Ethnic History of Central Asia: Where can I get resources about Khorasani

Linguistically the name �Turkmen� as a whole word has no implication in the Modern Turkish Dictionary other than a Turkish clan. As a compound name, it can be divided into two words; Turk and men. The word Turk is used as synonym to the word �Turkic� of the international literary. The word Men means �I�. Figuratively it refers to the braveness. Accordingly the word Turkmen can be explained as: �I am a Turkish man� or �We are Turkish brave men�. Y. J. Diny and K. Kahin supported these explanations, respectively.^{25, 26} Other scholars have proposed that the element man / men acts as an intensifier and have translated the word as �pure Turk� or �most Turk-like of the Turks�.²⁷

There are certain theories over the development of the term Turkmen:

The Ghaznavids were of servile origin, but their steppe beginnings were speedily overlaid by the Iranian culture and administrative technique which they adopted.²⁸ The Qarakhanids were also influenced at the same way; their elites were quickly assimilated to the traditions of the Iranian-Islamic states.²⁹ The Oghus lived at the southeast coast of Caspian Sea did not influenced by the Persian culture. Therefore, they remained less mingled and pure Turkish blood. So, they called themselves or were called by other groups as a Turkmen.

According to Kashgari, who lived in the 11th century, the word Turkmen means Turkish similar people, which was used by Zulkarneyn (Iskander the great) when he named the powerful Turkic army under the leadership of Shu whom he met after the congruence of Samarqand as Turkmen.³⁰

Other sources considered the name Turkmanend as a precursor of the name Turkmen. Turkmanend is a compound name formed from the word Turk and the Persian word Manend, which means �they are Turks�.^{31, 32}

Ibn al-Kathir and Muhammed Neshri reported that the word Turkmen can be developed from the word Turk and Iman. Iman is Arabic word which means faith and used in the same meaning by the Turks.³³ It is reported by Neshri that at the Abbasids period 912 - 913 when the leader Canakhan with his 2 thousands people embraced Islam, they were called Turki iman which is later changed to Turkmen.^{34, 35}

Another word which is supposed to be the predecessor of the name Turkmen is the Arabic word �Turcuman�. This is an Arabic word, means Translator and used by in Turks in the same meaning. In begin it is supposed to be used for those of the Oghus tribes who embraced Islam and acted as a translator for the non-Islam Oghus or other Turkish clans then generalized to include all Oghus people.^{36, 37}

Dequigne believes that the name Turkmen was developed from the name Koman, which was one of the non Oghus Turkish tribes.³⁸

It is doubtful if the name Tukumenk in the Chinese Tung Tin Encyclopedia of 8th century carried the same implication of Turkmen. Almost all the sources date appearance of the name Turkmen to the 10th century. The first nomad communities of Oghus tribes, who embraced Islam in Ordu region at south of the Middle Asia on the frontier of expanding Islam world, were Turkmen or named Turkmen is still the matter of discussion. In the 11th century the name Turkmen was politicized and expanded to cover karluk and Halac communities. The term was later restricted to only the Oghus clans until the 13th century.³⁹

According to the Turkish historian Y. Oztuna, the name Turkmen appeared with conversion of nomad Oghus tribes to Islam. At the end of first half of the 11th century and when all the Oghus people were embraced Islam, the term was used an alternative to Oghus. In the following century, Turkmen seems to have been used for the Oghus people who remained nomad and townsmen were mentioned Oghus. It was during the Mongol period that the name Oghus was finally discontinued. Thereafter, the name Turk had totally replaced Oghus.⁴⁰

Kafesoglu did not agree with the statement that the name Turkmen is appeared with the Turkish embracement of Islam. This can also be assumed from the descriptions of Turkmen by Kashgarli:³⁹

It can be concluded that the name Turkmen was first used mainly for the nomads of Oghus, who were the first Oghus people embraced Islam.

Sumer and Boyle claim that the near eastern Muslims gave the name Turkmen to the Oghus.⁴¹ The term �Turkmen� appears for the first time in the islamic sources in the 10th century; about 980 AC, the geographer Maqdisi speaking of two strongholds in the province of Isfijab, calls them �frontier posts against the Turkmen�. In the 11th century, it was applied to southwestern Turks; the Oghus and Kipchak, whereas the term Turk is used for the more easterly Turks of the Karluk group. Ghaznavid sources frequently call the incoming Oghus �Turkmen�. In his �Mirror for Princes� Nizam al-Mulk considers the nomad Seljuks with in Iran and the lands to the West as Turkmen.⁴²

In the 11th century, Oghus Turkmen tribes dominated by the Seljuk clan entered the Caucasus region, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. They defeated Byzantine army, drifted through Iran and into Anatolia. The chieftain Ottoman of Kayi tribe established in the 13th century the sprawling Ottoman Empire that lasted into the 20th century. The other two Turkmen states were the Qara Qoyunlu (Black Sheep) from 1378 until 1469 and the Aq Qoyunlu (White Sheep) from 1387 until 1502.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica the name Turkmen is a synonym of Oghus which includes all the Turkish (Turkic) population who live to the southwest of Central Asia:⁴³

1. Turkey
2. Azerbaijan Republic
3. Azerbaijan of Iran
4. Turkmenistan
5. in other countries:

a. Afghanistan
b. Iraq, Syria and other Arab countries
c. Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Gagavuz, and other European countries.

The worth noting is that with the exception of the Turkmenistan and Afghanistan all the Turkmen communities can easily understand each other.

The Turkish historian Y. Oztuna presents almost the same definition to the name Turkmen. He calls Turkmen Oghus or western Turkish populations:⁴⁴

1. Ottomans
2. Azerbaijan
3. Turkmen (Turkmenistan)

However, the name Turkmen is used in different meaning by the Turkish populations or their neighbors. At the time being, the name Turkmen is mainly used for the following Turkish peoples:

1. Turkmen of Republic of Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan is located in Central Asia between Iran and Kazakhstan. The Caspian Sea border Turkmenistan from the west. Its total area is 488,100 km2. The population is estimated 4,254,000 in 1993.

There are stocks of Turkmen in the neighboring countries to Turkmenistan for example, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

Due to the political conflicts, the Oghus people moved from the northeast a long the Tula River to the region of present Turkmenistan in the 8th and 9th century. They established trading religious and cultural contacts with the Perso - Arabic and Islamic empire at the south. Towards the end of the 10th century, they converted to Islam, and were for the first time referred to as Turkmen. They massively moved toward the south and west. The tribes that remained in Central Asia established themselves in the Transoxiana region in the 11th and 12th century, retained their tribal customs, and came to form the basis of the Turkmen nation.

After dominating Tajikistan and the Uzbek Khanates in 1876, the Russians began their occupation of the Turkmenistan in 1877. After one of the bloodiest campaigns of Russian colonial history, by 1884 they had subdued the Turkmen. In 1899, Turkmenistan became part of the Russian Governor - Generalship of Turkistan, which had been established in Transoxiana in 1867.

In 1916, the Turkmen also took part in general revolt, of Central Asia. As the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Civil War started in 1917, the Turkmen were still suffering from the consequences of the 1916 Revolt.

In the meantime, a Turkmen national movement was developing, and a Provisional Turkmen Congress was set up in Ashkabad. Efforts were made to build a national armed force, but it was immediately suppressed by the Bolsheviks. In 1918, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of Trans-caspia established. This government was hard-pressed, and eventually began impressing Turkmen into its army. This caused widespread desertions to the Bolsheviks. In the summer of 1919, Ashkhabad fell to the Bolsheviks. Some of the Turkmen forces continued to fight the Bolsheviks in the desert, in the Turkmen's version of the Basmachi Revolt.

In 1921 a Turkmen region which was established as part of Soviet Turkistan (Central Asia), but already in 1924, the Soviets started to split up this unit to create national homelands. The first ones to be established were the Uzbek and the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republics. Turkmen nationalist movements were still operating, with goals of establishing an independent Turkmenistan. Several bloody Turkmen revolts were took place around 1930. The discovery of subversive Turkmen organization, for example, Turkmen Azatlygi (Liberty) Party by the Soviets, brought about large-scale purges and persecution of Turkmen political and cultural leaders. From 1934 to 39 almost a whole generation of intellectuals was liquidated. Purges took place again in 1946 - 1948 and in 1959 over the nationalist Turkmen.

2. Turkmen of Turkey

many groups of people were called Turkmen in Turkey. Their number is higher than in Turkmenistan. They are living in many governorates at the middle and east of the Turkey, for example, Gazianteb, Afyon and Kieshehir. They were nomadic Turkish tribes who firmly attacked to the traditions.

3. The Turkmen of Iran,

They live along the northern border of Iran across Turkmenistan.⁴⁵ They numbered about 2 millions. Their main cities are Gunbde Kaus, Bender Turkmen and Kalala.

4. The Turkmen of Iraq.

They live mainly at the north and middle of the Iraq. Their number severly underestimated according to them it approximates 2.5 millions. The Turkmen of Iraq are the generations of different Turkish clans, who entered Iraq since thousands of years, for example, Oghus, Kipchak, Azerbaijanian and Mongols. The term Turkmen for the Iraqi Turks seems to have been created during the discussion of Mosul issue in the third decade of the last century, to isolate the Iraqi Turks from the Turkey. This used as a factor again Turkey during negotiations, to join this oil rich Ottoman province to the newly founded Iraq by Brittan.

5. The Turkmen of Syria.

Long before the Islamic era, the Huns overrun Syria and Iraq (391 - 400 AD). The Turks were founded in large numbers in the Sasanian Iraq and Syria. The Turkmen of Syria appears in the history as an important factor in the Crusade wars during the reign of Seljuk Empire. They founded the Syrian Seljuk (1092 � 1117) and the Atabakian state in Aleppo (1104). Thereafter a large number of Turkmen entered Syria during the Turko-Mongol conquest and Ottoman Turkmen after Malazgirt battle in 1071. In the 3rd decade of the 14th century a short-lived Turkmen principality was founded in the Albistan region by Dulkaderogullari. During the Seljuk reign Turkmen from Yiva, Bayat, Avshar, Begdilli, Doger and Uchkochaklar were established in Syria.