Welcome to the Steppe World my reader! I hope the travel was not too harsh and that you are all in good health and company. The Steppe World is my little slice of the internet where I can post things which interest me or is important in my field of studies. Here in the Steppe World I shall not only provide my observations to all about the scholarly events that are being held about Central Asia/Eurasia but will also become a library of my reviews, essays, and other scholarly articles.

                I will start off with a little about myself. I have always been interested in history, especially my family’s history, and the famous and important figures that are found within it. I am descended from the Baharlu Tribe, a Turko-Mongol tribe, who had emerged within history as a result of the Mongol invasion of Persia. They were important in the establishment of the Qara Qoyunlu tribal confederation (1375 – 1468 CE) and the Timurid Mughal Empire (1526 – 1857 CE) under the Emperors Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan. My uncle, who was always interested in history, has always fostered my interest and has published books dealing with Bairam Beg, Abdur-Rahim Khan-i-Khana and the Mughal Emperor Babur. This interest led me to peruse my undergraduate degree at York University in Toronto, Ontario. Unfortunately, or fortunately for that matter, there was no direct history course or program dealing with Central Asia/Eurasia so I studied peripheral areas which had interacted with this realm. This led to a focus on Persia and the Middle East subsequently as well as China. What I learnt developed my interest in the establishment of the paradigm of conflict and trade as the foundation for the interactions between the Steppe world and the settled, mostly agricultural, world. Not only that but I learnt the art of a historians craft such as the art of writing papers, delving into research, and properly understanding the sources that were used. My papers, as a result, were almost always on the topic of the Steppe Empires which ranged from the beginning of the Turkic peoples with the Gök Türks and their relation to the Sassanians over the Silk Route to the Mughal Empire and the role played by Bairam Beg, and finally to the Mughal-British interactions in the 19^th century.

                While I have written about a wide range of topics my main focus has been on the Mongol and post-Mongol period especially the Chagatai and Abu’l-Khayrid Khanates, the Turkic domains, such as the Qara Qoyunlu, and the Timurids. However this is not a limitation since I am truly interested in all aspects of the history of the steppe from the movement of hominids to the colonization period of the 19^th-20^th century. I do not, however, get into modern or post-modern periods of the steppe as I have no particular interest in this period. That is the limitation I work under and I fully accept it. My scholarly languages include a limited reading knowledge in Russian, Farsi, and Urdu although I am continually trying to improve it. I also have my own library which contains many primary and secondary sources and am always looking to expand my reading material.

                I thank you for visiting this blog and hope you’ll enjoy your stay here. I am going too, in the next few days, post more material including a couple of videos on certain papers that I wrote for conferences which I attended during my undergraduate phase.