6.  China



China was one of those countries which were sent  invitation by the founder of Islam himself to embrace Islam. This invitation had also been sent to three other kings; Zoroastrian Persia, Christian Byzantine and Hindu king of Kerala in India. “Embrace Islam or Pay the Jiziya or face a Muslim invasion.”
The Chinese emperor did not quite understand the meaning of the ultimatum sent in the year 629 by Mohammed and thought that these were messengers from a faraway land, bringing a spiritual message and welcomed them honourably. But the Chinese understood the meaning of the letter couple of decades later, when in the year 651 A.D.; they had to march to the borders of their empire in Western China to unsuccessfully repel an Arab Muslim invasion launched from Persia. This was followed by a century of skirmishes between the Muslims and the Chinese which culminated in the major war between the two forces at the battle of the Talas River in 751 A.D.
China is today a Communist nation that is officially atheist. But the majority of Chinese population believes in Buddhism even if not practicing. When the Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed by the Taliban, it was the Chinese who immediately began recreating two lifesize replicas of these gigantic Buddhas inside China. They selected a massive rock face of a hillside and set about sculpting massive images of the Buddha which would keep alive the memory of the Bamiyan Buddhas which the Taliban had destroyed. That today China is not Muslim is due to the largely forgotten struggle waged by the Chinese kings against the Muslim Jihadis who began forays in to Western China from the 7th century onwards. After the defeat of the Zoroastrian Sassanid empire of Iran, the Arab Muslim armies reached the borders of Chinese T‘ang empire in the year 651. The Westernmost province of the T’ang empire which bordered the Sassanid empire was inhabited and governed by the Turko-Sino-Mongoloid clans like the Qarluqs and Seljuqs
Initially Muslim Arabs pushed inside china through early skirmishes but later Chinese regained the land back. They recovered many of the crucial lands they had previously lost to the initial Muslim Arab forays from Persia in to the Central Asian provinces of the Chinese Empire and had stabilized the Western frontier with the Islamic Caliphate. The Chinese also secured trade routes through central Asia and contained threats from the Turkic Khitan and Hsitrobes. In the late 740s, Chinese troops claimed sovereignty over Balkh and Merv that had been lost to the Muslim Arabs a few decades earlier. But their string of victorious campaigns could not last forever, as China discovered at Talas River in 751. Islam's widespread aggression through Persia and Central Asia came into direct conflict with China's westward re-conquest through Central Asia. This led to fierce Battle at Talas River, the only major battle between Arab Muslim forces and the army of the Chinese Empire.
The Chinese troops were led by Kao Hsien-chih, who had been successful in battles in Gilgit and in the Ferghana region. The Muslims were led by Ziyad ibn Salih, who was deputy to Abu Muslim (a Persian convert to Islam), with a band of 40,000 strong jihadi army. Muslims from all places came to China to wage a Jihad against the Chinese. Muslim army was deadly motivated for they believed that they will attain Heaven for laying down life in the cause of Islam and earn slaves and property if they survive. The Chinese army was 1,00,000 strong  with a strong cavalry. Arab army marched from the south towards Talas River and the Chinese general Kao (of Korean origin) marched towards Aulie-Ata on the Talas River.
On 10th July, 751 A.D. the Arab and Chinese armies took to the field in Aulie-Ata on the backs of the Talas River. The Chinese cavalry seemed to initially overwhelm the Arab cavalry, but the Arabs had worked out a deal with one of the many Turkish contingents of the Chinese army viz., the Qarluq Turks, by promising them wealth and freedom in return for embracing Islam and betraying their Chinese masters.
The Qarluqs who held a grudge against the Chinese for having reduced them to vassalage, viewed this as an opportunity to throw off the Chinese yoke by using the Arabs and had planned to later throwing off the Arab Islamic yoke as well and regaining their freedom from both the Chinese and the Arabs. Accordingly, the Qarluq archers surrounded the general of the Chinese army Kao and shot him down. Now the Arabs followed their heinous practice of sticking the severed head of an enemy leader and parading it before the enemy army.
The Chinese not being used to such grisly war tactics, fell into confusion and disarray, not knowing who had betrayed them and their General Kao. They broke ranks and fell into confusion, shaking the Chinese centre, which was rapidly assaulted by the Arab heavy cavalry and destroyed. Thus due to Muslim subterfuge and savagery, the infallible Chinese war machine gave way under combined assault of the Arabs and the traitor Qarluqs and the Chinese faced a heavy rout. From behind, the treacherous Qarluqs fell upon the Chinese supply and baggage trains and looted all they could and receded back into the steppe.
The Chinese lost the Battle of the Talas River decisively and the Arabs rounded up tens of thousands of Chinese prisoners and their non-Qarluq Turkish allies and took them to Samarkand from where Abu Muslim sent them to Baghdad and Damascus to be sold as slaves each worth a dirham. Abu Muslim was originally a Zoroastrian named Behzadan who had converted to Islam and had assumed the name Abu Muslim after his conversion. One Chinese survivor of the Talas campaign mentioned, being kept as cattle in the Arab prison camps. More importantly the Arabs forced the Turkish and Chinese prisoners to teach them the art of making siege trains and catapult machines, which later the Islamized Turks were to use successfully in their attacks on the Byzantine cities.
The Arab attack on China affected Chinese history in three ways in the forgotten past.
The first fallout of the battle of Talas River was loss of the westernmost provinces of the Chinese empire in the 8th century. In fact Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan were once Chinese provinces of the T’ang empire up to 751 A.D. These provinces were overwhelmingly Buddhist, like the rest of China. Their Buddhist character was lost and the bulk of the population were slaughtered or enslaved and the rest forcibly converted to Islam.
The second fall out was Islamization of Turks. Qarluq tribe accepted Islam to break away from China. It was a ploy to achieve independence but they could not break away from Islam and Arab. Subsequently Qurluk Turks were absorbed in Muslim Caliphate. Thereafter, Qurluq Turks carried jihad against other Turks and were instrumental in defeating, large scale killing, enslaving and ultimately converting other Turk tribes. Slowly most Turks of central Asia were converted to Islam. Subsequent to Mongol attack and destruction of Islamic Centre Bagdad in 13th century, Turks took over rein of Caliphate as well as Muslim leadership.
But the most significant fallout of the defeat at the battle of the Talas River was the arousal of the Sino-Mongol anger against the Muslims. The gradual bitterness that was planted among the Mongoloid peoples (Turks, Mongols and Chinese), since the first Muslim attacks on Turkish lands of Fergana and Samarkand from the middle of the seventh century and which were taken to the border of China proper in 751 A.D. at the Battle of the Talas River, provoked a violent backlash of the Mongols against the Muslims.

After the victory at the Talas River, the Muslims faced increasing resistance from the Chinese and their Turko-Mongol allies. So the Muslims decided to concentrate on consolidating their position in Central Asia and conquering Byzantine Empire. Hence they stopped eastward invasion into China proper. This decision of the Arabs in 751 A.D. saved China from Islamization; even though people of border areas of China partly converted to Islam due to ethnic relation with Turks. Among them Uyghurs and Hui Chinese are important. Slowly bitterness against Muslims changed into animosity against the Muslims which resulted in Mongol attack on Islamic world in 1200 A.D. onward, culminated in the sack and destruction of Baghdad in 1258 A.D., by Hulagu Khan, the leader of the Mongols. Incidentally, Kublai Khan, the emperor of China who is mentioned by Marco Polo was a relative of Hulagu Khan and Chengiz Khan.


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