventy, and the people several hundred thousand.
Working translation
Original wording
其俗土著，耕田，田稻麥。有蒲陶酒。多善馬，馬汗血，其先天馬子也。有城郭屋室。其屬邑大小七十餘城，眾可數十萬。
About Dayuan (people of Ferghana, reported by Zhang Qian)
Keep in mind
Zhang Qian's report as edited by the court historian; 'heavenly horses' is a legend he passes on.
Felt tents pitched beside a domed tomb
Editorial contextCrossing the mountains west of Kashgar in deep winter, Izzet Ullah notes Kirghiz felt tents lining the road (p. 321). At the stage called Mizar Gumbaz he found a domed building with Kirghiz tombs and the living Kirghiz camped in tents beside it: permanent structures for the dead, portable ones for the living.
Mizar Gumbuz, … west by north, eight hours. A building with a cupola and Kirghiz tombs; their tents were also pitched near the building; supplies plentiful;
About Kirghiz
Continue in this sourceMir Izzet Ullah's journey from Kashmir to Bukhara1812 to 1813 · 11 passages