Editing Bashkirs (section)

===Middle Ages===
{{More citations needed|date=January 2022}}
[[File:Mausoleum of Huseynbek.jpg|thumb|Mausoleum of Husseinbek of the 14th century in Bashkortostan]]
[[File:Mausoleum of Turahan.jpg|thumb|Mausoleum of Turakhan of the 15th century in Bashkortostan]]
[[File:Bashkirs of Baymak rayon.jpg|thumb|Bashkirs of [[Baymak]] in traditional dress]]

The first report about Bashkirs may have been in the [[Chinese people|Chinese]] chronicle [[Book of Sui]] (636 AD). Around 40 Turkic [[Tiele people|Tiele]] tribes were named in the section "A Narration about the Tiele people"; Bashkirs might have been included within that narration, if the tribal name 比干 ([[Standard Chinese|Mandarin]] ''Bǐgān'' ← [[Middle Chinese]] [[Zhengzhang Shangfang|ZS]]: *''piɪ<sup>X</sup>-kɑn'') (in ''[[Book of Wei]]'') were a scribal error for 比千 (''Bĭqiān'' ← *''piɪ<sup>X</sup>t͡sʰen'') (in ''[[History of the Northern Dynasties]]''), the latter reading being favored by Chinese scholar Rui Chuanming.<ref>{{citation|last=Cheng|first=Fangyi|title=The Research on the Identification Between Tiele and the Oghuric Tribes|url=https://www.academia.edu/4314856|language=en|pages=83–84}}</ref>

In the 7th century, Bashkirs were also mentioned in the Armenian [[Ashkharatsuyts]].

However, these mentions may refer to the precursors of the [[Kipchaks|Kipchak]] Bashkir tribes who travelled in the Aral-Syr Darya region before the migration. The [[Book of Sui]] may have mentioned "Bashkirs" when the Turkic peoples were still travelling through [[South Siberia|southern Siberia.]]

In the 9th century, during the migration of the Bashkirs to the Volga-Ural region, the first [[Arabic]] and [[Persian language|Persian]]-written reports about Bashkirs are attested. These include reports by Sallam al-Tardjuman who around 850 travelled to the Bashkir territories and outlined their borders.

In the 10th century, the Persian historian and polymath [[Abu Zayd al-Balkhi]] described Bashkirs as a people divided into two groups: one inhabiting the Southern Urals, the other living on the [[Wallachian Plain]]–[[Danubian_Plain_(Bulgaria)|Danubian Plain]] near the boundaries of [[Byzantium]].<ref group="A">These sources may have confused Bashkirs with [[Hungarians]], since the area of Modern Bashkortostan is often referred as "[[Magna Hungaria]]", the zone where the [[Magyar tribes]] dwelled before their migration to Europe; it is believed that Bashkirs may have come into contact with these Magyar tribes, since some of the Northern Tribes of the modern Bashkirs do have genetic correspondence with Hungarians</ref> [[Ibn Rustah]], a contemporary of [[Abu Zayd al-Balkhi]], observed that Bashkirs were an independent people occupying territories on both sides of the [[Ural Mountains]] ridge between [[Volga River|Volga]], [[Kama River|Kama]], and [[Tobol River]]s and upstream of the [[Ural River|Yaik river]].

[[Ahmad ibn Fadlan]], ambassador of the Baghdad Caliph [[Al-Muqtadir]] to the governor of [[Volga Bulgaria]], wrote the first ethnographic description of the Bashkir in 922. The Bashkirs, according to Ibn Fadlan, were a warlike and powerful people, which he and his companions (a total of five thousand people, including military protection) "bewared... with the greatest threat". They were described as engaged in cattle breeding. According to ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs worshipped twelve gods: winter, summer, rain, wind, trees, people, horses, water, night, day, death, heaven and earth, and the most prominent, the sky god. Apparently, Islam had already begun to spread among the Bashkirs, as one of the ambassadors was a Muslim Bashkir. According to the testimony of Ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs were [[Turkic peoples|Turks]], living on the southern slopes of the [[Ural Mountains|Urals]], and occupying a vast territory up to the river [[Volga River|Volga]]. They were bordered by [[Oghuz Turks]] on the south, [[Pechenegs]] to the south-east and [[Bulgars]] on the west.

The earliest source to give a geographical description of Bashkir territory, [[Mahmud al-Kashgari]]'s ''Divanu Lugat'it Turk'' (1072–1074), includes a map with a charted region called ''Fiyafi Bashqyrt'' (the Bashkir steppes). Despite a lack of much geographic detail, the sketch map does indicate that the Bashkirs inhabited a territory bordering on the [[Caspian Sea]] and the [[Volga River|Volga]] valley in the west, the Ural Mountains in the north-west, and the [[Irtysh River|Irtysh]] valley in the east, thus giving a rough outline of the area.

[[Said Al-Andalusi]] and [[Muhammad al-Idrisi]] mention the Bashkir in the 12th century. The 13th-century authors [[Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi]], [[Yaqut al-Hamawi]] and [[Zakariya al-Qazwini|Qazvini]] and the 14th-century authors [[Al-Dimashqi (geographer)|Al-Dimashqi]] and [[Abu'l-Fida]] also wrote about Bashkirs.

The first European sources to mention the Bashkirs were the works of [[Giovanni da Pian del Carpini|Joannes de Plano Carpini]] and [[William of Rubruck|William of Rubruquis]] of the 13th century.

By 1226, [[Genghis Khan]] had incorporated the lands of Bashkortostan into his empire. During the 13th and 14th centuries, all of Bashkortostan was a component of the [[Golden Horde]]. The brother of [[Batu Khan|Batu-Khan]], Sheibani, received the Bashkir lands east of the [[Ural Mountains]].

After the disintegration of the [[Mongol Empire]], the Bashkirs were divided among the [[Nogai Horde]], the [[Khanate of Kazan]] and the [[Khanate of Sibir]], founded in the 15th century.