Bozok- Turkic GroupCollective

The Division of the Bow

When Oghuz Khan completed his world-conquering campaigns, he gathered his six sons to divide his realm between them. According to Rashid al-Din's account in the Jami' al-Tawarikh, the three elder sons born of his first, heavenly wife were Gün Khan (Sun), Ay Khan (Moon), and Yıldız Khan (Star). These three formed the Bozok, the "grey arrow" branch. The three younger sons born of his earthly wife, Gök Khan (Sky), Dağ Khan (Mountain), and Deniz Khan (Sea), formed the Üçok, the "three arrows" branch.

Oghuz Khan ordered a golden bow and silver arrows to be brought forth. He broke the bow into three pieces and gave them to his elder sons, saying that the bow was their portion. The arrows he broke and gave to the younger three. In this act of division lay the political structure of the entire Oghuz tribal confederation: the Bozok formed the right wing, the position of honor and seniority in Turkic steppe tradition, while the Üçok took the left wing. At councils and feasts, the Bozok sat at the right hand of the khan.

Tribal Legacy

Each of the three Bozok princes fathered four sons, producing twelve tribes in all. Gün Khan's descendants included the Kayı, the tribe from which the Ottoman dynasty later claimed descent, making the Bozok genealogy politically significant well into the Islamic period. Ay Khan's line produced four further tribal groupings, and Yıldız Khan's another four. Together with the twelve Üçok tribes, these twenty-four tribes constituted the full Oghuz confederation as recorded by both Rashid al-Din and, three centuries later, by Abu al-Ghazi in the Shajara-i Turk.

The celestial naming pattern of the Bozok sons reflects the cosmological ordering of Turkic tribal society. Sun, Moon, and Star belonged to the heavenly sphere, connecting the senior branch to the sky-god Tengri and to the divine mandate of rulership. Abu al-Ghazi preserved the tradition that the Bozok tribes held precedence in the election of khans and in the distribution of war spoils, maintaining the seniority established at the original division.