Place:Merv, Turkmenistan

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Merv (from Persian: مرو, Marv, sometimes transliterated Marw or Mary; cf. , Mulu), formerly Achaemenid Satrapy of Margiana, and later Alexandria and Antiochia in Margiana, was a major oasis-city in Central Asia, on the historical Silk Road, located near today's Mary in Turkmenistan. Several cities have existed on this site, which is significant for the interchange of culture and politics at a site of major strategic value. It is claimed that Merv was briefly the largest city in the world in the 12th century [1]. The site of ancient Merv has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

History

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Merv's origins are prehistoric: archaeological surveys have revealed many survivals of village life as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. Some suggest that Merv is the origin of Hindu belief in Mount Meru, which Hinduism declares to be the centre of the world. It is more likely, however, that Mount Meru is another name for Mount Kailas in Tibet.

Under the name of Mouru, Merv is mentioned with Bakhdi (Balkh) in the geography of the Zend-Avesta (commentaries on the Avesta). Under the Achaemenid dynasty Merv is mentioned as being a place of some importance: under the name of Margu it occurs as part of one of the satrapies in the Behistun inscriptions (ca 515 BC) of the Persian monarch Darius Hystaspis. The ancient city appears to have been re-founded by Cyrus the Great (559 - 530 BC), but the Achaemenid levels are deeply covered by later strata at the site. (See also Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex.)

Alexander the Great's visit to Merv is merely legendary, but the city was named "Alexandria" for a time. After Alexander's death, Merv became the chief city of the province of Margiana of the Seleucid, Parthian and Sassanid states. Merv was re-named “Antiochia Margiana”, by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Soter, who rebuilt and expanded the city at the site presently known as Gyaur Gala (Fortress).

Han Dynasty General Ban Chao embarked on a campaign against Xiongnu insurgency harrassing the Silk Road trade route with his force of 70,000 light cavalry and mounted infantry in the late 1st century AD, and his expedition reached Merv in an apparent trade route security agreement with Pacorus II[2].

After the Sassanid Ardashir I (AD 220-240) took Merv, the study of numismatics picks up the thread: a long unbroken direct Sassanian rule of four centuries is documented from the unbroken series of coins originally minted at Merv. During this period Merv was home to practitioners of a wide range of different religions beside the official Zoroastrianism of the Sassanids, including many Buddhists, Manichaeans, and Nestorian Christians. During the 5th century AD, Merv was the seat of a major archbishopric of the Nestorian Church.

Arab occupation and influence

Sassanian rule came to an end when the last Sassanian ruler, Yazdegard III (632-651) was murdered not far from the city and the Sassanian military governor surrendered to the approaching Arab army. The city was occupied by lieutenants of the caliph Umar, and became the capital of the Umayyad province of Khorasan. Using this city as their base, Arabs led by Qutaibah bin Muslim, brought under subjection large parts of Central Asia, including Balkh, Bokhara, Fergana and Kashgaria, and penetrated into China as far as the province of Gansu early in the 8th century. Merv, and Khorasan in general was to become one of the first parts of the Persian-speaking world to become majority-Muslim. Arab immigration to the area was substantial.

Merv reached renewed importance in February of 748 when the Iranian general Abu Muslim (d. 750) declared a new Abbasid dynasty at Merv, expanding and re-founding the city, and, in the name of the Abbasid line, used the city as a base of rebellion against the Umayyad caliphate. After the Abbasids were established in Baghdad Abu Muslim continued to rule Merv as a semi-independent prince until his eventual assassination. Indeed, Merv was the center of Abbasid partisanship for the duration of the Abbasid revolution, and later on became a consistent source of political support for the Abbasid rulers in Baghdad, and the governorship of Khurasan at Merv was considered one of the most important political figures of the Caliphate. The influential Barmakid family, for example, was based in Merv and played an important part in transferring Greek knowledge (established in Merv since the days of the Seleucids and Greco-Bactrians) into the Arab world.

Throughout the Abbasid era, Merv remained the capital and most important city of Khurasan. During this time, the Arab historian Al-Muqaddasi called Merv “delightful, fine, elegant, brilliant, extensive, and pleasant.” Merv's architecture perhaps provided the inspiration for the Abbasid re-planning of Baghdad. The city was notable for being a home for immigrants from the Arab lands as well as from Sogdia and elsewhere in Central Asia (Herrmann 1999). Merv's importance to the Abbasids was highlighted in the period from 813 to 818 when the temporary residency of the caliph al-Ma'mun effectively made Merv the capital of the Muslim world. Merv was also the center of a major 8th-century Neo-Mazdakite movement led by al-Muqanna, the “Veiled Prophet”, who gained many followers by claiming to be an incarnation of God and heir to 'Ali and Abu Muslim; the Khurramiyya inspired by him persisted in Merv until the 12th century.

During this period Merv, like Samarkand and Bukhara, was one of the great cities of Muslim scholarship; the celebrated historian Yaqut studied in its libraries. Merv produced a number of scholars in various branches of knowledge, such as Islamic law, hadith, history, and literature. Several scholars have the name Marwazi المروزي designating them as hailing from Merv, including the famous Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. The city continued to have a substantial Christian community. In 1009 the Archbishop of Merv sent a letter to the Patriarch at Baghdad asking that the Keraits be allowed to fast less than other Nestorian Christians.

As the caliphate weakened, Arab rule in Merv was replaced by that of the Persian general Tahir b. al -Husayn and his Tahirid dynasty in 821. The Tahirids were in turn replaced in Merv by the Samanids and then the Ghaznavids.

Turk and Mongol control

In 1037, the Seljuks, a clan of Oghuz Turks moving from the steppes east of the Aral Sea, peacefully took over Merv under the leadership of Toghril Beg - the Ghaznavid sultan Masud was extremely unpopular in the city. Togrul's brother Çagry stayed in Merv as the Seljuk domains grew to include the rest of Khurasan and Iran, and it subsequently became a favorite city of the Seljuk leadership. Alp Arslan his descendant Sultan Sanjar were both buried at Merv.

It is during this period that Merv expanded to its greatest size – Arab and Persian geographers termed it “the mother of the world”, the “rendezvous of great and small”, the “chief city of Khurasan” and the capital of the eastern Islamic world. Written sources also attest to a large library and madrasa founded by Nizam al-Mulk, as well as many other major cultural institutions. Perhaps most importantly, Merv was said to have a market that is “the best of the major cities of Iran and Khurasan” (Herrmann 1999). It is believed that Merv was the largest city in the world from 1145 to 1153, with a population of 200,000.[3].

Sanjar's rule, marked by conflict with the Kara-Khitai and Khwarazmians, ended in 1153 when the Turkish Ghuzz nomads from beyond the Amu Darya pillaged the city. Subsequently Merv changed hands between the Khwarazmians of Khiva, the Ghuzz, and the Ghurids, and began to lose importance relative to Khurasan's other major city, Nishapur.

In 1221, Merv opened its gates to Tule, son of Genghis Khan, chief of the Mongols, on which occasion most of the inhabitants are said to have been butchered. The Persian historian Juvayni, writing a generation after the destruction of Merv, wrote

“The Mongols ordered that, apart from four hundred artisans. .., the whole population, including the women and children, should be killed, and no one, whether woman or man, be spared. To each [Mongol soldier] was allotted the execution of three or four hundred Persians. So many had been killed by nightfall that the mountains became hillocks, and the plain was soaked with the blood of the mighty.”

Some historians believe that over one million people died in the aftermath of the city's capture, including hundreds of thousands of refugees from elsewhere, making it one of the most bloody captures of a city in world history.

Excavations revealed drastic rebuilding of the city's fortifications in the aftermath, but the prosperity of the city was over. The Mongol invasion was to spell the end for Merv and indeed other major centres for more than a century. In the early part of the 14th century, the town was made the seat of a Christian archbishopric of the Eastern Church. On the death of the grandson of Genghis Khan, Merv was included (1380) in the possessions of Timur, Turco-Persian prince of Samarkand.

In 1505, the city was occupied by the Uzbeks, who five years later were expelled by Shah Ismail, the founder of the Safavid dynasty of Persia. It was in this period that a large dam (the 'Soltanbent') on the river Murghab was restored by a Persian nobleman, and the settlement which grew up in the area thus irrigated became known as 'Baýramaly', by which name it is referred to in some 19th-century texts. Merv remained in the hands of Persia until 1787, when it was captured by the Emir of Bokhara. Seven years later, the Bukharans razed the city to the ground, broke down the dams, and converted the district into a waste. The entire population of the city and the surrounding area of about 100,000 were then deported in several stages to the Bukharan oasis. Being nearly all Persian-speaking Shi'as, they resisted assimilation into the Sunni population of Bukhara, although they spoke the same language. These Marvis survive today, and were listed as "Iranis/Iranians" in Soviet censuses through the 1980s, and locate them in Samarkand as well as Bukhara and the area in between on the Zarafshan river.

When Sir Alexander Burnes traversed the country in 1832, the Khivans were the rulers of Merv. About this time, the Tekke Turkomans, then living on the Tejen River, were forced by the Persians to migrate northward. The Khivans contested the advance of the Tekkes, but ultimately, about 1856, the latter became the sovereign power in the country, and remained so until the Russians occupied the oasis in 1883. The arrival of Russians triggered the Pendi Incident of the Great Game between the British Empire and Imperial Russia.

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