Battle of Talas (751): Abbasid Caliphate Against Tang China

The Battle of Talas was fought in July 751 in the valley of the Talas river in Central Asia, between an army of the Tang dynasty of China and the forces of the newly founded Abbasid Caliphate. It is the only major battle fought between Chinese and Arab Muslim armies. The Tang were defeated when their Karluk Turkish allies changed sides, and the battle is often linked, rightly or wrongly, with the spread of papermaking from China to the Islamic world.

Background: two empires meet

In the first half of the 8th century Central Asia was contested by several powers. The Tang dynasty controlled the Tarim Basin and claimed influence over the city-states further west. The Tibetan Empire pushed into the region from the south, and Arab Muslim armies had conquered Transoxiana, the lands around Bukhara and Samarkand, in the early 700s.

In 750 the Abbasid Caliphate overthrew the Umayyads. Its eastern provinces were governed by Abu Muslim, the leader of the revolution, from Khurasan in north-east Iran.

The Tang general Gao Xianzhi, a commander of Korean (Goguryeo) descent, had won fame in 747 with a campaign across the Pamir mountains against Tibetan-allied states. In 750 he attacked the kingdom of Chach (around modern Tashkent) and executed its ruler. The ruler’s son fled and appealed to the Arabs and to neighbouring peoples for help.

The battle

Gao Xianzhi marched west with an army that Chinese sources put at about 30,000 men, including Tang troops and allied contingents, among them Karluk Turks from the steppe. The Abbasid force was commanded by Ziyad ibn Salih, acting for Abu Muslim. Arabic sources give inflated figures, such as 100,000 Chinese, and the true numbers on both sides are uncertain.

The armies met near the town of Atlakh on the Talas river, close to the city of Taraz. According to Chinese records the fighting lasted several days. At a critical point the Karluks deserted the Tang and attacked them, and Gao Xianzhi’s army collapsed. Gao escaped with a small remnant, while many of his men were killed or taken prisoner.

Key people

• Gao Xianzhi (died 756): Tang general of Korean descent, commander at Talas; he was later executed during the An Lushan Rebellion.
• Ziyad ibn Salih: Abbasid commander who led the Muslim army on behalf of Abu Muslim.
• Abu Muslim (died 755): governor of Khurasan and organiser of the Abbasid revolution.
• Du Huan: Chinese officer captured at Talas who travelled through the caliphate and returned to China by sea in 762, writing an account of his journey.

Consequences

Talas did not lead to an Arab invasion of China or a Chinese collapse in the region. The Abbasids did not follow up their victory, and the Tang continued to hold the Tarim Basin for a time.

What changed everything was the An Lushan Rebellion, which broke out in 755. The Tang recalled their frontier troops to fight it, and Tibetans and Uyghurs filled the vacuum. Over the following decades Tang power in Central Asia faded away. In the long term the region became part of the Muslim world, but this resulted from gradual conversion of Turkic peoples over the next centuries more than from a single battle.

Du Huan’s account, preserved in fragments in a later Chinese encyclopedia, is one of the earliest Chinese descriptions of the Islamic world.

The papermaking story: myth and fact

The battle is famous above all for a story about paper. The 11th-century Arabic writer al-Tha’alibi reported that papermaking was brought to Samarkand by Chinese prisoners captured by Ziyad ibn Salih. From Samarkand, the story goes, the craft spread to Baghdad and eventually to Europe.

Historians are cautious. Paper was invented in China centuries earlier, and paper documents from Central Asia, such as letters written in the Sogdian language, are known from as early as the 4th century. Paper may well have been made in the region before 751, by Chinese or local craftsmen. Talas may have played a role, but it was not the single moment when paper reached the Islamic world. Production in Baghdad began in the late 8th century.

Timeline

• 747: Gao Xianzhi leads a Tang campaign across the Pamirs.
• 750, January: the Abbasids defeat the Umayyads at the Great Zab.
• 750: Gao Xianzhi attacks Chach and executes its ruler.
• 751, July: the Battle of Talas; the Karluks defect and the Tang are defeated.
• 755: the An Lushan Rebellion breaks out in China.
• 762: the captive Du Huan returns to China by sea.

Why it matters

The Battle of Talas marks the point where the expanding Tang and Islamic empires met in the heart of Asia. Its military importance is often exaggerated, but it symbolises the contact between two great civilisations along the Silk Roads, and its legend reminds us how technologies such as paper travelled from east to west.