History of Central Asia

The early period of the Abbasid Caliphate (750–840 CE) saw the translation of Buddhist texts into not only the languages of East Turkistan, but also into Turkic languages and even some into Arabic, as Islam slowly spread into West Turkistan.

With an eye toward countering the growing Chinese presence and influence in the Central Asian Islamic Republics such as Uzbekistan, there has been a need to re-establish the historical links between the Tibetan, Mongolian and Central Asian Turkic peoples.