An extraordinary city in the Islamic conquest: Bukhara

An extraordinary city in the Islamic conquest: Bukhara

The first conquest of the historical Bukhara city by the Muslims was in 674 by the governor of Khorasan, Ubeydullah Bin Ziyad. But only 30 years later, the Islamic ruling of the city was achieved. After Kuteybe Bin Muslim the new governor of Khorasan breaking the resistance of the Turkish allies with the local and deploying a garrison, the Muslim Arabs gave great importance for the Islamisation of Bukhara. So much so that, in order to ease and speed up the conversion of the public into Islam in masses and to solve the social problems faced because of language, reciting the Holy Quran in the Persian language during the prayers was permitted. As well as these reasons, looking at the sources in hand, Bukhara was the only city that this rule was applied. This solution was very helpful to increase the number of people converting to Islam and for them to get adapted to the religion quickly.

Persian was the first language the issue of reading the Quran in another language other than Arabic especially for worship was started. Islam transferred firstly to the Persians after the Arabs. Leaving aside the religious and jurisprudence opinions, regardless of the evaluations and debates, how long this rule was practiced is not precisely known. The book “Tarih-i Buhara” by the famous historian, “Nersahi” is the most important source giving information about this issue.

According to “Sureyh en-Nersahi” born in the village near Bukhara, reporting from the book that includes information that no other book has regarding the region before Islam and the period after the conquest of the Arabs, about the worshipping using the Persian language, “The community of Bukhara, in the early stages of Islam not being able to read the Quran in the original Arabic language, have prayed using Persian. So much so that during the prayers with congregation, time to bow and people not knowing Arabic, there would be an attendant in the real lines and would shout out loud “Bekunita-Nekinet” and for the prostration he would shout “Nekuniya-Nekinet” so the people would bow or prostrate themselves accordingly.

This was one of the examples that was interesting in the cities where the Islamic conquest and Islamisation has been launched, as well as this in order to increase the demand for converting to Islam, to attract the middle-class and poor people, with no other example seen anywhere else in the Umayyads, money was given to the new Muslims that come for Friday prayer as a reward. “Nersani” reports that every Friday a crier proclaimed loudly that this reward is two dirhams so a lot of people with financial difficulties pretended to be Muslim and came to the Mosque on Fridays to be able to collect the reward. But as well as these, it wasn't easy for Islam to settle in Bukhara where Zoroastrianism was dominant because of Kuteybe Bin Muslim well known for his harsh character, his oppressive applications. 

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