Perspective on fighting abilities

[ekrem]

I don't want to make a judgement or comparison, but in another thread there is the claim by some members that French had military history which is unmatched.
So, here another perspective.

Self-praise isn't good, so let's see what Arabic and Persian scripture of the time says:

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Ritual-State-History-South-Asia/dp/9004094679]Amazon.com: Ritual, State, and History in South Asia: Essays in Honour of J.C. Heesterman (Memoirs of the Kern Institute, No 5) (9789004094673): D. H. A. Kolff, A. W. Van Der Hoek, M. S. Oort: Books[/ame]
Ritual, state, and history in South ... - Google Bücher

If religious zeal and the defense of Sunni orthodoxy provided the ideological justification for the Turkish pre-eminence in the Islamic State, countless Muslim authors have left us graphic descriptions of what they considered the essential attributes of the Turks as an ethnic group and the reasons for their excellence.
These accounts are counterbalanced, often, by descriptions of the all too obvious limitations of the Turkish character and mental make-up.

All authors of adab works, manuals of war and mirrors for princes, agree on the military superiority of the Turks, their hardiness, their skill with horses and the bow and arrow, and their 'lion-like' qualities and pride.(71)
Ibn Khaldun considered the Turkish mamluks to be, thanks to these virile virtues, the saviours of Islam.(72)
Nizam al-Mulk recalls that al-Mu'tasim, the caliph who first introduced a mamluk army, 'always said that there was none for service (khidmatkar) like the Turk'.(73)
'I can tell that al-Mu'tasim knew very well what he was about when he made them into a corps and took them into his service', writes al-Jahiz, for... 'nothing can withstand [the Turks], and none desires to oppose them'.(74)
[my remark: Mameluks were of different stock of Turkic tribes, later they will be crushed by Turkic tribes which constituted Seljuks and Ottomans]
Mobile as they are, they are never pursued for 'the Turk does not need to escape'.(75) Turkish prowess in arms not only buttressed the caliphs' in the dar al-Islam, but was also especially effective against the infidel kings of Hindustan.(76)

'Arrow shooting Turks' are a favorite topos of Persian poetry, where they are compared with the bubbles in a glass of wine.(77) No other army could charge as well, and Turkish horsemen were taught to carry two or three bows and strings to match them.(78)

The image of the Turk in Persian poetry soon developed into an ideal of manliness, the ideal beloved, white and beautiful, albeit cruel.
'Turk' came to relate to 'Hindu' like 'ruler' to 'slave', 'angel' to 'devil', while for Rumi, for instance, Turkestan became the heavenly world of light (from which the beloved appeared) and Hindustan the dark world of matter. (79) Often enough the word 'Turk' was turned into the equivalent of 'Muslim', at least in India.

Ultimately the macho Turk, with his disdain for menial household tasks, was linked to the climate of his country of origin which predisposed him to a certain robustness and military valour (cf. p. 747-748). The nomadic Turks had a strongly developed 'love of homeland' (al-hanin ila-l-watan). 'They are more strongly attached to their country than the camels'.(80)
This attachment reinforced the mutual similarity and homogeneity of the Turks, the result of which was an absolutely single-minded desire to achieve military command.
The very single-mindedness of the Turks was praised by Muslim writers as 'the only way to achieve anything'. Only the Dailamites are at times regarded as more warlike. But the Turks were more uniformly the same. 'Differences among them are reduced to a minimum'.(81) 'Turks you can tell'.(82) 'Their women are as unmistakable as their men'.(83)

The dark side of their character - equally universal - was an insatiable love of plunder and violence. In their own country, 'the Turks do not fight for religion nor for interpretation of Scripture nor for sovereignty nor for taxes nor for patriotism nor for jealousy - unless their women are concerned - nor for defense of their home, nor for wealth, but only for plunder'.(84)
(......)
'Their fault which makes them most unpopular is their love of land and love of moving freely up and down the country and propensity for raiding and preoccupation with plunder'.(86)

Such, in short, were the characteristics of a people which had mastered 'the art of war' to the same degree of perfection 'as the Chinese have attained in art, and the Greeks in philosophy and literature and the Sasanids in Empire'.(87)
(........)
By the thirteenth century we find that descriptions divide the Turks, as a people, in two sections: the civilized town-dwellers and the backward migrating tribes. It was said, moreover, that Turkish converts to Islam went through a change of heart which made them zealous in their faith and oblivious of their Central-Asian pagan past.(89) And, unlike other races, the Turks were bound to obscurity if they did not leave Turkestan; they achieve fame and fortune only if they left their homeland. 'Since the creation of the world until today no slave (banda) bought for money achieved the position of king (Padshah) except the Turk'.(90)

The sources aren't given with time/year.
But, you can read between the lines, that it is mostly about Turkic tribes pre-Seljuk period. Those who came as slaves and became king.

 

[ekrem]

The system which emerged prefered Kurdish and Turkic caste of soldiers, in the beginning it was mostly de-tribalized mercenaries. Later on the tribes themselves took the power.

Arabs mostly were only used as auxiliary cavalry.