Legendary The Khwarezmian scholar
Al-Biruni (973–1048) •
Kelteminar culture •
Suyarganovo culture •
Tazabagyab culture • Amirabad Culture •
Saka During the final Saka phase, there were about 400 settlements in Khwarezm. Ruled by the native
Afrighid dynasty, it was at this point that Khwarezm entered the historical record with the
Achaemenid expansion.
Khwarezmian language and culture An
East Iranian language,
Khwarezmian was spoken in Khwarezm proper (i.e., the lower
Amu Darya region) until soon after the
Mongol invasion, when it was replaced by
Turkic languages. It was closely related to
Sogdian. Other than the
astronomical terms used by the native Iranian Khwarezmian speaker
Al-Biruni, our other sources of Khwarezmian include
al-Zamakhshari's
Arabic–
Persian–Khwarezmian dictionary and several legal texts that use Khwarezmian terms to explain certain legal concepts.
Tower of Silence (
Dakhma), 1st century BC – 1st century AD For most of its history, up until the Mongol conquest, the inhabitants of the area were from Iranian stock, and they spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Khwarezmian. The scientist Al-Biruni, a Khwarezm native, in his
Athar ul-Baqiyah, specifically verifies the Iranian origins of Khwarezmians when he wrote (in Arabic): ("The people of Khwarezm were a branch from the Persian tree.") The area of Khwarezm was under
Afrighid and then
Samanid control until the 10th century before it was conquered by the
Ghaznavids. The Iranian Khwarezmian language and culture felt the pressure of
Turkic infiltration from northern Khwarezm southwards, leading to the disappearance of the original Iranian character And the
Persian poet
Ferdowsi mentions Persian cities like
Afrasiab and
Chach in abundance in his epic
Shahnama. The contact with the Achaemenid Empire had a great influence on the material culture of Chorasmia, starting a period of rich economic and cultural development. By the time of the Persian king
Darius III, Khwarazm had already become an independent kingdom.
Hellenistic period {{multiple image|perrow=2|total_width=300|caption_align=center Chorasmia was involved in the conquests of
Alexander the Great in Central Asia. When the king of Khwarezm offered friendship to Alexander in 328 BC, Alexander's Greek and Roman biographers imagined the nomad king of a desert waste, but 20th-century Russian
archeologists revealed the region as a stable and centralized kingdom, a land of agriculture to the east of the
Aral Sea, surrounded by the nomads of Central Asia, protected by its army of mailed horsemen, in the most powerful kingdom northwest of the
Amu Darya (the
Oxus River of antiquity). The king's emissary offered to lead Alexander's armies against his own enemies, west over the Caspian towards the
Black Sea (e.g.
Kingdom of Iberia and
Colchis). Khwarezm was largely independent during the
Seleucid,
Greco-Bactrian and
Arsacid dynasties. Numerous fortresses were built, and the Khwarazm oasis has been dubbed the "
Fifty fortresses oasis". Chorasmia remained relatively sheltered from the interests of the
Seleucid Empire or Greco-Bactria, but various elements of
Hellenistic art appear in the ruins of Chorasmian cities, particularly at
Akchakhan-Kala, and the influence of the
Greco-Buddhist art of
Gandhara, reflecting the rise of
Kushan Empire, appears at
Toprak-Kala.
Parthian artistic influences have also been described. From the 1st century BC, Chorasmia developed original coins inspired from Greco-Bactrian, Parthian, and
Indo-Scythian types.
Artav (Artabanus), a Chorasmian ruler of the 1st–2nd century AD, whose coins were discovered in the capital city of Toprak-Kala, imitated the type of the Kushan
Heraios and were found together with coins of the Kushan rulers
Vima Kadphises and
Kanishka. From the 2nd century AD, Chorasmia became part of the vast cultural sphere corresponding to the rise of the Kushan Empire in the east. During the reign of
Khosrow II, extensive areas of Khwarezm were conquered. The fact that
Pahlavi script which was used by the
Persian bureaucracy alongside
Old Persian, passed into use in Khwarezmia where it served as the first local
alphabet about the
AD 2nd century, as well as evidence that
Khwarezm-Shahs such as
ʿAlā al-Dīn Tekish (1172–1200) issued all their orders (both administrative and public) in the
Persian language, corroborates Al-Biruni's claims. It was also a vassal kingdom during periods of
Kushans,
Hephthalites and
Gokturks power before the coming of the Arabs.
Afrighids . Dated 658 AD,
British Museum. The bowl is similar to that of the
Sassanians, who were ruling the region since early 200's. It displays a fusion of Roman-Hellenistic, Indian and Persian cultural influencies. Per
Al-Biruni, the Afrighids of
Kath () were a native
Khwarezmian Iranian dynasty which ruled as the Shahs of Khwarezm from 305 to 995 AD. At times they were under
Sassanian suzerainty. In 712, Khwarezm was conquered by the
Arab Caliphate (
Umayyads and
Abbasids). It thus came vaguely under Muslim control, but it was not till the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the 9th century that an Afrighid Shah first converted to Islam appearing with the popular convert's name of ʿAbdullah ('slave of God'). In the course of the 10th century—when some geographers such as
Istakhri in his
Al-Masalik wa-l-mamalik mention Khwarezm as part of
Khorasan and
Transoxiania—the local
Ma'munids, based in
Gurganj on the left bank of the Amu Darya, grew in economic and political importance due to trade caravans. In 995, they violently overthrew the Afrighids and themselves assumed the traditional title of Khwarazm-Shah. Briefly, the area was under
Samanid suzerainty, before it passed to
Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017. From then on, Turko-Mongolian invasions and long rule by Turko-Mongol dynasties supplanted the
Iranian character of the region In response, Mahmud invaded and occupied the region of Khwarazm, which included Nasa and the
ribat of
Farawa. As a result, Khwarazm became a province of the
Ghaznavid Empire from 1017 to 1034. In 1077, the governorship of the province, which since 1042/1043 belonged to the
Seljuqs, fell into the hands of
Anush Tigin Gharchai, a former
Turkic slave of the Seljuq sultan. In 1141, the Seljuq Sultan
Ahmed Sanjar was defeated by the
Qara Khitai at the
battle of Qatwan, and Anush Tigin's grandson
Ala ad-Din Atsiz became a vassal to
Yelü Dashi of the
Qara Khitan. Sultan Ahmed Sanjar died in 1156. As the Seljuk state fell into chaos, the Khwarezm-Shahs expanded their territories southward. In 1194, the last Sultan of the
Great Seljuq Empire,
Toghrul III, was defeated and killed by the Khwarezm ruler
Ala ad-Din Tekish, who conquered parts of
Khorasan and western Iran. In 1200, Tekish died and was succeeded by his son,
Ala ad-Din Muhammad, who initiated a conflict with the
Ghurids and was defeated by them at Amu Darya (1204). Following the sack of Khwarizm, Muhammad appealed for aid from his
suzerain, the Qara Khitai who sent him an army. With this reinforcement, Muhammad won a victory over the Ghorids at Hezarasp (1204) and forced them out of Khwarizm.
Mongol conquest by Genghis Khan The Khwarezmid Empire ruled over all of Persia in the early 13th century under
Shah ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muhammad II (1200–1220). From 1218 to 1220,
Genghis Khan conquered Central Asia including the
Kara-Khitai Khanate, thus ending the Khwarezmid Empire. Sultan Muhammad died after retreating from the Mongols near the Caspian Sea, while his son
Jalal ad-Din, after being defeated by Genghis Khan at the
Battle of Indus, sought refuge with the
Delhi Sultanate, and was later assassinated after various attempts to defeat the Mongols and the
Seljuks.
Khwarezm during the rule of Qunghrat dynasty (1360–1388) In 1360 there arose in Ḵwarazm an independent minor dynasty of Qunghrat Turks, the Ṣūfīs, but Solaymān Ṣūfī was crushed by
Timur in 1388. The rumors of gold on the banks of the
Amu Darya during the reign of Russia's
Peter the Great, together with the desire of the
Russian Empire to open a trade route to the Indus (modern day
Pakistan), prompted an armed trade expedition to the region, led by Prince
Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky, which was repelled by Khiva.
Khwarazm during the reign Uzbek dynasty of Qungrats During the reign of the Uzbek Khan Said Muhammad Khan (1856–1864) in the 1850s, for the first time in the history of Khwarazm, a general population census of Khwarazm was carried out.
Khwarazm in 1873–1920 It was under Tsars
Alexander II and
Alexander III that serious efforts to annex the region started. One of the main pretexts for Russian military expeditions to Khiva was to free Russian slaves in the khanate and to prevent future slave capture and trade. Early in
The Great Game, Russian interests in the region collided with those of the
British Empire in the
First Anglo-Afghan War in 1839. The Khanate of Khiva was gradually reduced in size from Russian expansion in
Turkestan (including Khwarezm) and, in 1873, a peace treaty was signed that established Khiva as a quasi-independent Russian
protectorate. In 1912, the Khiva Khanate numbered up to 440 schools and up to 65
madrasahs with 22,500 students. More than half of the madrasahs were in the city of Khiva (38).
Soviet period After the
Bolshevik seizure of power in the
October Revolution, a short-lived
Khorezm People's Soviet Republic (later the Khorezm SSR) was created out of the territory of the old Khanate of Khiva, before in 1924 it was finally incorporated into the
Soviet Union, with the former Khanate divided between the new
Turkmen SSR,
Uzbek SSR and
Karakalpakstan ASSR (initially part of
Kazakh ASSR as Karakalpak Oblast). The larger historical area of Khwarezm is further divided. Northern Khwarezm became the
Uzbek SSR, and in 1925 the western part became the
Turkmen SSR. Also, in 1936 the northwestern part became the
Kazakh SSR. Following the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991, these became Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and
Kazakhstan respectively. Many of the ancient Khwarezmian towns now lie in
Xorazm Region, Uzbekistan. Today, the area that was Khwarezm has a mixed population of
Uzbeks,
Karakalpaks,
Turkmens,
Tajiks,
Tatars, and
Kazakhs. ==In Persian literature==