The Kara-Khanid Khanate (Persian: قراخانیان‎, romanized: Qarākhāniyān) also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids. or the Afrasiabids (Persian: آل افراسیاب‎, romanized: Āl-i Afrāsiyāb, lit. 'House of Afrasiab'), was a Turkic dynasty that ruled Central Asia in the 9th through the early 13th century. The dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek Khanids refer to royal titles with Kara Kağan being the most important Turkish title up till the end of the dynasty.

The Khanate conquered Transoxania in Central Asia and ruled it between 999–1211. Their arrival in Transoxania signaled a definitive shift from Iranian to Turkic predominance in Central Asia, yet the Kara-khanids gradually assimilated the Perso-Arab Muslim culture, while retaining some of their native Turkish culture.

The capitals of the Kara-Khanid Khanate included Kashgar, Balasagun, Uzgen and Samarkand. In the 1040s, the Khanate split into the Eastern and Western Khanates. In the late 11th century, they came under the suzerainty of the Seljuks, followed by the Kara-Khitans in the mid-12th century. The Eastern Khanate was ended by the Kara-Khitans in 1211. The Western Khanate was extinguished by the Khwarazmian dynasty in 1213.

The history of the Kara-Khanid Khanate is reconstructed from fragmentary and often contradictory written sources, as well as studies on their coinage.[10]

Tomb of Sultan Satuk Bughra Khan, the first Muslim khan, in Artush, Xinjiang

The Kara-Khanid Khanate was a confederation formed some time in the 9th century by Karluks, Yagmas, Chigils, and other peoples living in Zhetysu, Western Tian Shan (modern Kyrgyzstan), and Western Xinjiang around Kashgar.

The Karluks were a nomadic people from the western Altai Mountains who moved to Zhetysu. In 742, the Karluks were part of an alliance led by the Basmyl and Uyghurs that rebelled against the Göktürks. In the realignment of power that followed, the Karluks were elevated from a tribe led by an el teber to one led by a yabghu, which was one of the highest Turkic dignitaries and also implies membership in the Ashina clan in whom the "heaven-mandated" right to rule resided. The Karluks and Uyghurs later allied themselves against the Basmyl, and within two years they toppled the Basmyl khagan. The Uyghur yabghu became khagan and the Karluk leader yabghu. This arrangement lasted less than a year. Hostilities between the Uyghur and Karluk forced the Karluk to migrate westward into the western Turgesh lands.

By 766 the Karluks had forced the submission of the Turgesh and they established their capital at Suyab on the Chu River. The Karluk confederation by now included the Chigil and Tukshi tribes who may have been Türgesh tribes incorporated into the Karluk union. By the mid-9th century, the Karluk confederation had gained control of the sacred lands of the Western Türks after the destruction of the Uyghur Khaganate by the Old Kirghiz Control of sacred lands, together with their affiliation with the Ashina clan, allowed the Khaganate to be passed on to the Karluks along with domination of the steppes after the previous Khagan was killed in a revolt.[16]

During the 9th century southern Central Asia was under the rule of the Samanids, while the Central Asian steppe was dominated by Turkic nomads such as the Pechenegs, the Oghuz Turks, and the Karluks. The domain of the Karluks reached as far north as the Irtysh and the Kimek confederation, with encampments extending to the Chi and Ili rivers, where the Chigil and Tukshi tribes lived, and east to the Ferghana valley and beyond. The area to the south and east of the Karluks was inhabited by the Yagma.[17] The Karluk center in the 9th and 10th centuries appears to have been at Balasagun on the Chu River. In the late 9th century the Samanids marched into the steppes and captured Taraz, one of the headquarters of the Karluk khagan, and a large church was transformed into a mosque.

The map of Kara-Khanid Khanate as of 1006 AD when it reached its greatest extent

11th-12th-century Karakhanid mausolea in Uzgen, Kyrgyzstan.

Qarakhanid Dynasty, also spelled Karakhanid, also called Ilek Khanid, Turkic dynasty (999-1211) that ruled in Transoxania in Central Asia.

The Qarakhanids, who belonged to the Qarluq tribal confederation, became prominent during the 9th century. With the disintegration of the Iranian Sāmānid dynasty, the Qarakhanids took over the Sāmānid territories in Transoxania. In 999 Hārūn (or Ḥasan) Bughra Khān, grandson of the paramount tribal chief of the Qarluq confederation, occupied Bukhara, the Sāmānid capital. The Sāmānid domains were split up between the Ghaznavids, who gained Khorāsān and Afghanistan, and the Qarakhanids, who received Transoxania; the Oxus River thus became the boundary between the two rival empires. During this period the Qarakhanids were converted to Islām.

Early in the 11th century the unity of the Qarakhanid dynasty was fractured by constant internal warfare. In 1041 Muḥammad ʿAyn ad-Dawlah (reigned 1041-52) took over the administration of the western branch of the family, centred at Bukhara. At the end of the 11th century, the Qarakhanids were forced to accept Seljuq suzerainty. With a decline in Seljuq power, the Qarakhanids in 1140 fell under domination of the rival Turkic Karakitai confederation, centred in northern China. ʿUthmān (reigned 1204-11) briefly reestablished the independence of the dynasty, but in 1211 the Qarakhanids were defeated by the Khwārezm-Shāh ʿAlāʾ ad-Dīn Muḥammad and the dynasty was extinguished.