The Kara-Khanid Khanate, also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids or the Afrasiabids, was a Karluk Turkic khanate that ruled Central Asia from the 9th to the early 13th century. The dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek Khanids refer to royal titles with Kara Khagan being the most important Turkic title up until the end of the dynasty.
Anikova dish: Nestorian Christian plate with decoration of the Siege of Jericho, probably made by Sogdian artists under Karluk dominion, in Semirechye. Cast silver of the 9th-10th century, copied from an original 8th century plate.
Armoured horsemen on the Anikova dish, Semirechye c. 800.
Proto-Karakhanid coinage from Semirech’e, with Arabic legend around central square hole, c. 950
Tomb of Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan (r. 920–955 CE), the first Muslim khan of the Kara-Khanids, in Artush, Xinjiang
Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi or Parsi, is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties, respectively Iranian Persian, Dari Persian, and Tajiki Persian. It is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan, as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran. It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet, a derivative of the Arabic script, and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet, a derivative of the Cyrillic script.
An Old Persian inscription written in Old Persian cuneiform in Persepolis, Iran
Middle Persian text written in Inscriptional Pahlavi on the Paikuli inscription from between 293 and 297. Slemani Museum, Iraqi Kurdistan.
Ferdowsi's Shahnameh
Kalilah va Dimna, an influential work in Persian literature
