Spread of Islam among Central Asian Turks

[paarsurrey]

The Spread of Islam among Central Asian Turks by Sufi Masters

The Sufi movement in Islam, emphasizing personal experience of divine reality, arose during the second half of the ninth century through the teachings of Abu’l Qasim al-Junayd (d. 910) in Iraq and Abu Yazid Tayfur al-Bistami (d. 874) in Khorasan, northeastern Iran. Wandering masters started to spread it through Central Asia from the eleventh century, during the Qarakhanid, Ghaznavid, and Seljuk periods.

Their Sufi techniques filled a spiritual need left by the suppression of the Shiite and Ismaili sects, particularly after the Seljuq conquest of Baghdad in 1055.

The key figure to bring Sufism to the Turkic nomadic tribes was Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ali al-Yasavi (d. 1166). The popularity of the Yasaviyya order, traced from him, was due to his incorporation of traditional Turkic cultural and, specifically, shamanic elements into Islam. He wore Turkic dress, allowed the religious use of Turkic languages outside of the context of prayer, employed cattle sacrifice in certain rituals, and permitted women to participate in sessions to attain spiritual ecstasy.

The Sufi custom of building spiritual guesthouses (khanaqah) around religious masters, open to all travelers, and with not only individual spiritual seekers wandering from one to another, but even the entire community of such a house, including the master, wandering together on spiritual journeys for months on end, appealed greatly to the Turkic nomad tradition.

Through such means, Islam gained ever-increasing popularity among the Turkic masses. The rapid growth of Islam in Central Asia at this time, then, was not due to conversion by the sword, but by several great masters’ skillful adaptation of the religion to Turkic culture.

This expansion of Islam did not occur at the expense of Buddhism and was not met with a hostile Buddhist reaction. In fact, it occurred primarily under a Buddhist rule, that of the Qaraqitans, and received their support.

berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/e-books/unpublished_manuscripts/historical_interaction/pt3/history_cultures_19.html
The Berzin Archives
The Buddhist Archives of Dr. Alexander Berzin

 

[cathopologist]

This expansion of Islam did not occur at the expense of Buddhism and was not met with a hostile Buddhist reaction. In fact, it occurred primarily under a Buddhist rule, that of the Qaraqitans, and received their support.

This is because there was nothing else left for the Buddhists to even react to.
Invasion of Magadha and destruction of the great Buddhist shrines at Nalanda

His (Timur’s) campaign was politically pretexted that the Muslim Delhi Sultanate was too tolerant toward its Hindu subjects, but that could not mask the real reason being to amass the wealth of the Delhi Sultanate.Timur crossed the Indus River at Attock (now Pakistan) on September 24. The capture of towns and villages was often followed by the looting, massacre of their inhabitants and raping of their women, as well as pillaging to support his massive army. Timur wrote many times in his memoirs of his specific disdain for the ‘idolatrous’ Hindus, although he also waged war against Muslim Indians during his campaign.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur#Indian_Campaign

The Ladakh Buddhist Association has said: "There is a deliberate and organised design to convert Kargil’s Buddhists to Islam. In the last four years, about 50 girls and married women with children were taken and converted from village Wakha alone. If this continues unchecked, we fear that Buddhists will be wiped out from Kargil in the next two decades or so. Anyone objecting to such allurement and conversions is harassed."