Battle of Talas
The Arab invasion also saw Chinese influence expelled from western Central Asia. At the Battle of Talas in 751 an Arab army decisively defeated a Tang Dynasty force, and for the next several centuries Middle Eastern influences would dominate the region. Large-scale Islamization however did not begin until the 9th century, running parallel with the fragmentation of Abbasid political authority and the emergence of local Iranian and Turkic dynasties like the Samanids.