State administration and military affairs in the Bukhara Khanate

The khanate’s borders were not fixed: under Shaybani Khan it included Khwarazm and Khorasan, under Abdullah Khan II it grew again, and after his death Khorasan passed to Iran and Khwarazm became independent. The population consisted mainly of Uzbeks and Tajiks; in the early 16th century many Uzbek tribes came from the Dasht-i Qipchaq, and historians estimate their number differently. The supreme office was called the dargah, executive power was the devon, headed by the devonbegi (chief minister), who also handled finance. Other important posts were the ataliq (tutor and overseer of a prince), parvonachi (bearer of decrees), dodkhah (hearer of petitions), kukaldosh (who studied attitudes to the khan’s policy), Shaykh al-Islam (supervision of sharia), qazi-kalan (head of courts), muhtasib (markets and public order) and naqib (adviser to the khan). Locally the khanate was divided into provinces and districts, and at the lowest level into amloks; an amlok was run by an amlokdor, with a mirza, mirab, amin and aqsaqal serving there. From the 1540s the throne began to pass from father to son; under the Ashtarkhanids the ataliq became “amir of amirs”, the devons weakened and power in the provinces passed to local forces.