The Oghuz confederation migrated westward from theJeti-su area after a conflict with the Karluk allies of theUyghurs. In the 9th century, the Oghuz from theAral steppes drovePechenegs westward from theEmba andUral River region. In the 10th century, the Oghuz inhabited the steppe of the riversSari-su,Turgai and Emba north ofLake Balkhash in modern-dayKazakhstan.[4]
They embracedIslam and adapted their traditions and institutions to the Islamic world, emerging as empire-builders with a constructive sense of statecraft. In the 11th century, theSeljuk Oghuz clan enteredPersia, where they founded theGreat Seljuk Empire. The same century, aTengriist Oghuz clan, also known asUzes orTorks, overthrew Pecheneg supremacy in the frontier of the Russian steppes; those who settled along the frontier were graduallySlavicized; the almost feudalBlack Hat principality grew with its own military aristocracy.[5] Others, harried by theKipchak Turks, crossed the lowerDanube and invaded the Balkans,[6] where they were stopped by a plague and became mercenaries for theByzantine imperial forces (1065).[7] Oghuz warriors served in almost all Islamic armies of the Middle East from the 1000s onwards, and as far as Spain and Morocco.[5]
The nameOghuz is aCommon Turkic word for "tribe". By the 10th century, Islamic sources were calling themMuslimTurkmens, as opposed to those ofTengrist orBuddhist religion; and by the 12th century this term was adopted into Byzantine usage, as the Oghuzes were overwhelmingly Muslim.[13] The name "Oghuz" fell out of use by 13th century.[3]
Linguistically, the Oghuz belong to theCommon Turkic speaking group, characterized by sound correspondences such as Common Turkic/-ʃ/ versus Oghuric/-l/ and Common Turkic/-z/ versus Oghuric/-r/. Within the Common Turkic group, the Oghuz languages share these innovations: loss ofProto-Turkicgutturals in suffix anlaut, loss of/ɣ/ except after/a/,/ɡ/ becoming either/j/ or lost,voicing of/t/ to/d/ and of/k/ to/ɡ/, and*/ð/ becomes/j/.[14]
Their language belongs to theOghuz group of theTurkic languages family.Kara-Khanid scholarMahmud al-Kashgari wrote that of all the Turkic languages, that of the Oghuz was the simplest. He also observed that long separation had led to clear differences between the western Oghuz andKipchak language and that of the eastern Turks.[15]Byzantine sources call Oghuz TurksUzes (Οὖζοι,Ouzoi).[16]
In early times, they practiced aTengrist religion, erecting many carved wooden funerary statues surrounded by simple stonebalbal monoliths and holding elaborate hunting and banqueting rituals.[25]
Basic forms of nomadic state from Xiongnu to Mongol
During the 2nd century BC, according to ancientChinese sources, asteppe tribal confederation known as theXiongnu and their allies, theWusun (probably anIndo-European people) defeated the neighboring Indo-European-speakingYuezhi and drove them out of western China and into Central Asia. Various scholarly theories link the Xiongnu to Turkic peoples and/or theHuns.Bichurin claimed that the first usage of the wordOghuz appears to have been the title ofOğuz Kağan, whose biography shares similarities with the account, recorded by Han Chinese, of Xiongnu leaderModu Shanyu (or Mau-Tun),[26][27] who founded theXiongnu Empire. However, Oghuz Khan narratives were actually collected inCompendium of Chronicles byIlkhanid scholarRashid-al-Din in the early 14th century.[28]
Sima Qian recorded the nameWūjiē 烏揭 (LHC: *ʔɔ-gɨat) orHūjiē 呼揭 (LHC: *xɔ-gɨat), of a people hostile to the Xiongnu and living immediately west of them, in the area of theIrtysh River, nearLake Zaysan.[29]Golden suggests that these might be Chinese renditions of*Ogur ~*Oguz, yet uncertainty remains.[30] According to one theory,Hūjiē is just another transliteration ofYuezhi and may refer to the TurkicUyghurs; however, this is controversial and has few scholarly adherents.[31]
Yury Zuev (1960) links the Oghuz to theWestern Turkic tribe 姑蘇Gūsū < (MC *kuo-suo) in the 8th-century encyclopaediaTongdian[32] (or erroneouslyShǐsū 始蘇 in the 11th centuryZizhi Tongjian[33]). Zuev also noted a parallel between two passages:
one from the 8th-century Taibo Yinjing (太白陰經) "Venus's Secret Classic" by Li Quan (李筌) which mentioned the 三窟 ~ 三屈 "ThreeQu" (< MC *k(h)ɨut̚) after the 十箭Shí Jiàn "Ten Arrows" (OTrk 𐰆𐰣:𐰸On Oq) andJĭu Xìng "Nine Surnames" (OTrk 𐱃𐰸𐰆𐰔:𐰆𐰍𐰔Toquz Oğuz);[34] and
By the time of theOrkhon inscriptions (8th century AD) "Oghuz" was being applied generically to all inhabitants of the Göktürk Khaganate.[39] Within the khaganate, the Oghuz community gradually expanded, incorporating other tribes.[40] A number of subsequent tribal confederations bore the name Oghuz, often affixed to a numeral indicating the number of united tribes. These include references to the simpleOguz,Üch-Oghuz ("three Oghuz"),Altï Oghuz ("six Oghuz"), possibly theOtuz Oghuz ("thirty Oghuz"),Sekiz-Oghuz ("eight Oghuz"), and theTokuz-Oghuz ("nine Oghuz"),[41] who originally occupied different areas in the vicinity of the Altai Mountains.Golden (2011) statesTransoxanian Oghuz Turks who founded theOghuz Yabgu State were not the same tribal confederation as theToquz Oghuz from whom emerged the founders ofUyghur Khaganate.Istakhri and Muhammad ibn Muhmad al-Tusi kept the Toquz Oghuz and Oghuz distinct[42] and Ibn al-Faqih mentioned: "the infidel Turk-Oghuz, the Toquz-Oghuz, and the Qarluq"[43] Even so, Golden notes the confusion inLatter Göktürks' andUyghurs'inscriptions, where Oghuz apparently referred to Toquz Oghuz or another tribal grouping, who were also named Oghuz without a prefixed numeral; this confusion is also reflected inSharaf al-Zaman al-Marwazi, who listed 12 Oghuz tribes, who were ruled by a "Toquz Khaqan" and some of whom were Toquz-Oghuz, on the border of Transoxiana and Khwarazm. At most, the Oghuz were possibly led by a core group of Toquz Oghuz clans or tribes.[44]
Noting that the mid-8th-centuryTariat inscriptions, inUyghur khaganBayanchur's honor, mentioned the rebellious Igdir tribe who had revolted against him, Klyashtorny considers this as one piece of "direct evidence in favour of the existence of kindred relations between the Tokuz Oguzs of Mongolia, The Guzs of the Aral region, and modernTurkmens", besides the facts thatKashgari mentioned the Igdir as the 14th of 22 Oghuz tribes;[45] and that Igdirs constitute part of the Turkmen tribeChowdur.[46] The Shine Usu inscription, also in Bayanchur's honor, mentioned the Nine-Oghuzes as "[his] people" and that he defeated the Eight-Oghuzes and their allies, theNine Tatars, three times in 749.;[47] according to Klyashtorny[48] and Czeglédy,[49] eight tribes of the Nine-Oghuzes revolted against the leading Uyghur tribe and renamed themselves Eight-Oghuzes.
Ibn al-Athir, anArab historian, claimed that the Oghuz Turks were settled mainly inTransoxiana, between the Caspian and Aral Seas, during the period of thecaliphAl-Mahdi (after 775 AD). By 780, the eastern parts of theSyr Darya were ruled by theKarluk Turks and to their west were the Oghuz. Transoxiana, their main homeland in subsequent centuries became known as the "Oghuz Steppe".
During the period of theAbbasid caliphAl-Ma'mun (813–833), the name Oghuz starts to appear in the works of Islamic writers. TheBook of Dede Korkut, a historical epic of the Oghuz, contains historical echoes of the 9th and 10th centuries but was likely written several centuries later.[50]
Head of male Seljuk royal figure, 12–13th century, from Iran.
Al-Masudi describedYangikent's Oghuz Turks as "distinguished from other Turks by their valour, their slanted eyes, and the smallness of their stature". Stone heads ofSeljuq elites kept at theNew York Metropolitan Museum of Art displayedEast Asian features.[51] Over time, Oghuz Turks' physical appearance changed.Rashid al-Din Hamadani stated that "because of the climate their features gradually changed into those of Tajiks. Since they were not Tajiks, the Tajik peoples called themturkmān, i.e. Turk-like (Turk-mānand)"[a]. Ḥāfiẓ Tanīsh Mīr Muḥammad Bukhārī also related that the "Oghuz Turkic face did not remain as it was after their migration intoTransoxiana andIran".Khiva khan,Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur, in hisChagatai-language treatiseGenealogy of the Turkmens, wrote that "their (Oghuz Turks) chin started to become narrow, their eyes started to become large, their faces started to become small, and their noses started to become big after five or six generations". Ottoman historianMustafa Âlî commented inKünhüʾl-aḫbār that Anatolian Turks and Ottoman elites are ethnically mixed: "Most of the inhabitants ofRûm are of confused ethnic origin. Among its notables there are few whose lineage does not go back to a convert to Islam."[54]
Themilitarism that the Oghuz empires were very well known for was rooted in their centuries-long nomadic lifestyle. In general, they were a herding society which possessed certain military advantages that sedentary societies did not have, particularly mobility. Alliances by marriage and kinship, and systems of "social distance" based on family relationships were the connective tissues of their society.
In Oghuz traditions, "society was simply the result of the growth of individual families". But such a society also grew by alliances and the expansion of different groups, normally through marriages. The shelter of the Oghuz tribes was a tent-like dwelling, erected on wooden poles and covered with skin, felt, or hand-woven textiles, which is called ayurt.
Their cuisine includedyahni (stew),kebabs,Toyga soup (meaning "wedding soup"),Kımız (a traditional drink of the Turks, made from fermented horse milk),Pekmez (a syrup made of boiled grape juice) andhelva made with wheat starch or rice flour,tutmac (noodle soup),yufka (flattened bread),katmer (layered pastry),chorek (ring-shaped buns), bread, clotted cream, cheese, yogurt, milk andayran (diluted yogurt beverage), as well as wine.
Social order was maintained by emphasizing "correctness in conduct as well as ritual and ceremony". Ceremonies brought together the scattered members of the society to celebrate birth, puberty, marriage, and death. Such ceremonies had the effect of minimizing social dangers and also of adjusting persons to each other under controlled emotional conditions.
Patrilineally related men and their families were regarded as a group with rights over a particular territory and were distinguished from neighbours on a territorial basis. Marriages were often arranged among territorial groups so that neighbouring groups could become related, but this was the only organizing principle that extended territorial unity. Each community of the Oghuz Turks was thought of as part of a larger society composed of distant as well as close relatives. This signified "tribal allegiance". Wealth and materialistic objects were not commonly emphasized in Oghuz society and most remained herders, and when settled they would be active in agriculture.
Status within the family was based on age, gender, relationships by blood, or marriageability. Males, as well as females, were active in society, yet men were the backbones of leadership and organization. According to theBook of Dede Korkut, which demonstrates the culture of the Oghuz Turks, women were "expert horse riders, archers, and athletes". The elders were respected as repositories of both "secular and spiritual wisdom".
Physical map of Central Asia from the Caucasus in the northwest, to Mongolia in the northeast.
In the 700s, the Oghuz Turks made a new home and domain for themselves in the area between the Caspian and Aral seas and the northwest part of Transoxania, along the Syr Darya river. They had moved westward from the Altay mountains passing through theSiberian steppes and settled in this region, and also penetrated into southernRussia and theVolga from their bases in west China. In the 11th century, the Oghuz Turks adoptedArabic script, replacing theOld Turkic alphabet.[55]
In his accredited 11th-century treatise titledDiwan Lughat al-Turk,Karakhanid scholarMahmud of Kashgar mentioned five Oghuz cities namedSabran,Sitkün,Qarnaq,Suğnaq, andQaraçuq (the last of which was also known to Kashgari as Farab,[56] nowOtrar; situated near theKarachuk mountains to its east). The extension from the Karachuk Mountains towards the Caspian Sea was called the "Oghuz Steppe Lands" from where the Oghuz Turks established trading, religious and cultural contacts with the Abbasid Arab caliphate who ruled to the south. This is around the same time that they first converted to Islam and renounced theirTengriism belief system. The Arab historians mentioned that the Oghuz Turks were ruled by a number of kings and chieftains.
It was in this area that they later founded the Seljuk Empire, and it was from this area that they spread west into western Asia and eastern Europe during Turkic migrations from the 9th until the 12th century. The founders of theOttoman Empire were also Oghuz Turks.
Oghuz Turkish literature includes the famousBook of Dede Korkut which wasUNESCO's 2000 literary work of the year, as well as theOghuzname,Battalname,Danishmendname,Köroğlu epics which are part of the literary history of Azerbaijanis, Turks of Turkey and Turkmens. The modern and classical literature ofAzerbaijan,Turkey andTurkmenistan are also considered Oghuz literature since it was produced by their descendants.
TheBook of Dede Korkut is a valuable collection of epics and stories, bearing witness to the language, the way of life, religions, traditions, and social norms of the Oghuz Turks in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran (West Azerbaijan, Golestan) and parts of Central Asia including Turkmenistan.
Yörüks are an Oghuz ethnic group, some of whom are still semi-nomadic, primarily inhabiting the mountains of Anatolia and partly Balkan peninsula.[57][58] Their name derives from the verb fromChagatai language, yörü- "yörümek" (to walk), but Western Turkic yürü- (yürümek in infinitive), which means "to walk", with the word Yörük or Yürük designating "those who walk, walkers".[59][60][61]
The Yörük to this day appear as a distinct segment of the population ofMacedonia andThrace where they settled as early as the 14th century.[62] While today the Yörük are increasingly settled, many of them still maintain theirnomadic lifestyle, breeding goats and sheep in theTaurus Mountains and further eastern parts ofmediterranean regions (in southernAnatolia), in thePindus (Epirus,Greece), theŠar Mountains (North Macedonia), thePirin andRhodope Mountains (Bulgaria) andDobrudja.[citation needed] An earlier offshoot of the Yörüks, the Kailars or Kayılar Turks were amongst the first Turkish colonists in Europe,[62] (Kailar orKayılar being theTurkish name for the Greek town ofPtolemaida which took its current name in 1928)[63] formerly inhabiting parts of the Greek regions ofThessaly andMacedonia. Settled Yörüks could be found until 1923, especially near and in the town ofKozani.
Mahmud al-Kashgari listed 22 Oghuz tribes inDīwān Lughāt al-Turk. Kashgari further wrote that "In origin they are 24 tribes, but the twoKhalajiyya tribes are distinguished from them [the twenty-two] in certain respects[b] and so are not counted among them. This is the origin".[64][65]
Later, Charuklug from Kashgari's list would be omitted.Rashid-al-Din andAbu al-Ghazi Bahadur added three more: Kïzïk, Karkïn, and Yaparlï, to the list inJami' al-tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles) andShajare-i Türk (Genealogy of the Turks), respectively.[66] According toSelçukname,Oghuz Khagan had 6 children (Sun – Gün, Moon – Ay, Star – Yıldız, Sky – Gök, Mountain – Dağ, Sea – Diŋiz), and all six would become Khans themselves, each leading four tribes.[67]
^This folk-etymology had been attested inAl-Biruni andMahmud al-Kashgari, the latter a nativeMiddle Turkic speaker.[52] However, this mixed Turkic-Persian etymology is now considered incorrect; instead,Türkmen is now etymologized as from ethnonymTürk plus strengthening suffix-men, meaning"'most Turkish of the Turks' or 'pure-blooded Turks.'".[53]
^Ar.:infaradatā ˤanhā bi-baˤḍ- al-aśyāˀ; alternative translation "separated from them with some of the belongings"
^Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs - MetPublications - The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 76–77, 314 note 3.The ruler is usually identified as Sultan Tughril III of Iraq (r. 1176–94), who was killed near Rayy and buried there (Mujmal al-tava¯rı¯kh 2001, p. 465). Pope (Pope and Ackerman, eds. 1938–39, vol. 2, p. 1306) and Wiet (1932b, pp. 71–72) wrote Tughril II but intended Tughril III.
^abcBarthold (1962)""The book of my grandfather Korkut" ("Kitab-i dedem Korkut") is an outstanding monument of the medieval Oghuz heroic epic. Three modern Turkic-speaking peoples – Turkmens, Azerbaijanis and Turks – are ethnically and linguistically related to the medieval Oghuzes. For all these peoples, the epic legends deposited in the "Book of Korkut" represent an artistic reflection of their historical past."
^abLewis, G.The Book of Dede Korkut. Penguin Books, 1974, p. 10.
^Grousset, R.The Empire of the Steppes. Rutgers University Press, 1991, p. 148.
^abNicolle, David; Angus Mcbride (1990).Attila and the Nomad Hordes. Osprey Publishing. pp. 46–47.ISBN0-85045-996-6.The Oghuz had a very distinctive culture. Their hunting and banqueting rituals were as elaborate as those of theGökturks from whom they... ...like some Pechenegs and Torks, settled along Russia's steppe frontier after being forced out... Here an almost feudal 'Black Hat' principality grew up with its own military aristocracy being accepted by the Russian elite on equal terms...
^Grousset, R.The Empire of the Steppes. Rutgers University Press, 1991, p. 186.
^Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, "Turkomans", inAlexander P. Kazhdan, ed.,The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (Oxford University Press, 1991).
^Golden, Peter B. An Introduction to the History of Turkic Peoples (1992). p. 21-22
^D. T. Potts, (2014),Nomadism in Iran: From Antiquity to the Modern Era, p. 177
^Omeljan Pritsak, "Uzes", inAlexander P. Kazhdan, ed.,The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (Oxford University Press, 1991).
^Uchiyama et al. 2020: "Most linguists and historians agree that Proto-Turkic, the common ancestor of all ancient and contemporary Turkic languages, must have been spoken somewhere in Central-East Asia (e.g. Róna-Tas, Reference Róna-Tas1991, p. 35; Golden, Reference Golden1992, pp. 124–127; Menges, Reference Menges1995, pp. 16–19)."
^Golden, Peter B. (2011).Studies on the Peoples and Cultures of the Eurasian Steppes. Editura Academiei Române. pp. 37–38.ISBN978-973-27-2152-0.
^Uchiyama et al. 2020: "The ultimate Proto-Turkic homeland may have been located in a more compact area, most likely in Eastern Mongolia"
^Lee & Kuang 2017: "The best candidate for the Turkic Urheimat would then be northern and western Mongolia and Tuva, where all these haplogroups could have intermingled, rather than eastern and southern Mongolia..."
^Uchiyama et al. 2020:"To sum up, the palaeolinguistic reconstruction points to a mixed subsistence strategy and complex economy of the Proto-Turkic-speaking community. It is likely that the subsistence of the Early Proto-Turkic speakers was based on a combination of hunting–gathering and agriculture, with a later shift to nomadic pastoralism as an economy basis, partly owing to the interaction of the Late Proto-Turkic groups with the Iranian-speaking herders of the Eastern Steppe."
^Findley 2005, p. 18: "Moreover, Turks do not all physically look alike. They never did. The Turks of Turkey are famous for their range of physical types. Given the Turks’ ancient Inner Asian origins, it is easy to imagine that they once presented a uniform Mongoloid appearance. Such traits seem to be more characteristic in the eastern Turkic world; however, uniformity of type can never have prevailed there either. Archeological evidence indicates that Indo-Europeans, or certainly Europoid physical types, inhabited the oases of the Tarim basin and even parts of Mongolia in ancient times. In the Tarim basin, persistence of these former inhabitants’ genes among the modern Uyghurs is both observable and scientifically demonstrable.32 Early Chinese sources describe the Kirghiz as blue-eyed and blond or red-haired. The genesis of Turkic ethnic groups from earliest times occurred in confederations of diverse peoples. As if to prove the point, the earliest surviving texts in Turkic languages are studded with terms from other languages."
^Golden, Peter B. (25 July 2018)."The Ethnogonic Tales of the Türks".The Medieval History Journal.21 (2):291–327.doi:10.1177/0971945818775373.ISSN0971-9458.S2CID166026934."Some DNA tests point to the Iranian connections of the Ashina and Ashide,133 highlighting further that the Turks as a whole ‘were made up of heterogeneous and somatically dissimilar populations’.134 Geographically, the accounts cover the regions of Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Xinjiang, the Yenisei zone and the Altay, regions with Turkic, Indo-European (Iranian [Saka] and Tokharian), Yeniseic, Uralic and other populations. Wusun elements, like most steppe polities of an ethno-linguistic mix, may have also played a substratal role."
^Lee & Kuang 2017: "Both Chinese histories and modern dna studies indicate that the early and medieval Turkic peoples were made up of heterogeneous populations"
^Nicolle, David; McBride, Angus (2007).Attila and the nomad hordes. Osprey military Elite series. London: Osprey.ISBN978-0-85045-996-8.
^Bichurin, N. Ya.,"Collection of information on peoples in Central Asia in ancient times", vol. 1, Sankt Petersburg, 1851, pp. 56–57
^Taskin V. S., transl.,"Materials on history of Sünnu", 1968, vol. 1, p. 129
^Zuev, Yu. "Horse Tamgas from Vassal Princedoms" (Translation of Chinese composition "Tanghuiyao" of 8–10th centuries), Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences, Alma-Ata, 1960, p. 126, 133–134 (in Russian)
^Maħmūd al-Kašğari. "Dīwān Luğāt al-Turk". Edited & translated byRobert Dankoff in collaboration with James Kelly. In Sources of Oriental Languages and Literature. (1982). Part I p. 101-102
^cited in Kamalov, A. (2003) "The Moghon Shine Usu Insription as the Earliest Uighur Historical Annals",Central Asiatic Journal.47 (1). p. 83 of p. 77-90
^Alstadt, Audrey.The Azerbaijani Turks, p. 11. Hoover Press, 1992.ISBN0-8179-9182-4
^Maħmūd al-Kašğari. "Dīwān Luğāt al-Turk". Edited & translated by Robert Dankoff in collaboration with James Kelly. In Sources of Oriental Languages and Literature. (1982). Part II. p. 363
^Clark, Larry (1996).Turkmen Reference Grammar. Harrassowitz. p. 4.ISBN9783447040198.,Annanepesov, M. (1999)."The Turkmens". In Dani, Ahmad Hasan (ed.).History of civilizations of Central Asia. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 127.ISBN9789231038761.,Golden, Peter (1992).An introduction to the history of the Turkic peoples. Harrassowitz. pp. 212–213.
^Lee & Kuang (2017) "A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples", Inner Asia 19. p. 208 of 197–239
^C. E. Bosworth,The Ghaznavids:994–1040, (Edinburgh University Press, 1963), 216.
^Maħmūd al-Kašğari. Dīwān Luğāt al-Turk. Edited & translated by Robert Dankoff in collaboration with James Kelly. Series: Sources of Oriental Languages and Literature. (1982). "Part I", p. 270, 329, 333, 352, 353, 362
^Maħmūd al-Kašğari. Dīwān Luğāt al-Turk. Edited & translated by Robert Dankoff in collaboration with James Kelly. Series: Sources of Oriental Languages and Literature. (1982). "Part I". p. 101-102, 362–363
^Minorsky, V. "Commentary onHudud al-'Alam's "§24. Khorasian Marches" pp. 347–348
^Golden, Peter B. (2015). "The Turkic World in Mahmûd al-Kâshgharî" inBonn Contributions to Asian Archaeology. 7. p. 513-516
^"Some Ottoman genealogies claim, perhaps fancifully, descent from Kayı.", Carter Vaughn Findley,The Turks in World History, pp. 50, 2005, Oxford University Press
1 Central Asian (i.e.Turkmeni,Afghani andIranian)Turkmens, distinct from Levantine (i.e.Iraqi andSyrian) Turkmen/Turkoman minorities, who mostly adhere to an Ottoman-Turkish heritage and identity.2 In traditional areas of Turkish settlement (i.e. formerOttoman territories).