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7TRADITIONAL LIFESTYLE AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF
SAMARKAND ARABS
1Aqchaev Farrukh Shavkatovich, 2Abdumajidov Jahongir
JSPU, Chairman of distance education in social and humanitarian sciences, Ph.D., associate
professor
23rd year student of the History faculty of JSPU https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7764568
Abstract: In this article, the settlement of the Arab peoples living in the territory of Samarkand in the territory of our country, the processes of the merging of the ethno-culture of the Arabs and their unique characteristics with the Uzbek people are discussed on the basis of historical literature.
Keywords: Ethnotoponyms, Arabkhana, Arabs, Arabon, Arabho, Uzbek clans with 92 bowls, Tajik Arabs, ethno-economic traditions.
It is known from history that the territory of Uzbekistan has long been a single common space for different peoples and nationalities. Nowadays, studying the ethnic processes of the peoples who lived in different historical periods in the territory of our country and the ethnography of the peoples living in our country is one of the urgent problems of today. During the period of independence, due to the choice of the path of democratic development in Uzbekistan, eliminating the mistakes made in the field of inter-ethnic relations during the former totalitarian regime, ensuring equal rights and opportunities for development of all nationalities and peoples in our country, achieving the development of national cultures at the level of state policy raised. As the President of Uzbekistan I. Karimov noted: "Uzbekistan is a multi-ethnic country. Of course, the main majority are Uzbeks and representatives of other indigenous peoples. But we can't help thinking about the development of more than a hundred nationalities and peoples, their cultures and traditions living on our soil today. At this point, it can be said that the Arabs living in Uzbekistan are distinguished by the fact that they have a unique history of development among different peoples, and that they have preserved their ancient national customs and ethno-economic traditions until now. In fact, in the ethnic formation of the peoples of the region, including the Uzbek people, not only Turkic or Iranian ethnic groups, but also a number of other ethnic groups participated to one degree or another. In particular, the influence of Arabs and Mongols on the ethnic processes in the region was significant and this situation left some historical traces. Today, along with hundreds of Arabic place names in our country, dozens of toponyms related to the ethnonym "Arab" have been preserved in Bukhara, Samarkand, and Kashkadarya regions. In addition, Zarafshan oasis has dozens of ethno-toponyms such as Arab, Arabkhana, Arabs, Arabon, Arabho, and in this respect, the oasis is similar to Kashkadarya and Surkhandarya regions. That is, in many districts of these regions, especially in the steppe and desert zones, the number of settlements with these names exceeds fifty.
The entry of Arabs into Central Asia is divided into three periods. The first stage is the middle of the 7th - 12th centuries. During this period, the Arabs came mainly with the aim of establishing the religion of Islam and acquiring the wealth of the local peoples, and later they were absorbed into the composition of the local peoples.
The second stage of Arab migration corresponds to the XIV-XV centuries. During this period, the Arabs widely spread Islamic culture and rituals. As a result of his marches to Arab countries such as Iraq and Syria, Amir Temur relocated a large part of the population of these countries and settled them among the local peoples. During this period, the majority of Arabs were engaged in animal husbandry. They preserved their ethnic, linguistic characteristics and traditions until the beginning of the 20th century. The third stage of the Arab immigration dates back to the 16th- 19th centuries. Most of the Arabs who immigrated during this period were artisans, and they mostly came from the territory of Afghanistan. The Arabs of this period forgot their language and ethnic characteristics to a certain extent. Although some of the inhabitants of the Zarafshan oasis connected their origin with the Arabs in the late Middle Ages, by the 20th century, the process of their assimilation into the structure of Uzbeks and Tajiks accelerated. In particular, by this time, the process of Uzbekization has intensified in a part of the Central Asian Arabs, especially among the settled and Arab population living in close proximity to or mixed with representatives of other nationalities, while the part of them living in the steppe and desert regions it is noticeable that they have preserved their sense of national consciousness. It is also mentioned in a number of researches that until the first half of the 20th century, a part of the Arabs living in Bukhara city and its surrounding neighborhoods kept their clan-tribal name. In addition, there are those who have not yet found a solution to the issue of Central Asian Arabs. For example, the ethnonym "Arab" is included in almost all of the list of "92 Uzbek clans". We can see that the representatives of this ethnic group were part of the Uzbek population in the Middle Ages. Some of the Arab peoples living in the territory of Uzbekistan also live in the Samarkand region, and they create their own villages in the central, north-western and western districts of the region. The villages inhabited by Arabs in the Samarkand region can be divided into three groups depending on the natural-geographic characteristics and occupation of the population:
1) Villages in areas suitable for irrigated agriculture along the basins and branches of the Zarafshan River (Dargom): Arabkhana (Samarkand, Kattakorgan, Narpay), Arab, Arabkishloq (Kattakorgan), Arabboy ( Narpay), lived in such villages. The inhabitants of these villages are mainly engaged in agriculture, gardening and crafts.
2) Villages living in the Ortachol steppe in the south-western parts of the province, whose inhabitants are primarily engaged in animal husbandry: (Nurabad, a part of the population of this village). Residents of this village have great experience in animal husbandry and cattle breeding.
3) City residents. Arabs live in separate neighborhoods or several families in urban and urban-type settlements such as Samarkand, Kattakorgan, Ziyaddin (Pakhtachi), Juma (Pastdargom), Nurabad. They give priority to handicrafts and commerce in economic activities. Most of the ethnotoponyms formed as place names are clan names that are part of the "92-bowl Uzbek tribe" known since the Middle Ages. Also, the Uzbek and Tajik-speaking Arabs make up part of the population of the oasis, which means that they call themselves not only "Uzbek Arabs" or "Tajik Arabs", but also dozens of "Arabs" in the oasis Samarkand and Bukhara regions. We can also see the existence of settlements named Arabon, Arabkhana. As we mentioned above, the settlement of Arabs in Uzbekistan has a long history, which is related to the socio-political and ethno-cultural processes that have taken place in the region for more than a thousand years.
In ancient times, most of the Arabs were engaged in animal husbandry and lived in the desert regions, but later they started to settle agriculture. Especially during the period of the Bukhara Emirate, it is probably due to the fact that agriculture occupied a special place in their
economic life since ancient times. After the XVII-XVIII centuries, the majority of Arabs engaged in agriculture. Later, they built artificial irrigation facilities with great effort. Since the middle of the 20th century, Arabs have been engaged in farming and animal husbandry at the same time. The popularization of agriculture based on artificial irrigation was the development of many desert areas and the mixing of Arabs with local Uzbek and Tajik peoples in these areas. The participation of the Arab peoples of Uzbekistan in the ethno-cultural processes that took place in our country was twofold. Firstly, the Arabs have been assimilated among the local population of the region for centuries, and secondly, some of them have preserved their ethnic identity.
In conclusion, it should be noted that if we look at the history of the arrival of the Arabs in the territory of Uzbekistan until now, we can see that the Arab peoples have left a significant mark on the history of the Uzbek people. In the course of studies, we can observe the processes of Arab peoples settling in the territory of our country and becoming closely connected with the local population.
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