Khorasan, Greater
Substate | Active
224 CE to 2057 CE
Khorasan, also written as Khurasan, is a historical region lying in the northeast of Persia, covering also parts of Central Asia and Afghanistan.
The name Khorasan is Persian and means "where the sun arrives from."
First established as a political entity by the Sassanids in the third century CE, the borders of the region have varied considerably during its 1600-year history.
Initially the Khorasan province of Sassanid empire includes the cities of Nishapur, Herat, Merv, Faryab, Taloqan, Balkh, Bukhara, Badghis, Abiward, Gharjistan, Tus or Susia, Sarakhs and Gurgan.
Some believe that at certain times Khorasan covered a wider area, which included parts of Transoxiana, Soghdiana, Sistan, and extended to the boundaries of the Indian subcontinent.
It acquires its greatest extent under the Caliphs, for whom "Khorasan" is the name of one of the three political zones under their dominion (the other two being Eraq-e Arab "Arabic Iraq" and Eraq-e Ajam "Non-Arabic Iraq or Persian Iraq").
Under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, Khorasan is divided into four major sections or quarters (rub′), each section based on a single major city: Nishapur (now in northeastern Iran), Merv (now in southern Turkmenistan), Herat and Balkh (both now in Afghanistan).When the Arabs first arrive to the southern Hindu Kush to defeat the Zunbils, they recognize it as al-Hind (Sind), owing to the prevalence of Buddhists and Hindus (non-Zoroastrians) due to its cultural connection with Greater India.
Sources from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century report that areas in the south of the Hindu Kush mountain range (Zamindawar, Balochistan, and Kabulistan) formed a frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan.
In the Islamic period, Persian Iraq and Khorasan are the two important territories.
The boundary between these two is the region surrounding the cities of Gurgan and Damghan.
In particular, the Ghaznavids, Seljuqs, and Timurids divide their empires into Iraqi and Khorasani regions.
The adjective Greater is added these days to distinguish the historical region from the Khorasan Province of Iran, which roughly encompasses the western half of the historical Greater Khorasan
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Tamerlane, variously described as of Mongol or Turkic origin, is the next ruler to achieve emperor status.
He conquer Transoxiana proper and by 1381 establishes himself as sovereign.
He does not have the huge forces of earlier Mongol leaders, so his conquests are slower and less savage than those of Genghis Khan or Hulagu Khan.
Nevertheless, Shiraz and ...
Hajji Beg is first mentioned in 1358 or 1359, when he participated in the overthrow of the Qara'unas ‘Abdullah, who was effectively in control of the southern Chagatai Khanate.
'Abd Allah, who had recently taken power, was young and inexperienced, and his move to Samarkand threatened Hajji Beg, whose territories were centered in the nearby city of Kesh.
Together with another tribal leader named Buyan Suldus, Hajji Beg removed him from power and killed his puppet khan Shah Temur.
Buyan Suldus was then raised to 'Abd Allah's former position of amir.
Buyan Suldus' refusal to enforce his authority, as well as a continuing state of chaos within the Chagatai ulus, leads the Khan of Moghulistan, Tughlugh Timur, to invade in 1360.
Most of the Chagatai leaders do not oppose the invasion; many of them take the opportunity to pillage each other's lands.
The Yasa'ur Hajji Mahmudshah, whose tribe borders the Barlas, decides to raid their territory with a Moghul army.
Hajji Beg decides at first to resist, but seeing that the Moghuls are much stronger, he flees to Khorasan.
During his retreat, Hajji Beg is accompanied by Timur, a member of a prominent Barlas family, who are Mongols that had been Turkified.
At the age of eight or nine, Timur and his mother and brothers were carried as prisoners to Samarkand by an invading Mongol army.
In his childhood, Timur and a small band of followers raided travelers for goods, especially animals such as sheep, horses, and cattle.
When Hajji Beg’s party reaches the Oxus River, Timur asks to return to Kish so that he can maintain order within the Barlas region.
Timur's prominent standings within the Barlas and with several members of the Moghul elite, however, result in Tughlugh Temur's appointing him as the ruler of the Barlas region.
Timur now aligns himself with tribal leaders that are hostile to Hajji Beg, eventually throwing his support behind Amir Husayn, a nephew of 'Abd Allah and the current leader of the Qara'unas.
In the meantime, the Moghuls abandon the region and head back to Moghulistan.
Soon afterwards, Hajji Beg returns to the Chagatai ulus in an effort to regain control of the Barlas.
He goes to the ruler of the Jalayir, Bayazid, and together they attack the Yasa'uri.
When Timur hears of this, he moves his army in support of the Yasa'uri.
The two sides meet in battle, and while its outcome is disagreed upon, it causes the Barlas emirs as well as the army to defect back to Hajji Beg.
As a result, Timur is constrained to submit to Hajji Beg.
The Barlas and Jalayir then again attack the Yasa'uri and defeats them; this victory secures Hajji Beg's position as leader of his tribe.
In the spring of 1361 Tughlugh Timur again invades the ulus.
Knowing that both Bayazid Jalayir and Buyan Suldus had decided to pledge their allegiance to the khan, Hajji Beg plans to do so as well.
Tughlugh Timur's execution of Bayazid, however, prompts him to change his mind.
He goes to Kish to gather troops, then crosses the Oxus into Khurasan, but there he is killed by a group of Turks.
Tughlugh Timur now gives Timur command of Kish a second time, but he will lose it soon afterwards.
It is believed that Timur tried to steal a sheep from a shepherd in around 1363 but was shot by two arrows, one in his right leg and another in his right hand, where he lost two fingers.
Both injuries crippled him for life.
Some believe that Timur suffered his crippling injuries while serving as a mercenary to the khan of Sistan in Khorasan in what is today the Dashti Margo in southwest Afghanistan.
Timur's injuries have given him the names of Timur the Lame and Tamerlane by Europeans.
Timur gains prominence as a military leader whose troops are mostly Turkic tribesmen of the region.
According to Gérard Chaliand, Timur was a Muslim, and he saw himself as Genghis Khan's heir.
Though not a Borjigid or a descendent of Genghis Khan, he clearly sought to invoke the legacy of Genghis Khan's conquests during his lifetime.
His name Temur means "Iron" in old Turkic languages (Uzbek Temir, Turkish Demir).
With the Khan of the Chagatai Khanate, he takes part in campaigns in Transoxiana.
His invasion of Khorasan at the head of a thousand horsemen is the second military expedition that he leads, and its success leads to further operations, …
…among them the subjugation of Khwarezm and Urgench.
Timur reduces the Chagatai khans to the position of figureheads while he rules in their name during this ten- or eleven-year period
Timur and his brother-in-law Husayn, who are at first fellow fugitives and wanderers in joint adventures, become rivals and antagonists during this period, the relationship between them beginning to become strained after Husayn abandons efforts to carry out Timur's orders to finish off Ilya Khoja (former governor of Mawarannah) close to Tishnet.
Timur begins to gain a following of people in Balkh, consisting of merchants, fellow tribesmen, Muslim clergy, aristocracy and agricultural workers, because of his kindness in sharing his belongings with them.
This contrasts Timur's behavior with that of Husayn, who alienates these people, takes many possessions from them via his heavy tax laws and selfishly spends the tax money building elaborate structures.
Husayn surrenders to Timur in 1370 and and is later assassinated, which allows Timur to be formally proclaimed sovereign at Balkh.
He marries Husayn's wife Saray Mulk Khanum, a descendant of Genghis Khan, allowing him to become imperial ruler of the Chaghatai tribe.
The Kurt dynasty, also known as the Kartids, is a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Tajik origin, that has ruled over a large part of Khorasan during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Ruling from their capital at Herat and central Khorasan in the Bamyan, they were at first subordinates of Sultan Abul-Fateh Ghiyāṣ-ud-din Muhammad bin Sām, Sultan of the Ghurid Empire, to whom they were related, and then as vassal princes within the Mongol Empire.
Upon the fragmentation of the Ilkhanate in 1335, Mu'izz-uddin Husayn ibn Ghiyath-uddin had worked to expand his principality.
Upon Mu'izz-uddin Husayn's death in 1370, his son Ghiyas-uddin Pir 'Ali had inherited most of the Kurt lands, except for Sarakhs and a portion of Quhistan.
Timur had invited Ghiyas-uddin Pir 'Ali to a council, so that the latter could submit to him, but after the Kurt attempted to excuse himself from coming by claiming he had to deal with the Shia population in Nishapur, Timur had decided to invade.
He is encouraged by many Khurasanis, included Mu'izzu'd-Din's former vizier Mu'in al-Din Jami, who had sent a letter inviting Timur to intervene in Khurasan, and the influential shaikhs of Jam, who had persuaded many of the Kurt dignitaries to welcome Timur as the latter neared Herat.
Timur in April 1381 arrives before the city, whose citizens are already demoralized and also aware of Timur's offer not to kill anyone that does not take part in the battle.
The city falls, its fortifications are dismantled, theologians and scholars are deported to Timur's homeland, a high tribute is imposed, and Ghiyas-uddin Pir 'Ali and his son are carried off to Samarkand.
Timur had helped Tokhtamysh to assume supreme power in the White Horde against Tokhtamysh's uncle Urus Khan in the late 1370s and early 1380s.
After this, Tokhtamysh had united the White and Blue Hordes, forming the Golden Horde, and launched a massive military punitive campaign against the Russian principalities between 1381 and 1382, restoring the Turko (tartar)-Mongol power in Russia after the defeat in the Battle of Kulikovo.
The Golden Horde, after a period of anarchy between the early 1360s and late 1370s, had thus been briefly reestablished as a dominant regional power, defeating Lithuania in Poltava around 1383.
But Tokhtamysh had territorial ambitions in Persia and Central Asia, and on account of this he turndagainst his old ally, Timur.
After the death of Abu Sa'id in 1335, the last ruler of the Ilkhanid Dynasty, a power vacuum had emerged in Persia, and Persia's vulnerability had led to military incursions from its neighbors.
In 1383 Timur started his military conquest of that country, capturing Herat, Khorasan and all of eastern Persia by 1385.
In the same year, Tokhtamysh raids Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran.
The city of Tabriz is plundered and Tokhtamysh retires with a rich booty.
The Mamluk sultans of Egypt, successors to the Ayyubids, rule from the Nile to the Euphrates by the fourteenth century, after repelling repeated invasions by Mongols from the north.
Their great citadels and monuments still stand, although Timur's destruction of much of Damascus in 1402 seriously damages such edifices as the Great Umayyad Mosque.
The Ottoman sultan in Turkey defeats the Mamluks at Aleppo in 1516 and makes Syria a province of a new Muslim empire.