Hashim Ibn Hakim (Mukanna) as a historical person

It was natural for Abu Bakr Narshahi, who wrote a century and a half after the time of Muqanna, to rely on the writings of other authors in covering the subject. According to the historian, he covered the subject of Muqanna on the basis of information obtained from Abu Ishaq Ibrahim Suli's Akhbori Muqanna. It is difficult to say exactly how Abu Bakr Narshakhi used the primary source, what was corrected and what parts were removed in his later editions and abridgments, as this work has not reached us, and the "History of Bukhara" itself has been edited and abridged several times in recent centuries. In any case, we now have at our disposal not the original of the "History of Bukhara" written in Arabic, but a Persian edition, which was later reworked in different periods.

Based on the above two sources, the following information about Muqanna can be obtained. For example, Muhammad Jarir al-Tabari writes that Muqanna's real name was Hashim ibn Hakim, a village near his native Marw. Abu Bakr Narshahi said that Muqanna was from Balkh. The reason why medieval historians give such information is probably that Muqanna’s native village was located between Marv and Balkh.

It is also incorrect to consider these areas as lands that have nothing to do with the history and statehood of the Uzbek people, as some modern authors interpret today. It is well known that Merv, Balkh, Juzjan, Herat and many surrounding regions have long been closely connected with the history of the Uzbek people and statehood.

Hashim ibn Hakim used to cover his face with a veil because his face was ugly and one eye was blind. That is why he got the nickname "muqanna" in Arabic, which means "masked". There are also reports that Muqanna took part in Abu Muslim's revolt against the Umayyads who ruled the caliphate (747-750). According to Abu Bakr Narshahi, Abu Ja'far al-Dawani (754-775), one of the Abbasid caliphs, became the commander of the Khurasan army at a time when the struggle for power was just beginning to appear in the political arena. He was later promoted to the post of minister of the Arab Caliphate's viceroy in Khorasan, Abduljabbor Azdi (757-759).

He wrote letters to people with great influence in the surrounding lands, demanding that they confess. People began to follow Muqanna. He formed an army consisting of various ethnic groups, nomads and settlers. Abu Bakr narrates that Narshahi Muqanna's father was a general. It is also possible that he himself won the trust of the Turkic peoples who were leading the military at that time because he was a military man for some time. However, the sources do not contain records of his ethnicity.

According to Muhammad Jarir Tabari, Muqanna, who revolted in Khorasan, propagated the idea of the migration of spirits and claimed that such a spirit had migrated to him as well. However, due to the strong position of the Arabs in Khorasan, Muqanna fled there with thirty-six supporters. Abu Bakr Narshahi, on the other hand, writes that he “misled” many people in Khorasan and came to Movarounnahr to gather his followers.

Crossing the Amudarya, Muqanna came to Kesh province, where he managed to gather a large number of henchmen and settled in one of the mountain fortresses, calling on the nomadic forces for help. Thus, the Muqanna revolt covered the whole of Movarounnahr. The rebels, who chose local white clothing against the black paint on the official dress of the Abbasid-ruled caliphate, called them “white-clad”.

Muqannas also visited Bukhara and Samarkand. In the wake of the movement's rise, Caliph Muhammad Mahdi (775-785) sent a number of his military commanders against him. Mu'adh ibn Muslim, the leader of them and the viceroy of Khurasan, fought against the rebels for two years and did nothing.

In 775-776, Muqanna's supporters captured the Navokat fortress around Kesh. According to information left by Abu Bakr Narshahi, in the 8th century, the people of the village of Subah in Kesh Province, under the leadership of their peasant Amr, killed an Arab nobleman and joined the Muqanna uprising and openly converted to his religion.

During the reign of Musayyab ibn Zuhayr, who succeeded Mu'adh ibn Muslim, the rebels began to be defeated by the Muslims. As a result of the siege of Kesh Fortress in 163 / 779-780, they were exhausted. Muqanna felt defeated and all of them perished because of poisoning himself and his wives. The Muslims invaded the fortress, beheaded him and sent him to the Caliph Muhammad Mahdi, who was in Aleppo at the time.

It should not be forgotten that the written sources written by the supporters of the Muqanna movement and reflecting their views are not in the hands of us, i.e. the scientific community, more precisely, they have not been identified so far. Therefore, in analyzing Muqanna's personality and rebellion, it is not correct to rely solely on information from Muslim sources, which are written only in a onesided way, condemning him and evaluating his activities. The Muqanna movement is, to a certain extent, a historical event that expressed the dissatisfaction of the people of that time, the people, with the Arab invasion, oppression and oppression. In this sense, this uprising can be called the liberation struggle of the peoples of the country. It is also not permissible to deify the Arab administration that ruled our country at that time and to describe them as individuals with the qualities of today's arrogant Muslims. This is because there is a lot of information in the sources about the inequality, oppression, additional taxes and duties imposed on the non-Arab population by the Abbasids.