The Chaghatay language was used across Central Asia from the 1400s through the 1950s. Chroniclers, clerks, and poets in modern-day Afghanistan, Xinjiang, Uzbekistan, and beyond wrote countless volumes of text in Chaghatay, from the famed Baburnama to the documents of everyday life. However, even more and more material in Chaghatay is becoming available to scholars, few are able to read the language with ease. An Introduction to Chaghatay is the first textbook in over a century to introduce this language to English-speaking students. This book is designed to build a foundation in reading Chaghatay without assuming any background knowledge on the part of the reader. These graded, cumulative lessons include common vocabulary, accessible grammar explanations, and examples of Chaghatay manuscripts. Authentic texts introduce the student to different genres, including hagiographies, documents, "stories of the prophets," and newspapers while introducing critical skills in paleography. Eric Schluessel is Assistant Professor of Chinese History and Politics at the University of Montana. He holds a PhD in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University, an MA in Linguistics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, and an MA in Central Eurasian Studies from Indiana University. He is the author of several articles on the history of Chinese Central Asia and is currently preparing a critical edition and translation of Mullah Musa Sayrami's Tarikh-i Hamidi, a chronicle of Xinjiang in the nineteenth century.

The richly illustrated essays in Turcologica Upsaliensia tell of scholars, travellers, diplomats and collectors who explored the Turkic-speaking world while affiliated with Sweden’s oldest university, at Uppsala, and who enriched the University Library with collections of Turkic cultural heritage objects.

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Central Asia is distinctive in its role as a frontier region in which a unique diversity of cultural, religious, and political traditions exist. This collection of essays by expert scholars in a range of disciplines focuses on the formation of ethnic, religious, and national identities in Muslim societies of Central Asia, thus furthering our general understanding of the history and culture of this significant region. This study includes several geopolitical regions--Chinese Central Asia, Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan, Transoxiana and Khurasan--and covers historical periods from the fifteenth century to the present. Drawing on scholarship in anthropology, religion, history, literature, and language studies, Muslims in Central Asia argues for an interdisciplinary, inter-regional dialog in the development of new approaches to understanding the Muslim societies in Central Asia. The authors creatively examine the social construction of identities as expressed through literature, Islamic discourse, historical texts, ethnic labels, and genealogies, and explore how such identities are formed, changed, and adopted through time. Contributors. Hamid Algar, Muriel Atkin, Walter Feldman, Dru C. Gladney, Edward J. Lazzerini, Beatrice Forbes Manz, Christopher Murphy, Oliver Roy, Isenbike Togan

In Seeking Justice at the Court of the Khans of Khiva, Sartori and Abdurasulov show that in Khorezm prior to Sovietization the dispensation of justice according to Islamic law depended mostly on a group of officials representing the dynasty in power, and lacking specialised legal training.

"Based on a successful series of adult-education programmes broadcast on Canadian radio, organised by members of the Department of Islamic Studies at the University of Toronto."--P. [4] of cover.