- 400
- 500
- 600
- 700
- 800
- 900
- 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
The Abbasids took the caliphate in 750 in a revolution that began in Khurasan, the eastern frontier province. They moved its centre from Damascus to Iraq and founded Baghdad in 762. The move put the capital nearer to the Iranian and Turkic east. For the steppe, its consequences were larger than any battle.
The Talas
The first meeting was military. In 751 an Abbasid army and a Tang army met on the Talas river. During the fighting, the Karluk contingent that had come with the Tang changed sides. The Tang force was destroyed. Chinese power never returned west of the Pamirs. Scholars disagree on whether the battle or the An Lushan rebellion four years later was the decisive cause. The article on the battle follows both readings.
What the battle settled on the ground is easier to state than what it settled in principle. On the ground, the middle country between the two empires passed to Turkic powers that answered to neither.
Turks in the caliphate’s armies
The lasting relation was not conquest but recruitment. From the early ninth century the caliphs raised guard regiments of Turkic soldiers bought or taken in the steppe. They settled these regiments at Samarra. Within two generations, the regiments made and unmade caliphs. The Turkic world’s entry into the politics of the Middle East begins here, three centuries before any Turkic dynasty ruled there in its own name.
Islam in the steppe
Islam reached the Turkic peoples from the south. An army from the west did not carry it to them. It spread along the same roads the Sogdian merchants had used, through the cities of Transoxiana that the caliphate now ruled. It took two centuries to reach the rulers of the steppe. That process lies beyond the period of the khaganates. It begins in the century the Abbasids opened.
Relations with other states
Red is war, blue alliance, gold trade. Where several held at once, the line shows what prevailed; alliance and trade can run side by side. Each line rests on an article. Point at a state to see its weightiest relation, select it to see its events. The slider shows what stood in a given year, and Play runs through the years.
Yenisei Kirghiz Khaganate758 to 840
- Trade758 to 840brocade from the Arabs, twenty pieces every three years
Sources
- Tabari
- Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215 (after Jiu Tangshu)
Literature
- Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
- Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
- Étienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders: A History (2005)
- Theodor Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden. Aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari übersetzt und mit ausführlichen Erläuterungen und Ergänzungen versehn (1879)
What links here4
- Customs & Pastimes
- Seating at the Feast
Cite this article
Yavuz, Emre-E. “The Abbasid Caliphate.” Turkic Atlas, revised 20 October 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/polities/abbasid-caliphate/
Last revised: 20 October 2026
