Page:The Tarikh-i-Rashidi - Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát - tr. Edward D. Ross (1895).djvu/117

 86 when ethnological considerations were in question, still used the word in a non-ethnic sense, to denote a group of tribes who had to be distinguished from the Tájiks.

Other Asiatic authors wrote on these subjects in the same way. Thus, Minháj-ud-Din, the author of the Tabákat-i-Násiri, frequently uses the word Turk to designate the nomadic group generally, and, like Rashid-ud-Din, even brings the name Tatar into the same category. The following is an instance taken from three consecutive paragraphs:—"In this same year the Chingiz Khan, the Mughal, rose up in the Kingdom of Chin and Tamghaj, and commenced to rebel; in all books it is written that the first signs of the end of time are the outbreak of the Turks. … The name of the father of this Chingiz Khan, the accursed, was the Tatar, Timurchi, and he was the mihtar [chief] of the Mughal tribes, and ruler over his people Among the tribes of the Mughal was another Turk of importance, a ruler and leader, and greatly venerated; and the whole of the tribes of the Mughals were under the rule of these two persons. … All the tracts of the Turk tribes, at the hand of their iniquity and sedition were reduced to misery. …"

Juvaini, the author of the Jahán Kushai, applies to the Mongols the passage from the Koran: "Beware of provoking the Turks, for they are formidable." Abul-feda quotes an Arab author to the effect that the Russians are a people of Turkish race, when pointing to them as belonging to the group of non-Musulman and non-Tájik inhabitants of what were regarded as civilised countries. Ibn Haukal, touching on the question from a geographical point of view, writes: "Tiráz [Táráz] is on the extreme frontier between the country of the Turks and that of the Musulmans" ; yet the Musulmans, in this case, were, to a great degree, of Turki race. And, again, Minháj-ud-Din mentions an invasion of Tibet (from Upper Bengal apparently) and says: "All the people [of Tibet] were Turks, archers, and [furnished with] long bows." Idrisi, also, in speaking of Tibet, says: "This is the country of the Tibetan Turks"; and afterwards: "This intervening space is covered with pastures, forests, and strong castles belonging to the