Irbis ( 650 or 652) was according to a number of Russian sources the founder of the

Khazar Khaganate The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a Nomadic empire, nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukra ...

. The

Khazars The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, a ...

traced their origin to the Turkic

Ashina Ashina may refer to: *Ashina tribe, a ruling dynasty of the Turkic Khaganate *Ashina clan (Japan) is a Japanese clans, Japanese clan that emerged during the Sengoku period.Edmond Papinot, Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire ...

clan who also founded the Onok Khaganate and

Turkic Khaganate The Göktürks founded two major khanates known as the Turkic Khaganate: * First Turkic Khaganate, which then fractured into ** Western Turkic Khaganate ** Eastern Turkic Khaganate * Second Turkic Khaganate The Second Turkic Khaganate was a kha ...

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. Peter Golden notes that Chinese and Arabic reports are almost identical, making the connection a strong one, and conjectures that the Khazar leader may have been

Irbis Seguy Irbis Shekui Khagan (full title: Yǐpíshèkuìkĕhàn 乙毗射匮可汗) (r. 642–651) was the penultimate ruler of the Western Turkic Khaganate. He was linked to the Nushibi faction and was son of El Kulug Shad. Reign In 642, he overthrew ...

, who lost power or was killed around 651.

References

Khazar rulers 7th-century monarchs in Asia {{history-stub