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been sent out of the way to the Kirghiz, and was now willing to accept the vacant T.S. throne under the guidance of Musalman Cull as his wazir. They, consequently, at once marched against Ibrahim Khiyal, and driving him out of Khokand set to work, and in forty days surrounded the city with fortified walls. Sher Ali now established himself in the citadel as Khan of Khokand with Musalmân Culi as wazir, and appointed his sons to the principal provincial governments. Thus Khudayar got Namangan, Sarimsak got Marghinan, and &Ai Beg got Andijan, whilst Mallah Khan remained at court with his father.
Meanwhile Ibrahim Kbiyal, who had been pursued to Kani }Edam, escaped to Bukhara, whence Nasrulla once more set out to recover his lost conquests. His grand preparations, fierce threats, and pompous boasts, however, did not avail him ; for after a siege of sixty days, in which he lost many men by deaths and desertions, he was obliged to retire from Khokand unsuccessful. But his retreat did not restore peace to the country. The sons of the late Muhammad Ali Khan, whom he had left in prison at Bukhara, escaped from their durance during his absence on this campaign, and returning to Khokand immediately raised a tumult in favour of their prior rights to the government.
Sher Ali did his utmost to appease them, and appointed Muhammad Karim, the most active and ambitious of them, as Hudayc/ i, or " Chamberlain," in his own court. He at once made use of his position to usurp the rule for himself, and by his overbearing conduct quickly made an enemy of the wazir, Musalman Cull, who carried off Khudayar, and fled with him to the mountains. There he raised a party of his own Kapchak and the Kirghiz, and descending upon Khokand seized and executed Muhammad Karim with a number of his partizans, and re-established Sher Ali as the Khan, with himself as wazir as before.
On this Sarimsak, with the support of Alim Beg and Syad Beg, Dâd1c1 wtiks, and a party of Kirghiz, rebelled at U'sh or Osh. Musalman Cull forthwith went against them, and defeating their troops at Madi, captured and executed Sarimsak. Whilst Musalman Cull was thus engaged in the east of the province, Murad Khan, son of Alim Khan, had come with aid from Bukhara to Uthmani on the west of it, and thence seizing Khokand had killed Sher All Khan after he had reigned three years. The Kapchak and Uzbak now combined and set up Khudayar, aged fifteen years, as Khan with Musalman Cull as his wazir, and recovering Khokand executed Murad Khan after he had ruled only three weeks. Musalman Cull, the king-maker, now took all the power into his own hands, the youthful Khudayar being a mere puppet on his accession to the, throne in 1845.
In the time of Muhammad Ali Khan, the command of the Akmasjid Fort was given to Muhammad Ali Beg of Marghinau with a garrison of 500 men, and he continued to hold the post under the rule of Khudayar till he was killed in its defence against the Russians in July 1852. At this time Nar or Nazar Muhammad of Karasû near Osh was the Governor of Tashkand for Khudayar. He had given a sister in marriage to Yakûb Beg of Piskat in the suburbs, and now, through his influence with Musalman Cull, got his brother-in-law appointed to the charge of the Akmasjid Fort with the rank of Coskbegz Yakûb Beg held the post for a year till its capture by the Russians in August 1853. In the December following his expulsion from Akmasjid, Yakûb Beg set out from Tashkand with Stiff Beg, the brother of Khudayar Khan, and a force of 600 horse to recover the fort, but they were all put to flight in the very first encounter. In the following April 1854, Khudayar himself prepared to march against Akmasjid, but was diverted from his purpose by an inopportune attack on his frontier by Nasrulla Khan.
Khudayar had for long been impatient of the power and control of his wazir, and now in 1855, having staved off the hostility of Bukhara, he determined to get rid of his obnoxious minister ; and to this end instigated a number of his nobles
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