The history of the region of Central Asia known as Turkestan in IB is largely the same as that of Central Asia *here*, at least up until around 1916, though there are several crucial differences.

Probably the most obvious of these differences is the vastly different religious milieu of Turkestan as compared with that part of the world *here*.  In the primary reality, the Central Asian peoples, both Turk and Tajik, are almost entirely Muslim.  Others, coming later to the region, are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christian (mostly Russians and Ukrainians), Catholics (Poles), and a smattering of Buddhists and other groups.  Ill Bethisad's religious scene is more complex than that, and few places is this more true than in Central Asia.

Modern Turkestan's religious milieu has been shaped by numerous factors.  The first of these is the survival of Zoroastrianism as the state religion of Turkestan's powerful southern neighbour Persia.  The second is the vastly greater power and influence in IB of the Holy Apostolic Assyrian Church of the East.  The third of these is the survival of the Manichaean faith (known in Ill Bethisad as "Manesianity"), and the fourth is the generally higher profile and greater acceptance of many forms of paganism or traditional belief system in IB.  In Turkestan, the main representative of this is the traditional Tengriist faith common to the ancestral Turks, Avars, Huns, Mongolians and others.

As a consequence of this more diverse religious scene, there were numerous scripts in use in Central Asia at the time of the Basmaçı Revolt.  These included the Arabic script used by Muslims, the Persian Avesta script used by the Zoroastrian community, the Syriac Estrangelo script used by the Assyrian Church, the Manichaean script used by Manesians, and the ancient Orkhon Turkic rune script used occasionally by the Tengriist community.