Almış

Almış was ruler of Volga Bulgaria in the early tenth century and the first of its kings known to have adopted Islam. In 921 he asked the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir for religious teachers and help in building a mosque and a fortress, and the embassy that arrived in 922, described by Ibn Fadlan, confirmed his conversion; he took the Muslim name Jafar ibn Abd Allah. His reign began the Islamisation of the Volga Bulgars.