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The following is the history of the Emirate of Bukhara.

Pre-Doomsday[]

Bukhara was founded millennia ago and the events of its foundations have passed to legend. According to local legends, the city of Bukhara was founded by King Siavash, son of a mythical Iranian Shah. It is said that he wanted to found the city because of its rivers, its relatively hot climate, and its unique position on the Silk Road. According to legend, Siavash was accused by his stepmother of trying to rape her. To test her innocence he suffered a trial by fire. Emerging untouched by the flames, he crossed the Oxus (now Amu Darya) river into the Kingdom of Samarkand. Samarkand's King, Afrasiab, offered Siavash his daughter's hand and a vassal Kingdom within an oasis called the Bukhara Oasis where Bukhara is today. There he built the famous Bukharan Citadel and the surrounding city. Siavash was later accused of plotting to overthrow Afrasiab to become the united King of Samarkand, Iran and Bukhara. Afrasiab believed this and executed Siavash. In revenge, Siavash's father, Shah of Persia, sent legendary super-hero Rostam to kill Afraisab. Rostam was able to do this, and took Siavah's wife and son back to Persia.

Archeologically, it was discovered that Bukhara, in fact, was founded much afterwards than in legend, only in 500 BCE, but the Bukhara Oasis had been inhabited since long before. According to several archeologists, Bukhara's original Persian culture, in fact, remounts to the third millennium BCE, when Indo-Aryan people were spreading across Central Asia. The Sapelli Culture brought more advanced culture to the area after a large combination of factors triggered a population shift from India to the Central Asian oases. By 1000 BCE, the two Persian cultures merged into a distinctive Central Asian culture. Around the 800 BCE, this new Soghdian Culture had built hundreds of small settlements. In the Bukharan Oasis, there were three different fortified settlements. In 500 BCE the settlements had grown and had been enclosed by a wall. Bukhara had been born.

Bukhara became a satrapy of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. It later became part of Alexander the Great's Empire, then the Seleucid one, a Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom, and the Kushan Empire. Bukhara worked as a cult center for the worship of a pagan goddess. Bukhara became a center of trade and became very rich. A golden 20-stater coin of the Graeco-Bactrian King Eucratides, the largest coin ever minted in antiquity (169.2 grams), was found at Bukhara and acquired by Napoleon III. The city of Bukhara became even more important as a market place when the trade along the Silk Road intensified during the Han dynasty. The route was secured even more. However, after the fall of the Kushan Empire, Bukhara passed into the hands of Mongolian tribes and entered into steep decline.

Bukhara later became part of the Sassanid Empire, and a stronghold for followers of Manicheanism and Nestorian Christianity. Islam arrived in 650, but did not actually conquer Bukhara until the Battle of Talas in 751 AD. After that, slowly but surely, Islam became the dominant religion of the region.

In the XVI Century, the Khanate of Bukhara was founded when the last Shaybanid dynasty moved to Bukhara. After a few years, the Khanate had become something like a double monarchy, where the Manghit Emir held power like a Prime Minister, while the Khan had almost no power whatsoever. This was already clear in 1740, during the Persian invasions. Later, in 1747, a Manghit Emir or "Astaliq" killed the heir to the throne, and during the next forty years, the Bukharans had puppets controlled by the Manghit, until in 1785, the Manghit Emirs were proclaimed true rulers of the Khanate.

Bukhara played a very important role in what is called the "Great Game"; a collection of fights over who would control Central Asia played between Russia and the United Kingdom. It imprisoned several important British researchers, and in 1868, was invaded by Russia. The war was lost, and the Emirate was made a protectorate. This, however, was good for the Bukharans to some avail. Mohammed Alim Khan (1880-1944) was able to modernize the Emirate, thanks to this, and the Trans-Caucasian Railway was made to pass through Bukhara.

Reformists in the Emirate had found that the Emir didn't want to lose his grip on power of Bukhara, and they asked for the Russian Bolsheviks to help. The Bolsheviks were able to defeat the Emirate, and they replaced it with the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic, which later became part of the Uzbek, Tajik and Turkmeni SSRs.

During the Soviet era, the eastern part of the Emirate became prosperous, as the city of Tashkent became the fourth largest on the USSR.

Prokudin-Gorskii-19

Mohammed Alim Khan, the last Emir of pre-Doomsday Bukhara

Doomsday[]

The first news of an incoming Doomsday reached the Emirate of Bukhara at 5:30 AM. The first nuclear weapons hit approximately at 6:10, one half hour later. This relatively large amount of time between the news and the strike made it possible for much of the government and population of Tashkent to escape. Most escaped north towards Siberia, but some stayed within Uzbekistan. Islam Karimov is an example of the latter. The Uzbek SSR was hit more lightly than other SSR's such as the Kazakh or the Turkmeni. Uzbekistan received nuclear strikes over the cities of Termez, Tashkent (four separate nuclear strikes), Andijon, Qarshi, Navoiy and Uchquduq. The radiation was a problem, too but most of it quickly escaped onto the lowlands into west Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Post-Doomsday[]

Unification[]

As soon as contact with Tashkent (and Moscow) was broken, much of Uzbekistan fell into chaos. The city-states of Bukhara and Samarkand quickly declared independence. However, Samarkand was soon plagued with civil and political unrest.

Being the strongest city on Uzbekistan after Doomsday, Bukhara made its move. It sent a large militia army, recently created, against the city of Samarkand. The interim parliament of the city of Bukhara sent a letter to the Samarkand government. It said that they would become a part of the city of Bukhara's control immediately or prepare for war. Samarkand, more concerned with civil unrest than with independence, agreed to join Bukhara, and the Emirate was born. The recently-united Emirate now quickly conquered many of the viloyats (or provinces) of the Uzbek SSR, and quickly eliminated all warlords in that part of eastern Uzbekistan.

Many immigrants of Uzbek ethnicity escaped from the south and east of Uzbekistan, which were hit with more force. Many Uzbeks also came from lawless Afghanistan in the south, too. These Uzbeks replaced the historical Tajik majority for that of Uzbek in Bukhara and Samarkand.

The period composing the years between 1984 and 1990 was extremely hard for the Emirate. Although the area of the Emirate escaped much of the radiation from the many bombings on Central Asia due to the wind, rain and the geography of Uzbekistan moved towards Karalparakistan, but the attacks on Nawoiy and Qarshi still proved devastating. The electromagnetic pulse (EMP) of the bombs destroyed every non-shielded device. Small fallout pockets blocked economic routes, most importantly that between Bukhara and Samarkand blocked due to the bombing of Nawoiy. By 1990, the population of Uzbekistan had been cut by half (from 16 million inhabitants to eight million). However, due to gigantic amounts of influx from the even more irradiated and dangerous neighboring countries, the population stayed at 15 million inhabitants (only one million people less than before Doomsday). Fortunately, by then the worst was over.

The MLA[]

The MLA (Muslim Liberation Army) was the first organized nation that the Emirate of Bukhara founded, in 1990. As they expanded farther north, they occupied large areas (about a third of Bukhara's official territory) from the Emirate and forced many Uzbeks to join the army. Finally, the Emirate of Bukhara was forced to sign a treaty with the MLA that placed a puppet regime that claimed ancestry from the early Manghit Dynasty, the one which dominated the Emirate during its pre-doomsday period until 1920, although nobody actually believed it. From that moment on, the MLA used the Emirate as a northern outpost and recruiting ground.

As the Soviet Union was more well known, when the Kazakh SSR recuperated and stopped being the ransacked region it was until then, the MLA started using the Emirate of Bukhara against the Soviet-friendly Khanate of Kokand and the Soviet Union proper. In 2009-early 2010, the Khanate of Bukhara started going through internal turmoil. The Soviet Union made the nearby Khanate of Aralia into a puppet, and the MLA started getting more involved into the Bukharan affairs. Arabic was made an official language for inter-communication in May 5, 2010.

At the same time, Shukria Raad Alimi, heir to the Emirate of Bukhara, arrived in the Emirate (by unknown means). However, she almost instantly had to go into hiding, as the leaders of the MLA wanted to kill her, and the newly-created Soviet faction was hostile to her and her followers. She hid in a small town close to Samarkand, and started converging several pro-Shukria (Royalist) militias into a great army. Escaping into a slightly larger town near the city of Guliston, Shukria's followers are stationed there. Most of the Bukharan army is composed of Russians, Atheists, Jews, Christians and non-religious Sunni Muslims.


The Bukharan Civil War[]

On October 17, Royalists take over Guliston confirming the vague Bukharan reports that said an army was heading for the city. The Royalist army, led by Shukria Raad Alimi, the historical heir to the throne, takes over Guliston with hardly a fight. Later in the day, the Emir of Bukhara proclaims the Bukharan Civil War to have started, and that the current Emirate's government "will not resign until the last drop of blood has been shed", on a speech told within the city of Samarkand.


On October 22, the Royalists advance over Jizzakh, while the pro-Soviets make their first move and attack Shakhrisyabz. However, the attack was defeated by an MLA army, and the pro-Socialists are disbanded. On October 26, the Royalists siege Samarkand. This is the first siege of a city in the Bukharan Civil War, as the soldiers of Guliston and Jizzakh surrendered peacefully. On October 30, the Russian Confederacy declared its support for the Royalist cause in the Emirate of Bukhara. Andrey Tretyak, current Duma leader, stated that "The Russian Confederacy has long supported the cause of the moderate Royalists in Bukhara and we hope that their example will inspire other oppressed majorities to rise up against their oppressors, socialist or otherwise". On November 4, 2010, the Siege of Samarkand ends. Shukria Raad Alimi is proclaimed Emir of Bukhara, although the pro-MLA Emir hasn't yet abdicated. The Siege of Bukhara started on November 10, 2010, a mere two hours after the pro-MLA Emir fled to Afghanistan. The same day, the governments of Armenia, Dagestan, and Kalmykia recognized the Royalists as the government of Bukhara, following the example of the Russian Confederacy. They support the cause against terrorism and socialism, and Kalmykia in particular, also expressed that it supports Sukrhia's right as a women to fight for it.

The siege of Bukhara ended a mere four days later, and the Royalist army headed south where they defeated the Muslim Liberation Army in Termez on the 21st of November, 2010. At the end of the Battle of Termez, Shukria Raad Alimi declared the Bukharan Civil War finished and a plan of historical expansion of the Emirate into its pre-Russian borders, which include the western three oblasts of Tajikistan (a no man's land made up of warlords) and the territory of Turkmenistan south until the Amu Darya river. This project is to start in December 26, 2010.

After the Civil War[]

The first of Shukria Raad Alimi's laws was to replace Arabic with Russian as secondary official language. This is considered by many to be another action to distance themselves more from the Muslim Liberation Army.

Between November 23 and December 11, Shukria Raad Alimi started eliminating MLA and civilize Communist influence in Bukharan territory. The last Communist forces were disarmed and legalized on December 3, and only Hizb ut-Tahrir remained as an extremist Islamic group on December 5.

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