The family thus raised to royal rank by the ambition of Rahim Bi466 belonged to the great Uzbeg tribe of Mangit, which had been brought from the north-east of Mongolia by Chingiz, and had settled on the lower reaches of the Oxus and around Karshi, a Bokharan citadel 140 miles south-east of the capital. Their warlike spirit had placed them at the head of the Uzbeg clans; and while the Astrakhanide sovereigns retained any real power, the loyalty of the Mangits was as conspicuous as their courage. We have seen how the imbecility of the degenerate Abu-l-Fayz tempted his headstrong minister, Rahim Bi, to throw off the mask of allegiance. The latter sealed his disloyalty by assassinating the murdered Khan’s young heir, `Abd ul-Mu´min, who had married his daughter.467 By an irony of fate Rahim Bi was destined, in his old age, to sink to the condition of a roi fainÉant. His vezir, a Persian slave named Dawlat Bi, usurped all the functions of royalty, and misgoverned Bokhara in his name. On his deathbed, having no male heirs, he designated his uncle Daniyal Bi as his successor—the choice having been probably dictated by his vezir, who was acquainted with Daniyal’s weak and overscrupulous character, and fondly hoped to retain the mastery which he had won over the degenerate Rahim Bi. Daniyal was, at his nephew’s death, governor of the town of KerminÉ. His modest disposition forbade him to assume the purple. He contented himself with the title of Atalik,468 and placed Abu-l-Ghazi Khan, the last scion of the Astrakhanides, on the throne.469 But his son, the famous Ma´sum, who afterwards assumed the name of Shah Murad, was not of a nature to brook an inferior position. Under a mask of asceticism and insensibility to the promptings of ambition, which imposed on the priesthood and the mob, he cherished deep-seated schemes of conquest. He gained unbounded influence over his doting father, and persuaded him to connive at his assassination of the vezir, Dawlat Bi, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. Then he gathered all the threads of authority in Bokhara into his own hands, and, when the dotard Daniyal Bi died, in 1770,470 none of his brethren ventured to dispute his claims to the successorship.471 He was at first content to govern without reigning; and Abu-l-Ghazi, the grandson of Abu-l-Fayz, was permitted to retain the trappings of royalty. In 1784, however, Ma´sum had rendered intrigue and overt opposition to his rule hopeless, and felt strong enough to deprive the forlorn descendant of Chingiz of his shadowy crown. From that year dates the commencement of the reigning house, although the founder eschewed the title of king and adopted that of “Dispenser of Favours.” Ma´sum, secure at home, turned his eyes to foreign conquest. Khorasan, the richest province of Persia, was powerless to resist his encroachments; but the road thither was blocked by Bahram `Ali Khan, a Persian of the Kajar tribe to which the present Shahs belong. This remarkable man had established himself in the chief strategical position of Central Asia in 1781.472 He had built for himself a citadel out of the ruins of Old Merv, which, even in its decay, conveys the impression of overwhelming strength; and his stern rule had reduced his kinsmen, the Turkoman tribes, to abject submission.473 In vain did he attempt to propitiate the ruthless Amir by an embassy, and offering prayers for the repose of the soul of Daniyal Bi. In 1785 Ma´sum set out for Merv at the head of 6000 Uzbeg horsemen. After lulling Bahram `Ali into security by one of those ruses in which he was so great an adept, he suddenly appeared before Merv, and drew its defenders into an ambuscade, in which Bahram `Ali was slain. But the royal city defied his forces, secure in the wealth poured into her lap by a system of irrigation, the work of the Sultan Sanjar of the Seljuk line. Its headworks were a mighty barrage on the Murghab, thirty miles above Merv, which was guarded by a strong castle.474 The governor of these defensive works quarrelled desperately with Mahammad Khan,475 the son and successor of Bahram Khan; the causa teterrima belli being, as is generally the case, a woman. In the torments of disappointed love he had recourse to the Amir Ma´sum, to whom he delivered his charge. Thus Merv’s relentless foe was enabled to strike at the root of its prosperity. He destroyed the Sultan Band, as the barrage was called, and turned the most fertile spot on the world’s surface into a desert. Famine stared the inhabitants in the face, and they had no other resource but to submit to the ruthless Amir. He obtained possession of the coveted prize without striking a blow, and transported the bulk of its population to Bokhara, where they have left indelible traces in the population.476

Ma´sum’s thirst for conquest was not stayed by this splendid capture. He carried his raids far into Persia, laid Khorasan waste, and swept off so many of its wretched inhabitants that the price of Persian slaves fell in the Bokhara bazaar to a few pence.477 His conduct towards other princes who had the misfortune to be his neighbours was equally devoid of mercy and good faith; and at his death, in 1799,478 the people of Khiva, Kokand, and Balkh felt that Central Asia had been delivered from a scourge almost as terrible as that wielded by Chingiz Khan. Amongst his own subjects Ma´sum left behind him a reputation of piety and virtue. “Under his reign,” writes `Abd ul-Kerim,479 “the prosperity of Bokhara excited the envy of Paradise. Religion had then taken a new lease of life. The prince was occupied only in good works, in prayers and practising devotion. He had renounced the pleasures and pomps of this world; he touched neither gold nor silver, and he spent on his own needs only the proceeds of the capitation tax levied from Jews and infidels.” Historians who are not blinded by religious prejudice give us a very different estimate of his character and the influence of his reign.

Under this cruel and hypocritical bigot Bokhara lost the last semblance of national spirit, and succumbed to a terrorism such as that which sapped the power of Spain. Ma´sum it was who revived the office of Ra´is-i-Shari`at, or religious censor, which had fallen into desuetude in the rest of Islam. These officials drove the people to prayer with whips, visited neglect of outward observances with severe floggings, and, on its repetition, with death. The use of wine and tobacco was forbidden under the like penalties, and thieves and prostitutes were delivered over without trial to the executioner. Spoliation and the levy of blackmail were carried by these pests to the height of a fine art, and the sanctity of the harem itself was not respected.480 No system can be conceived which was better calculated to repress all independence of thought and action, and encourage the growth of hypocrisy and even darker vices.

Ma´sum had designated his son Sayyid Haydar Tura as his successor; but the new sovereign had to reckon with three paternal uncles, `Omar Bi, Fazil Bi, and Mahmud Bi, who raised the standard of revolt in the northern provinces. Amir Haydar481 marched against them at the head of an army so powerful as to render resistance impossible. The rebels threw themselves into strong places, but were driven from these retreats by concentrated artillery fire. Two of them, `Omar Bi and Fazil Bi, were tracked to a village by the Amir’s troops, were captured and put to death; while Mahmud Bi, the third, sought safety in Kokand.482 Amir Haydar’s store of energy was apparently exhausted by this early test. He permitted Iltuzar Khan of Khiva to ravage the suburbs of his capital, and not until the cry of his suffering subjects could no longer be disregarded did he give orders for an expedition to avenge their woes. It consisted of 30,000 Uzbegs under the command of a general of distinction named Mahammad Niyaz Bi. The avenging host followed the course of the Amu Darya until the confines of Khiva had been reached.483 In the meantime, Iltuzar, overjoyed at the prospect of victory, crossed the Amu Darya in the enemy’s rear and established himself in an entrenched camp with 4000 chosen men. The invaders were on the horns of a dilemma. To leave the river was to enter a waterless desert, wherein none would emerge alive; while retreat to Bokhara was barred by the Khivans’ entrenchments. In desperation they attacked the foe with suddenness and vigour, driving them into the Amu Darya and securing a decisive victory. Khiva lay open to their attack, but the pusillanimous Haydar was content to rest on his vicariously won laurels, and to pass the rest of his reign in the practice of a pharisaical piety and association with priests, who ruled the people in his name with a rod of iron. As is too frequently the fate of Oriental princes, he was unable to resist the enervating influence of the harem, and lost his power of initiative by wallowing in licensed debauchery.484 He died in 1826, after an inglorious reign of twenty-seven years.