Some sources of Kurbangali Khalidi’s work “Tawarikh-i khamsa-i sharqi”

Research аrticle

Abstract

The article examines the source-based foundations of the work “Tawarikh-i hamsa-i sharqi” (The History of the Five Eastern Peoples) by the historian, ethnographer, and religious figure Qurbangali Khalidi, who lived in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The aim of the research is to identify the written sources used by the author in the sections related to the history of Kazakhstan within this work and to demonstrate their scientific significance for national history. Qurbangali Khalidi is a figure who holds a unique place in the cultural history of pre-revolutionary Kazakhstan; he was a compatriot and contemporary of the great Abay, as well as a scholar and religious figure. He was born in 1846 into a Tatar family in the city of Ayagoz in eastern Kazakhstan and passed away in 1913 in the city of Chuguchak (Tacheng), located in present-day China. Qurbangali Khalidi was a highly educated individual of his time; at the turn of the century, he researched Kazakh history and culture and published historical works such as "Tarikh-i jarida-i jadida" (The New Historical Journal) and “Tawarikh-i hamsa-i sharqi”. These works are important contributions reflecting the historical understanding of the early 20th century. The work "Tawarikh-i hamsa-i sharqi," published in Kazan in 1910, deserves special mention. This labor serves as an important source providing valuable data on the history, historical geography, ethnography, and spiritual and material culture of the Turkic peoples inhabiting the steppe regions of Eurasia. Qurbangali Khalidi wrote his work in the "common language" of the Turkic peoples of the modern era, based on the written heritage of the medieval Chagatai language. Furthermore, the author freely utilized ancient scientific terms from the Arabic and Persian languages. Both Qurbangali Khalidi himself and his work "Tawarikh-i hamsa-i sharqi" remained little known in national historiography for a long time. This was influenced by Soviet ideology as well as the language of the work and its use of the Arabic script. Only after Kazakhstan gained independence did "Tawarikh-i hamsa-i sharqi" become a subject of specialized research. In 1992, an abridged translation of the work into modern Kazakh was published for the first time, and the labor began to enter scientific circulation. Scientific studies dedicated to the scholar and his written heritage have since been published. In the course of the research, information related to the history of Kazakhstan in Qurbangali Khalidi's work "Tawarikh-i hamsa-i sharqi" was compared with data from the historical works of medieval and early modern scholars. Consequently, it was established that the author utilized information from such works as "Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk" by al-Tabari (10th c.), "Kitab al-Ibar" by Ibn Khaldun (15th c.) , "Rawzat al-Safa" by Mirkhond (15th c.), "Tarikh-i Rashidi" by Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat (16th c.), "Mir'at al-Ka'inat" by Nishandjy-zade (17th c.), "Jihannuma" by Katip Çelebi (17th c.), "Shajara-i Turk" by Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan (17th c.), and "Mustafad al-akhbar" by Shihabuddin Marjani (19th c.). The study identified that the work "Jihannuma" used in "Tawarikh-i hamsa-i sharqi”, for which the author's name was not specified, belongs to the famous Ottoman scholar Katip Çelebi, thereby demonstrating the source-based foundation of the work. As a result, it was determined that Q. Khalidi created an original synthetic historical work by relying on the labors of medieval Muslim and Turkic historians. Additionally, the source-critical and historiographical value of his work was defined.