SWMH Eastern expansion DevDiary5 - The Qarakhanids in 1066

[elvain]

In our previous Dev Diaries, we have presented de jure setups for the Eastern expansion as well as the political map of Persia and Turkestan in the first bookmark of The Old Gods, as well as other stuff which will come along with this map expansion, such as overhaul of 2 Roman empires in Europe

Now, the time has come to go ahead and show you something more. Here I present you one of the big 3 Turkish dynasties, which dominated the Eastern Islamic world in the 11th century, The Qarakhanids:

These are the 2 kingdoms, or better Khanates held by Qarakhanids. They used to be united, but as you can see, ruling over mountanious regions didn't really favour a united kingdom.

The western kingdom in Transoxiana, or Mavarannahr was ruled by 'Alid branch of the dynasty, named after Ali Arslan Khan
while the Eastern kingdom in Turkestan was dominated by Hasand branch, named after Hasan Bughra Khan.


As you can see the dynasty in 1066, it already had many branches. Frankly, researching and reconstructing the dynasty's history was one of the most challenging jobs I have ever done modding, oftem the most annoying, because most of the rulers did use the same titles Arslan Khan, Bughra Khan, Tamgach Khan, sometimes Ilek Khan, Toghan Khan or Kadir Khan... and I have probably forgotten some... and in the sources they were usually refered mainly as these. Furthemore they also used similar names, so when reading about Hasan Bughra Khan, one had to be carefull which of them is meant.
To make the things even more complex, Karakhanids were rotating in a system of apanages, which at the same time, often changed borders with various family members replacing each other, but mostly not in some predefined order, and also often across the various branches.
After all, I hope I didn't lose the track and the setup you can see on the map (direct vasals) really reflects how it was in reality:

I hope that this tutular and personal chaos didn't bore you already, so now let me show you one more feature we will be introducing to SWMH with this expansion. The long awaited climate... you can see that for a nomadic lords mainly dependent on cavalry keeping such an empire couldn't be easy:

Despite the fact that by the 11th century the Qarakhanids and most of the Turks already adopted Islam, and when their Khan met with Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, he was even more pious than the famous renewer of sunni faith in the Islamic East (Bughra Khan, unlike Sultan Mahmud, refused to drink wine), however many of Qarakhanid subjects still remained faithfull to their old beliefs.

On the other hand, the 11th century witnessed another very important phenomenon, and it was the start of Turkicization of yet predominantly Iranian Central Asian territories.

But as most of us know, it was not the Karakhanids, who played major role in this Turkicization of Persia. It was another major Turkic dynasty, the one, which conquered the core lands of the Islamic East, the most famous of all Turks... but about them we will speak in our next dev diary.

 

[cybrxkhan]

where my Sogdians and Khitan at, yo

Good stuff, as always. Will there be any Buddhist/Manichean provinces or characters in Karakhanid territory at the 1066 start date, out of curiosity?

 

[StarlightTW]

The research you did for this is staggering...it makes my head hurt even thinking about it. Major props.

 

[XVG]

Really looking forward to this! Looks so much better and more historical than the vanilla representation of the area. Especially like the split of the Qarakhanids (in vanilla they were one big blob) and the addition of Tarim.

Is that a Tajik culture I see there? How does it work? Do Sogdian/other Eastern Iranians turn to it after Islamization/Persian/Turkish influence?

 

[elvain]

Good stuff, as always.

Really looking forward to this! Looks so much better and more historical than the vanilla representation of the area.

Thanks! It is this kind of answers what gives me/the team the energy to go on and on and dig in the sources for you. Thanks!

where my Sogdians and Khitan at, yo

pheww, you know where... where they should be at this time

Will there be any Buddhist/Manichean provinces or characters in Karakhanid territory at the 1066 start date, out of curiosity?

One such province can be seen there. The Manicheans will be farther to the east, but that you know as it was already discussed.
As for Manichean/Buddhist characters, I can't rule out anything. At least when speaking about city characters. But at the moment I can neither confirm anything.

The research you did for this is staggering...it makes my head hurt even thinking about it. Major props.

Really looking forward to this! Looks so much better and more historical than the vanilla representation of the area. Especially like the split of the Qarakhanids (in vanilla they were one big blob) and the addition of Tarim.

To be fair to PDS, the level of chaos in this particular dynasty is unimaginable, and honestly, I often had feelings that I'm totally lost and I won't be able to make this part of the world ever make working in any reasonable way.
Despite this being relatively small part of map (in number of provinces), it might well took me half (or maybe even more!) of the time spent on research. And there was always something new I found every time I found a new source, sometimes it was a character or two, sometimes unforseen affiliations or relations which made me reconsider/rebuild substantial parts of the family tree or structure of holdings.
With numerous distractions and RL issues this whole research took me several months! which is a luxury that PDS couldn't afford, because in the meantime, they have done several DLCs which were focused on many more aspects of the game. So in this particular case, I'm the last one to blame Paradox (OTOH the way the map and dejure setup is done makes me cry, I admit).

And frankly, has this DD been released a week before, a whole branch would be at completely different place on the family tree (you can check the Turks in 867 DD and comparison of vanilla and SWMH Karakhanids, where a Ferghana branch, the last surviving Karakhanid branch, descended from completely different character! The reason is pure luck - few days ago I just wasn't sure about one character's relations, so I did another Googling and except finding what I wanted, I noticed (for the first time!) one of Ferghana Karakhanids fo be refered as descendant of Ali Tegin, while all the time before their origin remained mysterious and was made up to come from Hasan b. Sulayman.

Yet another example of the chaos is Jibra'il b. 'Umar of the Hasanid branch. In pretty much every source he was mentioned, he had a different grandfather - one version was clear to be misleading due to several factors, but at least 2 were quite probable to be true and it was impossible to find more.. so I had to take the decision and chose one. That means that this setup may very well be ahistorical just like vanilla, if some other new source appears and confirms a version, which I didn't pick. One never knows.

Is that a Tajik culture I see there? How does it work? Do Sogdian/other Eastern Iranians turn to it after Islamization/Persian/Turkish influence?

Can I keep teasing?
Honestly, the reason why we are now in Qarakhanid DD and not cultural DD is that the dynamic cultural stuff is not finnished yet (though the concept is already clear now). I will surely reveal more, I just don't know when, if here, or in another DD, which would show you more about Persian cultures. However you are seing the Tajiks correctly...
What I can speak about now is the Türkmen melting pot culture, which is already partialy done and is a result of contacts between wild nomadic Oghuz and Qarluq tribes/rulers with sedentary Iranians. You can now see few Türkmen provinces in the originaly Oghuz lands around Syr Darya, where OTOH they are already being pushed by the Qipchaqs, but as we all know from historic lessons, the extent of Türkmens is now much wider and in the next DD you will be able to see many Türkmen and Oghuz characters accross the Mashriq.

But generaly, the cultures are meant to be dynamic...

 

[theKing1988]

All of the provinces in Anatolia is Türkmen at the moment too until the mid-13th Century, to represent the continuing influence of Persians and Persian culture on the Konya court and their regional Governors and noblemen.

I have chosen 1256, the year of the Ilkhan invasion of Anatolia, as the rather arbitrary date to switch them to Türk. It wasn't a sudden process that Persian influence stopped and the Anatolian Turks developed in their own direction, it happen over several decades during the middle of the 13th Century.

 

[Ithvan]

This looks great!

One question though: is there some kind of adjacency from the Qarakhanid capital to that isolated country at the bottom of the pictures? Because now they have an isolated county far away.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Really looking forward to playing the Qara Khanids!
Though this raises a question for CPR which might as well be asked here: will the Karluks retain their Mongol faces, or be given Turkish ones?

 

[deserk]

Looks sweet. Although I'll probably stick with the Old Gods time line. So much more fun religions around this area then

Btw, though this has little to do with specifically this DD, but I wonder, with the Eastern expansion, will the Nestorian holy sites be changed and perhaps moved more eastwards? It would be so cool to make a Prester John-ish realm in the distant east.

 

[cybrxkhan]

pheww, you know where... where they should be at this time

They're in my hopes and dreams.

One such province can be seen there. The Manicheans will be farther to the east, but that you know as it was already discussed.
As for Manichean/Buddhist characters, I can't rule out anything. At least when speaking about city characters. But at the moment I can neither confirm anything.

Alright, makes sense. Out of curiosity, do you know off the top of your head the last known non-Muslim members of the Qarakhanids who had any degree of power? Or did they just convert relatively quickly?

Really looking forward to playing the Qara Khanids!
Though this raises a question for CPR which might as well be asked here: will the Karluks retain their Mongol faces, or be given Turkish ones?

For now they'll retain the Mongol faces + Turkish hair/clothes (I forgot what I called that portrait set, heh heh) for the sake of variety and because to my knowledge they're closely related to the Uighurs who are Mongoloid-looking enough, unless Elvain suggests it should be otherwise.

 

[elvain]

This looks great!

One question though: is there some kind of adjacency from the Qarakhanid capital to that isolated country at the bottom of the pictures? Because now they have an isolated county far away.

First of all thanks.
And yes, there is adjacency between Kashgar and Vakhan.

Really looking forward to playing the Qara Khanids!

Glad to read it. I really hope they will be as enjoyable to play as they were enjoyable to research

Though this raises a question for CPR which might as well be asked here: will the Karluks retain their Mongol faces, or be given Turkish ones?

For now they'll retain the Mongol faces + Turkish hair/clothes (I forgot what I called that portrait set, heh heh) for the sake of variety and because to my knowledge they're closely related to the Uighurs who are Mongoloid-looking enough, unless Elvain suggests it should be otherwise.

Frankly I need to check it and see them in CPR (we haven't done compatibility yet and I haven't played without SWMH map, so I haven't seen CPR's Karluks... so I can't say now. But from how I remember contemporary pictures of Mahmud Ghaznavi (who was of Karluk origin) his face was quite Mongoloid, so I think having mongoloid Qarluqs wouldn't be that ahistorical. But I definitely don't claim no ultimate knowledge on this. This is rather Cybrxkhan's field of expertise.

Looks sweet. Although I'll probably stick with the Old Gods time line. So much more fun religions around this area then

Btw, though this has little to do with specifically this DD, but I wonder, with the Eastern expansion, will the Nestorian holy sites be changed and perhaps moved more eastwards? It would be so cool to make a Prester John-ish realm in the distant east.

You are right that the religious diversity of Old Gods bookmark will be more interesting than the situation in 867, but on the other hand, I am sure that playing as some Qarakhanid minor with low chances of becoming the Khan. The Eastern Khanate has many of such minors, and in the Western Khanate (Mavarannahr) there will be one particulary interesting character - Hasan ibn Ali Tegin, who is ancestor of the Ferghana branch, a branch which had historicaly risen to power and which ruled the Western Khanate until its final days.

As for Nestorians - I hope I will keep it in mind and will edit it this way. At the moment I don't know and I confess that I didn't care much about this yet.

Alright, makes sense. Out of curiosity, do you know off the top of your head the last known non-Muslim members of the Qarakhanids who had any degree of power? Or did they just convert relatively quickly?

I don't recall reading about any single non-muslim Karakhanid dynasty member. In all available sources I came across it seemed that if there ever was a non-muslim among them, it would have been pointed out.
There were several cases of apostasy from sunni Islam, but from what I remember, it was to shiite Islam, not to any kind of paganism. The only mention of non-muslims I do remember off the top of my head, there were both pagan and muslim soldiers in Qarakhanid army at least in the end of 1080's, but perhaps the entire dynasty has converted to islam.. after all, they were all descendants of Satuq Bughra Khan, the one who converted Qarluqs to islam... and as it was mentioned above, the Qarakhanids seemed to be more faithfull muslims than Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, who was well known for being very pious (but OTOG, he also liked wine)

 

[PseudoCatfish]

Very excited to see this! Been waiting a very long time for this update, and luckily I've managed to avoid vanilla entirely by working on some mods myself so as to not ruin my SWMH-filled experiences! Well done.

 

[KyletheMuslim]

Can't wait for this update.........

 

[elvain]

thanks guys. I hope you won't be waiting for too long from now for it to come out...

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows how to create custom titles for one dynasty (or perhaps culture+religion).
I mean something that if dynasty XY holds the title, the king isn't king or Khan (the usual cultural title), but if he holds k_mavarannahr, he's "Arslan Khan", while if a member of the same dynasty holds k_turkestan, he's "Bughra Khan".
- I know there is a way to make the titles titular, or to make all holders of the title bear it, but it's not what I want. Any ideas?

 

[Numahr]

Hi

I wanted to contribute to the debate on the Tarim Basin. Mostly I am basing what I am saying here on Jean-Paul Roux's synthesis Histoire de l'Asie Centrale, among others.

Basically I am afraid that by the time of the 11th century, all antique cultures had vanished: records in "Tocharian", Agnean, Kharosthi etc. stop much before that time. In fact Sogdian culture and language had already replaced them to become the lingua franca of the Tarim Basin, and then had already been replaced by Uygur, by the time we get to CK2 start date.

Chinese records hint that Uygur was already the dominant culture then and would be for the time covered by the game. The main political entity was the Kingdom of Qocho, see the Wikipedia link. Not sure it was mentioned here before, I did not see it in the DD on Kara Khanids. As you said, basically as the game opens, the switch from Iranian to Turkic domination has more or less become clear, but this includes the Tarim Basin as well. Note that the Qocho State swore fealty to the Kara Khanids. However, they were not dominantly Muslim yet, but as was usual for steppe cultures, they practiced a tolerant approach of religions, with Islam, Buddhism and Manichaeism all being influential in the Tarim Basin, with Buddhism being the main religion of the Qocho State. Mazdeism/Zoroastrianism was vanishing since the end of the Tang dynasty.

The strength of the Uygur language and culture within the Turkic world of that time cannot be understated. As the closest to China (they had a Gansu kingdom as well), the earliest to develop a urban/sedentarian life they were somehow the most "civilized" of all the early Turks. As hints of their cultural influence, Mongols would hire their bureacrats to administrate their empire and adopt their script to write their language. Also note that the famous and beautfiful "Oghuz Name" was actually written in.. Uygur, not in Djagatai Turkish, contrarily to the common opinion. So, in my opinon, a solid hold the Uygur culture in the Tarim Basin would be appropriate.

In game terms I think the Qocho kingdom should be clearly Buddhist with some pockets of Manicaeanism and maybe, if you stretch it, Zoroastrianism. The lesser religions should be located preferably on the Southern Tarim, slightly more isolated and relatively less exposed to the yet relatively new Turkic influence.

Does this make sense? Hopefully it does...

 

[elvain]

Hi

I wanted to contribute to the debate on the Tarim Basin. Mostly I am basing what I am saying here on Jean-Paul Roux's synthesis Histoire de l'Asie Centrale, among others.

Basically I am afraid that by the time of the 11th century, all antique cultures had vanished: records in "Tocharian", Agnean, Kharosthi etc. stop much before that time. In fact Sogdian culture and language had already replaced them to become the lingua franca of the Tarim Basin, and then had already been replaced by Uygur, by the time we get to CK2 start date.

Chinese records hint that Uygur was already the dominant culture then and would be for the time covered by the game. The main political entity was the Kingdom of Qocho, see the Wikipedia link. Not sure it was mentioned here before, I did not see it in the DD on Kara Khanids. As you said, basically as the game opens, the switch from Iranian to Turkic domination has more or less become clear, but this includes the Tarim Basin as well. Note that the Qocho State swore fealty to the Kara Khanids. However, they were not dominantly Muslim yet, but as was usual for steppe cultures, they practiced a tolerant approach of religions, with Islam, Buddhism and Manichaeism all being influential in the Tarim Basin, with Buddhism being the main religion of the Qocho State. Mazdeism/Zoroastrianism was vanishing since the end of the Tang dynasty.

The strength of the Uygur language and culture within the Turkic world of that time cannot be understated. As the closest to China (they had a Gansu kingdom as well), the earliest to develop a urban/sedentarian life they were somehow the most "civilized" of all the early Turks. As hints of their cultural influence, Mongols would hire their bureacrats to administrate their empire and adopt their script to write their language. Also note that the famous and beautfiful "Oghuz Name" was actually written in.. Uygur, not in Djagatai Turkish, contrarily to the common opinion. So, in my opinon, a solid hold the Uygur culture in the Tarim Basin would be appropriate.

In game terms I think the Qocho kingdom should be clearly Buddhist with some pockets of Manicaeanism and maybe, if you stretch it, Zoroastrianism. The lesser religions should be located preferably on the Southern Tarim, slightly more isolated and relatively less exposed to the yet relatively new Turkic influence.

Does this make sense? Hopefully it does...

The Uyghurs are there as well as their kingdom - there are the Yaghlaqar idiquts of Qocho and though I can't check it now, I think we have pretty complete list of their rulers from 9th to at least 13th century. IIRC they (the rulers) are Manicheans as they were originaly. The Uyghur culture dominates eastern Tarim basin and as can be guessed, (but it is not not obvious from the screenshot) it is also buddhist.

I need to back check what is the religion of the rulers and if it is Manichean, I will check it again with the sources (Mainly Bosworth's History of Civilization of Central Asia and Golden's An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples) and potentialy change the rulers' religion to buddhism.

There is absolutely no need to be affraid of presence of Saka or Tocharians in 11th century Tarim basin, there was never anything like that planned.

 

[Numahr]

Good...

Yeah don't get confused with the earlier Uygur Khaganate that was, indeed, "officially" Manichean.

Otherwise the Tarim Basin, for all its spiritual diversity, was always (that is, until Islam) dominated by Buddhism... Just have a look at the famous Mogao caves as a hint, how many non-Buddhist piece of art for each painting of Buddha?

 

[elvain]

Good...

Yeah don't get confused with the earlier Uygur Khaganate that was, indeed, "officially" Manichean.

Otherwise the Tarim Basin, for all its spiritual diversity, was always (that is, until Islam) dominated by Buddhism... Just have a look at the famous Mogao caves as a hint, how many non-Buddhist piece of art for each painting of Buddha?

Yup, don't worry, I really didn't spend months on this to confuse anyone, with Uyghur Khagans, not even their Idiquts. As I said, we have rulers list from 9th century on, it's not the Khagans whose rule ended before this list started
But according to my sources, the Yaghlaqar idiquts (of Qocho) were also Manicheans, at least in their early times. I do confess that I don't remember much about whether and if they converted to Buddhism or other religion.

 

[elvain]

Alright, makes sense. Out of curiosity, do you know off the top of your head the last known non-Muslim members of the Qarakhanids who had any degree of power? Or did they just convert relatively quickly?

Oh, I realized I didn't answer your qustion propperly. The last known non-Muslim member of the Qarakhanids who had any degree of power was Satuq Bughra Khan, the common ancestor od both main branches... the one, who converted to Islam in 950's
or.. as he converted in quite young age, it should rather be his father.

 

[Numahr]

Yup, don't worry, I really didn't spend months on this to confuse anyone, with Uyghur Khagans, not even their Idiquts. As I said, we have rulers list from 9th century on, it's not the Khagans whose rule ended before this list started
But according to my sources, the Yaghlaqar idiquts (of Qocho) were also Manicheans, at least in their early times. I do confess that I don't remember much about whether and if they converted to Buddhism or other religion.

Attributing them one definite religion is tricky, in fact, as they practiced a form of syncretism. So it would be good to have some Manichaean characters at least, and ideally characters could switch. Overall Buddhism was dominant in Tarim though.