Social and economic life in the Emirate of Bukhara

In the 19th century the emirate covered the Zarafshan valley, Kashkadarya, parts of present-day Tajikistan (Panjakent, Hisar, Khujand), Ura-Tepa, and parts of present-day Afghanistan and Turkmenistan; the textbook gives its area as about 200,000 square kilometres. Its population in the first half of the 19th century was roughly 2 million, including Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmens, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Karakalpaks, Persians, Arabs and Jews. Agriculture was the basis of the economy: farming depended on artificial irrigation, chigirs lifted water to higher ground, and tools were simple (the wooden plough); livestock raising, especially sheep and karakul, developed. Landholding kept the state (amlok), mulk and waqf forms; under the Manghits suyurghal holders lost their former standing, tanho spread, village communities were dissolved and tenant farmers multiplied. The main tax was kharaj, taking a large share of the harvest (2/5 according to the textbook); gardens, melon fields and vegetable plots paid tanobona, and there were zakat (2.5 percent of the value of property), qo‘sh puli and emergency war taxes.