recorded by Muslim texts, but they also cooperated at times. In one instance, the Khazars hired the Oghuz to fight off an attack by the Alans. In 965, the Oghuz took part in a Rus' attack on the Khazars and in 985 they joined the Rus' again in attacking Volga Bulgaria. The Yabgu State of the Oghuz did not have a central leadership and there is no evidence of the Yabgu acting as a spokesman for the entire Oghuz people. By the 10th century, some Oghuz had settled in towns and converted to Islam, although many tribes still followed Tengrism. Cuman Kipchak The relationship and origins of the Cumans and Kipchaks is uncertain. Probably, Cumans and Kipchaks had originally been two distinct Turkic peoples who joined one same confederation, with Cumans constituting the western part and Kipchaks the eastern part. According to Rashid al-Din Hamadani, writing much later in the Ilkhanate, Kipchak is derived from a Turkic word which means 'hollow rotted out tree'. Cuman may be derived from the Turkic word , which means 'pale' or 'yellow". Some scholars associate the Cumans-Kipchaks with the Kankalis. The Kipchaks might have been mentioned as Turk-Kibchak in the 8th century Moyun Chur inscription, though this was uncertain as only the letters 𐰲𐰴 (čq *čaq?) were readable on the damaged inscription; they were first definitely mentioned in the 9th century by Ibn Khordadbeh, who placed them next to the Toquz Oghuz, while Al-Biruni claimed that the Qun were further east of them. Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi writes that the Qun came from the lands of Cathay which they fled from in fear of the Khitans. This may have been what the Armenian chronicler Matthew of Edessa was referring to when he recounted Pale Ones being driven out by the people of the Snakes, whom Golden identified as a Mongolic or para-Mongolic people known as in Arabic, in Old Turkic, and Kumo Xi in Chinese language. Kimek In the mid-9th century, the Kimek-Kipchak confederation emerged in the northern steppes stretching from Lake Balkhash in the east to the Aral Sea in the west. They were a confederation of seven minor tribes: Yemeks, Imur, Tatars, Bayandur, Kipchaks, Lanikaz, and Ajlad; and whose leader held the title of "Shad Tutuk", derived from the Middle Chinese military title 'military governor' (> standard Chinese: ), but started using the title of "Yabgu" instead when remnants of the Uyghur Khaganate