| 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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