Istämi (or Dizabul or Ishtemi Sir Yabghu Khagan; ) was the ruler of the western part of the

Göktürks The Göktürks (; ), also known as Türks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks, were a Turkic people in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main powe ...

, which became the Western Turkic Khaganate and dominated the Sogdians. He was the yabgu (vassal) of his brother Bumin Qaghan in 552 AD. He was posthumously referred to as khagan in Turkic sources. His son was Tardu.

Activities

During his rule Istami established diplomatic relations with the Persian and

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

s, defeated the Hepthalites, and acted as an elder statesman during the disintegration of the eastern half of the empire. We know a great deal about him from the diplomatic missions of the Byzantine Empire. Shortly after the smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire from China by Nestorian Christian monks, the 6th-century Byzantine historian Menander Protector writes of how the Sogdians attempted to establish a direct trade of Chinese silk with the Byzantine Empire. After forming an alliance with the Sassanid ruler

Khosrow I Khosrow I (also spelled Khosrau, Khusro or Chosroes; ), traditionally known by his epithet of Anushirvan ("the Immortal Soul"), was the Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 531 to 579. He was the son and successor of Kavad I (). Inheriting a rei ...

to defeat the

Hephthalite Empire The Hephthalites (), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in Sanskrit and Prakrit as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in Central Asia during the 5th to 8th centuries CE, ...

, Istämi was approached by

Sogdia Sogdia () or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian peoples, Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemen ...

n merchants requesting permission to seek an audience with the Sassanid king of kings for the privilege of traveling through Persian territories in order to trade with the Byzantines.Howard, Michael C., ''Transnationalism in Ancient and Medieval Societies'', the Role of Cross Border Trade and Travel, McFarland & Company, 2012, p. 133. Istämi refused the first request, but when he sanctioned the second one and had the Sogdian embassy sent to the Sassanid king, the latter had the members of the embassy poisoned to death. Maniah, a Sogdian diplomat, convinced Istämi to send an embassy directly to Byzantium's capital

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

, which arrived in 568 and offered not only silk as a gift to Byzantine ruler

Justin II Justin II (; ; died 5 October 578) was Eastern Roman emperor from 565 until 578. He was the nephew of Justinian I and the husband of Sophia, the niece of Justinian's wife Theodora. Justin II inherited a greatly enlarged but overextended empir ...

, but also proposed an alliance against Sassanid Persia. Justin II agreed and sent an embassy to the Turkic Khaganate, ensuring the direct silk trade desired by the Sogdians. As the brother of Bumin he ruled the far-western region of their khanate. His son was Tardu. As a Yabghu, he was autonomous and had de facto sovereignty while officially recognizing the authority of the qaghan. After Khushu's death he arranged the division of the territory into three realms east, central, and west and distributed them between Jotan, Arslan, and Shetu, respectively.

Activities

See also

References

Further reading