History of Central Asia

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...

Sectarian Discord within Islam during the Early Abbasid Period The Abbasids had succeeded in evicting the Tang Chinese forces from West Turkistan and the An Lushan rebellion in Han China had seriously weakened the Tang grip on Kashgar, Kucha, Turfan, and Beshbaliq....

The Pre-Islamic Presence of Buddhism in North Africa and West Asia India and West Asia have a long history of land and sea trade between them. Commercial relations between India and Mesopotamia began as early as 3000 BCE and between India and Egypt, through the intermediary...

The Political and Religious Climate among the Tanguts With the establishment of the Khitan Liao Dynasty in Mongolia, Manchuria, and parts of northern Han China in 947, and the Northern Song reunification of the rest of Han China in 960, the Tanguts became pressed from both the...

Tibetan Relations with China Tibet and China had first established diplomatic relations in 608 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. Songtsen-gampo, in...

Tangut Thwarting of Qarakhanid Plans for Further Expansion After the fall of Khotan, the Qarakhanids could not press further eastward in their campaign to capture the rest of the southern Tarim. Mahmud of Ghazni attacked from the south and war ensued between the two Turkic...

The Situation of the East-West Trade Routes The overland Silk Route from China to the West passed from East to West Turkistan, and on through Sogdia and Iran to Byzantium and Europe. An alternative route passed from West Turkistan through Bactria, the Kabul and Punjabi...

When al-Salit bin-Abdullah al-Hanafi arrived in Tibet, there were already two religious traditions sponsored by the imperial court, so-called “Bon” and Buddhism. The former was the native faith of Tibet, while the latter had been introduced by Tibet’s first emperor,...

The Ghaznavid Campaign in Gandhara and Northwestern India After Mahmud of Ghazni was repulsed in 1008 in his attack on the Qarakhanid Empire to his north, he enlisted the Seljuq Turks in southern Sogdia and Khwarazm to defend his kingdom from Qarakhanid retribution. The...

The Kyrgyz Conquest of Mongolia The Kyrgyz (Kirghiz) were originally a Mongolian people from the mountain forests of the present-day Altai and Tuva districts of southern Siberia north of Dzungaria. Some of their tribes also lived in the western reaches of the Tianshan Range to...