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Why Turkey and Iran of the former gunpowder empires are monsters in Olympic wrestling while South Asia and Mongolia (not gunpowder) nowhere near them?

what would a rational line of inquiry then in this subject look like? What accounts for the defeat of the Delhi Sultanate at the hands of the Mughal and then of the Mughals at the hands of Nader Shah..and probably many more similiar cycles that I am forgetting now...where earlier nomads/horse breeders, who were the ruling class, are displaced by the newer incoming nomads from Central Asia

your arguments just radiate ignorance and you line of reasoning is irrational, i dont think that ghaurids, mughals/babar and nader shah were nomads at all.

Tamerlane soundly defeated ottoman empire and took its king hostage (one of the strongest empire which continued and survive for many more centuries after that debascle), mongols defeated and chased king of khwarrizmian empire to india where delhi sultanate defended its territory, you are just spewing a very deep ignorance here and relating defeats to genetics and IQ, seriously? :lol:

regards
 
what would a rational line of inquiry then in this subject look like? What accounts for the defeat of the Delhi Sultanate at the hands of the Mughal and then of the Mughals at the hands of Nader Shah..and probably many more similiar cycles that I am forgetting now...where earlier nomads/horse breeders, who were the ruling class, are displaced by the newer incoming nomads from Central Asia
The same reason that Nomadic Medes overthrew Babylonians then sedentarized Medes got conquered by Persians then all of them by a mad Macedonian then by nomadic Parthians then by nomadic Arabs then by Tukics then by Mongols then by Turkics again but Persians are still good at wrestling?!
Or China ruled by partial barbarian descended Tangs then Barbarian Jurchens descended Jin then Mongols then Barbarian Manchus till they got some *** swooping by west but they are getting some good medals nonetheless I guess!
Or consider the Anatolians (another subject of the thread), conquered by countless races in perhistory itself (Hurrians, Hittites, Assyrians, Lydians etc) then by nomadic Persians then by Greeks then by not so nomadic Romans then by nomadic Arabs then by some nomadic Turkics then by nomadic Mongols then by some other nomadic Turkics again till they got Turkicised to the core. But they are winning medals??
 
your arguments just radiate ignorance and you line of reasoning is irrational, i dont think that ghaurids, mughals/babar and nader shah were nomads at all.

Tamerlane soundly defeated ottoman empire and took its king hostage (one of the strongest empire which continued and survive for many more centuries after that debascle), mongols defeated and chased king of khwarrizmian empire to india where delhi sultanate defended its territory, you are just spewing a very deep ignorance here and relating defeats to genetics and IQ, seriously? :lol:

regards


I said nomads/horse breeders...There is no denying that historically Iran,Afghanistan,Central Asia were better horse breeders (be it in quality or quantity) compared to the subcontinent proper (east of Indus)
The same reason that Nomadic Medes overthrew Babylonians then sedentarized Medes got conquered by Persians then all of them by a mad Macedonian then by nomadic Parthians then by nomadic Arabs then by Tukics then by Mongols then by Turkics again but Persians are still good at wrestling?!
Or China ruled by partial barbarian descended Tangs then Barbarian Jurchens descended Jin then Mongols then Barbarian Manchus till they got some *** swooping by west but they are getting some good medals nonetheless I guess!
Or consider the Anatolians (another subject of the thread), conquered by countless races in perhistory itself (Hurrians, Hittites, Assyrians, Lydians etc) then by nomadic Persians then by Greeks then by not so nomadic Romans then by nomadic Arabs then by some nomadic Turkics then by nomadic Mongols then by some other nomadic Turkics again till they got Turkicised to the core. But they are winning medals??


yes I am asking the questions seeing the facts on the ground..these are not rich countries...but some of the most physically strongest on Earth...so the old excuse of sports infra breaks down here...all of these regions were ruled for a long time by Turkic gunpowder empires, two of them raced ahead in combat sports, the other one got left behind...so I want to know how a South Asian can answer this failure
 
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Much of your "analysis" here is quite pseudo-scientific.

First off, South Asia has a population greater than Europe and Africa combined, it is also one of the most ethno-culturally and genetically diverse region in the world. To put you into perspective, the genetic distance between a Punjabi Jatt and a North Indian (from UP) is about the same as the distance between a Serbian and a Syrian. To bring all of South Asia into one boat, is simply just irrational.

Secondly, the Punjab region was absolutely dominant in the early 1900's when it came to wrestling; birthing world-renowned figures such as Manzoor Hussain, Muhammad Aslam, Hamid Pahalwan, Zubair Jhara and the most famous among them all: The Great Gama. We know that this wrestling tradition has existed for a long time from Gandharan reliefs depicting wrestlers and strength training, it's just that British occupation and rule had allowed this talent to be brought into global limelight.

It was not until the 1960s that wrestling began it's rapid decline in Punjab and Pakistan, due to the rocketing popularity of cricket, lack of institutional support and waning public interest. It had nothing to do with "drought or genetics" as you claimed.
 
yes I am asking the questions seeing the facts on the ground..these are not rich countries...but some of the most physically strongest on Earth...so the old excuse of sports infra breaks down here...all of these regions were ruled for a long time by Turkic gunpowder empires, two of them raced ahead in combat sports, the other one got left behind...so I want to know how a South Asian can answer this failure
Iran's average height in 1950's was in 150s cm but then oil go boom and Shah invested some of that in nutrition infrastructure whereas a large portion of India survives on government rice and wheat (AAY scheme) and still ranks lower than most of the world in World Hunger Index. For Turkey, it was a colonial Empire till 20th century, it is unreasonable to expect South Asia to reach its level even China is behind it terms of per capita.
 
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Iran's average height in 1950's was in 150s cm but then oil go boom and Shah invested some of that in nutrition infrastructure whereas a large portion of India survives on government rice and wheat (AAY scheme) and still ranks lower than most of the world in World Hunger Index. For Turkey, it was a colonial Empire till 20th century, it is unreasonable to expect South Asia to reach its level even China is behind it terms of per capita.


good answer thanks
Much of your "analysis" here is quite pseudo-scientific.

First off, South Asia has a population greater than Europe and Africa combined, it is also one of the most ethno-culturally and genetically diverse region in the world. To put you into perspective, the genetic distance between a Punjabi Jatt and a North Indian (from UP) is about the same as the distance between a Serbian and a Syrian. To bring all of South Asia into one boat, is simply just irrational.

Secondly, the Punjab region was absolutely dominant in the early 1900's when it came to wrestling; birthing world-renowned figures such as Manzoor Hussain, Muhammad Aslam, Hamid Pahalwan, Zubair Jhara and the most famous among them all: The Great Gama. We know that this wrestling tradition has existed for a long time from Gandharan reliefs depicting wrestlers and strength training, it's just that British occupation and rule had allowed this talent to be brought into global limelight.

It was not until the 1960s that wrestling began it's rapid decline in Punjab and Pakistan, due to the rocketing popularity of cricket, lack of institutional support and waning public interest. It had nothing to do with "drought or genetics" as you claimed.


good point...you , @Naofumi as well as @W.11 are helping me have a more granular view of the subject...My only gripe is why did cricket take off and not rugby? given both sports had been equally patronized by the British in the subcontinent
 
@Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8 when you look at the mindset of turks and iranians they adore the 'world dominators' of their old. ask a turk about the heroes that they look up to and they will cite the likes of attila/genghis/timur and what not. likewise if you ask the iranians they will talk about cyrus/darius/surena and the rest.

if they see such figures as ideal then that probably shows an aspect of their psyche. of course not all of them are like that but it gives a perspective as to what their collective take is on what kind of people they aspire to emulate
 
@Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8 when you look at the mindset of turks and iranians they adore the 'world dominators' of their old. ask a turk about the heroes that they look up to and they will cite the likes of attila/genghis/timur and what not. likewise if you ask the iranians they will talk about cyrus/darius/surena and the rest.

if they see such figures as ideal then that probably shows an aspect of their psyche. of course not all of them are like that but it gives a perspective as to what their collective take is on what kind of people they aspire to emulate


Apt conclusion----> Other than the Cholas and Mauryas no ethnicity from subcontinent proper managed to break out of the region..yeah okay the Janjuas held on to Kabul for 42 years till 900 AD

Yes, Pashtuns did form empires across multiple regions but Pashtuns are not exactly a South Asian ethnicity..
 
Apt conclusion----> Other than the Cholas and Mauryas no ethnicity from subcontinent proper managed to break out of the region..yeah okay the Janjuas held on to Kabul for 42 years till 900 AD

Yes, Pashtuns did form empires across multiple regions but Pashtuns are not exactly a South Asian ethnicity..

it even crosses into the spiritual aspects of these peoples. look at the warrior-orders that the gunpowder empires ended up relying on for their wars. the safavids were the result of the safaviyyah order becoming militarized, the bektasi order had a large following among the janissary cadres, the nizari assassins and their fortresses across west asia. this kind of 'longing' for challenge and domination is almost absent among the people around them (gulf arabs/south asians)
 
it even crosses into the spiritual aspects of these peoples. look at the warrior-orders that the gunpowder empires ended up relying on for their wars. the safavids were the result of the safaviyyah order becoming militarized, the bektasi order had a large following among the janissary cadres, the nizari assassins and their fortresses across west asia. this kind of 'longing' for challenge and domination is almost absent among the people around them (gulf arabs/south asians)


All that makes the first 100 years of Arab outburst all the more extraordinary...Their has been no significant Arab conquests since then
 
All that makes the first 100 years of Arab outburst all the more extraordinary...Their has been no significant Arab conquests since then
that one-time event was essentially a 'fight or flight' action done on a geopolitical scale. if it had not been done the east romans and the sassanids would've raced to contain and extinguish the rise of a new power within the gulf. neither of them would allow a rival to show up in 'their world'.
 
Apt conclusion----> Other than the Cholas and Mauryas no ethnicity from subcontinent proper managed to break out of the region..yeah okay the Janjuas held on to Kabul for 42 years till 900 AD
Again, you're putting all of "South Asia", a term which does not mean anything beyond a geographic definition, into one boat. What exactly do people of modern-day Pakistan have to do with the Cholas?

Yes, Pashtuns did form empires across multiple regions but Pashtuns are not exactly a South Asian ethnicity..
"South Asian" is an inhabitant of 'South Asia', hence Pashtuns are South Asian. But even then, I'm not sure what the point is.
 
Again, you're putting all of "South Asia", a term which does not mean anything beyond a geographic definition, into one boat. What exactly do people of modern-day Pakistan have to do with the Cholas?


"South Asian" is an inhabitant of 'South Asia', hence Pashtuns are South Asian. But even then, I'm not sure what the point is.


My point is that traditional markers of masculinity get "gradually" diluted once you cross the Indus from the West to the East, and go further inland

Let's make it a bit more objective....South Asia is every piece of land that sits on the Indian tectonic plate

My original point was that countries ruled by the erstwhile Mughal Empire have done very poorly in Olympic combat sports, when compared to countries ruled by the erstwhile Ottoman and Safavid Empires...Given that all of these were Turkic empires and were also considered as gunpowder empires
 
All that makes the first 100 years of Arab outburst all the more extraordinary...Their has been no significant Arab conquests since then

It was never genetically but rather ability, faith and will power. The Arab blitzkrieg was based on will power and they believed this was a right cause plus they had top military generals. It was the combination of willing forces and top intelligent generals.

This had nothing to do with genetics. The Mongols defeated everyone From Pashtuns, Farsis, Turks, Arabs, Europeans. Russians, Chinese etc etc. They defeated everyone except Africans because they had no contact line but aside from that War is based on deception and tactics.

Lets me give you an example Timurlane defeated the Ottomans fair and square.

The Safavids were defeated by a tribe in Kandahar led by Mirwais Hotuk and took control of the entirety of Persia. It was a major military upset. Mirwais hotak and his tribesmen were pashtuns.

Arabs took control over Portugal, Spain and parts of france in just 7 years and it took 781 years to fight them out again. The Ottomans colonized half of Europe.

But all in all. The point is war is based on ''DECEPTION'' and ''TACTICS'' in ancient times but currently it is based on logisitcal means, technology, deception and then tactics.

Sun Tzu in my honest opinion has written the best book on war and he reveals all the secrets regarding war. I assure you it has nothing to do with genetics. If the general opposite you is smarter then you he will overcome you.
 

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