Tegin Shah
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Through Umayyad Caliphate
Context
Kabulistan was the heartland of the Turk Shahi domain, which at times included Zabulistan and Gandhara.
During their rule, the Turk Shahi were in constant conflict against the eastward expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate. About 650 CE, the Arabs captured Sistan, and started to attack Shahi territory from the west. They captured Kabul in 665 CE, but the Turk Shahis were able to mount a counter-offensive and repulsed the Arabs, taking back the areas of Kabul and Zabulistan (around Ghazni), as well as the region of Arachosia as far as Kandahar.
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Rule
In 680 CE, Shahi Tegin succeeded Barha Tegin. The Arabs again failed to capture Kabul and Zabulistan in 697–698 CE, and their general Yazid ibn Ziyad was killed in the action.
In 719/20 CE, the Tegin of Kabulistan (Tegin Shah) and the Iltäbär of Zabulistan sent a combined embassy to the Chinese emperor of the Tang dynasty in Xi'an to obtain confirmation of their thrones. The Chinese emperor signed an investiture decree, which was returned to the Turk rulers:
In the seventh year of the Kaiyuan reign [719 CE], [Jibin dispatched] envoys to the [Tang] court, who offered up a book of an astrological text, secret medical recipes, together with foreign medecines and other things. An imperial edict was issued to bestow on the king [of Jibin] the title Geluodazhi Tele [for "Tegin"].
— Old Book of Tang, Book 198.
The word "Geluodazhi" in this extract (Chinese: 葛罗达支, pronounced in Early Middle Chinese: kat-la-dat-tcǐe), is thought to be a transliteration of the ethnonym Khalaj. Hence Tegin Shah was "Tegin of the Khalaj". This title also appears on his coinage in Gupta script, where he is named "hitivira kharalāča", probably meaning "Iltäbär of the Khalaj". In 720 CE, the ruler of Zabulistan (謝䫻, xieyu) also received the title Gedaluozhi Xielifa (Chinese: 葛達羅支頡利發), Xielifa being the known Chinese transcription of the Turkish "Iltäbär", hence "Iltäbär of the Khalaj". Overall, it seems that the Turk Shahi rulers were Khalaj Turks.
Tegin Shah abdicated in 739 CE in favour of his son Fromo Kesaro and sent an embassy through Central Asia in 719 CE:
In the 27th year [of Kaiyuan, ie 739 CE], the king Wusan Tela Sa [for Khorasan Tegin Shah] submitted a memorial requesting that due to his old age, his son Fulin Jisuo may succeed him on the throne. The emperor agreed and dispatched an envoy in order to confer the king's title on him through an imperial edict.
— Old Book of Tang, Book 198.