Editing Bukhara (section)

==History==
{{See also|Bukhara Old Town|Emirate of Bukhara|Khanate of Bukhara}}[[File:EucratidesStatere.jpg|thumb|upright|Coin belonging to the [[Greco-Bactrian Kingdom]] found in Bukhara]]
The [[history of Bukhara]] stretches back millennia. Along with [[Samarkand]], Bukhara was the epicentre of the [[Culture of Iran|Persian]] culture in medieval Asia until the fall of [[Timurid dynasty]].

[[File:M17 Abassides Sogdiane 2 (8011745146).jpg|upright=1.15 |thumb|Bukhara coinage of [[Abbasid]] caliph [[al-Mahdi]]. Bukhara was under [[Caliphate]] control [[Anarchy at Samarra|until AD 861]].]]
By 850, Bukhara served as the capital of the [[Samanid Empire]],{{sfn|Salama|El-Ashmouni|2021|p=84}} and was the birthplace of [[Imam Bukhari]]. The Samanids, claiming descent from [[Bahram Chobin]], rejuvenated [[Persian culture]] far from [[Baghdad]], the centre of the Islamic world. [[New Persian]] flourished in Bukhara and [[Rudaki]], the father of [[Persian literature|Persian poetry]], was born and raised in Bukhara and wrote his most famous poem about the beauty of the city. For this purpose, Bukhara had continuously served as the most important of cities in many Persian and [[Persianate]] empires, namely [[Samanids]], [[Karakhanids]], [[Khwarazmian Empire|Khwarazmids]], and [[Timurids]].

The influence of Bukhara in the wider Islamic world started to diminish starting from the arrival of another Turkic dynasty of Uzbeks in the 16th Century. [[Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar]] was the last [[List of monarchs of Persia|Persian]] emperor who attempted to retake the city just before his assassination, and by the 19th century the city had become a peripheral city in the Persian and the Islamic world, being ruled by local [[Emirate of Bukhara|Emirs of Bukhara]], who were the last [[Persianate]] princes before the fall of the city to the [[red army]].

At the beginning of the 11th century, Bukhara became part of the Turkic state of the [[Karakhanids]]. The rulers of the Karakhanids built many buildings in Bukhara: the Kalyan minaret, the Magoki Attori mosque, palaces and parks.<ref>Nemtseva N. B. Rabat-i Malik, XI — nachalo XVIII vv.: arkheologicheskiye issledovaniya. — Tashkent: Frantsuzskiy Institut Issledovaniy Tsentral'noy Azii, 2009.</ref>

Bukhara lies west of Samarkand and was previously a focal point of learning eminent all through the Persian and the Islamic world. It is the old neighborhood of the incomparable Sheikh [[Naqshbandi]]. He was a central figure in the development of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, significantly influencing the mystical Sufi approach to spirituality, theology, and Islamic practice.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Bukhara|url=https://samarkandtours.com/uzbekistan/bukhara/|access-date=19 November 2020}}</ref>

[[File:Suzani, Bukhara pre-1850.jpg|thumb|left|[[Suzani textile]]s from Bukhara are famous worldwide. This one was made before 1850.|upright]]
It is now the [[Capital city|capital]] of [[Bukhara Region]] ([[Wilayah|viloyat]]) of [[Uzbekistan]]. Located on the [[Silk Road]], the city has long been a center of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion. During the golden age of the [[Samanid Empire|Samanids]], Bukhara became a major intellectual center of the [[Muslim world|Islamic world]],{{sfn|Pickett|2020|p=46}} and was renowned for its numerous libraries.{{sfn|Marlow|2016|p=63}} The historic center of Bukhara, which contains numerous [[mosque]]s and [[madrassa]]s, has been listed by [[UNESCO]] as a [[World Heritage Site]].

[[Genghis Khan]] [[Siege of Bukhara|besieged Bukhara]] for 15 days in 1220.<ref>"Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire – The Brake on Islam" at {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20180813074018/https://mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/hotw/temujin-genghis-khan-pax-mongolica-mongol-empire-islam/ ''History of the World'']}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Battutah|first1=Ibn|title=The Travels of Ibn Battutah |date=2002|publisher=Picador |location=London|isbn=9780330418799 |pages=141, 313}}</ref> As an important trading centre, Bukhara was home to a community of medieval Indian merchants from the city of [[Multan]] (modern-day Pakistan) who were noted to own land in the city.<ref name="Levi">{{cite book|last1=Levi |first1=Scott |title=Caravans: Punjabi Khatri Merchants on the Silk Road |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-uviBQAAQBAJ&q=multan&pg=PT7 |access-date=12 April 2017|date=2016 |publisher=Penguin UK |isbn=9789351189169}}</ref>
For several centuries, the cities of Bukhara av Khiva were known as major centers of the slave trade, and the [[Bukhara slave trade]], alongside the neighboring [[Khivan slave trade|slave trade in Khiva]], has been referred to as the "slave capitals of the world".<ref>Mayers, K. (2016). The First English Explorer: The Life of Anthony Jenkinson (1529-1611) and His Adventures on the Route to the Orient. Storbritannien: Matador. p. 121</ref> 
[[File:Prokudin-Gorskii-19.jpg|thumb|[[Mohammed Alim Khan|Amir Alim Khan]], the last emir of Bukhara, circa 1911]]
[[File:Fires in Bukhara 1920.jpg|thumb|left|Bukhara under siege by Red Army troops and burning, September 1, 1920]]
Bukhara was the last capital of the [[Emirate of Bukhara]] and was besieged by the Red Army during the [[Russian Civil War]]. During [[Bukhara operation (1920)|the Bukhara operation of 1920]], [[Red Army]] troops under the command of Bolshevik general [[Mikhail Frunze]] attacked the city of Bukhara. On 31 August 1920, the Emir [[Mohammed Alim Khan|Alim Khan]] fled to [[Dushanbe]] in Eastern Bukhara (later he escaped from Dushanbe to [[Kabul]] in [[Afghanistan]]). On 2 September 1920, after four days of fighting, the emir's [[citadel]] (the ''Ark'') was destroyed and the red flag was raised from the top of [[Po-i-Kalyan|Kalyan Minaret]]. On 14 September 1920, the All-Bukharan Revolutionary Committee was set up, headed by A. Mukhitdinov. The government—the Council of People's Nazirs (see ''[[nāẓir]]'')—was presided over by [[Fayzulla Xoʻjayev]].

The [[Bukharan People's Soviet Republic]] existed from 1920 to 1924 when the city was integrated into the [[Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic]]. [[Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 1st Baronet|Fitzroy Maclean]], then a young diplomat in the British Embassy in Moscow, made a surreptitious visit to Bokhara in 1938, sight-seeing and sleeping in parks. In his memoir ''[[Eastern Approaches]]'', he judged it an "enchanted city" with buildings that rivalled "the finest architecture of the [[Italian Renaissance]]". In the latter half of the 20th century, the [[War in Afghanistan (1978–present)|war in Afghanistan]] and [[Tajikistani Civil War|civil war in Tajikistan]] brought [[Dari]]- and Tajik-speaking refugees into Bukhara and [[Samarkand]]. After integrating themselves into the local Tajik population, these cities face a movement for annexation into [[Tajikistan]] with which the cities have no common border.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Formation of the Uzbek Nation-State: A Study in Transition|first=Anita|last=Sengupta|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2003|pages=256–257}}</ref>