The Samanid Empire (Persian: سامانیان, romanized: Sāmāniyān) was a Persianate Sunni Muslim empire, ruled by a dynasty of Iranian dehqan origin, from 819 to 999. The empire was centred in Khorasan and Transoxiana, and at its greatest extent included northeastern Iran and Central Asia.
The Samanid dynasty originated with four brothers: Nuh, Ahmad, Yahya, and Ilyas, who were made governors of territories under Abbasid suzerainty in 819. In 892, Ismail Samani, son of Ahmad, united the Samanids under his rule. It was also under him that the Samanids became effectively independent of the Abbasids. However, by 945, the government had fallen under the de facto control of the Turkic military slave faction, and the Samanid family's authority had become purely symbolic.
The Samanid Empire is part of the Iranian Intermezzo, which saw the creation of a Persianate culture and identity that brought Iranian speech and traditions into the fold of the Islamic world. This later contributed to the formation of the Turco-Persian culture.
The Samanids were patrons of the arts, leading to advancements in science and literature, and as a result attracted scholars such as Rudaki, Ferdowsi, and Avicenna. Under Samanid rule Bukhara was said to rival Baghdad in its glory. Scholars note that the Samanids did more to revive Persian language and culture than did the Buyids or the Saffarids, all the while continuing to use Arabic for science and religion. They considered themselves to be descendants of the Sasanian Empire. In a famous edict, the Samanids declare that "here, in this region, the language is Persian, and the kings of this realm are Persian kings."
History
Origins
The Samanid dynasty was descended from Saman Khuda, a dehqan of Iranian origin from the village of Saman in Balkh province, in present-day northern Afghanistan. The earliest appearance of the Samanid family appears to be in Khorasan rather than Transoxiana. In some sources, the Samanids claimed to be descended from the House of Mihran of Bahram Chobin. This claim is further supported by a geographical treatise from the second half of the 8th century, compiled by five Tuyuhun men and translated into the Tibetan language. In this chronicle, it is mentioned that the descendants of Bahram Chobin migrated to Balkh and settled there. According to Lev Gumilev, they were considered the ancestors of the Samanids. A few medieval sources such as Rashīd al-Dīn's Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh claimed that the House of Saman belonged to the Oghuz Turks, although this is considered unlikely; others have given them a Sogdian origin, or a Hephthalite princely background.
Al-Farghani identifies the village of Saman as min al-bahārima, most likely referring to bahār diza (the castle monastery), a royal district in Balkh once belonging to one of the last northern Hephthalite rulers, Nezak Tarkhan, before his execution in 710. Further evidence for this Bactrian-Hephthalite connection is supported by numismatics. In 968–969, Samanid ruler Mansur ibn Nuh commissioned a celebratory medallion for Nowruz, the portrait on said medallion deliberately rejects standard Sasanian iconography in favour of Hephthalite styles; the prominent nose, heavy-lidded eyes, receding chin and a winged crown closely mimic the "Nizak Malik" coinage of the 6th and 7th centuries, suggesting that even centuries later, the Samanid rulers may have been consciously asserting their ancestral links to the Hephthalite royal line. Other authors claim a similarity of this medallion with the coinage of the Western Turk Khagan Zik (r. 610–618).
Ali Anoonshahr criticizes the theory in relation to the coin, stating that "For one, we do not know if the person who designed the coin or his patrons knew the precise identity of images on Hephthalite numismatic models. In other words, both the artist and his patron may have understood their medallion as harking to the pre-Islamic kingly tradition of Balkh without realizing its direct connection to Nīzak or the Hephthalites." He adds that Samanid-era writings portray the Hephthalites negatively.
According to Luke Treadwell, Hephthalite princely background would explain the Samanids' rapid ascent under Caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833). As Tokhari nobles, they shared a common background with the Caliph's mother who hailed from Badghis (nearby to Balkh and the main headquarters of Nezak Tarkhan), allowing them to integrate seamlessly with the maternal relatives who made up the Caliph's inner circle in Merv. Beyond that, being Hephthalite they were linguistically and politically distinct from the rebellious Sogdians of Transoxiana, making them a loyalist alternative that would ensure authority remained tethered to the Caliphate rather than to regional Sogdian interests. Thus with their unique blend of noble prestige, maternal connections, local expertise, and distinct political loyalty, the Samanids were the ideal candidates to stabilize the volatile Transoxiana region.
Originally a Zoroastrian, Saman Khuda converted to Islam during the governorship of Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri in Khorasan, and named his oldest son Asad in the governor's honour. In 819, the governor of Khorasan, Ghassan ibn Abbad, rewarded the four sons of Asad ibn Saman for their aid against the rebel Rafi ibn al-Layth. Nuh ibn Asad received Samarkand; Ahmad ibn Asad received Farghana; Yahya ibn Asad received Tashkent, and Ilyas ibn Asad received Herat.
Rise
The Samanids in Herat (819–857)
Ilyas died in 856, and his son Ibrahim ibn Ilyas became his successor. The Tahirid governor of Khorasan, Muhammad ibn Tahir, subsequently appointed him as the commander of his army, and sent him on an expedition against the Saffarid ruler Ya'qub ibn al-Layth in Sistan. After facing defeat in battle near Pushang in 857, he fled to Nishapur, only to be captured by Ya'qub al-Saffar and sent to Sistan as a hostage.
The Samanid dynasty in Transoxiana (819–892)
In 839/40, Nuh seized Isfijab from the nomadic pagan Turks living in the steppe. Consequently, he had a wall constructed around the city to protect it from their attacks. He died in 841/2—his two brothers Yahya and Ahmad, were then appointed as the joint rulers of the city by the Tahirid governor of Khorasan. After Yahya died in 855, Ahmad took control over Châch, thus becoming the ruler of most of Transoxiana. He died in 864/5; his son Nasr I received Farghana and Samarkand, while his other son Ya'qub received Châch (areas around modern Tashkent/Chachkent).
Meanwhile, the Tahirids' authority had significantly weakened after suffering several defeats to Saffarid ruler Ya'qub al-Saffar. Hence, causing the Tahirids to lose their grip over the Samanids, who became more or less independent. Nasr I, used this opportunity to strengthen his authority by sending his brother Ismail to Bukhara, which was in an unstable condition after suffering from raids by the Afrighid dynasty of Khwarazm. When Ismail reached the city, he was warmly received by its inhabitants, who saw him as one who could restore order.
After not so long, disagreement over where to distribute tax money caused a conflict between the brothers. Ismail was eventually victorious in the dynastic struggle and took control of the Samanid state. However, Nasr had been the one who had been invested with Transoxiana, and the Abbasid caliphs continued to recognize him as the rightful ruler. Because of this, Ismail continued to recognize his brother as well, but Nasr was completely powerless, a situation that would continue until his death in August 892.
Final unification and height of power (892–907)
Following Nasr's death, Ismail moved the capital of the Samanid dynasty from Samarkand to Bukhara. A few months later the Saffarid emir, Ya'qub al-Saffar, also died and was succeeded by his brother Amr ibn al-Layth, who saw himself as the heir of the Saffarids. In the spring of 900, Amr clashed with Ismail near Balkh, but was defeated and taken into captivity. Ismail thereafter sent him to Baghdad, where he was executed. Ismail was thereafter recognized as the ruler of all of Khorasan and Transoxiana by the caliph. Furthermore, he also received the investiture over Tabaristan, Ray and Isfahan. It was also during this period that the Afrighid dynasty was forced into submission.
Before Ismail Samani's major victory against the Saffarids, he had made various expeditions in Transoxiana; in 892, he put an end to the Principality of Ushrusana by seizing all of its lands. During the same period, he put an end to the Bukhar Khudas in Bukhara. In 893, Ismail Samani invaded the territories of the Karluk Turks, taking Talas and converting the Nestorian church there into a mosque. The same year, he conducted a campaign to gather slaves, taking ten to fifteen thousand captives. The Samanid slave trade was the main trade income of the Samanid Empire, forming the base of economy of the state.
In 900, Ismail sent an army under Muhammad ibn Harun al-Sarakhsi against Muhammad ibn Zayd, the Zaydi ruler of Tabaristan and Gorgan. The invasion was successful; Muhammad ibn Zayd was killed and Tabaristan was conquered by the Samanids. However, Muhammad ibn Harun shortly revolted, forcing Ismail himself to invade the region the following year. Muhammad ibn Harun thereafter fled to Daylam, while Ismail reconquered Tabaristan and Gorgan. In 901, Amr Saffari was defeated at the battle of Balkh by the Samanids, which reduced the Saffarid dynasty to a minor tributary in Sistan. It was during this period that the Samanids were at their height of power, ruling as far as Qazvin in the west and Peshawar in the east.
Ismail is known in history as a competent general and a strong ruler; many stories about him are written in Arabic and Persian sources. Furthermore, because of his campaigns in the north, his empire was so safe from enemy incursions that the defences of Bukhara and Samarkand went unused. However, this later had consequences; at the end of the dynasty, the walls — earlier strong, but now falling apart — were greatly missed by the Samanids, who were constantly under attack by the Karakhanids and other enemies.
Ismail died in November 907, and was succeeded by his son Ahmad Samani (r. 907–914).
Not long after his accession, Ahmad invaded Sistan; by 911, Sistan was under complete Samanid control, and Ahmad's cousin Abu Salih Mansur was appointed as its governor. Meanwhile, an Alid named Hasan al-Utrush was slowly re-establishing Zaydi over Tabaristan. In 913, Ahmad sent an army under Muhammad ibn Sa'luk to deal with him. Although the Samanid army was much larger, Hasan managed to emerge victorious. Ahmad, before he could plan another expedition to Tabaristan, was the following year murdered by some of his slaves in a tent near Bukhara. During his reign, Ahmad is also said to have replaced the language of the court from Persian to Arabic, which made him unpopular among his subjects, and forced him to change it back to Persian. After Ahmad's death, his eight-year-old son Nasr II (r. 914–943) succeeded him.
Due to Nasr's youth, his prime minister Abu Abd Allah al-Jayhani took care over most of the state affairs. Al-Jayhani was not only an experienced administrator, but also a prominent geographer and greatly educated man. Almost right after Nasr II had ascended the throne, several revolts erupted, the most dangerous one being under his paternal grand-uncle, Ishaq ibn Ahmad, who seized Samarkand and began minting coins there, while his son Abu Salih Mansur seized Nishapur and several cities in Khorasan. Ishaq was eventually defeated and captured, while Abu Salih Mansur died of natural causes in 915. Some time later Nasr II once again had to deal with rebels; in 919, the governor of Khorasan, Husayn ibn Ali Marvarrudhi, rebelled against Samanid authority. Nasr responded by sending an army under Ahmad ibn Sahl to suppress the rebellion, which the latter managed to accomplish. After a few weeks, however, Ahmad shortly rebelled himself at Nishapur, made incursions into Gorgan, and then fortified himself in Merv to avoid a Samanid counter-attack. Nevertheless, the Samanid general Hamuya ibn Ali managed to lure Ahmad out of Merv, and defeated him in a battle at Marw al-Rudh; he was captured and imprisoned in Bukhara, where he remained until his death in 920.
At considerable expense, Nasr II b. Ahmad erected a new palace for himself and for his officials in Bukhara, in the ancient Rigistan region. In the west, Nasr II clashed several times with Daylamite and Gilite rulers. In 921, the Zaydids under the Gilite ruler Lili ibn al-Nu'man invaded Khorasan, but were defeated by the Simjurid general Simjur al-Dawati. Later in 930, a Dailamite military leader, Makan ibn Kaki, seized Tabaristan and Gurgan, and even took possession of Nishapur in western Khorasan. He was, however, forced to withdraw back to Tabaristan one year later, due to the threat that Samanids posed. Makan then returned to Tabaristan, where he was defeated by the Ziyarid ruler Mardavij, who managed to conquer the region. In 935, Nasr II re-established Samanid control in Gurgan and made Mardavij's successor Vushmgir his vassal. However, in 939 he declared independence, but was defeated the following year at Iskhabad.