A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

The Qarakhanids 91
most deep-rooted in lineage, and the most penetrating in throwing the lance.
Thus I have acquired perfectly the dialect of each one of their groups; and I
have set it down in an encompassing book, in a well-ordered system.I wrote
this, my book, asking the assistance of God Most High; and I have named it
Diwan lughat al-Turk, in order that it be an everlasting memorial, and an eternal
treasure; and I have dedicated it to His Excellence, of the Hallowed and
Prophetic, Imami, Hashimi, Abbasid line: our Master and Patron, Abu l-Qasim
Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Muqtadi bi-Amrillah, Amir of the Believers and
Deputy of the Lord of Worlds.
Another example is the term “Türk” itself.After offering one of the conventional
definitions based on the Koranic version of the Bible (“Türk:
the name of a son of Noah; this name was subsequently passed on to
Noah’s son Türk’s progeny”), Mahmud Kashgari discusses various
aspects of this name, and one of the passages is in the form of a hadith,
the classical statement attributed to the Prophet Muhammad:
We have said that the Lord Himself bestowed the name Türk [on these people],
for [this can be deduced from ] a statement traced back to the Noble Prophet
[Muhammad] ...who said: “The Lord says: I have a host whom I have called
Turks and whom I have set in the East; whenever I become wroth at a people,
I make [the Turks] masters over them.” This reveals that Turks are superior to
all other beings.For the Lord took it upon Himself to give them a name.He
placed them in the loftiest location in the world, in regions with the purest air
and has called them “My own army.” Moreover, one can observe among them
such praiseworthy qualities as beauty, friendliness, good taste, good manners,
filial piety, loyalty, simplicity, modesty, dignity, bravery. 7
Contemporaneously with the political and linguistic Turkicization of
Central Asia that began under the Qarakhanids, a related process began
about the same time farther south and southwest, thus closer to the
Islamic heartland.As we have said, by 1055 that heartland was under
the dominance of the Seljukids; we shall discuss this process below, but
here we want to emphasize the Persian culture, political as well as literary,
of the Seljukid dynasty.A remarkable illustration of this Turco-
Persian symbiosis is the Siyasetname, a book on the art of government
written in Persian by Nizam al-Mulk.As the principal minister of the
Seljukid sultan Malikshah (1072–92), the Persian Nizam al-Mulk was
active chiefly in Baghdad; this city retained its prestige as the seat of the
Abbasid caliph, who continued to rule as the spiritual head of the
Muslim community, though under the authority of the Turkic sultan.
7 Dankoff and Kelly, Compendium, vol.I, p.274.The Arabic version of this remarkable hadith is as
follows: “Yaqulu Allah jalla wa-azza: Inna li jundan sammaytuhum al-Turk, wa-askantuhum al-mashriqa; faidha
ghadibtu ala qawmin sallattuhum alayhim.”