APersonIndependent states
Satuq Bughra Khan
Karakhanid ruler (10th century): regarded as the first Turkic ruler to adopt Islam and the founder of a Turkic-Islamic state in Kashgar.
According to tradition, Satuq was of the Karakhanid house and in his youth secretly embraced Islam under the influence of Muslim merchants and scholars who came to Kashgar. He then struggled against his uncle Oghulchak Qadir Khan, took power in Kashgar and adopted the name Abd al-Karim.
Satuq Bughra Khan died in 955. Under his son Musa, in 960, most of the Karakhanid people are recorded as converting to Islam: the sources speak of "two hundred thousand tents of Turks" becoming Muslim. Satuq Bughra Khan's tomb at Artux is still a place of pilgrimage.
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Updated: November 12, 2026