Alp Tigin
King of Ghazna
Years: 915 - 963
Alp Tigin, sometimes spelled as Alptigin, (Persian: Alp Tegīn, Turkic for brave prince) is King of Ghazni Province in what is now Afghanistan between 961 to 963 after replacing the Lawiks, a native ruling dynasty.
A Turk by origin or ethnicity, he is believed to have ruled this new territory as an extension of the Persian Samanids of Bukhara in the north.
He lays the foundation of the Ghaznavid dynasty, which later rules a vast territory stretching from the Oxus River (Amu Darya) to the Indus Valley and the Indian Ocean; and in the west it reaches Rey and Hamadan (modern-day Iran).
He rules for around 15 years and died in 963.
Previously, Alp Tigin had been a general from Balkh (modern-day Afghanistan) who had risen from a mercenary to a general of the Governor of Khorasan.
In a political fallout over succession of the Samanids, he had crossed the Hindu Kush mountains southward and captured Ghazni, located strategically between Kabul and Kandahar in modern Afghanistan, and thereby establishing his own independent kingdom.
He is succeeded by his son-in-law, Sabuktigin.
