Karluk

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

Tong Yabgu’s apparent lack of concern for his own nomadic subjects caused revolts. The revolt of the Karluks about 627 was one of them.^[1] The Kül Tegin inscription records events in Kül Tegin’s twenty-seventh year. The Karluk people, who were still going about freely, became the enemy of the eastern Göktürks. The Göktürks fought them at Tamag Ïduq Bash, killed them and took them.^[2] The Uyghurs, onetime allies of the Karluks, were now the possessors of the Göktürk khaganate. They pushed the Karluks out of their Inner Asian abode. As a result, the Karluks migrated to the lands of the Ten Arrows about 745.^[1] In the words of the Moyun Chur inscription, all of them who remained alive came to the Türgesh.^[1] The Karluks became the most important Turkic military grouping in the western Göktürk lands.^[1] They decided the battle on the Talas in late July 751, when they defected from their Tang allies to the Arabs.^[1] By 766 the Karluks were complete masters of the west. They took possession of the capital Suyab, the Ordukent of the Göktürks, which is Aq Beshim in the Chu valley.^[1] The Karluk hold on the west lasted from 766 to about 800. At the beginning of the ninth century the Uyghurs were subjugating the Karluks north of Transoxiana.^[3]

The Karluk country lay where Sogdian settlement had reached. The Hudud al-Alam gives Sogdian names in -kath to some of the Karluk villages.^[4] Qayaligh, their old capital south-east of Lake Balkhash, was still a great market when William of Rubruck passed it in 1253.^[5] The Karluks, the Yaghma and the Tukhsi were among the tribes west of the Tianshan that sold slaves into the Samanid lands. The federation of these tribes became the Karakhanid state.^[6]