Conversion of the Oghuz Turks to Islam - Historum

Ayazid · August 3rd, 2012, 12:17 PM

Despite some baseless claims that the ancestors of Turks were converted to Islam at the point of the sword by Arabs, the Oghuz conversion was actually a gradual and peaceful process:

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In the early and middle decades of the tenth century the Oghuz nomadized in the steppes to the north of the Aral Sea and the east of the Caspian Sea, reaching as far west as the Ural and Emba rivers. They were, however, at a much lower stage of cultural development than such peoples as the Bulghars on the middle Volga and the Khazars on the lower Volga or the Karluk to their east. The envoy of the Abbasid caliph to the king of the Bulghars, Ahmad b. Fadlān, travelled from Baghdad via Khwarazm and then across the Oghuz steppes to the middle Volga. His Risāla [Epistle] containing his travel account provides us with our earliest authentic, as opposed to semi-legendary, information on the Oghuz. He describes them as animistic in belief, following the counsel of their shamans in some religio-cultural matters but in effect largely irreligious, and as wandering 'like straying wild asses' in the region of the Ustyurt plateau to the east of the Caspian. (p. 151)

The tribal leader of the Oghuz was the Yabghu, a title dating back to Orkhon Turkish times, and there were various other titles in the tribe denoting military office. Among the shadowy ancestors of Seljuq himself are mentioned one Temür-yalïgh ('[the man with the] iron bow') and Seljuq's own father Dukak (unless Temür-yalïgh and Dukak were the same person). The Yabghu appointed Seljuq as sü-bashï, or war leader (Ibn Fadlān's sāhib al-jaysh), but seems speedily to have considered him as a potential rival. Hence at some point soon after the middle of the tenth century, Seljuq and his followers moved further up the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) from the Yabghu's winter capital of Yengi-kent ('New Town') to Jand. They were now near the borders of the Dar al-Islām, and soon afterwards, Islam began to spread among the Seljuq family and their retainers, as it was at this time spreading among the so-called 'trucial Turks', i.e. those on the northern borders of the Samanid state, semi-Islamized and in some sort of loose treaty relationship with the Muslims. Later Seljuq historiography then states that they immediately became ghāzīs (fighters for the Islamic faith),and that Seljuq's son Mikā'il was killed in such fighting, so that his two sons Toghril Beg Muhammad and Chaghri Beg Dāwūd had to be brought up by their grandfather. (p. 152)

History of civilizations of Central Asia, v. 4

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The account of Saljūq’s conversion can be veriﬁed through the Malik-nāma, where it is asserted that ‘‘the opening of his heart was illuminated through the lights of tawhīd, and Saljūq along with his kin and servants became Muslims. They occupied themselves with learning the Qur'an and the injunctions of Islamic law.’’ There is no reason to dismiss the sincerity of this conversion altogether, especially given some of the monotheistic inclinations already present among the Oghuz. On the other hand, the emphasis on learning the Qur'an and sharī'a by anything more than a small minority of the decidedly non-Arabic speaking (and overwhelmingly illiterate) tribes seems farfetched.

Furthermore, the earliest sources suggest an equally pragmatic reason: Saljūq told his clan that unless they embraced the religion of the land in which they now resided, they would not be able to persist there. The Syriac historian Bar Hebraeus records Saljūq as having told his progeny, ‘‘If we do not enter the faith of the people of the country in which we desire [to live] and make a pact with them (or conform to their customs), no man will cleave to us, and we shall be a small and solitary people.’’ Having agreed on this, the Saljūqs sent an envoy to the Khwārazm city of Zandāk and asked for some religious scholars to be sent out to them. The people of the town sent them a missionary (mubashshir), plus gifts for the new converts. (p. 16)

The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam

Qaraqoyunlu · August 3rd, 2012, 12:24 PM

This is not something unknown, this conversion can be read on Seljuq Begs biography, he was chief of Kinik tribe, Kinik tribe splitted off from Tokuz-Oghuz (nine-Oghuz) confederacy, and settled farther down south, this was where and when their conversion to Islam took place. His grandsons Toghril and Chaghri came to lead the Muslim-Oghuz Seljuq dynasty named after him. Oghuz Turks from that time became servants of Islam.

Farinal · August 4th, 2012, 02:34 AM

I am not saying that's totally wrong. After the battle of Talas and in the Abbasid era Turks peacefully converted to Islam and became the dominant military force of the empire but during Qutayba bin Muslim's conquests and governance and Umayyad era many Turks massacered and forced into Islam.

Ayazid · August 4th, 2012, 03:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farinal

I am not saying that's totally wrong. After the battle of Talas and in the Abbasid era Turks peacefully converted to Islam and became the dominant military force of the empire but during Qutayba bin Muslim's conquests and governance and Umayyad era many Turks massacered and forced into Islam.

Which Turks were massacred and forced to Islam during the Umayyad era?

Qaraqoyunlu · August 4th, 2012, 03:55 AM

Mentioned it for thousand times yet you still repeat it.

There were no Turks in Merv, Bukhara or Samarkand during that time-frame, Turkic Khaganates fought Arabs over control of these non-Turkic areas (during that time-frame), and these Turkic Khaganates were neither Oghuz, Oghuz people lived in their Tokuz-Oghuz confederacy to north-east of Caspian.

The first branch of Oghuz which converted to Islam, the Kiniks, did happen as I mentioned above with Seljuk Beg.

Do you even read other posts?

Farinal · August 4th, 2012, 04:00 AM

I never said they were specifically Oghuz.

Bahadir · August 4th, 2012, 04:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farinal

I am not saying that's totally wrong. After the battle of Talas and in the Abbasid era Turks peacefully converted to Islam and became the dominant military force of the empire but during Qutayba bin Muslim's conquests and governance and Umayyad era many Turks massacered and forced into Islam.

You are right in some points. During the Umayyads Turks were not reluctant to convert Islam even many battles with Arabs took place, Turks were barrier for Arab commanders at that time with their bellicosity and mobility, they resisted Islamization for about 2-3 centuries, many times had beaten Arabic armies. But the ones who massacred that you talked about were Iranic people not Turkic, Turks were nomads you know. And Oghuz Turks accepted Islam as a political movement and most of them peacefully once their kagans and beys accepted Islam massive population of Oguz Turks followed them on 10th century except some like Chepnis resisted a lot such a formidable tribe. Even Oghuz Turks were one of the key factor of toppling Umayyads, and later during Abbasid era they had become rulers as well.

Ayazid · August 4th, 2012, 05:01 AM

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Originally Posted by Farinal

I never said they were specifically Oghuz.

You implied that they were the ancestors of modern Turkish nation (which descends from the Oghuz):

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Originally Posted by Farinal

Both Turkish and other Muslim official histories support this idea of peaceful conversion because it serves their interests. In Khorasan, Semerkand and Bukhara many Turks massacered by Arabian commanders and governers like Qutayba ibn Muslim, Yezid ibn Muhelleb, Said ibn Harashi, Eshref ibn Abdullah and Nasr ibn Sayyar.

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Originally Posted by Farinal

Sorry but that's wrong. I'm sure it brings some kind of comfort to you to think that happened this way but it didn't. Turks were massacared many times, their settings sacked and villages pillaged and many other horrible thing happened to them and they forced into Islam. Remember this: no people as masses in the world accept a new religion and forget about their old one just because they think the new one is great.

This is not the first time I have seen these claims. This theory is circulating on the Turkish net, but it's based just on misinterpretation of historical sources to make it seem that the Turks are victims of Arabs and that Islam was shoved down their throats by force (which is of course a good reason for abandoning this imposed Arab religion

). It appeared already in some Republican school textbooks during the 30s.

Türkler Nas

Ayazid · August 4th, 2012, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bahadir

You are right in some points. During the Umayyads Turks were not reluctant to convert Islam even many battles with Arabs took place, Turks were barrier for Arab commanders at that time with their bellicosity and mobility, they resisted Islamization for about 2-3 centuries, many times had beaten Arabic armies. But the ones who massacred that you talked about were Iranic people not Turkic, Turks were nomads you know.

True. The bulk of the population of Transoxania were Iranians (later persianized and turkified). The Turks were mostly living in the nearby steppes and fought with the Arabs for hegemony over the sedentary population. It was basically a clash of two tribal nomadic peoples on a similar level of development and not exactly an onslaught of murderous Arab jihadists on peace-loving Turkish townsfolk and villagers

:

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Central Asia in the early seventh century was, ethnically, still largely an Iranian land whose people used various Middle Iranian languages. In Transoxania there was a network of Sogdian city-states whose people used the Sogdian language, but there was possibly some knowledge in the main towns at least of the Middle Persian Parthian language, because of the strong cultural influence of the adjacent, powerful Sasanian empire. However, Sogdian survived for at least two or three more centuries, especially in the countryside and in mountainous areas, with such modern descendants as Yaghnobi. In Bactria, the provinces along the upper Oxus river, now part of the Republic of Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan, political control was exercised by epigoni of the Hephthalites. North of the Hindu Kush, such a leader of the Hephthalites (in Arabic sources, Hayātila) as Tarkhān Nizak was to put up a strenuous though ultimately unsuccessful resistance to the incoming Muslim Arabs. In Khwarazm, an ancient Iranian civilization still flourished under the indigenous dynasty of Afrighid Khwarazm Shahs, whose names, but not their chronology, are known to us from the native scholar al-Birūni's Kitāb al-Āthār al-bāqiya [Chronology of Ancient Nations], known to modern scholars as the Chronology and written in c. 1000-1003. Along the northern fringes of Transoxania, and in the deserts surrounding the oasis region of Khwarazm, were Turkish tribes of the south-western group, such as Karluk, Kimek, Kipchak and Oghuz, and these were probably already infiltrating into the settled, agricultural lands of Transoxania and Ferghana. (p. 28)

History of civilizations of Central Asia, v. 4

Besides, we should be careful when dealing with ethnic designations in Arab medieval sources, since they might be sometimes rather imprecise:

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Under Qutayba b. Muslim al-Bāhilī (governor of Khurāsān, 86–96/705–715), the
armies of the Caliphate reached the Jaxartes River. This success started the systematic conquest of Transoxiana by Islam. While ﬁghting their way across the Iranian Plateau and across the Oxus River into Transoxania (called in Arabic mā warā' al-nahar, “what is behind the river”), the Arabs encountered a large variety of peoples, some of whom were of Steppe origin. Later Arabic sources refer to some of these Eurasian people using the vague terminology “Turks.”

It should be emphasised that although Arab sources commonly used the term “Turks” as a generic term designating people living in the Eurasian Steppes, not all Eurasian peoples referred to in Arabic sources as Turks were members of the Turkic linguistic or ethnic group. Yet, it is clear that Turkic groupings constituted a considerable proportion of the population. On a practical level, this term referred to the tribes that were once subordinate to the supreme Turk ruler (qaghan). This helps explain why Muslim geographers and travelers, both writers of Arabic and Persian, sometimes included various Iranians elements from Farghāna, Ushrushana and the great oasis cities of Sughd (Sogdiana), Bukhara and Samarqand in their accounts of the Turks. (p. 204-5)

Mongols, Turks and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World

Ayazid · August 4th, 2012, 01:07 PM

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Originally Posted by Bahadir

Even Oghuz Turks were one of the key factor of toppling Umayyads, and later during Abbasid era they had become rulers as well.

I am not sure about this point. The rebellion of

Abu_Muslim_Khorasani

against the Umayyads was supported mainly by Iranians and some Arabs and the Oghuz were still living in the area between the Tian Shan and northern Caspian during that time. There were also few Turkic slaves-mercenaries in the Umayyad Caliphate.