A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

94 A history of Inner Asia
they seem to have stayed below that level prior to their entry into the Dar
al-Islam.Their ruler did not style himself qaghan but yabghu, a lesser title
in the complex hierarchy of Turkic royal titulature.Toward the turn of
the first millennium, the Oghuz yabghu used the aforementioned town
of Yangikant near the estuary of the Syr Darya as his winter quarters.
The Turco-Sogdian name Yangikant appears in Arabic sources as
Qarya haditha, 1 and in Persian ones as Dih-i naw, all three meaning
“new town.” Jand farther upstream was another town paying taxes to
the yabghu, and there were other settlements; they were peopled mainly
by Muslims from across the river to the south, but some scholars view
this symbiosis as a hint that the Turks themselves had shown some inclination
toward settled and urban life.Like most other Turks of the time,
the Oghuz were pagans, but qams or shamans and the idea of a principal
deity, tengri, do seem to have played a role in their spiritual orbit.By
1003, however, the yabghu had converted to Islam, boasting the thoroughly
Muslim name Abu l-Fawaris Shah Malik ibn Ali; the last component
(“son of Ali”) suggests that he may even have been born a
Muslim.Concurrently with the yabghu’s family, however, another clan
was adopting Islam: that of their subashi or military commander Seljuk,
who gained the upper hand in Jand and freed its population from taxes
paid to the yabghu.
Seljuk’s three sons who reached maturity had the names Israil, Mikail,
and Musa, probably an effect of the prestige the memory of the Khazar
kingdom still had among the steppe nomads rather than an indication
that they too had converted to Judaism.Their conversion to Islam
proved more effective than that of the yabghu’s clan, a circumstance that
must have contributed to the increased hostility between the two groups
and gradual drift of the Seljuk clan southward into Muslim territories,
at first into those of the Qarakhanids and Ghaznavids.There were other
factors causing this important demographic, political, and socio-economic
revolution, such as possible overpopulation in the steppes, vagaries
of the climate, the concomitant tribal disturbances.Attraction of
settled territories with rumored riches to plunder, and opportunities
armed bands could find by hiring out their services to the strongest
bidder must also have played a role.The group led by Seljuk’s three sons
was among such condottieri, and their modest beginnings could hardly
have presaged the glorious destiny decreed for their descendants as the
1 I hope to be forgiven for mentioning an irrelevant but interesting detail: this Semitic form of
“Newtown” can also be discerned in the name of Carthage.