Conversion to Islam occurred in the tenth century in Eurasia mainly among three different groups of people who acted independently from one another. These were the Bulghar near present Kazan in the Volga-Ural region, the Oghuz in western Central Asia, and the Qarakhānids in eastern Central Asia. After simultaneous but independent conversion of these three different groups to Islam, the regions they inhabited functioned as nodes of culture for Muslim Turks in the ensuing centuries. By the twelfth…