I. Anatolia remains predominantly Greek culturally-speaking, and native Anatolians remain a distinct ethnic group without the invasion of the area by the Seljuks. II. No Seljuks means no crusades. III. No crusades means a stronger and longer-lasting Byzantine Empire. IV. This means no Ottoman Empire, which in turn means no Crimean War, Russo-Turkish War, or Armenian genocide. V. This in turn means that you'll have an Anatolia which is seen by Russia as a close ally rather than a rival and enemy. VI. The conquest of China by the Turks would be very interesting-- would the Chinese convert to Islam, or would the Seljuks assimilate into the culture of the empire just as the later Mongols did IOTL? VII. Iran would also be fairly different-- not being conquered by the Turks would mean that the Buyids remain in power for longer.
What if the Islamized Seljuk Turks migrate to China on masse instead of the middle east?
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furthermore, no chaos due to the defeat of Manzikert, it also allows for a possible greater Roman interest in the assimilation of the bulgarians and perhaps also of the serbs, so as to expand the base of manpower and economic resources, certainly no crusades at least it should decrease the hostility between Byzantium and the Latin kingdoms, even if the relations between the two churches are now very deteriorated, furthermore the mutual linguistic deficiencies in order to understand the other side will not disappear overnight, so surely some form of schism will happen, but it is unlikely to be as drastic as Otl ( which however was only really created during the Crusades, because until before them, there was no prolonged and massive interaction between the two ecclesiastical hierarchies, the political-military elite and their respective populations ), for the rest I believe that with a healthier Byzantine empire, perhaps it still holds southern Italy ( Normans permitting ) we will see less political conflict between HRE and the papacy compared to Otl, difficult to understand how the political situation in the Muslim world will evolve, without the entry of the Seljuks onto the scene, perhaps we will see a resurrection of the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt, which gradually expands in the Levant to the detriment of the Abassids
Bosnia would also remain Christian due to the absence of the Ottomans. This would in turn mean that the notoriously heretical Church of Bosnia survives for much longer.
it is not certain, because there were pro-papal and Croatian factions in the Bosnian court that pushed for a timely intervention to stop Bogomilism, which honestly speaking became truly influential only 2 centuries after the Pod, for the rest I am of the opinion that in Bosnia it is this heresy arose because it was an extremely disputed area between various potentates all fighting each other ( Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, the Roman Empire and even Bulgaria pre Basil II ) so I find it logical that in an area so weak to state level, each faction tried to weaken its opponents and the local administrative apparatus ( including the church ) to benefit its foreign ally, and in the long run all this led to the birth of various heresies
It's important to note that the Seljuks and other Turkic dynasties didn't just "migrate" to Central Asia. Turkic, Tatar/Mongol, Caucasian, and other warriors served as part of the Slave Aristocracy throughout the Islamic Middle East (at this point, most often called "ghilman," but "mamluks" and "janissaries" were comparable roles). As Slave-Aristocrats, they came to wield great influence over the political institutions of Persia and the Levant, and eventually became landholders within the empires they supposedly served, which they then conquered. The Turkic conquests of the Islamic heartland sort of parallel the fall of the Western Roman Empire -- though popular historiography talks a lot about "barbarians at the gates," one mustn't forget the role of "barbarians inside the gates."
So without this history of military and civil service to Islamic empires, it would have been a lot harder for the Turks to overtake the Islamic heartland. Sometimes, Turkic dynasties came to power by invading during a point of political instability (e.g., the Seljuk conquest of Persia), but other times, they took power by leveraging their institutional control (e.g., Ahmad ibn Tulun's rule over Egypt; the Mamluk overthrow of the Ayyubids; or Alp-Tegin's foundation of the Ghaznavid Dynasty, after being given Ghazna as a fiefdom under the Samanids). Because of these institutional/commercial connections, the Turks were already thoroughly Islamised by the time they came to rule in Persia -- the Seljuks weren't like the Mongols, who were sky-worshipping infidels totally foreign to Persia.
The reason the Abbasids, etc contracted Turkic slave-aristocrats was to curtail the power of their vassal aristocrats. In the 800s, at least, the Turks were outside the internal politics of Baghdad and Samarra -- they were loyal to gold (and Allah), unlike the Caliph's provincial vassals (the Hamdanids, Barmakids, Tahirids, etc) who all had interests of their own. Over time, as it got harder to pay them, the Abbasids gave them land, titles, and political privileges instead -- creating a new class of vassal aristocrats. By then, however, the Turkic ruling classes had been working with the Abbasids for some time, adopting Islam as well as the Arabic/Persian languages. The great universities of Khorasan -- Bukhara, Samarkand, Nishapur, Kabul, etc -- were not just important because of the revival of Persian scholarship, but also because these were the madrassahs which educated and evangelised to the Turks (with the sons of warriors filling other roles, such as scholars, clerics, and viziers).
This is all vaaaaastly oversimplifying a lot of verrrry complicated processes, which took place from like the mid-800s until arguably the Ottoman era (and the Ottomans sort of repeated the process with their janissaries). Point is, the Islamisation of the Turks coincided with the growth of their institutional power within the Islamic heartland, and their transition from a Slave Aristocracy to an aristocracy in their own right.
So, China. I'd argue that for the Seljuks to overtake China like they did Persia, there would need to be a parallel reliance on Turkic warriors, and later bureaucrats and scholars. This'd lead to a process of gradual Sinicisation which would parallel the Islamisation/Persianisation of the Turks IOTL. I don't know enough about mediaeval China, but as far as I know, Confucianism places a lot of emphasis on propriety and the correct (i.e., Chinese) way of doing things. The Mandate of Heaven -- the Confucian idea of legitimacy -- therefore requires state officials to revere the same traditions in literature, conduct the same standards of etiquette, and perform the same rituals to promote court culture. The Abbasid Caliph could promote a Turkish ghulam to a position of power -- a zealous convert who displayed his service to Allah, and is willing to subject himself to the Sharia, could be considered a legitimate agent of the Caliph; and over the generations, he and his children would become more "properly" Muslim, and more distant from the faith they converted from. But in a Confucian system, a barbarian cannot represent the Emperor, because the Emperor's Mandate is to rule in a civilised way. The mediaeval Islamic system allowed for Turkic outsiders to become minor power-holders and be promoted over the generations as they assimilated (and assimilated only in that they became Muslim; they remained quite distinct from Persians and Arabs). Meanwhile, the Confucian system expected bureaucrats and nobility alike to perform official culture as an entry requirement.
So, it'd be a lot harder for Turkic tribes to get a foot in any institutional power. This'd especially be the case if (as you propose) the Seljuks invade China having already been thoroughly Islamised. Though Islam has been a part of Chinese history since the Prophet (SAW)'s generation (see Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, one of the Prophet's disciples) -- it is still a foreign tradition to China, with its own ideas for political legitimacy and its own rituals for performing them.
Again, making some massive generalisations here. But you know, caffeine + hyperfixation + procrastination = lotsa semi-coherent writing.
So without this history of military and civil service to Islamic empires, it would have been a lot harder for the Turks to overtake the Islamic heartland. Sometimes, Turkic dynasties came to power by invading during a point of political instability (e.g., the Seljuk conquest of Persia), but other times, they took power by leveraging their institutional control (e.g., Ahmad ibn Tulun's rule over Egypt; the Mamluk overthrow of the Ayyubids; or Alp-Tegin's foundation of the Ghaznavid Dynasty, after being given Ghazna as a fiefdom under the Samanids). Because of these institutional/commercial connections, the Turks were already thoroughly Islamised by the time they came to rule in Persia -- the Seljuks weren't like the Mongols, who were sky-worshipping infidels totally foreign to Persia.
The reason the Abbasids, etc contracted Turkic slave-aristocrats was to curtail the power of their vassal aristocrats. In the 800s, at least, the Turks were outside the internal politics of Baghdad and Samarra -- they were loyal to gold (and Allah), unlike the Caliph's provincial vassals (the Hamdanids, Barmakids, Tahirids, etc) who all had interests of their own. Over time, as it got harder to pay them, the Abbasids gave them land, titles, and political privileges instead -- creating a new class of vassal aristocrats. By then, however, the Turkic ruling classes had been working with the Abbasids for some time, adopting Islam as well as the Arabic/Persian languages. The great universities of Khorasan -- Bukhara, Samarkand, Nishapur, Kabul, etc -- were not just important because of the revival of Persian scholarship, but also because these were the madrassahs which educated and evangelised to the Turks (with the sons of warriors filling other roles, such as scholars, clerics, and viziers).
This is all vaaaaastly oversimplifying a lot of verrrry complicated processes, which took place from like the mid-800s until arguably the Ottoman era (and the Ottomans sort of repeated the process with their janissaries). Point is, the Islamisation of the Turks coincided with the growth of their institutional power within the Islamic heartland, and their transition from a Slave Aristocracy to an aristocracy in their own right.
So, China. I'd argue that for the Seljuks to overtake China like they did Persia, there would need to be a parallel reliance on Turkic warriors, and later bureaucrats and scholars. This'd lead to a process of gradual Sinicisation which would parallel the Islamisation/Persianisation of the Turks IOTL. I don't know enough about mediaeval China, but as far as I know, Confucianism places a lot of emphasis on propriety and the correct (i.e., Chinese) way of doing things. The Mandate of Heaven -- the Confucian idea of legitimacy -- therefore requires state officials to revere the same traditions in literature, conduct the same standards of etiquette, and perform the same rituals to promote court culture. The Abbasid Caliph could promote a Turkish ghulam to a position of power -- a zealous convert who displayed his service to Allah, and is willing to subject himself to the Sharia, could be considered a legitimate agent of the Caliph; and over the generations, he and his children would become more "properly" Muslim, and more distant from the faith they converted from. But in a Confucian system, a barbarian cannot represent the Emperor, because the Emperor's Mandate is to rule in a civilised way. The mediaeval Islamic system allowed for Turkic outsiders to become minor power-holders and be promoted over the generations as they assimilated (and assimilated only in that they became Muslim; they remained quite distinct from Persians and Arabs). Meanwhile, the Confucian system expected bureaucrats and nobility alike to perform official culture as an entry requirement.
So, it'd be a lot harder for Turkic tribes to get a foot in any institutional power. This'd especially be the case if (as you propose) the Seljuks invade China having already been thoroughly Islamised. Though Islam has been a part of Chinese history since the Prophet (SAW)'s generation (see Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, one of the Prophet's disciples) -- it is still a foreign tradition to China, with its own ideas for political legitimacy and its own rituals for performing them.
Again, making some massive generalisations here. But you know, caffeine + hyperfixation + procrastination = lotsa semi-coherent writing.
The Qing were routinely at war with various Muslim groups, while Yuan banned halal slaughter and IIRC circumcision as affronts to traditional Mongol law. It wouldn't surprise me if Ananda's attempt at seizing power had some impact on opinions on Muslims given his successor Kulug was quite Buddhist The pro-Muslim stance of Ming would be a direct backlash to how the Yuan regarded Muslims
That's one interpretation, sure. But the common one among the people was that by following proper conduct as Confucius and his disciples described, they would bring benefit to their family (based on a passage from the I Ching). And of course Confucius himself was long venerated as a god. So it's pretty clear that for a lot of people, their religion could be described as a sort of folk Confucianism.
Would An Lushan taking over China be a good POD, or maybe An Lushan taking over the northern half of China and relying on Turks for his army to overcome "Southern Tang?" If there's an organised system by which Turks can come to China and rise high in the army, there's certainly a potential.
I guess the problem is that like you describe, these Turks (who practiced a lot of different religions at that time from paganism to Nestorianism to Islam to Manichaeism to Buddhism) would end up assimilating into Chinese culture and would probably end up more Buddhist/Confucian as a result.
Nope, An Lushan...was a piece of work
However another turkic commander in his position(and with the same amount of luck he had up to that point) could have pulled it off
That they were at war with them did not mean they were anti-Muslim per say. They wanted control of Central Asia. That’s why they were at war with Muslim groups.
Such laws were repealed not long after they were implemented.
All of the religious stuff was in the context of traditional folk religion/Taoism.Confucius himself was not trying to create a new religion per say.It’s like trying to argue certain Greek philosophers was creating a new religion because they referenced gods.Certain Confucian scholars will try to venerate Confucius as a god in the context of Taoism/traditional Chinese folk religion. At the same time however, you don’t need to believe Confucius was a god in order to call yourself a Confucian. There have been plenty of Muslims and Christians who became Confucian scholars.
He wouldn’t be relying on Muslim Turks but Shamanist Turks which there are plenty.All of these Shamanist Turks ended up assimilating as Chinese.If any religion does end up benefiting from An Lushan taking over, it’s Zoroastrianism given An Lushan himself was a Zoroastrian. Along with Turks, he relied heavily on the exiled Zoroastrian Central Asian diaspora which he was part of for soldiery. BTW, An Lushan was himself worshipped a god in Chinese folk religion for a period of time despite being Zoroastrian, I hope that tells you how being deified as a god in China does not necessarily mean you were trying to start a new religion or because they agree with your religion per say.
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There are 2 types of Turkics who entered the Islamic world:
Professional slave warriors. Or Nomadic pastoralists.
The Ghaznavids were the former and the Seljuks were the latter.
The Ghaznavids were seen as very cultured and highly civilized and the Shahnameh itself, foundation of Persian literature was made in their courts.
As for the seljuks, they were seen as semi Muslim (even if the Seljuk ruling class accepted Islam, they had very little idea of its actual rulings.... Let alone the Oghuz masses) barbarians who ravaged a great deal of Persia. And pushed for a reduction of agriculture in favour of pastures for their herds.
Completely unlike the Samanids, Buyids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids etc who were all sedentary with Abbasid style high culture courts.
The main reason the Abbasids chose slave sis because they had alienated all other support bases.
Starting with the Shia shortly after the revolution by betraying the Alids.
Then during the Amin-Mamun war, Amin represented Arab armies, while Mamun represented Khurasani. Resulting in the Khurasani winning and the Arabs of Iraq and Syria being sidelined (which would eventually lead to the revival of Bedouin raids and the Qaramita)
But after Mamun's victory he decided to try ruling from Marw in Tukrmenistan, further alienating the Iraqis.
Then after 6 years he decided to go back, after all Iraq and everything west was in complete chaos, with an anti Caliph being declared briefly in Baghdad. En route to Iraq he declared Ali Ridha as his successor, alienating many of the Abbasid family and Sunnis as a whole. But then he backtracked and killed Ali Ridha, alienating the Shia.
Finally, when he got to Iraq he for some reason gave Abdullah ibn Tahir a semi independent Hereditary governorship of Khurasan. His own powerbase...... Placing his powerbase in the hands of another family.....
The problem was that Abdullah ibn Tahir didn't obey Mamun in defeating the Zoroastrian revivalist Babak Khorramdin. But Mamun had no army to force Ibn Tahir to do it, and didn't have an army himself to fight Babak.....
So he turned to his brother, alMutasim who was building up a personal slave army. He was personally an excellent fighter, able to command the respect of his slave troops, and thus defeated Babak. Thereon Mamun heavily relied upon Mutasim and he was his successor.
The final alienation of Mamun was the people of Baghdad, by enforcing the inquisition/mihna of Mutazilism, which was extremely unpopular.
Eventually Mutasim moved the capital to Samarra to house his increasingly large slave army. Samarra is a strange choice, lacking the major strategic and economic benefits of Baghdad and never became very large. imo Raqqa would've been a better choice, as it would've given more abbasid control over Syria and Egypt, whilst also being closer to the frontier and harkening back to Harun arRashid.
The slave soldiers were an effective military force, if you kept their interests in mind. But when Mutawakkil came to power, he was against the slave soldiers. But he didn't have any powerbases to properly challenge them.
The slave soldiers couldn't speak arabic, were resented as 'Aliens' by the populace, and didn't have any trades or skills other than fighting to fall back on if they are no longer employed as soldiers, nor any family to support them.
Thus they were totally dependent on the Abbasids for their livelihoods. If a Caliph went against this, it would be an existential threat for them. Thus, as Hugh Kennedy mentions, they acted out of desperation to save their lives and murdered alMutawakkil and his successors.
This was until alMuwaffaq managed to win the loyalty of the Turks via his martial prowess. And started a 40 year resurgence of the abbasids. Until 908 when the court chose to place a minor as caliph for the first time in history, so that they could manipulate him and become incredibly rich in the process. Resulting in the end of the abbasids as a proper force by the 940s.
Throughout all this time, they were being paid salaries directly from the state, not iqtas.
The Iqta system was a devolution, which came about during the Buyid era. This was since the abbasid treasury was near empty due to the chaos of the early 900s, unable to pay it's troops.
So instead, the iqta system have troops the revenue of a certain area of land. Unlike European fiefs, these were not hereditary and soldiers didn't rule these directly, only receiving the revenues from them.
This system continued for centuries until the modern era.
I think a Qarakhanid conquest of China during 5 Dynasties and 10 kingdoms would be more realistic.
Since the Shatuo Turks had just formed the Later Tang Dynasty, with their first 3 Emperors being Turks. But they fell in 937. The Qarakhanid may be able to win over the Shatuo Turks and re-establish another Turkish Dynasty.
As i covered briefly in https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...stead-of-the-middle-east.547492/post-24720191
The difference between the Islamicized Turks and the Khitan/Jurchen/Mongols/Manchu is that these groups have no civilization to draw upon other than Chinese itself.
The Turks have the highly developed Islamo-Persian civilization and culture to draw upon. Of which the Chinese already recognised when Emperor Taizu appointed a Yemeni as head of the imperial Observatory in 961.
Thus Persianate culture would seep into a Seljuk/Qarakhanid China. Though the language would definitely remain Chinese.
This Persianate influence could be further increased if the Seljuks encourage/forcefully move Persians from central Asia to China, like the Mongols did. And give more importance and prestige to the Persians and Muslims than the native Chinese in the bureaucracy like the Mughals did in India.
Thus aspects of Persianate dress, cuisine, poetry, literature, music, philosophy, sciences and other aspects of their culture would likely affect the Seljuk imperial courts and general high culture.
From there gradually seeping into the masses.
But the sheer magnitude and greatness of Chinese civilization would generally make this not that significant....
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Central Asia isn't some impassable barrier, the Silk Road runs through it after all so it's not impossible for the Seljuks to move east. That said there are climate related reasons for why eurasian nomads tend to migrate west rather than east. So it wouldn't just be a spur of the moment thing or a response to population pressure that would drive eastward expansion. I think the logical solution would be them coming into conflict with the Kara-Khanids earlier, winning, and then that would basically put them on China's doorstep, at which point it'd be a coin toss between invading Persia or invading China, and adopting a "Gazi" mentality might lead them to favour the latter option.
kinda almost gave up on the thread cos I couldn't think of something semi-plausible enough to get a major Islamic turk horde moving to the other side of the world heheh but I think this could be plausible, maybe if the khagan at the time was more ambitious and a strategic genius on the levels of Caesar, was the khagan at this time anything like that? I'm not too familiar with the Qarakhanids tho they seem to have potential
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The ability to attract warriors fighting for faith . You don’t really need to pay the warriors anything other than loot.
That, and (frequently) a fiefdom in the newly-conquered land.
So, I had never heard that An Lushan was a Zoroastrian. Do you have a source for that? Wikipedia says he was known to be a Göktürk on his mother's side, and an Iranian of some kind (Parthian, Sogdian, Bactrian, or something else) on his father's, but it doesn't mention him practicing Zoroastrianism.
That said, I found this interesting thing -- the "Three Persian Religions," or "Three Foreign Religions of the Tang Dynasty." After the Islamic conquest of Sassanian Persia, the Tang Dynasty officially recognised Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Nestorian Christianity as protected communities, and patronised them generously. This coincided with the Great Buddhist Persecution and the An Lushan Rebellion, so it was a period of major changes in religious policy.
As for Islam -- the Tang Dynasty was mostly ambivalent about it. There were obviously Muslims in China (many of them foreign merchants), but their presence was small enough that the Tang didn't need to have an official policy about them.
It’s a Chinese source called ‘安祿山的種族與宗教信仰’ (literally An Lushan’s Ethnicity and Religious beliefs) by Rong Xinjiang. An Lushan basically doubled as a Zoroastrian priest in his free time and officiated numerous Zoroastrian ceremonies for the Sogdian community whom he was part of. In the lead up to his rebellion, he basically claimed that he was the Avatar of Ahura Mazda/Saoshyant. A sizeable part of his army was inducted into his cult.He became worshipped as a Chinese folk god in Hebei after he died because Chinese who didn’t understand Zoroastrianism well began to contextualise him as a Chinese god under their own beliefs.
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Very interesting. But he also definitely styled himself as a Chinese emperor, too -- he claimed the Mandate of Heaven, and took the title "Khan of Heaven" (Tian-Khagan), which was what Turkic vassals and tributaries called the Tang Emperors.
So, An Lushan was preached that he was the messiah/saoshyant of a foreign religion as well as the legitimate Chinese Emperor, and led a rebellion which left millions dead and nearly collapsed all of China.
...is he the 8th-century Hong Xiuquan? Is this the Taiping Rebellion?
There was a Manichaean rebellion in Hangzhou(closer to the Taiping rebel's home turf) during the 12th century with similar pretensions too. It's just that it got crushed quite rapidly by the Song Dynasty given the rebels were not professional soldiers like An Lushan's forces.
Now, I do wonder if the Imperial Family of Great Yan would import incestuous practices in alignment with Zoroastrian royal practices.
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Almost nothing is known about Satuq Bughra Khan.
However, the Samanids were at a golden age at this time, controlling all central Asia and eastern Persia. Initiating the Persian Renaissance and with trade links as far as the Baltic sea.
In the 924 the Samanids seem to have sent an envoy to the Later Tang and to Abaoji of the Liao via the karakhanids. Showing they had great interest in China.
But the Samanids would eventually decline by the mid 900s, due to their professional Turkic slave soldiers puppetizing them.
Then in 960s one of their slave commanders founded an independent dynasty, the ghaznavids who took most of their Iranian/Afghan possessions. Finally the Qarakhanid took Bukhara in 992 ending them.
So instead Nasr ii could send a large number of the Samanids professional slave army along with the newly converted Qarakhanid to push eastwards.
Preventing diverting their attentions and focuses away from Transoxiana.
The kingdom of Qocho, Guiyi Circuit, Ganzhou Uyghurs, Xiliangfu Tibetans and finally Qi kingdom remnants in Shaanxi all seem fairly weak, since the western Xia defeated them quite easily.
The Naimans and Keraites of southwestern Mongolia were inclined to Abrahamic religions via their conversion to Nestorian Christianity.
But in the 900s, they were still pagan, and unlike Nestorian Christianity, Islam would have the rich and powerful Samanids supporting and propagating it. Potentially the Qarakhanid could engage in military action against the Naimans and Keraites to make them convert if they do not do so willingly.
Incorporation of Naimans and Keraites would significantly increase Qarakhanid manpower. Whilst their location within Mongolia would allow them to challenge the Khitan on their hometurf.
As for China, then it's an absolute mess. If Shaanxi can be taken, then it's highly defendable, with only small mountainous passes connecting it to the north China plain. It's defensibility is why it was the historic capital of china for so long.
Thus it would be difficult for Chinese forces within the north China plain to attempt to attack Qarakhanid Shaanxi. While it's easy for Shaanxi yo attack the north China plain.
(Shaanxi also allows attack on Sichuan, though Sichuan is unimportant)
The Shatuo Turks had founded the brief later Tang dynasty. With its fall in 937, the Shatuo were no longer in charge. The fellow Turkic and probably mutually intelligible Karakhanids might be able to win over these Shatuo Turks, giving them a massive advantage since the Shatuo have much better knowledge of Chinese tactics, terrain, governance and politics after 2 decades of rule.
Thus, if the Qarakhanid-Shatuo alliance manages to dominate the north China plain, like the Song did by 960. Then the rest of southern China should fall within a few decades.
Otherwise they'd probably be able to keep Gansu, like the western Xia did. And perhaps even Shaanxi. Fromwhich they can influence both the Liao and Song and occasionally raid the North China plain.
And would become a Persian-Chinese hybrid.