Turkic Khaganates
The Karakhanids were the first Turkic dynasty to adopt Islam. Their khans, whose tribal origin is disputed (Karluk, Chigil and Yaghma have all been proposed), ruled the lands around Balasagun and Kashgar from the late ninth century. Satuq Bughra Khan converted in the tenth; in 999 his great-grandsons took Bukhara and ended the Samanid state. The dynasty ruled as a dual khaganate: a senior khaqan in the east with the title Arslan Qara Khaqan and a junior one in the west with the title Bughra Qara Khaqan. Around 1040 it split for good into a Western khanate at Samarkand and an Eastern khanate at Balasagun and later Kashgar. The Seljuks made the Western khans vassals in 1089; the Kara Khitai became overlords of both lines between 1134 and 1141. The Eastern line ended in Kashgar in 1211, and the Khwarazmshah ended the Western line in 1212. Under the Karakhanids Yusuf of Balasagun wrote the Kutadgu Bilig (1069–70) and Mahmud al-Kashgari compiled the Diwan Lughat al-Turk, in which the Karakhanid rulers are called khaqan. The sources disagree on many names and dates; this page lists the khans named in both the older dynastic lists and the coin record.
3 Rulers
The first Karakhanid khans are known only from later Muslim tradition, written down centuries after them, and their names, order and dates are uncertain. Satuq Bughra Khan, who took Kashgar after converting to Islam, is the first whose life is reasonably documented. Some modern lists add a Bazir Arslan Khan, said to be Satuq's father; the evidence for him is thin, and he is left out here.
Named in later tradition as the first Karakhanid qaghan, said to have claimed the title after the Uyghur Khaganate fell in 840; his origin and dates are uncertain.
Read the profileUncle of Satuq Bughra Khan who ruled at Kashgar and let Muslim traders settle at Artush; Satuq, after converting to Islam, overthrew him.
Read the profileFirst Karakhanid khan to adopt Islam, taking the name Abd al-Karim; seized Kashgar from his uncle and began the conversion of the Turks of the Tarim and the Tian Shan.
Read the profile7 Rulers
Satuq's descendants divided into two lines: the Alids, from his grandson Ali, and the Hasanids, from his grandson Hasan (Harun). Between 991 and 999 they took the Samanid lands; Bukhara fell for good in 999, and the Oxus became the border with the Ghaznavids. The supreme title passed between the two lines, often through civil war, until the realm split around 1040. Two powerful princes of this period held lesser titles and are covered in the profiles of their brothers: Nasr, the Ilig, who took Bukhara in 999, and Ali Tegin, who held Bukhara and Samarkand from about 1020 to 1034.
Son of Satuq; under him, in 960, Muslim historians record the conversion of some 200,000 tents of Turks, and the long war with Buddhist Khotan began.
Read the profileGrandson of Satuq and senior khan in the east; with his cousin Hasan he led the advance on the Samanid lands, and his sons completed it.
Read the profileGrandson of Satuq and founder of the Hasanid line; took Isfijab and Samarkand and in 992 entered the Samanid capital Bukhara, but fell ill and died on the way home.
Read the profileSon of Ali and supreme khan at Balasagun; turned back a great invasion of pagan Turks around 1017–18, fought his brother Mansur, and kept peace with Mahmud of Ghazni.
Read the profileSon of Ali; won the senior title after a civil war with his brother Ahmad and held it until about 1024–25, the last Alid supreme khan for a generation.
Read the profileSon of Harun Bughra Khan and the first Hasanid to hold the supreme title; ruled for about two years.
Read the profileHasanid ruler of Kashgar who conquered Buddhist Khotan around 1006, allied with Mahmud of Ghazni against his brother Ali Tegin, and was supreme khan from 1026 to 1032.
Read the profile16 Rulers
Around 1040 Ibrahim, son of Nasr, took Transoxiana from the sons of Ali Tegin and made Samarkand his capital, and the dynasty split for good. The Western khans became vassals of the Seljuk sultans in 1089 and of the Kara Khitai gürkhan after the battle of Qatwan in 1141, but kept their throne and their coinage until the Khwarazmshah Muhammad ended the line in 1212. Several short-lived khans named only in the coin record, or only in the older lists, are mentioned in the profiles of their neighbours rather than listed separately.
Son of the Ilig Nasr; escaped captivity, took Transoxiana from Ali Tegin's sons and made Samarkand the capital of the Western Khanate, which he ruled for nearly three decades.
Read the profileSon of Ibrahim; won the throne against his brothers, outlasted a Seljuk invasion during which Sultan Alp Arslan was killed in 1072, and made peace with Malik-Shah.
Read the profileBrother of Nasr; ruled Samarkand briefly and is remembered as a patron of poets.
Read the profileSon of Khidr; taken prisoner by Malik-Shah in 1089 and restored as a Seljuk vassal, then executed in 1095 after the religious scholars of Samarkand accused him of heresy.
Read the profileGrandson of Ibrahim Tamghach Khan who ruled Samarkand briefly in 1097, during the turmoil after Ahmad's execution.
Read the profileShort-reigning khan of Samarkand under Seljuk overlordship, between Sulayman and the eastern prince Jibra'il.
Read the profilePrince of the eastern house and khan of Talas who took Samarkand, then invaded Seljuk Khorasan; defeated and put to death by Sanjar in 1102.
Read the profileSanjar's appointee in Samarkand, who ruled for nearly thirty years and built the Kalyan Minaret in Bukhara, completed in 1127; deposed by Sanjar in 1130.
Read the profileInstalled in Samarkand by Sanjar after the fall of Muhammad Arslan Khan; ruled for about two years.
Read the profileSon of Muhammad Arslan Khan and nephew of Sanjar; defeated by the Kara Khitai at Khujand in 1137 and, with Sanjar, at Qatwan in 1141; fled to Khorasan, which he later ruled after Sanjar's capture.
Read the profileBrother of Mahmud, set on the throne of Samarkand by the Kara Khitai after Qatwan; killed in 1156 in fighting with the Karluks.
Read the profileSon of Hasan ibn Ali; took the throne of Samarkand after Ibrahim's death and fought the Karluk chiefs of Transoxiana under Kara Khitai overlordship.
Read the profileBrother of Ali Chaghri Khan; ruled Samarkand for a decade under the Kara Khitai and kept up the struggle with the Karluk chiefs.
Read the profileSon of Mas'ud; ruled Samarkand as Tamghach Khan under the Kara Khitai until 1178.
Read the profileKhan of Samarkand for a quarter century under the Kara Khitai; wrote poetry in Persian, copied the Quran, and was the first khan to bear the title Ulugh Sultan al-Salatin.
Read the profileLast Western khan; turned from the Kara Khitai to the Khwarazmshah Muhammad and married his daughter, then sided with Samarkand's revolt against him and was executed when the city fell in 1212.
Read the profile11 Rulers
The Hasanid line of Yusuf Qadir Khan kept the senior title and ruled the eastern lands from Balasagun and Kashgar. The Eastern khans acknowledged the Seljuks only briefly, after 1089. Around 1134 the Kara Khitai took Balasagun, and the Eastern khans ruled on from Kashgar as their vassals until the line ended in 1211. The Eastern dates are the least certain part of the record: the older lists and the coin record differ by up to two decades, and the profiles give both where they disagree.
Son of Yusuf Qadir Khan; supreme khan from 1032 and first khan of the Eastern Khanate, which he divided among his kin in 1042; overthrown by his brother Muhammad in 1056.
Read the profileBrother of Sulayman who seized the Eastern Khanate in 1056; poisoned after about a year.
Read the profileSon of Muhammad Bughra Khan; proclaimed khan in 1057 and killed soon after in war with Yinal Tegin, ruler of Barskhan.
Read the profileEastern khan whose name the sources give differently, Mahmud or Yusuf; ruled Balasagun and Kashgar in the years when the Kutadgu Bilig was written.
Read the profileSon of Tughrul Qara Khan; ruled for about two months before Hasan, son of Sulayman, took the throne.
Read the profileEastern khan for a quarter century who extended his realm to Kucha and accepted Seljuk overlordship after 1089; the Kutadgu Bilig was presented to a Tabghach Bughra Khan usually identified with him.
Read the profileSon of Hasan Bughra Khan; ruled the Eastern Khanate from Kashgar and around 1128 defeated the Kara Khitai, then moving west, when they tried to take Kashgar.
Read the profileSon of Ahmad; usually identified with the khan of Balasagun who around 1134 called in Yelü Dashi against the Karluks and Kanglis, and lost his city and his title to him.
Read the profileEastern khan at Kashgar under the Kara Khitai, with the title Arslan Khan; little is recorded of his reign.
Read the profileLast reigning Eastern khan; Kashgar and Khotan rose against the Kara Khitai in 1204, and he died in 1205 with his heir held hostage.
Read the profileLast prince of the Eastern Karakhanids; held hostage by the Kara Khitai, released in 1211 and killed by the notables of Kashgar before he could rule.
Read the profileExplore More
