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In fact, the Nestorian patriarch had raised it to the rank of metropolitan see, possibly as early as the beginning of the fifth century and
certainly by the early seventh century. The city soon developed into a major center of Islamic scholarship under the Arabs. Among other things, Samarkand was the first place where the Arabs
experimented with making paper, a skill they learnt from the Chinese after defeating them at the Battle of Talas (751). The power of the caliph was subsequently replaced by a succession of
dynasties: the Samanids (875), the Qarakhanids (999), the Seljuks (1073), the Qarakhitai (1141), and the Khwarezmians (1210). During this time, Samarkand was no mean city: it has been
estimated that its population in the tenth century was over half a million. The next major event in the life of Samarkand occurred in 1221: the armies of Chingiz Khan captured the city from
Shah Sultan Muhammad, the Turkic ruler of the Khwarezmian empire, who had made it his capital. In return for the Shah's resistance to the great Khan, the city was sacked and looted, its
soldiers killed and its artisans carried off into slavery. However, although Samarkand was largely abandoned, its history was not over yet. We have accounts of the city by various travelers
through the area, including Marco Polo (1254-1324), who, although he did not actually visit Samarkand, passed through the area in 1272-73, and the Moor Abu Abdullah Ibn Battuta (1304-1377),
who, in 1333, described it as "one of the largest and most perfectly beautiful cities in the world." It was under Timur, the Mongols' "successor," that Samarkand went on
to become one of the most glorious capitals in the then-known world. The city was given a new location, south of its previous site on the mound of Afrasiyab, which had been largely
destroyed by the Mongols. Under the Amir, as Timur was known, it had become a thriving city which netted half the commerce of Asia: in its markets could be found leather, linen, spices,
silk, precious stones, melons, grapes, and a host of other goods. It was also a city of great architectural monuments, skilled artisans and scholars. Even though Timur's successor, Shah
Rukh, moved the Timurid capital to Herat, Samarkand continued to prosper under Ulugh Beg. As Timurid power in Transoxiana faltered after the deaths of Shah Rukh and Ulugh Beg, the city
ceased to be as important as it had been. In 1447, it was sacked by the Uzbeks, who were to return half a century later to set up yet another Turkic dynasty in the area. After the demise of
Timurid rule in Central Asia, Samarkand came under a succession of Persian, Turkic, and even Chinese rulers. The city was eventually captured by the Russians in 1868 as this new power from
the north expanded into Turkestan ("Land of the Turks"), as the area was known at that time. It is today a major city in the Republic of Uzbekistan, one of five Central Asian
republics which emerged from the rubble of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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