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| | Saunders. History of Medieval Islam |
 | | The Turkish family of nations first emerged into the light of history in the mid-sixth century, when they built up a short-lived nomad empire in the heart of Asia, the steppes which have ever since borne the name Turkestan, the land of the Turks. |
 | | When it broke in pieces, in the manner of such confederacies, fragments of the Turkish race, under a bewildering variety of names, were scattered over a vast area, from the Uighurs, who once dwelt in Mongolia, to the Polovtsians of the Russian steppes, familiar to us from Borodin's opera Pnnce Igor. |
 | | The Oxus was the traditional boundary between civilization and barbarism in Western Asia, between Iran and Turan, and Persian legend, versified in Firdawsi's great epic, the Shah-namah, told of the heroic battles of the Iranians against the Turanian king Afrasi- yab, who was at last hunted down and killed in Azerbaijan. |
| www.fordham.edu /halsall/med/saunders.html (3955 words) |
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