WI: Timurid Rump-state in Central Asia

[GameBawesome]

In OTL, the Timurid Empire, once the mightiest empire, stretching from Iran to Central Asia, to Asia Minor, was about to collapse in the late 15th Century to early 16th Century. From the West, the rising Safavid Empire was taking control of Iran. From the North, the Uzbeks was crushing forth, and in time form the Khanate of Bukhara and Uzbek Khanate. And within, the Timurid Family were fighting each other, which lead to one member, the famous Babur, to later go to India and form the Mughal Empire.

What if, while the Safavids take Iran, the Uzbeks never rise to prominence, butterflying the Uzbek Khanate and the Khanate of Bukhara. What if the Timurid Empire survived as rump-state in Central Asia (Or Modern-day Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Northern Afghanistan.?

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

The Mughal Empire started out as a kind of "rump state." The Timurid dynasty had recently been cast out of Persia by the Safavids, and Babur's domain in distant Ferghana was the last "stable" part of the Gurkaniyan. As a young man, he would lead a campaign to take Kabul -- but would lose Ferghana while he was away. He would take Ferghana back -- but would lose Kabul. Eventually, having lost two capitals twice apiece, Babur would regroup, take Kabul back (for real this time), and direct his focus towards India. And he was very successful, conquering all of the Delhi Sultanate and most of the Indo-Gangetic plain.

His son Humayun, however, nearly lost it all, and was expelled from Delhi by Sher Shah Suri. Humayun was forced to flee India entirely to Persia. He was granted asylum by the Safavids -- the very dynasty that had expelled his family from Persia in the first place -- but in exchange had to make some humiliating concessions, including conversion to Shia Islam. Safavid Persia eventually intervened, ousting the Suri dynasty and re-enthroning the Mughals -- but on the condition that they kept Humayun's son and heir, Akbar, as a hostage, and educate him as a Persianised, Shia Muslim.

Centuries later, the Mughal Empire was also a rump state under the hegemony of the British East India Company, with Bahadur Shah Zafar's actual power barely extending beyond Delhi.

Between those two "rump states," though, the Mughal Empire (and the Timurid dynasty which led it) experienced extraordinary power and influence. Arguably, the Timurids of India achieved a grander legacy than the Timurids of Persia. Maybe, after a third "rump state" period, they could bounce back and make an even greater empire? The great Timur had wanted to conquer China in his lifetime...

 

[LostInNewDelhi]

In OTL, the Timurid Empire, once the mightiest empire, stretching from Iran to Central Asia, to Asia Minor, was about to collapse in the late 15th Century to early 16th Century. From the West, the rising Safavid Empire was taking control of Iran. From the North, the Uzbeks was crushing forth, and in time form the Khanate of Bukhara and Uzbek Khanate. And within, the Timurid Family were fighting each other, which lead to one member, the famous Babur, to later go to India and form the Mughal Empire.

I was gonna say some bullshit about how Central Asia's alternating terrain of hard-to-police mountains/deserts and hard-to-defend rolling plains or valleys (from which the majority of the comparatively low tax base comes out of) would make it hard for any state to last that long, but really the OTL Uzbek khanates managed to last a pretty long time despite all that. The Bukharan state in its totality lasted like ~400 years (shrinking all the while but still), although the caveat here is that only ~300 years of those really count as a Shaybanid "khanate", for the last 100 years the state switched dynasty and legitimated itself as an Islamic emirate as opposed to a Chinggisid khanate (the distinction coming from the exalted status of Chinggis's descendants and the sense that only they deserved the title "khan").

If the Uzbeks went somewhere else (Mongolia, to tangle with the Oirats?) then sure a network of Timurid states could probably survive for a surprisingly long time, but the difficulty would be keeping those states from switching dynasty-- since "Timurid" isn't an ethnicity* that's all it would take for a state to stop being "Timurid".

*Although, well... Uzbek wasn't supposed to be an ethnicity either, but only a reference to that particular clan/tribe which formed the final ruling stratum of Central Asian society before the Soviets came along. And below the Uzbeks there were plenty of strata, which gelled together into a cohesive society but one that went by many names... the Timurids had standardized a "Chaghatai" literary tongue, but Chaghatai was itself a reference to the ruling clan the Timurids displaced. Some identified as "Turk" but so did everyone else in the region, some identified only by the city they lived in or around. In the end the Soviets not only had to assign names to societies but also define where one society ended and another began-- thus "Chaghatai" became "Old Uzbek" (despite the centuries between the emergence of that literary language and the arrival of the Uzbeks from the northern steppes) and "Uzbek" became an ethnicity. So really we could cheat a little here and say that some foreign scholar or conqueror could define "Timurid" as an ethnicity and so you can backproject a "Timurid" state as retaining that character even after a dynasty switch.

What if, while the Safavids take Iran, the Uzbeks never rise to prominence, butterflying the Uzbek Khanate and the Khanate of Bukhara. What if the Timurid Empire survived as rump-state in Central Asia (Or Modern-day Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Northern Afghanistan.?

...I mean the OTL Uzbek states didn't really do a whole lot. Afghanistan meanwhile played a pivotal role in both Persian and Indian history through the 1700s. I guess if this Timurid state was able to take the place of the OTL Pashtun Hotak and Durrani dynasties you could make something work, having them charging out of Balkh into Kabul in the 1700s or something.

Between those two "rump states," though, the Mughal Empire (and the Timurid dynasty which led it) experienced extraordinary power and influence. Arguably, the Timurids of India achieved a grander legacy than the Timurids of Persia. Maybe, after a third "rump state" period, they could bounce back and make an even greater empire? The great Timur had wanted to conquer China in his lifetime...

Now that's funny. How would this go, a Mughal prince landing in southern China at the time of the Ming-Qing transition then hilarity ensues?

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

Now that's funny. How would this go, a Mughal prince landing in southern China at the time of the Ming-Qing transition then hilarity ensues?

Even better.

A Mughal prince, exiled from Delhi after the Rebellion of 1857, winds up in Canton during the First Opium War. There, he galvanises the East India Company sepoys and anti-Qing Chinese dissidents to his cause, and enthrones himself in a ceremony at the Xianxian Mosque. Southern China becomes a chaotic state where neither the Qing nor the Company can keep control, and the Padishah of the Pearl River plays both of them off each other to his own advantage. Veterans and loyalists from India flock to the Padishah's cause; sepoys keep defecting, as nawabs and maharajahs declare their support for Mughal rule in China; Chinese rebellions are sponsored and organised by the Mughals; Chinese officials are cajoled, bribed, and/or threatened into supporting the new Mughal Empire; and the Padishah grants favourable privileges to Britain's rivals, such as France and Portugal, in exchange for recognition and support. Maybe the Ottoman Caliph grants the Mughal prince the title of "Sultan of as-Sin"; the Ottomans had seen better days, to be sure, but they weren't wholly irrelevant yet.
Who knows? Maybe somewhere down the line, Hong Xiuquan will preach a heretical religion, which syncretises Islam with Confucianism. It's not that unlike the Guru Nanak, with Sikhism.

(Edit: oh wait. The First Opium War happened before the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and the Second Opium War happened from 1856-1860. Even better! The Qing were even weaker, and the 1857 rebellion was the last attempt to restore Mughal authority over India. Since the Mughals were already actively leading a pan-Indian rebellion of sepoys, then surely defections among the sepoys deployed in China were more likely, especially if one of Bahadur Shah's sons came to lead them!)

(And how would this relate to things like the Dungan Revolt -- a rebellion among Chinese Muslims (both Uyghur/Turkic and Hui/Han), against the Qing? The Dungans were rebelling against not just the Qing, but also the Russians, whose influence was growing in Central Asia and Mongolia. As such, the Dungans were supported by the British and the Ottoman Empire -- but would the British support them if they were connected to a neo-Mughal movement in southern China?)