Qarakhanids conquer Buddhist Khotan

1006

After decades of intermittent warfare, Turkic Qarakhanid forces overwhelmed the last Buddhist kingdom on the Silk Road's southern branch. Khotan's monasteries and libraries were destroyed, ending a thousand years of Buddhist civilization in the Tarim Basin. The conquest completed the Islamization of Central Asia's great caravan routes from Kashgar to Samarkand.