History of Central Asia

The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE) was the first Arab empire in the Middle East. It was the first Muslim empire to interact with Buddhists in parts of Central Asia and the western regions of the Indian subcontinent.

Buddhism spread to West Turkistan (the present-day former Soviet Islamic republics of Central Asia) in the 1st century BCE and was present there, at various times, until the mid-18th century.