SAMANIDS, the first great native dynasty which sprang up in the 9th century in E. Persia, and, though nominally provincial governors under the suzerainty of the caliphs of Baghdad, suc ceeded in a very short time in establishing an almost independent rule over Transoxiana and the greater part of Persia. Under the caliphate of Mamun, Saman, a Persian noble of Balkh, who was a close friend of the Arab governor of Khorasan, Asad b. Abdallah, was converted from Zoroastrianism to Islam. His son Asad, named after Asad b. Abdallah, had four sons who rendered distinguished services to Mamun. In return they all received provinces : NO obtained Samarkand ; Ahmad, Ferghana ; Yahya, Shash ; Ilyas, Herat. Of these Ahmad and his second son Ismaili overthrew the Saffarids (q.v.) and the Zaidites of Tabaristan, and thus the Samanids established themselves with the sanction of the caliph Motamid in their capital Bokhara.
The first ruler (874) was Nasr I. (Nasr or Nasir b. Ahmad b. Asad. b. Saman). He was succeeded by his brother Ism5.'il b. Ahmad (892). His descendants and successors, all renowned for the high impulse they gave both to the patriotic feelings and the national poetry of modern Persia (see PERSIA: Literature), were Ahmad b. Ismaili (9o7-913) ; Nasr II. b. Ahmad, the patron and friend of the great poet Rudagi (913-942) ; Nuh I. b. Nasr (942 954) Abdalmalik I. b. Nub ; Mansur I. b. Nuh, whose vizier Baleami translated Tabari's universal history into Persian (961-976) ; Nuh II. b. Mansur, whose court-poet Daqiqi (Dakiki) began the Shiihnama (976-997) ; Mansur II. b. Nub (997-999) and Abdalmalik II. b. NO (999), under whom the Samanid dynasty was conquered by the Ghaznevids. The rulers of this powerful house, whose silver dirhems had an extensive currency during the loth century all over the N. of Asia, and were brought, through Russian caravans, even so far as to Pomerania, Sweden and Norway, where Samanid coins have been found in great num ber, were in their turn overthrown by a more youthful and vigor ous race, that of Sabuktagin, which founded the illustrious Ghaznevid dynasty and the Mohammedan empire of India.
Under Abdalmalik I. a Turkish slave, Alptagin, had been en trusted with the government of Bokhara, but, showing himself hostile to Mansur I., he was compelled to fly and to take refuge
in the mountainous regions of Ghazni, where he established a semi independent rule, to which, after his death in 977 (A.H. 367), his son-in-law Sabuktagin, likewise a former Turkish slave, suc ceeded. NO II., in order to retain at least a nominal sway over those Afghan territories, confirmed him in his high position and invested Sabuktagin's son Matimucl with the governorship of Khorasan, in reward for the help they had given him in his struggles with a confederation of disaffected nobles of Bokhara under the leadership of Fa`iq and the troops of the Dailamites, a dynasty that had arisen on the shores of the Caspian Sea and wrested already from the hands of the Samanids all their western provinces. Unfortunately, Sabuktagin died in the same year as Nub II. (A.H. 997, 387), and Mahmad (q.v.) confronted with an internal contest against his own brother 'small, had to withdraw his attention for a short time from the affairs in Khorasan and Transoxiana. This interval sufficed for the old rebel leader Fa'iq, supported by a strong Tatar army under the Ilek Khan Abu(' Hosain Nasr I., to turn NUh's successor Mansur II. into a mere puppet, to concentrate all the power in his own hand, and to induce even his nominal master to reject Mahmud's application for a continuance of his governorship in Khorasan. Mabmild refrained for the moment from vindicating his right; but, as soon as, through court intrigues, Mansur II. had been dethroned, he took posses sion of Khorasan, deposed Mansur's successor Abdalmalik II., and assumed as an independent monarch for the first time in Asiatic history the title of "sultan." The last prince of the house of Saman, Montasir, a bold warrior and a poet of no mean talent, carried on for some years a kind of guerilla warfare against both Mabmild and the Ilek Khan, who had occupied Transoxiana, till he was assassinated in 1005 395). Transoxiana itself was annexed to the Ghaznevid realm eleven years later, 1016 (A.H. See S. Lane Poole, Mahommedan Dynasties (1894), PP. 131-133 Stockvis, Manuel d'histoire (Leyden, 1888), vol. i. p. 113; also articles CALIPHATE and PERSIA : History, section B, and for the later period MmxmirD, SELJUKS, MONGOLS.