JOWZJĀN, the Arabicized form of the Persian Gowz-gān(ān), a district of what was in early Islamic times eastern Khorasan, now roughly corresponding to the northwest of modern Afghanistan, adjacent to the frontier with the southeastern fringe of the Turkmenistan Republic. Vladimir Minorsky surmised that the Persian name was not an ethnic designation but simply “[land of] walnuts [gowz], walnut trees” (Ḥodud al-ʿālam, tr., “Second series of addenda,” p. xxv).
Jowzjān was probably under the control of the Hephthalites (q.v.) before the arrival of the Arabs, and is notable as being one of the regions, together wit Rob (modern Ruy) to its east, in the upper valley of the Ḵolm River, from which there emanate the so-called “Bactrian documents” (actually also including some Arabic language ones, as well as Bactrian language ones), recently brought to light (Sims-Williams, pp. 1-7).
The region was known to the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hiuen-Tsang as Hu-ši-kien and claimed by the Chinese emperors as, theoretically, part of their “Western Lands” (Markwart, pp. 80-81). The Arabs conquered the region of Gowzgān in 653-54, during the governorship of Khorasan and the East of ʿAbd-Allāh b. ʿĀmer, through the agency of Aḥnaf b. Qays’s general Aqraʿ b. Ḥābes Tamimi (Balāḏori, p. 407, Pers. tr., pp. 161-62; Ṭabari, I, pp. 2897-2902, tr., XV, pp. 102-6; Gibb, p. 15). The information of the early Muslim geographers does not allow us to define the boundaries of medieval Gowzgān very closely, but on the east it stretched towards Balḵ and Toḵārestān, in the north almost to the Oxus River, in the west to Marv al-Ruḏ and the Morḡāb, and in the south towards the upper Harirud River, abutting on Ḡarčestān and Ḡur (qq.v.). They mention it as a populous region, with fertile agricultural lands and several significant towns, including Yahudiya/Jahudān (modern Meymana; Ḥodud al-ʿālam, p. 97, tr. p. 107), Ošborqān/Šaburqān, Anbār (q.v., probably the modern Sar-e Pol), Fāryāb (q.v.), Andḵuḏò/Andḵuy (q.v.), and Kalān. Of these, Anbār was the winter residence of the reigning line of Farighunids, agriculturally rich and larger than Marv al-Ruḏ, whilst the princes had their summer capital at Gorzovān/Jorzovān (EsÂṭaḵri, pp. 270-71, tr. pp. 284-85; Ebn Ḥawqal, pp. 442-44, tr. pp. 428-29; Moqaddasi, p. 298; Ḥodud al-ʿālam, pp. 95-98, tr. pp. 104-11; Le Strange, p. 423).
This information can be considerably supplemented by that of the late-10th-century anonymous Ḥodud al-ʿālam (q.v.), whose author seems to have been a native of the province and who certainly wrote for the Farighunid amir, Abu’l-Ḥāreṯ Moḥammad b. Aḥmad (see ĀL-E FARĪḠŪN), hence it was natural that he should expatiate at some length on Gowzgān. It seems that the power of the Farighunids had made it a larger principality than it had been in earlier Islamic times. In early Islamic period the region had apparently been administratively a dependency of Toḵārestān and its Arab governors had resided at Anbār, whilst the local Iranian princes (given by Ebn Ḵordāḏbeh, p. 40, the title of Gowzgān-ḵodā) were at Yahudiya; but by the 10th century this distinction was no longer valid and the Farighunid princes now ruled from Anbār (see above) as vassals of the Samanids (q.v.). Their borders now extended as far north as the Oxus River, and on the south, the rulers of Ḡarčestān (i.e., the Šērs/Širs) and those of Ḡur (named by the author as the Ḡuršāhs) were in turn the Farighunids’ vassals. On the headwaters of the Morḡāb, their frontiers marched with “the ruler of Bost,” who must have controlled the eastern part of Ḡur and Zābolestān (q.v.). Arab nomads in the steppes along the Oxus, numbering 20,000 and described as especially rich, also paid tribute to the prince of Gowz-gān and had their chief nominated by the prince. The products of Gowzgān are enumerated as horses, felts, saddle-bags, and wood from the ḵonj tree (Ḥodud al-ʿālam, pp. 95-98, tr. pp. 105-8, comm. pp. 328-37, map at p. 329; see also Barthold’s Preface, pp. 4-7, and, Minorsky’s revised tr. and comm. in “Second series of addenda,” pp. xxi-xxxix, map at p. xxix, and Yate, p. 344).
In the opening years of the 11th century, Gowzgān was incorporated into the Ghaznavid Empire (see ĀL-E FARĪḠŪN). Its history now forms part of the general history of the region of northern Afghanistan under the Ghaznavids, Saljuqs, Ghurids, Il-khanids, and Timurids. In the 13th century it produced the historian of the Ghurids, Menhāj-e Serāj Jowzjāni (q.v.). The name was still used in the 14th century, and Ḥamd-Allāh Mostawfi mentions its towns as Yahuda, Fāryāb, and Šoburqān (p. 155, tr., p. 153), but thereafter the name gradually dropped out of use until it was revived in the 20th century as the name of a province of Afghanistan after the 1964 administrative re-ordering, with Šebarḡān as its chef-lieu (Dupree, map at p. 157).
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(C. Edmund Bosworth)
Originally Published: June 15, 2009
Last Updated: April 17, 2012
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Vol. XV, Fasc. 1, pp. 81-82
