Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan
Uyghur · mortal · Uyghur traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan is the founding saint of Islam among the Turks of the Tarim, a semi-historical Karakhanid khan who became the hero of a rich Uyghur hagiographic tradition. In the tazkirah his calling comes on the hunt: he chases a hare that turns to face him and becomes a holy man, in many versions the immortal Khidr, who summons him to the faith. Converting first in secret and then openly, he wrests the throne, wages holy war against his unbelieving kin, and brings his people to Islam. Around his tomb-shrine at Artush near Kashgar grew one of the foremost mazars of the Uyghur pilgrimage landscape, where the saint is still petitioned for intercession, binding the memory of the first Muslim khan to the living cult of the shrines.
Domains
- sainthood mazar cult
- conversion and holy war
Powers
- is summoned to the faith by a marvel of the hunt
- grants intercession from his shrine
Epithets
- Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan Ghazi — Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan, the Warrior of the FaithTazkirah-i Satuq Bughra Khan (primary)
Sources
- Satuq Bughra Khan, the first Karakhanid ruler to embrace Islam, is remembered in Uyghur hagiography (tazkirah) as a saint converted by a marvelous hare / Khidr and is venerated at his mazar at Artush.: Tazkirah-i Satuq Bughra Khan (Chagatai); Jamal Qarshi, Mulḥaqāt al-Ṣurāḥ (13th c.) (primary); Rian Thum, The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History (Harvard University Press, 2014) (secondary)