The Timurid Empire covered west, south and central Asia and was founded by Timur (sometimes referred to as Tamerlane) during his reign from 1370 to 1405. It developed out of the shadows of the Mongol Empire, as disputes between leading tribal khans tore apart any remaining Mongol unity and allowed Timur to emerge as a new leader of a reconstructed empire.  After his death however, he left no clear line of succession, and his conglomeration of states and tribal territories fell apart.

From the mid-seventh century, Central Asia was faced with Muslim Arab armies from Saudi Arabia, who, having conquered the lands of the Sasanian Empire, turned to invade the c

These three tribal groups inhabited eastern Central Asia from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, with the Uighurs and the Kyrgyz living in the northern plains and the Tangut settling in the south, around modern day Tibet.

Rivalry over the control of the Silk Roads had a profound effect on the political and military history of Central Asia in the Middle Ages.  From the seventh century, the Turkish nomads became an increasingly powerful force and so started to try and dominate the Silk Roads, leading to a series of wars both with China and with Sasanian Iran.  Tokharistan and Gandhara were two territories that the Turks aimed to conquer in order to establish this supremacy, with varying degrees of success.  

In the seventh century, three new and important political powers came to dominate Central Asia. To the east, the Chinese Tang dynasty emerged and would remain powerful until the tenth century; in Tibet, the Bod rulers triumphed definitively over their rivals, and finally to the west, the Arab caliphate came into existence. These new powers constructed their own cultural identities, as seen in the archaeological and artistic remains from this period.

The Turks were a nomadic people from Mongolia, who established an empire on the borders of three of the great settled civilizations of the medieval world, namely, the Chinese

The Turks were a nomadic people from Mongolia, who established an empire on the borders of three of the great settled civilizations of the medieval world, namely, the Chinese

The two greatest powers in Central Asia in the early centuries of the Common Era were the Kushan and the Sasanian Empires, both of which dominated the macro-region and left a broad artistic and cultural legacy. The Kushan Empire was highly developed from the first to the third centuries AD, from which point Sasanid rulers in Iran started to extend their power, at the expense of the Kushans’ eastern border.

The fourth century saw the rise of the Kidarite tribe in Central Asia, a nomadic people ruled by their king, Kidara, after whom the tribe was named by contemporary writers. The kingdom did not last long, and there are few coins that attest to Kidarite government, but we have interesting documentary evidence that depicts the conquest of large areas of India and Pakistan by this tribe.   

The Hephthalites dominated Central Asia from the mid-fifth to the mid-sixth centuries, with a powerful army that apparently intimidated the Sasanian troops again whom they fought. They also had political ambition, sending ambassadors to the Chinese Emperor and gradually creating their own complex state from the lands they had conquered in western Asia and northern India. Their power was finally undermined by Turkish invasions from the north.