‘Map of Iranian Influence in Central Asia Islamic state of East Turkestan, formerly part of Afghanistan, in the Xinjiang region of China. China and some countries believe itisa terrorist movement. The Uyghurs deny they are terrorists and cite the similarity of their cause to the colonization of Tibet by China. In July 2009, protests by the Uyghurs in China drew world attention to their cause. From 704-715 AD, Muslim Arabs overran Central Asia and captured the ancient cities of Bukhara and Samarkand in Uzbekistan, along the famous Silk Road. They converted the Central Asians to Sunni Islam and left them an Islamic cultural heritage and way of life. Arabic dominance lasted until 892 AD when the Persian Samanid Dynasty made Bukhara capital, and it bloomed into a center of art and learning. Among the famous scholars gathered at Bukhara wi Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the famous Muslim philosopher of the 10th-11th century. The Samanid dynasty fell to the Turkic Muslims before they, in turn, were overran by the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan and his heirs. Tamerlane. One of the most famous historical characters of this region was known to the West as Tamerlane. He was lame, but a fierce conqueror, and he was known locally as Timur the Great, and his empire was the Timurid Empire (1370- Central Asia Kazakh mosque Krygyz mosque 1506). Timur was a descendant of the Mongol conquerors, but his people had become more Turkic/Persian in culture, He yearned to reassert their glorious past, and conquered much of western and Central Asia. Starting from his capital of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, he subdued the neighboring tribes and also invaded ‘Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Armenia and Georgia, the gates of Russia, Afghanistan, and India. His empire — extended from Mongolia in the east to the Volga River in the west Tamerlane, one of the world’s greatest conquerors, died in 1405 and was buried in Samarkand. His kingdom fell to the Tartar hordes in 1506. Remnants of it survived in the Mughal empire in India. Timur became popular in the West because of his victory over the Ottoman Turks, Today he is a national hero in Uzbekistan, and his tomb in Samarkand is protected by a jade slab with the words, “Were I alive today, Timur face Timur monument 117