Saman Khuda

Saman Khuda (Saman Khoda, Saman-khudat; Persian: سامان‌خدا، سامان‌خدات) was an 8th-century Iranian noble whose descendants (the House of Saman) later became rulers of Khurasan (the Samanid Empire). He was a Dehqan from the village of Saman in Balkh province in present-day northern Afghanistan.[1] In the early 8th century, he came to Merv, seat of the Caliphal governor of Khorasan, Asad ibn 'Abd Allah al-Qasri (ruled 723-727). Saman was originally a Zoroastrian.[2] However, he was so impressed with the piety of Asad ibn 'Abd-Allah al-Qasri, that he converted to Islam.[3] He named his son Asad, allegedly in the governor's honor.

Caliph al-Mamun (786-833) subsequently appointed Asad's four sons – Saman Khuda's grandsons – as governors of Samarkand, Ferghana, Shash and Ustrushana, and Herat in recognition of their role in the suppression of a revolt.[4] This began the House of Saman; Saman Khuda's great-grandson Isma'il ibn Ahmad (849-907) became Amir of Transoxiana and Khorasan.

Saman was a 4th or 5th generation descendant of Bahram Chobin,[4][5] a noble of the ancient House of Mihran, who played an important role in the history of the later Sassanian Empire.[6]

  1. ^ Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual p. 162
  2. ^ Dhalla, M. N. History of Zoroastrianism (1938) Part 6, Chapter XLIII
  3. ^ Mohammad Taher, Encyclopaedic Survey of Islamic Culture, p. 84
  4. ^ a b Shamsiddin Kamoliddin, "To the Question of the Origin of the Samanids", Transoxiana 10 (July 2005).
  5. ^ Narshaki (trans. R. N. Frye), History of Bukhara, p. 79
  6. ^ R. N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia, London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1996, p. 200.