Berke Khan

Berke Khan (c. 1208–1266), a son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan, ruled the Golden Horde from 1257 and was the first Mongol ruler to establish Islam officially in a khanate; his name means ‘stubborn’. After Batu's successors Sartaq and Ulaghchi died he governed until confirmed as khan in 1257.

His conversion, begun in Batu's lifetime, was probably political, aimed at the merchants of Volga Bulgaria and Central Asia, and he built mosques. He quarrelled with his cousin Hulagu over Azerbaijan and the 1258 sack of Baghdad and killing of the caliph; allied with Mamluk sultan Baibars, he fought Hulagu in the Caucasus from late 1262.

An Egyptian envoy in 1263 described his thin beard, jewelled gold earring and bad leg. Berke died in 1266 or 1267 crossing the Kura against Hulagu's son Abaqa; his grandnephew Mengu-Timur succeeded him and kept the Mamluk alliance.