Saffarid dynasty

{{Short description|861–1002 Eastern Iranian dynasty}} {{distinguish|Safavid dynasty}} {{Infobox Former Country | native_name = {{lang|fa|صفاریان}} ''Safāriyān'' | conventional_long_name = Saffarid dynasty | common_name = Saffarid Empire | region = | era = Medieval | status = | status_text = | empire = | government_type = Hereditary monarchy | year_start = 861 | year_end = 1002 | event_start = | date_start = | event1 = War with Hindu Shahi | date_event1 = 870-900 | event_end = Ghaznavid conquest | date_end = | p1 = Tahirid dynasty | p2 = Abbasid Caliphate | p3 = Zunbils | s1 = Samanid dynasty | s2 = Ghaznavids | image_flag = | flag = | flag_type = | image_coat = | image_map = Map of the Saffarid dynasty (861–1002).svg | image_map_caption = Saffarid dynasty at its greatest extent under Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar | capital = Zaranj (Modern-day Afghanistan) | common_languages = Persian (administration, mother tongue)<ref>{{cite web |title=Persian Prose Literature |work=World Eras |year=2002 |via=HighBeam Research |access-date=September 3, 2012 |quote=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)... |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3034700041.html |archive-date=May 2, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130502180821/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3034700041.html }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Robinson|first1=Chase F.|title=The new Cambridge history of Islam. Vol 1, Sixth to eleventh centuries|date=2009|publisher=Cambridge Univ. Press.|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-83823-8|page=345|edition=1. publ.|quote=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.}}</ref>{{sfn|Meisami|1999|p=15}} Arabic (numismatics){{sfn|Flood|2018|p=25–26}} | religion = Islam | currency = | leader1 = Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar | leader2 = Khalaf I | year_leader1 = 861–879 | year_leader2 = 963–1002 | title_leader = Amir (Emir) }} The '''Saffarid dynasty''' ({{langx|fa|صفاریان|Safāriyān}}) was a culturally 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 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, Tocharistan, Makran (Balochistan), Kerman, Fars, Khorasan, and nearly reached Baghdad but then suffered a defeat by the Abbasids.<ref name="Bosworth"/>

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.

== History ==

=== Founding === The dynasty began with Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar (Ya'qub, son of Layth, the Coppersmith), a coppersmith of eastern Iranian origins,{{efn|Numerous sources call the dynasty Persian.<ref>{{Cite book |chapter=Saffarid dynasty|date=2010 |title=The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages|publisher=Oxford University Press|language=en|doi=10.1093/acref/9780198662624.001.0001|isbn=9780198662624 |quote=One of the first indigenous Persian dynasties to emerge after the Arab Islamic invasions.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |quote=First, the Saffarid amirs and maliks were rulers of Persian stock who for centuries championed the cause of the underdog against the might of the Abbasid caliphs. |last=Savory |first=Roger M. |title=The History of the Saffarids of Sistan and the Maliks of Nimruz (247/861 to 949/1542–3) |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |year=1996 |doi=10.2307/605756 |jstor=605756 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |quote=The provincial Persian Ya'kub, on the other hand, rejoiced in his plebeian origins, denounced the Abbasids as usurpers, and regarded both the caliphs and such governors from aristocratic Arab families as the Tahirids with contempt |first1=Ya'kub b. al-Layth |last1=al Saffar |first2=C. E. |last2=Bosworth |title=The Encyclopaedia of Islam |volume=XI |page=255 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |quote=Saffarids: A Persian dynasty..... |title=Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature |volume=2 |editor-first=Julie Scott |editor-last=Meisami |editor2-first=Paul |editor2-last=Starkey |page=674 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |quote=There were many local Persian dynasties, including the Tahirids, the Saffarids.... |title=Middle East, Western Asia, and Northern Africa |first=Ali |last=Aldosari |page=472 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |quote=Saffarid, the Coppersmith, the epithet of the founder of this Persian dynasty... |title=The Arabic Contributions to the English Language: An Historical Dictionary |first=Garland Hampton |last=Cannon |page=288 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |quote=The Saffarids, the first Persian dynasty, to challenge the Abbasids... |title=Historical Dictionary of the Ismailis |first=Farhad |last=Daftary |page=51 }}</ref>}}{{sfn|Baumer|2016|p=24}} who moved to the city of Zaranj. He left work to become an Ayyar and eventually got the power to act as an independent ruler.<ref name="Bosworth">{{cite encyclopedia |first=Clifford Edmund |last=Bosworth |author-link=Clifford Edmund Bosworth |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Iranica |url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/saffarids |title=Saffarids }}</ref> From his capital Zaranj he moved east into al-Rukhkhadj (Arachosia), Zamindawar and ultimately Kabul, vanquishing the Zunbils and the Hindu Shahis by 865. He then invaded Bamyan, Balkh, Badghis, and Ghor. In the name of Islam, he conquered these territories which were predominantly ruled by Buddhist tribal chiefs. He took vast amounts of plunder and slaves from this campaign.<ref name="Persian Culture under the Early Ghaznavids">{{cite journal |title=The Development of Persian Culture under the Early Ghaznavids |first=C. E. |last=Bosworth |journal=Iran |volume=6 |year=1968 |page=34 |doi=10.2307/4299599 |jstor=4299599 }}</ref>{{sfn|Bosworth|1995|p=795}}

{{multiple image|perrow=2|total_width=300|caption_align=center | align = right | direction =horizontal | header=Saffarid coinage in Kabul, with Arabic | image1 = Coinage of the Saffarid Governor of Kabul, issued circa 870 CE on the Hindu Shahi model. Abassid dirhman weight standard, and Arabic mention adl (justice) on the obverse. Nagari "Sri Kudarayaka" on the reverse (“Khudarayaka”) Circa 895-921 CE.jpg | caption1 = | image2 = | caption2 = | footer=Coinage of the Saffarid Governor of Kabul after the capture of the city, issued around 870 CE in Kabul on the Hindu Shahi model. Abbasid dirham weight standard. ''Obverse'': Recumbent bull with Nagari legend 18px 10px 13px 13px 13px 13px (''Śrī Khūdarayakah'', "The fortunate small Raja"), trisula mark on the hump of the bull. ''Reverse'': horseman with 20px (''ma'') in Nagari to left, <big><big>'''عدل'''</big></big> ('''adl'', "Justice") in Arabic to right.{{sfn|Flood|2018|p=25–26}}}}

=== Expansion === {{See also|Hindu Shahi-Saffarid wars}} The Tahirid city of Herat was captured in 870,{{sfn|Bosworth|1995|p=795}} and Ya'qub's campaign in the Badghis region led to the capture of Kharidjites which later formed the ''Djash al-Shurat'' contingent in his army. Ya'qub then turned his focus to the west and began attacks on Khorasan, Khuzestan, Kerman (Southeastern Iran) and Fars (southwestern Iran).{{sfn|Bosworth|1995|p=795}} The Saffarids then seized Khuzestan (southwestern Iran) and parts of southern Iraq, and in 876 came close to overthrowing the Abbasids, whose army was able to turn them back only within a few days' march from Baghdad. From silver mines in the Panjshir Valley, the Saffarids were able to mint silver coins.{{sfn|Bosworth|van Donzel|Heinrichs|Lecomte|1995|p=258}}

These incursions, however, forced the Abbasid caliphate to recognize Ya'qub as governor of Sistan, Fars and Kerman, and Saffarids were even offered key posts in Baghdad.<ref>{{cite book |last=Esposito |first=John L. |title=The Oxford History of Islam |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1999 |page=38 }}</ref> Despite Ya'qub's military successes, he was not an empire builder since he had no concept of a centralized government.{{sfn|Meisami|1999|p=120}}

=== Decline === {{Main|Ghaznavid conquest of Sistan}}

[[File:Ravagh.jpg|thumb|Atigh Jameh Mosque of Shiraz, established in 894.]] [[File:AhmadIbnMuhammadSaffaridCoin.jpg|thumb|Coinage of Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Muhammad.]] In 901, Amr Saffari was defeated at the battle of Balkh by the Samanids, and they lost Khorasan to them. The Saffarids were reduced to the provinces of Fars, Kerman and Sistan. Under Tahir ibn Muhammad ibn Amr (901–908), the dynasty fought the Abbasids for the possession of Fars to maintain its control over the province. However, in 908, a civil war erupted between Tahir and the pretender al-Laith b. 'Ali in Sistan. In the next years, the governor of Fars, Sebük-eri defected to the Abbasids. In 912, the Samanids finally expelled the Saffarids from Sistan. Sistan passed briefly to Abbasid control, but became independent again under the Saffarid Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Muhammad; but now the dynasty was a minor power isolated in Sistan.<ref name="Persian Culture under the Early Ghaznavids"/>

In 1002, Mahmud of Ghazni invaded Sistan, dethroned Khalaf I and finally ended the Saffarid dynasty.<ref>{{cite book |first=C. E.|last=Bosworth |title=The Ghaznavids 994–1040 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=1963 |page=89 }}</ref>

==Culture== The Saffarids patronized the Persian language in the form of court poetry and established Persianate culture.{{sfn|Dabashi|2019|p=41}} Under their rule, the eastern Islamic world witnessed the emergence of prominent Persian poets such as Fayrouz Mashriqi, Abu Salik al-Jirjani, and Muhammad ibn Wasif, who was a court poet.{{sfn|Bosworth|1969|p=104}}

In the later 9th century, the Saffarids gave impetus to a renaissance of New Persian literature and culture. Following Ya'qub's conquest of Herat, some poets chose to celebrate his victory in Arabic, whereupon Ya'qub requested his secretary, Muhammad bin Wasif al-Sistani, to compose those verses in Persian.<ref>{{cite book |chapter=The Tahirids and the Saffarids |first=C. E. |last=Bosworth |title=The Cambridge History of Iran: The period from the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs |volume=IV |editor-first=R. N. |editor-last=Frye |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1999 |page=129 }}</ref>

==Religion== The religion of the Saffarids, particularly its founder Ya'qub, has been a topic of debate.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=85–87}} The majority of the sources are hostile to the Saffarids giving many contradictory claims: Ibn Khallikan claims he was a Khariji,{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=100}} Nizam al-Mulk as an Ismaili,{{sfn|Bosworth|1975|p=108}} Hamdallah Mustawfi as an extremist Shi'ite intent on destroying Islam,{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=156}} while the official Abbasid propaganda of Al-Mu'tamid went unusually far, publicly condemning Ya'qub via a formal missive, even claiming he was a Christian, suggesting he threatened their legitmacy beyond that of a typical rebel.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=88,170}} The Abbasids also seem to have created propaganda that he was a Persian Nationalist.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=168}}{{efn|The renown poet and Abbasid courtier Ibn Mamshadh was likely sent to Ya'qub by al-Muwaffaq, where he composed Arabic poetry praising the ancient Persian Kings and deriding the Abbasids and Arabs in general, which was very dissimilar from any other poetry from Ya'qub's court. He was later executed by Ya'qub as an Abbasid spy.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=167-170}}}} However, Al-Ya'qubi, the only contemporary source and only source written before the 875 march on Baghdad and the subsequent Abbasid-Samanid propaganda which followed, declared the Saffarid as a righteous holy warrior fighting on command of the Caliph.{{sfn|Tor|2007|pp=102, 118}} Modern scholars like C.E. Bosworth ascribe to the dynasty the lack of any major religious beliefs and Kharijite sympathies.{{sfn|Bosworth|1975|p=107}} While archeologist Barry Cunliffe, states the Saffarids were Shia Muslim.{{sfn|Cunliffe|2015|p=388–389}}

However, more recent scholarship has shown that the religious figures who actually accompanied and supported the Saffarids in their time weren't just Sunnis, they were some of the most respected Ahl al-Hadith scholars of their age: the fervently orthodox proto-Hanbalis.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=146}}{{sfn|Tor|2002|p=263}}

Even before the rise of Ya'qub, one of the leading scholars of Zaranj, the Hanafi{{sfn|Bosworth|1975|p=73}} Uthman ibn Affan al-Sijzi student of {{ill|Mutamir ibn Sulayman|ar|معتمر_بن_سليمان}},{{efn|and perhaps son of the muhaddith {{ill|Affan ibn Muslim|ar|عفان بن مسلم الصفار}}}} who'd worked with the Tahirids previously, supported the Sistani Ayyar movement and was later entrusted by Ya'qub to give the khutbah in Sistan whilst he was on campaign.{{sfn|Tor|2002|p=267}}{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=142}} Ya'qub held Uthman in great reverence, and later when in Fars, he was personally accompanied by the province's greatest muhaddith: {{ill|Yaqub ibn Sufyan Al-Fasawi|ar|يعقوب الفسوي}}, teacher of both Tirmidhi and Nasa'i, tasking him with defending the honor of Uthman al-Sijzi.{{sfn|Tor|2007|pp=143,144}} Ya'qub also appointed the hadith scholar and linguist Abu Amr Shimr ibn Hamdawayh alHarawi to office.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=144}}

One of the most powerful political supporters of the Saffarids was the Tahirid administrative officer of all Khurasan: Khalid ibn Ahmed al-Dhuhli, who was also a muhaddith in his own right as a student of Ishaq ibn Rahwayh.{{sfn|Tor|2002|p=264}} He among other Tahirid scholars, notables and even family members became disillusioned with Tahirid ineptitude and invited Ya'qub to replace them. His support of the Saffarids was to such an extent that even a decade later in 882/3 the Caliph imprisoned him for it till his death.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=133-135}}

In Nishapur, the mainstay of Saffarid support was from one of the three most preeminent Hadith scholars in the world at the time: {{ill|Muhammad ibn Yahya Dhuhli|ar|محمد بن يحيى الذهلي}}, a theological watchdog of the Hanbalis, the most knowledgeable of Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri’s narrations, whom Ahmad ibn Hanbal himself (staunchest of the ahl al-Hadith){{sfn|Tor|2007|p=64}} would rise for.{{sfn|Tor|2007|pp=137,195}} His son Yahya (known as Haykan) - whose knowledge, according to al-Mizzi, eclipsed even his father's {{sfn|Tor|2002|p=266}}- would in the time of Amr personally lead the scholars of Nishapur in battle against the anti-Saffarid Kharijite usurper alKhujistani until he was gruesomely killed.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=140, 189, 192}}{{efn|He was executed by having his private parts pulled.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=140}}}}

Clearly showing that these paragons of Sunnism of impeccable repute who backed the Saffarids were not reluctant, but willing supporters, actively engaged with the Saffarid cause: travelling with them, leading the prayer in their absence, making deliberate efforts to replace Tahirid rule with Saffarid governance, fighting and even dying alongside them.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=145}}

Thus D.G. Tor casts Ya'qub and the Ayyar movement as a whole as tracing back to the late 8th century "emperor of the Ulama"{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=51}}: Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak and his fellows Abu Ishaq al-Fazari, Al-Awza’i, Ibrahim ibn Adham as well as the other great traditionist (mainly Khurasani){{sfn|Tor|2007|p=65, 40}} warrior-scholars of the Byzantine and later Turkic frontiers known as the ''muṭaṭawwi'a'' - the volunteer border warriors for the faith.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=42}} These muṭaṭawwi'a represented a form of privatized holy war, taking up the mantle of guarding the frontiers in wake of the Caliphate's neglect of this duty from the late Umayyad period onward. Forming an independent source of military power, paramilitary bands loyal to their own pious ideals rather than any government.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=40,82}}

Ya'qub himself was named as a mutatawwi by many sources even by those against the dynasty, such as the extremely hostile Ibn Khallikan, who repeatedly uses the term mutatawwi, though he bizarrely follows this up with claims that part of Ya'qub's army consisted of Christians and infidels.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=166}} Similarly, the defeated Tahirid subgovernor of Herat, the Samanid Ibrahim b. Ilyas b. Asad, described Ya'qub as being of "a ghazi nature".{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=103}} Also the negative account of the caliphal spy master of Fars who admits that "God had bestowed upon him volunteer fighting for religion (taṭawwu'), religiosity" and that he was a vanquisher of heretics.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=127}}

According to this view, Ya'qub was a pious Sunni holy warrior, fighting the external jihad against the Zunbil and internally a defender of Sunni orthodoxy against unorthodox groups like the Kharijites or Zaydis of Tabaristan, and refusing to ally with the Zanj against the Caliph despite the advantage that would bring, due to their heresies.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=170}} Tor sees his march on Baghdad as an attempt to replace an ineffectual Caliph who was actively hampering the fight against the heretics, with a competent and powerful Abbasid caliph that Ya'qub could fight behind for the restoration of Islam’s glory.{{sfn|Tor|2007|p=157}} A.C.S Peacock has called Tor’s argument convincing,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Peacock |first=A. C. S. |year=2008 |title=Violent Order: Religious Warfare, Chivalry, and the ‘Ayyār Phenomenon in the Medieval Islamic World. By D. G. Tor. pp. 318. Würzburg, Orient-Institut Istanbul, Istanbuler Texte und Studien, 11, 2007. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1356186308008389/type/journal_article |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |language=en |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=374–376 |doi=10.1017/S1356186308008389 |issn=1356-1863|url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{efn|Though he says that Tor overstates her case in trying to present the Samanid historiography as deliberate propaganda campaign to discredit the Saffarids, but this mainly rests on presumed lost Samanid works rather than surviving evidence. She also overemphasizes the Saffarid-Samanid rivalry over legitimacy as Ghazis - which the Samanids did cultivate on occasion - by clinging onto the single late phrase of Mustawfi labelling the Samanids as Ayyars. Also much of the Transoxianan Jihad was still in private hands.}} and Mohsen Rahmati has called it persuasive.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rahmati |first=Mohsen |date=2020-08-18 |title=The Saffarid Yaʿqub b. Layth and the Revival of Persian Kingship |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jps/13/1/article-p36_2.xml |journal=Journal of Persianate Studies |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=36–58 |doi=10.1163/18747167-12341328 |issn=1874-7094|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==Rulers of the Saffarid dynasty== {| width=60% class="wikitable" ! style="background-color:#F0DC82" width=9% | Titular Name ! style="background-color:#F0DC82" width=9% | Personal Name ! style="background-color:#F0DC82" width=9% | Reign |- |colspan=4 align="center"| Independence from the Abbasid Caliphate. |- |align="center"|''Amir'' {{Nastaliq|أمیر}} ''al-Saffar'' coppersmith {{Nastaliq| الصفار}} |align="center"| Ya'qub ibn Layth {{Nastaliq| یعقوب بن اللیث }} |align="center"|861–879 CE |- |align="center"| ''Amir'' {{Nastaliq|أمیر}} |align="center"| Amr ibn al-Layth {{Nastaliq| عمرو بن اللیث }} |align="center"|879–901 CE |- |align="center"|''Amir'' {{Nastaliq|أمیر}} ''Abul-Hasan'' {{Nastaliq|أبو الحسن}} |align="center"| Tahir ibn Muhammad ibn Amr {{Nastaliq|طاھر بن محمد بن عمرو }} co-ruler Ya'qub ibn Muhammad ibn Amr |align="center"|901–908 CE |- |align="center"| ''Amir'' {{Nastaliq|أمیر}} |align="center"| al-Layth ibn 'Ali {{Nastaliq| اللیث بن علي}} |align="center"|908–910 CE |- |align="center"|''Amir'' {{Nastaliq|أمیر}} |align="center"| Muhammad ibn 'Ali {{Nastaliq| محمد بن علي}} |align="center"| 910–911 CE |- |align="center"|''Amir'' {{Nastaliq|أمیر}} |align="center"| Al-Mu'addal ibn 'Ali {{Nastaliq|المعضل ابن علي}} |align="center"| 911 CE |- |- bgcolor="#D8BFD8" |colspan=4 align="center"| Samanid occupation 911–912 CE. |- |align="center"|''Amir'' {{Nastaliq|أمیر}} ''Abu Hafs'' {{Nastaliq|ابو حفص}} |align="center"| Amr ibn Ya'qub ibn Muhammad ibn Amr {{Nastaliq| عمرو بن یعقوب بن محمد بن عمرو}} |align="center"| 912–913 CE |- |- bgcolor="#D8BFD8" |colspan=4 align="center"| Samanid occupation 913–922 CE. |- |align="center"|''Amir'' {{Nastaliq|أمیر}} ''Abu Ja'far'' {{Nastaliq|ابو جعفر}} |align="center"| Ahmed ibn Muhammad ibn Khalaf ibn Layth ibn 'Ali |align="center"| 922–963 CE |- |align="center"|''Amir'' {{Nastaliq|أمیر}} ''Wali-ud-Daulah'' {{Nastaliq|ولي الدولة }} |align="center"| Khalaf ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Khalaf ibn al-Layth ibn 'Ali |align="center"| 963–1002 CE |- |- bgcolor="#F5DEB3" |colspan=4 align="center"| Conquered by Mahmud ibn Sebuktigin of the Ghaznavid Empire in 1002 CE. |}

==Notes== {{notelist}}

== References == {{reflist}}

== Sources == *{{cite book |title=The History of Central Asia: The Age of Islam and the Mongols |first=Christoph |last=Baumer |volume=Three |publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-78453-490-5 |page=24}} *{{cite journal |title=The Ṭāhirids and Persian Literature |first=C. E. |last=Bosworth |journal=Iran |volume=7 |year=1969 |page=104 |doi=10.2307/4299615 |jstor=4299615 }} *{{cite book |chapter=The Ṭāhirids and Șaffārids |first=C.E. |last=Bosworth |pages=90–135 |title=The Cambridge History of Iran |volume=4:The Period from the Arab invasion to the Saljuqs |editor-first=R.N. |editor-last=Frye |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1975 }} *{{cite book |chapter=Saffarids |first=C. E. |last=Bosworth |title=Encyclopedia of Islam |volume=VIII:NED-SAM |editor-first=C. E. |editor-last=Bosworth |editor2-first=E. |editor2-last=van Donzel |editor3-first=W. P. |editor3-last=Heinrichs |editor4-first=G. |editor4-last=Lecomte |publisher=Brill |year=1995 |pages=795–798 }} *{{cite book |last1=Cunliffe |first1=Barry W. |author1-link=Barry Cunliffe |title=By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780199689170 |pages=388–389 |quote=The Sunni Samanids eventually annexed the territories of the Shi’ite Saffarids in 908, creating a powerful emirate bounded by the Pamir, the Caspian Sea, the Iranian plateau, and the steppe.}} *{{cite book |title=The Shahnameh: The Persian Epic in World Literature |first=Hamid |last=Dabashi |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2019 |isbn=978-0231544948 }} *{{cite book|last1=Flood|first1=Finbarr B.|title=Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval "Hindu-Muslim" Encounter|date=20 March 2018|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-18074-8 }} *{{cite book | title = Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century | year = 1999 | publisher = Edinburgh University Press | last = Meisami | first = Julie Scott | isbn = 978-0748612765 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=UGkuLXhnPLYC}} *{{cite|last=Tor|first=D.G.|year=2002|title="Historical Representations of Ya‘qūb b. al-Layth al-Ṣaffār: A Reappraisal," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society|url=https://www.academia.edu/456944/_Historical_Representations_of_Ya_q%C5%ABb_b_al_Layth_al_%E1%B9%A2aff%C4%81r_A_Reappraisal_Journal_of_the_Royal_Asiatic_Society_12_3_2002_247_275}} *{{cite book|last=Tor|first=D.G.|year=2007|title=Violent Order: Religious Warfare, Chivalry, and the ʻAyyār Phenomenon in the Medieval Islamic World |publisher=Orient-Institut-Istanbul }} *{{cite encyclopedia |title=Pandjhir |encyclopedia=The Encyclopaedia of Islam |editor-first=C. E. |editor-last=Bosworth |editor2-first=E. |editor2-last=van Donzel |editor3-first=W. P. |editor3-last=Heinrichs |editor4-first=G. |editor4-last=Lecomte |volume=VIII:NED-SAM |publisher=Brill |year=1995 |page=258 }}

== External links == {{EB1911 poster|Ṣaffārids}} *''Encyclopædia Iranica'' [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/saffarids Saffarids]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saffarid Dynasty}} Category:Saffarid dynasty Category:States and territories established in the 860s Category:861 establishments Category:860s in the Abbasid Caliphate Category:870s in the Abbasid Caliphate Category:880s in the Abbasid Caliphate Category:890s in the Abbasid Caliphate Category:History of Nimruz Province Category:Former political entities in Afghanistan Category:States and territories disestablished in the 1000s