• 1 L. Ju. Mankovskaja, in: Bukhara, A Museum in the Open, Tashkent 1991, p. 70 (in Uzbek, Russian and (...)
• 2 Narshakhi, The History of Bukhara, trans. R.N. Frye, The Medieval Academy of America, Cambridge, Ma (...)

1“Bukhara is one of the most ancient cities in Central Asia... Bukhara is at least 2,500 years old, just like Samarkand”1. This seems to be the official Uzbek version, based on finds of ancient coins and other remains, but is it plausible? If we examine the text of Narshakhi’s history of the city, however, we find the following: “This place, which today is Bukhara, [formerly] was a swamp; part of it was a bed of reeds and part planted with trees and a meadow. Some places were such that no animal could find footing there, because the snows melted on the mountains of the districts near Samarkand and the water collected... The area which is Bukhara was filled [with mud carried by the river] and the land became level. That river was the great river of Soghd and the filled area became Bukhara”2. We are speaking of the city of Bukhara rather than the large oasis designated by the same name. What should we believe?

• 3 A.A. Askarov (ed.), Gorodishche Paikand, Tashkent 1988, pp. 21-22.
• 4 Narshakhi, op. cit., transl. p. 18, text p. 26.

2Let us begin with geography and irrigation. There is no evidence that the Zarafshan river reached the Oxus in historical times and the existence of swamps and lakes in early times is almost certain. Ptolemy’s Oxian lake could have been situated in the oasis of Bukhara, although more likely it was at the combined delta of the Zarafshan and Kashka rivers. Before canals were created for draining the swamps, one may conjecture that only the high land in the oasis of Bukhara was occupied by settlements. Since the site of the city of Bukhara was not as elevated as the land around Paykand, it appears reasonable that such a site as Paykand, near the Oxus, and with easy access to Samarkand, and in the deltas of both the Zarafshan and Kashka rivers, would attract settlers searching for places to live in the oasis of Bukhara. Furthermore Paykand was situated on a low plateau of circa 100 sq.km.3 Also Narshakhi reports that Paykand was older than Bukhara and every ruler (of the oasis) made Paykand his capital, presumably in early pre-Islamic times4. We should remember that archaeologists believe that the deltas of rivers, such as the Tejen, Morghab and Hilmand rivers, were the places of earliest settlements in Central Asia, and the Zarafshan river delta would most likely conform to this pattern.

• 5 On both sides of the river, but especially on the west side, south of the present Charjuy (Amol), a (...)

4Bactria was called a land of “a thousand cities”, under Greek rule, but north of the Hissar mountain range few traces of Greek settlement have been found. After the Saka expansion of the first century B.C., under the Kushans we find archaeological evidence of settlements along the Oxus river, with an extension into the oasis of Bukhara5. At the time of the Kushans in Bactria, urban life continued to flourish and irrigation was the key to the wealth of the land. The vast Kushan empire of the first two centuries of our era was a rival to the Roman and Chinese counterparts.

• 6 Some Arabic texts tell us that Numijkath was the name of a village some four farsakhs from the city (...)

5So we may tentatively assign the beginning of the prominent settlement on the site of the future city of Bukhara to the first century, but it seems that the city did not become the center of the oasis until, at the earliest, the end of the fifth century, or later. But even then rival towns had maintained their own rulers and local prosperity in trade. Probably Bukhara obtained a hegemony over the oasis only shortly before the Arab conquest at the end of the seventh century. From the geographies written in Arabic (Istakhri, Ibn Hauqal, Yaqut, etc.) we find that the name of the village on the site, or near the site, of modern Bukhara, was Numijkath6. The second part of the word, -kath or -kand, means “town” in Sogdian, while the first part may be related to the Sogdian word for “ninth”, or less likely to the word for “law” (from Greek nomos), or it may be a name of the river.

• 7 On the common trade and textile interests of both Arabs and local people, cf. H. Mason, “The Role o (...)

9To recapitulate, the Arab tribesmen maintained their tribal organization in the Marv oasis, while in Bukhara the Arabs remained in the city. Many of the local nobility moved out of the city into their castles in the oasis of Bukhara, according to Narshakhi. In my opinion one of the factors which elevated the city of Bukhara into a center of Islamic learning was the early acceptance of Islam by its inhabitants, brought about in great degree by the intermarriage of local people with the Muslims, both Arabs and Persians, as well as others7. In any case, after initial resistance conversion proceeded apace, and the way was prepared for the flowering of Bukhara under the Samanids.

• 8 The lack of the sources on the Samanids is frustrating, for there are many questions one would like (...)

12The patronage of scholars writing in Arabic, and of poets and literati composing in Persian at the court of the Samanids in Bukhara is well known. The nature of the loose Samanid state, continuing traditions of local principalities of Central Asia with many minor courts, also provided such patronage, and that too has long been recognized. So a principal contribution of the Samanids to Islamic history was the fusing of Arab Islam with the cultures of Iran and Central Asia to produce an ecumenical Islamic civilization. One might object that the ‘Abbasids started such a movement, but under the Samanids Persian was accepted as an Islamic tongue, and the previous formula that to become a Muslim meant to become an Arab was expanded. Not only was Persian written in the Arabic alphabet, but also local languages such as Khorezmi and Mazandarani, but everything was swept aside by the simple lingua franca of Persian. There is confusion in the sources about the use of Persian as a written language at the court of the Samanids in Bukhara. Presumably Arabic remained the official written tongue throughout the tenth century, but Persian probably was an official spoken language. Yet surely some literati wrote their compositions in Persian, using the Arabic alphabet. That, however, is another story8.