Samanid Empire: A Visual History

The Samanids were a Persian noble family who governed Transoxiana and Khorasan for the Abbasid caliphs from 819 and became effectively independent under Ismail (892-907), who made Bukhara his capital. Their state was the seedbed of New Persian literature, sponsoring the poet Rudaki and the first Persian prose works, and hosted the young Avicenna. Their Turkish slave soldiers eventually took over: the Ghaznavids and Karakhanids divided the empire in 999.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Samanid Empire. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Samanid territory

Timeline of the Samanid Empire

1. 819
   Samanid brothers made governors
2. 892
   Ismail Samani
3. 900
   Saffarids defeatedKhorasan taken.
4. 914
   Nasr IICultural peak; Rudaki at court.
5. 962
   Alptigin takes Ghazni
6. 992
   Karakhanids first take Bukhara
7. 999
   Bukhara fallsThe empire divided.

From governors to amirs

Four grandsons of Saman Khuda, a Zoroastrian convert, were made governors of Central Asian cities by the caliph al-Mamun in 819. Ismail ibn Ahmad defeated the Saffarids in 900, took all of Khorasan, and ruled from Bukhara with the caliph's blessing but no real interference. His tomb in Bukhara is one of the earliest masterpieces of Islamic brickwork.

The Persian renaissance

The Samanids used Persian, not Arabic, at court and commissioned translations of Tabari's history and Quran commentary into Persian. Rudaki, the father of Persian poetry, and Daqiqi, who began the Shahnameh later finished by Ferdowsi, worked for them. Bukhara's library dazzled the young Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Trade with the Volga Bulgars and Vikings scattered Samanid silver dirhams across Scandinavia.

Fall to the Turks

The Samanids relied on Turkish military slaves and converted the Karluk and Oghuz Turks on their frontier. Slave generals such as Alptigin and Sabuktigin took Ghazni for themselves, and the Karakhanid Turks took Bukhara in 999; the last Samanid, Ismail Muntasir, was killed in 1005 after years of guerrilla resistance.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Abbasid Caliphate (750 to 1258)
• Tahirid dynasty (821 to 873)
• Ghaznavid Empire (977 to 1186)
• Great Seljuk Empire (1037 to 1194)
• Buyid dynasty (934 to 1062)
• Khazar Khanate (650 to 969)
• Kievan Rus (882 to 1240)

8 surprising things about the Samanid Empire

1. Tajikistan's currency, the somoni, and its highest peak are named after Ismail Samani.
2. More Samanid silver coins have been found in Sweden than in Central Asia, thanks to the Viking trade.
3. The Samanid mausoleum in Bukhara survived the Mongols because it was buried in silt.
4. Avicenna wrote that he read every book in the Samanid royal library as a teenager, shortly before it burned down.
5. The Samanids' conversion of the Turks laid the foundations for the Karakhanids, Seljuks and later Turkish Islamic states.
6. The dynasty claimed descent from the Sasanian general Bahram Chobin.
7. Bukhara was called 'the dome of Islam in the East' in the Samanid period.
8. The Samanid slave trade in Turks was one of the largest sources of revenue in the Islamic world.

Sources

• Samanid dynasty Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Samanid Empire Wikipedia
• Samanid Dynasty World History Encyclopedia
• Richard N. Frye, Bukhara: The Medieval Achievement (1965) University of Oklahoma Press

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