Shoroon Bumbagar, tomb of a Turkic (Gokturk) nobleman, 650-700 CE

November 18, 2023

Shoroon Bumbagar, tomb of a Turkic (Gokturk) nobleman, 650-700 CE

"Like Chinese historians, Muslim writers in general depict the ‘Turks’ as possessing East Asian physiognomy. For instance, Sharaf al-Zamān Tāhir Marvazī describes them as being ‘short, with small eyes, nostrils, and mouths’ (1942: 53–4, 156). Similarly, Tabarī (d. 923) depicts the ‘Turks’ as being ‘full-faced with small eyes’ (1987: 21). In his Qābūs-nāma, the eleventh-century Ziyarid ruler Kai Kā'ūs also describes the ‘Turks’ as possessing ‘a large head (sar-i buzurg), a broad face (rūy-i pahn), narrow eyes (chashmhā-i tang), and a flat nose (bīnī-i pakhch), and unpleasing lips and teeth (lab va dandān na nīkū)’ (Kai Kā'ūs ibn Iskandar 1951a: 103; 1951b: 64). The Arab historian and geographer al-Mas'ūdī (896–956) writes that the Oghuz Turks residing in Yengi-kent, a town near the mouth of the Syr Darya, ‘are distinguished from other Turks by their valour, their slanted eyes, and the smallness of their stature’ (wa hum ashadd al-Turk ba’san wa aqsaruhum wa asgharuhum a‘yunan wa fī al-Turk man huwa aqsar min hā’ulā’) (al-Mas'ūdī 1962–: Vol. 1, 212). However, Muslim writers later differentiated the Oghuz Turks from other Turks in terms of physiognomy. Rashīd al-Dīn writes that ‘because of the climate their features gradually changed into those of Tajiks. Since they were not Tajiks, the Tajik peoples called them turkmān, i.e. Turk-like (Turk-mānand)’ (Rashīd al-Dīn Fażlallāh Hamadānī 1988: Vol. 1, 35–6; Rashiduddin Fazlullah 1998–99: Vol. 1, 31). Hāfiz Tanīsh Mīr Muhammad Bukhārī (d. c. 1549) also relates that after the Oghuz came to Transoxiana and Iran, their ‘Turkic face did not re-main as it was’ (1983: fol. 17a (text), Vol. 1, 61 (trans.)). Abū al-Ghāzī Bahadur Khan similarly writes that ‘their 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 (Abu-l-Gazi 1958: 42 (text), 57 (trans.); Ebülgazî Bahadir Han 1975: 57–8). As a matter of fact, the mixed nature of the Ottomans, belonging to the Oghuz Turkic group, is noted by the Ottoman historian Mustafā Ālī (1541–1600). In his Künhü'l-ahbār, he remarks that the Ottoman elites of the sixteenth century were of mostly of non-Turkic origin: ‘Most of the inhabitants of Rum are of confused ethnic origin. Among its notables there are few whose lineage does not go back to a convert to Islam …’ (Ekser-i sükkān-i vilāyet-i Rūm meclis-i muhtelit ul-mefhūm olub ā‘yānında az kimsene bulunur ki nesebi bir müslüm-i cedīde muntehī olmaya) (Fleischer 1986: 254; Mustafā Ālī, Künhü'l-ahbār 1860–68: Vol. 1, 16)."

-Joo-Yup Lee & Shuntu Kuang, A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples