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The Yusupov family traces it's ancestors back to the Baghdad Caliphate and legend takes their heritage back even further to a friend of the Prophet Mohammed. In the twelfth century the family established itself on the Caspian Sea. In the fourteenth century one of their ancestors, Yedygei, served as a field commander for Timur and founded the Nogai Horde. In the sixteenth century, Yedgei's great-great-grandson, Khan Yusuf, was an ally of Ivan the Terrible. After a disagreement over the status of Kazan, Ivan and Yusuf went to war and Ivan captured Kazan in 1552. (Ivan built St. Basil in celebration of his victory.) Following Yusuf's subsequent death, his brother, Ismail Murza, took control of the Nogai Horde and sent several of his relatives to live in Moscow in pledge of his support for Ivan.
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