- Genghis Khan
(IPA: ; ; classic Mongolian: (see below for alternative spellings); ca. 1162 -August 18, 1227) was a Mongol "Khan" (ruler; posthumously "Khagan", emperor). Born with the name Temüüjin into the Borjigin clan, he became one of the most significant and successful military leaders in history. He united the Mongol tribes and founded the Mongol Empire, (1206 - 1368), the largest contiguous empire in world history. - Richard Boucher
Richard A. Boucher was sworn in as the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs on February 21, 2006. The Bureau of South Asian Affairs was expanded to include the nations of Central Asia shortly before his confirmation. In 2005, Boucher became the longest-serving Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs in the Department of State’s history. He began his most recent tenure as Spokesman for the State Department in May, … - Cyrus The Great
Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus II of Persia and Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Persian Empire under the Achaemenid dynasty. As leader of the Persian people in Anshan, he conquered the Medes and unified the two separate Iranian kingdoms; as the king of Persia, he reigned over the new empire from 559 BC until his death. The empire expanded under his rule, eventually conquering most of Southwest Asia and much of Central Asia, … - John Abizaid
John Philip Abizaid (born April 1, 1951) is a retired General in the United States Army and former Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), overseeing American military operations in a 27-country region, from the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, to South and Central Asia, covering much of the Middle East. CENTCOM oversees 250,000 US troops. Abizaid succeeded General Tommy Franks as Commander, USCENTCOM, on July 7, 2003, … - Seljuk
Seljuk was the "bey" (chieftain) of a branch of Oghuz Turks known as the Kýnýk Seljuqs. He founded the Seljuq dynasty around year 1000. Tradition says Seljuk had four sons: Mikail, Junus, Musa and Arslan. Seljuk's grandson Toghrül, son of Mikail conquered Persia (Iran) in the mid-11th century. According to some sources, Seljuk began his career as an officer in the Khazar army. - S. Frederick Starr
S. Frederick Starr (born Stephen Frederick Starr on March 24, 1940) is the founder and Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucus Institute. He is also a noted musician. - Dilip Hiro
Dilip Hiro (born Larkana) is a playwright and analyst specializing in Islamic countries, ranging from Iraq and Lebanon to the Central Asian republics. He was born to Hindu parents in British India, who migrated to independent India after partition in 1947. He currently lives in London. Hiro is the author of twenty-eight titles, including his most recent book "Iran Today" (2006) and "The Timeline History of India" (2006). - Zhang Qian
Zhang Qian was an imperial envoy in the 2nd century BCE, during the time of the Han Dynasty. He was the first official diplomat to bring back reliable information about Central Asia to the Chinese imperial court, then under Emperor Wu of Han, and played an important pioneering role in the Chinese colonisation and conquest of the region now known as Xinjiang. - Sven Hedin
Sven Anders Hedin (February 19, 1865 - November 26, 1952) was a Swedish explorer, geographer and geopolitician. Hedin was born in Stockholm. Between 1886 and 1892 he studied geology, mineralogy, zoology, and Latin in Stockholm, Uppsala, Berlin, and Halle. He was a student of Ferdinand von Richthofen. Between his graduation in 1892 and 1935 he led several expeditions to Central Asia. In 1902 he was the last Swede ever to be ennobled with a hereditary title. - Igor Rotar
Igor Rotar (born in 1965) is the Central Asian news correspondent for Forum 18, a human rights organization based in Norway that promotes religious freedom. He is a Russian citizen. - Francis Younghusband
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband (31 May, 1863 - 31 July, 1942) was a British Army officer, explorer, and spiritualist. He is remembered chiefly for his travels in the Far East and Central Asia and his writings on the subject. - Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is a London-born author and political scientist specializing in interdisciplinary security studies. He teaches International Relations at the School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, where he is currently engaged in Doctoral research on European imperial genocides from the 15th to the 19th centuries. - Shirin Akiner
Shirin Akiner is a lecturer in Central Asian Studies at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She has produced many works, particularly on Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and is a Member of Editorial and Advisory Board of "Journal of Central Asian and Caucasian Studies", published by the U.S.A.K.. In 2005 she became involved in a controversy when human rights groups, non-governmental organizations and former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, … - Nasir Khusraw
Abu Mo’in Hamid al-Din Nasir ibn Khusraw al-Qubadiani or Nasir Khusraw Qubadyani [also spelled "Khusrow"] (1004 - 1088 CE) was a Persian poet, philosopher, Isma'ili scholar and a traveler. He was born in Qubadyan, a village near Balkh in Afghanistan and died in Yamagan, a village in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. He is considered as one of the great poets and writers in Persian literature, the "Safarnama", an account of his travels, … - Paul Pelliot
Paul Pelliot was a French sinologist and explorer of Central Asia. A pupil of Sylvain Lévi, Pelliot conducted only one archaeological expedition into Central Asia. Pelliot worked at École Française d'Extrême Orient in Hanoi, from where he was dispatched in 1900 to Beijing to search for Chinese books for the Ecole's library. While there, he was caught up in the Boxer Rebellion and trapped in the siege of foreign legations. - Ali Ahmad Jalali
Ali Ahmad Jalali was the Interior Minister of Afghanistan from January 2003 to September 2005. He is now a Distinguished Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies of the National Defense University. He previously served with the Voice of America for over 20 years covering Afghanistan, South and Central Asia, and the Middle East, including assignments as Director of the Afghan Radio Network Project and chief of the Pashto, Dari, and Persian services. - Timur
Tīmūr bin Tara<u>gh</u>ay Barlas, known in the West as Tamburlaine, was a 14th century warlord of Turco-Mongol descent, conqueror of much of Western and central Asia, and founder of the Timurid Empire and Timurid dynasty (1370–1405) in Central Asia, which survived in some form until 1857. Perhaps, he is more commonly known by his pejorative Persian name Timur-e Lang which translates to Timur the Lame, … - Victor H. Mair
Victor H. Mair is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States. Professor Mair has edited the standard "Columbia History of Chinese Literature" and the "Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature". Dr. Mair received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1976. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania since 1979. Dr. - Henry Yule
Sir Henry Yule (May 1, 1820 - December 30, 1889), was a Scottish Orientalist. He was born at Inveresk, Scotland, near Edinburgh, the son of Major William Yule (1764-1839), translator of the "Apothegms of Ali". Henry Yule was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840. He served in both the Sikh wars, was secretary to Colonel (afterwards Sir) Arthur Phayre's mission to Ava (1855), … - Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 - May 31, 1989) was a U.S. author and educator, the most influential American scholar of Central Asia in the 20th Century. He was accused by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of being "a top Russian spy." Some people credit Lattimore with coining the term McCarthyism, but Herbert Block was first to use the term, in a cartoon in the "Washington Post". - Ban Chao
Ban Chao, born in Xianyang, Shaanxi, was a Chinese general and cavalry commander in charge of the administration of the "Western Regions" (Central Asia) during the Eastern Han dynasty. He repelled the Xiongnu and secured Chinese control on the Tarim Basin region, and led a military expedition to the doorstep of Europe, as far as Parthia and beyond the Caspian Sea. He fought for 31 years. - John Wood
John Wood (1812 - November 14, 1871) was a Scottish naval officer, surveyor, cartographer and explorer, principally remembered for his exploration of central Asia. Wood was born in Perth, Scotland. After schooling at Perth Academy, he joined the British Indian Navy and soon demonstrated a flair for surveying. Many of the maps of southern Asia which he compiled remained standard for the rest of the nineteenth century. - Robert Byron
Robert Byron (1905-1941) was a British travel writer, best known for his travelogue "The Road to Oxiana". Byron was born in 1905, and educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. He died in 1941, during the Second World War, when the ship he was serving on was torpedoed by a U-Boat off Cape Wrath. Byron's "The Road to Oxiana" is considered by many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing. - Eric Shipton
Eric Shipton (1 August 1907 - 28 March 1977) was an English Himalayan mountaineering legend. Born in Ceylon and educated in England, Shipton began climbing in the Alps. In 1928 he went to Kenya as a coffee grower, and first climbed Nelion, a peak of Mount Kenya in 1929. It was also in Kenya's community of Europeans that he met his future climbing partners Bill Tilman and Percy Wyn-Harris. Together with Wyn-Harris he climbed the twin peaks of Mount Kenya. - Pankaj Mishra
Pankaj Mishra was born in North India in 1969. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in commerce from Allahabad University before earning his Master of Arts degree in English literature at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. In 1992, he moved to Mashobra, a Himalayan village, where he began to contribute literary essays and reviews to "The Indian Review of Books", "The India Magazine", and the newspaper "The Pioneer". - Bayezid I
Bayezid I , in the Battle of Rovine, which featured a forested and swampy terrain, the Wallachians won the fierce battle and prevented Bayezid from conquering the country. In 1394 Bayezid laid siege to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire. On the urgings of the Byzantine emperor John V Palaeologus a new crusade was organized to defeat him. This proved unsuccessful: in 1396 the Christian allies, … - 'Abd Al-Latif
Abd al-Latif ibn Muhammad Taraghay Ulughbek, also known as 'Abd al-Latif, (c. 1420 - May 9, 1450) was the great-grandson of Central Asian warlord Timur. He was the third son of Ulugh Beg, Timurid ruler of Transoxiana (modern Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan). Having been given the governorship of Balkh, 'Abd al-Latif served under his father. During the succession struggle that followed the death of Shah Rukh, he occupied Herat, … - Abd Al-Latif
Abd al-Latif ibn Muhammad Taraghay Ulughbek, also known as 'Abd al-Latif, (c. 1420 - May 9, 1450) was the great-grandson of Central Asian warlord Timur. He was the third son of Ulugh Beg, Timurid ruler of Transoxiana (modern Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan). Having been given the governorship of Balkh, 'Abd al-Latif served under his father. During the succession struggle that followed the death of Shah Rukh, he occupied Herat, … - Chagatai Khan
Chagatai Khan ("Chagadai";) was the second son of Genghis Khan. He inherited most of what are now the five Central Asian states and Northern Iran after the death of his father and ruled until his death in 1241. He was also appointed by Genghis Khan to oversee the execution of the Yassa, though that lasted only until Genghis Khan was crowned Khan of the Mongol Empire. The Empire later came to be known as the Chagatai Khanate, part of the Mongol Empire. - Fitzroy MacLean
Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle MacLean of Dunconnel, 1st Baronet of Strachur and Glensluain was a Scottish diplomat, soldier, adventurer, writer and politician. In "Eastern Approaches", MacLean recounted his extraordinary adventures in Soviet Central Asia, and in the Western Desert Campaign, where he specialized in commando raids behind enemy lines. It has been speculated that Ian Fleming used Maclean as one of his inspirations for James Bond. - Marc Aurel Stein
Sir Marc Aurel Stein, Stein Márk Aurél in Hungarian. In 1901 Stein was responsible for exposing forgeries of Islam Akhun. During his expedition of 1906-1908 while surveying in the Kunlun mountain range in western China, Stein suffered frostbite and lost several toes on his right foot. When he was resting from his extended journeys into Central Asia, … - Richard Nelson Frye
Richard Nelson Frye (c. 1920) is an American scholar of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Harvard University. His professional areas of interest are Iranian philology, and the history of Iran and Central Asia before 1000 CE. Born in Birmingham, Alabama to a family of immigrants from Sweden, "Freij" has four children, his second marriage being to an Assyrian scholar, Dr. Eden Naby, … - Subutai
Subutai was the primary strategist and general of Genghis Khan and Ögedei Khan. He directed more than 20 campaigns during which he conquered (or overran) more territory than any other commander in history. He gained victory by means of imaginative and sophisticated strategies. He routinely coordinated movements of armies that were more than 500 km away from each other. Usually he maneuvered the enemy into a position of weakness before accepting battle. - Albert Von Le Coq
Albert von Le Coq (1860 - 1930) was a German archaeologist and explorer of Central Asia. He was heir to a sizable fortune derived from breweries and wineries scattered throughout Central and Eastern Europe, thus allowing him the luxury of travel and study at the Berlin Ethnological Museum. Serving as assistant to the head of the Museum, Professor Grunwedel, Le Coq helped plan and organize expeditions into the regions of western Asia, specifically areas near the Silk Road. - Daniel Waugh
Daniel C. Waugh is a historian based at the University of Washington. He did his undergraduate work at Yale University, and in 1963 graduated with a B.A. in Physics. In 1965, he finished his Master's on the "Regional Studies of the Soviet Union" at Harvard University, and seven years later he completed his Ph.D. at the same institution. The same year, 1972, he began his employment at the University of Washington, and has remained there ever since. - Emperor Wu Of Han
Emperor Wu of Han, (156 BC -March 29, 87 BC), personal name Liu Che (劉徹), was the seventh emperor of the Han Dynasty in China, ruling from 141 BC to 87 BC. Emperor Wu is best remembered for the vast territorial expansion that occurred under his reign, as well as the strong and centralized Confucian state he organized, and is cited in Chinese history as one of the greatest emperors,. - Zeki Velidi Togan
Zeki Velidi Togan village of Sterlitamak uyezd, today Bashkortostan. After his emigration to Turkey, his name was turkicized as "Zeki Velidi Togan" (in the Arabic script used by both languages - at that time there was no difference between the two). From 1912-1915 Velidi taught in the madrassa (school) in Kazan (Qasímiä), and from 1915 to 1917 he was a member of bureau, supporting Muslim deputies at the State Duma. In 1917 he was elected to Millät Mäclese, … - Turgut Demirtepe
[__|action=edit}} log] </small> } Turgut Demirtepe (born 1969) is a Turkish academic and author, an academic specialist on the Central Asia and Political Science, with particular reference to nation-state building. He is editor of the "Journal of Central Asian and Caucasian Studies". Demirtepe was born on May 12, 1969 in İzmir, Turkey. After graduating from Ankara University with a BA, he received his MPhil from the University of Sheffield, … - Iraj Bashiri
Iraj Bashiri is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, USA and one of the leading scholars in the fields of Central Asian Studies and Iranian Studies. Fluent in English, Persian, Tajik, and several Turkic languages, Bashiri has been able to study and translate works otherwise inaccessible to the mostly Russian-speaking Central Asian studies community. - Paul Salopek
Paul Salopek is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer. Salopek was raised in central Mexico. He has reported for the "Chicago Tribune" since 1996, writing about Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He worked for "National Geographic" from 1992-1995, visiting Chad, Sudan, Senegal, Niger, Mali, and Nigeria. The October 1995 cover story for "National Geographic" was Salopek's piece on Africa's mountain gorillas.
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