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Draft:Khitay

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--- According to Western, Muslim and Chinese Sources

Origin of Khitay: as their neighboring Mongols, Tungus, and other Turkic peoples in the areas of Mongolia and Manchuria. The people Khitay were first mentioned in the first half of the fifth century in the New Book of Tang (新唐书).[1] They were nomadic hunters and shared similar customs as the Turks according to the same book.

Mehmet Emin Bughra, a prominent Uighur leader and historian in the first half of 20th century, stated that the Khitay were one of the Turkic tribes..[2] Modern Chinese scholars[3] and Chinese chronicles of different dynasties described the Khitay as descendants of the Huns[1]

Mahmud al-Kashgari (also Khashghari,1005-1102), a Kharakhanid scholar and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Khashghar, states in his "Diwan Lughat al-Turk" that: "Sîn (China) is originally three folds: Upper, in the east which is called Tawjäch; middle which is Khitay, lower which is Barkhan in the vicinity of Khashghar. But now Tawjäch is known as Masîn and Khitay as Sîn".[4] Tawjäch was originated from the name of the ruling clan of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), transcribed as Toba in Chinese. It was by this name that China was known in the Turkic Orkhon inscriptions of the eighth century, and the name continued to be in use in Turkestan at least until the early thirteenth century.[5]

Al-Marwazi (1056–1124), a physician and author of "The Natural Properties of animals (Tarbàyi al-hayawàn)", defined China as a great eastern country, whose territories are divided into three categories: Sîn, the greatest of the three; Qitai or Khitay; and Yugur (the yellow Uighurs).[5]

Ibn Battuta, the Maghrebi traveller of fourteenth century, used both China (Sin) and Khitay (Khitha) in the account of his journeys in Asia,[6] Here China is the south part of today's China, whereas Khitay is its north part, from where the Khitay people originated. More recently in the second half of nineteenth century, Demetrius Charles Boulger used both Chinese and Khitay in his book on Yakub Beg to designate the Chinese in Eastern Turkestan.[7] In Robert Shaw's book "Visits to High Tartary, Yarkand, And Khashghar", Khara Khitay and Manjoo were mentioned together and treated as two different races. And the term Chinese were also found in the same passage.[8]

The term Khitay is believed to derive from Khitan, which appeared for the first time in the Chinese chronicles as a tribal name Qi-Dan 契丹, a Chinese phonetic transcription of Khitan. Later on, several alternatives were used such as Khitay, Khita, Cathay, Cathayan. The French historian Jean-Paul Roux says the term Khitay is simply a plural form of Khitan.[9]

Generally speaking, the terms Khitay, Qitay, Khatay and Khita are mainly used in Muslim sources, while Khitan, Cathay and Cathayan in the European sources and Kitat in the Mongol sources.[10]

Due to the predominance of the two Khitay Empires during their dynasties in Manchuria, Mongolia and particularly in mainland China and later in Central Asia, the term Khitay was to become synonymous with that of China. People began to call the country Khitay instead of China. And this usage spread to medieval Europe, where it became Cathay. Here this name involves a geographic name rather than a state name.

First Khitay Empire (Liao Dynasty), 907 -1125): According to the New Book of Tang (新唐书), the Khitay were composed of eight tribes and were subjects to the Turks (Göktürk Empire) and later to the Uighurs. As early as in 907, one of their leaders, Yelü A-pao-ji, succeeded in establishing his authority over all the tribes that made up his people and founded the Khitay Empire (also called Great Kitan). From then on, Yelü A-pao-ji continued his conquest against his neighbors. starting by destroying the Khirghiz in 924, seized northern Mongolia, and entered Khara Balgassun. Then he turned against China, occupying North Korea, defeated the Jurchens, the ancestors of the Manchurians, and imposed his domination on these territories. Yelü Deguang (926-947), the son and successor of Yelü A-pao-ji, obtained northern Hebei and the far north of Shanxi from the Chinese emperors, and then seized all the territories north of the Yellow River. Settled in the Middle Kingdom, under the name of the Liao dynasty. Yelü Deguang became a son of Heaven like the other Chinese emperors.[11] By early 12th century, the dominance of the Khitay Empire was coming under increasing threat from attacks by the Jurchens, who spoke the Tungstic language. The Jurchens founded the Jin Empire in 1115. Conflicts between the two neighboring empires continued until 1125 when the Khitay Empire disintegrated. Led by a general from the imperial family, Yelü Dashi (1087–1143),  descendent of the eighth generation of Yelü A-pao-ji, the founder of the first Khitay Empire, part of the Khitay managed to flee into Central Asia.

Second Khitay Empire (Khara Khitay Empire, 1124-1218):On his way into Central Asia, Yelü Dashi requested permission from the Uighur ruler of Khocho (Khara Khoja), Bilge Khan to pass through his territory towards the west. The Uighur Khan agreed to the passage of Khitay troops and also offered Yelü Dashi 600 horses, 100 camels and 3000 sheep for helping him to relaunch the Khitay kingdom. This Uighur assistance was in requital to Yelü A-pao-ji, who had sent an invitation to the Uighurs for returning to their Orkhon homeland in Mongolia after vanquishing the Khirghiz.[12] In 1131, Yelü Dashi attacked Khashghar but was defeated by the Eastern Kharakhanid.

In 1132, Yelü Dashi founded the Khara Khitay Empire in Central Asia and proclaimed himself Gür Khan. By 1141, Yelü Dashi destroyed Eastern and Western Kharakhanids one after another and  inflicted a crushing defeat on the joint forces under Ahmad Sanjar (1085–1157), the powerful Seljuq sultan at a battle to the north of Samarkhand. The whole of Turkestan came under the Khara Khitay realm and by then the territories of the Khara Khitay extended from Hami (Khumul) to Aral and Khujand, his suzerainty extended from the upper Yenisei to Amu Darya.[13] However, the Khara Khitay Empire didn't last long and was ultimately swept away by the rise of the Mongols in 1218. On the death of Genghis Khan in 1227 , the immense territories of Khara Khitay came under the rule of his son Chaghatay.

The Khara Khitay had a lot in common with Central Asian Turkic people. They shared the coexistence of nomad and sedentary populations in the same state.[14] And The Khara Khitay Empire's rule in Central Asia was facilitated by the common features and social values that they shared with those Central Asian Turks.[15]

Khitay affinities for Turks and Mongols: Even before the Khara Khitay dynasty in Central Asia, the Khitay were enumerated among the Turkic tribes by Muslim authors.[16] The first Khitay Empire (Liao dynasty 907-1125) retained a certain part of the Turkic imperial traditions due to the influence of the Uighurs. Moreover, many Turkic and Mongol tribesmen joined Yelü Dashi when he came to Central Asia[17] and at the time there were also Khitay migrants in this region who served in the Turkic-Khitay mercenary army of the Eastern Kharakhanid. It is therefore not surprising that the Muslim sources stressed the affinities among the Khitay, the Turks and the Mongols. The Khara Khitay people were often referred as "the infidel Turks" or simply as Turks.[18]

The Khitay relations with the Uighurs, whose empire succeeded that of the Turks (Göktürk Empire) in Mongolia in 745, were more friendly and more complex. Theoretically at least, the Khitay were subjects of the Uighur Empire (744-840) in Mongolia. But Uighur rule may have rested light on the Khitay.[19] In 924, on the occasion of a visit to Khara Balgassun (Ordu-Balikh) on the western bank of the Orkhon River , the old capital of the former Uighur Empire, the Great Khan Yelü A-pao-ji ordered that an inscription in honor of the Uighur Bilge Kaghan be erased and replaced by a trilingual (Khitay–Turkic–Chinese) text extolling the deeds of the defunct Kaghan. The Great Khan offered the Uighurs of Khocho (Khara Khoja) the possibility of returning to their former homeland from where they had to flee when, in 840, the Khirghiz put an end to their empire in Mongolia.[20]

Certainly, the non-Islamization of the Khara Khitay and their connection to China make them less attractive as a focus of identification in the Muslim Central Asia republics and in the mostly Muslim Xinjiang (Eastern Turkestan).[21] On the other hand, the Buddhist characteristics of the Khitay religion might had some influence in their relations with the Uighurs who were also Buddhists. Islamization began among the Uighurs in the end of tenth century and four hundred years later (end of fourteenth century), the last Uighur Buddhists dwelling in Khocho (Khara Khoja) and Khumul (Hami) areas were converted to Islam by force during a Jihad (Holy war) at the hands of the Chaghatay Khanate ruler Khizir Khoja (1389–1399).

Beyond strictly political links, the Khitay and the Uighurs were connected in more than one way, particularly following the Uighurs' expulsion from Mongolia. The Khitay tribal confederation comprised several tribes of Uighur origin, such as the I-shih, second in rank only to the imperial Yelü clan. Also of Uighur origin was the Hsiao clan which provided consorts to the ruling Yelü. According to Khitay tradition, the power of the consort was almost as great as that of the emperor.[19]

Among all the nomadic tribes, the Uighurs were the first to lead a sedentary life. Gifted with a superior script, open to the Iranian world and to Chinese culture, the Uighurs were to be, until the Genghis Khan period, the educators of the Turko-Mongol peoples.[22] They played the roles of secretaries and professors of the steppes.[23]

The Khitay language belongs to the Altaic language family and its script existed in two forms: the large Khitay script, taken from the Chinese script and used for official inscriptions. The small Khitay script was invented in about 924 or 925 by Yelü Diela, a younger brother of the Great Khan Yelü A-pao-ji of the Khitay Empire (Liao dynasty 907-1125). He drew his inspiration from the Uighur language and script,[24] which he was shown by a visiting Uighur ambassador at the court of the Great Khan. For this reason, the small Khitay script was originally thought to be a daughter script of the Old Uighur Alphabet.[25]

Apart from the small Khitay script, Uighur cultural influence on the Khitay manifested itself in various ways and included the teaching of the cultivation of melons, a rather sophisticated process, since it involved the fertilizing of the plants with cow dung and their protection with mats. Important and cordial as Khitay-Uighur relations may have been, the Khitay took care to keep their distance from the politically insignificant Uighurs of Khocho (Khara Khoja). On two occasions Uighur requests for imperial brides were rejected.[26]

In 923, a Persian delegation and in 924 an Arab embassy arrived at the court of the Khitay Empire. And in 1026 or 1027, the Khitay Empire sent an exploratory mission to the west that was joined by a Uighur mission.[26]

Identified by Muslim sources as another kind of Turks, the Khara Khitay indeed had a lot in common with Central Asian nomads and former nomad Turks and the partly Turkicezed sedentaires. Such similarities facilitated the later assimilation of the Khara Khitay into the societies of Mongols and Turks after the dissolution of their empire.[27]

Khitay vestiges: In the decades following the collapse of their Empire, the Khara Khitay became absorbed into the Mongol Empire. A segment of the Khara Khitay troops had previously already joined the Mongol army. Another segment, led by Buraq Hajib, had founded the Khutlugh-khanids of Kirman (1222–1306) in today's Iran as a vassal state of the Mongols. Throughout its rule the Khutlugh dynasty continued to be known as the Khara Khitay, probably due to the prestige the name still had in the eastern Islamic world and among Kirman's new overlords, the Mongols.[28]

The name Khara Khitay remained connected to the central territory of the ancient Khara Khitay Empire at least until sixteenth century.[29] Even in 1811 there is evidence that the people of the region of Ili were still called Khara Khitay.[30] Traces of their presence may be found as clan names or toponyms from Afghanistan to Moldavia where even a place is called Khara Khitay.[31] A Khitay tribe still lives today in northern Kirghizstan.[32] Two villages in modern Tajikistan, called Khitoi and Khitoi Reza, are also described as originating in the Khara Khitay period. Clans and tribes called Khara Khitay, Khitay or Khatay appeared among the seventeenth century Afghans whose ancestors are said to have come from the region of Khitay and Khotan, among the Bashkirs, the Crimean Tatars, Khara Khalpakhs, Noghais, Khazakhs and Uzbeks.[33] Hungarian chronicles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries locate the Khitay on the banks of the Don.[34]

Today one can find among the Turkic peoples, particularly those from Central Asia, the names of El-dos (Yel-dos), El-tash (Yel-tash), and El-dar (Yel-dar). The prefix of which is generally considered to be the Turkic term El which means nation, state as the two have a similar pronunciation; moreover, this prefix reveals a surprising similarity with Yelü – the Khitay royal family name. Accepting the fact that Yelü Dashi is simply a phonetic annotation of the Chinese transliteration expressed in four Chinese characters (耶Ye - 律Lü - 大Da -石Shi), the accuracy of such transliteration is questionable and even unreliable compared with original Khitay pronunciation. If we transliterate the Turkic name El-tash into Chinese characters, it will also become Yele Tashi (耶勒大石) or simply Yelü Tashi (耶律大石).

During the Kharakhanids times, a Turkic prince of Khwarazm was also named Khitay Khan.[35]

Until 10th century, the term Khitay referred specifically to the people Khitay and their homeland in Mongolia.  After the foundation of the first Khitay Empire (Liao Dynasty) in 907, the Khitay began their conquest against their neighbouring peoples and became a most powerful state in the whole region covering today's People's Republic of China, Mongolia, Korea, and a part of today's Russia. To the West, the Khitay army almost reached at the door of Central Asia. Even the then Chinese state (Song Dynasty) was under the Khitay dominance and large part of its territories was annexed. The Song emperors had to pay tributes for their survival. It was from this period that the term Khitay became known, as a synonym of China, to the Western and the Muslim worlds.

Today some Eastern European countries, besides Russia, keep the usage of the term Khitay to call China, and peoples in Central Asia also use the term Khitay instead of China, as they used to be a part of Soviet Union and they simply borrowed this term from Russian.

As a derivation of Khitay, the term Hittay is one of the Uighur usages to designate the Chinese people (or the Chinese state). There are also other terms such as Hanzu, mainly used inside Eastern Turkestan, and Qinlikh by other Turkic-language speaking people. The Chinese transliteration of Hittay reads Hei-Da-Yi (黑大衣), which means black gown in Chinese (黑大衣), a traditional costume of the Chinese officials during the occupation of the Qing dynasty, a typical illustration of the Chinese colonial ruling class in the past. The Chinese consider the term Hittay derogatory, and the Chinese government seeks to ban its usage[36].  The term Hittay is not available in the government recognized Uighur vocabulary neither in any official documents.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b O Yang-xiu （欧阳修） (1060). The New Book of Tang (新唐书). Tom 219，Chapter 144, History of Bei Di （北狄） (in Chinese). China.
  2. ^ Mehmet Emin Bughra (1987). The history of Eastern Turkestan (in Uighur). Ankara. p. 168.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  3. ^ Shu Fen （舒焚） (1984). Essaies on the History of Liao Dynasty （辽史稿） (in Chinese). Hu Bei province, China: Hu bei People's Publishing House. pp. 2–6.
  4. ^ Mahmud Khashghari (1982). Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Diwan Lughat al-Turk). extracted from Michal Biran's book (2005): The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World, Cambridge University Press, p. 98. Cambridge, MA.
  5. ^ a b Michal Biran (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 98.
  6. ^ Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta (1982). Ibn Battûta Voyages – III. Inde, Extrême-Orient, Espagne et Soudan. Paris: Librairie François Maspero. p. 318.
  7. ^ Demetrius Charles Boulger (1878). The Life of Yakoob Beg, Athalik Ghazi and Badaulet, Ameer of Kashga. London: Wm H. Allen & Co., 13, Waterloo Place, S.W. pp. 5–243.
  8. ^ Robert Shaw (1871). Visits to High Tartary, Yarkand, And Khashghar. Albemarle Street, London: John Murry. pp. 196–198.
  9. ^ Jean-Paul Roux (1993). Histoire de l'Empire Mongole. Librairie Arthème Fayard. p. 32.
  10. ^ René Grousset (1965). : l'Empire des Steppes – Attila, Gegis-Khan, Tamerlan. Paris: Editions Payot. p. 203.
  11. ^ Jean-Paul Roux (1997). L'ASIE CENTRALE – Histoire et Civilisations. Librairie Arthème Fayard. p. 211.
  12. ^ D. Sinor (1998). The Kitan and the Kara Kitay - History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 4 part I. UNESCO Publishing. p. 236.
  13. ^ René Grousset (1965). L'Empire des Steppe – Attila, Gengis-Khan, Tamerlan. Editions Payot. p. 251.
  14. ^ Michal Biran (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 169.
  15. ^ Michal Biran (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 210.
  16. ^ D. Dankoff (1972). Kashgari on the Tribal and Kinship Organization of the Turks – Archivum Ottomanicum 4, (Extracted from Michal Biran's book: The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World, Cambridge University Press, p. 143). p. 29.
  17. ^ K.A Wittfogel & Feng Chia-sheng (1949). History of Chinese society: Liao (907-1125). New York: American Philosophical Society, Distribued by Macmillan. pp. 23–224.
  18. ^ Michal Biran (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 143.
  19. ^ a b D. Sinor (1998). The Kitan and the Kara Kitay - History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 4 part I,. UNESCO Publishing. p. 231.
  20. ^ D. Sinor (1998). The Kitan and the Kara Kitay - History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 4 part I. UNESCO Publishing. pp. 236–238.
  21. ^ Michal Biran (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 90.
  22. ^ Philippe Conrad (1976). LES GRANDES CIVILISATIONS DISPARUES. Genève: Editions Flamot. p. 102.
  23. ^ Harold Lamb (1940). The March of the Barbarians. New York: The Literary Guild of America, Inc. p. 28.
  24. ^ Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William (1996). The World's Writing Systems, New York. Oxford University Press. pp. 230–234.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  25. ^ Jacques Gernet (1996). A history of Chinese civilization. Cambridge University Press. p. 354.
  26. ^ a b D. Sinor (1998). The Kitan and the Kara Kitay - History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 4 part I. UNESCO Publishing. pp. 232–233.
  27. ^ Michal Biran (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 169.
  28. ^ Michal Biran (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 88.
  29. ^ Michal Biran (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 90.
  30. ^ D. Sinor. "Western Information on the Kitans and Some Related Questions". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 115 (2, 4–6, 1995). American Oriental Society, US: 264–267.
  31. ^ Michal Biran (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 89.
  32. ^ D. Sinor (1998). The Kitan and the Kara Kitay - History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 4 part I. UNESCO Publishing.
  33. ^ Michal Biran (2005). The Empire of the Qara Khitay in Eurasian History – Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. p. 90.
  34. ^ D. Sinor (1998). The Kitan and the Kara Kitay - History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 4 part I. UNESCO Publishing. p. 242.
  35. ^ W. Barthold (1992). Turkestan – Down to the Mongol Invasion (reprint of 3rd edition by Luzac & CoLtd, Lodon 1968 ed.). India: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. p. 330.
  36. ^ James A. Millward; Peter C. Perdue (2004). S.Frederick Starr (ed.). Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus) (1st ed.). M.E. Sharpe. p. 43.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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