Keraites

The Keraites (also Kerait, Kereit, Khereid, Kazakh: керейт; Kyrgyz: керей; Mongolian: ᠬᠡᠷᠢᠶᠡᠳ, Хэрэйд; Nogai: Кереит; Uzbek: Kerait; Chinese: 克烈, Persian: کرایت) were one of the five dominant Turco-Mongol tribal confederations (khanates) in the Altai-Sayan region during the 12th century. They had converted to the Church of the East in the early 11th century and are one of the possible sources of the European Prester John legend.

Their original territory was expansive, corresponding to much of what is now Mongolia. Vasily Bartold (1913) located them along the upper Onon and Kherlen rivers and along the Tuul river. They were defeated by Genghis Khan in 1203 and became influential in the rise of the Mongol Empire, and were gradually absorbed into the succeeding Mongol khanates during the 13th century.

Name

In English, the name is primarily adopted as Keraites, alternatively Kerait, or Kereyit, in some earlier texts also as Karait or Karaites.

One common theory sees the name as a cognate with the Mongolian хар (khar) and Turkic qarā for "black, swarthy". There have been various other Mongol and Turkic tribes with names involving the term, which are often conflated.

According to the early 14th-century work Jami' al-tawarikh by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani,: Chapter three It is related that in ancient times there was monarch who had eight (seven) sons, all of whom were dark-skinned. For which reason they were called Kerait.