Lost Enlightenment Lost Enlightenment CENTRAL ASIA’S GOLDEN AGE FROM THE ARAB CONQUEST TO TAMERLANE S. Frederick Starr PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Copyright © 2013 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu Jacket art: Detail of ms. Elliott 339, fol. 95v, courtesy of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Starr, S. Frederick. Lost enlightenment : Central Asia’s golden age from the Arab conquest to Tamerlane / S. Frederick Starr. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-691-15773-3 (hardcover) 1. Asia, Central—History—To 1500. I. Title. DS288.3.S73 2013 958’.02—dc23 2013013684 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Minion Pro text with Archer display Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 To strive for knowledge is the duty of every Muslim. —Saying or Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, recorded in the tenth century by the scholar Abu Isa Muhammad Tirmidhi (824–892) from Tirmidh (Termez), and inscribed at the entrance to the madrasa of Ulughbeg, ruler and astronomer, Samarkand, ca 1420 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And with all thy getting, get understanding. —Bible, Proverbs 4.7, King James Version Contents List of Illustrations ix Preface xiii Dramatis Personae xxi Chronology xxxi CHAPTER 1 The Center of the World 1 CHAPTER 2 Worldly Urbanists, Ancient Land 28 CHAPTER 3 A Cauldron of Skills, Ideas, and Faiths 62 CHAPTER 4 How Arabs Conquered Central Asia and Central Asia Then Set the Stage to Conquer Baghdad 101 CHAPTER 5 East Wind over Baghdad 126 CHAPTER 6 Wandering Scholars 156 CHAPTER 7 Khurasan: Central Asia’s Rising Star 194 CHAPTER 8 A Flowering of Central Asia: The Samanid Dynasty 225 CHAPTER 9 A Moment in the Desert: Gurganj under the Mamuns 267 CHAPTER 10 Turks Take the Stage: Mahmud of Kashgar and Yusuf of Balasagun 303 CHAPTER 11 Culture under a Turkic Marauder: Mahmud’s Ghazni 332 CHAPTER 12 Tremors under the Dome of Seljuk Rule 381 CHAPTER 13 The Mongol Century 436 CHAPTER 14 Tamerlane and His Successors 478 CHAPTER 15 Retrospective: The Sand and the Oyster 515 Notes 541 Index 611 Illustrations M APS 1. Central Asia xxxviii 2. Some principal cities and sites of Central Asia’s golden age xxxix P LATES Following page 292 1. The walls of Balkh today 2. Tenth-century residence at Sayod, Tajkistan 3. Papermaking in Khwarazm 4. Fresco from sixth-century Afrasiab, now Samarkand 5. Fragment of a mural from a house at Balalyk-Tepe, Tajikistan 6. Page from a fifteenth-century Egyptian copy of an astrological treatise by Abu Mashar of Balkh 7. Painting of a woman, one of many from a bathhouse at Nishapur 8. Depiction of an early seventh-century siege of Aleppo in Syria from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh 9. Miniature Central Asian painting depicting a central moment of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh 10. Tenth-century Tomb of Ismail Samani at Bukhara 11. Contemporary miniature showing thinkers gathered at Gurganj in Khwarazm around AD 1000 12. Page from a manuscript, Kitab al-Tafhim, setting forth Biruni’s process of using a lunar eclipse to calculate distance and time 13. The Prophet Muhammad preaching 14. Illustration from Ibn Sina’s Canon depicting patients lining up to present their glass beakers for diagnosis 15. Mahmud of Kashgar’s ethno-linguistic map of the Turkic peoples 16. Minaret from 1108–1109 in Jarkurgan, Uzbekistan, designed by architect Ali bin Muhammad of Sarakhs 17. A diminutive Mahmud of Ghazni receiving an honorific robe from the caliph 18. Miniature painting showing the murder of Nizam al-Mulk on October 14, 1092, by Ismaili assassins 19. Sultan Sanjar giving alms 20. Sanjar’s vast mausoleum at Merv 21. A Mongol siege in progress 22. Chinggis Khan as portrayed by a Chinese artist of his century 23. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi at work with his multinational team of scientific colleagues 24. Timur, known in the West as Tamerlane, as depicted by later court painter Kamoliddin Bihzad (1450–1537) from Herat, Afghanistan 25. Timur covered the entire outer and inner walls of his buildings with brightly colored tiles, a practice that soon spread throughout the Muslim world 26. Sprawling mosque, named for Timur’s Uyghur wife, Bibi Khanym, after it was reconstructed during the Soviet era 27. Contemporary painting of Timur driving the workmen at the Bibi Khanym mosque, Samarkand 28. Sketch by the artist Bihzad 29. Astronomers attempting to conduct research in the Ottoman empire F IGURES 1.1. Graceful musicians from a Kushan-era limestone frieze, Airtam, Uzbekistan (first to third centuries) 23 2.1. Kyz Kala, a grandee’s residence at Merv, sixth to seventh centuries