Turkistan (city)

Turkistan is one of Kazakhstan's historic cities with an archaeological record dating back to the 4th century.[3]

It became a commercial centre after the final demise of Otrar, the medieval city whose ruins lie near the Syr Darya to the southeast. Throughout most of the medieval and early-modern period it was known as Iasy or Shavgar and after the 16th-17th centuries as Turkistan or Hazrat, both of which names derive from the title 'Hazrat-i Turkistan', which literally means "the Saint (or Blessed One) of Turkistan" and refers to Khoja Akhmet Yassawi, the Sufi Sheikh of Turkistan, who lived here during the 11th century CE and is buried in the town.

Because of his influence and in his memory the city became an important centre of spirituality and Islamic learning for the peoples of the Kazakh steppes. In the 1390s Timur (Tamerlane) erected a magnificent domed Mazar or tomb over his grave, which remains the most significant architectural monument in the Republic of Kazakhstan. It was pictured on the back of the banknotes of the national currency until 2006.

Other important historical sites in the city include a medieval bath-house and four other mausoleums, one dedicated to Timur's granddaughter and three to Kazakh khans (rulers).

Before the Russians came in the 19th century, Turkistan lay on the frontier of the settled Perso-Islamic oasis culture of Transoxiana to the south, and the world of the Kazakh steppe to the north. In the 16th to 18th centuries Turkestan became the capital of the Kazakh Khanate.[4] It became the political center of the Kazakh steppe, but after advancing conquest expeditions of the Russian Empire and the associated weakening of the Kazakh Khanate benefited small southern states that he was captured. Finally, this city was conquered in Kokand khanate by Russian General Veryovkin in 1864. When Turkistan fell to the Russian Empire it was incorporated into the Syr-Darya Oblast of the Governor-Generalship of Russian Turkestan. When the Tsarist regime fell in 1917-18 it was briefly part of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic before being returned Kazakhs as a city of Kazakh SSR in 1924.

On 19 June 2018 Shymkent was taken out of South Kazakhstan Region and subordinated directly to the government of Kazakhstan. The administrative centre of the region moved to Turkistan and the region was renamed Turkistan Region.[5]

Pilgrimage

Landsat satellite photo of Turkestan

The city attracts thousands of pilgrims. According to a regional tradition, three pilgrimages to Turkistan are equivalent to one hajj to Mecca (such local piety is known also in relation to other religious monuments in the Muslim world). The Saint was held in such reverence that the city was known as the Second Mecca of the East, a vision which has helped shape the spiritual identity of Muslims in Kazakhstan.[6]

Modern-day Turkistan has a population of 165,000 (2019 census). The population rose by 10% from 1989 to 99, making it the second fastest-growing town in Kazakhstan, after the new capital Nur-Sultan.

The ethnic composition of the city:

• Kazakhs – 52,5%
• Uzbeks – 45,2%
• Other ethnic groups – 2,3%

The ethnic composition of the city according to the 1897 census:[7]

• total – 11,253
• Uzbeks – 8,940 (79.4%)
• Kazakhs – 1,415 (12.5%)
• Tatars – 506 (4.4%)
• Russians – 312 (2.7%)

At the same time the ethnic composition of the Chimkent uyezd (Chimkent district) which included the city of Turkestan according to the 1897 census:[8]

• total – 285,059
• Kazakhs – 20,709 (7,2%)
• Sart (non-nomadic Iranic, Turkic, or Mongolic people)– 32 043 (11.2%)
• Uzbeks – 224,704 (78.8%)
• Russians – 6 443 (2.2%)
• Tatars – 646 (0.2%)

Turkistan may be reached by train from Almaty, in a journey of nearly 20 hours. The road trip from the nearest airport at Shymkent takes about two hours.

Turkistan experiences a cold semi-arid climate (Köppen BWk) with short, cold winters and long, dry, very hot summers. The vast majority of the annual precipitation falls between late autumn and late spring.

• Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasavi

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Turkistan (city).

• Hill, John E. (2009) Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1.
• Hulsewé, A. F. P. and Loewe, M. A. N. 1979. China in Central Asia: The Early Stage 125 BC – AD 23: an annotated translation of chapters 61 and 96 of the History of the Former Han Dynasty. E. J. Brill, Leiden. ISBN 90-04-05884-2.
• Privratsky, Bruce G. (2001). Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and Collective Memory Curzon Press, Richmond, Surrey UK.

Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Turkistan.

• Description of archaeological investigations