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...