Karluks
[3] Despite the similarity of names, Mahmud al-Kashgari's Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk wrote: "Karluks is a division of nomadic Turks.
"[4] Ilkhanate's Rashid al-Din Hamadani in his Jami' al-tawarikh mentions Karluks as one of the Oghuz (Turkmen) tribes.
[6] Nikolai Aristov noted that a tributary of the Charysh River was Kerlyk and proposed that the tribal name originated from the toponym with a Turkic meaning of "wild Siberian millet".
[7] Peter Golden, citing Németh, suggests that qarluğ/qarluq possibly means "snowy"[8] (from Proto-Turkic *qar "snow"[9]).
His heir apparent, the "lesser Khan" Hubo, escaped to Altai with a major part of the people and 30,000 soldiers.
[16] In 650, at the time of their submission to the Chinese, the Karluks had three tribes: Mouluo 謀落/Moula 謀剌 (*Bulaq), Chisi 熾俟[a][17] or Suofu 娑匐[b][18] (*Sebeg), and Tashili 踏實力 (*Taşlïq).
The Karluk vanguard left the Altai region and at the beginning of the 8th century reached the banks of the Amu Darya.
[22] However, Karluks and Basmyls were defeated and forcibly incorporated into the Toquz Oghuz tribal confederation, led by the Uyghur Yaglakar clan.
[23][24] They remained in the Chinese sphere of influence and an active participant in fighting the Muslim expansion into the area, up until their split from the Tang in 751.
Chinese intervention in the affairs of Western Turkestan ceased after their defeat at the Battle of Talas in 751 by the Arab general Ziyad ibn Salih.
In 766, after they overran the Türgesh in Jetisu, the Karluk tribes formed a Khanate under the rule of a Yabghu, occupied Suyab and transferred their capital there.
Jetisu was populated by several tribes: the Azes (mentioned in the Orkhon inscriptions) and the Tuhsi, remnants of the Türgesh;[31][32] as well as the Shatuo Turks (沙陀突厥) (lit.
The Karluks converted to Nestorian Christianity at the end of the 8th century CE, about 15 years after they established themselves in the Jetisu region.
Yaqubi reported the conversion of the Karluk-yabghu to Islam under Caliph Mahdi (775–785), and by the 10th century, several places to the east of Talas had mosques.
But even in the heyday of the Karluk Yabgu state, parts of its domains were in the hands of the Toquz Oghuz, and later under Kyrgyz and Khitan control, increasing the ethnical, religious, and political diversity.
The titles of the petty rulers were Qutegin of the Karluk Laban clan in Karminkat, Taksin in Jil, Tabin-Barskhan in Barskhan, Turkic Yindl-Tegin and Sogdian Badan-Sangu in Beglilig.
The prince of Suyab, situated north of the Chu river in the Türgesh land, was a brother of one of the Göktürk khans, but bore the Persian title Yalan-shah, i.e. "King of Heroes".
Muslim authors describe in detail the trade route from Western Asia to China across Jetisu, mentioning many cities.
They wrote about the capital cities of Balasagun, Suyab, and Kayalik, in which William of Rubruck saw three Buddhist temples in the Muslim town for the first time.
The geographers also mentioned Taraz (Talas, Auliya-ata), Navekat (now Karabulak[clarification needed]), Atbash (now Koshoy-Kurgan ruins), Issyk-kul, Barskhan, Panjikat, Akhsikat, Beglilig, Almalik, Jul, Yar, Ton, Panchul, and others.
The position of the Karluk state, based on the rich Jetisu cities, remained strong, despite the failures in wars in the beginning of the 9th century.
[40] The fall of the last khagan with its capital in Ötüken, which dominated for three centuries, created a completely new geopolitical situation in all Central Asia.
For the first time in three hundred years, the powerful center of authority that created opportunities for expansion or even existence of any state in Turkestan had finally disappeared.
Henceforth, the Turkic tribes recognized only the high status of the clan that inherited the Khagan title, but never again his unifying authority.
Several Muslim historians state that after the loss by the Uyghurs of their power (840), the supreme authority among the Turkic tribes passed to the Karluk leaders.
The Khitans occupied Balasagun, expelled the weak Karakhanid ruler, and founded their own state, which stretched from the Yenisei to Taraz.
In 1211, a Mongol detachment under the command of Khubilai Noyon, one of Genghis Khan's generals, appeared in the northern part of Zhetysu.
The Karluk language was the primary basis for the later lingua franca of the Chagatai Khanate and Central Asia under the Timurid dynasty.
[57] Arab historian Al Masudi stated that, among Turkic peoples, the Karluks were "the most beautiful in form, the tallest in stature and the most lordly in appearance".
