Khujand

Khujand stands on the Syr Darya near the entrance to the Fergana Valley. In the fourteenth century it served as a seat of the Jalayir, one of the powerful groups of the Chaghatay realm. Factional struggles brought changes of control before the city became a separate district of the Timurid state. Babur later used it as a base during his attempts to obtain Samarkand, praising its pomegranates while also recording poverty and an unhealthy climate.

Muhammad Shaybani captured Khujand in 1503. The city subsequently passed among competing rulers, retaining local autonomy at times. The Jungar raid of 1723 drove Kazakh, Karakalpak and Uzbek migrants into the surrounding country. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Bukhara and Kokand contested the city for its strategic position and economic strength. Its governor relied on local religious scholars in administering justice. Khujand thus combined a productive urban society with a contested gateway, where political changes repeatedly altered the relationship between local authority and outside rulers.