emirate of Bukhara

Buxoro Amirligi Emirate of Bukhara ← 1785–1920 → Flag The Emirate of Bukhara (green), c. 1850. Capital Bukhara Language(s) Persian, Uzbek and Bukhori Religion Sunni Islam, Sufism (Naqshbandi), Judaism Government Monarchy Emir  - 1785–1800 Mir Masum Shah Murad  - 1911–1920 Alim History  - Manghit control 1747  - Established 1785  - Conquered by Russia 1868  - Russian protectorate 1873  - Disestablished October 1920

The Emirate of Bukhara (Uzbek: Buxoro Amirligi; Tajik: Аморати Бухоро Aromati Buxoro) was a Central Asian state that existed from 1785 to 1920. It occupied the land between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, known formerly as Transoxiana. Its core territory was the land along the lower Zarafshan River, and its urban centres were the ancient cities of Samarkand and the emirate's capital, Bukhara. It was contemporaneous with the Khanate of Khiva to the west, in Khwarezm, and the Khanate of Kokand to the east, in Fergana.

History

Mohammed Alim Khan (1880–1944), the last Emir of Bukhara. Picture taken by Prokudin-Gorski in 1911

The Emirate of Bukhara (top), with Kabool (centre) and Balochistan (bottom and right)

The Emirate of Bukhara was officially created in 1785, upon the assumption of rulership by the Manghit emir, Shah Murad. Over the course of the 18th century, the emirs had slowly gained effective control of the Khanate of Bukhara, from their position as ataliq. By the 1740s, when the khanate was conquered by Nadir Shah of Persia, it was clear that the emirs held the real power. In 1747 after Nadir Shah's death, the ataliq Muhammad Rahim Bi murdered Abulfayz Khan and his son, ending the Janid dynasty. From then on the emirs allowed puppet khans to rule until, following the death of Abu l-Ghazi Khan, Shah Murad assumed the throne openly.^[1]

Fitzroy Maclean recounts in Eastern Approaches how Charles Stoddart and Arthur Conolly were executed by Nasrullah Khan in the context of The Great Game, and how Joseph Wolff, known as the Eccentric Missionary, escaped their fate when he came looking for them in 1845. He was wearing his full canonical costume, which caused the Emir to burst out laughing, and "Dr. Wolff was eventually suffered to leave Bokhara, greatly to the surprise of the populace, who were not accustomed to such clemency." ^[2].

In 1868 the emirate lost a war with Imperial Russia, which had colonial aspirations in the region. Russia annexed much of the emirate's territory, including Samarkand.^[3] In 1873 the remainder became a Russian protectorate,^[4] and was soon surrounded by the Governorate-General of Turkestan.

Reformists within the Emirate had found the conservative emir, Mohammed Alim Khan, unwilling to loosen his grip on power, and had turned to the Russian Bolshevik revolutionaries for military assistance. The Red Army launched an unsuccessful assault in March 1920, and then a successful one in September of the same year.^[5] The Emirate of Bukhara was conquered by the Bolsheviks and replaced with the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic. Today the territory of the defunct emirate lies mostly in Uzbekistan, with parts in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Culture

Around the 16th century, Europeans came to Central Asia and saw Jews living in the Emirate of Bukhara. These Jews were called Bukharian Jews.

References