Mahmud ibn Wali's Sea of Secrets
A Balkh court historian's seventeenth-century account of the steppe khanates, 1634 to 1641.
Full title Sea of Secrets concerning the Virtues of the Good: extracts on the Uzbek, Kazakh and Moghul khanates and on court ceremonial, in Russian translation
بحر الاسرار فی مناقب الاخیار
Mahmud ibn Wali of Balkh (fl. 1634-1641)
Mahmud ibn Wali of Balkh wrote this Persian work between 1634 and 1641 at the Ashtarkhanid court, after visiting India in 1624 to 1631. Its history of the Chinggisid ulus and its geography of Turkestan cover the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz and Qalmaqs, with Kashgar and Siberia (Tura). Only fragments are published. The atlas does not hold the text: the card records only Russian extracts and web transcriptions, and the geographical part survives incompletely.
- How they knew
- Part eyewitness
- Who “Tartar” means here
- Not recorded. The card treats the work as a Balkh and Bukhara view of the steppe that European maps labelled Tartary, and lists Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz and Qalmaqs.
- Why read it
- A seventeenth-century Central Asian description of the steppe polities, from the same years as the early European maps of Tartary.
- Watch out
- Only fragments are published, and the 1977 Tashkent edition of the geographical section was not found online. The atlas quotes nothing from this work.
What it says
No quotes from this one yet. Its text is out of reach for now, or the scan could not be read.
The fine print
How we know
mixed Part firsthand observation, part drawn from other sources.
mixed: retrospective history of the Chinggisid ulus and the Ashtarkhanids compiled at the Balkh court, with the author's own observations and travels (he visited India 1624-1631)
Research notes
- Only fragments are published; the geographical part (vol. 7?) survives incompletely. B. A. Akhmedov's 1977 Tashkent edition of the geographical section was not located online.
- British Library catalogue was not queried directly (search site not reachable in a form usable here); record the BL shelfmark as a catalogue-only lead.
Why it matters
Seventeenth-century Central Asian description of the steppe polities (Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Qalmaqs) and of the geography of 'Turkestan' from a Bukharan-Balkh viewpoint, contemporary with early European 'Tartary' maps.
Places named
Transoxiana; Balkh; Kazakh steppe; Moghulistan; Kashgar; Siberia (Tura)
Peoples named
Ashtarkhanids (Janids); Shibanids; Kazakhs; Kirghiz; Moghuls; Qalmaqs (Oirats)