| KHORASAN TEGIN SHAH Kabulistan and Bactria at the time of "Khorasan Tegin Shah" :
"Khorasan Tegin Shah" (= Tegin, King of the East), known in Chinese sources as Wusan teqin sa, was the second Turk Shahi on the throne of Kabul, succeeding his father Barha Tegin around or after 680 CE. The title "King of the East" may well be understood as a challenge aimed directly at the Umayyad caliph. The actual dominion stretched from Kabulistan to Gandhar and at times also included Zabulistan. Bactria, the land just north of the Hindu Kush, did not belong to his immediate sphere of rule.
Following "Khorasan Tegin Shah"'s ascension to power, a conflict within the royal family must have broken out that caused the older brother of the Kabul Shah to move to Zabulistan and establish his independence there. From then on, Arab sources refer to the ruler of Zabulistan as Rutbil (Turkic iltäbär). Faced with the threat of the Arabs, the two ruling houses remained in close contact and fought side by side against the Muslim enemy. The first Rutbil of Zabulistan fell already by 683 or 686/87 CE in a battle against the Arabs, after having been previously allied with them. Around 710 CE it appears that the Kabul Shah temporarily gained suzerainty over Zabulistan, and troops were recruited in Zabulistan for the mutual struggle against the Arabs.
In 719/20 CE an embassy was sent by the Tegin of Jibin (Kabulistan) and the iltäbär of Zabulistan (Xieyu) to China to obtain confirmation of their thrones from the Tang emperor. The investiture decree signed by the emperor was sent by messenger back to Jibin and Zabulistan. During his journey through the lands south of the Hindu Kush in around 726 CE, the Korean pilgrim Huichao stayed for some time at the court of the Kabul Shah, who may well have been "Khorasan Tegin Shah". Huichao recorded that Kabul and Zabul were then ruled by Turkic kings, who were Buddhists, and that the King of Kabul was supposed to have been the uncle of the ruler of Zabul.
At an old age in 738 CE "Khorasan Tegin Shah" gave up the throne and bid the Chinese emperor to invest his son Fulin Jipo (Phrom Kesar) as his successor.
The coins of this period show different directions of development which are on the one hand rooted in the old typology of Nezak coins and on the other hand increasingly re-incorporate elements of Sasanian imperial coinage and tend to use of Middle Persian (Pehlevi) for their inscriptions. In addition, influences from the coinage of the Arab governors can be found.
Despite the over 50-year regency of "Khorasan Tegin Shah" only a few coin types can be attributed to him with certainty; also one cannot discredit the fact that other subordinate rulers may have struck coins during the continuous defensive fight against the Arabs. The mints also cannot be localised with certainty, and often it is not possible to confirm whether a coin type was struck north or south of the Hindu Kush.
Source :
http://pro.geo.univie.ac.at/ |
