The Nāṣirī Generations 247.8

247.8

The six sons of Aghuz Khan are named; 1. Kun — or Kun — which signifies sun, 2. Ae or A-i — 3. Yal-duz— Yul-duz— Yul-duz— or I-yal-duz — star, who were the eldest or Badz-uki; and 4. Kuk — or Kuk — sky, 5. Tagh — or Tagh — and Dagh— [Turks use t where ’Ajamis use d, and substitute b where the latter use f] mountain; and 6. Tingiz — sea, but probably lake, and this name is still used for the great lake known as the Bal Kash, or the Tingiz. From these six sons descended twenty-four sons, and, according to some historians, each had four sons, while some others say that each of the brothers had six sons, but this last seems an error. Abu-l-Ghazi states that each of the six brothers had four legitimate sons, and also four natural sons, which appears from the very even numbers to be doubtful and improbable, and is totally contrary to other writers, thus making them forty-eight in all; but, farther on, he again contradicts his own words. The Akbar Namah of Abu-l-Fazl, contrary to all others, asserts that Aghuz’s sons and sons’ sons are twenty-four in all, and that “the whole of the Turk-mans” are descended from these patriarchs or great men. This statement does not give us a very favourable opinion of that writer’s knowledge of his subject, and, if all these six sons’ descendants were Turk-mans, where does he manage to get a Mughul pedigree for his master from? This is what my Akbar Namahs have: what other Akbar Namahs may contain I am unaware.