The name “Turk” has come under considerable scholarly inspection, with the only consensus being that the Turks as a people did not arise spontaneously on the steppes. The name refers to a broad group of peoples speaking a Turkic language. It is sometimes said that “Turk” was the name of a mountain considered to be the ancestral homeland of the Turks. Its shape was said to be that of a helmet, called “Turk” in the local language. The local people then called themselves by this name.
The land of the Turks, “Turkestan,” accordingly, was a vast, almost indeterminate, region that ranges from the Aral Sea to the Gansu corridor in China and gradually merges into Mongolia. It was a land of deserts, oases, and dry and wet steppes. Turkestan was thought of historically as two lands, one western and one eastern. The people of Western Turkestan traditionally were oriented toward Persia and even Europe, while those of Eastern Turkestan were oriented primarily toward China.
The two Turkestans were linked by caravan routes and a roughly common language group and pastoral nomadic existence, but little else. Western Turkestan is also often referred to as Transoxiana, or the drainage area of the Amu and Syr Darya rivers (also called the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers). This was a region not subject to severe climate variations and even possessing some lands suitable for agriculture as well as grazing. This region also was home to several major cities, such as Bukhara and Samarkand.
In contrast, Eastern Turkestan (later also called Chinese Turkestan) was a mostly empty land of deserts and dry steppes, with vast ranges in climate. The population lived primarily in a series of oases situated around the Tarim Basin, in Mongolia, where the first major Turkish confederation appeared.
The Turks do not appear in Chinese records until sometime in the sixth century ce, when they were said to have been slaves of other tribal groups in Eastern Turkestan, renowned for their ability as ironsmiths. As the craftsmen who produced the majority of weapons for their masters, the role of the Turks was very important and possibly carried a great deal of social prestige. At some point, the various Turkish clans came under the charismatic leadership of a chieftain named Tumen, who led successful raids on neighboring tribes. The defeat of these neighbors and the parceling out of the spoils solidified Tumen’s position, and, in 551, he formed a trading and even marriage alliance with the Western Wei dynasty in north China. This alliance bore fruit the following year, with Tumen’s Turkish tribesmen defeating their major rivals for dominance on the steppes, and the Western Wei slaughtering the refugees who streamed into their territory. Also in 552, Tumen had himself proclaimed Qaghan, a title similar to the Xiongnu title of Shanyu, meaning “undisputed leader of the confederation.”
The usual Inner Asian nomadic tradition continued, in which success in battle (and consequent ability to provide spoils) led other tribes, clans, and groups to join the confederation. Within a few short years, Tumen’s Turkish confederation had built an empire that spread from the Mongolian plateau through most of Central Asia. The Turks maintained trade relations not only with China but also with Persia and even the Byzantine Empire. Control of the caravan routes linking China and the western lands was extremely lucrative and reduced the Qaghan’s need to lead his forces on campaigns of plunder. The control of north China was no longer in the hands of the Western Wei but of two successor dynasties. Both were openly fearful of raids or invasion by the enormous Turkish Empire and so provided lavish gifts to Tumen, including tens of thousands of rolls of silk.
Relations with Sassanid Persia and the Byzantines also contributed to Turkish wealth and confederation stability. The Turks formed a military alliance with Persia, and this alliance succeeded in destroying several hostile nomadic tribes living between the two powers. Once informed of the powerful Turkish state to the east of their Persian enemy, the Byzantines also worked for an alliance. While no Turkish-Byzantine military alliance ever materialized, the threat of such a powerful grouping led the Persians to offer many concessions to their Turkish neighbors.
The Turkish confederation was dependent on a strong, charismatic leader. This, of course, was a necessary component for all steppe nomadic confederations, and the passing of such a leader normally led to civil war until a new leader emerged. On the death of Tumen in 553, his powerful brothers did not contest the succession but allowed Tumen’s son to inherit the title. For nearly thirty years, the succession continued smoothly laterally through all of Tumen’s surviving sons. In 581, however, when it became necessary to choose an heir from the next generation, the Turkish confederation was plagued by civil wars, as the various descendants of Tumen fought for the right to the title of Qaghan.
Struggles for power led for a time to the creation of two distinct Turkish confederations, antagonistic to each other. This period corresponded with the unification of China and the establishment of two strong dynasties, the Sui and Tang. The histories of both dynasties were intimately tied to that of the Turks (see Chapter 9), and, during the period of struggle, the Chinese worked hard either to disrupt the Turks or to keep them as allies in their campaigns against others. Often, Chinese rulers would support one Turkish confederation at the expense of the other or would support particular contenders for power. One thing remained constant for potential Turkish leaders: their need to acquire goods for distribution to their member tribes. This could be accomplished by raiding in China or by concluding agreements with the various Chinese dynasties providing for the provision of tribute. Sometimes both methods were used at the same time, confusing the Chinese strategists, who did not always understand the dynamics of the Turkish succession struggles.
The early rulers of both Sui and Tang China were very familiar with Turkish culture and politics, especially the second emperor of the Tang dynasty, Li Shimin (later known as Tang Taizong). Using a deft combination of diplomacy, bribery, and military force, by 630, Tang Taizong had succeeded so well that nearly all of the Turkish lands were under his control, and he had proclaimed himself Qaghan, in addition to being emperor of China. For roughly five decades, the Turks were a part of the military system of the Tang dynasty (see Chapter 9).
Many Turkish tribal leaders were not pleased at this subservience to a settled people and sought to restore the confederation. Chinese control of the Turks therefore required a tremendous degree of vigilance; but, as the years passed, attention was directed more and more to internal matters. Taking advantage of this distraction was Khutlugh, a descendant of one of the last Qaghans, who, following the familiar pattern, engaged in military actions to expand the territory under his control. By all accounts, Khutlugh was adept at personal combat, skilled at battlefield strategy, perceptive in politics, and stirring in oratory. His success reached its height in 690, by which time he controlled a large part of Eastern Turkestan and had forced the Chinese to pay large amounts of tribute. When he died two years later, the succession went smoothly to his surviving brother, Khapaghan. Apparently possessing many of his brother’s personal, political, and military skills, Khapaghan pursued a twopronged strategy of warfare to expand his control of the steppe lands and frequent (and sometimes extraordinarily destructive) raids into China for the booty needed to secure his hold over his subordinates. For a time, Khapaghan even toyed with the idea of conquering all or part of China itself, but, instead, he settled for large amounts of tribute to be presented by the Chinese.
Although Khutlugh and Khapaghan succeeded in re-creating the extent of the first Turkish empire, this appearance of unity was misleading. Battle with subordinate tribes was constant, and instability was encouraged by the nature of Turkish rule of their confederation, which contributed to both stability and fragmentation, as contradictory as that may seem. Much like the Seljuks of a later century, but unlike the Xiongnu, the Turkish confederacy or empire was fairly decentralized. The Qaghan was more than simply a first-among-equals, but he had limited direct control over subordinate Turkish tribes and even over subject nomadic tribes. A bureaucracy supported the Qaghan, primarily designed to collect and distribute tribute and spoils of battle and to provide some mediation of disputes. Under the Qaghan were up to four subordinates who also took the title of Qaghan. During the reign of Tumen and his immediate successors, his brother Ishtemi (sometimes, Istami) was given charge of the western half of the Turkish domains, which were autonomous in most respects. In addition, the Qaghan appointed governors to oversee the subordinate tribes and ensure that they joined in campaigns. Other officers of the Qaghan were appointed to pay particular attention to the non-Turkish components of the confederation. However, tribal leaders maintained a good deal of control and autonomy regarding the oversight of their tribes, and succession struggles within tribes were often allowed to run their course without significant central interference.
When Khapaghan died in 716 (in an ambush set by an enemy tribe), civil war broke out once again. The sons of Khutlugh restored a semblance of unity and kept the rulership in the family. When the last of these sons died in 741, however, the fragility of the Turkish confederation became clear, as the vast empire completely disintegrated.
The Eastern Steppes
The immediate successors to the Turkish Qaghanate in the eastern steppes were the Uighurs. They formed a close alliance with Tang China, which was wracked by civil war, and helped prop up the regime. But as Chinese power faded, so did the coherence of their nomadic allies’ polity, and a power vacuum developed in the eastern steppes. As a result, the center of gravity of nomadic power shifted north and east, into Mongolia and even Manchuria. The Mongolic Qitans and the part-Manchurian Jurchens established northern Chinese states at the expense of the new Song dynasty. (These developments are taken up in more detail in Chapter 9.)
The Western Steppes
The second Turk confederation had never exercised very effective control over the western steppes, which since the end of the first Turk confederation in 581 had witnessed struggles between several related groups for dominance. The most important of these were the Bulghars and the Khazars. The latter eventually drove the former into the Balkans, where they established a kingdom on the borders of the Byzantine Empire. The Khazars became staunch Byzantine allies in the empire’s struggles with the Persians and later the Arabs— with the Khazars halting Arab expansion northward through the Caucasus around 740, at about the same time that Arab armies met defeat before Constantinople (718) and in France at the hands of Charles Martel (732). The Khazars, in turn, were succeeded as the dominant western steppe power in the late tenth century by the Pechenegs. Other nomadic groups, mainly Turkic and based farther east, developed complex relationships in the eighth to eleventh centuries with the Muslim states of southwest Asia.
Cultural Influences on the Steppes
With no dominant power controlling the entire steppe world, and with successor states drawn into intense and ongoing diplomatic and military dealings with various adjacent realms, the period from the end of the second Turk confederation in 741 to the mid-eleventh century saw a significant incursion of sedentary cultural and religious traditions into the steppe world, traditions that both competed and blended with nomadic traditions. The major salvation religions—Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam—were especially important in this process. Some examples illustrate the sorts of cultural exchange explained in general terms earlier in the chapter.
The Qitans, for instance, had already adopted a writing system based on Chinese characters before they established the Liao dynasty in north China, and Buddhism became a significant part of their religious beliefs. The Bulghars, despite consistent hostility toward Byzantium, eventually converted to Orthodox Christianity (and were substantially “Slavicized” after they settled in the Balkans). The Uighurs established the world’s only Manichaean state in the centuries after 744. Perhaps most interestingly, the Khazars converted to Judaism, reportedly after inviting representatives of that religion, Christianity, and Islam to a great debate presided over by the Khazar Qaghan. Why Judaism? Though Byzantine allies more often than not, the Khazars valued their position as potential power brokers between Byzantium and the Muslim Abassid Caliphate (see Chapter 8), so that a choice of either of the major religious traditions of those rivals would have reduced their freedom of action. But a connection to one of the broader religious traditions of the settled world was important in facilitating diplomacy, trade, and alliances. Judaism therefore seems to have appeared to the Khazars as a convenient, neutral choice from among the monotheisms on offer.
In the long run, however, the most important influence to enter the steppes during this period was Islam. In the complex diplomatic and military maneuvering along the northern borders of the Islamic world, various Turkish groups converted. Conversion was often a strategy in intertribal conflict—a bid for allies, or a way of distinguishing one tribe from another— and Islam was by no means the dominant religion of the central steppes even by the mid-eleventh century. But at least part of the nomadic world gradually became tied more closely to Islam. The consequences were important in both directions. Islamic trade and diplomacy reached farther into the steppes; conversely, Turks became the most important source of the slave soldiers who rapidly assumed a central place in Islamic military organization after 850 (see Chapter 8). And newly converted Turkish tribes often became the most active ghazi, or frontier, warriors for the faith, in Islam. Finally, Islamicized Turks moved directly into the politics of the Islamic world as conquerors. One Turkish tribe, the Seljuks, would be particularly important in leading this new wave of nomadic conquests.