The Karakhanid Capture of Bukhara (999)

By the late 10th century the Samanids, the Persian dynasty ruling from Bukhara, had been weakened by internal strife; their army and court were largely in the hands of Turkic commanders. To the north-east, the Karakhanids, who had embraced Islam, were growing strong.

In October 999 the Karakhanid ruler Nasr ibn Ali, the Ilig Khan, marched on Bukhara. The city put up no serious resistance; the Ilig Khan entered it and captured the last Samanid emir, Abd al-Malik II. At the same time, in the south, Mahmud of Ghazni took Khorasan.

The Samanid state was thus divided between two Turkic dynasties: north of the Oxus to the Karakhanids, south of it to the Ghaznavids. Transoxiana's passing to Turkic rule changed the region's history, for these lands remained under Turkic dynasties for centuries afterwards.