Karakhanid Khanate

Timeline

1. 999–1040Kashgar–Balasagun · XinjiangThe Karakhanid Khanate declared independence from the Samanids; the khanal house and nobility converted to Islam, and administration and religious education were conducted in Turkic, promoting the mass Islamization of Turkic peoples in Central Asia.
2. c. 1040–1140Samarkand–Kashgar · UzbekistanThe khanate split into eastern and western parts, the eastern khanate based at Balasagun and the western centered on Kashgar; the two repeatedly contested Transoxianan cities such as Samarkand and dealt with powerful neighbors including the Seljuks and Ghaznavids.
3. 1141–1150Samarkand · UzbekistanIn the 1141 Battle of Qatwan, the Qara Khitai defeated Seljuk sultan Sanjar, and the khan of the Eastern Karakhanids became a vassal; thereafter the political landscape of Transoxiana was reorganized, Karakhanid real power was further weakened, and internal strife and external intervention intensified.
4. c. 1150–1211Transoxiana–Tarim · Central AsiaThe Khwarazmshahs gradually encroached on Karakhanid territory; around 1211 the eastern and western khanates were successively abolished, ending the Karakhanids as an independent political entity, though their legacy of Islamization and Turkic-language administration profoundly shaped subsequent Central Asian history.