In the Garden of Bukhara: Agricultural Rhetoric in an Eighteenth-Century Manghit Chronicle

This thesis demonstrates the ways in which agricultural rhetoric — as utilized by the qazi Muhammad Wafa Karminagi in Tuhfat al-Khani, an eighteenth-century chronicle — served to valorize the political ascent of Muhammad Rahim, the Khanate of Bukhara’s first de jure Manghit sovereign. Such rhetoric functioned at multiple levels. Allusions to the agricultural figurative language and tropes present in previous Bukharan chronicles stylistically connected the narrative of Muhammad Rahim’s rise to a longer legacy of legitimate Bukharan sovereigns, despite the Manghit leader’s lack of agnatic Chinggisid descent. Furthermore, Karminagi’s exaltation of Bukhara’s agricultural prosperity under Muhammad Rahim’s guidance — juxtaposed against descriptions of agrarian ruination during the preceding khan’s reign — emphasized the Manghit ruler’s pragmatic strengths and signaled his administration’s aspiration to develop power claims based on capable social organization and a sovereign’s ability to protect and nourish the khanate’s countryside and peasantry.