Tip: It should be noted that whatever religion is believed has nothing to do with the state. A country can have multiple religions, which is also the embodiment of religious and cultural pluralism, and it is unwise and unreasonable not to betray and split the country because of differences in religious beliefs. In the face of the state, religion can only be a religion, and religion cannot be controlled above the state. This is what the Qarakhanid dynasty wants to tell people today.
The Qarakhanids, founded by Islam, were dynasties of northwestern China
Today, when people think of the Qarakhanid dynasty, they probably think of Islam, and indeed, this dynasty was founded on Islam. However, the dynasty was not an Islamic state at the beginning, and similar to the nomadic khanates such as the Turkic Khanate and the Uighur Khanate, they were originally shamans and Zoroastrians, but also some Manichaeans and Buddhists. The first Great Khan to convert to Islam was the third Great Khan, Satuq Bogra Khan.
Influenced by Samanid Muslims, Satuq converted to Islam at an early age and became a devout Muslim. And under its influence, some members of the royal family who believed in islam also converted to Islam. In 915 AD, he seized power by force from his shamanic uncles, with the help of the Ghulam Guards, which he had run for many years, and with the assistance of Samanid Muslims. Subsequently, he proclaimed himself Sultan Satuq Bogra Khan, declared Islam the state religion, and promoted Islam in the country.
After Satuq's death, he was succeeded by his son Moussa (Bayitash) as Arslan Khan, based in Kashgar. Satuq's second son and Musa's younger brother Sulaimanzhi Balasagun. With the help of Sufi clerics, Musa achieved the Islamization of the dynasty. In 960, Musa declared Islam the state religion, and 200,000 Turks joined the religion. Thus began the history of the first Turkic-speaking people, the Islamic dynasty.
However, it should be noted that whatever religion is believed has nothing to do with the state. A country can have multiple religions, which is also the embodiment of religious and cultural pluralism, and it is unwise and unreasonable not to betray and split the country because of differences in religious beliefs. In the face of the state, religion can only be a religion, and religion cannot be controlled above the state. This is what the Qarakhanid dynasty wants to tell people today.
One question is very straightforward: Did the Qarakhanid Dynasty belong to China? Our answer is: Of course it is. There are two reasons: 1. The Qarakhanid Dynasty, also known as the "Black Khan", was a feudal regime established by the Turkic-speaking peoples in the northwestern region of ancient China in present-day Xinjiang and Central Asia. 2. At the height of the Qarakhanid Dynasty, it stretched from Kucha in the east, Lop Nur in the southeast, to the Aral Sea and Khwarazm in the west, to the Amu Darya River in the south, to Lake Balkhash and the Seven Rivers Basin in the north, covering a vast area of contemporary Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, southern Kazakhstan and central and western Xinjiang in China. It was roughly the area under the jurisdiction of the Tang Dynasty's Anxi and Beiting capitals.
That is to say, whether ethnically or geographically, based on these two points alone, the Qarakhanid Dynasty undoubtedly belonged to China. This dynasty not only paid tribute and claimed subjects to the Song Dynasty in southern China, but at the same time, the khans of the dynasty also firmly believed that they were the khans of the Chinese, the regime in northwest China.
2. The Qarakhanids destroyed the Buddhist kingdom of Khotan and paid tribute to the Song Dynasty
Those familiar with history know that it was the Qarakhanid Dynasty who destroyed the Buddhist kingdom of Khotan and fully introduced Islam to present-day Xinjiang. Historically, people called this the Qarakhanid-Khotanese War, that is, the religious war between the Qarakhanid Islamic Dynasty and the Khotanese Buddhist Dynasty that coexisted in Xinjiang in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. After the Qarakhanid dynasty announced its conversion to Islam, its growing national power caused uneasiness in Khotan. Khotan launched a surprise attack on the occasion of the Qarakhanid Dynasty's western conquest of the Persian Samanid Dynasty, thus beginning the war. The war raged on and off for decades, culminating in the fall of Khotan in 1006 AD and the final victory of the Qarakhanids.
However, what we have to say is that this is only caused by religion, and the fight between brothers and brothers is also a struggle within China. The Kingdom of Khotan, located in the Hotan region of present-day southwestern Xinjiang, had important links with the Central Plains Dynasty as early as the Western Han Dynasty. The territory of the prosperous period included the counties and cities of present-day Hotan, Pishan, Moyu, Luopu, Cele, Yutian, and Minfeng, and Duxi City (present-day Hotan Yotegan Site). The inhabitants belong to the Indo-European-speaking Tocharians. The monarchy's surname is Wei Chi. Because of their admiration for the Tang Dynasty, two monarchs changed their surnames to Li, namely Wei Chi Monk Wu Bo (Li Shengtian) and Wei Chi Sula (Li Congde). Therefore, people also call this dynasty the Khotanese Li Dynasty, and the monarch Li shi firmly believed that he was a Chinese and maintained a warm and friendly relationship with the Central Plains Dynasty.
The Qarakhanid Dynasty, too, has always paid tribute to the Song Dynasty. The Qarakhanid Dynasty was at its peak, and in the third year after the defeat of Khotan, it paid tribute to the Song Dynasty. According to volume 490 of the History of the Song Dynasty, in 1009, they sent a general named Rosswin to meet the Emperor of the Song Dynasty and kneel down to play: "The subjects come to the dynasty, and they see the heavens and the sun, and may the saints live long, and the distant people will be the masters." The emperor of the Song Dynasty asked Rosewin if the road was good, how far it was, and how long it would take. Rosswin said: "I have been on the road for a year, and I don't know the number of miles. "Meaning, they walked during the day, slept at night, and walked for a whole year, but it was impossible to say how far it was from the Qarakhanids to the Song Dynasty.
Thereafter, the Qarakhanids carried a large number of treasures to the Song Dynasty roughly once every three years; the Song Dynasty returned them silk and gold and silver several times the price of goods. However, this official trade soon became unsmooth, because at that time Li Deming of Xia Prefecture was already committed to developing westward and capturing the Hexi Corridor. The "History of Song" records that his capture of Ganzhou lasted more than twenty years, and he sent troops many times but could not conquer it, until 1028, when his son Li Yuanhao "pulled it out", and Xia Prefecture finally had the land of Ganzhou. In 1036, Li Yuanhao led his troops to capture Guazhou, Shazhou, and Suzhou to completely control the Hexi Corridor, and the Qarakhanid Dynasty's exchanges with the Song Dynasty had to be changed to Qinghai Province, from the southeast of Lop Nur through the Qaidam Basin through tubo Qingtang City (present-day Xining City, Qinghai) into the territory of the Song Dynasty.
In 1041 it was officially split into east and west. According to the Song records, the Eastern Qarakhanid State not only continued to trade with the Song Dynasty, paying tribute and declaring subjects, but even consulting the Song Dynasty for military actions. Because the Western Xia straddled the middle of the Eastern Qarakhanid State and the Song Dynasty, killing and plundering goods, it caused dissatisfaction in the Eastern Qarakhanid State, and after a long time, it wanted to start a war. In 1093, after Empress Dowager Liang learned of the Eastern Qarakhanids' intention to conquer Western Xia, the Western Xia army waited in a strict position, and the relationship between the two countries was completely destroyed, and it came to the brink of war. Subsequently, the Eastern Qarakhanids attacked the Western Xia-occupied prefectures of Ganzhou, Shazhou, and Suzhou.
In this war, the Eastern Qarakhanid State not only "asked" the emperor of the Song Dynasty, but also got the cooperation of the Song Dynasty, and the "Song HuiHui Draft" records that when the two families fought, the Song Dynasty sent troops to attack Huizhou, which is today's Huining in Gansu, and achieved a small victory, and the officers who led the troops also received a "silver medicine" reward from the imperial court, and the Eastern Qarakhanid Dynasty did not take Dunhuang.
In 1097, the Eastern Qarakhanid State launched a second conquest of Western Xia, and the Song Dynasty did not idle, and also launched an attack on Western Xia, first Jingyuan (east of liupanshan in present-day Gansu and Ningxia, west of the Puhe River), defeated the Western Xia army, and then sent troops from Suide to avenge the annihilation of thousands of Western Xia troops, providing a powerful response for the Eastern Qarakhanid Dynasty. However, this did not cause much loss to the Western Xia, and the Eastern Qarakhanid State captured Dunhuang in this battle, capturing some officers and pawns and the population of the Western Xia Dunhuang garrison, but it was very short-lived, and soon the Western Xia people came back and recaptured Dunhuang. The Eastern Qarakhanid army, which needed to fight against the Western Xia, had to withdraw the same way.
According to historical records, the trade of the Eastern Qarakhanids to the Song Dynasty was mainly frankincense, and one year, they suddenly imported more than 30,000 catties of frankincense worth more than 40,000 yuan into the Song Dynasty, and the Song Dynasty people really could not digest it, so they piled up their warehouses and specially allowed them to purchase tea leaves from the interior duty-free. At this time, before the dynasty was divided, the Qarakhanid emissary "Come to the dynasty, see the heavens and the sun, long live the saints, and be the lord of the distant people", it is clear that there are some meanings that no one can do without anyone.
The main ethnic group of the Qarakhanid ruling class should be the Uighurs, ethnic minorities in northern China
Today, the founding of the Qarakhanid dynasty has been an unsolved historical mystery. For a long time, there have been many opinions in academia. Most of the views of the various schools are mentioned in passing, and only the "sample mill theory", "Ge Lulu said", "The moon theory" and "the westward migration of the Onion Ridge West Uighur theory" have made specific arguments, and the impact is relatively large. But no matter which ethnic group in the middle, they are all ancient ethnic minorities in northern China, and judging by the khans of the Qarakhanid Dynasty and the emissaries they sent to the Song Dynasty, the main ethnic group of their ruling class should be Uighurs. For example, Roswin was a Uighur, and this point is clearly stated in the History of Song: "The king of the Black Khan (Qarakhanid) sent a return to Rosewin and others to pay tribute to all things."
The Uighurs, formerly known as the Uighurs, were the first tribal confederations south of Lake Baikal in the third century BC, and their ancestors were the Huns. During the Tang Dynasty, the leaders of their tribal alliances, with the cooperation of the Tang army, overthrew the Turkic Khaganate and established the Uighur Khaganate in northern Mobei. The Uighur Khan not only accepted the canonization of the Tang Emperor, but also belonged to the Tang Dynasty's Hanhai Governor's Palace, and also had a Tang garrison. After the fall of the Uighur Khaganate, a large number of Uighur talents moved west to present-day Xinjiang and beyond. The "Song Shi Hui Biography" says: "First, the Tang Dynasty followed the marriage of a princess, so the Uighurs called the Zhongchao as an uncle, and every time the Zhongchao gave the edict, he was also known as a nephew." Five generations later, this is the case. The History of Song and the Biography of Khotan goes a step further, saying that the Qarakhanid Khan called the Song Emperor "the great official family of the Han family's uncles."
The Qarakhanid Khans called themselves the "Taohuashi Khan" or "Lord of the East and Qin". The Great Turkic Dictionary explains that Qin consisted of the Taohuashi (Song Dynasty, i.e., song Dynasty), Khitan (Liao Dynasty), and Qarakhanid States. Chinese used to understand the north as black, the Qarakhanid Dynasty is referred to in many historical texts as the "Black Khan Dynasty", and the Qarakhanid Taohuashi Khan is translated in Chinese as the Khan of Northern China. Therefore, we can give the Qarakhanid Dynasty such a definition: in most of the Tang Dynasty's Anxi and Beiting capitals, a divided regime was established by ethnic minorities in northern China. In the face of the magnificent river of history, people have to admit the fact that it is precisely because of the military struggle of those brothers that we have been integrated into an organic whole in the days to come, and only then have we have the vibrant interdependence today and truly become a community of destiny. (Wen | Lusheng)