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Introduction
Tole Bi (Kazakh: Төле би), born by tradition around 1663 and died in 1756, was the foremost biy — judge-statesman and arbiter — of the Senior Juz (Ұлы жүз). Together with Kazybek Bi of the Middle Juz and Aiteke Bi of the Junior Juz, he forms the legendary trio remembered in Kazakh tradition as the three biys (үш би), the moral and legal architects of the early Kazakh Khanate's golden age.
Tole Bi was born into the Dulat tribe of the Senior Juz, in the region of the Shu and Talas river valleys in present-day southern Kazakhstan. According to tradition, his full name was Tole Alibekuly, and his reputation for sound judgment is said to have emerged in his youth — a body of legend surrounds his precocious wisdom, though such accounts should be read as folk memory rather than documented biography. By adulthood he had become the recognized chief biy of his juz, a position earned not by inheritance but by demonstrated eloquence, fairness, and mastery of customary law (әдет-ғұрып).
His career unfolded during the reign of Tauke Khan (Тәуке хан, r. approximately 1680–1715), under whom the Kazakh Khanate reached a high point of internal cohesion. Tauke is credited in tradition with convening the biys to systematize the steppe's unwritten legal customs into the code known as Jeti Jargy (Жеті Жарғы, "Seven Charters" or "Seven Codes"). Tole Bi is named, alongside Kazybek and Aiteke, as one of the principal authors and authorities behind this codification. Jeti Jargy regulated criminal penalties, blood payment (құн), property and inheritance, family law, and the obligations of clans toward one another — providing a shared legal framework across the often-fractious juzes.
The central crisis of Tole Bi's lifetime was the war against the Dzungar (Jungar) Khanate, the Oirat Mongol state to the east. Dzungar incursions culminated in the catastrophe of 1723, remembered as the "Aqtaban shubyryndy" (Ақтабан шұбырынды, "the Barefoot Flight") — the Great Disaster, when Kazakh communities were driven from their pastures in a mass displacement. In this period of near-collapse, the biys served as a unifying force, urging the three juzes to set aside rivalries and resist the common enemy. Tradition holds that Tole Bi was among the elders whose authority helped rally the people, contributing to later Kazakh victories such as the battles at Bulanty (1727) and Anyrakai (approximately 1730).
In his final years Tole Bi was associated with the city of Tashkent, where he is traditionally said to have governed or held authority during a period of Kazakh ascendancy in the Syr Darya region. He died there around 1756 and was buried in Tashkent; his mausoleum stands in the city to this day and remains a place of pilgrimage and respect.
Tole Bi endures in Kazakh memory less as a warrior than as a voice of justice and unity. The proverb-laden judgments attributed to him, his role in shaping Jeti Jargy, and his association with the survival of the Kazakh people during their darkest decades have made him a national symbol. His name is borne by a major street in Almaty and by districts and institutions across Kazakhstan.
To understand Tole Bi's significance, one must understand the office of the biy in traditional Kazakh society. A biy was not appointed by a khan but rose through recognized authority — a respected elder skilled in oratory, genealogy, and the customary law (әдет) of the steppe. Biys served simultaneously as judges, mediators, and political counselors, resolving disputes over livestock, pasture, marriage, and bloodshed without recourse to written statute or standing courts.
The biy's power rested on persuasion and reputation rather than coercion. A famous Kazakh saying holds that "a word spoken by a biy cannot be turned back" — verdicts carried weight because the community accepted the biy's fairness. Mastery of the sheshendik tradition, the art of pointed, proverb-rich speech, was essential; a biy settled quarrels with aphorisms that both parties could accept without dishonor.
Tole Bi became the supreme biy of the Senior Juz precisely because he embodied these qualities. His judgments, preserved in oral tradition, emphasize reconciliation over punishment, the protection of the weak, and the unity of the Kazakh people above clan loyalty. In an era lacking centralized institutions, men like Tole Bi were the connective tissue of the nation — the practical instruments through which a scattered nomadic society maintained order, identity, and a shared sense of law.
The legal code Jeti Jargy (Жеті Жарғы) is the enduring monument associated with Tole Bi and his fellow biys. Compiled by tradition during the reign of Tauke Khan near the turn of the eighteenth century, it gathered the dispersed customs of the steppe into a coherent set of principles. The exact text was never fixed in a single surviving manuscript — what is known of it comes from later Russian ethnographers and oral transmission — so its precise contents are reconstructed rather than certain.
In its remembered form, Jeti Jargy covered land and pasture rights, criminal law and the system of құн (blood payment as compensation for killing or injury), family and inheritance, the duties of clans, and procedures for resolving inter-tribal disputes. Its guiding aim was to reduce the cycle of barymta (retaliatory raiding) and to bind the three juzes under common rules.
Tole Bi, Kazybek Bi, and Aiteke Bi are jointly credited as the human authorities behind this code — each representing one of the three juzes, together symbolizing the unity of the whole Kazakh people. Whether the three literally sat together to draft the laws or whether tradition has fused their separate contributions into a single founding moment, the symbolism is clear: Jeti Jargy represented a nation legislating for itself through its wisest men.
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Keywords
Tole BibiyJeti JargySenior JuzTauke KhanKazakh customary lawDzungar wars