Satuq Bughra Khan and the Kara-Khanid Conversion to Islam

Date

c. 934 CE

Category

Religion & ideology

Region

Central Asia (Kashgar and Transoxiana, modern Xinjiang and Kyrgyzstan)

Era

Post-Classical / Medieval

Significance

Around 934 CE, Satuq Bughra Khan, a ruler of the Kara-Khanid (Qarakhanid) confederation in Central Asia, embraced Islam and made it the state religion, making the Kara-Khanids the first major Turkic dynasty to convert.

According to tradition preserved in the Tazkirah Bughra Khan and the writings of Jamal Qarshi, Satuq was introduced to the faith as a youth through Abu an-Nasr, a Samanid merchant from Bukhara who had been permitted to build a mosque at Artush near Kashgar. After taking power, Satuq waged religious war against non-Muslim Turks and compelled the people of Kashgar to accept Islam. His conversion triggered a wave of adoption, and Muslim historians such as Ibn al-Athir record a mass conversion of '200,000 tents of the Turks' around 960 under his successors. This event marked a decisive religious and cultural turning point in Central Asia, binding Turkic peoples to the Islamic world and laying the foundation for later Turkic Muslim states.

Empires active in c. 934 CE

• Samanid Empire
  819 CE to 999 CE
• Byzantine Empire
  330 CE to 1453 CE
• Abbasid Caliphate
  750 CE to 1258 CE
• Kanem-Bornu Empire
  700 CE to 1900 CE
• Tui Manuʻa Confederacy
  900 CE to 950 CE
• Pala Empire
  750 CE to 1161 CE

Related religion & ideology events

• Huichang Persecution of Buddhism
  845 CE
• Adi Shankara and the Revival of Advaita Vedanta
  c. 700-750 CE
• The East-West Schism splits Latin and Greek Christianity
  16 July 1054
• Anawrahta establishes Theravada Buddhism across the Pagan realm
  1057 CE
• The Investiture Controversy and the Walk to Canossa
  1075 to 1122 (Investiture Controversy)
• Founding of Samye Monastery establishes Buddhism in Tibet
  c. 779 CE

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  c. 1050 onward (11th century)
• Rise of the Kingdom of Ife, cradle of Yoruba civilisation
  c. 1170 CE
• Brahmagupta codifies zero and arithmetic of negatives (Brahmasphutasiddhanta)
  628 CE
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  early-mid 14th century CE

Further reading

A Little History of Religion

The wider story

A Little History of Religion

Richard Holloway

Accessible sweep of humanity's faiths and belief systems from prehistory to the present.

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