A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

The Qarakhanids 85
their older and more congenial homeland astride the western Tianshan
mountains, and especially to Semireche, along the plains fringing the
northern slopes of that range and the river valleys descending from
there.The Qarakhanid appanages are associated with four principal
urban centers: Balasaghun in Semireche, Kashgar in Sinkiang, Uzgend
in Fergana, and Samarkand in Transoxania.
Although we have emphasized the “Turkicness” of the Qarakhanids
and what this meant for the destinies of Central Asia, we have also
pointed out their fervor as new converts.Islam and its civilization
flourished under this dynasty, a fact attested by the devoutness of the
rulers, their deference to men of religion, the endowments they made to
pious foundations, and the monuments of religious as well as utilitarian
architecture with which they embellished their realms.Of the earliest
examples of madrasas (Islamic theological seminaries) and hospitals, two
were founded in Samarkand by Ibrahim I ibn Nasr Tamghach Khan
(1053–68).Some other Qarakhanid structures are still standing,
however: the most famous are a minaret built by the side of the main
mosque of Bukhara in 1127, and three mausolea in Uzgend.The latter
are not as intact as the above-mentioned Samanid mausoleum in
Bukhara – only the frontal parts are preserved – but two inscriptions
have survived on the northern mausoleum dated 1152; one is in Arabic,
the other in Persian. 1 The former, in the Kufic script of the Arabic
alphabet, reads: “The just, the very great khaqan Jalal al-dunya wa ‘ldin
Alp Kilich Tonga Bilgä Türk Toghrul Qara Khaqan al-Husayn ibn
al-Hasan ibn Ali, God’s elect, helper of al-Nasir, Commander of the
Faithful, the King.” The other inscription, in the decorative naskh script
of the Arabic alphabet, reads: “The construction of [this] mausoleum
began on Wednesday 4 Rabi II of the year 547 of the hijra of Mustafa
Muhammad the Prophet, God’s greetings be upon Him and upon His
family and all His companions.The [ultimate] kingdom is God’s.”
On the cultural level, the Iranian citizens of Central Asia still continued
to play a dominant role (although Arabic and Persian must have
ceded primacy to Turkic as the language spoken by the new ruling elite).
This is exemplified, at the turn of the millennium and in the first decades
of the eleventh century, by the appearance of three towering figures in
the three principal areas of Central Asia: Ibn Sina (980–1037) in
Transoxania, Biruni (973–1050) in Khwarazm, and the already men-
1 A.Yu.Yakubovskiy, “Dve nadpisi na severnom mavzolee 1152 g.v Uzgende,” Epigrafika Vostoka 1
(1947): 27–32.