With eastward expansion blocked off, the Arabs turned their attention north towards Central Asia. The Turkic people of the region mostly worshipped the sky god Tengri or were Buddhist. There were also Hindu and Zoroastrian influences. In the middle of the eighth century, they found themselves caught between two great powers. The Chinese Tang dynasty was pushing in from the east while the Abbasid caliphate was pushing in from its base in Iran. The two faced each other at the Battle of Talas in AD 751 in which the Arabs decisively defeated the Tang army. Thus, Central Asia came into the Islamic
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