Khargah: an inquiry into the spread of the "Turkish" trellis tent within the Abbasid world up to the Saljuq conquest (mid second/eighth-early fifth/eleventh centuries)

The Persian term khargah is first attested at the beginning of the fourth/tenth century. It has often been translated as "hut" or "pavilion", but a comprehensive overview of the historical, geographical and poetic sources points to a more precise definition. Three main conclusions can be established. First, from the beginning the term exclusively referred to the trellis tent (commonly known as yurt) first identified in a Turkic milieu in Inner Asia. Second, khargah entered the Arabic and Persian languages through the Samanid court and quickly replaced the Arabic expression al-qubba al-turkiyya which was previously used to refer to this kind of tent. Third, the presence of the trellis tent in Muslim courts predates the arrival of the nomadic Saljuqs in the fifth/eleventh century. The trellis tent, associated with the cloth enclosure (or saraparda), was already a status symbol under the Samanids and Buyids in the fourth/tenth century. Thus this study, which lies at the crossroads of lexicography and the history of technology, provides new elements towards a better understanding of Central Asian cultural influence on the wider 'Abbasid world.