Tughlugh Timur and the rise of Moghulistan

In the 1340s the Chagatai khans lost control of their realm. In Transoxiana, after Khan Qazan was killed in 1346, power passed to the amirs of the Qara'unas, who set up puppet khans, while the eastern tribes — nomads of the Ili valley and the Tian Shan, still largely Buddhist or shamanist — were virtually independent. Their strongest clan, the Dughlats, held Kashgar, Aksu, Yarkand and Khotan, and about 1347 (or 1347/1348) the Dughlat amir Bulaji proclaimed the Chagatayid Tughlugh Timur khan at Aksu. Persian authors called his realm Moghulistan, ‘the land of the Moghuls (Mongols)’: a confederacy of tribes whose amirs kept much of the real power.

Tughlugh Timur became a Muslim — in 1353, at the age of 24, according to Abu'l-Ghazi, in 1354 or 1350 according to other accounts. The Tarikh-i Rashidi, written in the 16th century by Mirza Haidar of the Dughlat clan, tells a legend: Shaykh Jamal al-Din, brought before the young prince, told him that only faith makes a man better than a dog, the prince promised to become a Muslim when he was khan, and years later the shaykh's son Arshad al-Din reminded him of his word. After the khan's conversion, the chronicle says, 160,000 people cut off their hair and became Muslims in one day. The amirs followed their khan, but the nomads were converted slowly.

In February–March 1360 (Rabi II 761 AH), when Transoxiana was torn by the feuds of its amirs, Tughlugh Timur invaded it as the rightful Chagatayid heir. Most of the tribal amirs submitted; the Barlas chief Hajji Beg fled to Khorasan, and his young nephew Timur, who went over to the khan, was given his lands around Kesh. In 1361 the khan came again, executed several amirs, defeated Amir Husayn and made his son Ilyas Khoja ruler of Transoxiana, reuniting the Chagatai ulus for a short time. He died in 1362 or 1363 and was buried near Almaliq in the Ili valley, where his mausoleum still stands. Husayn and Timur soon drove out Ilyas Khoja, and Moghulistan remained a separate khanate, the target of repeated campaigns by Timur.