The most significant commodity carried and distributed along this route was not silk, but religion. Buddhism came to China from India this way, along with the northern branch of the Silk Road. The first influence of Buddhism came together with an exploration of passes over the Karakorum. The Eastern Han Emperor Mingdi had sent a trusted representative to India to discover more about this strange faith spreading out in his empire with such a speed. The later missions returned from India bearing scriptures and the priests. This opened the gates for the new religion and culture associated with it, little, if at all, known in this region or many others before. It was something very new but getting definitely interesting. Buddhist art, crafts, customs, and people started to move freely throughout Eastern and Central Asia, spreading the philosophy farther and farther. Many became attracted to it and relatively fast. Religious grottoes were explored and then, slowly replaced by scores of monasteries with monks developing and promoting the new culture. It was not just a new wave, new ideas, but a new well-developed culture. Due to gentleness, patience, and non-invasive manner, this religion conquered people of this citizenry thoroughly and in the shortest time. Peace, kindness, and patience were a great alternative to danger, harm, and wars. Buddhism gave the roots there and then and still is almost as strong as it was thousands of years ago. This phenomenon influences nearly all, if not all, aspects of life in Eastern and Central Asia, short of Islam influenced regions.
The Judaism arrived in full force only in the seventh century A.D. after being pushed out from the Middle East by very aggressive Islam. Yet, some believe, and archeology demonstrates that Judaism was there already and for hundreds of years. The first hundred years after being born, Islam had marked by the streams of blood of innocents resisting to forced conversion. Yes, the quick expansion of Islam was attributed to forced conversion almost everywhere. People did not want to accept it willingly, and that should tell us something about the peaceful religion. More blood of millions upon millions was spilled over the years in the name of God Allah and his prophet Mohamad than in the name of any other God. It seems that Allah and Mohamad were so thirsty for blood that they wanted it all at once. Patience was not a virtue when it came to the religion of Islam and especially, conversion. Even the Christians in all their zealotry to the conversion of non-Christians from other faiths to the one they believed in, could not get close in the body count. And Christians tried. They tried so hard that even killing of their own people by inquisition was justified as the saintly deed. The saintly deed? Still, Muslims took the price time and time again. The number of lives of the innocents killed in the religion-fueled atrocities is uncountable, and Muslims lead the way. They killed and killed and killed, and they still are.
Arabs, Tatars, Mongols, Moors, Turks — almost fifteen hundred years of the continuous merciless rape, pillage, slavery, and murder. Victimization of the Europeans, Africans and the Asians throughout the three continents left so many unhealing scars that the world may never recover. The entire regions were converted to Islam and raped to the point of extinguishing all local racial characteristics. The entire cultures were wiped out and replaced by a form of Islam. It was too painful even to count and to count what. The side effects of cancer called Islam are still affecting our societies in the form of terrorism, sheer aggressiveness, refusal of education, and a very little desire for peaceful coexistence with the rest of the world. Just look around. Islam proved to be not a friend to anyone and most of all to itself. The war of the worlds started in the sixth century is still going on, as before, and is never over.
The Judaism came over to the Eastern and Central Asia in the form of a powerful tribe of Jews retreating in a complete order from the steadily increasing pressure from the wild but fast-growing Islam. There was no chance for coexistence between the peace-loving agricultural Hebrews and very aggressive murdering and thieving nomad Arabs. The Muslims zealously enforced policy was: convert — live or die. There was no other option, middle ground. And, even if you convert, nothing was guaranteed. Not too many Jews converted though, and many died. The relatively small tribe of Hebrews fought bravely, but the sheer numbers of Arabs made the decision for the weaker tribes. They had to leave the lands they occupied for at least five hundred years and move to the unknown land; the land of the Eastern and Central Asia. That was a mystery land but did they have a choice. What choice — to convert and not to die or to die anyway, no matter what. So, they decide to move on, and Islam was following them step by step.
The unexpected luck provided the Hebrews with a break. Arabs, entangled in own problems, were too slow to trail the Jews that far. Even more, the aggressive Arabs were met with aggression stronger than their own. Was it even possible? Not in where the Arabs came from. No one was that strong and so aggressive where they came from. The Muslims were not ready for that. However, the Asian tribes of the mountain passes met the militant Muslims with the sword and the arrow. Arabs were not welcomed. These passes were hard to pass at any time, but fighting was almost impossible. The fight was incessant and bloody, and Arabs were not allowed to move to the valleys of the East. The Hebrews, on the other hand, were friendly and not threatening. They were tired, hungry, bleeding, and full of wounds and tragic stories. They were suffering and looked more like the long-lost cousins than the aggressors. People of suffering were always welcome by the people that knew what suffering was. Compassion worked its charm, and the hand of friendship was extended. The Hebrews were let in. The kingdom of Khazars was in the making.
In force, Islam came much later, in about two hundred years, in the nine century and it was not done by the sword. Arabs learned the old lessons and came in peace as traders. Trade came first, and that was the attraction. Merchants from the faraway lands were welcome just about everywhere. That was a noble occupation. Religion came second, and the Muslim kingdoms came third. Harezm (present Uzbekistan) was the biggest and the richest one with Samarkand and Buchara as the separate, but powerful city-states. Turkmens, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Azeri, Hebrews, Kalmycks, Bashkirs, and many other tribes, the leftovers of the Persian Empire, presented the perfect ethnic mix there.
The conditions were faultless to produce great thinkers, writers, artists, scientists, doctors, statesmen, warriors, craftsmen, and traders. They were celebrated and often financially supported by the powers in charge. For hundreds of years, while Europe was still enveloped by the dark ages, often getting even darker, this was the cultural center of the world, and it was booming. Links between Baghdad, Damascus, Samarkand, Buchara, Fergana, and some other places in Central Asia became so crucial that the Silk Road incorporated them as a permanent branch. At times, more people traveled there than in any other direction. Interesting to say that for so many years there was such a peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and the Pagans. There was a balance that no one dared to upset. That was the time of peace. Everyone was happy that way, for so many years. And, Christianity had never made its way in until hundreds of years later as in the wake of the Mongol invasion stirring communities, and the cultures up, moving people, tribes, and the entire nations from land to land. These were newcomers with new ideas, customs, and new laws. East was affecting the West, and the West was affecting the East even more. The Christian slaves from Russia, Eastern, and Western Europe were the most essential Christian influence in the Eastern and Central Asia at the time. They were the biggest and the unending link to the other very little-known side of the world. East did not know West and West did not know East, yet they were moving toward each other. It was a slow process, yet it was progressing. East was meeting West not in the middle of the road but in the middle of the West.