Report of Josef Wolff 1843-1845
Ameer of Bokhara
Nasir Ullah
His Majesty is about 5 feet 6 inches high, rather stout, black eyes and
small, of dark complexion, with convulsive twitching of the muscles of his face;
his voice not remarkably powerful, but rapid in intonation; his smile appears
forced. He has the whole appearance of a bon vivant. His clothes are quite
those of a common mullah, without any pomp or decoration. He has deprived the
mullahs of all their power, and taken the executive into his own hands. On his
accession to the throne he killed five of his brothers: two of them, it is
reported, were murdered in the territory of foreign powers, viz., one of them
at Kokand, and the other at Orenburg in Russia. After the death of his father,
Tupah Zadeh was the eldest, and had actually taken possession of Bokhara,
however, Nasir Ullah, the present King, retired to the fortress of Karshi, and
his friend, who was the Hakim Bey; remained at Bokhara, and gained over the
people of Bokhara by his learning, talent, integrity, and wealth; in favor of
Nasir Ullah. After he had thus gained the inhabitants, he sent word to Nasir
Ullah to come with troops to the gates of Bokhara, As soon as he appeared the
gates were opened, and Turah Zade murdered, and Nasir Ullah ascended the
throne. A second brother was murdered in the arms of his mother, Omar Khan, a
third brother, had the good fortune to escape, and he wandered about in the
whole of Turkestan, spent some time among the dervishes of Mowlana and Jelala
Adeen, in the Turkish Empire, performed under the garb of a dervish his
pilgrimage to the Kaaba at Mecca, to the grave of Muhammed at Medina; returned
again to the Khunkaar (Sultan) of Istanbul; and when I in 1832, was in the
desert of Merv, seated in the tent of a Jew; a dervish entered the tent of my
Jewish host, and soon after an Uzbek came in, and stared at the dervish, and
exclaimed suddenly, kissing his feet, "God preserve Omar Khan, my padishah
of Bokhara, son of Ameer Hyder Behadur." Omar Khan said, " Betray me
not;" and thus Omar Khan wandered about in the desert of Merv, and made an
alliance with the King of Khiva; and I heard after this that he was slain in
battle against his brother, the present Amir. It is also said that the present
King poisoned his own father. Hakim Beyk, who had assisted him to mount the
throne, became his Goosh-Bekee, or Vizier; and as long, as he followed the
advice of that wise minister, Nasir Ullall was the beloved King of Bokhara, and
feared by the Kings around Bokhara. The Kings of Kokand, Cashgar, and Khetay,
sent ambassadors with presents to him, and Russia continued to be on friendly
terms with the King of Bokhara. The object of that great minister, the
Goosh-Bekee, was to draw to Bokhara learned men, and men of arts, from all the
countries of the earth and his friendship with Moorcroft had given him a
predilection for England, and he desired me in 1832 to prevail on the British
Government to send physicians and officers, together with an Ambassador, to
Bokhara, Sir A, Burnes, after me, received the favors of that great man, and
Dr. Haenigberg also, from Hungary, who came from Lahore where he was in the
service of the great Runjeet Singh, the Lion of the Punjab. The dervishes of
Bokhara began to sing of the praises of Nasir Ullah and his great minister, the
Goosh-Bekee. The town of Bokhara began to be adorned with beautiful mosques,
and outside Bokhara gardens and country houses were planned; but Nasir Ullall
Behadur became jealous of the Goosh-Bekee. At that time in the year 1835, Abdul
Samut Khan arrived from Kabul, where he had run away from Dost Muhammed Khan;
and he boasted that he was acquainted with all the European sciences and
military discipline. The excellent Goosh-Bekee recommended him to the King, and
the King nominated him the Chief of the Sirbaas, e.g. of the regular troops and
of the artillery. The Goosh-Bekee poured favors upon the new comer; whilst
Abdul Samut Khan all the time began to intrigue against his benefactor and made
the King believe that the Goosh-Bekee was in correspondence with England. The
influence of the Goosh-Bekee began visibly to decline.
Soon after this the Reis, i.e. the Great
Mullah, who enforces with bastinadoes and death obedience to the observance of
the rites of the Mohammedan religion, preached one day to the Mohammedans in
the following manner: " The King is a shepherd. The subjects are the
sheep. The shepherd may do with the sheep as he thinks proper, he may take the
wife from her husband; for the wife is the sheep of the King as well, as the
husband, and he may make use of any other man's wife just as he pleases".
From that moment Nasir Ullah became the greatest profligate at Bokhara. He
employed all his Makhrams as so many ruffians. The persons who were not willing
to give up their wives, were instantly put to death, and he so habituated them
to tyranny, that the husband, on being deprived of his wife, sighed and
resigned himself to the will of the King with the exclamation." Een Kary
Padsha hast-" "This is a royal act." The honest Goosh-Bekee
alone resisted, and boldly reproved the King for it. Upon which he was exiled
to Karshi. When the friends of the Goosh-Bekee wanted him to escape to Kokand,
he said, " I am too old to be a traitor, I am sixty years of age; I will
die in my native Country, for die I must, whether in my house or in
prison." He remained quietly in prison at Karshi, spent his days in
reading the Koran, saw from time to time dervishes of the family of Nakshbande,
and was at last brought again to Bokhara, and there put in prison, and then
executed by order of the Ameer, behind the palace, on the spot where afterwards
Colonel Stoddard and Captain Connolly were executed.
In order to exemplify in the best manner the tyranny of the Ameer of
Bokhara, I need only mention the following facts: That every letter sent from
Bokhara, and every letter arriving for their merchants and dignitaries, and
every private note which the wife writes to her husband, or the husband to the
wife, must first be opened and perused by the King of Bokhara; so that actually
it is a matter of the utmost difficulty to forward letters to Bokhara. Another
act of tyranny committed by the Ameer is that boys are employed as news
writers. Whose duty it is to report to him every word which other boys talk in
the streets even brother to brother at home, and servants in families, are also
obliged to write down for the King any conversation they hear between husband
and wife, even in bed; and the people set over me were ordered to report to him
what I might happen to speak in a dream, Such written reports are called
Areeza, i.e. petitions to the King, But whilst His Majesty has established such
a complete system of espionage; similar one is established over him, though in
secret, by several of the great officers of the State. Abdul Samut Khan boasted
to me, and I heard the truth of his statement confirmed by others, that he
(Abdul Samut Khan) knew every sentence or every half sentence the Ameer
uttered, and all that is spoken to him.