The formation of the Khiva Khanate

In the early 16th century Khwarazm belonged to the state of Husayn Boyqara; in 1505 Shaybani Khan and in 1510 the Iranian ruler Shah Ismail seized it. Safavid rule did not last: local nobles, in particular Umar Qori, qazi of the city of Vazir, and Sayyid Tisomiddin Qattol, called the people to struggle. To give the throne legitimate standing, the Khwarazmians invited Ilbars Khan, of the line of Shayban from the Dasht-i Qipchaq, and he took the throne in 1512; the capital moved from Vazir to Urgench. From that year Khwarazm was independent and later called the Khiva Khanate; the dynasty is called the Arabshahids, after Arabshah ibn Pulad, and ruled until about the 1720s (after which other Chingizid sultans were placed on the throne). By the end of the 16th century tribal leaders had become practically independent landholders, and in the 1570s the Amu Darya changed its course and began to flow toward the Aral Sea, so that lands around the old channel became desert. The khanate was conquered by Bukhara several times — in 1537–1538 by Ubaydullah Khan, then by Abdullah Khan II — but each time independence was restored.