the ‘inside’ other 97
at home thus affording them to concentrate their power and attention
to military training and mobile warfare.^39
But such an ambivalent attitude toward both “female” and seden-
tary otherness did not hinder nomads or semi-nomads to search for
higher prestige through dynastic marriages with Chinese, Persians, or
Romans. Ever since 557 A.D. Ishtemi khagan made an alliance with
the Sassanian shahin-shah Khosro I Anushirvan who took Ishtemi’s
daughter for his wife. Soon after that the Turkic-Persian coalition
launched a campaign against the Ephtalites in Bactria/Tokharistan
and within a period of seven to eight months managed to crush them
totally thus establishing a common, Turko-Persian border along Amu-
Darya River.^40 The nephew of Ishtemi khagan, Muqan, who was run-
ning the eastern part of the First Turkic khaganate between 553 and
572 A.D., married his daughter to the Chinese emperor Wu-ti in 568
A.D. Lots of Turks from the entourage of the new Chinese empress
moved to the Chinese capital city of Chang’an and settled there; soon
they became well informed about many of the Chinese manners and
habits and thus adopted them, and China’s culture in general,^41 that is
China’s otherness. It was Tobo/Taspar/Tatpar khagan (572–581) who,
in 579/580 A.D., launched negotiations for peace and a matrimonial
alliance with China. Again, there were not just tricks, which both sides
played on each other, but also (and again characteristic for the early
Turks) nomadic raids across the borders of China. Only the khagan’s
death in 581 A.D. stopped the contacts between Chinese and Turks.^42
But the next khagan, Ishbara (581–587), had a Chinese bride for his
wife (Turk. “qatun”/“khatun”), who was, not surprisingly again, a
princess.^43
(^39) See more in, Kliashtornyi and Sultanov 2000, 147–150. According to some Arab
sources, in Khazaria slaves might be only heathen people for it was strictly forbidden
for Jews, Christians, or Muslims to make their slaves people from “the religions of
the Scriptures”. For this see, Ludwig 1982, 206–207; Golden 2004, 307. For slaves and
free people there is information in the “Responsa” of Pope Nicolas I to the questions
of the Bulgar ruler Boris-Michael in mid-860s (N N 20 and 21), where it is explicitly
recommended, exactly in harmony with the Christian morale, that a master should
forgive his runaway slave, had the latter been caught.
(^40) Christian 1998, 252.
(^41) Christian 1998, 251. For the relations between China and the Turks and the
impact of the marriages between the two courts for the future developments, e.g. as a
result of these relations, see Jagchid 1977, 183, 191, 201–202. Especially for the mar-
riage under study here see more in, Jagchid and Symons 1989, 146. 42
Bichurin 1950, 234; Jagchid and Symons 1989, 147.
(^43) Bichurin 1950, 235, 238; Jagchid and Symons 1989, 147–150.