Sayram ( ) is a rural locality located in eastern Shymkent on the Sayram Su River, which rises at the nearby 4000-meter mountain Sayram Su. In medieval times, the city and countryside were located on the banks of the Arys River, into which the Sayram Su river flows. Since 2018, it has been part of Shymkent City. Population:
The city celebrated the 3,000th anniversary of its founding in 1999.Sayram Region, 75th Anniversary. By Yerkin Nurazxan, editor 2003. Published independently. It is among the oldest cities in Kazakhstan, as well as one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the World, the site of the first mosque in Kazakhstan,The monumental inscriptions from early Islamic Iran and Transoxiana. By Sheila Blair. Published by BRILL, 1992. and similarly among the oldest cities in Transoxania.Kazakhstan: Coming of Age. Michael Fergus and Zhanar Zhandosova, Stacey International Publishers, March 2004 () Sayram is significant today for maintaining mud-brick architecture and the absence of Soviet-style architecture. There are many pre-20th-century mausoleums, and more continue to be built.
Archaeology in Central Asia was active following its conquest by the Russian Empire, but remains a relatively understudied area. There has been some field work done in the city both before and during the rise of the Soviet Union, and there is likewise renewed interest in the city as one of the oldest cities of the independent country of Kazakhstan. Notable among the archaeological discoveries is evidence of an early plumbing system like the kinds found in Samarqand and other cities of the early Persian empires.
There is another city named Sayram in Xinjiang, China located between Kucha and Aksu, which, according to local tradition, was founded by captives captured by the Qalmaqs.Barthold, rev. of Tārīkh-i Amniyya, in Sochineniya, viii, 213
Etymology The oldest name of the city according to historical evidence is Isfijab (Espijâb, Isfījāb, Asfījāb), which remained until the Mongol conquest. Mahmud Kashgari mentioned it as the "White City which is called Isbījāb," suggesting its connection with the Soghdian/Persian word for white, sipīd or ispīd.Bosworth, C.E. "Isfīdjāb." Encyclopædia of Islam, 2nd ed., Brill, 2010. Kashgari also mentioned that the city was known as Sayram at that time, the name which the town bears today. The Russian Orientalist N. S. Lykoshin suggested that Sayram's correct name was Sar-i ayyām, or 'Ancient of Days'. His editor held, however, that instead of ayyām, it was instead the Arabic yamm, 'sea, river' and referred to the source of a stream. If the name Sayrām is actually Turkic, it probably refers to 'a place of shallow water.'Devin DeWeese, "Sacred History for a Central Asian Town: Saints, Shrines, and Legends of Origin in Histories of Sayrām, 18th-19th Centuries," Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée [online], 89-90 | July 2000, uploaded May 12, 2009, accessed December 10, 2010. URL : http://remmm.revues.org/index283.html To wit, al-Kāshgharī gives, alongside his entry on Sayrām as the name of Isfijāb, the phrase seyrem sūw, 'shallow water,' which coincidentally is the name of the river running east of the center of the city. Kāsgharī also later notes the verb seyremlen-, 'to become shallow,' with the phrase sūw seyremlendī, 'the water became shallow (or scanty)'.al-Kàshgharî, Mahmûd, 1982–85, Robert Dankoff and James Kelly (transl.), Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Diwân lughāt al-Turk), Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures, 7, Turkish Sources, VII, Cambridge, Harvard University Printing Office. II, p. 256
History The modern city of Sayram celebrated its 3,000th yearSayram Region, 75th Anniversary. Yerkin Nurazxan, editor 2003. Published independently. of continued habitation in 1999. Sayram is a city on the frontier between irrigated farmland and the pastures of the Dasht-i Qipchaq. It has a long history of commercial and political importance as a border town and has been the site of numerous conquests and reconquests.
Sayram steadily lost its importance as an important trading hub after a time of rapid growth due to the internal warriors of the local feudal lords at the beginning of the 18th century and there is only one village with the same name on its position today.
Earliest history Some local historians have attempted to find proof of Sayram's prehistory in the holy book of the Zoroastrian faith. They state that the first recorded mention of Sayram is in the Avesta, the holy book of Zoroastrianism. There are several names mentioned, though it is possible they refer to people, places, cities, or geographic features. Historian Richard Frye states that "even guesses about their identity do not help us in reconstructing history."Frye, Richard. The Heritage of Central Asia: From Antiquity to the Turkish Expansion. Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton. 1996. The word appearing in the Avesta is Sairima, which some historians equate with the name Sayram. There is mention of a river, and a land or people called Sairima elis, or people or land of/near Sayram.
Before Islam In the 7th century, the Western Turkic Confederation consisted of five Tu-lu and five Nu-shih-pi tribes, known collectively as the On Oq (Ten Arrows) and by the Chinese as Shih Hsing (Ten Clans).The Cambridge history of early Inner Asia. By Denis Sinor. Published by Cambridge University Press, 1990. , In 642, the khaqan (khan) of the Tu-lu Turkic tribe took refuge in Isfijab from the Nu-shih-pi.Early mystics in Turkish literature. By Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, Gary Leiser, Robert Dankoff. Published by Routledge, 2006. ,
After the expulsion of the heretical sects of Christianity, there came a large number of Christians to Central Asia and the East. Largest among them were the Nestorians, who were condemned at the First Council of Ephesus in 431. There was a community of Nestorian Christians in Sayram when Islam first came to Sayram in 766 AD who resisted conversion. Buddhism was also prevalent in Central Asia at that time.
Islamic conquest Sayram was already an important trading site in the centuries before the Arab Conquest.History of Civilizations of Central Asia Published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ. , Islam was brought to Sayram and its neighboring cities by a detachment of Arabic and Arabic-speaking soldier-missionaries from the already converted lands to the south. Sayram, or Isfijab as it was then known, served as a border town between the Islamic lands and the pagan Turks.A history of inner Asia, by Svatopluk Soucek. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2000
The Arab Conquest was led by Iskak, known today in Sayram as Iskak-bab. The standard bearer of these soldiers of Islam was ‘Abd al-‘Azīz. One surviving manuscript, entitled Nasabname, tells how the Muslim warriors under Iskak-bab came to Sayram and met with the Nestorian patriarch of Sayram, Nakhibar.
Iskak-bab invited Nakhibar to the true faith. But Nakhibar replied, "I am a tarsa (Christian) of the seventieth generation, and my faith is true! That is why I shall fight you." Hand-to-hand combat ensued, and lasted for three days and nights. Ten thousand Nestorian tarsas and fifteen thousand Muslim missionaries died for their faith. The color-bearer of the Muslim forces was ‘Abd al-‘Azīz.Nasabname, Book of Generations: Sayram, Anon.
The same manuscript goes on to describe Iskak-bab's building of the first mosque in Sayram, which would make it the first mosque in all of present-day Kazakhstan, as well.
"After that he set up a Friday mosque in Sayram. The first stone in the foundation was laid by his hands. He sanctified the stone with holy water."
Under the Samanids In 840 AD, the Samanid chief of Samarkand Nūḥ ibn Asad, wrested control of the city from the Turks. In that year, Nūḥ built a wall around it to protect it from the Turks. By this time the city was a flourishing market center at the nexus of nomad and sedentary lands. It was also a linchpin in the broad zone of protective forts built to protect the Samanid empire from nomadic raiders. Moqaddasi numbered these fortresses, or ribāṭs, at 1,700. They built outer walls to protect the crops of the inhabitants from raiders, but the town was not only a military outpost. Traders from Bukhara and Samarkand constructed large caravanserais for themselves in Sayram.
Sayram was also the main contact between Samanid Islam and the Qaghan Turks of Turpan, Kashgar, and Kucha. The alternate southern routes were controlled by rival factions, leaving the primary route east through Farab and Sayram.The Passion of al-Hallaj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam. By Louis Massignon, Herbert Mason. Published by Princeton University Press, 1994. ,
Sayram is significant for maintaining a degree of independence from the Samanids, remaining a possession of the local Turkic dynasty. The rulers owed three signs of loyalty to the Samanids: military service, the presentation of symbolic gifts, and the name of the Samanid ruler on minted currency.History of Civilizations of Central Asia by M.S. Asimov, Vadim Mikhaĭlovich Masson, Ahmad Hasan Dani, Unesco, Clifford Edmund Bosworth, Muḥammad Osimī Muhammad Osimi, János Harmatta, Boris Abramovich Litvinovskiĭ. Published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1999 Sayram at this time was one-third the size of Banākath (now in ruins near present-day Chinoz, Uzbekistan), the chief town of the neighboring district of Shāsh (present-day Tashkent).
Sayram was divided into three districts, like others of the time: qohandez (citadel), madīnah (inner town), and rabaż (suburb), the latter two being protected by walls. All the houses were of mud brick. The government center (dār al-imārah), the prison, and the Friday mosque were all in the inner city. There were four main gates to the inner town, each guarded by a ribat manned by ghāzīs (volunteer fighters for the faith) recruited from Bukhara and Samarkand. The ruler of Sayram apparently also exercised some authority within the steppes, since Moqaddasi mentions that the "king of the Turkmen" at nearby rdū habitually sent presents to Asfījāb.
Under the Qarakhanids The Qarakhanids seized the city in 980, during the reign of Nuh II of the Samanid Empire. At this time, according to al-Istakhri, the city marked the border between Karluks and Oğuz Turks.Peoples of Central Asia by Lawrence Krader. Published by Indiana University, 1971 Sayram was part of the eastern Qarakhanid khanate based on three cities: Sayram itself, Talas, and Farghāna. Coins were minted there by the Qarakhanid rulers.O. Pritsak, "Die Karachaniden," Der Islam 31, 1954, pp. 36-38 In the opening years of the 7th/13th century, the district seems to have been taken over by the Qipchaqs of the middle Syr Darya, for the Khorezmshah ʿAlāʾ al-dīn Muḥammad devastated the area beyond the Syr Darya to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Mongol leader Küchlüg.
Sayram under the Mongols The city of Sayram was captured by the Mongols using catapults under the command of the Siet Alahai.Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources: Fragments Towards the Knowledge of the Geography and History of Central and Western Asia from the 13th to the 17th Century, E. Bretschneider. K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & co., ltd, 1910.