4 
HISTORY OF THE KHOJAS OF EASTERN TURK I STAN. 
they seem to have been exercising power. Thns Mr. Shaw found docu¬ 
ments of Shuja'u-d-Din Ahmad dated in 1611 and 1615, and of Abdu¬ 
llah in various years between 1637 and 1643 inclusive. 1 
Abdu-llah Khan’s sons, alone, constitute the next and last generation of 
the reigning Khans. How many there were of his children is not appa¬ 
rent, but four sons and one daughter are to be found named by one or 
another of the above mentioned authorities, or by our author, and those of 
them who governed the various provinces, had to keep up an almost con¬ 
stant struggle with the Khojas. Their period may be placed, in the 
absence of more accurate information, at between 1650 and about the end 
of the century. The one who seems to have played the most noticeable 
part was called Isma‘il. He succeeded, for a time, as will be seen in the 
history, in ridding his country of the most powerful of the Khojas and 
continued his career till 1678, when the Qalmaqs, intervening in favour 
of the Khojas, made the w T hole of Eastern Turkistan a tributary of their 
own, and carried Isma‘il a prisoner to Ill. After this date one of his 
brothers, called Akbash, is incidentally mentioned as a vassal of the Qal¬ 
maqs struggling against Khoja fanaticism in the year 1694, and he com¬ 
pletes the tale. 
As the author himself tells the history of the Khojas, there is no need 
to encumber this Introduction with more than a few remarks on them, 
gathered from Dr. Bellew’s notice of the Tazkira-i-Hidayat, and to add 
a genealogical table which may help to make the narrative of the Epitome 
clear. There are, as is well known, many Persian and Turk! books in 
existence, 2 which deal with the lines of saints [Auliya] and Khojas who 
have flourished at one period or another, in various parts of Central Asia; 
but probably very few indeed of these concern themselves with Eastern 
Turkistan, or with the Khojas who governed there between the Moghul 
and the Chinese periods. Except those of our author, and of Khalu-d- 
Din, I can find no reference to any. Several of the Musalman general 
histories contain notices of saints and miracle-workers, more or less cele¬ 
brated, who appear to have been mostly Khojas, and some of whom 
belonged to particular countries, while others seem to have wandered from 
one place to another. None of these, however, so far as I am aware, ever 
attained to temporal power in any country, as they did in Eastern 
Turkistan, though many must have exercised considerable influence in the 
dominions of the Khans or Sultans to whom they attached themselves. 
A number of such characters will be found alluded to in the TariMk-i- 
1 These are the dates contained in the list of “ Sanads,” but there is elsewhere a note 
of Mr. Shaw’s giving 1617 to 1642 as the dates traceable for Abdu-llah Khan. He does 
not mention his authority. 
Such as the Silsila-i-K)iwdjagan, the T’azkira-i-AuUya i etc., etc. 
