Talk:Turkic settlement of the Tarim Basin

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Islamicisation and Turkicisation

I think the title is a big mess, apparently it is "part of a series on violence against Buddhists" however the first Turkic Khaganate was Buddhist in belief and in this case Turkicisation partly sounds contradictary to the topic. It is not clear what is meant with Turkicisation either. Mixing with local people or wiping them out? The article constantly mentions native Buddhist "Europoid" "Indo European" people in the region. Were they wiped out by the Turkic buddhist kingdom? Then this must be crime by Buddhists. Indo European is not a race nor there is a consistency or integrity among people that could be considered Indo European. And then you get the impression that "mainstream Indo European" native Buddhist idea = good, not harmful; "Turkic" buddhist = not important, bad... Because Turks later convert to Islam and still speak Turkic? what instead if they spoke Tocharian or some Iranian language? Race, nationality, language and religion ideas are all messed up here.

Turkicisation must be a mixing between the "native" and the Turkic speaking "Mongoloid" peoples. The article also mentions the modern Uyghurs being a hybrid as an unnecessary proof of existence of Caucasoid people in the region, again trying to prove an "Indo European" identity which is actually even more messy than Turkic. This would mean that native "Indo Europeans" shifted to a Turkic language, so it is a linguistic change. Language shifts always occur but this is presented as a start of chains of bad things that damaged Buddhism rather than the nationality that spoke their native language, especially combined with "the new" Turks later converting to Islam by force or will. Because the natives were Buddhist apparently and when they shifted to Turkic they were not anymore. So it is the fault of Turkicisation? Sorry I am not a historian or a muslim, but the article is really messy. It is like trying to gather everything up in a topic that contains both "Turk and Islam" in Xinjiang. --Anylai (talk) 06:04, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

@Anylai: I concur. The so called "turkicisation" is practically non-existent in the article and the respective sources. Seems like original research rather. This article is mainly about an "islamicisation", if that's what you call the people taking on Islam as their religion. Akocsg (talk) 15:51, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

The article makes it pretty clear what happened. There were two Turkic Kingdoms which Turkified the area. The Buddhist Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho and the Muslim Kara-Khanid Khanate. The Turkic Muslims later conquered the Turkic Buddhists and Islamified them.Rajmaan (talk) 19:23, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Turkicisation

Probably the most obnoxious word here is "Turkicisation." If a such aterm should exist, then there should be a corresponding article. Every Wikipedian has a bias but this article sole intent seems to be maligning Uyghur nationalism by advocating cultural denialism and demonification.Messiaindarain (talk) 08:46, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

References

Format

The article requires regular cleanup to meet Wikipedia standards. Use of frequent terms such as jihad and "holy war" interchangeably greatly downplay the neutrality of the article. Please see the links of the of how not sound like propaganda article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Messiaindarain (talk • contribs) 08:28, 6 January 2016‎ (UTC)

First of all, the article Turkification already exists, describing the Turkicisation and Islamification of non-Turkish, non-Muslims in Anatolia. Is that defamatory and maligning against Turkey? The term "Turkicisation" was used by Professor James Millward in his book to describe what happened in the Tarim Basin. Secondly, the sources themselves use the term "jihad" and "ghazat". Except in the lede which is a summary of the entire article, every other sentence which uses the word "jihad" and "ghazat" uses it because that word is found in the source cited- Sources: "jihad" "jihad" "jihad" "holy war (ghazat)" By the way, Jiangping Wang, who is a practicing Hui Muslim, used terms like "Jihad" against Uighur Buddhists and and "forcibly converted to Islam" to describe what happened in Xinjiang at the hands of the Kara-Khanids.[1][2] He is a Muslim and was blunt in describing what happened. Likewise, the sources describing the violence and battles were equally blunt and to the point. Wikipedia is not censored and not politically correct. If sources use terms like Jihad then it will be reflected in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rajmaan (talk • contribs) 19:46, 11 January 2016‎ (UTC)

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Article in need of cleanup

So much of this article is useless and/or exessive material that has noting to do with the subject matter. This article should be revamped. Also the numerous translations and picture galleries should be removed because the vast majority of it adds very little to the article, instead making it a congested mess. Inter&anthro (talk) 19:58, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, the last three sections in particular have been copied from other articles and tacked on here. But, as noted by User:Anylai and User:Messiaindarain above, the problems are deeper. There is a general POV slant to the language, illustrated by "came under Chinese rule" vs "invading Turkic Muslims" in the lead. The basic concept of the article, as illustrated by the title, is a conflation of the switch to Turkic language in the 7th to 9th centuries with the later Islamic invasion from the west, seeking to portray them as a single massive crime. There is an {{Infobox military conflict}} for "Turkification of the Tarim Basin", when it was nothing of the sort. It speaks of "extinction of Indo-European peoples in the Tarim Basin", when what actually happened was that their languages became extinct as they switched to the Turkic language over many generations. The Uyghurs are said to be Buddhist when they moved to the Tarim, but at that time they were Manichean. And so on. Kanguole 00:47, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

The Buddhist Sakas spoke an Indo-European Iranic language and were Turkified by the Turkic Muslim Kara-Khanid conquest in thre 10th-11th centuries. They did not switch to Turkic during the 7th-9th centuries. The rule of Manichean/Buddhist Uyghur over Tocharians is a different event and its made clear by the separate sections they are found in. The Turkic Muslims did their own Turkification which is entirely separate from the Manichean/Buddhist Uyghurs Turkification. Tocharians were not the only Indo-Europeans in the Tarim Basin. I moved the infobox to the section on the Turkic Muslims. And the Turkic Muslim conquest was the last event in the Turkification of the Tarim Basin as made clear by the Professor James Millward reference which calls it a "watershed" event. The Buddhist Uyghurs Turkified the Tocharians in the eastern Tarim, while the Turkic Muslims finished it with their conquest of Khotan and both Turkified and Islamified the remaining Indo-European Saka Buddhists. The Turkic Muslims then declared Ghazat against the Turkic Buddhists and conquered them.Rajmaan (talk) 02:04, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Millward's Eurasian Crossroads, which you mention above, presents a completely different picture of the spread of Turkic language (and the Uyghurs' move from Manichaeism to Buddhism):

• "centuries of intermarriage with local peoples of eastern Iranian stock" (p43)
• "The Uyghur state initially resembled the paradigmatic form we have already noted in Xinjiang's history: a Turko-Mongolian nomadic power ruling Indo-European oasis agriculturalists indirectly from across the Tianshan. Yet the Uyghurs reached south far enough to maintain an administrative capital (Qocho) in the Turfan Basin. Over time, moreover, the populations and cultures of nomad ruler and oasis ruled blended; religious, political and cultural influences from Soghdia, India and China were incorporated as well." (p48)
• "Both Qocho Uyghur and Qarakhanid regimes were established by outside conquest elites who ruled over and intermarried with a local population with its Tokhanan, Iranian, possibly Indian and, in Qocho, Chinese elements." (p53)

This also implies that it is inappropriate to apply simplistic ethnic labels like Turk to the resulting populations, a point Millward makes several times. Kanguole 12:19, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't see what is different. I said that the Kara-Khanid Muslim Turks invaded the Saka Kingdom of Khotan. How does that conflict with them being "conquest elites"? A conquest elite is a foreign people who invaded and now rule over the locals. The Qarakhanid conquest of the Sakas was the watershed event in Turkicising the area. See Turkification for how they dealt with it.Rajmaan (talk) 16:08, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Millward's description of the populations and cultures of the conquest elite and the local people blending through centuries of interaction and intermarriage presents a very different picture from this article's "extincation (sic) of the Tocharians", the casting of "Turkicising" as a military event, saying "the area was subjected to Turkification", or that one group "Turkified" another. Kanguole 20:02, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

The Uyghur rule over Tocharians is not presented as overly violent. It says Turkic immigrants from the collapsing Uyghur Khaganate of modern-day Mongolia began to absorb the Tocharians to form the modern-day Uyghur ethnic group Extinction does not mean a violent assimilation. See Phrygians. Extinction means that the identity and language ceased to exist. The (sourced) passages on violence deal with the Kara-Khanids conquest of the Sakas and its made very clear that it was a military conquest and that they proceeded to attack the Uyghur Buddhists as well. And later the Chagatais finished the Islamification by conquering all the Uyghur Buddhists. Uyghur rule over Tocharians and Qara khanid rule over Sakas are each explained in seperate sections which elaborates what exactly happened in each case.Rajmaan (talk) 22:27, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 April 2016

2607:FE50:0:810C:2DE6:3A70:C48B:89FB (talk) 15:45, 24 April 2016 (UTC) This article needs more objective wording and more nuanced sources The logic of this article is contradictory, and indicates a derogatory bias and/or intention to degrade another group of people in this case Uighurs and Turkic Muslims — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FE50:0:810C:6D91:7661:9211:4B5 (talk) 17:12, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

The Tazkirahs written by Turkic Muslims on the wars, celebrate the conquest against the Buddhists and describe them in all gory detail. So Turkic Muslim sources are degrading Turkic Muslims? Kashghari's poem uses name calling, religious abuse and insults, Tazkiratu'l-Bughra calls the Buddhists infidels and celebrates the conquest and Taẕkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams celebrates the fighting and conquest of the Buddhists. All written by Turkic Muslims. Modern day locals visit and pray at the shrines of those who fought against the Buddhists. In addition, the secondary sources use terms like "jihad" to describe the conflict. Was Kashgari trying to degrade his own people? Is Turkification, Martyrs of Otranto, and Ottoman wars in Europe degrading to Turkey? Martyrs of Otranto is about Turkish Muslims executing Italian Catholics for refusing to change religion. Getting offended about it will do nothing. Is Spanish conquest of the Americas degrading to Spain? If a Spanish person felt offended by A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies it would not be removed. Modern day Turkish Muslims still celebrate the the Turkish conquest of Constantinople and even made a movie about it- Fetih 1453. What is offensive then?Rajmaan (talk) 17:46, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. --allthefoxes ^(Talk) 03:30, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Not done: We need more information before we can do anything. KgosarMyth (talk) 03:43, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Poor quality copyvio

I have suppressed a bulky blatant mechanical copyvio of very large parts of [3], with all the misprints (such as "Extbact" or "EXTEAT" or "ExTBACT" for "Extract") and numerous parasitical characters. Obviously, and once again, User: Rajmaan hasn't even read any part of the whole thing before stapling it to the article. Sapphorain (talk) 01:32, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Sapphorain Public domain material is not copyvio. Look at the date of the source. It was published in 1877 and its text is not in copyright anymore. I read the source material in its scanned form where there weren't any errors. The mechanical errors in the writing were due to Optical character recognition in the plain text form. Optical character recognition is not 100% accurate. It makes some mistakes in hard to read symbols and due to diacritics in the text such as á.Rajmaan (talk) 02:59, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Rajmaan So you read the thing elsewhere. So it should not be called copyvio. So what? This is ridiculous. You don't seem to be aware that you are contributing to an encyclopedia, not to some blog. The question is not whether you are allowed by copyright law to reproduce mechanically a whole book in an article, but whether you should actually do it. First, if you cite verbatim from a book, you are supposed to indicate it clearly, with quotation marks, and provide the precise pagination. Second, the citations should be of reasonable length: a single citation is not supposed to contain 17'000 characters! And finally, misprints should be corrected: it is not sufficient just to explain why they are here. This is sloppy. Sapphorain (talk) 08:59, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Writings of Mahmud al-Kashgari

I am guessing I stepped into a very controversial article, but as a simple article reader I really wonder why there is need for the numerous non-English translations of the writings/poems of Mahmud al-Kashgari. They add nothing to the article, take up lots of space and most importantly on an English language article, one may assume them to be simply unreadable to the target audience. 84.87.204.78 (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. It is problematic to use this primary source at all, let alone one with all those non-English versions. Kanguole 14:41, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Islamification, Islamization, Islamicisation

Is it really necessary to use three different words for the same thing (in one article)? Seraphim System ^(talk) 03:42, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

 Fixed. Used Islamization variant. --MarioGom (talk) 18:02, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

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Page created by sock-puppeteer

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Rajmaan/Archive. User:Milktaco = User:Rajmaan. See also Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alexkyoung. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:19, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Xinjiang is wrong and article takes mostly a Chinese POV

Although the topic is worth writing about there are very good sources on the processes of Islamization that are not being cited here. It is pointless to have Turkification in the same article, just as it is to repeatedly refer to Sakas and Tocharians as the Buddhists. Uyghurs were Buddhists, and Nestorians, and Manicheans. As Millward points out, Uyghurs were heavily connected to Sogdians. And finally, Tang China was not anti-Uyghur and allied with Kirghiz in 840. My suggestion is provide article on Islamization of Central Asia, including East Turkistan, Tarim Basin, Mongol Empire, etc. Ethnic history of the region now known as Xinjiang, which includes very different processes in north (Altai) and South (Tarim) should be put into relevant geographically identified articles. Nlight2 (talk) 08:46, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree that it is anachronistic to apply the 18th-century concept of Xinjiang to events that occurred centuries earlier, and that it would make sense to split the article between the different areas. Kanguole 09:32, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it is entirely anachronistic, Xinjiang simply refers to an area, and it is possible to look at the history in that area, and in this case, as a sub-topic of History of Xinjiang. For example, you can look at Buddhism in Afghanistan even though Buddhism was only significant in Afghanistan before the country came into existence. The title can be simply changed to "Islamization and Turkification in Xinjiang". I also would not object to an article Sinicization of Xinjiang that may cover current events as well as events before Xinjiang was created.

The main issue I see with the current article is the pushing of POV by the person who created the article (Rajmaan) who has been a problematic editor (he may well still be hiding somewhere under a different alias), and I strongly suspect that he created this article so as to suggest that Islam and Turkic people are not indigenous to the region. It does not necessarily make the article wrong, but it does mean it needs cleaning up to comply with Wikipedia's neutrality policy. It also means that it may be worth looking at other possibilities to see if the issues can be examined in a better way, maybe Islam in Xinjiang, Islamization of the Tarim Basin, etc. and in that I would agree with Nlight2. I should note that the association of Uyghurs with Sogdians dated back to the Uyghur Khaganate, which was in Mongolia and the Uyghurs were not in the Turfan area in significant numbers until after the destruction of the Khaganate. Hzh (talk) 14:27, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

insufficient English level should not be allowed here. What does it mean "Xinjiang is wrong"?? Xinjiang is a region, it is impossible to be wrong or right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.233.60.87 (talk • contribs) 16:37, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 23 June 2021

Islamization and Turkification of Xinjiang → Turkic Conquest of the Tarim Basin – I believe it is highly important to change the title article of this article. 'Turkification of Xinjiang' appears on search engines. The article, as currently structured, lends to the interpretation that Xinjiang is a historical territory of China that was a victim of cultural genocide and forced conversions (especially the words Turkification & Islamization). This is highly misleading since (1) Xinjiang is modern geographic entity, (2) many historians believe it was a process of cultural assimilation, and (3) Turkish tribes only converted to Islam after the conquest. While the rest of the article is in desperate needs of changes, it is most important to change this title to avoid the title from coloring readings of the article and remove its appearance from search engines. This is especially important given the current Uyghur genocide. I believe a title like 'Turkic conquest of the Tarim Basin' appropriately captures existing content in good faith with a more neutral position. Toomuchcuriosity (talk) 14:03, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Your point (1) argues for a split of the article between the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria. I agree that that would avoid anachronistically projecting the current province back into history. Then again, the Dzungaria part is about the Qing conquest and covers the same ground as Dzungar genocide, so it could be merged there. Point (2) rather argues against "conquest", though, but "Turkification" is ugly. Also, Islam (with a negative slant) is a major focus of the current content. Kanguole 14:49, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

As you properly noted, it might be better to merge the discussion of Uyghur migration following the Dzungar genocide into the article on the Dzungar genocide. I believe it is outside of the scope of this article since the rest of the content is pre-Modern history and neatly fits into categories like "the migration of Turkic-speaking peoples in the Eurasian steppe" and "Islamization". On your note about Islamization, you are correct that "Islam" plays a critical role in much of the article. However, I would argue that it is not essential to the article since Islamization better describes a sociological process (there is no denying political influence, but it is still fundamentally sociological). I only see two discussions where the term "Islamization" is of relevance: (1) discussion of the Karakhanid conquest on Khotan and (2) the Chagatai attack on Turfan. Regarding the Karakhanic conquest, while the article extensively discusses conquests, jihad, and religious discrimination that came from the conquest, it does not describe the process of the native population converting. Moreover, one source the article mentions makes it absolutely clear that the influence of Karakhanid policy on the native population is unknown. The information on the Chagatai attack is not enough to merit the inclusion of "Islamization" in the title since rest of the article mostly discusses conquests and not the sociological process of religious conversion. For these reasons, I do not believe "Islamization" to be a necessary part of the title.Toomuchcuriosity (talk) 16:23, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Turkification should be kept because it's an accurate term to describe what happened; the migration and settler colonization of the Tarim Basin by outsiders (Turkics). Turks are historically not the indigenous population of the region, the Sogdians and Tocharians (Indo-Europeans) are, and the turkic invasions and colonization led to those indigenous groups' extinction and replacement with modern Uyghurs. It also keeps the article in line with other examples of Turkification that happened in a similar way, such as in Anatolia and in Iran. --Qahramani44 (talk) 16:45, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

There are only two English articles on Turkification, this one and the one describing the term. It may be best to include a section on the migration to the Tarim Basin in the Turkification artcile until a more robust series of articles is created. Additionally, I would argue that Turkification is an imperfect term since it has multiple valences. For some people it brings to mind modern Turkish nationalism; for others, the straightforward definition of becoming more "Turkic". Using the term to describe pre-Modern history can be problematic since we know that many Turkic groups adopted the languages and cultures of other people... for instance, Persian become the court language of many polities (see Persianate society) and Tengriism isn't exactly around these days. Regardless, Turkification is a socio-political process. There is nothing in the article that describes the process of assimilating the native population (forcibly or not). The application of the term Turkification is something that should be used in the context of citing a historian or something left to the reader to infer, but I do not believe it is not our place to make these claims. Toomuchcuriosity (talk) 17:16, 23 June 2021 (UTC)