History

History is one damn thing after another.......Arnold Toynbee.

I signed up for a history course this term, and I have to say that one of the textbooks occasionally exhibits that trait in mind numbing detail:

The founder of one of these dynasties was Ahmad Khwajagi Kasani, also known as "Makhdum-i Azam" ("The Great Master"; 1461-1542). As his nisba suggests, he hailed from Kasan, a town in northern Fergana near present-day Chust. He left it for Tashkent, presumably in order to become a murid of Muhammad Qazi Burhan al-Din (d. 1515), one of Khwaja Ubaydallah Ahrar's khalifas.

Svat Soucek. A History of Inner Asia (Kindle Locations 2219-2221). Kindle Edition.

The shrine, which came to be known as Char Bakr, grew into a complex that included a khangah, a mosque, a madrasa, and the endowments supporting it dramatically increased after the Janibegid victory in 1557. The Juyharis too increased their wealth by becoming involved in commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture, and sent their agents as far as Moscow on trade missions. On the third side of this special triangle, these Nagshbandi pirs and wealthy entrepreneurs came to occupy the post of shavkhulislam in Bukhara, an honor and function also attained, as we have seen, by the Ahrari pir in Samarkand. What is more, this post, which in Central Asia tended to be hereditary was held by the Juyharis through the nineteenth century.

Svat Soucek. A History of Inner Asia (Kindle Locations 2229-2233). Kindle Edition.

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