The Rashīdī History 8.1.4

8.1.4

Abul Ghazi tells us that it was inhabited by many tribes — some that were of Mongol race and others that were not — and D'Ohsson and Howorth amply demonstrate the same thing. It contained Uighurs, who were a tribe of Turki descent; Kara Khitai, whose origin was chiefly Manchu (and therefore of a Tungusic root), though probably much mixed with Mongol blood; also Naimans and Karluks, and perhaps some original Kirghiz, all of Turki ancestry; and, moreover, there were Kalmaks, who must be regarded as a branch of the Mongol race. But when, during the time of the Mongol ascendency, large numbers of that people settled in the country and became, from a military point of view, the dominant race, it is scarcely surprising that the western foreigners should have given the whole of the region the name of Moghulistan, just as they had previously, when the Kara Khitai were supreme there, called the same territory Kara Khitai. It was the name that the Mongols themselves affected and were (at that time, at any rate) proud of, while it was also that with which their fame and their most cherished traditions were associated. Their mode of procedure, and the result they unconsciously attained, are paralleled in European history by the instance of the Franks in Gaul. During the third century, the Franks were still a loose confederacy of Germanic tribes living beyond the right bank of the Rhine. By degrees, under the Merovingians, they began to invade the country on the left bank.