History of Central Asia

There is a long history of Muslims being regarded by the Christian West as the forces of the devil. This began at the end of the eleventh century CE with the Crusades to take the Holy Lands from the Muslims. It continued with the fall of ­­the center of Eastern Orth­odox...

The Regional Context Before discussing historical developments during the early Abbasid caliphate, let us briefly review the political situation in Central Asia just before the dawn of this period. The Umayyads ruled Sogdia and Bactria, while the Tang Chinese army occupied the...

The Organized Bon Religion and the Native Tibetan Tradition The two main religious traditions of Tibet are Bon and Buddhism. The former was the native faith of Tibet, while the latter had been introduced by Tibet’s first emperor, Songtsen-gampo (Srong-btsan sgam-po, r. 617 ...

The Founding of the Qarakhanid Empire When the Orkhon Uighur Turks were driven from Mongolia by the Kyrgyz takeover in 840 CE, they lost possession of the sacred earth-goddess mountain Otuken near their former capital, Ordubaliq. According to the pre-Buddhist and...

Long before the Arabs brought Islam to Central Asia in the mid-seventh century CE, Buddhism had flourished there for hundreds of years. It was particularly prominent along the Silk Route, which carried trade between India and Han China, and led from both to Byzantium and to...

Review of Tibetan Relations with China Tibet and China had first established diplomatic relations in 608 C.E. when Emperor Songtsen-gampo’s father, Namri-lontsen (gNam-ri slon-mtshan), had sent the first Tibetan mission to the Chinese court at the time of the Sui Dynasty...

First Contacts with Buddhism After the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220 CE, Buddhism became strong in northern China, which was fragmented and ruled by a succession of non-Han Chinese people and states. The greatest patron of Buddhism among them was the Toba Northern Wei Dynasty...

The Conversion of the Qarakhanids to Islam During the 930s, Nasr bin Mansur, a prominent member of the Samanid royal family, defected to the Western Qarakhanids and was installed as the governor of Artuch, a small district north of Kashgar. He was undoubtedly trying to...

Khotanese Missions to Han China Khotan, lying to the east of the Qarakhanid stronghold in Kashgar, was a wealthy Buddhist state. Its mines were the main source of jade for all the lands along the Silk Route, especially Han China. Occasionally, its kings had even visited Han...

The Initial Choice of Buddhism The Uighurs used the same criterion for adapting foreign religions as did the Eastern Turks. They first chose Buddhism as their state religion when the Chinese Sui forces had helped them conquer Turfan in 605. They were apparently as impressed as...