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Peoplesminimal

Tukhsi

Turkic tribe of the land between Lake Balkhash and Issyk Kul in the ninth and tenth centuries. One of the tribes whose federation became the Karakhanid state. They abducted the boy Sebüktegin.

The Tukhsi were a Turkic tribe whose land lay between Lake Balkhash and Issyk Kul, as the Hudud al-Alam describes it.^[1] In that land the Hudud records a large village, Biglilig, with a Sogdian name.^[2] The Tukhsi were among the Turkic peoples west of the Tianshan, together with the Yaghma and the Karluks. The federation of these peoples formed the Karakhanid state.^[3] Sebüktegin, the founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty, was carried off as a child by the Tukhsi from Barskhan on Issyk Kul. They sold him to a slave merchant of Chach.^[4]

References

^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 318
^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 331
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 304

Sources

Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam

Literature

Étienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders: A History (2005)

What links here6

Persons: Sebüktegin
States: Kara-Khanid Khanate · Karluk Yabgu State
Peoples: Karluk · Sogdians
Institutions and Titles: Furs and Musk among the Turkic Peoples

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Tukhsi.” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/ethnicities/tukhsi/

Last revised: 7 November 2026