The armies of the Ṣaffārids
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2771980 |
|---|---|
| Authors | C Edmund Bosworth (0000-0002-2144-0537, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1968 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 534-554 |
| Publication date | 1968-10-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0041-977X • E-ISSN: 1474-0699 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0041977x00125558 |
| OpenAlex | W2039408027 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 22 |
| References cited | 4 |
It is not too much to describe the Ṣaffārids of S‚stān as an archetypal military dynasty. In the later years of the third/ninth century, their empire covered the greater part of the non-Arab eastern Islamic world. In the west, Ya'qūb. al-Laith's army was only halted at Dair al-'Āqūl, 50 miles from Baghdad; in the north, Ya'qūb and his brother 'Arm campaigned in the Caspian coastlands against the local 'Alids, and 'Amr made serious attempts to extend his power into Khwārazm and Transoxania; in the east, the two brothers pushed forward the frontiers of the Dār al-Islām into the pagan borderlands of what are now eastern Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier region of West Pakistan; and in the south, Ṣaffārid authority was acknowledged even across the persion Gulf in 'Umān. This impressive achievement was the work of two soldiers of genius, Ya'qūub and 'Amr, and lasted for little more than a quarter of a century. It began to crumble when in 287/900 the Sāmānid Amīr Ismā'īl b. Aḥmad defeated arid captured 'Amr b. al-Laith, and 11 years later, the core of the empire, Sīstān itself, was in Sāmānid hands. Yet such was the effect in Sīstān of the Ṣaffārid brothers' achievement, and the stimulus to local pride and feeling which resulted from it, that the Ṣaffārids returned to power there in a very short time. For several more centuries they endured and survived successive waves of invaders of Sīstān-the Ghaznavids, the Seljūqs, the Mongols-and persisted down to the establishment of the Ṣafavid state in Persia
Ancient history · Archaeology · Brother · Empire · Frontier · Geography · Islam · Ninth · Political science · Quarter (Canadian coin) · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law
The Saffarid Yaʿqub b. Layth and the Revival of Persian Kingship
Conclusion
The Minor Dynasties of Northern Iran
The Visual Arts
Zoroastrian Literature After the Muslim Conquest
The late Sasanian Near East
The Early Spread and Influences of Buddhism in Iran
The History of Eastern Iran
Iran Under the Būyids
The Early Ghaznavids
Omar Khayyam
Modern approaches to early Islamic history
The ‘Abbāsid Caliphate in Iran
Tribes, Cities and Social Organization
The Exact Sciences
The Rise of the New Persian Language
The Ṭāhirids and Ṣaffārids
Sects and Heresies
The Cambridge History of Iran
The Arab Conquest of Iran and Its Aftermath
The New Cambridge History of Islam
Tarih-i Sistan’da Selçuklular ile İlgili Bilgiler
| Citations per year | 0.39 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1969 - 2020 (52) |
| Highly cited | No |