Karluks
The Karluks were a prominent nomadic Turkic tribal confederacy residing in the regions of Kara-Irtysh and the Tarbagatai Mountains west of the Altay Mountains in Central Asia.
The majority of Uzbeks and Uyghurs indeed descend from Karluk tribes, and their languages are part of the Karluk subgroup, making them linguistically and historically distinct from other Turkic peoples like Kazakhs or Turkmens.
A section of the Hazara people are considered to be descended from the Karluks.
Karluks were known as a coherent ethnic group before being absorbed in the Chagatai Khanate of the Mongol Empire.
They were also called Uch-Oghuz meaning "Three Oghuz". Despite the similarity of names, Mahmud al-Kashgari's Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk wrote: "Karluks is a division of nomadic Turks. They are separate from Oghuz, but they are Turkmens like Oghuz." Ilkhanate's Rashid al-Din Hamadani in his Jami' al-tawarikh mentions Karluks as one of the Oghuz tribes. İbrahim Kafesoğlu proposes that Türkmen might be the Karluks' equivalent of the Göktürks' political term Kök Türk.
Etymology
noted that a tributary of the Charysh was Kerlyk and proposed that the tribal name originated from the toponym with a Turkic meaning of "wild Siberian millet".Peter Golden, citing Németh, suggests that qarluğ/qarluq possibly means "snowy". However, Marcel Erdal critiques this as a folk etymology, as "n Old Turkic the suffix +lXk, which is implied in this account, had fourfold vowel harmony, and the +lXk derivate from kar would in Old Turkic be *karlık and not karluk".
Having noted that the majority of Chinese transcriptions 歌邏祿, 歌羅祿, 葛邏祿, 葛羅祿 and 哥邏祿 are trisyllabic, while only one form 葛祿 is disyllabic, Erdal contends that although the latter one transcribed Qarluq, the former four transcribed *Qaraluq, which should be the preferred reading. Thus, Erdal concluded that "the name is likely to be an exonym, formed as an -k derivate from the verb kar-ıl- 'to mingle ' discussed in Erdal ; it would thus have signified 'the mingled ones', presumably because the tribe evolved from the mingling of discrete groups," as already suggested by Doerfer.
History
Early history
The first Chinese reference to the Karluks labels them with a Manichaean attribute: Lion Karluks. The "lion" Karluks persisted up to the time of the Mongols.In the Early Middle Ages, three member tribes of the Göktürk Khaganate formed the Uch-Karluk union; initially, the union's leader bore the title Elteber, later elevated to Yabgu. After the split of the khaganate around 600 into the Western and Eastern khaganates, the Uch-Karluks, along with Chuyue, Chumi, Gusu, and Beishi became subordinate to the Western Turkic Khaganate. After the Göktürks' downfall, the Karluk confederation would later incorporate other Turkic tribes like the Chigils, Tuhsi, Azkishi, Türgesh, Khalajes, Čaruk, Barsqan, as well as Iranian Sogdians and West Asian and Central Asian migrants.
File:Anikova, two horsemen.jpg|thumb|Armoured horsemen on the Anikova dish, Semirechye,.
In 630, Ashina Helu, the Ishbara Qaghan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, was captured by the Chinese. His heir apparent, the "lesser Khan" Hubo, escaped to Altai with a major part of the people and 30,000 soldiers. He conquered the Karluks in the west, the Kyrgyz in the north, and took the title Yizhuchebi Khagan. The Karluks allied with the Tiele and their leaders the Uyghurs against the Turkic Khaganate, and participated in enthroning the victorious head of the Uyghurs. After that, a smaller part of the Karluks joined the Uyghurs and settled in the Bogdo-Ola mountains in Mongolia, the larger part settled in the area between Altai and the eastern Tian Shan.
In 650, at the time of their submission to the Chinese, the Karluks had three tribes: Mouluo 謀落/Moula 謀剌, Chisi 熾俟 or Suofu 娑匐, and Tashili 踏實力. On paper, the Karluk divisions received Chinese names as Chinese provinces, and their leaders received Chinese state titles. Later, the Karluks spread from the valley of the river Kerlyk along the Irtysh River in the western part of the Altai to beyond the Black Irtysh, Tarbagatai, and towards the Tian Shan.
By the year 665 the Karluk union was led by a former Uch-Karluk bey with the title Kül-Erkin, now titled "Yabgu", who had a powerful army. The Karluk vanguard left the Altai region and at the beginning of the 8th century reached the banks of the Amu Darya.
They were considered a vassal state by the Tang dynasty after the final conquest of the Transoxania regions by the Chinese in 739. The Karluk rose in rebellion against the Göktürks, then the dominant tribal confederation in the region, in about 745, and established a new tribal confederation with the Uygur and Basmyl tribes. However, Karluks and Basmyls were defeated and forcibly incorporated into the Toquz Oghuz tribal confederation, led by the Uyghur Yaglakar clan. 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. The Arabs dislodged the Karluks from Fergana.
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. By that time the bulk of the tribe had left the Altai, and the supremacy in Jetisu passed to the Karluks. Their ruler with the title Yabghu is often mentioned in the Orkhon inscriptions. In Pahlavi texts one of the Karluk rulers of Tocharistan was called Yabbu-Hakan. The fall of the Western Turkic Kaganate left Jetisu in the possession of Turkic peoples, independent of either Arabs or Chinese.
In 822, the Uyghurs sent four Karluks as tribute to Tang dynasty of China.
Culture
The Karluks were hunters, nomadic herdsmen, and agriculturists. They settled in the countryside and in the cities, which were centered on trading posts along the caravan roads. The Karluks inherited a vast multi-ethnic region, whose diverse population was not much different from its rulers. Jetisu was populated by several tribes: the Azes and the Tuhsi, remnants of the Türgesh; as well as the Shatuo Turks of Western Turkic, specifically of Chigil origins, and the interspersing Sogdian colonies. The southern part of Jetisu was occupied by the Yagma people, who also held Kashgar. In the north and west lived the Kangly. Chigils, who had joined and been a significant division of the Three-Karluks, then detached and resided around Issyk Kul.The diverse population adhered to a spectrum of religious beliefs. The Karluks and the majority of the Turkic population professed Tengrianism, considered as shamanism and by the Christians and Muslims. 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. This was the first time the Church of the East received such major sponsorship by an eastern power. Particularly, the Chigils were Christians of the Nestorian denomination. The majority of the Toquz Oghuz, with their khan, were Manicheans, but there were also Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims among them.
The peaceful penetration of Muslim culture through commercial relations played a far more important role in their conversion than Muslim arms. The merchants were followed by missionaries of various creeds, including Nestorian Christians. Many Turkestan towns had Christian churches. The Turks held sacred the Qastek pass mountains, believing to be an abode of the deity. Each creed carried its script, resulting in a variety of used scripts, including Türkic runiform, Sogdian, Syriac, and later the Uygur. The Karluks had adopted and developed the Turkic literary language of Khwarazm, established in Bukhara and Samarkand, which after the Mongol conquest became known as the Chagatai language.
Of all Turkic peoples, the Karluks were most open to the influence of Muslim culture. Yaqubi reported the conversion of the Karluk-yabghu to Islam under Caliph Mahdi, and by the 10th century, several places to the east of Talas had mosques. Muslim culture had affected the general way of life of the Karluks.
During the next three centuries, the Karluk Yabgu state occupied a key position on the international trade route, fighting off mostly Turkic competitors to retain their prime position. Their biggest adversaries were Kangly in the northwest and Toquz Oghuz in the southeast, with a period of Samanid raids to Jetisu in 840-894. 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.
Social organization
The state of Karluk Yabghu was an association of semi-independent districts and cities, each equipped with its own militia. The biggest was the capital Suyab, which could turn out 20,000 warriors, and among other districts, the town of Beglilig had 10,000 warriors, Panjikat could turn out 8,000 warriors, Barskhan 6,000 warriors, and Yar 3,000 warriors. 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. Some bore double names, both Turkic and Sogdian. 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, Navekat, Atbash, Issyk-kul, Barskhan, Panjikat, Akhsikat, Beglilig, Almalik, Jul, Yar, Ton, Panchul, and others.