Battles & Wars › Medieval wars › Early Muslim conquests
Battle of Talas
July 751· Battle· Asia & Pacific
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
Abbasid Arab forces and Turkic allies defeated a Tang Chinese army near the Talas River in Central Asia in July 751.
See it on the Battles & Wars map →What happened
Tang China had pushed west into Central Asia just as the new Abbasid Caliphate was pushing east. The Tang general Gao Xianzhi, from a family of the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo, met Abbasid forces under Ziyad ibn Salih near the Talas River, on today's Kazakh–Kyrgyz border. After five days of fighting, the Karluk Turks in the Tang army switched sides, and the Chinese were routed. Accounts of army sizes vary widely; Tang losses ran to many thousands.
Why it matters
Four years later the An Lushan Rebellion forced China to pull back from Central Asia, so the region stayed in the Muslim world and Islam spread among Turkic peoples.
How we know
Tang histories; Du Huan, a Chinese officer captured at Talas who returned home in 762 and wrote about the Arab world; and Arab historians such as Ibn al-Athir.
Still debated
A famous story says Chinese prisoners taught papermaking in Samarkand, but paper probably reached the region earlier. The battlefield's exact site is unknown.
Connections (2)
▸Battle of Talas marked the eastern limit of Early Muslim conquestsWell documented
The connection
Arab armies had reached Central Asia by the early 700s, taking Bukhara and Samarkand. Talas checked the Tang Empire's westward push, and after the An Lushan Rebellion broke out in 755 China withdrew its armies. Neither side advanced further, leaving a rough line between the Islamic world and China that lasted for centuries.
When and how
Near the Talas River, in today's Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan, July 751; the new Abbasid Caliphate against the Tang Empire.
How we know
Chinese and Arab histories both record the battle; the Tang withdrawal after 755 is well documented, while the battle's long-term weight is an interpretation.
Debates and open questions
Many historians think the An Lushan Rebellion, not Talas, ended Chinese power in Central Asia, so the battle may be remembered as more decisive than it was.
▸Battle of Talas helped tilt Central Asia toward Islam before the Mongol conquest of Khwarazm (Bukhara and Samarkand)Debated
The connection
At Talas in 751 an Abbasid army beat a Tang Chinese force. China soon withdrew from Central Asia, mostly because of its own An Lushan rebellion, and over the next centuries the region became Muslim. By 1219 its great Muslim cities, Bukhara and Samarkand, were the heart of the Khwarazmian Empire that the Mongols destroyed.
When and how
Talas River, on today's Kyrgyzstan–Kazakhstan border, July 751; Bukhara and Samarkand, in today's Uzbekistan, 1220.
How sure are we?
Both events are well recorded. The link is a long-run one, spanning nearly five centuries of conversion, not a direct cause.
Debates and open questions
How much Talas mattered is debated: many historians think Islam would have spread anyway, and the Tang retreat owed more to the An Lushan rebellion.