Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia From the Bronze Age to the Present (30 page)

The Turks, advised by the Sogdians, attempted to establish an alliance with the Eastern Roman Empire to go around the Persians. In 569 the Romans sent a mission to the Turks. It returned the next year with a caravan load of silk. Although the Turks had thus secured their Roman flank by diplomacy, they could not capture the Persian fortifications. The two sides made peace in 571, though because the Persians continued to refuse to let the Turks trade freely with them, relations remained hostile between the two empires.

Between 567 and 571 the Western Turks took control of the North Caucasus Steppe, and in 576, the Western Steppe. Both regions apparently had already been populated at least partly by Turkic peoples, but now the Turks ruled over the entire Central Eurasian steppe zone. This was the second time in history that it had come under the control of a single ethnolinguistic group, though this time the unification was achieved by a single family or dynasty.
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They were the political successors of the Avars, and before them the Hsiung-nu, but they far surpassed their predecessors.

The two halves of the empire became increasingly separate over time. In the Eastern Türk realm, based in the Eastern Steppe and western Manchuria, Bukhan Kaghan was succeeded by his younger brother Tatpar Kaghan
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(r. 572–581). In the Western Turkic realm, Istemi was succeeded by his son Tardu (r. ca. 576–603). By 583 Tardu was known as the Yabghu Kaghan of the Western Turks. His empire comprised the northern Tarim Basin, Jungharia,
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Transoxiana, and Tokhâristân.
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The Western Turkic realm itself gradually became further divided: an eastern part consisting of the On Oq or ‘Ten Arrows’ of the Western Turks, based in Jungharia, the northern Tarim Basin, and eastern Transoxiana; the realm of the Yabghu of Tokhâristân in southern Central Asia; the Khazar Kaghanate, which developed by about 630, centering on the region from the lower Volga and North Caucasus Steppe to the Don; the Danubian Bulgar khanate west of the Khazars in the lower Danube region and lands to the west, founded in about 680 by Asparukh; and the kingdom of the Volga Bulgars, who moved north of the Khazars into the Volga-Kama area in the late seventh century.

There were only a few minor dialect differences among the different Turkic groups stemming from the imperial foundation in the Eastern Steppe, and it is generally believed that there were no major linguistic divisions in the early Old Turkic period. Nevertheless, the Bulgar and Khazar Turks soon spoke a Turkic dialect or language so distinct from the other Turkic dialects that it was difficult or impossible for other Turks to understand.

The Roman-Persian Wars and the Arab Conquest

By the end of the sixth century, the Sasanid Persians, who had been at war on and off with the Eastern Roman Empire for about three centuries, had gradually extended their power into the southern Arabian Peninsula. In around 598 they defeated the local ruler of the Himyarite Kingdom, making the conquered territory a province of the Sasanid Empire.
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They thus controlled all international trade to and from India and further east by sea and dominated the trade routes by land as well.

In 602 the Eastern Roman emperor Maurice (582–602) was overthrown and killed along with his family. The leader of the insurrection, Phocas (r. 602–610), was proclaimed the new emperor. However, not only some Romans but also the Persian emperor Khusraw II considered Phocas to have usurped the throne. Khusraw’s own throne had been recovered with Maurice’s help, and he had made peace with the Romans partly at the cost of some Sasanid territory. The Persians lost no time in attacking the Romans, at first with only minor success, but in 607 they invaded Roman Mesopotamia and Armenia and captured most of the Armenian territory they had earlier lost to the Romans. In 608, while a plague ravaged Constantinople, the Persians marched deeper into Roman Mesopotamia and Armenia. In 609 they raided across Anatolia all the way to Chalcedon, across the Bos-phorus from Constantinople itself.
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The Roman exarch, or governor, of North Africa rebelled in Carthage against Phocas, and his forces succeeded in taking Egypt, which with the rest of North Africa constituted the main source of grain for the capital. Heraclius (r. 610–641), the son of the exarch, then sailed to Constantinople with a fleet and troops from the provinces of Africa and Egypt. He executed Phocas and was crowned emperor in 610.

The Persians’ advance continued, though, and before Heraclius could restore central authority, they had captured much of the empire outside the capital district, including Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and part of Anatolia; in 614 they took Jerusalem and carried off the True Cross to Ctesiphon. At the same time, the Avars and Slavs marched on the empire from the north and captured most of Thrace and much other imperial territory there. By 615 the Eastern Roman Empire retained only the capital district, part of Anatolia, Egypt, and Africa. In 617 the Avars, evidently in alliance with the Persians, attacked the city from the north and put it under siege. In 618 the Persians invaded Egypt, taking Alexandria in 619 and cutting off the main grain supply to Constantinople. The Roman Empire was at its lowest point in history and seemed doomed to fall.
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Yet Heraclius did not give up. In 622 he made a truce with the Avars and reorganized the military forces still available to him, developing an earlier system of local support and stationing of soldiers into what became the “feudal” theme system.
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He personally led the army east into Armenia, where he attacked and defeated the forces of the Persians. When news arrived that the Avars had broken the truce and invaded southern Thrace, he hurried back. Making another agreement with the Avars, he turned around and marched east again in 624. He took Armenia and pursued the Persians further east, defeating the main Persian forces sent against him in 625. Rather than returning home, he wintered with his army near Lake Van.

To counter the Roman advance, Khusraw made an alliance with the Avars to attack Constantinople. Nevertheless, with the help of superior intelligence agents, Heraclius foiled the attacks of the Persians and defeated them, and though the Avars did lay siege to the capital city, they too were frustrated.
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The turning point came in 627, when Heraclius made an alliance with the Khazars, a Turkic people who had established a powerful state in the North Caucasus Steppe and lower Volga;
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the alliance was to prove of great importance to the empire throughout the Early Middle Ages. In autumn the allies advanced successfully across Azerbaijan. Though the Khazars withdrew for the winter, Heraclius went against tradition and remained on campaign. He invaded Mesopotamia and in December defeated a Persian army near Nineveh. He then moved on to the royal palace at Dastagird (now Daskara), east of Ctesiphon, and captured and plundered it in 628. Shortly thereafter, Khusraw was overthrown by his son, Kavad II (r. 628), and the two sides made peace. In 629 Heraclius negotiated return of the former Roman territories in Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine with the Persian general there, and in 630 he returned to Constantinople in triumph with the True Cross.
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Heraclius was not destined to enjoy his success against the Persians. During the long Persian-Roman war, the situation had become increasingly critical for the Arabs on the Arabian Peninsula. Many once prosperous towns had been deserted or turned into nomad encampments. The merchants of the western Arabian Peninsula, among whom were the Quraysh family of Mecca, had dominated a carefully maintained system of tribal alliances, involving security for pilgrimage and trade, running at least from the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula northward to the Eastern Roman border region in Syria, and probably from there northeast to the Persian border region near the Lower Euphrates. Because of the Roman and Persian destabilization of the Arab frontier in the north, and the wars in which southern Arabia was devastated by Persians and Abyssinians, both internal and external trade
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were much diminished, and the tribal alliance system was in trouble. The foreign penetration of Arabia seems to have been the final catalyst that brought about intensive internal ferment among the Arabs.
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When the crisis became severe, a young scion of the Quraysh family, Muhammad, proposed a radical solution: the unification of the people of Arabia and all of their many gods as one community, the
umma,
under one god, Allâh
‘the
God’. Muhammad’s ideas were considered revolutionary and he was forced to flee for his life to Medina in 622. There he and his followers, the Muslims—’those who submit (to the will of Allâh)’—soon took command of the city and pressed forward with their plans to unify Arabia.
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The new Persian emperor Kavâd II died, apparently from the plague, after ruling for less than a year. He was succeeded by numerous relatives and generals who also reigned for less than a year. Finally, in 632, Yazdgerd III (r. 632–651), a grandson of Khusraw II, was crowned. But the Sasanid realm was disorganized and seriously weakened from the years of war and civil strife over the succession.
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In that same year Muhammad died. The young Muslim community was unprepared for his succession. The Prophet had no male heir, and there was no other tradition to follow, so it was decided to choose his favorite and most respected follower, Abû Bakr (r. 632–634), as his
khalîfa
‘successor’, or
caliph.
Under his chairman-like rule the rebellions that followed the death of Muhammad were quickly put down. But by this time, after the wars of unification under Muhammad and the wars of rebellion, trade across the peninsula had practically come to a standstill. In 633 the army of the most brilliant Muslim general, Khâlid ibn al-Walîd, who was largely responsible for the successful suppression of the rebellions, ended up on the borders of the Sasanid realm in the northeast, where the local Muslims were already raiding the Sasanids. Khâlid simply joined in, providing a solution to the economic crisis and also a means of rewarding the loyal Arabs in his army.
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In the following year, Abû Bakr sent an expedition against the Byzantines in southern Palestine. But the latter were relatively well organized and only suffered a minor defeat. The caliph then ordered Khâlid to join the expedition. He crossed the Syrian desert in five days, took command, and defeated the Byzantines in a major battle at Ajnâdayn, in Syria.

Under the second caliph, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattâb (r. 634–644), the former rebels in Arabia were allowed to join the campaigns in the north. But the Sasanids crushed the Arabs with elephants in 634 at the Battle of the Bridge, while the Byzantines also strengthened their borders. The Arabs made an all-out effort, sending all their forces to the attack. In 637 they defeated the Persians decisively at the Battle of Qâdisiyya (near Kufa on the Euphrates), and the Arabs occupied Ctesiphon, capturing the Sasanid imperial regalia and other Persian treasures. The crown of Khusraw II was sent to the Kaaba (Ka’ba).
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In the same year, the Arabs also defeated a major counterattack by the Byzantines at the Battle of the Yarmûk, in Southern Syria, forcing them to withdraw from Syria. The Arabs followed their stunning first successes with victory after victory in the Near East. They captured Egypt in 640 and went on to conquer North Africa.
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Within ten years of Muhammad’s death virtually all of the provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire except southeastern Europe, Anatolia, and Armenia had fallen to the Arabs.

Heraclius had reorganized the Eastern Roman Empire a few short years earlier in order to save it from the Persians and their allies and had increased the people’s support for the government. Now he saw the empire’s most productive territories once again taken away from him. Yet while the Persian Empire fell entirely to the Arabs,
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his reorganization of his empire into
themes,
and his alliance with the Turkic kingdom of the Khazars, formed the basis for the Song-Serm survival of the Byzantine Empire—the new nation-state he and his grandson Constans II (r. 641–668) created out of the remnants of the Eastern Roman Empire.
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Upon the decisive defeat and collapse of the Persian Empire in 637, Yazdgerd III fled northeast into Khurasan with his remaining forces. In 642 the Arabs destroyed the last Sasanid army at the Battle of Nihâvand. In Central Asia Yazdgerd attempted to gather the support of the local nobility from his base in Marw, but as the Arabs approached, the
marzbân
of Marw and the Hephthalite prince of Bâdghîs attacked him and defeated his forces in 651. Though the emperor himself escaped, he was killed shortly thereafter in the vicinity of Marw.
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The Arabs attacked and took Marw in the same year, followed by Nishapur.

In 652 the Arabs captured the cities of northern Tokhâristân, including Balkh, a great commercial city and the northwestern most center of Buddhism, with its famous circular-plan monastery, Nawbahâr ‘the New Vihâra’,
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where the Chinese traveler monk Hsüan Tsang (ca. 600–664) had stayed and studied for a month with the master Prajñâkara in 628 or 630.
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The city dwellers of former Sasanid Khurâsân and the former Hephthalite principalities were forced to pay tribute, to accept Arab garrisons, and to make room for the Arabs in their houses. At about the same time, other Arab forces moved through Kirman into Sîstân (Sijistân, in what is now southwestern Afghanistan), capturing the westernmost part.
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Marw, which was a great commercial city, became the Arabs’ major base for military operations in Central Asia. Although they suffered a temporary setback during the civil war between the fourth caliph, ‘Alî (r. 656–661), and Mu’âwiya, the governor of Syria, which ended with the death of ‘Alî and establishment of Mu’âwiya as caliph and founder of the Umayyad Dynasty in 661,
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the Arabs very quickly reestablished their authority and continued their expansion deep into Central Asia.