Mongol migration in the Middle East?

Is it possible for Mongols to migrate and settle in the Middle East, similar to how Turks moved to Anatolia? How would this affect the development of the region throughout history?
 

Delvestius

Banned
Perfectly possible, but it would produce small minorities among larger ethnic groups, as the Mongols themslelves were relatively few, a warlord people who depended on Turkic tribesmen and Chinese conscripts for imperial expansion.
 
You have the Hazara in Afghanistan and the Kalmyks in Russia. The former were descendants of Genghis Khan's soldiers there and they used to mostly speak a Mongolian language before converting to Persian for use. It's certainly possible that you would have a large enough of Mongols to settle down and somehow not disappear through assimilation with the majority cultures. The Turkmenli region in Iraq would be a good place for Mongol settlement.
 
You have the Hazara in Afghanistan and the Kalmyks in Russia. The former were descendants of Genghis Khan's soldiers there and they used to mostly speak a Mongolian language before converting to Persian for use. It's certainly possible that you would have a large enough of Mongols to settle down and somehow not disappear through assimilation with the majority cultures. The Turkmenli region in Iraq would be a good place for Mongol settlement.

The Kalmyks are irrelevant, as this migration was well after Chengis Khan and the Mongol World Empire. And that was migration pure and simple. But during the Mongol World Empire it was not migration it was World conquest - the movement of "ethnic Mongols" was part of steppe ethnogenes when the thin layer of the Mongols politically controlled numerous overwhelming Turkic nomad masses, but culturally and linguistically the Mongols were rapidly assimilated by the Turkic tribes.

So usually in the World Empire the Mongols were not settled somewhere as a compact group. Usually say 10 000 Mongol households were distributed as warrior elite among 100 000 or 300 000 Turkic households.
That is how this system generally worked.

The only exception (which proverbially proves the rule) was the Mongol group in Afghanistan which kept its "Mongol ethnic identity" and language almost to our days. But first of all it is not totally clear when this migration took place, actually these Mongols being the descendants of Chengizz Khan warriors is just a legend. Whatever the case it seems that these Mongols were not surrounded by the Turkic speaking tribes, but by other language groups and that's why they did not get turkicized.

By the way from what I know there are insignificant tiny Mongol ethnic minorities as enclaves far from Mongolia proper in China (near Tibet if I am not mistaken) which are the descendants of the Mongol garrisons. And they also partially kept their Mongol language and identity almost till our days. And here again the Mongols were not surrounded by the Turkic tribes.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
By the way from what I know there are insignificant tiny Mongol ethnic minorities as enclaves far from Mongolia proper in China (near Tibet if I am not mistaken) which are the descendants of the Mongol garrisons. And they also partially kept their Mongol language and identity almost till our days. And here again the Mongols were not surrounded by the Turkic tribes.

Yes, I think these are Mongol communities in the Chinese province of Chinghai, which is also known by the name Amdo (Tibetan) and Kokonor (Mongol).
 
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