The Karluks (also Qarluqs, Qarluks, Karluqs, , Qarluq,Ethno Cultureerral Dictionary, TÜRIK BITIG Para-Mongol: Harluut, Géluólù; customary phonetic: Gelu, Khololo, Khorlo, , Khallokh, Qarluq) were a prominent nomadic Turkic tribal confederacy residing in the regions of Kara-Irtysh (Black Irtysh) and the Tarbagatai Mountains west of the Altay Mountains in Central Asia around the 5th-8th centuries, CE.
The majority of Uzbeks and Uyghurs indeed descend from Karluk tribes, and their languages are part of the Karluk subgroup, making them linguistically and historically distinct from other Turkic peoples like Kazakhs (Kipchak) or Turkmens (Oghuz).
A section of the Hazara people are considered to be descended from the Karluks.
Karluks were known as a coherent ethnic group (with autonomous status within the Göktürk khaganate and an independent one in their subsequent states of the Karluk yabghu, Karakhanids and Qarlughids) before being absorbed in the Chagatai Khanate of the Mongol Empire, which would soon be Karlukified and eventually birthed the future Karluk imperial states like the Timurid Empire, Moghulistan, and Mughal Empire. In an equivalent term, the Karluks could also be traced from the non-Karluk people that chose to be assimilated to their frameworks and became Karluks, as seen with the case of the Khanate of Bukhara under the Kipchak Shaybanids and Janids.
They were also called Uch-Oghuz meaning "Three Oghuz".Gumilev L.N, 1967, Ancient Turks, p. 61-62. Despite the similarity of names, Mahmud al-Kashgari's Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk wrote: "Karluks is a division of nomadic Turks. They are separate from Oghuz, but they are Turkmens like Oghuz."Divanü Lûgat-it-Türk, translation Besim Atalay, Turkish Language Association, , book: 1, page: 473 Ilkhanate's Rashid al-Din Hamadani in his Jami' al-tawarikh mentions Karluks as one of the Oghuz (Turkmen) tribes. İbrahim Kafesoğlu (1958) proposes that Türkmen might be the Karluks' equivalent of the Göktürks' political term Kök Türk.Kafesoğlu, İbrahim. (1958) "Türkmen Adı, Manası ve Mahiyeti," in Jean Deny Armağanı in Eckmann et al. (eds.), pp. 121-133. cited in Golden, Peter B. (1992) An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples. p 347-348
Etymology Nikolai Aristov noted that a tributary of the Charysh was Kerlyk and proposed that the tribal name originated from the toponym with a Turkic meaning of "wild Siberian millet".N. Aristov, "Usuns and Kyrgyzes, or Kara-Kyrgyzes", Bishkek, 2001, pp. 142, 245.
Peter Golden, citing Németh, suggests that qarluğ/qarluq possibly means "snowy"Golden. Peter B. (1992) An Introduction to the History of Turkic People. Wiesbaden. (from Proto-Turkic *qar "snow"snow (Doerfer List no. 262), at Turkic Database compiled by Christopher A. Straughn, PhD, MSLIS). However, Marcel Erdal critiques this as a folk etymology, as "[i]n Old Turkic the suffix +lXk, which is implied in this account, had fourfold vowel harmony, and the +lXk derivate from kar would in Old Turkic be *karlık and not karluk".
Having noted that the majority of Chinese transcriptions 歌邏祿, 歌羅祿, 葛邏祿, 葛羅祿 and 哥邏祿 (all romanized as Geluolu) are trisyllabic, while only one form 葛祿 (Gelu) is disyllabic, Erdal contends that although the latter one transcribed Qarluq, the former four transcribed *Qaraluq, which should be the preferred reading. Thus, Erdal concluded that "the name is likely to be an exonym, formed as an -(O)k derivate from the verb kar-ıl- 'to mingle (intr.)' discussed in Erdal (1991: 662); it would thus have signified 'the mingled ones', presumably because the tribe evolved from the mingling of discrete groups," as already suggested by Doerfer.Erdal, M. (2016) "Helitbär and some other early Turkic names and titles" Turkic Languages 20, 1+2. page 1-2 of 6
History
Early history
The first Chinese reference to the Karluks (644) labels them with a Manichaean attribute: Lion Karluks ("Shi-Geluolu", "shi" stands for Sogdian "lion"). The "lion" () Karluks persisted up to the time of the Mongols.Yu.Zuev, "Early Türks: sketches of history and ideology", Almaty, Dayk-Press, 2002, p. 215,
In the Early Middle Ages, three member tribes of the Göktürk Khaganate formed the Uch-Karluk (Three Karluks) union; initially, the union's leader bore the title Elteber, later elevated to Yabgu."Karluk Djabghu State (756-940)" Qazaqstan Tarihy After the split of the khaganate around 600 into the Western and Eastern khaganates, the Uch-Karluks (三姓葛邏祿), along with Chuyue (處月; later as Shatuo 沙陀), Chumi (處蜜), Gusu (姑蘇), and Beishi (卑失) became subordinate to the Western Turkic Khaganate. After the Göktürks' downfall, the Karluk confederation would later incorporate other Turkic tribes like the Chigils, Tuhsi,Golden, Peter B. (1992). An Introduction to the History of the Turkic People. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. p. 197 Azkishi, Türgesh, Khalajes, Čaruk, Barsqan, as well as Iranian Sogdians and West Asian and Central Asian migrants.
In 630, Ashina Helu, the Ishbara Qaghan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, was captured by the Chinese. His heir apparent, the "lesser Khan" Hubo, escaped to Altai with a major part of the people and 30,000 soldiers. He conquered the Karluks in the west, the Kyrgyz in the north, and took the title Yizhuchebi Khagan. The Karluks allied with the Tiele and their leaders the Uyghurs against the Turkic Khaganate, and participated in enthroning the victorious head of the Uyghurs (Toquz Oghuz). After that, a smaller part of the Karluks joined the Uyghurs and settled in the Bogdo-Ola mountains in Mongolia, the larger part settled in the area between Altai and the eastern Tian Shan.N.Aristov, "Usuns and Kyrgyzes, or Kara-Kyrgyzes", Bishkek, 2001, pp. 246–247
In 650, at the time of their submission to the Chinese, the Karluks had three tribes: Mouluo 謀落/Moula 謀剌 (*Bulaq), Chisi 熾俟 or Suofu 娑匐Ecsedy, Ildikó "A Contribution to the History of Karluks in the T'ang Period" in Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 34, No. 1/3 (1980), p. 29-32 (*Sebeg), and Tashili 踏實力 (*Taşlïq).Golden, Peter B. (1992). An Introduction to the History of the Turkic People. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. p. 197 On paper, the Karluk divisions received Chinese names as Chinese provinces, and their leaders received Chinese state titles. Later, the Karluks spread from the valley of the river Kerlyk along the Irtysh River in the western part of the Altai to beyond the Black Irtysh, Tarbagatai, and towards the Tian Shan.N. Aristov, "Usuns and Kyryzes, or Kara-Kyryzes", Bishkek, 2001, p. 246
By the year 665, the Karluk union was led by a former Uch-Karluk bey with the title Kül-Erkin, now titled "Yabgu" (prince), who had a powerful army. The Karluk vanguard left the Altai region and at the beginning of the 8th century reached the banks of the Amu Darya.W. Barthold, "Four Studies In History Of Central Asia", Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1962, pp. 87–92
They were considered a vassal state by the Tang dynasty after the final conquest of the Transoxania regions by the Chinese in 739. The Karluk rose in rebellion against the Göktürks, then the dominant tribal confederation in the region, in about 745, and established a new tribal confederation with the Uygur and Basmyl tribes. However, Karluks and Basmyls were defeated and forcibly incorporated into the Toquz Oghuz tribal confederation, led by the Uyghur Yaglakar clan.Old Book of Tang vol. 195 "有十一都督，[...] 每一部落一都督。破拔悉密，收一部落，破葛邏祿，收一部落，各置都督五人，統號十一部落" tr. "There are eleven tutuqs. The original Nine-Surnames' Tribes, [...] each tribe having one tutuq. They defeated the Basmyls, whom they incorporated as another tribe; they defeated the Karluks, whom they incorporated as another tribe. They named and appointed, as tutuqs, five men, who united and commanded eleven tribes"Xu Elina-Qian, Historical Development of the Pre-Dynastic Khitan, University of Helsinki, 2005. p. 199 They remained in the Chinese sphere of influence and an active participant in fighting the Muslim expansion into the area, up until their split from the Tang in 751. Chinese intervention in the affairs of Western Turkestan ceased after their defeat at the Battle of Talas in 751 by the Arab general Ziyad ibn Salih. The Arabs dislodged the Karluks from Fergana.
In 766, after they overran the Türgesh in Jetisu, the Karluk tribes formed a Khanate under the rule of a Yabghu, occupied Suyab and transferred their capital there. By that time the bulk of the tribe had left the Altai, and the supremacy in Jetisu passed to the Karluks. Their ruler with the title Yabghu is often mentioned in the Orkhon inscriptions. In Pahlavi texts one of the Karluk rulers of Tocharistan was called Yabbu-Hakan (Yabghu-Khagan).Marquart J., "Provincial Capitals", Rome, 1931, p. 10 The fall of the Western Turkic Kaganate left Jetisu in the possession of Turkic peoples, independent of either Arabs or Chinese.
In 822, the Uyghurs sent four Karluks as tribute to Tang dynasty of China.
Culture
The Karluks were hunters, nomadic herdsmen, and agriculturists. They settled in the countryside and in the cities, which were centered on trading posts along the caravan roads. The Karluks inherited a vast multi-ethnic region, whose diverse population was not much different from its rulers. Jetisu was populated by several tribes: the Azes (mentioned in the Orkhon inscriptions) and the Tuhsi, remnants of the Türgesh;Gumilyov, L. Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom: The trefoil of the Bird's Eye View Ch. 5: The Shattered Silence (961-1100)Pylypchuk, Ya. "Turks and Muslims: From Confrontation to Conversion to Islam (End of VII century - Beginning of XI Century)" in UDK 94 (4): 95 (4). In Ukrainian as well as the Shatuo Turks (沙陀突厥) (lit. "Sandy Slope Turks", i.e. "Desert Turks") of Western Turkic, specifically of Chigil origins,Ouyang Xiu. Xin Wudaishi. [Vol. 4] and the interspersing Sogdian colonies. The southern part of Jetisu was occupied by the Yagma people, who also held Kashgar. In the north and west lived the Kangly. Chigils, who had joined and been a significant division of the Three-Karluks, then detached and resided around Issyk Kul.
The diverse population adhered to a spectrum of religious beliefs. The Karluks and the majority of the Turkic population professed Tengrianism, considered as shamanism and by the Christians and Muslims. The Karluks converted to Nestorian Christianity at the end of the 8th century CE, about 15 years after they established themselves in the Jetisu region. This was the first time the Church of the East received such major sponsorship by an eastern power. Particularly, the Chigils were Christians of the Nestorian denomination. The majority of the Toquz Oghuz, with their khan, were Manicheans, but there were also Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims among them.
The peaceful penetration of Muslim culture through commercial relations played a far more important role in their conversion than Muslim arms. The merchants were followed by missionaries of various creeds, including Nestorian Christians. Many Turkestan towns had Christian churches. The Turks held sacred the Qastek pass mountains, believing to be an abode of the deity. Each creed carried its script, resulting in a variety of used scripts, including Türkic runiform, Sogdian, Syriac, and later the Uygur. The Karluks had adopted and developed the Turkic literary language of Khwarazm, established in Bukhara and Samarkand, which after the Mongol conquest became known as the Chagatai language.
Of all Turkic peoples, the Karluks were most open to the influence of Muslim culture. Yaqubi reported the conversion of the Karluk-yabghu to Islam under Caliph Mahdi (775–785), and by the 10th century, several places to the east of Talas had mosques. Muslim culture had affected the general way of life of the Karluks.W. Barthold, "Four Studies In History Of Central Asia", Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1962, p.91