Rabinjan

Rabinjan or Arbinjan (Arabic: ربنجن، أربنجن) was a medieval town in the region of Transoxiana, between the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. It was located in the vicinity of the present-day Katta-Kurgan.^[1]

Map of Rabinjan in the tenth century

Geography

The Muslim geographers described Rabinjan as a town of Sughd and a dependency of Samarkand. It was one of the settlements on the Samarkand-Bukhara road, lying between Zarman to the east and Dabusiyya to the west,^[2] and was located to the south of the Sughd River.^[3] Ibn Khurradadhbih described the town as being twelve farsakhs from Samarkand and twenty-seven from Bukhara;^[4] Qudama, on the other hand, considered it to be thirteen farsakhs from Samarkand and twenty-four from Bukhara.^[5] Al-Istakhri added that it was two farsakhs from al-Kushaniya.^[6]

History

The site of Rabinjan was settled almost two thousand years ago.^[7] In the pre-Islamic history of the town, it was considered as one of the settlements of Sogdiana. During this period there may have been a Christian presence in the town, as a ceramic cast for molding crosses was recovered from the area.^[8]

During the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana, Rabinjan was subjected to attacks by the Arabs. In 699 Habib ibn al-Muhallab undertook a raid against it, but he was opposed by an army led by the lord of Bukhara and decided to withdraw.^[9] It was during the campaigns of Qutayba ibn Muslim (705–715) that Rabinjan was conquered by the Muslims. In 712 the town was the scene of a skirmish between the armies of Qutayba and Ghurak, the Sogdian prince of Samarkand; the Muslims won the engagement and they were able to continue their advance to Samarkand.^[10]

After its conquest, Rabinjan shared the history of Muslim Sughd, and it was ruled successively by the Umayyads, Abbasids and Samanids.^[11] In the ninth and tenth centuries it was generally included by the Muslim geographers in their accounts of Transoxiana. Al-Muqaddasi, writing in the late tenth century, recorded that Rabinjan produced a number of goods, including winter shawls, dried dates, metal drinking cups, ropes made of hemp, and sulfur.^[12] Other writers noted that it was also known for its saddlecloths^[13] and production of tin bronze.

Following the downfall of the Samanids in the late eleventh century, Rabinjan became a possession of the western Qarakhanids. In 1158 the town was destroyed during the Khwarazm-Shah Il-Arslan's invasion of Transoxiana.^[14]