Az eurázsiai steppe nomádjai és a Közel-Kelet beduinjai

Abstract

Both the nomads of Inner Asia and the bedouins of the Near East founded enormous empire during the Middle Ages. The Arabs created a world-religion, Islam and conquered the deserts of North Africa and those of the Middle East in the 7-8th century. They succeed in establishing the Caliphate, which produced a new civilization. The Turkic and Mongol speaking nomads of the Eurasian steppe belt could organize immense political units, such as Türk empire of the 6-8th century including the steppe from Mandzuria to the Crimea; the Uyghurs of Central Asia and the Khazars of Eastern Europe; and finally the Mongols had the greatest empire in the world history. In spite of the geographical extent the nomads of Inner Asia could not develop an independent civilization. The most striking difference between them can be traced in the field of religion. Inner Asian nomads had their genuine religion with shamanistic characters. During the development of a new empire the Tengri-Cult came into prominence as an ideological background of the central power. In the end the nomadic empires adopted other word religions. The question raises, why the Arabs could be the founder of a world religion and the nomads of Inner Asia showed indifference in creating a word religion. The basic difference between the bedouins of deserts and nomads of the steppe can be defined as follows, the bedouin groups sent time to time waves to the oases where they settled and began to trade and to cultivate preserving their ethnic character. Some parts of the Arabic tribes settled in the oases and became merchants and peasants in caravan cities, which rendered the birth of a world-religion, the Islam possible within the sphere of the Arabic orbit. Islam was a synthesis of urban, commercial and bedouin societies of Arabia. The nomads of Eurasia did not show inclination towards trade, the merchants were traditionally from other ethnic groups from sedentary population. If the nomads of Eurasia settled in the territory of sedentary societies, they used to absorb in the ruling strata of that civilization losing their ethnic character in some generations. The Eurasian nomads could built vast empires including the peoples of the forest and urban civilization. If they left the steppe they were assimilated in several decades, but they became settled only in extreme situation and preferred withdrawing to the steppe or to the forest to sedentarization. The Arabs had to settle partly and as merchants and city-dwellers, as they had no alternative solution in that geographical zone. So they could reach higher cultural level, which promoted the birth of Islam.