Have you noticed such a strange phenomenon that many peoples who mainly believe in Islam love to say that they are descendants of Genghis Khan?
However, the mighty Mongol Khan, himself and the khanate he founded, did not convert to Islam and embraced the shamanism of polytheism.
A shamanic ritual full of mysteries
This involves a special concept – the "Turkic Mongols".
Typical examples are the famous Golden Horde, the Babur tribe of Timur descendants who went south to establish the Mughal Dynasty in India, and so on.
Judging from the surviving portraits, Babur's appearance is not "Indian" at all. Moreover, some Mongol characteristics can still be found on his face
In fact, the so-called "Turkic", in addition to the division of ethnic groups and bloodlines, objectively speaking, it is more like a cultural reference and mode of life, generally referring to the collective name of various ethnic groups that mainly believe in Islam and speak Turkic languages.
What is particularly interesting is that according to the latest DNA test results in 2021, Turkey, which has always claimed to be the direct heir of the Turkic peoples, is mainly inhabited by Greek descendants of the conquered Anatolia (Asia Minor), and the blood is quite pure, compared with contemporary Greeks, it can be said that it is "homologous and homogeneous"!
The truth is so embarrassing, it seems that Turkey's feud is itself!
However, turkey's ancestry, although partial to southern Europe, did not prevent them from continuing to carry the banner of Turkism.
The next 16 warriors are the 16 fathers recognized by Turkey, including the descendants of Genghis Khan such as the Golden Horde, the Timurid Empire, and the Mughal Empire
After all, although the blood is "not Turkic enough", Turkey is still "very Turkic" in terms of language, culture and beliefs.
Therefore, for the concept of "Turkic", in addition to blood, it is more of a definition of culture and living customs.
This "Turkicized Mongols", then, is also defined from two aspects: one is blood; The other is faith and lifestyle.
So much so that the five Stans of Central Asia, once ruled by the Mongol Khanates, to the Turks of West Asia, claimed to be descendants of Genghis Khan.
Of course, as I said earlier, in terms of blood, modern Turks have almost no half-hair relationship with Genghis Khan, which has to do with their "pan-Turkic" sentiments— historically, ancient Asians on horseback with swords were all called daddies.
Traditional Turkish dance, as can be seen, with distinct southeastern European elements
Next, let's first smooth out the changes in the bloodline of the Mongols in the Western Expedition.
It can be said that the descendants of Genghis Khan of the Western Expedition integrated and carried forward the "Turkic civilization" in the process of mixing and Islamizing the Central Asian-Middle Eastern peoples.
During that time, the Western Expedition was filled with a large number of non-Mongol members, including the Uighurs, barbarians and other Turkic-speaking peoples. Therefore, the Mongol Western Expedition can also be seen as a process in which the Mongols conquered the world with their Turkic brothers to create "ancestral myths" and shape national consensus.
Much of Central Asia and the Middle East had been Islamized long before the Mongol conquests of the 13th century; Even in parts of Eastern Europe, Islam has a great deal of influence and appeal.
For example, the Khwarazm, which was slaughtered by the Mongols and almost extinct, is an Islamic country with predominantly Persian and Turkic ancestry. They have high noses and deep eyes, with distinct Caucasian characteristics.
The actors in the movie "Genghis Khan" were all found from Xinjiang
The center of Khwarazm's rule was in present-day Uzbekistan
In these conquered areas, the Mongols generally slaughtered cities.
Except for the case of Khwarazm, which was clicked by men and women, young and old, the Mongols treated conquering peoples more often than not by killing all the men they saw and then occupying the local women.
From generation to generation, the East Asian ancestry of the Mongols was diluted, and after reaching the middle of the Golden Horde, about the beginning of the 14th century, the middle and upper-middle rulers of the khanate also appeared obvious Caucasian characteristics, and they were farther and farther away from the old ancestor Genghis Khan in appearance.
For example, we can also see from the portrait left by the great khan of the Golden Horde, Yuejibe Khan (1312-1342), that his old man's family is not very "Mongolian".
It was also during the reign of this month, the Behan, that the Golden Horde completed the process of Islamization.
In The month of The Month of The Bekhan, the capital of the khanate , Berkasale ( near present-day Volgograd , Russia ) established "thirteen mosques for worship and maintained close ties with the Islamic countries of Egypt, Persia, and the Arab Empire."
Similarly, the Wokoutai Khanate and the Chagatai Khanate, also formally embarked on the path of Islamization around the beginning of the 14th century. Moreover, like the Golden Horde, it was promoted from the top down by the Mongol rulers. For example, many decrees were issued to force ordinary Mongolians to convert to Islam, and so on.
However, there are always exceptions to everything.
The acceptance of Islam by the Ilkhanate, the "nemesis" of the Golden Horde, was not so painful.
Hulagu, the founder of the Ilkhanate, was a monarch who was hostile to Islam, respected Christianity, and himself embraced shamanism. He was particularly friendly to Armenians who were good at business.
Hulagu's wife was a devout Christian
Hulagu, however, has an inexplicable hatred for Islam. When he led his army to capture Baghdad, he set fire to the city of Baghdad, the last caliph was "wrapped in a carpet and trampled to death for his horse", and a large number of Islamic documents were burned.
Exactly how many Baghdad civilians Hulagu's Mongol Iron Horse massacred are still unknown. According to a letter Hulagu wrote to King Louis IX of France that year, he claimed to have killed 200,000 people in this "center of the world".
The Ilkhanate persecuted Islamists in the country
But if you look at the map again, you will find that the Ilkhanate is located in the Middle East, where no matter how much the rulers resist, they still cannot escape the influence of Islam.
Moreover, in the administrative system of the Ilkhanate, it was still necessary to continue to appoint local officials, who were basically Muslim, and the foreign shamanic and lamaist culture did not reach the grass-roots level of the khanate. The customs and codes of shamanic traditions are also difficult to be widely recognized by the local people.
So whole, it really feels particularly screwed.
As a result, over the generations, from the third monarch of the Khanate, Thegudier, the Ilkhanate also began to Islamize spontaneously.
The Turkicized lord of the Ilkhanate, Ghazan Khan, was the lord of the Ilkhanate
Moreover, throughout the 13th and 14th centuries, not only did the Mongols of the four khanates take the initiative to "Islamize", but even some Mongolian nobles in the Yuan Dynasty chose to convert to Islam. Kublai Khan's grandson Ananda, for example, is one example.
In general, the process of the western conquest of the Mongols and the descent of the peoples of Central Asia and the Middle East and the conversion to Islam can be regarded as the "Turkification of the Mongols."
The East Slavs, especially the Russians, who had been ruled by the Golden Horde for more than 200 years, were always considered by the Western world to be pure-blood whites.
Stills from the Russian drama "Sophia". Russian costumes from the time of the Rurik dynasty, with distinctly Mongolian overtones
Historically, there has always been a proverb in the West that "Scratch a Russian and find a Tatar" – "Peel off the skin of a Russian and you will see the blood of the Tartars under the skin."
This Tatar refers to the descendants of this part of the Golden Horde after the fall of the Khanate of the "Turkic Mongols". However, after modern times, their appearance is roughly the same as that of white people, and the blood left by the old Ancestors of Mongolia has basically been diluted to insignificant.
Prince Yusupov, who killed the demon monk Rasputin, is a descendant of the Tatars, and although the prince wears Tatar costumes, his appearance and temperament are not that taste
Speaking of which, one might ask, what was the irresistible charm of Islam at that time? Why did the descendants of the Golden Family voluntarily become Muslims?
In that year, the Mongols of the Western Expedition left the steppes where they had lived for generations, and their nomadic civilization intersected with the conquered agricultural civilizations of Central Asia, the Middle East (such as the traditional agricultural areas of the Tigris River and the Euphrates River Basin in Iraq) and some eastern European farming civilizations; Islam, then, is clearly "better used" for the city-state economy in the form of settlement.
Objectively speaking, as the latest world religion to be born, at that stage, Islam did have a clearly advanced nature.
Islam advocates that before God, all men are equal, and that anyone can be the elect of Allah, as long as you believe in Him.
Moreover, after God created the world, he gave actual control to mankind. Then the value of human beings is fully affirmed, and it is more conducive to the ruler to control everything in secular society (such as the integration of church and state) through the mouth of God.
Therefore, such a model not only helps the lower classes of people to get rid of discrimination; For rulers, with the help of Islam's "exclusivity" and "monotheistic nature", it is also ideal to form a sense of national identity and maintain their ruling authority.
What's more, as early as the beginning of the rise of the Mongols, they were very tolerant of their beliefs, and the religious beliefs in the Western Expedition were various ~ Lamaism, shamanism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, islam are all involved; At the same time, the Mongols' requirements for national "pure blood" are not strict.
Thus, with the passage of time, there was a "Turkification" of the Mongols' bloodline and beliefs, until centuries later, the Turkic peoples with high noses and deep eyes and the main body of Islam still insisted that they were descendants of Genghis Khan.
But in fact, it is not so much that they are descendants of Genghis Khan, but rather that the Mongols who were killed in the early years were integrated and diluted by the old ancestors of these peoples.