ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the origins and history of the nomadic and semi-nomadic Turkic peoples, who appeared in South Siberia, the central and western steppes, the Central Asian oases, and the Volga-Kama region: the Qirghiz, the Turkic or Turkicized people of the upper Yenisei region who destroyed the Uyghur qaghanate in the mid-ninth century; the Khazars, who became the dominant power in the Black Sea and Caspian steppes in the eighth century and whose ruling elite converted to Judaism; the Qarakhanids and the Bulghars, who were the first Turkic peoples who converted to Islam; the Qipchaqs, the tribal confederation that dominated the Kazakh and Black Sea steppes (the Qipchaq Steppe) from the mid-eleventh century to the early thirteenth century CE.
