The Nāṣirī Generations 248.3.3

248.3.3

If ethnologists were to do so, they would commit a terrible blunder. The error of asserting that the name of Tatar—which appears in the earliest of the Muhammadan writers—is modern, is not greater than the assertion that they owed the name “to the prominent place they occupied in the army of Zingis (or Genghis) Khan.” “The Tatars of Eastern Mongolia” did not occupy “a prominent place in the army of Zingis (or Genghis);” but the Mughal i-mak did; and the Tatars contained in it, who were comparatively few, had been compelled, by the Chingiz Khan, to join him. Again [page 738]: “The Scythians are divided into four great races. 1. The Mongolians are the least numerous, though many writers apply their name to the whole family, in consequence of the fame of their chief Zingis Khan 2. The Tungusian race... 3. The Ugrian race... 4. The Turk occupied not only the great region of West Central Asia, from the Lake Baikal to the Caspian, which the progress of Russia is fast depriving of the name of Independent Tartary, but they extended over the vast steppes of south-eastern Europe, round the northern sides of the Caspian, the Caucasus, and the partition from the Slavonian race is a difficult problem.”