| THE TURKMEN Part 2 Turkmen Part 1 - Turkmen Part 2 - Turkmen Part 3 - Turkmen Part 4 - Turkmen Part 5 - Turkmen Part 6 - Turkmen Part 7 - Turkmen Part 8 - Turkmen Part 9 - Turkmen Part 10 - Turkmen Part 11 - Turkmen Part 12
During his life-time the Turkmen
were well content to share in his success, and the
alteration of his capital from Isfahan
to Meshed,
and the construction of the strong fortress of
Khelat-i-Nadiri in the Turkmen
country, made his power most vigorous and firmly
established in that region which had before been most
disturbed. But
upon his death they relapsed into their old habits, and
again became a thorn in the side of their more peaceful
neighbors, whether Persian or Khivan, but more especially
the former. From the death of Nadir to the close of
the eighteenth century the Turkmen
carried on their raiding expeditions into Khorasan,
sometimes penetrating still farther into the country to
Irak and Seistan. It is said that they even dared, in
parties of twenty or thirty, to molest the dwellers in
the suburbs of Isfahan.
But in the last years of the century they incurred the
enmity of the Persian
ruler, Aga Mohammed Khan, not, indeed, through their
marauding propensities so much as by an act of personal
hostility. Although the Turkmen
had been on sympathetic terms with Aga Mahomed and his
father, they murdered the former's brother when he fled
to them for refuge from the pursuit of Zuckee Khan,
brother of the Shah Kurrum Khan. For that act Aga Mahomed
resolved to exact the most ample reparation, and he
accordingly collected a large army at Astrabad, in the
neighborhood of which place the offending Turkmen
dwelt. His operations were completely successful, and the
Turkmen
— who were probably either Goklans or Yomuds paid
bitterly for their treachery. So severe were the
retaliatory measures adopted by Aga Mohammed, and
so resolutely did he carry out his plan of revenge, that
the Turkmen
were thoroughly cowed, and for a long time afterwards the
frontier near Astrabad was more settled than it had ever
been before since the days of Nadir. Aga Mohammed
carried a large number of prisoners into captivity, and
in addition obtained hostages for the future behaviour of
the tribe. But the lesson which was then read the Turkmen
was only an exceptional occurrence, and has never been
repeated. For a time it tranquillized the border, but in
order to have been permanently effectual it should have
been followed up.
About the same year that Aga Mohammed was
dealing out well-merited punishment to the Turkmen
of Astrabad, their kinsmen of Merv were being hard
pressed by the ruler of Bokhara, Mourad Shah, or Beggee
Jan, as Sir John Malcolm calls him, who had over-run a
considerable portion of Central Asia, and had warned the
Persians of Khorasan that unless they turned Sunnis he
would return and proceed to convert them after a summary
fashion. In this campaign he had indeed laid siege to the
town of Meshed, but finding that town stronger than he
had anticipated, and being unwilling to admit his
inability to capture it, he
informed his soldiers that the holy Imam Reza, who was
buried in Meshed, had appeared to him in a dream and
forbidden him to prosecute the siege any further. The
story goes that the daily supplications to the Imam by
the distressed inhabitants deprived that sacred personage
of sleep, and that when Mourad learnt this, he said,
" I know that the Imam liveth, and he shall not have
to reproach me with disturbing his rest."
The career of this Bokharan ruler was so remarkable that
some sketch of it here may prove interesting. Shah
Mourad, or Beggee Jan, was the eldest son of the Ameer
Daniel, who had established himself upon the throne of
Bokhara at the expense of its legitimate ruler, Abdul
Ghazi Khan. When he died he left Mourad his heir. But
Mourad had many brothers and other relations, all of whom
aspired to the chief place ; and there was no doubt that
if he put forward his own claims he would have to compete
with several formidable rivals. From a deep policy, and
not through any excess of zeal, Shah Mourad became a
fakeer, and on the death of his father shut himself up in
a mosque, forbidding entrance to all. He also handed over
the private property left him by his father to the public
charities ; and then he visited all the quarters of the
city of Bokhara in a penitential garb, imploring the
prayers of all persons for his deceased father, and the
forgiveness of those whom he might have wronged. For
several months the Government of Bokhara remained in an
unsettled state, and during that period Shah Mourad lived
in close confinement within a mosque, wrapt up in
religious devotions, and employed in composing some of
those works, such as the " Eye of Science,"
which have earned for him a high literary reputation in
the East. The necessities of the State, which was
threatened both by internal and by external enemies, at
last called him from his solitude ; and at first as
regent, and later on as ruler, Mourad restored the
failing fortunes of Bokhara. He was not more widely famed
for his conquests than he was for his justice and skilful
administration. His code of justice was admired
throughout Central Asia. No one was too high to escape
receiving his deserts, and no one too low to be unable to
obtain the justice which was fairly meted out to all. A
slave could cite his master, and wherever that is
possible in a slave-holding country, we may be sure that
the guiding spirit must be actuated by the greatest
desire for impartiality. Against drunkards and gambling
Shah Mourad was particularly severe; indeed, one of his
first acts was to destroy all the drinking and gambling
houses in Bokhara.
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