Early Ismaili History in Central Asia
Book Chapter in "Central Asian Ismailis: An Annotated Bibliography of Russian, Tajik and Other Sources"
“This book is a study of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet scholarship in Ismaili studies and particularly regarding Ismailis in the region presently known as Central Asia, which in modern contexts has been mainly defined as incorporating the five former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Historically, the term Central Asia could also take in other areas, such as those in present-day Afghanistan, northern and western Pakistan, north-eastern Iran, Kashmir and Xinjiang in western China. Central Asia has also been identified by other names such as Khurāsān or more precisely Greater Khurāsān which included the current province of Khurāsān in Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, most of Kyrgyzstan, the southern territories of Kazakhstan, and northern and western Pakistan. Khurāsān in its narrow sense comprised the cities of Nīshāpūr and Ṭūs (now in Iran), Balkh and Herat (now in Afghanistan), Marv (now in Turkmenistan), Samarqand and 2Bukhāra (now in Uzbekistan), and Khujand and Panjakent (now in Tajikistan). However, the name Khurāsān was used to designate an even larger region that encompassed most of Transoxania (Farā-rūd in Persian and in Arabic, Mā warāʾ al-nahr, meaning ‘beyond the river’) and Sogdiana in the north, that extended westward to the Caspian Sea, southward to include the Sīstān desert, and eastward to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan. The toponym Transoxania is also used for the portion of Central Asia that corresponds approximately to modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and south-west Kazakhstan – in essence the region between the Amū Daryā and the Syr Daryā (the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers of the ancient Greeks).” (Dagikhudo Dagiev)
Author: Dr. Dagikhudo Dagiev
Link to Full Chapter: Central Asian Ismailis