Alp Tigin, (Persian: الپتگین‎‎; Alp Tegīn, Turkic for brave prince) sometimes spelled as Alptigin, a Turkish slave and Samanid governor of Khorasan, was the first Turkic emir of Ghazna between 962 to 963 after replacing the Lawiks, a native ruling dynasty. A Turk by origin or ethnicity, he is believed to have ruled this new territory as an extension of the Persian Samanid Empire in the north.