Yaqub Beg

Yaqub Beg (Muhammad Yaqub Beg Badaulet) was born around 1820 in Pskent in the Kokand Khanate; sources differ on his birth year, and modern historians consider 1820 the most reliable. His father, Pirmuhammad, was a qadi in the khanate. Sources disagree on his ethnic origin (Tajik, Sart or Uzbek).

He entered the service of the Kokand khan: in the 1840s he was beg of Chinaz, Aulie-Ata and Ak-Mechet and distinguished himself against Russian troops. In the early 1850s he was beg of Khujand and batyrbashi in Tashkent; after a failed plot against Khudayar Khan (1853) he fled to Bukhara and returned to Kokand in 1858. In 1864 he took part in the defence of Tashkent against the Russians.

When an uprising against the Qing empire began in Eastern Turkestan in 1864, he was sent from Kokand to Kashgar in 1865 together with Buzurg Khoja. He soon took power and, uniting Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, Kucha and other cities, founded the state of Yettishar ("Seven Cities"). The emir of Bukhara gave him the title Atalik Ghazi in 1866, and the Ottoman Empire recognised him as emir.

Yaqub Beg manoeuvred between Britain, Russia and the Ottomans, signing treaties and holding talks with them, but won no firm support against the Qing. Mosques, madrasas and caravanserais were built under him, but heavy taxes made his rule unpopular with part of the population.

He died in May 1877 in Korla; accounts of the cause differ (illness, poisoning, suicide or a stroke). A struggle for the throne followed, and in 1877–1878 Qing forces destroyed the state of Yettishar.