The Shibanids, more accurately, the Abu'l‐Khayrid‐Shibanids, were a Turco‐Mongol Muslim dynasty of Chinggisid origin, who ruled the settled regions of southern Central Asia from 1500 until 1598. Replacing the non‐Chingissid Timurid rulers in these regions, they were direct descendants of Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan) (d.1227), tracing their lineage through Shiban, a son of Juchi, Chinggis Khan's eldest son, whose descendants formed the ruling family of the “Golden Horde.” The establishment of the Shibanid Empire in former Timurid territories signified the “restoration” of Chinggisid sovereignty and the formation of a new political culture which emphasized shared sovereignty and power distribution. While the dynasty itself was short lived, its underlying political framework and principles proved dynamic and durable, lasting into the early 19th century.
s edited volume, Islamic Central Asia: An Anthology of Historical Sources, is a welcome and much-needed contribution to the growing literature in English on the history of Central Asia, in particular, and the Islamicate world in general. Central Asia is often neglected in the curriculum, and thus this book fills a significant gap. As its title suggests, this book is a collection of carefully selected excerpts from a diverse range of primary historical sources dealing with Central Asia from the beginning of the Islamic expansion into the region in the eighth century until its incorporation into Russian colonial rule in the late nineteenth century.As the authors state, their main purpose is to provide primary source material for classroom instruction and future research on the history of Central Asia, and it certainly succeeds in that goal. The excerpts in this collection provide excellent materials both for survey courses on the history of Central Asia and more specialized thematically oriented courses. For those of us who teach the history of Central Asia and have felt constrained by a lack of available primary source materials in English, this book has certainly made our job easier. Furthermore, the collection is also useful for more general courses on the history of Islamic societies, which often neglect Central Asia and its crucial contributions to the formation of Islamic cultures and institutions. The selections in this collection clearly demonstrate Central Asia has played a dynamic role in Islamic and world history, a role which challenges the conventional framework that shapes many textbooks and courses on Islamic history.The fundamental strength of this book is the number and range of sources from which excerpts are drawn, taken from 55 different historical sources. While 38 of these are reproductions of already translated material-many of which are out of print and difficult to access-the rest have been made available in English for the first time. The selection of previously translated texts includes both relatively well-known sources for Central Asian and Islamic history, including The History of al-Tabari; Nizam al-Mulk's The Siyar al-Muluk or Siyasat-nama; The Travels of Ibn Battuta; Rashid al-Din Tabib's Jami al-Tawarikh; Juzjani's Tabakat-i Nasiri; and Babur's Baburnama, as well as lesser known texts that have only rarely been used in a classroom environment. Furthermore, the authors provide trans-
The Timurids were a Muslim dynasty of Turco‐Mongol origin who ruled large parts of Persia and Central Asia from the late 14th to the early 16th century, until they were ultimately replaced by the Safavid dynasty in Iran and the Shibanid‐Uzbeks in southern Central Asia. The founder of the dynasty, Temür (r.1370–1405) was one of the last great nomadic conquerors of Eurasia who reshaped the political and cultural environment from the Caucasus to northern India. Despite his vast conquests and self‐conscious emulation of Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan) (r.1206–1227), the core of his empire remained limited to the western part of the Mongol Empire, especially the settled areas of Persia and part of Central Asia. Temür's descendants, the Timurids, engaged in a series of destructive succession struggles and by the mid‐15th century had lost control of parts of their empire. Nevertheless, they presided over one of the most artistically brilliant periods in Islamicate history, often dubbed “the Timurid Renaissance.” Their broad cultural and artistic patronage led to the development of one of the most sophisticated courts in premodern Eurasia. Having emerged in the wake of the fragmentation of the unified Mongol Empire in the mid‐14th century, a crucial period of transition in Central Eurasia, the Timurid Empire lasted only a century and half. But the artistic and cultural legacy of the dynasty influenced the art, culture, and politics of its successor states as well as the great premodern Islamicate empires – the Ottomans in Anatolia, the Safavids in Iran, and especially the Mughals in northern India, where the descendants of Temür under Zahir al‐Din Muhammad Babur (d.1530), established a new and long‐lasting Timurid empire in South Asia.
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