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Cathay Keris
Cathay (; ) is a historical name for China that was used in Europe. During the early modern period, the term ''Cathay'' initially evolved as a term referring to what is now Northern China, completely separate and distinct from China, which was a reference to southern China. As knowledge of East Asia increased, Cathay came to be seen as the same polity as China as a whole. The term ''Cathay'' became a poetic name for China. The name ''Cathay'' originates from the word '' Khitan'', a name of a para-Mongolic nomadic people who ruled the Liao dynasty in northern China from 916 to 1125, and who later migrated west after they were overthrown by the Jin dynasty to form the Qara Khitai (Western Liao dynasty) for another century thereafter. Originally, this name was the name applied by Central and Western Asians and Europeans to northern China; the name was also used in Marco Polo's book on his travels in Yuan dynasty China (he referred to southern China as '' Mangi''). Odoric o ...
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Old Uyghur Language
Old Uyghur () was a Turkic language which was spoken in Qocho from the 9th–14th centuries and in Gansu. History The Old Uyghur language evolved from Old Turkic after the Uyghur Khaganate broke up and remnants of it migrated to Turfan, Qomul (later Hami) and Gansu in the 9th century. The Uyghurs in Turfan and Qomul founded Qocho and adopted Manichaeism and Buddhism as their religions, while those in Gansu first founded the Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom and became subjects of the Western Xia; and their descendants are the Yugur. The Kingdom of Qocho survived as a client state of the Mongol Empire but was conquered by the Muslim Chagatai Khanate which conquered Turfan and Qomul and Islamisized the region. The Old Uyghur language then became extinct in Turfan and Qomul. The ''modern'' Uyghur language is not descended from Old Uyghur; rather, it is a descendant of the Karluk languages spoken by the Kara-Khanid Khanate, in particular the ''Xākānī'' language described by Mahmud al-K ...
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Francesco Balducci Pegolotti
Pegolotti Pratica Ricc.2441 specimen half page. Francesco Balducci Pegolotti ( fl. 1290 – 1347), also Francesco di Balduccio, was a Florentine merchant and politician. Life His father, Balduccio Pegolotti, represented Florence in commercial negotiations with Siena in 1311. His brother, Rinieri di Balduccio, was suspected of connivance in the disappearance of a gold shipment in 1332. Francesco Pegolotti himself was a businessman in the service of the Compagnia dei Bardi, and in this capacity he was at Antwerp from 1315 (or earlier) to 1317. He was a director of the London office from 1317 to 1321, and is recorded (as Balduch) as having dealt directly with King Edward II. He was in Cyprus from 1324 to 1327, and again in 1335. In 1324 at Famagusta he negotiated a reduction of customs duties for the Compagnia dei Bardi and for those identified as Florentine merchants by the Bardi representative in the city. In 1335 he obtained from the King of Armenia a grant of privileges for Fl ...
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The Secret History Of The Mongols
''The Secret History of the Mongols'' (Middle Mongol: ''Mongɣol‑un niɣuca tobciyan''; Traditional Mongolian: , Khalkha Mongolian: , ; ) is the oldest surviving literary work in the Mongolian language. It was written for the Mongol royal family some time after the 1227 death of Genghis Khan (born Temujin). The author is anonymous and probably originally wrote in the Mongolian script, but the surviving texts all derive from transcriptions or translations into Chinese characters that date from the end of the 14th century and were compiled by the Ming dynasty under the title ''The Secret History of the Yuan Dynasty'' (). Also known as ''Tobchiyan'' ( or ) in the ''History of Yuan''. The ''Secret History'' is regarded as the single most significant native Mongolian account of Genghis Khan. Linguistically, it provides the richest source of pre-classical Mongolian and Middle Mongolian. The ''Secret History'' is regarded as a piece of classic literature in both Mongolia and the res ...
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Song Empire
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song often came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasties in northern China. After retreating to southern China, the Song was eventually conquered by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The dynasty is divided into two periods: Northern Song and Southern Song. During the Northern Song (; 960–1127), the capital was in the northern city of Bianjing (now Kaifeng) and the dynasty controlled most of what is now Eastern China. The Southern Song (; 1127–1279) refers to the period after the Song lost control of its northern half to the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. At that time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangt ...
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Liao Empire
The Liao dynasty (; Khitan: ''Mos Jælud''; ), also known as the Khitan Empire (Khitan: ''Mos diau-d kitai huldʒi gur''), officially the Great Liao (), was an imperial dynasty of China that existed between 916 and 1125, ruled by the Yelü clan of the Khitan people. Founded around the time of the collapse of the Tang dynasty, at its greatest extent it ruled over Northeast China, the Mongolian Plateau, the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, southern portions of the Russian Far East, and the northern tip of the North China Plain. The dynasty had a history of territorial expansion. The most important early gains was the Sixteen Prefectures (including present-day Beijing and part of Hebei) by fueling a proxy war that led to the collapse of the Later Tang dynasty (923–936). In 1004, the Liao dynasty launched an imperial expedition against the Northern Song dynasty. After heavy fighting and large casualties between the two empires, both sides worked out the Chanyuan Treaty. ...
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Nizam Al-Mulk
Abu Ali Hasan ibn Ali Tusi (April 10, 1018 – October 14, 1092), better known by his honorific title of Nizam al-Mulk ( fa, , , Order of the Realm) was a Persian scholar, jurist, political philosopher and Vizier of the Seljuk Empire. Rising from a lowly position within the empire, he effectively became the ''de-facto'' ruler of the empire for 20 years after the assassination of Sultan Alp Arslan in 1072, serving as the archetypal "good vizier". Viewed by many historians as "the most important statesman in Islamic history", the policies implemented by Nizam al-Mulk would go on to remain as the basic foundation for administrative state structures in the Muslim world up until the 20th Century. One of his most important legacies was the founding of the madrasa system in cities across the Seljuk Empire which were called the ''Nizamiyyas'' after him. This was seen to be as the first government sponsored education system in history and as the inspiration behind the university system ...
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Abu Said Gardezi
Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd-al-Ḥayy ibn Żaḥḥāk b. Maḥmūd Gardīzī ( fa, ابوسعید عبدالحی بن ضحاک بن محمود گردیزی), better known as Gardizi (), was an 11th-century Persian historian and official, who is notable for having written the ''Zayn al-akhbar'', one of the earliest history books written in New Persian. Little is known of Gardizi personally. He was probably from Gardiz in the region of Zamindawar, as his nisba implies.; His father's name was Zahhak, a name that was seemingly popular in the region. Gardizi started his career as an official of the Ghaznavid monarch Mahmud of Ghazni (), and was an eyewitness to many of the events that occurred under the latter. In his ''Zayn al-akbar'', Gardizi took a dispassionate view of history which was fairly remarkable for its time. It consisted of a history of the pre-Islamic kings of Iran, Muhammad and the Caliphs until the year 1032. Included is a history of the Arab conquest of Khorasan, which it is b ...
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Al-Biruni
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Comparative Religion", "Father of modern geodesy", and the first anthropologist. Al-Biruni was well versed in physics, mathematics, astronomy, and natural sciences, and also distinguished himself as a historian, chronologist, and linguist. He studied almost all the sciences of his day and was rewarded abundantly for his tireless research in many fields of knowledge. Royalty and other powerful elements in society funded Al-Biruni's research and sought him out with specific projects in mind. Influential in his own right, Al-Biruni was himself influenced by the scholars of other nations, such as the Greeks, from whom he took inspiration when he turned to the study of philosophy. A gifted linguist, he was conversant in Khwarezmian, Persian, Ar ...
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Ghazna
Ghazni ( prs, غزنی, ps, غزني), historically known as Ghaznain () or Ghazna (), also transliterated as Ghuznee, and anciently known as Alexandria in Opiana ( gr, Αλεξάνδρεια Ωπιανή), is a city in southeastern Afghanistan with a population of around 190,000 people. The city is strategically located along Highway 1, which has served as the main road between Kabul and Kandahar for thousands of years. Situated on a plateau at 2,219 metres (7,280 ft) above sea level, the city is south of Kabul and is the capital of Ghazni Province. Ghazni Citadel, the Minarets of Ghazni, the Palace of Sultan Mas'ud III, and several other cultural heritage sites have brought travelers and archeologists to the city for centuries. During the pre-Islamic period, the area was inhabited by various tribes who practiced different religions including Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Arab Muslims introduced Islam to Ghazni in the 7th century and were followed in the 9th c ...
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Ghaznavids
The Ghaznavid dynasty ( fa, غزنویان ''Ġaznaviyān'') was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic ''mamluk'' origin, ruling, at its greatest extent, large parts of Persia, Khorasan, much of Transoxiana and the northwest Indian subcontinent from 977 to 1186. The dynasty was founded by Sabuktigin upon his succession to the rule of Ghazna after the death of his father-in-law, Alp Tigin, who was an ex-general of the Samanid Empire from Balkh, north of the Hindu Kush in Greater Khorasan. Sabuktigin's son, Mahmud of Ghazni, expanded the Ghaznavid Empire to the Amu Darya, the Indus River and the Indian Ocean in the east and to Rey and Hamadan in the west. Under the reign of Mas'ud I, the Ghaznavid dynasty began losing control over its western territories to the Seljuk dynasty after the Battle of Dandanaqan, resulting in a restriction of its holdings to modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan (Punjab and Balochistan). In 1151, Sultan Bahram Shah lost Ghazni to ...
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Uyghur People
The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia, Central and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. They are one of Ethnic minorities in China, China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities. The Uyghurs are recognized by the Government of China, Chinese government as a Regional language, regional minority and the Titular nation, titular people of Xinjiang. The Uyghurs have traditionally inhabited a series of Oasis, oases scattered across the Taklamakan Desert within the Tarim Basin. These oases have historically existed as independent states or were controlled by many civilizations including History of China, China, the Mongol Empire, Mongols, the Tibetan Empire, Tibetans and various List of Turkic dynasties and countries, Turkic po ...
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