Oghulchak Arslan Khan (9th century) was the last

Karakhanid The Kara-Khanid Khanate (; ), also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids or the Afrasiabids (), was a Turkic khanate that ruled Central Asia in the 9th through the early 13th century. The dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek K ...

ruler to follow the native Turkic religion of

Tengrism Tengrism (also known as Tengriism, Tengerism, or Tengrianism) is an ethnic and old state Turkic peoples, Turko-Mongolic peoples, Mongolic religion originating in the Eurasian Steppe, Eurasian steppes, based on folk shamanism, animism and general ...

. He was a lesser ''Bughra'' Khan during his elder brother Bazir Arslan's rule in the west. He was titled ''Arslan'' Khan after his ascension to the throne.

Reign

He may have clashed with the Samanid emir

Ismail Ishmael ''Ismaḗl''; Classical/Qur'anic Arabic: إِسْمَٰعِيْل; Modern Standard Arabic: إِسْمَاعِيْل ''ʾIsmāʿīl''; la, Ismael was the first son of Abraham, the common patriarch of the Abrahamic religions; and is cons ...

in Talas, 893. After withdrawing to

Kashgar Kashgar ( ug, قەشقەر, Qeshqer) or Kashi ( zh, c=喀什) is an oasis city in the Tarim Basin region of Southern Xinjiang. It is one of the westernmost cities of China, near the border with Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Pakistan ...

, he welcomed the influx of Muslim traders to the city, even allowing them to build a mosque in the town of

Artux Artux, Artush ( ug, ئاتۇش شەھىرى; ky, ارتىش, Артыш, Artysh), and officially rendered as Atuş ( zh, s=阿图什市, p=Ātúshí Shì),The official spelling according to is a county-level city and the capital of the Kyrgyz au ...

just outside Kashgar. Growing Muslim presence led to the secret conversion of his nephew, Satuq Bughra Khan. When Oghulchak heard that Satuq had become a

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

, he demanded that Satuq build a Tengriist temple to show that he hadn't converted. Nasr, the Persian merchant who converted Satuq to Islam, advised him that he should pretend to build a temple but with the intention of building a mosque in his heart.{{Cite book, url=http://archive.org/details/asketchturkilan01shawgoog, title=A Sketch of the Turki Language as Spoken in Eastern Turkistan (Kashgar and ..., last=Robert Shaw, date=1878, publisher=Baptist Mission Press, others=Oxford University, language=en The khagan, after seeing Satuq starting to build the temple, stopped him, believing that he had not converted. Afterwards, Satuq obtained a fatwa which permitted him in effect to kill his uncle, after which he conquered Kashgar.

References

9th-century Turkic people Turkic rulers