In 1300 (699) the Seljúk empire (see Seljuks) 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 Karasi sprang up in ancient Mysia, the houses of Saru Khan and Aydin in Lydia, of Mentesha in Caria, of Tekka in Lycia and Pamphylia, of Hamid in Pisidia and Isauria, of Karaman in Lycaonia, of Kermiyan in Phrygia, of Kizil Ahmedli 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 Seljúk 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 khutba, or public prayer for the reigning 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, 'Osmán began to wrest from the Greeks many of the neighbouring towns and strongholds, among others Ayina Göl and Koyun Hisári, 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 'Omán totally defeated them and sent in pursuit Kara '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 Nicaea 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 Scant-beard, 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 akinjis, 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 Karaja Hisár. Meanwhile ‘Abd-ur-Rahmán and Akcha Koja, two of 'Osmán’s generals, were adding to the Ottoman dominions in the north, capturing several towns and laying siege to the city of Nicaea. 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 themselves for 30,000 sequins. Very soon after this 'Osmán died, aged seventy, at Sugut, whence his remains were carried for burial to Brusa. 'Osmán was distinguished for piety and generosity as well as for equity and courage. He cared nothing for amassing wealth, and on his death his personal effects were found to consist of two or three suits of clothes, a few weapons, some horses, and a flock of sheep. And so high was his reputation for justice that, we are told, many of the Asiatic subjects of the Caesars fled to him for that protection which their own rulers would not or could not give them.

Orkhan, who succeeded his father 'Osmán, continued the war against the Greeks, taking from them Nicomedia, Nicaea, and many of the towns which they still retained in Asia. Hitherto the Ottomans had not interfered with the other Turkish states; but now Orkhan, granting a short respite to the Byzantines, took advantage of a dispute regarding the succession to the throne of Karasi, entered that principality, and annexed it to his own dominions. To his son Suleymán the Ottomans owe their first establishment in Europe: one night that prince, accompanied by a few companions, crossed the Hellespont on a raft and surprised the town of Galipoli (Gallipoli). The next day he brought over a number of Turkish troops, with whose assistance he possessed himself of many of the neighbouring towns and villages; but his career was cut short by a fatal fall from his horse when out hunting. Orkhan did not long survive his son, grief at whose untimely end is said to have hastened his own death, in 1359 (761). This monarch is celebrated for the number of mosques, colleges, and other public institutions that he founded. During his reign the Ottoman army was thoroughly organized, and a body of regular paid soldiers was raised, which formed the nucleus of the military power of the state, though the old irregular militia was still called out whenever a campaign was to be undertaken. The famous corps of the janissaries (Turkish yeni cheri, i.e., “new troop ”) was instituted at this time. It consisted of the children of Christian subjects, who were educated as Mussulmans and brought up to a military life.

Having taken the city of Angora from certain territorial lords who, incited by the prince of Karaman, had attacked the Ottoman dominions, Murád I., the son and successor of Orkhan, found himself free to extend his possessions across the Hellespont. He forthwith passed over into Europe, where he and his generals soon reduced almost all Roumelia, capturing Adrianople, Philippopolis, and many other places of importance. These successes alarmed the Christian princes, who determined to make a vigorous effort to drive the Turks back into Asia. The kings of Bosnia, Hungary, and Servia accordingly marched with a large army upon Adrianople, but were surprised during the night and completely defeated by an inferior Turkish force. Some time after this victory Murád returned to Asia, where he celebrated the wedding of his son Báyezíd with the daughter of the prince of Kermiyán, a large portion of whose territory was made over to the 'Osmánli monarch as the dower of the bride. Next year, when Murád set out to inspect his new possessions, he met the prince of Hamid, whom he constrained to sell all his dominions. The Karaman prince, ever the jealous rival of the Ottoman, now stirred up some of the Turkman tribes to ravage his enemy’s land; but Murád was beforehand with him, and, entering his country, defeated him and annexed the district of Ak-Shehr to his own kingdom. The Bosnian and Bulgarian princes having allied themselves against the sultan, the Turkish commander in Europe invaded Bulgaria, which was speedily subdued and added to the Ottoman possessions. Murád next entered Servia and advanced to the plain of Kosovo, where he found awaiting him the levies of Servia, Bosnia, Hungary, Albania, and Walachia. The Turks, though far inferior in number to their adversaries, gained a complete victory, 1389 (791), but it was purchased with their sovereign’s life. After the battle Murád was riding over the field with some of his people, when a wounded Servian, who was lying among the slain, sprang up and stabbed him so that he died almost immediately afterwards. In consequence of this battle Servia became subject to the Turk.

Báyezíd I., surnamed Yildirim, “Thunderbolt,”on account of the fury of his attack and the rapidity of his movements, received the oath of fealty on the battlefield of Kosovo. He did much to secure the position of the Ottomans, in Europe, taking many of the towns which still remained to the Christians in Roumelia. In Asia he annexed the remaining Turkish principalities, and pushed his conquests as far as Caesarea and Sívás. The Christians made another great effort to free themselves from their Eastern foes: whilst Báyezíd was absent in Asia, the king of Hungary led a powerful army, in the ranks of which were many knights of France and Germany, into the Ottoman dominions and laid siege to Nicopolis. Báyezíd sped to the rescue, and inflicted an overwhelming defeat on the Christians. He next turned his attention to Constantinople, the reduction and annexation of which he had long meditated, when he was summoned to meet Tímúr, the Tatar conqueror, who had invaded his Asiatic dominions and taken Sívás. The Ottoman and Tatar hosts encountered each other outside Angora, and there the former sustained their first disastrous overthrow, Báyezíd being taken prisoner and his army practically annihilated. Next year, 1403 (805), he died in captivity; the story of his having been imprisoned in an iron cage is not confirmed by the Turkish historians, and is most probably fictitious. After this victory Tímúr overran the Ottoman territories in Asia, taking and sacking Brusa, Nicaea, and many other cities. With a view to the complete annihilation of the 'Osmánli power, he restored the independence of the Turkish principalities which Báyezíd had annexed, and placed them under the rule of their former emirs.

On the withdrawal of Tímúr from Asia Minor the four surviving sons of Báyezíd fought for what was left of their father’s kingdom; after ten years of civil war success finally rested with Muhammed, who alone of the four is reckoned among the Ottoman sovereigns. The attention of the new sultan, whom his people called Chelebi Muhammed or Muhammed the Debonair, was turned rather to the restoration of his father’s empire than to the conquest of neighbouring countries. In Europe he lived on amicable terms with the Byzantine emperor, and the Christian kings further north did not venture to make any serious attack upon him. But in Asia he had to contend with many enemies, the most formidable of whom was the emir of Karaman, who, having been defeated and made prisoner, was generously pardoned and restored to liberty. Another difficulty with which Muhammed had to deal was a strange religious outbreak: a vast number of fanatic dervishes, headed by an apostate Jew and a Turkish adventurer of low birth, rose in revolt, and were only dispersed after several bloody battles. This sultan, who was much beloved by his subjects and is spoken of with praise by the Byzantine historians, was stricken with apoplexy while riding in Adrianople, and died almost immediately in the thirty-third year of his age, 1421 (824).

The first care of his son and successor Murád II. was: to rid himself of a pretender to the throne who, aided by the Greek emperor, had made a descent upon the Asiatic shore of the Dardanelles. This adventurer was soon defeated and pursued to Adrianople, where he was taken and hanged. In revenge for the assistance rendered to his enemy, the sultan invested Constantinople, but he was compelled to relinquish the siege in order to subdue a revolt headed by his brother, which had broken out in Asia. Murád again annexed all the Turkish principalities which had been restored by Tímúr, except those of Kizil Ahmedli and Karaman, which did not finally become incorporated with the empire till the time of Muhammed II. The Turks were now called upon to face the most formidable Christian enemy they had yet encountered, namely Hunyady, the illegitimate son of Sigismund, king of Hungary. This famous general, after having inflicted several severe though not very important defeats upon his adversaries, invaded European Turkey with a large army of Hungarians, Poles, Servians, Bosnians, Walachians, and Frankish crusaders, the last-named being under the command of Cardinal Julian. The Ottoman army was utterly routed, Sophia taken, and the chain of the Balkans forced; and Murád was compelled to sign a treaty for ten years, by which he resigned all claims to Servia and gave over Walachia to Hungary. Weary of the cares of state·, and thinking that peace was, for a time at least, secured, Murád abdicated in favour of his young son Muhammed and sought a quiet retreat in the town of Magnesia. But he was not allowed to enjoy repose for long: the Christian princes, incited by Cardinal Julian and in direct violation of the treaty, assembled their forces, and, under Hunyady as commander-in-chief, without declaring war, entered the Turkish dominions and took many of the Ottoman strongholds in Bulgaria. When the news reached Murád he resumed the imperial power, put himself at the head of his troops, and advanced to meet the invaders, who had just captured Varna. Outside that town a great battle was fought, in which a copy of the violated treaty, raised high upon a lance, formed one of the standards of the Ottomans. The conflict, which was long and bloody, resulted in the total overthrow of the Christians, the Polish king, Ladislaus, and Cardinal Julian being among the slain, 1444 (848). Murád again abdicated and sought the retirement of Magnesia; but once again he had to take up the reins of government. This time the janissaries and sipáhís, accustomed to the firm rule of the victor of Varna, had refused obedience to the young Muhammed. The sultan remained at the head of the state until his death, which occurred in 1451 (855).

Muhammed II., who now ascended the throne for the third time, determined to accomplish the long-cherished design of his house, and make Constantinople the capital of the 'Osmánli empire. He easily found a pretext for declaring war against Constantine Palaeologus and in the spring of 1453 (857) led an immense army to beleaguer the city. His troops covered the ground before the landward walls between the Sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn; but he found that even his monster cannon could do but little against the massive fortifications. At length he resolved to assail the city from its weakest side, that facing the Golden Horn. But the Greeks, having foreseen the likelihood of an attack from this quarter, had thrown a great chain across the entrance to the harbour, thereby blocking the passage against the hostile ships. The Ottomans, however, constructed a road of planks, five miles long, across the piece of ground between the Bosphorus, where their own fleet lay, and the upper part of the Golden Horn. Along this road they hauled a number of their galleys, with sails set to receive the aid of the favouring wind, and launched them safely in the harbour, whence they cannonaded with more effect the weaker defences of the city. This compelled the Greek emperor to withdraw a portion of his little garrison from the point where the more serious attack was being made, to repair the destruction wrought in this new quarter. At dawn on May 29 th the Ottomans advanced to storm the city. The Christians offered a desperate resistance, but in vain. The emperor died fighting in the forefront of the battle, and at noon Muhammed rode in triumph into his new capital and went straight to the cathedral of St Sophia; there, before the high altar, where the preceding night Constantine had received the Holy Sacrament, he prostrated himself in the Moslem act of worship. The capture of Constantinople is not the only exploit to which Muhammed owes his surname of Fátih, or the Conqueror: he also reduced Servia and Bosnia, overthrew and annexed the Greek empire of Trebizond and the Turkish principality of Karaman, acquired the suzerainty of the Crimea, and won many of the islands of the Greek Archipelago from the Venetians and Genoese. But before Belgrade, which he had besieged as the first step to an attack upon the northern kingdoms, he suffered a serious defeat, being driven wounded from the field by Hunyady and John Capistran, with the loss of 300 cannon and 25,000 men. Rhodes, whither an Ottoman force was despatched, was the scene of another failure: here the Knights of St John gallantly and successfully withstood their Muhammedan foes, and compelled them to retire from the island. In Albania a long and, for a time, successful resistance was offered to the Turkish arms by the famous George Castriot, the Iskender Beg of the Turks. This chieftain had been in his youth in the service of Murád II., and was by him appointed governor of his native Albania, whereupon he revolted and tried to restore the independence of his country. Among the favourite designs of Muhammed were the subjugation of Italy and the establishment of the Mussulman dominion in the capital of Western Christendom. A Turkish army crossed the Adriatic and stormed the city of Otranto; but its further progress was stopped, and for ever, by the death of the Conqueror, which occurred a few months later, in 1481 (886). The Muhammedan soldiers besieged in Otranto, being unsupported from Turkey, were, after a long and brave defence, forced to surrender.

Báyezíd II. was hardly seated on the throne before he was called upon to face a formidable revolt raised by his younger brother Jem. This youthful pretender, who was both talented and high-spirited, was, after a number of adventures, finally compelled to fly the country. He sought the protection of the Knights of St John at Rhodes, who, however, retained him a prisoner, and made an arrangement with Báyezíd whereby they received from that monarch a yearly sum of 45,000 ducats as the price of the compulsory detention of his brother. After thirteen years of captivity the unfortunate prince was murdered by Pope Alexander VI. (Borgia), who, it is said, received 300,000 ducats from the sultan as the reward of his crime. Though frequently compelled to engage in defensive wars, Báyezíd was of a peace-loving and unambitious disposition, and a few towns in the Morea were all the additions made to the empire while he was on the throne. It was during his reign, however, that the Ottoman fleet began to be formidable to Christendom, the desperate battle off Sapienza, won by Kemál Re’ís against the Venetians, being the first of the Turkish naval victories over the Mediterranean powers. Báyezíd, whose pacific habits had alienated the sympathies of the janissaries, was in 1512 (918) forced by these dreaded guards to abdicate in favour of Selim, the youngest of his three sons. This prince had already been in open revolt against his father; but his determined and warlike character had won for him the esteem of the Turkish praetorians. Báyezíd’s health, which had long been failing, gave way under this blow; and the old sultan died three days after his deposition, at a little village on the way to...

The national Turkish traditions, preserved by the Persian historians Rashid ed-Dīn and Jowaini from Uigurian books which are now lost, point to the region watered by the river Selenga and its affluents, the Orkhon and the Tugila, as the primitive seat of the Turkish people. Rashīd ed-Dīn combines this tradition with that of the Mohammedan descendants of Oghuz, who, in accordance with Moslem traditions, derive the whole Turkish stock from Japhet, the son of Noah, or more accurately from Turk, the son of the former (Yafiz-oglan), and pretend that he pitched his tents in the vicinity of Lake Issyk-kul (in Semiryetchensk). But, though Turkish tribes did wander so far to the west, and even farther, in remote antiquity, it seems pretty certain that the Uigurian tradition has preserved the memory of the true origin of the race, that Turks and Mongols were originally different stems of a single people, and that these two members of the Ural-Altaic ( q.v.) family were more closely related to each other than to any other member of the same family (Finno-Ugrians, Samoyedes, Tungus-Manchus). The evidence for this rests, not on the ethnological system of Rashīd ed-Dīn, though it affords a secondary argument, but on the indubitable affinity of the Mongolian and Turkish languages and the similarity of the ethnological characters of the two races. Here, of course, we do not argue from the Osmanlis, who have lost all their original race-characters and have become “Caucasians” of the best type, but rather, for instance, from the Kirghiz, who are considered as the typical Turks of the present day, and are described by Ujfalvy as being midway between the Mongol and the Caucasian. We must now turn our attention to the wanderings of the Turks and their subsequent fate,—a rather difficult task, owing to the want of accurate information. The only truly historical records are to be found in the Chinese chronicles and encyclopaedias, where, however, the Turkish proper names appear in such distorted forms as to be unrecognizable ; yet , till the 6th century of our era, no other accounts are available.

It is generally admitted that the first Turkish people mentioned by the Chinese are the Hiong-nu, who, wandering to the west, occupied the country south of the Altai Mountains and expelled (about 177 b.c. ) the former occupants of those regions, the Yue-chi, Kan-goi, and Usun (U-ssun),—tribes of unknown nationality, but possibly also Turks. The Hiong-nu were identified by Deguignes with the Huns, this denomination being used in a political or collective sense, and including, besides the Huns proper, the Ephthalites or White Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Magyars, Khazars, and Petchenegs, who are styled by several scholars Hunnic or Scythian peoples,—a term of no scientific value whatever, as the main body of these peoples consisted really of Mongol-Turks or Finno-Ugrians. As, however, separate articles have been devoted to most of these ethnical names, we abstain from further details, as also from discussion of the question of the Turkish origin of the Magyars and the Khazars, though that of the former seems to us as improbable as that of the latter is certain. Be this as it may, the Hiong-nu are, so to speak, protoTurks, and the history of the Turks proper begins with the Tu-kiu, the Chinese equivalent of the word Turk. Originally a division of the Hiong-nu, almost extirpated by wars, but miraculously saved from complete destruction, the Tu-kiu settled south of the Kin-Shan (Altai ?) Mountains, and were miners and iron-smelters in the service of the Juen-Juen (“les Tartares Geou-gen” of Deguignes). About 552 A.D., however, they conquered their former masters and founded a mighty empire under princes who took the title of Ili khan. In these Tu-kiu Deguignes recognized the Turks who entered into friendly relations with Byzantium, and to whom Justin II. sent two ambassadors, —Zemarchus (568) and Valentinus (575). The narratives of these ambassadors are preserved in the fragments of Menander Protector; and (comparing the variations of the corrupt text with the record of Tabari) from him we learn that at the first date the reigning prince was Sinjibulus (Arabic Sinjibu). From the Greek and the Arabo-Persian accounts it seems that Sinjibu put an end to the empire of the Ephthalites or Haitāls in those regions. He shared the conquered country with Khosrau I., the Oxus becoming the frontier between Iran and Turān. The memory of the empire of Sinjibu and of its political strength has been preserved by the Arabic authors Ibn Khordādbeh and Mas'udī, who inform us that the Turkish tribe of the Karluks, settled in the provinces of Ferghana and Shāsh (Tashkend), were of old the mightiest of all the Turks, and that their sovereign, the khakān of khakāns, was obeyed by all the neighbouring princes. To them they reckon the mythical Afrāsiāb and the historical Shāwa. It is uncertain at what epoch the empire of the Karluks came to an end; but the Chinese assert that about 650 they reduced the inhabitants of the Ili and Jaxartes territory, though they were unable to protect them afterwards against the inroads of the Arabs under Kotaiba b. Moslim (706-714). The latter defeated the armies sent to their aid under Kurbogha Noyon, a sister’s son of the Chinese emperor. It is also doubtful if the so-called Afrāsiāb kings or Ilek-khans, who reigned in the 10th century at Kāshgar and Balāsāghun and conquered (999) the dominions of the Samanids in Transoxiana, belonged to the Karluks, as is supposed by Grigorieff and Lerch, or to the Uigurs, as others think.

The name Uigurs is very common during the Mongolian period, and Rashīd ed-Dīn and others use it (by an anachronism) in speaking of remote antiquity, though it is wholly unknown to the Arabic geographers, and, as Vambéry has shown, to the Uigurs themselves,—nay, even impossible in the old Turkish language, in which the form would be Utkur. The name Ugur, Ogur, or Ogor of Byzantine authors is really different; but Grigorieff has recognized the name in the corrupt Arabic form of Tagazgaz, which must be read Toguz-Ugur, the “Nine Ugurs,” to distinguish them from another division of the same tribe, the On-Ugur or “Ten Ugurs.” In the time of Ibn Khordādbeh and Mas'udī these Turks had gained the supremacy amongst their brethren, and had their residence at Kushān, which has been identified with the Kiao-chang of the Chinese. According to their accounts, the Kiao-chang form the southern division of the Hui-khe (Hoei-ke of Deguignes), and were settled before the Christian era south and east of the Tian-Shan up to the Pamir plateau and the Kuen-Lun. The Arabic authors make them adherents of Manichaeism; but, as the original Turkish Shamanism has developed into a dualistic system, this statement may rest on a partial misapprehension. It seems, however, certain that Buddhism reached these Turks on its way towards China, for we know that this religion spread in the 2d century b.c. throughout the adjacent kingdom of Bactria, and was still flourishing when Hwen-T’sang visited (7th century) those regions. Thus we can understand why the old Ural-Altaic religion bears a Sanskrit name. The northern division of the Hui-khe, which remained unknown to the Arabs, wandered from the Selenga region to the sources of the Yenisei, vanquished the Tu-kiu (745), and founded an empire from the Selenga to Lake Balkash, till they were overthrown (841) by the Ha-kas (identified with the Kirghiz). These northern Uigurs are called by the Chinese Kao-che, Chi-le, Di-li, and Te-le. The history of the southern branch is unknown, for the chronological data of Rashīd ed-Dīn and Abu-’l-Ghāzi are contradictory and useless, though their statements that the prince bore the title of Idi-kut and submitted to the Mongols have full historical weight. That the Uigurs rose during the Mongolian epoch to a certain supremacy by higher culture is attested by Rashīd ed-Dīn and Jowaini, who often mention Uigurian books.

The Petchenegs (Gr. ∏ ατξιvακαι , ∏ ατξιvακιται ; Magyar Besenyö ; Lat. Bisseni) were of old, as Constantine Porphyrogenitus tells us, settled about the lower Ural and Volga, but were driven thence (894-899) by the Ghuzz (Ouzoi). A part of them returned afterwards to their ancient abode, but the great majority wandered westward and settled on both sides of the Dnieper, driving the Hungarians before them to the Carpathians. Here they annoyed the neighbouring peoples by their raids, and engaged readily in the Russian expeditions against the Greek empire, till the policy of the Byzantine court incorporated large numbers of them with its own armies, sometimes with fatal result, as was experienced by Romanus Diogenes, when these auxiliaries passed to the camp of his antagonist Alp Arslan. At the period of the first crusade the Christian armies met with them on their march through Servia and Bulgaria; but the Petchenegs are not mentioned after the 13th century. The learning of Orientalists has discovered faint traces of the language once spoken by them in the Turkish dialect of the Bosnians.

Comans or Cumani (Russ. Polowtze, Magyar Palocz and Kun) is a term chiefly used by Europeans for the Turkish tribes that occupied Moldavia and the adjacent regions of south Russia. The origin of the name is uncertain; but it seems to be Turkish, though it rarely occurs in Oriental records. The most probable conjecture regarding the people denoted by it is that they were a mixture of Ghuzz and Petchenegs. Oriental authors know much more of their neighbours to the east, the Kipchaks, a very common name of Turkish clans down to the present day. Sometimes both names are combined: Rubruquis speaks of the Coman Kipchaks. Anna Comnena informs us that the Comans spoke the same dialect as the Petchenegs, a dialect well known to European scholars from the so-called Codex Cumanicus. On the arrival of the Mongols in these regions, the Kipchaks suffered great hardships, and large numbers of them were sold as slaves throughout the Mohammedan world. From them sprang the Bahrite Mameluke sultans of Egypt (1250-1380). The Comans sought refuge amongst the Hungarians and became Christians; but their arrival, causing internal dissensions in Hungary, greatly favoured the advance of the Mongolian arms. The remnants of the Comans, Kipchaks, and other Turkish tribes continued to dwell in southern Russia under Mongolian rule (see Mongols), whilst others became merged with the Hungarians.

The Ghuzz dwelt originally in the far East amongst the Toguz-Ugur, but migrated in the reign of the caliph Al-Mahdí (775-785) to Transoxiana, where they adhered to the cause of the famous Al-Mokanna', not from religious predilection, but to satisfy their love of war and plunder. In the same manner they afterwards served every warlike prince in their neighbourhood, and entered like other Turks into the service of the caliphs. The main body of the life-guard of the 'Abbāsids consisted of Turks, and some individuals rose very soon to high commands. Entrusted with the administration of distant provinces, they founded independent princely houses, such as those of the Tulunids and Ikhshids in Egypt (vol. vii. p. 750) and the Ghaznavids (see Ghazni). In the meantime fresh bands of the Ghuzz poured from the east and the north into Turkestan, the region becoming overstocked with a nomadic population. Some of them sought and found an outlet to the west by occupying the territory of the Petchenegs and joining the Turkish population of southern Russia; but the great majority, seeing the ruined state of the empire of the caliphs, crossed the Oxus and overran the northern and eastern provinces of Persia. How these loose desultory bands were guided to subsequent victories, and moulded with the peoples amongst whom they settled into regular political bodies, has been already narrated under Seljuks ( q.v. ).

Meanwhile they underwent a great change in their outward appearance, habits, &c., as Rashīd ed-Dīn relates, owing to the influence of the air and the water, and, we may add, to frequent intermarriage with the inhabitants of the countries invaded by them. After some generations the change was great enough to strike their Iranian neighbours, who called them Turkmans (Turcomans), a term implying resemblance to Turks. It is therefore quite natural that the modern Osmanlis should have become Caucasians; for, if Rashid ed-Dīn in the 13th century noticed the difference between a Turkman and a genuine Turk, the six centuries which have elapsed since amply suffice to have obliterated all original Ural-Altaic characteristics. The old name Ghuzz, originally, as it seems, the Turkish Oghuz (an eponymous hero of whom Turkish chronicles tell many fables) was wholly superseded by the new name Turkman and by other political names.

During the Seljukian period there arose in Transoxiana the empire of the Khārizm shahs, founded by Mohammed b. Anushtegīn, upon whom the government of Khārizm (Khiva),—which down to 995 had belonged to princes of Iranian descent—was conferred (1097) by the Seljuk prince Barkiyārok. His son Atsiz became independent (1138), but his empire seemed destined to early ruin by the arrival of the Kara-Chitai, who defeated the Seljuk prince Sinjar (1141) and became for a time supreme masters of Turkestan. Nevertheless the Kharizmian dynasty held its place as a tributary sovereignty, and developed great power under the princes Takash and Mohammed his son. The former defeated and killed (1194) the last Seljuk prince of 'Irak, and the latter extended his dominion from the Caspian to the Indus and from the Jaxartes to the coast of 'Omān. His cunning antagonist, the 'Abbasid caliph An-Nāsir, invoked the aid of Jenghiz Khān, who scarcely required this invitation to attack Mohammed. The sack of Bokhara was followed in the same year (1220) by that of the other principal cities of Transoxiana and by the persecution of the unhappy prince, who died in a forgotten island of the Caspian. His son Jelāl-ed-Dīn was driven towards India, but by a change of fortune ascended once more the throne of his fathers, till the new Mongol khān, Ogdai, sent fresh armies against him and forced him to seek refuge in the Kurdish Mountains, where he was murdered (1231). The fate of the Turks of Transoxiana was shared by their brethren in Asia and Europe, and new Mongol-Turkish empires arose, of which an outline has been given under Mongols. As the Mongol rule grew weaker, there arose in Persia and on the frontiers of Asia Minor the Turkman dynasties of the Ak Koyun-lu, the Kara Koyun-lu, the Zu’l-kadria, and the Ramazān Oglu, whose history is closely connected either with that of the rise of the Ottoman power (see below) or with the history of Persia (see vol. xviii. p. 632 sq.).

At the present day the Turkish people occupy a very extensive area, the centre of which lies in Khiva, Bokhara, and Khokand, and which stretches from the lower Lena in Siberia to the Danube and from the Crimea to Kermān and India. Politically they belong to Russia, Turkey, Persia, China, and Afghanistan. In religion the great majority are Mohammedans; a few tribes in Russia are baptized Christians; and some others adhere to the original Shamanism, which has also influenced the religious conceptions of the Christian and Mohammedan Turks. The principal Turkish peoples are the following. (I.) By a popular distinction the Turks of Siberia and Russia, with some colonies in Turkey, are styled Tatars (see Tartars), though the Yakuts of northern Siberia are not usually included in this term. The Yakuts, who are perhaps a mixture of Turkish and Tungus tribes, deviating from the ordinary course of Turkish wanderings, are settled about the lower Lena, and number probably 200,000 (Rittig, 80,000; Lansdell, 210,000). They are nominally Christians. (II.) On the Kirghiz (Kara-Kirghiz and Kazaks) and Kara-Kalpaks see Kirghiz ; but note that the Kipchaks, named there as a separate tribe, really form a subdivision of the Kazīk-Kirghiz, and are perhaps akin to the Kitai-Kipchaks, who are reckoned to the Uzbegs. (III.) Uzbeg is a political, not an ethnological denomination, originating from Uzbeg Khan of the Golden Horde (1312-1340). It was used to distinguish the followers of Shaibāni Khān (16th century) from his antagonists, and became finally the name of the ruling Turks in the khanates as opposed to the Sarts, Tajiks, and such Turks as entered those regions at a later date and are known to be Kirghiz, Kara-Kalpaks, or Taranjis. The Uzbegs are therefore a mixed race of different Turkish tribes. According to Kostenko, they number 201,972 in the Russian provinces of Sir-Daria, Ferghana, Zerafshan, and Amu-Daria, and Vambéry conjectures that there are 1,000,000 more in Bokhara, 700,000 in Khiva, and 200,000 under Afghan supremacy, giving a total number of about 2,000,000. They are agriculturists or inhabit the cities; a few are semi-nomads. (IV.) The eastern Turks on the southern slopes of the Tian-Shan Mountains at Kashgar, Ust-turfan, Ak-su, Sairam, Kutcha, Yarkand, Khotan, &c., are the remnants of the ancient Uigurs; and of the same origin are the Taranjis ( = agriculturists), settled in the Ili valley and elsewhere. The number of the latter is given as about 50,000; that of the former may be estimated from the statements of Forsyth and Kuropatkin at about 1,000,000 for the whole district, the great majority being Turks and the rest Mohammedan Chinese (Sungans). (V.) The Turcomans (properly Turkmans) inhabit the steppe east of the Caspian and south of the Oxus from Astrabad to the Paropamisus. The term is sometimes taken to include their brethren in Persia and Asia Minor, who will be treated separately. The following are the principal tribes:—(1) the Tchaudors and Imrailis, in the northwestern part of the Ust-Urt to the Gulf of Karaboghaz; (2) the Yomuts, extending from Khiva across the Ust-Urt to the Caspian, and along the sea-board to Persia; (3) the Göklen, on Persian territory, between the upper Görgen and Atrek; (4) the Tekkes, the most numerous tribe at the present day, divided into the Akhal Tekkes and the Merv Tekkes, so named after the centres where their greatest numbers are found; (5) the Sakars, on the left bank of the Oxus, to the east of Tcharjui, considered by Vambéry as a division of the Tekkes; (6) the Sariks, at Penjdeh and Yul-utan on the north-western slopes of the Paropamisus; (7) the Salors, one of the oldest Turkman tribes, who suffered greatly from the Tekkes, till they finally migrated (1857) to Zurabād in Persia, and left their former districts to the Tekkes and Sariks; (8) the Ersaris, on the Oxus about Khoja Salih; and (9) the Ali-elis, about Andkhui. Their total number, inclusive of some Turkmans who do not belong to any of these tribes, and are scattered throughout the provinces of Syr-Daria, Amu-Daria, Zerafshan, and Astrakhan (about 16,000), is estimated by Vambéry at about 1,000,000, and by Grodekoff at 1,170,000. The Turkmans are, with few exceptions, nomads, and were formerly the terror of their neighbours, who feared them as the “man-stealing Turks”; but since Merv has been annexed to Russia (1884) they have been compelled to abandon their predatory habits. (VI.) The Turkish nomads scattered throughout Persia are partly the descendants of the Ghuzz tribes that invaded the country at the Seljukian period; others have migrated thither in the following centuries. They are known by the name of liât or Iliyāt (meaning tribes or peoples) and consist of several tribes, having each its own chieftain, the Ilkhānī, appointed by the shah. An accurate list of the names of these tribes does not exist; but the most powerful and most numerous are the following. (1) The Kajars, who dwelt in Transcaucasia down to the time of Abbas the Great, by whom one division of them was compelled to settle at the south-east corner of the Caspian near Astrabad. To this division belongs the present dynasty of Persia. (2) The Afshars or Aushars, a very numerous tribe, in the province of Adarbaijān (Azerbijan). A division is also settled in the mountainous regions of the Anti-taurus; its members are nominally subjects of the Ottoman empire but really independent. (3) The Shekakis and Shah-sewen. The latter is not a tribal, but a political name, meaning those who love the shah, i.e ., partisans of the Safawī dynasty (1499-1736) and the Shi'ite faith. (4) The Kara Koyun-lu, near the town of Khoi, the remnants of the once powerful tribe named above. Besides these, many other names are recorded of tribes wandering...