The Turks, like the desert Arabs, were nomads from an arid region—this time, the steppe. Hence they lacked a sophisticated culture to bring into their new religion. But, unlike the desert Arabs, who carried their pre-Islamic conservatism and fatalism into Islam, the nomadic Turks experienced a radical rebirth. They completely “surrendered themselves to their new religion” and “sank their national identity in Islam as the Arabs and the Persians had never done”—to a degree that even the name Turk came to be almost synonymous with Muslim. The result was a passionate devotion to the faith. “In the earnestness and seriousness of their loyalty to Islam,” observes Bernard Lewis, “the Turks are equaled by no other people.”
