During its long history, Tashkent has had various changes in names and political and religious affiliations. Abu Rayhan Biruni wrote that the city's name comes from the Turkic ''tash'' and ''kent'', literally translated as "Stone City" or "City of Stones". Another theory states that both the old and new names of the city (Chach and Tashkent, respectively) derive from the Sogdian word "tschatsch", meaning "place on a hill".