Tong Yabgu‘s apparent lack of concern for his own nomadic subjects caused revolts, and that of the Karluks about 627 was one of them.[1] The Kül Tegin inscription records that in Kül Tegin‘s twenty-seventh year the Karluk people, while they were still going about freely, became the enemy of the eastern Göktürk, who fought them at Tamag Ïduq Bash, killed them and took them.[2] Pushed out of their Inner Asian abode by their onetime allies the Uyghurs, now the possessors of the Göktürk khaganate, the Karluks migrated to the lands of the Ten Arrows about 745, where, in the words of the Moyun Chur inscription, all of them who remained alive came to the Türgesh; they became the most important Turkic military grouping in the western Göktürk lands, decided the battle on the Talas in late July 751 by defecting from their Tang allies to the Arabs, and by 766 were complete masters of the west, taking possession of the capital Suyab, the Ordukent of the Göktürk, which is Aq Beshim in the Chu valley.[1] The Karluk hold on the west lasted from 766 to about 800.
References
- ^ a b Golden 1992
- ^ Kül Tegin inscription
Sources
Literature
- Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
What links here8
- Persons
- Tong Yabgu
- Polities
- Western Göktürk Khaganate
- Places
- Suyab
- Peoples
- Basmïl · Hephthalites · On Oq · Türgesh
Cite this article
Yavuz, Emre-E. “Karluk.” Turkic Atlas, revised 13 September 2026. https://turkicatlas.business-5d4.workers.dev/ethnicities/karluk/
Last revised: 13 September 2026