Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur

Khan of Khiva from 1643 to 1663

Abu al Ghazi Bahadur (; , Abulgazi, Ebulgazi, Abu l Ghazi, August 24, 1603 – 1664) was Khan of Khiva from 1643 to 1663. He spent ten years in Persia before becoming khan, and was very well educated, writing two historical works in the Khiva dialect of the Chagatai language. He was a descendant of Genghis Khan via Arab Shah.

He was born in Urgench, Khanate of Khiva, the second son of ruler 'Arab Muhammad Khan. Since he was born 40 days after his father defeated a raid by Ural Cossacks, he was named "Abul Ghazi" (Son of Warrior). He lived in Urgench for 16 years until he was appointed as governor of Kat by his father. Towards the end of reign of his father a civil war broke out against him by his brothers Habash sultan and Ilbars sultan. Abulghazi had to flee to Samarqand and take a refuge at court of Imam Quli Khan of Bukhara where he lived for 2 years. His younger brother Afghan Muhammad fled to Russia where he became a resident in Qasim Khanate. His other brother Isfandiyar Khan finally prevailed and became khan in 1623 and offered Abulghazi a governorship of Urgench, his birthplace.

After ruling as a governor for 3 years, he rebelled when his brother was visiting Hazorasp, but was defeated and fled to Esim Khan of Qazaq Khanate in 1626. After staying with him for 3 months, he defected to Tursun Muhammad Khan, a rival of Esim Khan in Tashkent. After living here for another 2 years, he fled to Imam Quli again and tried to capture Khiva in 1629. Isfandiyar captured him and expelled to Abiward, whose Safavid governor sent him to Safi I's court in Isfahan. He lived there in exile from 1629 until 1639 studying Persian and Arabic history. He escaped from Safavid court to Balkan later and lived among Teke tribe for a while. He later went to Kalmyk Khanate in 1641 and tried to enlist Kho Orluk's help.

He finally acceded to the throne in 1643 after his brother's death. But his position was only secure around Urgench as Khiva was captured by Bukhara Khanate. Abulghazi only managed to secure his position in 1645 when Nadir Muhammad Khan of Bukhara died. His early years on throne spent fighting rebellious Turkmen tribes after his summary execution of 2000 Turkmen elders in Hazorasp in 1646. He managed to subdue most of Karakum and Mangyshlak tribes by 1653.

The Shajara i Turk was Abu al Ghazi's opus magnum, its title was variously translated as "Genealogy of the Turks" and "Genealogy of the Tatars", "shajara" being Arabic for "genealogy". Because using the word "Tatar" for "Turks" was a widely used misnomer, it is now obsolete to call the work "Shajara i Turk" as "Genealogy of the Tatars" instead of "Genealogy of the Turks" since it is a work on the Turks. According to Abu al Ghazi, in Shajara i Turk he used the work of Rashid al Din Hamadani, Sharaf ad Din Ali Yazdi, and other writers, totalling 18 historical sources, and corrected them in accordance with Turkic oral traditions which he was taught as a Prince. A manuscript of the Shajara i Turk was purchased in Tobolsk from a Bukhara merchant by Swedish officers detained in Russian captivity in Siberia; using the local literate Tatars, the Swedish officers first translated the book into Russian, and then they retranslated it into various other languages. The French translation of the Shajara i Turk was first published in Leiden in 1726, the French translation served as an original for a Russian translation published in 1768 1774, in 1780 it was published separately in German and English, and during the 18th century was widely read in Europe. In the 19th and 20th centuries were published numerous critical translations of the Shajara i Turk, which serve as historical sources for modern scholars. The first critical translation, performed by professional scholars, was published in Kazan in 1825. The Turkish translation of the text published in Kazan was done by philologist Ahmed Vefik Pasha and initially published in 1864. The most influential Western publication was Histoire des Mogols et des Tatares par Aboul Ghazi Behadour Khan, publiée, traduite et annotée par le baron Desmaisons, St. Pétersbourg, 1871 1874. Nikita Bichurin was the first to notice that the biography of the epic ancestor of the Turkic people Oguz Kagan by Abu al Ghazi and the Turco Persian manuscripts (Rashid al Din, Hondemir, Abulgazi) has a striking similarity with the Maodun biography in the Chinese sources (feud between father and son and murder of the former, the direction and sequence of conquests, etc.). That observation, confirmed by other scholars, associated in the scientific literature the name of Maodun with the epic personality of the Oguz Kagan. The similarity is even more remarkable because at the time of the writing, no Chinese annals were translated into either oriental or western languages, and Abu al Ghazi could not have known about Eastern Huns or Maodun. The literary significance of Shajara i Turk is that Abu al Ghazi openly spoke against Chaghatay literary language because it carried a strong Persian influence. Abu al Ghazi language is easy, simple folk language of the Khiva Uzbeks and is quite different from the Chaghatay literary language. The style of Abu al Ghazi, despite a scientific nature of his compositions, is distinguished by clarity and richness of vocabulary, and is interspersed with the falk Uzbek expressions and proverbs. Abu al Ghazi's son, Abu al Muzaffar Anusha Muhammad Bahadur, reassigned to complete the work of his father Shajara i Turk to a certain Mahmud bin Mulla Muhammad Zaman Urgench. It was finalized in 1665. The work lists a Turkic genealogy starting from biblical Adam and the primogenitor of the Turks, Oguz Khan, and provides legendary details on their descendants including Chengiz Khan and the Shaybanid dynasty, providing a good picture of Mongol and Turkic views of history at that time.

16413 Abulghazi, an asteroid which was discovered on 28 January 1987 by Eric Walter Elst at La Silla Observatory, Chile, was named after him.