Hello!
So… I think the Qarakhanid dynasty has, so far, been the most complicated Islamic state to sort out. And this is just because of the political situation of the dynasty itself: this is a hierarchical system based on a pyramid, where, when a higher-up dies, everyone below that person basically moves up. According to the “History of the Qarakhanids” by V. Kalinin, "Essentially, the entire Qarakhanid clan held power collectively, and each member of the dynasty, by virtue of his pedigree, held the right to a portion of the dynasty's total inheritance."
With that being said, we are talking about over a hundred ruling authorities, spanning from khagans, khans (ileks), princes, governors (tegins), lords (dilqans), and rulers with unspecified titles, with most having their own individual territories with highly fluctuating boarders. And that is why this gets very confusing.
So… I would like to propose the following divisions:
Islamic states
----- Qarakhanid dynasty
---------- Eastern Qarakhanid Khaganate
---------- United Qarakhanid Khaganate
---------- Western Qarakhanid Khaganate
---------- Qarakhanid apanages
--------------- Al-Sughd, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Balkh, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Banakath, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Chaghaniyan, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Illaq, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Ishtikhan, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Karmina, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Kasan, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Kashgar, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Kharashkath, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Marghinan, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Parab, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Taliqan, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Tirmidh, Qarakhanids of
--------------- Uncertain Qarakhanid apanage
--------------- Uzkand, Qarakhanids of
This is the most basic division I can think of. The apanages are (basically) easily confirmable areas ruled by local rulers. In Stephan Album, this makes up the sections “Third Period: Local Rulers”, “Later Khans of Eastern Turkistan”, “Qarakhanid Vassals”, and “Qarakhanids in Balkh and Tirmidh”. Any rulers from these areas are fairly easy to assign to their own areas.
For the other issuers, we start with the united khaganate, and then it eventually got divided into two. Between these three issuers, we have 78 ruling authorities. Now… some of these ruling authorities could be narrowed down to a smaller geographical area; however, my list of rulers was not only based on the Stephen Album Catalogue (2011), but also modern auction results listing newly-found rulers, or rulers with newly discovered coins minted at different places, and there were quite a few of those. Many of these rulers who only have known coin from one known place could easily have unknown coins from another place, so for simplicity, I do think the best course of action would be to group every ruler together under these three issuers only. At least until further research is done on this dynasty.
And yeah… thoughts on all this?
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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DE0MAHSElWZvgJ6Sh3gY6NAvZoRvyoKi9AUE9HyRxCE/edit?usp=sharing
