# Satuq Bughra Khan Adopts Islam (c. 934–955 CE)

URL: https://allhistories.com/uzbekistan/timeline/934-satuq-bughra-khan-adopts-islam
Location: Kashgar and Artush
Themes: Karakhanids, Conversion

Satuq Bughra Khan, a Karakhanid prince, is remembered as one of the first Turkic rulers to adopt Islam, and his subjects followed him. Later tradition says he took the faith as a boy after a Samanid merchant from Bukhara taught him. He seized Kashgar, reigned about 942–955, and died near Artush, where his shrine was restored in 1995. The date is contested. Some authors cite 934, often by tradition, while others place the conversion about 950–955; the Karakhanid article gives 932–934 for his conversion and about 960 for a mass conversion of Turks. Accounts also disagree on who taught him: Jamal Qarshi names the Samanid merchant Abu an-Nasr, while the Ottoman historian Munajjimbashi credits a faqih from Bukhara. The conversion gave the Karakhanids an Islamic identity and a religious cause. Several decades later, from about 990, they attacked the Samanids and in 999 took Bukhara for good. They then ruled Transoxiana as a Turkic Muslim dynasty, making Turkic the language of rule while Persian court culture continued. At this point in the timeline (c. 934 CE), the Samanid state was ruled by Nasr II ibn Ahmad (914 – 943 CE). The main location of this event lies outside present-day Uzbekistan.

## Why it matters
Turned the Karakhanids into a Muslim Turkic power and thereby set up the Turkic conquest and rule of Transoxiana after 999.

Ruler at the Time: [Nasr II ibn Ahmad](https://allhistories.com/uzbekistan/rulers/nasr-ii-ibn-ahmad)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Satuq Bughra Khan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_Satuq_Bughra_Khan)
- [Wikipedia — Kara-Khanid Khanate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara-Khanid_Khanate)