Saffarid dynasty

Not to be confused with Safavid dynasty.
Saffarid dynasty
صفاریان
861–1002
Saffarid dynasty at its greatest extent under Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar
Saffarid dynasty at its greatest extent under Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar
CapitalZaranj
Common languagesPersian (administration, mother tongue)[1][2][3]
GovernmentHereditary monarchy
Amir (Emir) 
• 861–879
Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar
• 963–1002
Khalaf I
Historical eraMedieval
• Established
861
• Disestablished
1002
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Tahirid dynasty
Abbasid Caliphate
Zunbils
Samanid dynasty
Ghaznavids

The Saffarid dynasty (Persian: صفاریان, romanized: safāryān) was a Persianate dynasty of eastern Iranian origin that ruled over parts of Persia, Greater Khorasan, and eastern Makran from 861 to 1002. One of the first indigenous Persian dynasties to emerge after the Islamic conquest, the Saffarid dynasty was part of the Iranian Intermezzo. The dynasty's founder was Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar, who was born in 840 in a small town called Karnin (Qarnin), which was located east of Zaranj and west of Bost, in what is now Afghanistan. A native of Sistan and a local ayyār, Ya'qub worked as a coppersmith (ṣaffār) before becoming a warlord. He seized control of the Sistan region and began conquering most of Iran and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The Saffarids used their capital Zaranj as a base for an aggressive expansion eastward and westward. They first invaded the areas south of the Hindu Kush, and then overthrew the Tahirid dynasty, annexing Khorasan in 873. By the time of Ya'qub's death, he had conquered the Kabul Valley, Sindh, Tocharistan, Makran (Balochistan), Kerman, Fars, Khorasan, and nearly reached Baghdad but then suffered a defeat by the Abbasids.[4]

The Saffarid dynasty did not last long after Ya'qub's death. His brother and successor, Amr bin Laith, was defeated at the Battle of Balkh against Ismail Samani in 900. Amr bin Laith was forced to surrender most of his territories to the new rulers. The Saffarids were confined to their heartland of Sistan, and with time, their role was reduced to that of vassals of the Samanids and their successors.

  1. ^ "Persian Prose Literature". World Eras. HighBeam Research. 2002. Archived from the original on May 2, 2013. Retrieved September 3, 2012. Princes, although they were often tutored in Arabic and religious subjects, frequently did not feel as comfortable with the Arabic language and preferred literature in Persian, which was either their mother tongue—as in the case of dynasties such as the Saffarids (861–1003), Samanids (873–1005), and Buyids (945–1055)...
  2. ^ Robinson, Chase F. (2009). The new Cambridge history of Islam. Vol 1, Sixth to eleventh centuries (1. publ. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 345. ISBN 978-0-521-83823-8. The Tahirids had made scant use of Persian, though the Saffarids used it considerably more. But under the Samanids Persian emerged as a full "edged language of literature and (to a lesser extent) administration. Court patronage was extended to Persian poets, including the great Rudaki (d. c. 940). Meanwhile, Arabic continued to be used abundantly, for administration and for scientific, theological and philosophical discourse.
  3. ^ Meisami 1999, p. 15.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bosworth was invoked but never defined (see the help page).