Chagatai Khanate - Chagatayid Rule Continued in East Turkestan

Chagatayid Rule Continued in East Turkestan

Beginning in the mid-14th century a new khanate, in the form of a nomadic tribal confederacy headed by a member of the family of Chagatai, arose in the region of the Ili River. It is therefore considered to be a continuation of the Chagatai Khanate, but it is also referred to as the Moghul Khanate, since its tribal inhabitants were originally considered to be pure "Moghuls" (i.e., Mongols), in contrast to the mostly Turkic and Turkicised Mongols of Transoxiana.

The eastern regions of the Chagatai Khanate in the early 14th century had been inhabited by a number of Mongol nomadic tribes. These tribes resented the conversion of Tarmashirin to Islam and the move of the khan to the sedentary areas of Transoxiana. They were behind the revolt that ended in Tarmashirin's death. One of the khans that followed Tarmashirin, Changshi, favored the east and was anti-Muslim.

In the 1340s as a series of ephemeral khans struggled to hold power in Transoxiana, little attention was paid by the Chagatayids to the eastern regions. As a result, the eastern tribes there were virtually independent. The most powerful of the tribes, the Dughlats, controlled extensive territories in Moghulistan and the western Tarim Basin. In 1347 the Dughlats decided to appoint a khan of their own, and raised the Chagatayid Tughlugh Timur to the throne.

Tughlugh Timur (1347–1363) was thereby made the head of a tribal confederacy that governed the Tarim Basin and the steppe area of Moghulistan (named after the Moghuls). His reign was contemporaneous with the series of puppet khans that ruled in Transoxiana, meaning that there were now effectively two khanates headed by Chagatayids: one in the west, centered in Transoxiana, and one in the east, centered in Moghulistan. Unlike the khans in the west, however, Tughlugh Timur was a strong ruler who converted to Islam (1354) and sought to reduce the power of the Dughlats. In 1360 he took advantage of a breakdown of order in Transoxiana and his legitimacy as descendant of Chagatai Khan to invade the region and take control of it, thereby temporarily reuniting the two khanates. Despite invading a second time in 1361 and appointing his son Ilyas Khoja as governor of Transoxiana, however, Tughlugh Timur was unable to keep a lasting hold on the region, and the Moghuls were ultimately expelled by Amir Husayn and Timur, who then fought amongst themselves for control of Transoxiana.

Chagatayid rule in Moghulistan was temporarily interrupted by the coup of the Dughlat amir Qamar ud-Din, who likely killed Ilyas Khoja and several other Chagatayids. The Moghuls that remained obedient to him were constantly at war with Timur, who invaded Moghulistan several times but was unable to force its inhabitants into submission. A Chagatayid restoration occurred in the 1380s, but the Dughlats retained an important position within the khanate; for the next forty years they installed several khans of their own choosing.

This cycle was broken by Uwais Khan (1418–1428), a devout Muslim who was frequently at war with the Oirats (Western Mongols) who roamed in the area east of Lake Balkash. He was usually defeated and even captured twice by the Oirat Esen Tayishi, but was able to secure his release both times. Uvais Khan was followed by Esen Buqa (1428–1462), who frequently raided the Timurid Empire to the west. Late in his reign he was contested by his brother Yunus Khan (1462–1487), who had raised to the khanship by the Timurids in an attempt to counter Esen Buqa. Yunus Khan defeated the Uzbeks and maintained good relations with the Kazakhs and Timurids, but the western Tarim Basin was lost to a revolt by the Dughlats. In 1484 he captured Tashkent from the Timurids.

During the fifteenth century the Moghul khans became increasingly Turkified. Yunus Khan is even mentioned to have the looks of a Tajik instead of those of a Mongol. This Turkification may not have been as extensive amongst the general Moghul population, who were also slower to convert to Islam than the khan and top amirs (although by the mid-fifteenth century the Moghuls were considered to be largely Muslim). The khans also adopted the Islamic sharia in favor of the Mongol Yassa.

After Yunus Khan's death his territories were divided by his sons. Ahmad Khan (1487–1503), who took eastern Moghulistan and Uighuristan, fought a series of successful wars against the Oirats, raided Chinese territory and attempted to seize the western Tarim Basin from the Dughlats, although he was ultimately unsuccessful. In 1503 he traveled west to assist his brother Mahmud Khan (1487–1508), the ruler of Tashkent and western Moghulistan, against the Uzbeks under Muhammad Shaybani. The brothers were defeated and captured; they were released but Tashkent was seized by the Uzbeks. Ahmad Khan died soon after and was succeeded by his son Mansur Khan (1503–1545), who captured Hami, a Chinese dependency, in 1513. Mahmud Khan spent several years trying to regain his authority in Moghulistan; he eventually gave up and submitted to Muhammad Shaybani, who executed him.

Mansur Khan's brother Sultan Said Khan (1514–1533) conquered the western Tarim Basin from the Dughlats in 1514 and set himself up in Kashgar. Thereafter the Moghul Khanate was permanently divided, although Sultan Said Khan was nominally a vassal of Mansur Khan in Turpan. After Sultan Said Khan's death he was succeeded by Abdurashid Khan (1533–1565), who began his reign by executing a member of the Dughlat family. A nephew of the dead amir, Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat fled to Mughal Empire in India and eventually conquered Kashmir, where he wrote a history of the Moghuls. Abdurrashid Khan also fought for control of Moghulistan against the Kirghiz and the Kazakhs, but Moghulistan was ultimately lost; thereafter the Moghuls were largely restricted to possession of the Tarim Basin.