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Concept
Uzbekistan
Summary
Uzbekistan (UKʊzˌbɛkᵻˈstɑːn,ʌz-,-ˈstæn, USʊzˈbɛkᵻstæn,_-stɑːn; Ўзбекистон, ozbekiˈstɒn; Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan (Ўзбекистон Республикаси), is a doubly landlocked country located in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south; and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Its capital and largest city is Tashkent. Uzbekistan is part of the Turkic world, as well as a member of the Organization of Turkic States. Uzbek is the majority-spoken language in Uzbekistan, while Russian is widely spoken and understood throughout the country. Tajik is also spoken as a minority language, predominantly in Samarkand and Bukhara. Islam is the predominant religion in Uzbekistan, most Uzbeks being Sunni Muslims.
The first recorded settlers in what is now Uzbekistan were Eastern Iranian nomads, known as Scythians, who founded kingdoms in Khwarazm, Bactria, and Sogdia in the 8th–6th centuries BC, as well as Fergana and Margiana in the 3rd century BC – 6th century AD. The area was incorporated into the Iranian Achaemenid Empire and, after a period of Greco-Bactrian rule, was ruled by the Iranian Parthian Empire and later by the Sasanian Empire, until the Muslim conquest of Persia in the seventh century.
The early Muslim conquests and the subsequent Samanid Empire converted most of the people, including the local ruling classes, into adherents of Islam. During this period, cities such as Samarkand, Khiva, and Bukhara began to grow rich from the Silk Road, and became a center of the Islamic Golden Age, with figures such as Muhammad al-Bukhari, Al-Tirmidhi, al Khwarizmi, al-Biruni, Avicenna, and Omar Khayyam.
The local Khwarazmian dynasty was destroyed by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, leading to a dominance by Turkic peoples. Timur (Tamerlane), who in the 14th century established the Timurid Empire, was from Shahrisabz. Its capital was Samarkand, which became a centre of science under the rule of Ulugh Beg, giving birth to the Timurid Renaissance.
Official source
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