[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Dark Ages](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages) › [Kashmir](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir) › [Tārīkh-i Rashīdī](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi) › [The Tarikh-i-Rashidi (Elias, Ross)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross) › 10.3 # The Rashīdī History 10.3 The Tarikh-i-Rashidi (Elias, Ross) 10.3 - **Language:** English ### [10.3.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3.1) Of the Eastern Khanate, or Uighuristan, nothing is to be gleaned from any Musulman author accessible to me, subsequent to the date of Mirza Haidar's history. A short fragment regarding the succession of the Khans, however, is to be found in Dr. Bretschneider's extracts from the Chinese history of the Mings. It is related there that on Mansur Khan's death, in 1545, he designated his eldest son, Sha (Shah Khan), to be his successor; but Sha's brother Ma-hei-ma (Muhammad) laid claim to the throne, and though he did not succeed in obtaining it, took possession of a part of Hami—a province which was included in his brother's dominions. Afterwards he allied himself with the "Wa-la" (the Oirat or Kalmaks), and with their assistance attacked Shah Khan. No date for this last event is given, nor is the result of the attack mentioned; it is not clear, therefore, whether he gained the throne by force, or by what means. All that is vouchsafed is that Shah Khan died in 1570, and was succeeded on "the throne of Tulufan" (Turfan) by Ma-hei-ma, when three other brothers revolted against him. One of these was named So-fei (Sufi), of whom it is recorded that he "aspired to the crown," called himself Su-tan (Sultan), and that he sent an embassy to China. ### [10.3.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3.2) As the Khans and their descendants tottered to their fall, the Kirghiz began to descend into the lowlands of Alti-Shahr and interfere, directly, in the affairs of their old opponents. They were, in some cases, the supporters of influential priests, or Khwajas, who were rapidly acquiring an influence that was to gain for them the sovereign power in the country; but without attempting here to follow all the gradual changes that brought about the establishment of these new rulers, it may be said generally, that before the middle of the seventeenth century, the priests and saintly teachers, spoken of above, had acquired so great an authority, that the governing power of the country was rapidly passing into their hands. Their ascendency was the direct result of the encouragement they had received, for some generations past, from the superstitious Khans and Amirs of all the surrounding countries, and it is hardly a matter for surprise that their power, as a class, should develop, or if, when the authority of the dynastic chiefs in Eastern Turkistan was decaying, they should take advantage of the situation to build up a government of their own. As Khwajas, or reputed descendants of the Prophet, their lineage was undeniable, and ranked, in the estimation of Musulman zealots, far in advance of that of any of the Khans or Sultans who held the secular power. ### [10.3.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3.3) They had no special nationality, but formed a class or brotherhood of devotees, banded together in aim and design, though wandering or dwelling, separately, in all the countries of Central Asia. They became expounders of the Musulman law, and the executive authority (such as it was) dare not oppose them; they were also workers of miracles and healers of the sick, and in these capacities obtained a hold over the minds of the mass of the people. "Their tombs," Dr. Bellew tells us, "were converted into sacred shrines endowed with all sorts of munificent virtues. Rich grants of land were apportioned by successive Khans for the support of their establishments, whose presiding elders in return dispensed, in the name of their patron saint, endless favours and bounties to an illiterate and superstitious peasantry." The Khwajas, in short, were a class that had been evolved by all that had gone before, during the rule of the Moghul Khans—a rule that had begun with the raiding and lawlessness of irresponsible nomads, and had ended with the hypocrisy and fanaticism that usually mark a people incapable of attaining to any degree of civilization. In the Khwajas they unconsciously raised up rivals who were to displace their house, while these, within little over a century, had, for much the same reasons as their predecessors, to quit the stage and make room for others. ### [10.3.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3.4) They had scarcely begun to wield the power that had fallen into their hands when, as is the case with most governments and dynasties of Asia, discord began to spring up among them, and their brotherhood was divided into two opposing camps. One of these was known as the party of the "White Mountain," and the other as that of the "Black Mountain"—the Ak-taghlik and the Kara-taghlik. Their feuds were at first based on religious dissensions, but this rendered them none the less bitter: they soon developed into political strife, which would speedily have brought about the end of their rule, but for the support that both parties obtained from the Kirghiz. The White mountaineers summoned the nomad clans from Moghulistan, while the Black mountaineers called in those from the Pamir region; and though the White party, under the leadership of the celebrated saint, Khwaja Hidayat Ullah (better known as Hazrat Afak) obtained the upper hand for a time towards the end of the seventeenth century, their perpetual contentions resulted in the entire country falling first into the hands of the Kalmâks, and finally passing to the rule of the Manchu Emperors of China. Thus the Kirghiz were amply avenged on their ancient enemies, and began to form the great confederacies that have endured to the present day. ### [10.3.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3.5) They and their kinsmen, the Kazâks, not only prospered in their own way, but multiplied, so that at the present time they represent a large section of the population in the Russian Asiatic dominions. Both families are found spread over the whole of the provinces of Central Asia, north of the Sir and the western Tian Shan, in large, if somewhat scattered, communities. Thus, of the Kirghiz proper (the 'Black,' or 'Hill,' Kirghiz of the Russians), the estimates compiled by Mr. P. Lerch in 1873, from various sources, show a total of about 176,000 persons, while a good many more, for whom no numerical estimate is forthcoming, are known to exist in the Chinese provinces to the east of the Russian possessions, and in the hill tracts of Southern Farghâna and the Pamirs. The Kazâks—the Uzbeg-Kazak of Mirza Haidar—are even more numerous. For those who are still nomadic in their mode of life, sufficiently ample statistics were available, about twenty years ago, to enable Mr. Lerch to sum up their total numbers, in Russian territory, as some 867,000 souls. But to this section also, some addition would have to be made for communities living in Chinese territory. Moreover, the figures furnished refer only to the nomads among both the Kazak and the so-called Kirghiz proper. ### [10.3.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3.6) There are, however, sections of settled Kazaks who are fairly numerous in the Zarafshân valley, Kurama, etc., but they are so much intermingled with the Uzbegs and Tajiks of those regions, that their strength was not (at the time Mr. Lerch wrote) to be ascertained with any degree of certainty. At the same time the other tribal enemies of the Moghuls—the Uzbegs proper—who had become established in Transoxiana since the early part of the sixteenth century, continued their sway under the dynasty then founded, down to a date about coeval with the break up of the Moghul kingdom; while, indirectly and after many vicissitudes, they gave rise to the line of Bokhara Khans now reigning. Mirza Haidar's own successors in Kashmir are, for some thirty-five years subsequent to his time, to be found among the members of the families, to whose weakness and incapacity he owed his own successful regency of nearly eleven years — a term not often reached, about that period, by any of the native chiefs. After his death, the same internal strife and disorder prevailed, that had been habitual for many years before his government began, so that no less than eight kings are recorded to have reigned between the years 1551 and 1587, when Akbar stepped in and finally annexed the country to the dominions of the Chaghatais in India. ### [10.3.7](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3.7) A small residue of the Moghuls still exists among the Turki inhabitants of Eastern Turkistan. The number is trifling indeed, and they are scattered chiefly among the northern towns, where, however, they form no separate communities; on the contrary, they are so much mixed in blood that no one but their immediate neighbours and associates are aware of any difference in their origin to that of the people around them. Still, a difference is so far acknowledged that they are called, and call themselves, Moghuls. In this capacity it must be said, according to the testimony of Dr. Bellew, that they enjoy very little respect: rather they are given over to the meanest modes of life, and are looked down upon as an inferior people. ### [10.3.8](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3.8) It is possible that some may also exist in Western Turkistan, Farghana or Transoxiana, but I know of no mention of them in these countries. In the northern Hazara country, and on the Indian frontier of Afghanistan (among the divisions of the Afridis) we find sub-tribes still flourishing under the name of Mengal or Mangal, who, Sir H. Howorth believes, may very possibly be remnants of the Mongols, and may thus represent the Moghuls of a later date. Just as the Hazaras still form a people apart, having descended from Mongol invaders of the country they now inhabit, it may also be that the Mangals are a relic of some other Mongolian army which overran Afghanistan in the days of Chingiz or one of his successors. But whether the features and language of the Mangals show any trace of such an origin, I have no information. ### [10.3.9](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3.9) Perhaps it may be in India that Moghuls, of one variety or another, are more numerously represented than elsewhere at the present day. In the course of the operations connected with the compilation of the census of the Punjab, in 1881, Mr. Denzil Ibbetson found large numbers of people claiming the name of Moghul, many of whom, though perhaps descended from the tribesmen who entered India at the time of Baber or Humayun, can scarcely owe their origin to the Moghuls of Moghulistan—the true Moghul Ulus of Mirza Haidar. Such as they are, however, they are chiefly to be found in the neighbourhood of Delhi, in the Rawal Pindi division, and on the routes that cross the northern frontiers of the province. In these localities they are divided into numerous sub-tribes, but of real Moghuls among them, only those calling themselves Chaghatai and Barlas seem to be numerously represented. For the former, Mr. Ibbetson gives 23,593 as the total number, and of the latter 12,137. But how far they have retained the characteristics of their race, or whether, in their changed condition, they would be recognised as the blood relations of the present Mongols of Mongolia, or even of the Hazaras of Afghanistan, there is nothing to show. Still, something of the Mongoloid type must remain, it would seem, to support their individuality as a tribe. ### [10.3.10](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3.10) On the frontiers of India, apparently, as in Eastern Turkistan, the descendants of the Moghuls do not bear a good name; but with the people of a tribe that has fallen from a position of supremacy, and one that at no time has had any very high qualities to recommend it, this is perhaps not surprising. The national character of a community would naturally degenerate with the loss of political and military power, and in the absence of a consciousness among its members, that they belonged to a ruling caste. The more remarkable circumstance is that the race, when transplanted to a foreign country as populous as India, should have endured at all, and that it should still show any signs of individuality. The fact that Moghuls of any variety should yet remain as a people, is one more piece of evidence which may be added to those mentioned in Section IV. above, that many hundreds of years are needed to eradicate the Mongol type, or to blot out its racial affinities, even when overlaid by the superior numbers of an alien nation. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.10.3) · Pramāṇa