Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/662

Rh Islam. Several times they succeeded in overthrowing the Chinese rule in 1825, in 1830, and in 1847 but their successes were never permanent. After the "rebellion of the seven khojas" in 1847 nearly 20,000 families from Kashgar, Yarkand, and Ak-su fled to West Turkestan through the Terek -Davan pass, many of them perishing on the way. In 1857 another insurrection broke out; but a few months later the Chinese again took Kashgar (for the details see ). In the course of the Dzungarian outbreak of 1864 the Chinese were again expelled; and Yakub Beg became master of Kashgar in 1872. But live years later he had again to sustain war with China, in which he was defeated, and East Turkestan once more became a Chinese province.

Bibliography.—The literature on Turkestan has of late years become very voluminous, especially in the form of papers scattered through the periodicals published by the European Geographical Societies and other scientific bodies. The reader is referred to the following works as fitted to facilitate research. Vols. vi. and vii. of Elisée Reclus's Géographie Universelle contain maps showing the routes of the chief explorers. Prof. Mushketoff's Turkestan (in Russian, vol. i. 1886) contains an excellent critical analysis of all explorations of Turkestan and works thereupon, and the information they contain with regard to the physical geography and geology of West Turkestan. Prof. Grigorieff's addenda to Ritter's Asien embody the whole of the older and more modern researches into the geography and history of East Turkestan down to 1873. Amu and Uzboi (Saratoff, 1879), by the chief of the Amu-Daria expedition, and Bogdanoff's Review of Expeditions and Explorations in the Aral-Caspian Region from 1720 to 1874 (St Petersburg, 1875) are most useful works. Prof. Lenz's paper "Ueber den früheren Lauf des Amu-Daria", in ''Mem. Acad. Sc. St Petersburg'', discusses valuable information borrowed from ancient sources. Mezhoff's Turkestanskiy Sbornik is a catalogue of the Central-Asian library at Tashkend, and his annual "Index" contains full classified lists of Russian geographical literature. Of works of a general character, with descriptions of both regions (apart from travels), the following, arranged in chronological order, are worthy of mention:—Semenoff's "Tian-Shan," being vol. i. of Ritter's Asien (Russ. trans., 1856); Grigorieff's "East Turkestan," forming two vols. of Ritter's Asien (Russ. transl., 1869 and 1873); Syevertsoff's "Vertical and Horizontal Distribution of Mammalia in Turkestan," in ''Izvestia Lub. Est''. of Moscow, 1873; Wenjukoff's Die Russisch-Asiatischen Grenzlande (trans. from Russian by Krahmer, Leipsic, 1874); Hellwald's Centralasien, 1875; Petzholdt's ''Umschau im Russ. Turk., 1877; Kuropatkin's Kashgaria, 1879 (partially translated into French); Kostenko's Turkestanskiy Krai, 3 vols., 1880, very copious translations from which are embodied in Lansdell's Central Asia, but unhappily too intimately combined with less useful information; Schlagintweit's Reisen in Indien und Hochasien, vol. iii., East Turkestan; Prjevalsky's three journeys to Central Asia (the first two translated into English; all three in German); Olga Fedtchenko's Album of Views of Russ. Turk., 1885; Nalivkin's History of the Khanate of Kokand (in Russ.), Kazan, 1885; Vambéry's Das Türkenvolk, 1885; Roskoschny's Afghanistan u. angrenz. Länder (for Afghan Turk.); and Mushketoff's Turkestan'', vol. i. (in Russian), 1886.

 

OMEWHERE about the second decade of the 13th century the little Turkish tribe which in due course was to found the Ottoman empire fled before the Mongols from its original home in Central Asia, and, passing through Persia, entered Armenia, under the leadership of Suleymán Sháh, its hereditary chief. His son, Er-Ṭoghrul, who succeeded him as head of the tribe, when wandering about the country with his warriors came one day upon two armies engaged in a furious battle. Er-Ṭoghrul at once rode to the assistance of the weaker party, who were on the point of giving way, but who through the timely aid thus rendered not only regained what they had lost but totally defeated their enemies. The army thus saved from destruction proved to be that of 'Alá-ud-Dín, the Seljúḳ sultan of Asia Minor, and their adversaries to be a horde of marauding Mongols. By way of recompense for this service Alá-ud-Dín granted to Er-Ṭoghrul a tract of land on the Byzantine frontier, including the towns of Sugut Osman. and Eski Shehr. , 'Osmán the son of Er-Ṭoghrul and the prince from whom the race derives its name of 'Osmánli (see, below), corrupted by Europeans into Otto man, was born in Sugut in 1258 ( 656). While still young 'Osmán won from the Greeks Ḳaraja Hiṣár (Karahissar) and some other towns, on which account he received from his suzerain, the Seljúḳ sultan of Ḳonya (Konieh), the title of beg or prince, along with the drum and the horsetail standard, the symbols of princely rank.

Early In 1300 (699) the Seljúḳ empire (see ) fell to pieces under the onslaught of the Mongols, who were, however, powerless to replace it by any government of their own. Thereupon ten separate Turkish dynasties arose from its ruins: that of Ḳarasi sprang up in ancient Mysia, the houses of Ṣaru Khan and Aydin in Lydia, of Mentesha in Caria, of Tekka in Lycia and Pamphylia, of Hamíd in Pisidia and Isauria, of Karaman in Lycaonia, of Kermiyan in Phrygia, of Ḳizil Aḥmedli in Paphlagonia, and of 'Osmán in Phrygia Epictetus. These principalities were all eventually merged in that of the 'Osmánlis, once the least among them, and the inhabitants assumed the name of Ottoman. Hence by far the greater portion of the people called Ottomans owe their name to a series of political events. On the collapse of the Seljúḳ power the Greeks retained hardly any possessions in Asia except Bithynia and Trebizond. Armenia was abandoned for a time to roving Tatar or Turkman tribes, till some sixty or seventy years later one or two petty local dynasties sprang up and founded short-lived states.

The year 1301 (700), in which 'Osmán, who shortly before had succeeded his father, first coined money and caused the khuṭba, or public prayer for the reigning of monarch, to be read in his name—the two prerogatives of an independent sovereign in the East—may be regarded as the birth-year of the Ottoman empire; and it was about this time that his followers and subjects began to call themselves 'Osmánlis, or, as we might render it, 'Osmanites. Having thoroughly established his authority in his capital of Yeni Shehr, Osman began to wrest from the Greeks many of the neighbouring towns and strongholds, among others Ayina Göl and Ḳoyun Ḥiṣári, routing before the last named a large Byzantine army. He then turned his attention to the administration of his state, and such was the feeling of security he succeeded in establishing that large numbers of people from the surrounding districts flocked into his dominions and became his subjects. After six years of peace several of the Byzantine castellans of the neighbourhood, instigated by the governor of Brusa (Broussa), made a simultaneous attack upon the Ottomans, but 'Osmán totally defeated them and sent in pursuit Ḳara 'Alí Alp, who took possession of all their domains. Gházán, the khan of the Mongols, who had entered into an alliance with the emperor of Constantinople, sent to all the Turkish princes an arrogantly worded message forbidding them to do any hurt to the Byzantine territories. To show how light he held this menace, 'Osmán assembled an army forthwith, marched to Nicæa and thence to the Bosphorus, laying waste the country as he went and taking possession of a number of towns and villages. Michael, called by the Turkish historians Kösa Míkhál or Michael Scantbeard, the governor of one of these, embraced Islám and became one of the most trusted officers of 'Osmán and of his son and successor Orkhan. The descendants of this Michael were the hereditary commanders of the aḳinjis, a corps of light cavalry who played a great part in the early Ottoman wars. The first service on which Michael was employed was to destroy, along with Orkhan, a Mongol horde that had taken and pillaged the Ottoman town of Ḳaraja Ḥiṣár. Meanwhile 'Abd-ur-Raḥmán and Aḳcha Ḳoja, two of 'Osmán's generals, were adding to the Ottoman dominions in the north, capturing several towns and laying siege to the city of Nicæa. The Ottoman chiefs next resolved to acquire Brusa, the natural capital of these parts. So they built round it a series of towers, in which they placed garrisons, with the view of intercepting communications and eventually starving the city into submission. At length, in 1326 (726), after a desultory siege of eight years, the keys were, through the intervention of Míkhál, handed over to Orkhan, who was in command of the Ottomans, and the townspeople were allowed to ransom