Alp Arslan (Valiant lion), sultan of the Sel-jukian Turks, born in Turkistan about 1028, assassinated in 1072. He was descended from Seljuk, succeeded his uncle Togrul in 10G3, and was also appointed by the caliph as emir-el-omra or commander-in-chief. He conquered Armenia in 1065 and Georgia in 1068, and though repeatedly repulsed by the troops of the Byzantine empress Eudocia, he eventually carried his victorious arms from Antioch to the Black sea. After the capture and death of Eudocia's husband and general, the emperor Romanus Diogenes (1071), he planned an expedition against Turkistan, the cradle of his dynasty, and crossed the Oxus with an immense army; but he was stabbed to death by the governor of the first fortress he captured, whom he had ordered to be executed in revenge for his obstinate defence. Alp Arslan's virtues as a ruler are no less extolled than his courage as a warrior.