The composite Turko-Persian, Turco-Persian,[1] or Turco-Iranian (Persian: فرهنگ ایرانی-ترکی) is the distinctive culture that arose in the 9th and 10th centuries AD in Khorasan and Transoxiana (present-day Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and minor parts of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan).[2] According to the modern historian Robert L. Canfield, the Turco-Persian tradition was Persianate in that it was centered on a lettered tradition of Iranian origin; it was Turkic in so far as it was for many generations patronized by rulers of Turkic ancestry; and it was "Islamicate" in that Islamic notions of virtue, permanence, and excellence infused discourse about public issues as well as the religious affairs of the Muslims, who were the presiding elite."[3]
In subsequent centuries, the Turco-Persian culture was carried on further by conquering peoples to neighbouring regions, eventually becoming the predominant culture of the ruling and elite classes of South Asia (where it evolved into Indo-Persian tradition), Central Asia and the Tarim Basin, as well as large parts of West Asia.[4]