Moreover, the battle of Tours alone was nothing when placed alongside two earlier defeats that stand as much more convincing examples of historical turning points for the caliphate’s expansion. The first was the failed 717–18 siege of Constantinople, described earlier. The second is the battle of Aksu, also in 717, in which an Arab-led army, bolstered by troops of Turkic and Tibetan origin, was wiped out by the Tang Chinese in the Xinjiang region of modern China. This defeat heralded a gradual winding down of the Muslim charge eastward; by the 750s the borders of the Islamic world and Tang
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