Kokand

Kokand lies in the western Fergana Valley, where roads from the Syr Darya approach the fertile oases enclosed by mountains. Its markets and workshops served the towns and farming lands of the valley, while routes led west toward Khujand and north across the mountains. Though the neighbourhood had older settlements, Kokand's rise to political prominence came with the emergence of a new Uzbek dynasty in the eighteenth century.

In 1709 Shahrukh Biy, a chief of the Ming tribe, established a fortress near Kokand and laid the foundations of a principality in Fergana. His successors extended their authority over the valley, and the town grew into the capital of a khanate with its own court and religious institutions. In the early nineteenth century its rulers pushed north and west; Tashkent fell to Kokand in 1809–10. Markets linked the new state with merchants from the steppe, China and other parts of Central Asia.

Umar Khan, who ruled from about 1810 to 1822, patronised literature as well as building. He was himself a poet, and his court became associated with writers including his wife Nodira. The congregational mosque and madrasas expressed the city's growing importance as a religious and cultural centre. Under his son Muhammad Ali, known as Madali Khan, the khanate reached across a wide area beyond its Fergana heartland.