Kürabir is a reconstructed form of the name of the Uyghur minister whom the Chinese texts call Jueluowu.[1] In 839 he moved against the Uyghur khan with the help of Shatuo troops. In 840 he was executed when the Kirghiz took the court.[2]

Name

The Xin Tang Shu, the Jiu Tang Shu and the Tang Huiyao all write the name 掘羅勿. The Tang Huiyao adds the two characters 薦公 after it.[3] The Turkic form Kürabir is reconstructed from the Chinese sounds.[1] The texts give him the rank of minister (相). They name no family and no tribe.[4]

The coup of 839

The Jiu Tang Shu opens the story a little earlier. In the early years of the Kaicheng era, a minister, An Yunhe, and a tegin, Chai Cao, planned to take the khan’s power. The khan learned of it and killed them both.[5] Jueluowu kept an army outside the court. He resented the executions, killed the khan and made Hesa Tegin khan.[5]

The Xin Tang Shu places the coup in the fourth year of Kaicheng, 839.[2] Jueluowu made trouble and led Shatuo troops against the khan. The khan took his own life, and the people set up Hesa Tegin as khan.[2] The Tang Huiyao tells it the same way. The minister led the Shatuo from north of the mountains and besieged the khan, and the khan killed himself.[6] That year famine and pestilence struck the Uyghur lands, and heavy snow killed many sheep and horses.[4]

The Tang histories therefore disagree about how the khan died, by the minister’s hand or by his own. They agree that Jueluowu was the cause and that Hesa came to the throne.[7]

The end in 840

A general of the court, Külüg Bagha, hated Jueluowu and fled to the Kirghiz.[5] He came back with them in 840.[8] The Xin Tang Shu says that they killed the khan, executed Jueluowu and burned the royal camp.[2] The Jiu Tang Shu says that Julu Mohe killed Hesa, beheaded Jueluowu and burned the court almost to nothing.[5] The war is told in the Uyghur–Kirghiz War.

One man or two

In both Tang histories the minister and the new khan are two men, and the Kirghiz kill both.[7] The Tang Huiyao is worded differently. Its sentence that the people set up a man as Hesa Khan names the man with the last three characters of the minister’s own name as that text writes it.[6] This may mean that the minister Jueluowu and the khan Hesa were one and the same man.[9] The two Tang histories speak against this, because they keep the two apart.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b Drompp 2005, p. 37
  2. ^ a b c d Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  3. ^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195; Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 98
  4. ^ a b Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 98
  5. ^ a b c d Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195
  6. ^ a b Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 98
  7. ^ a b c Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  8. ^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195
  9. ^ Mackerras 1972, p. 182

Sources

Literature

  • Colin Mackerras, The Uighur Empire According to the T'ang Dynastic Histories (1972)
  • Michael R. Drompp, Tang China and the Collapse of the Uighur Empire: A Documentary History (2005)

Related

What links here2

Persons
Hesa Khan · Külüg Bagha

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Kürabir.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/persons/kurabir/

Last revised: 8 November 2026