Uzbek languageUzbek (Ўзбекча, Ўзбек тили; Perso-Arabic script: اۉزبېکچە, اۉزبېک تیلی, ozˈbekt͡ʃæ; ozˈbek tɯˈlɯ), formerly known as Turki, is a Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official, and national language of Uzbekistan. Uzbek is spoken as either native or second language by 44 million people around the world (L1+L2), making it the second-most widely spoken Turkic language after Turkish. There are two major variants of the Uzbek language, Northern Uzbek spoken in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and China and Southern Uzbek spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
History of TajikistanTajikistan harkens to the Samanid Empire (819–999). The Tajik people came under Russian rule in the 1860s. The Basmachi revolt broke out in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and was quelled in the early 1920s during the Russian Civil War. In 1924, Tajikistan became an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union, the Tajik ASSR, within Uzbekistan. In 1929, Tajikistan was made one of the component republics of the Soviet Union – Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik SSR) – and it kept that status until gaining independence 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
MervMerv ( Merw, Мерв, مرو; مرو, Marv), also known as the Merve Oasis, formerly known as Alexandria (Ἀλεξάνδρεια), Antiochia in Margiana (Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐν τῇ Μαργιανῇ) and Marw al-Shāhijān, was a major Iranian city in Central Asia, on the historical Silk Road, near today's Mary, Turkmenistan. Human settlements on the site of Merv existed from the 3rd millennium BC until the 18th century AD. It changed hands repeatedly throughout history. Under the Achaemenid Empire, it was the centre of the satrapy of Margiana.
MashhadMashhad (Mašhad mæʃˈhæd), also spelled Mashad, was the capital of Persia during the Afsharid dynasty by Nader Afshar and now is the second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. It serves as the capital of Razavi Khorasan Province and has a population about 3,400,000 (2016 census), which includes the areas of Mashhad Taman and Torqabeh. At the 2006 census, its population was 2,410,800 in 621,697 households.
RumiJalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (جلالالدین محمد رومی), or simply Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. Rumi's works were written mostly in Persian, but occasionally he also used Turkish, Arabic and Greek in his verse. His Masnavi (Mathnawi), composed in Konya, is considered one of the greatest poems of the Persian language.
Tajik languageTajik, also called Tajiki Persian or Tajiki, is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Tajiks. It is closely related to neighbouring Dari of Afghanistan with which it forms a continuum of mutually intelligible varieties of the Persian language. Several scholars consider Tajik as a dialectal variety of Persian rather than a language on its own.
Timurid dynastyThe Timurid dynasty (), self-designated as Gurkani (), was a culturally Persianate Sunni Muslim dynasty or clan of Turco-Mongol origin descended from the warlord Timur (also known as Tamerlane). The word "Gurkani" derives from "Gurkan", a Persianized form of the Mongolian word "Kuragan" meaning "son-in-law". This was an honorific title used by the dynasty as the Timurids were in-laws of the line of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire, as Timur had married Saray Mulk Khanum, a direct descendant of Genghis Khan.
KhujandKhujand (Khujand; Uzbek: Хўжанд, romanized: Хo'jand; Khojand), sometimes spelled Khodjent and known as Leninabad (Leninabad; Leninobod; Leninâbâd) from 1936 to 1991, is the second-largest city of Tajikistan and the capital of Tajikistan's northernmost Sughd province. Khujand is one of the oldest cities in Central Asia, dating back about 2,500 years to the Persian Empire. Situated on the Syr Darya river at the mouth of the Fergana Valley, Khujand was a major city along the ancient Silk Road.
Emirate of BukharaThe Emirate of Bukhara (Emārat-e Bokhārā, Bukhārā Amirligi) was a Muslim polity in Central Asia that existed from 1785 to 1920 in what is now Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It occupied the land between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, known formerly as Transoxiana. Its core territory was the fertile land along the lower Zarafshon river, and its urban centres were the ancient cities of Samarqand and the emirate's capital, Bukhara.
NishapurInfobox settlement | official_name = Neyshabur | native_name = | settlement_type = City | other_name = Raēvant (), Abarshahr (), Shadiyakh () | image_skyline = Nishapur, officially romanized as Neyshabur, (; from Middle Persian "New-Shapuhr", meaning: "The New City of Shapur", "The Fair Shapur", or "The Perfect built of Shapur") is the second-largest city of Razavi Khorasan Province in the Northeast of Iran.
