The Karakhanids conquer Buddhist Khotan

Khotan, an oasis on the southern edge of the Taklamakan, was one of the oldest kingdoms of the Silk Road — a Buddhist state of the Saka whose kings bore names of Indian origin. After the Karakhanids accepted Islam in the 10th century, Satuq Bughra Khan’s son Musa began to press on Khotan, and a long war followed between Muslim Kashgar and Buddhist Khotan. For a time the Khotanese had the upper hand: in 970 they took Kashgar, and their king offered the Song court a dancing elephant captured there.

The war ended under Yusuf Qadir Khan, a son of Harun (Hasan) Bughra Khan, who ruled in Kashgar. Most accounts date the conquest of Khotan to 1006, some to 1007, and in 1008 or 1009 (the sources differ) the Song court received a tribute mission from the new Muslim rulers of Khotan. A later Muslim tradition — the Tadhkira of the four martyred imams, written down between 1700 and 1849 — tells of four imams from Mada’in who came to help Yusuf Qadir Khan conquer Khotan, Yarkand and Kashgar.

Khotan had been the last state of the region not yet under Turkic rule. The conquest brought the destruction of Buddhist art, and the population was soon converted: by the late 13th century Marco Polo described Khotan as a Muslim city. It has been suggested that the monks of Dunhuang, alarmed by the conquest of Khotan and the end of Buddhism there, sealed the cave of the Mogao complex that held their library of manuscripts.