During the first decade and a half of the sixteenth century, the last Timurids to hold power in Central Asia were ousted from all the cities and towns north of the Amu Darya by the Abu'l-Khayrid/Shibanids, a clan of the descendants of Chinggis Khan through his eldest son Jochi. At the end of the first decade, a collateral Shibanid clan, the ʿArabshahid, which would be continually at odds with the Abu'l-Khayrids, seized control of the Amu Darya Delta region and then consolidated its hold over the towns and cities of the lower Amu Darya, the historic Khwārazm (Khorezm).

The contested territory

The landscape on which this restoration of Chinggisid sovereignty was reestablished is an irregular rectangle some 2,400 kilometres from east to west and 1,600 from north to south, an area about the size of India. Its northern region was known at the time as the Qïpchaq steppe (Dasht-i Qipchāq, today the Qazaq steppe), a grassland stretching from the Volga Basin to the Jungarian Gate, the narrow corridor separating the Altai and Tarbagatai mountain ranges. To the west it is bounded by the Caspian Sea and the lower Volga. To the east, the eastern slopes of the Tien Shan range and the oasal centres at the foot of those slopes (Kucha, Āqsu, Kashghar, Yārkand and Khotan) served to mark its furthest extent.