•Not all of the Turks migrated southwest and became Muslims. Many also migrated towards the North deeper into Russia, and even as far as Finland, where they instead adopted Christianity.
•Peoples such as the Georgians, the Chuvash, and the Gagauz are all Christians with Turkic origins.
•However, because of the dominance of the Islamic Empires established by Turkish ruling families, and their subsequent wars with the West which had religious overtones, such as the Crusades, the Europeans came to equate "Muslim" with "Turk."
•In fact, in European vernacular, a Christian who became Muslim was typically said to have turned "Turk.' Nevertheless, the term "Turk" is an ethnic term, not a religious one, and connotes people of all religious who have Turkic origin.