Alp Tigin, sometimes spelled as Alptigin, (Persian: الپتگین; Alp Tegīn, Turkic for brave prince) was King of Ghazni Province in what is now Afghanistan between 961 to 963 AD after replacing the Lawiks, a native ruling dynasty. A Turkic by origin or ethnicity, he is believed to have ruled this new territory as an extension of the Persian Samanids of Bukhara in the north. He laid the foundation of the Ghaznavid dynasty, which later ruled a vast territory stretching from the Oxus River (Amu Darya) to the Indus Valley and the Indian Ocean; and in the west it reached Rey and Hamadan (modern-day Iran).
Previously, Alp Tigin was a general from Balkh (modern-day Afghanistan) who had risen from a mercenary to a general of the Governor of Khorasan. In a political fallout over succession of the Samanids he crossed the Hindu Kush mountains southward and captured Ghazni, located strategically between Kabul and Kandahar in modern Afghanistan, and thereby establishing his own independent kingdom. He was succeeded by his son-in-law, Sabuktigin