Origins of the Ghurids

[Savoyard]

Anyhow, the theories on Tajik, Turkic or Farsi-speaking rulers to me seem biased/flawed. Most historians guess that the kings were Persian speaking due to documents and inscriptions they found on architecture that had Persian lettering. The fact behind these findings is that Pashto/Pukhto did not have a written system until extremely late. Even today Pashtuns largely know how to write exclusively in other languages due to the lack of written literary infrastructure of the Pashto language. Point being, the most commonly learned language in that region was Persian/Farsi/Dari. Very similar to the effect of Greek and Latin to Europe. So in that light, just because many kings in Europe used different languages to communicate easily is a very unreliable source to judge ethnic background on.

The Sassanian Empire hugely influenced the Muslim world. The mosque being based on Persian architecture, it gets easy to see this. The Persians were really the true elite in the region and thus many practices are picked up on by the invaders. Given that having a Persian speaking elite at the top and a Persian populace on the bottom with a warrior class of Turks or what have you in the middle, there's a lot borrowed between the two.

[nnnm]

well the Ghaznavids were turks as well as Samanids b4 them but the Ghorids r not. the Ghorids (house of AL-Hussain started rebellion ) r were one of the major and leading families of the Ghor people (Afghanistan now) and their people were the original people of the land. and they seems to had independent rule under the Ghaznavids and in the war between Sultan Behram and his brother Arslan they joined Arslan's side but he was defeated and the Sultan killed the ghorid's leader and that what started their rebellion.

[Jedi Knight]

"Gur" or "Ghur" is a pre-Turkic runic symbol and a suffix, which its pronunciation spelled like the word, Ghur. In some articles (which are non-English documents) of mine states that Ghurids are a Turkic tribe, and in a specific period, they united with another Turkic branch, Khalachs (or Khalaj) and they were started to known as either Khalachs or Ghurids, but it is clear that they were united.

Lots of Ghurid people ran away to Anatolia from their homelands during the Mongol invasion. There are also lots of specific names who were risen to the upper ranks through Ottoman administration in the later periods. Today, there are lots of villages and tribes in Anatolia, who know their ancestors were Ghurid people of old. It is said, they are speaking Turkish and Kurdish with an Afgan accent (Gur-manç), but their Turkicness is especially claimed because of their Abdal/Haptal/Abdal-lan customs and their Alavid (Alevi) belief which is a pure Turkic traditional religion.
In conclusion, they say they are descendants of Ghurids, and they are Alevi. Therefore, if they are Alevi, they can not be other than Turkic. Because, that religion is only transferred through family ties (from the father).

But I know, this is a disputed subject which deserves more investigation about these.

The immigrants gave their old homelands name to the new one. If you are right,the ottoman tax records should be checked. They are called 'tahrir defteri'.

[Silesian_Noble]

well the Ghaznavids were turks as well as Samanids b4 them but the Ghorids r not.

What? No way... SAMANIDS WERE NOT TURKIC! Of course as typical Muslim dynasty they maintained many Turkic Ghulam units but:
- Samanid dynasty was Persian
- the majority population of Samanid Empire was Persian
- the majority of Samanid army was Persian (all infantry plus some cavalry - Dekhans)
- the language spoken on Samanid court was Persan (Farsi? don't really remember)
- all the administration structure was Persian
- all the culture was Persian

Ghaznavid dynasty started from Turkic slave so we may considered Ghaznavid state in some way as Turkic though they majority of Ghaznavid population was non-Turkic and the Ghaznavid culture/administration was rather Persian (Ghaznavids built their empire by grabbing Samanids land and conquering the Hindu state of Kabul Shahi).

[Farwest]

So what is Persian?

Nearly all corners of ancient Persia were settled by Turkic tribes. And they are largely speaking Persian. Still they are speaking Persian in today's Iran; additionally, half of Iran is defining themselves from some Turkic tribes, like Afshar, Kirgiz, Ozbek, and some other Oghuz tribes. Ask them, what is their etnicity, and you will have your answer as Turkic. But you will get your answer speaking with Persian.

Meanwhile, nearly all of the Turkic kingdoms adopted the other languages as their palace language. Persian, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Indian and so on... Ottomans too adopted, other than Turkic language. So after 100 years, some can start to say, "Ottoman was not Turkic!"

This is like this.

There were some kingdoms and countries which were founded in Iranian and Iraq lands and they are called today, Persian. There were some kingdoms, which were founded in China, and today they are called Chinese, but we can clearly trace their lineage to the Oghuz Khan of the Hunnic Turks. But they were speaking Chinese, accustomed to having Chinese names and so on... This example is similar for the other places we can include.

So what makes a country Turkic, (if we have a contradiction about that), according to my researches, in my perspective:

-Their military elite. Turkic countries always ruled with strong military which was always origined from Turkic (except Khazars, who embraced using mercenaries largely in their military campaings)
-Their state symbols, standards, and banners. Like symbol of wolf, eagle, two-headed eagle, peacock, arrow with bow; or some other Turkic runes.
-Records in neighbour countries, about their rulers, ethnic, and their family relationships
-Dynasty, especially if we can trace their lineage back to some roots

For Samanids, I can not say Turkic about them clearly by their dynasty; but there is a distinctive evident that Saman is a Turkic word. Because of this word, their origin is usually confused by investigators. The word could be really Turkic or it could be just a homonymous word which also can have another meaning. But nevertheless, I don't know very much about Samanids, so I would not include any additional words about Samanids.

[Ansar Warrior]

^ Dude I don't know where you get half of this from my friend.

I have a lot of relatives and friends who are Persian and they are proper Iranians not Turkic in fact I don't know any one who is Persian/Turkic or have ever heard of that?

Persians have a very distinct culture, race and country and it has no Turkic traits, peoples use Persian traits not the other way around as they have a much richer history in the east.

Samanids also were a Persian dynasty, as I said with the Ghurids it does not matter if there were many Turks in the army as there was many races and tribes which made up Islamic kingdoms however a dynasty is measured on where the royal family originate and the aristocracy of the Samanids was Persian.

You have to be realistic when trying to identify a ruling class, the Abbasids are called that because that is the family name of the dynasty hence it is Arabic same way as the Samanids.

That's like saying the Ottomans were Slavic and not Turks just because the Jannisaries were balkan and slavic.

[Farwest]

I think you should a little investigate about demographic structure of today's Iran. Then you will see, nearly half of today's Iran have Turkic origins, like Azer, Qaskay, Turkmen, Kirgiz people. I don't include families and people who blended with local ethnics.

Seljuks, Safavids, Kharezmshahs were all Turkic kingdoms and they exchanged much with local Persian cultures. And saying, "it has no Turkic traits" should be a distinctive mistake, because Ottomans was influenced very much by Persian culture and literature. Nearly all the work of arts were written with Persian in Ottomans and Seljuks. So it is very difficult to distinguish Turkish and Persian people from outside. What I am trying to say is this.

I am saying this again. What is Persian?

In the encyclopedias, it is commonly said, "whoever live in Iran area is considered Persian". But true Persians, who founded the ancient empires in the history is a very minor society and some other local people also included in this identity. But the Luri, Mazandarani, Gilaki, Talyshi, Tajik are different peoples and aren't considered as Persian in Iran. But they speak Persian.

So, if we want to say about Samanids, they were Persian speaking Tajiks. Not Persian, but Tajik people.

But I am thinking, as you state for realism, why their name is a Turkish word, or it is similar for a Turkish family name - 'Saman'ids ? Saman is an agricultural term in Turkish language and largely meaning 'straw'.

And after Samanids, there are always Turkic states in Iran, and Iran is ruled by Turkic (except 1750-1794) until 1925.
Ghaznavids, Seljuks, Khwarezmshahs-Ilkhanate, Timur, Safavid, Afshar, Kachar and they are all influenced more or less with Persian language in both politics and literature.

That's like saying the Ottomans were Slavic and not Turks just because the Jannisaries were balkan and slavic.

And that is like saying, the Ottomans were Persian or Arabic, just because they used Persian and Arabic languages (and a mix) in Palace. We can include that Seljuks too, as if they are Persian?

[Ichon]

What about cultural absorption?

A variety of invasions - and the imposition of new languages, foods, and customs that come with invaders - the people of the larger culture often simply adopt a little the customs of the invaders while the invaders by intermarriage and being a small minority adopt slowly the language, manners, and majority of customs of the conquered people. Manchus, Normans, Ottomans, Greeks, and many others. The biggest exceptions to this are the Abrahamic religions though for the larger part of their existence they were mostly a thin veneer over older traditions.

Turks were moving along the steppes since just after the Scythians and over 1,000 years settled everywhere from Hungary to Spain to Egypt to India to China... does that make everywhere they settled Turkic? Not really... I'd say that at first just having a ruling caste be Turkic doesn't make the entire people Turkic but over centuries there is a blend and then if a new Turkic dynasty arrives this blend moves the people closer to being Turkic over time, although some places the Turkic customs did not last very long at all while in other places huge numbers of the native population were killed or driven out in the invasions, Greeks, Huns, Mongols, Timurids, etc all did this type of invasions. However as we see in Persia... many of the 'newer' cultures adopted the language of the majority older culture- Persian. Doesn't mean they aren't originally of Turkish but if only a few of their customs remain Turkish while they speak Persian, eat Persian food, etc... what do you consider Turkish?

[RomanKiller]

People assimilate and cultural exchanges occur ... the last real "Iranian" dynasty was probably the Safavids but after the Muslim conquest Turks seemed to have been the rulers and administrators of the land of Iran most of the time ...

But if you notice that east of Baghdad the Muslim dynasties seemed to be heavily influenced by Iranian culture rather than Arab culture ... even the Turkish rulers of Persia were "Persianized" ... the Ottoman Turks who controlled Arab lands and were Turks were more "Persianized" than "Arabized"

Turks have historically lived near Iran and have been in direct contact with the Persian people for centuries ... so its not a real surprise that they would adopt Persian culture ...

The Ghorids were an Afghan people that were fairly isolated in the center of Afghanistan, to answer the thread question

[Arcathius of Pontus]

Ghorids were not Turkic but Iranian but they had many Turkic slaves -Ghulams/Mamluks- and destroyed by Turkic Slaves -Qutb-ud-din Aibak-

anyway

Samanids weren't Turkic but Iranian
Khwarezmians were Turkic
Seljuks were Turkic
Ghaznavids were Turkic

and please don't tell to any kurds there were an empire named Ghurids they will try to rewrite history again and claim they were kurds too

btw, afaik, ghurids werent call themselves as Ghur but Shansabaniyan

[Harith]

ok wait.... u lost me....soo.. wat are the origins of the Ghurids?

[Farwest]

A good question

[wudang_clown]

GHURIDS (or Āl-e Šansab), a medieval Islamic dynasty of the eastern Iranian lands. They began as local chiefs in Ḡūr (q.v.) in the heartland of what is now Afghanistan, but became a major power from the mid-12th century until the opening years of the 7th/13th century. Ḡūr was then the nucleus of a vast but transient military empire which at times stretched from Gorgān (q.v.) in the west to northern India in the east, only to be overwhelmed by the Ḵᵛārazmšāhs (q.v.; see also CHORASMIA ii) and to disappear, as far as the eastern Iranian lands were concerned, on the eve of the Mongol cataclysm.

The Ghurids came from the Šansabānī family. The name of the eponym Šansab/Šanasb probably derives from the Middle Persian name Wišnasp (Justi, Namenbuch, p. 282). After the Ghurids had achieved fame as military conquerors, obsequious courtiers and genealogists connected the family with the legendary Iranian past by tracing it back to Żaḥḥāk, whose descendants were supposed to have settled in Ḡūr after Ferēdūn had overthrown Żaḥḥāk’s thousand-year tyranny. The Šansab family was then brought into the framework of Islamic history by the story that its chiefs received Islam from the hands of Imam ʿAlī, subsequently aiding Abū Moslem Ḵorāsānī’s uprising against the Omayyads and having its power legitimized by being invested with Ḡūr by the caliph Hārūn al-Rašīd (Jūzjānī, Ṭabaqāt I, pp. 318-27, tr. Raverty, I, pp. 300-16, citing a versified genealogy of the Ghurids compiled for Sultan ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Ḥosayn Jahānsūz by Faḵr-al-Dīn Mobārakšāh b. Ḥosayn Marvrūdī, q.v.). It goes without saying that we have no concrete evidence for any of this. The chiefs of Ḡūr only achieve firm historical mention in the early 5th/11th century with the Ghaznavid raids into their land, when Ḡūr was still a pagan enclave. Nor do we know anything about the ethnic stock of the Ḡūrīs in general and the Šansabānīs in particular; we can only assume that they were eastern Iranian Tajiks.

Source.

Let's assume they were Turkics. How would it be possible that the Muslim Ghaznavids allowed some pagan Turks to dominate (as a ruling elite) a population of a region right in the Ghaznavid neighbourhood ("district of Mandēš on the upper Harīrūd near modern Āhangarān")? Just a thought.

[RollingWave]

Ghazvanids rulers were Turk, but that is like saying the late Fatimid were Armenians (all their Emir from Badr Al-Jamali until Shawar's was Armenian Mamluk or their decendents) . There were considerable difference between them and the Seljuqs / Kwarezmids, which was that their Turks were individuals, not tribes.

As for Ghurids, they are mostly shrouded in mystery, hell we didn't even know about the Minarate of Jam until half a century ago.

What's the basis of that symbol BC is using for them though?

[Mahmud Ghaznavi]

The Ghorids and the Ghaznavids were both of Turkish origin. However, after having lived amongst the Pashtun population of central Afghanistan for generations, it is believed that, like most of their brethren, they stopped being 'Turks' and became locals.

Other tribes from Central Asia that became Pashtunised include the Khiljis and perhaps even the Abdalis.

Source.

Let's assume they were Turkics. How would it be possible that the Muslim Ghaznavids allowed some pagan Turks to dominate (as a ruling elite) a population of a region right in the Ghaznavid neighbourhood ("district of Mandēš on the upper Harīrūd near modern Āhangarān")? Just a thought.

In fact, most of the Pashtun tribes became Muslim under the Ghaznavids. Mahmud of Ghazni used his Muslim Pashtun allies to fight against the non-Muslim Pashtun tribes until almost all the Pashtuns in that region submitted to Islam. It was then that he began his raids on Hindustan.

[nein]

ugh not more pan-turk garbage, I bet op is from turkey

[Silesian_Noble]

The Ghorids and the Ghaznavids were both of Turkish origin

Ghaznavid rulling dynasty was of Turkic (not Turkish) origin and this is commonly accepted fact. The history here is simple - a Turkic slave ghulam in dignity of Samanid general revolted against his Samanid ruler and moved to the peripheral zone of Samanid empire and together with soldiers loyal to him took control of Ghazna. Later he swore loyalty to the Samanids again and he was left in peace as Ghazna governor. That is how the career of Turkic Ghaznavids started. But Ghurids? What is your evidence for Ghurids being Turkic? I read about them quite a lot and none of the sources mentioned about them as Turkic. All the sources described them as originated from local Pashtun/Afgani tribes which kept cultural separateness from Muslim world and they were Islamized pretty late (when compared to the neighbor area) and it was a slow process. More- they were never zealos Muslims (in the contrary to Ghaznavids who constantly courted for the favor of the Bagdad Caliph).

[Farwest]

Ghaznavid rulling dynasty was of Turkic (not Turkish) origin

You can't make a distinction between Turkic and Turkish with saying "not Turkish".

Today, being said Turkish is just means, Anatolian Turks. But there are lots of other branches of Turks in all over Asia and they are all named under the curtain of being Turkic/Turk-ic. Clearly, being Turkic or Turkish is the same thing, however being called "Turkish" formally means a citizen of Turkey. But that doesn't seperate other Turkish branches in Asia like Kirgiz, Kazakh, Ozbek, Tatar kind of Turks or Turkic people.

But Ghurids? What is your evidence for Ghurids being Turkic?

Before starting, let me say a thing; reading Ghur or Gur is same in Turkish/Turkic languages. There are lots of variations for writing Turkish names properly in English.

In every time of Turkic history, there were/are always different Turkic branches with different names. All these names have different Turkic Damgas (Runes) and Figures which are unique to the Turkic culture.
These are like: UR,TUR, GUR, OGUR, GUZ, OĞUZ, KOMAN, SU, İSKİT (Scytian), ETRÜSK (Etruscans), ETÜRÜK, SAKA (Scytian), SOKO, UYGUR, ONGUR and HUNGAR.

If you look closely on some of these branches' names, you would see the word GUR. If you would know Turkish languages, you would know all the words are all additive words, which every group of letter has different meanings and when become, they explain different things. See GUR and O-GUR. GUZ or O-ĞUZ. UY-GUR. ON-GUR. HUN-GAR/HUN-GUR.

In Turkish (Let's say with your way, in Turkic languages), GUR means Great, Majestic. GUR-HAN means Great Khan, Jamoka who was the rival of Temuchin took GUR-HAN title, when Temuchin took the title of GENGHIS.

GUR/KUR word alteration is also very convenient as Turkish words. KÜR (same with KUR) means big, large bodied. KER means steady, or strong.
If we put T to the end of GUR (All the Turkish words have additions like that, with making different words), it become GURT. Which is so Turkish (or Turkic, let's say with your way). GURT is the ancient symbol of ALL Turkich people. And there are lots of Turkic branches and tribes, who are named with the name of GURT. With local accents, sometimes some letters drop, but the meaning not changed.

All the sources described them as originated from local Pashtun/Afgani tribes

I believe this, in the below is a good answer to your question:

The Ghorids and the Ghaznavids were both of Turkish origin. However, after having lived amongst the Pashtun population of central Afghanistan for generations, it is believed that, like most of their brethren, they stopped being 'Turks' and became locals.

[Tureuki]

So basically only thing you have to support your claim is a stupid comparison between words ?

[Ansar Warrior]

Talk about bumping a thread, this has been going for almost a year.