American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research
78
https://theusajournals.com/index.php/ajsshr
VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue03 2025
PAGE NO.
78-80
10.37547/ajsshr/Volume05Issue03-21
Ornamental design of Khiva legislative acts
Maftunakhon Sirojiddinova
Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, junior doctoral researcher, Uzbekistan
Received:
28 January 2025;
Accepted:
27 February 2025;
Published:
25 March 2025
Abstract:
Diplomatic and paleographic study of historical documents serves to identify more accurate and specific
conclusions in the field of documentation. But there are some aspects, or rather attributes, of documents that
carry a lot of information on the history and culture of a particular state. One of them is the ornaments that show
the art and aesthetic value of historical documents. Miniatures, illustrations, elegant patterns in the seals of the
khans, in the title part of documents (unvan), in tables, colorful, geometric drawings made in the text frame, with
the help of such attributes you can get a lot of information about the culture and social environment of the
Khorezm nation. This article discusses the ornaments used in the design of legislative acts from the palace
chancery of the Khiva Khanate (16th
–
20th centuries) of two: Arabshahids (1510
–
1770) and Qungrat (1770
–
1920)
dynasties.
Keywords:
Khiva Khanate, paleography, archival documents, legal documents of Khiva, yorliq, ornaments,
miniatures, ornamental compositions.
Introduction:
Legislative acts are a valuable source for
studying a number of issues in the history of the
development in the territory of Turan. In general, the
currently available documents of the archive of the
Khiva khans contain extensive and diverse material on
the political, socio-economic and cultural life of the
khanate. The National Archive of Uzbekistan, the Abu
Reyhan Beruni Institute of Oriental Studies
, the “Ichan
-
Kala” State historical and architectural museum
-
reserve and a number of other private collections
contain more than 200 legislative acts issued by the
chancellery of the Khiva Khanate.
The study of these historical documents of the khanate
dates back to the 1940s. For example, several dozen
Khiva documents were introduced into scientific
circulation by P.P. Ivanov [7], M.Y. Yuldashev [8], Yu.
Bregel [3]. The published documents give an idea of the
land holdings, the history of agrarian relations, the land
and water policy of the Khiva Khanate, which are still
studied in scientific articles by U. Abdurasulov [1].
The history of the political life and diplomatic relations
of the khanate were widely studied in the works of N.
Allaeva [2], E. Karimov [9], O. Zhalilov [6] paid special
attention to the description of documents, their texts,
as well as to the publication of labels concerning issues
of socio-economic life of Khiva, such as tax system,
rights and duties of officials, issues of privileges and
immunity, issued as gratitude for the implementation
of state orders and so on. These issues, today continue
to be studied in the works of foreign researchers W.
Wood [4], P. Sartori [10]. Based on the topics of the
above-mentioned works, the primary task outlined in
this article is to study the meaning of ornaments,
methods of painted sketches-patterns, geometric
figures used in the design of acts, or rather labels. This
topic is little studied, but very relevant.
METHOD
Legislative acts are usually called legal documents
emanating from the supreme or local authorities. The
most common types of them are: farmon, nishon,
yorliq, muborak-noma, inoyatnoma, hukmnoma.
According to professor U. Sultanov, a single name
“yorliq” can be used for all types of documents in this
category. Thus, the main functions of the above-
mentioned legalized acts are the regulation of relations
between the state and an individual, the establishment
of order in the social sphere of life of the state, since
the documents had the authority to establish laws
within the framework of Islamic Sharia.
In addition to the functional development, documents
have other features: the seals of the compilers and the
customer; components reflecting the will of the khan
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American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research (ISSN: 2771-2141)
(explications: from Quran, dua, hadises), ornamental
design of documents. Each type of document has its
own traditional way of composing the text and building
its structure, paper size, design. A very interesting
direction is the study of the ornamentation of
documents. Calligraphy, ornamentation and design in
the document reflected the art spirit of its time and
place, they could also be formed by the personal taste
of the scribe, representing the aesthetic views and skills
of
the
katibs
(munshiy).
Masterpieces
in
ornamentation leave indelible impressions of the
people, or rather the rulers who ordered and used
them.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Turkic
–
muslim ornament. Ornament as an art, as a
symbol originated at the very dawn of human history
and therefore can be considered one of the most
ancient forms of human self-expression. Ornament in
Islam is especially diverse in form, color and content.
Islam is a religion that prohibits the depiction of living
beings, so ornament compensated for these
prohibitions. It is based on symbols and signs. Along
with the development of types of writing, the art of text
design began to be widely used, in particular,
decorating tables, drawing frames from various types
of patterns, processing forms of drawings on the
borders of a document, in the title of the text, in seals.
а) NAUz, T-125, O-2, Folder-15, doc. No. 4
b) IVANRUz, Folder-44, inv. No. 3.
There are two main types of Muslim ornament: girikh
and islimiy. Girikh
–
this ornament often uses squares,
diamonds,
pentagons,
hexagons,
stars
and
superimposed triangles. The most complex geometric
ornaments were created based on this method.
Islimiy
–
ornament connecting bindweed and spiral,
interweaving of branches with flowers, petals. The
islimiy ornament was mainly used on labels.
Documents with a colorful pattern were decorated
with flowers, petals, shapes that had a semantic
meaning. On the right side, with an indent of 5 cm, the
edge of the documents was decorated with an
ornament of plant and geometric nature. The colors
were usually dark blue or a light background was left.
On the main monochromatic background there was a
motley ornament of flowers and leaves, with a twisting
stem. Green in round flowers personifies life. Here, the
patterned ornaments tell the story of the beauty of life
and symbolize the harmony of the feelings of the world
(Fig. a).
The images of ornaments on the labels of the Khiva
khans are found mainly in the form of: a drawing of
flowers with three, five (symbolizing the five pillars of
Islam), six-edged (symbolizing the six pillars of faith)
flowers, leaves in the form of drops, enclosed in a
round geometric shape, sometimes in a tulip-shaped
form. The main emphasis is on the drawing depicting
the shape of a branch and shukufta. Representing the
stem, the munshi (palace scribe) also tries to show the
power and strength of the developing state in the form
of a floral design.
In most cases, patterns and meaningful figures were
made in green tones (Fig. b). These types of decorations
have their own strict rules regarding form and
composition. It consists of smooth branches covered
with leaves and flowers, fruit (pomegranate)
interspersed with other similar forms. In this case,
flowers are decorative trim and give the composition
an aesthetic spirit. There are many types of flowers,
and they are called by their specific names. Types of
flowers include simple and complex ones such as: oygul
(moon flower), lola (tulip), paxtagul (cotton flower),
chinnigul (carnation), pistagul (pistachio flower),
American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research
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American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research (ISSN: 2771-2141)
kuvachagul (cornflower), karnaygul, safsargul (lily of
the valley), atirgul (rose), nargizagul [5]. In Khiva labels,
there are also decorative and patterned types of
flowers such as oygul, lola, chinnigul, karnaygul.
Calligraphy (khatt) was closely connected with patterns
and ornaments. In the Koran, calligraphy is used, along
with geometric ornament, in the design of the surah
titles. In the titles of the Khiva labels, this method was
also used
–
highlighted with gilded paint, black ink,
sometimes red in places. The degree of mastery of
calligraphy was an indicator of the education and
spiritual perfection of the author of the document.
Vector ornament. The title part of the Khiva labels also
has a characteristic ornament. That is, in a word, it is
decorated with forms that perform the “front” part of
the document. In the unvan part, the madokhil element
is used. In this case, the two methods of girih and islimiy
merge into one. These forms are expressed in the form
of a vector form, patterns, tulips and half
–
full suns.
The drawings were dominated by red and blue shades,
diluted with snow-white and golden tones. The color
scheme is one of the ways to decorate the interior, and
the colors are selected in accordance with the
instructions of the hadith. Some colors, such as green
and white, light blue, blue, light purple are approved.
The gold color symbolizes the glory, wealth, greatness
of the khan.
CONCLUSION
The ornamental value of the Khiva labels is thus
assessed primarily by the beauty and craftsmanship of
their design. In general, the following elements are
used in the design of the legislative acts ornaments:
plant, geometric, symbolic; color scheme: red, white,
light blue and blue, green and gold (yellow). This
feature gives the ornaments a special ethnic flavor and
decorative expressiveness. Art ornaments used in
documents, first of all, testify to the aesthetic taste of a
person. Then they show the literacy level of the
munshiys (muarrikhs) who are responsible for the
design of the documents. Patterns and various
methods of ornamentation in the labels provide
information on the history of cultural life in the
khanate.
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