ii. IN THE ISLAMIC PERIOD

In the early 8th century, at the time of the Arab conquest in Transoxania, Farḡāna was an independent principality under a Sogdian ruler with the titles eḵšīḏ and dehqān. His capital was at Aḵsīkaṯ (q.v.). Although, according to later legend, the tombs of the companion of the Prophet Moḥammad b. Jarīr and his men, said to have been sent by the caliph ʿOṯmān (23-34/644-56), were located in Farḡāna, the province cannot have been raided before the arrival of Qotayba b. Moslem in 94/712-13. He was killed there three years later, having launched a rebellion against the Omayyad caliph Solaymān (96-99/715-17); local tradition locates his grave near Andījān (see ANDEJĀN). The full extension of Arab military control over Farḡāna and the Islamization of the province were very slow. In 103/721-22 the Sogdian princes returned. In 121/739 an Arab governor, Moḥammad b. Ḵāled Azdī, was sent to subdue the province again (Ṭabarī, II, p. 1694), but the appearance in Central Asia of the Chinese imperial army under Gao-xian-zhi in 133/751 delayed permanent imposition of Arab control. A local prince was mentioned in the time of the caliph al-Manṣūr (136-58 /754-75), and al-Mahdī (158-69/775-85), Hārūn al-Rašīd (170-93/786-809) and al-Maʾmūn (198-218/813-33) all had to despatch troops to suppress opposition to Arab rule and particularly to the imposition of Islam in Farḡāna (Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīḵ II, pp. 465-66, 478; Gardīzī, ed. Ḥabībī, p. 129).

In fact, Islamization of Farḡāna was not completed until about 205/820-21, when al-Maʾmūn’s governor in Khorasan, Ḡassān b. ʿAbbād, put Aḥmad b. Asad b. Sāmān Ḵodā (q.v.; Gardīzī, ed. Ḥabībī, p. 146), founder of the Samanid line, in charge of the province; the indigenous dynasty disappeared, and Farḡāna remained under Samanid control for two centuries. During that time it was a source of men (farāḡena) for the caliphal army in Iraq; as freeborn Iranian professional soldiers, they are to be distinguished from the Turkish slave troops of the ʿAbbasids (Ṭabarī, III, pp. 1215-16, 1218).

The geographers of the 10th century described the Farḡāna valley as flourishing, with towns, large villages, and good agricultural land. It was on the frontier with the lands of the pagan Turks (Ḥodūd al-ʿālam, tr. Minorsky, p. 115: “the gate of Turkestan”) and thus served as a corridor for importation of Turkish slaves into the caliphate. Perhaps because of its comparatively dense population the province retained its Iranian ethnic character longer than other regions of Transoxania, which became speedily turkicized. The mountain ranges surrounding the valley produced such useful minerals as gold, silver, mercury, and coal (already used as fuel; found in a mountain of the district of Esfara south of the Syr Darya; Ebn Ḥawqal, p. 515; tr. Kramers, p. 492), and accordingly there was a lively metalworking industry; the prosperity of the province is reflected in its annual tax yield: 280,000 dirhams in ca. 375/985 (Moqaddasī, p. 339; for other reports, see Le Strange, Lands, pp. 476-80).

Control of Transoxania passed to the Qarakhanids (382-607/992-1211) at the end of the 10th century. Farḡāna became an important part of the western khanate, with Özgand as its capital; coins were struck there and at Aḵsīkaṯ (often with only the name Farḡāna given as the minting place). After 536/1141 the probably Mongol Qara Khitay overran Transoxania, including Farḡāna, though Qarakhanid princes seem to have been allowed to remain, as at Samarqand in the western khanate.

The Farḡāna valley suffered in the early 13th century from the warfare between the Ḵᵛārazmshahs and the Mongols; it was subsequently allotted to Čaḡatai (see CHAGHATAYID DYNASTY) but from about 624/1227 to 636/1238 was administered by Ögedei’s governor of the settled population of Transoxania and Moḡolestān, Maḥmūd Yalavāč, and subsequently by his son Masʿūd Beg (636-87/1238-89). It was at that time that Andījān, previously of secondary importance, emerged as the most prominent urban center of Farḡāna. When the Chaghatayid ulus was split into two branches in the 1340s most of Farḡāna fell within the eastern portion, Moḡolestān, but after a few decades it was annexed by Tīmūr (771-807/1370-56) for its agricultural richness. By the Timurid period Andījān had become a purely Turkish town, whereas the increasingly important town of Marḡīnān (modern Margelan) still retained its Persian ethnic character. According to Ebn ʿArabšāh, there were nine tümens (defined by him as populations each producing 10,000 soldiers) in Timurid Farḡāna (Manz, pp. 35, 90-91). The province was joined to Khorasan under Šāh-roḵ (807-50/1405-47) and his son Oloḡ Beg (850-53/1447-49). The prince ʿOmar Šayḵ took control toward the end of the century, but his son Bābor (q.v.) was unable to maintain himself in Farḡāna and left for Afghanistan and India; it is nevertheless in his memoirs that the most detailed description of the region in about 1500 survives (Bābor-nāma, tr. Beveridge, pp. 1-12).

Farḡāna passed to the Shaybanids and, in the 17th century, to various Khoja lines of the Uzbeks; it was a separate khanate between 1121/1709 and about 1212/1798, after which it was part of the khanate of Ḵoqand until the Russian conquest in 1293/1876. The new Farḡāna district, had its capital at New Marghelan. From 1917 to 1922 the district was the scene of guerrilla warfare between the communists and Turkman nationalist Basmachis; the valley was then divided administratively between the Uzbek and Tadzhik S.S.R.s, and the surrounding mountains fell largely within the Kirghiz S.S.R. At present Farḡāna is divided among the three new republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kirghizia.