Lecture 9: 751 Talas & 1192 Tarain—Islam into Asia

751 Talas & 1192 Tarain—Islam into Asia.........................................

Lecture 9

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ports fans and military history enthusiasts share an obsession for

arguing about the outcome of hypothetical confrontations between

opponents from different times or places. For military history buffs,

these arguments often focus on such questions as: What would have

happened if an ancient Chinese army had fought Alexander’s Macedonians?

One major battle was actually fought between a Chinese army and a western

one—the Battle of the Talas River in 751 A.D., which matched an army of

the Tang dynasty against an Arabic army of the Abbasid caliphate. The Battle

of Tarain was another interesting clash of widely differing civilizations and

empires—in this case, a 12th-century invasion of Hindu Rajput India by a

Turkish Islamic army.

The Tang Dynasty

x The Tang dynasty constituted one of China’s golden ages. From the

early 7th century and for the next 300 years, the Tang ruled from

their capital city of Chang’an (modern Xi’an), which became a great

cultural metropolis, larger and more technologically sophisticated

than its European counterparts.

o By the early 700s, Chang’an had a population approaching

a million and may have been the largest city in the world at

that point.

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of the Tang. As the terminus of the Silk Road, it was a node

of trade in whose vast markets goods from east and west were

bought and sold.

x The Tang pursued an aggressive expansionist policy, and China’s

borders stretched west into central Asia and south into Vietnam.

Along the Silk Road, they had established control over the

Tarim Basin.