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The armies of the Ṣaffārids

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

C. E. Bosworth
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Extract

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.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , October 1968 , pp. 534 - 554
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1968

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References

1 This fact is unmentioned in the written sources, but there exists a dirham of 295/907– 8 minted in ‘Umān and acknowledging the Am‚r Tāhir b. Muhammad b. ‘Amr; a further dirham, dated 290/903, was mentioned by Markov (R. Vasmer, ‘Uber die M00FC;nzer der Saffāriden und ihrer Gegner n Fārs und Hurāsān’, Numismatische Zeitschrft, LxIII, 1930, 152–, No.80).

2 Virtually our only sources for these later Saffārids are a brief section n Jūzjān‚‘s Tabaqāt-i Nāsir‚ (ed. ‘Abd al-Hayy Hab‚b‚, Kabul, 1342– 3/ 1963– 4, I, 275–85, tr, H. G. Raverty, London, 1881– 99, I, 183– 02), where he calls them ‘the kings of N‚mr‖B;z’, and the Ihyā al-mulūk of the saffārid descendant Shāh Husain b. Malik Ghiyāth al-Din (recently edited by Manūchihr sitūda, Tehran, 1344/ 1965).

3 See the comments regarding the constitutional position of the Tāhirids by von Zambaur, E. in his ‘Contributions à la numismatique orientale: monnaies inèdites ou rares des dynasties musulmanes de la collection de l‘auteur‘, Wiener Numismatsche Zeitschrift, XXXVIII, 1905, 119 ff., and also those of Graber, O., The coinage of the Tūlūnds (American Numismatic Society Notes and Monographsm, No. 139), New York, 1957, 51– 6.Google Scholar

4 a'rīkh-i sīstān, Malik al-Shu‘arā’ Bahā Tehran, 1314/ 1935, 234; cf. Țabarț, ed de Goeje and others, III, 1932; Ibn al-Athne012B;r, ed Tonberg, vii, 226; Gardī ziī, Zain al-akhbār, ed. M. Nāẓim, Berlin, 1928, 14, ed.Sa'īd Nafīsī, Tehran, 1333/ 1954, 115.

5 Ziẓām al-Mulk, Siyāsat-nāma, ch.iii, ed. H. Darke, Tehran, 1340/ 1962, 24, tr. ibid, The book of government or rules for kings, London, 1960, 18– 19; Gardāzā, , ed. Nafāsā, 118; Ibn Khallikān, tr. de slane, IV, 326–7.Google Scholar

6 cf. Barthold, W., Turkestan down to the mongol invasion, London, 1928, 220,Google Scholar citing Ibn Mu'īn, Firdaus al-tawārīkh; and Levy, R., The social structure of Islam, Cambridge, 1957, 370.Google Scholar

7 Ta'rīkh-ī sīstān, 267–8

8 The Ta'rīkh-ī sīstān—almost a special history of the ṣaffārids, since a third of the whole book is devoted to them—is an exception to this rule of hostility. Also, Mas'Ũdī's shī'ī sympathies inclined him to give a more balanced picture;it is unfortunate that the fuller account of the careers of Ya'qŨb and ‘Amr’ which he gave in his Akhbār al-zamān and kitāb al-ausat (cf. MurŨja l-dhahab, ed. and tr. Barbier de Meynard, VIII, 55), has not survived.

9 ibid., VIII, 50–1;Ta'rīkh-ί stān, 270 (another occasion when Ya'qŨb, described as usually ‘stern–faced–9; (turush–rŨy) smiled, is mentined by Ibn Funduq, Ta'rīkh-i Baihaq, ed. Aḥmad Bahmanyār, 1317/1938, 152).

10 Except perhaps by NÖldeke, in his classic essay ‘Yakùb the Coppersmith, and his dynasty’, in sketches from Eastern history, Edinburgh, 1892, 176–200, at pp.188–9, where he considers Ya'qūb as an outstanding general and describes briefly the organization of his armies.

11 MurŨj al-dhahab, VIII, 52–4; Siyāsat-nāma, ch.iii, ed. Darke, 24, tr., 18; Ibn Khallikān, tr., IV, 321.

12 MurŨj al-dhahab, VIII, 46–7, 51–2; Ibn al-Athār, VII, 226; Ibn Khallikān, tr., IV, 304.

13 T97'rīkh-i sīstān, 208–9.

14 ibid., 224–5. these men are called here ‘the sālŨkān of Khurāsān ’, and the editor Bahār is surely right to see in the persian sālūk an origin from Arabic ṣu'luūk ‘vagabond ’ desperado, brigand‘; but the6B;kān making peace with Ya'qūb of the aristocratic sāmānidIbrāh‚m b. Ilyā b. Asad suggests that the Persian word had a less pejorative meaning than the Arabic term.

15 Gard‚z‚, ed. Nāẓim, 15–16, ed.Nafīsī, 116–17; Ibn Khallikān, tr., IV, 322.

16 For the backgrounf of the khārijī activity in sīstān and eastern Iran, see Bosworth, sīstān under the Arabs, from the Islamic conquest to the rise of the Ṣaffārids(31–250/651–864)(Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. Centro studi e Scavi Archeologiei in Asia. Reports and Memories, XI), Rome, 1968, 87 ff.

17 mutaṭawwi'a ‘those who lperform a supererogatory or gratutitous act, those who exceed what is obligatory on themselves in fighting’. cf.Lane, Arabic–English lexicon, s.v., and sam'ānī, Kitāb al–ansāb, facsimile text, London, 1912, f.534a, s.v. ‘al–Muṭṭawwi'ī’; ‘This nisba comes from al-muṭṭawwi'a. These are the people who devote themselves to holy warfare and raiding’ who station themselves in ribāṭs along the frontiers, who assume the duty of raiding and who hurl themselves against the enemies in the lands of unbelief, because they regard all thesethings as obligatory upon themselves; then they return home’.

18 ‘A’ir and the frequentative form ‘ayyār have the basic meaning of ‘ someone who (or some animal which) goes to and fro or circulates about, briskly and energetically ’, hence also ‘sharp–witted, keen’, cf.Lane, s.v. In early Arabic usage it can be used either in an approbatory or a condemnatory manner, but later comes to be applied to rogues, vagabonds, bandits, and those who live by their wits in general, with a depreciatory overtone.

19 In his Mouvements populaires et autonomisme urbain dans l' Asie musulmane du moyen āge, Leiden, 1959 (originally in Arabica), V–VI, 1958–9.

20 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān under the Arabs, 112–18.

21 Sistān under the Arabs, 112–18.

22 Gardīzī, , ed. Nāẓim, 23–4Google Scholar; Ta'rīkh-i sistīn, 297–301, 303–4, 306–7; Ibn al-Athīr, VIII, 52–3, 77.

23 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 363; cf Bosworth, The Ghaznavids, their empire in Afghanistan and eastern Iran, Edinburgh, 1963, 89–90.

24 Gardīzī ed.Nāẓim, 11, ed. Nafīī, 112.

25 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 205; the complete passage is given below.

26 ibid., p.312, n.1.

27 ibid., 349.

28 28MurŨj al-dhahab, VIII, 47–9.

29 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 195–7.

30 ibid., 205, 207, cf.also 209.

31 Siyāsat-nāma, ch.iii, ed. Darke, , 20, tr., 15.Google Scholar

32 Referring to Hamza b. ‘Abullāh or b. Ādharak, leader of thegreat Khāriji rebellion in sīstān and eastern Iran, which lasted for over 30 years till Hamza's own death in 213/828 and which more than anything else weakened severely the Caliphal control of those regions. see G. Scarcia, ‘ Lo scambio di lettere tra HārŨn al-Raŝīd e Hamza al-Hāriǧī secondo il “ Ta'rīḫ-i sīstān ” ', Annali dell 'Istituro Universitario Orientale di Napoli, NS, XIV, [2], 1964 (‘ Scritti in onore di Laura veccia Vaglieri, II’).623–45, and Bosworth, sīstān under the Arabs, 91–104.

33 sc.AbŨ Isḥāq Ibrāhim b. ‘Umair al-Jāshanī and AbŨ ‘Auf b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b.(?) Bazī’, who succeeded Ḥamza as leaders of the Khawārij, see Ta'rī;kh-i Sītān, 180 ff.

34 In his correspondence with the' Abbāsid Cliph HārŨn al-Rashī, Ḥamza described himself as‘ the Servant of God Ḥamza, Commmander of the Faithful’; see Scarcia, art.cit., 635, 641, and Bosworth, Sīstān under the Arab, 98.

35 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 202–3, 207.

36 ibid., 204–5. Regarding the position of sarhangs amongst the Khawārij, there is mentioned under the designation‘Sarhang of the Khawārij’ a certain Ghānim Baskarī, who fought in Fārs during Ya'qŨb's seconf expedition to Kirmān and Fārs and who captured Muḥammad b.Wāsil at sīrāf in 262/876(ibid., 229).

37 Aḥsan al-taqāsīm, ed. de Goeje, , Leiden, 1906, 323.Google Scholar

38 see on GhŨr Bosworth, , ‘The early Islamic history of Ghuū’, Central Asiatic Journal, VI, 2, 1961, 116–33.Google Scholar

39 This place is several times mentioned in the Ta‧rίh–i Sίstān, but the exact form of the name is uncertain: variants like Baskū and Lashkar also appear.

40 The Khawārij used the term Shurāt ‘Sellers’ to describe themselves, sc. sellers of their souls to God in return for the promise of Paradise, echoing Qur‧anic phraseology in which the believers sell or barter (sharā) their share of the present life for the hereafter, cf. Qur‧ān II, 203/206, IV, 76/73.

41 Tabar, ī, III, 1882 (who is apparently wrong in saying that ‘Abd al–Rahim was kill ed immediately on Ya qūb‧s defeating him in battle); Gardiīzī, ed. Nāzim, 12, ed. Nafīsī, 113; Ta‧rikh–ί Sίstān, 217–18;Google Scholar‘Aufi, Jawāmi‘ al–hikāyāt, partial facsimile text, Tehran, 1335/1956, 143–4.Google Scholar and in Nizámu'd–Dίn, M., Introduction to the Jawái‘u’l–hikáyát of Muhammad al– 'Awfi, London, 1929, no. 718.Google Scholar

42 ‘Due precisazioni sul Ḥāriğismo sistanico’, AIUON, NS, XV

43 cf.Rusta, Ibn, al– ‘lāq al–nafīq al–nafī, ed. de Goeje, , Leiden, 1892, 194Google Scholar tr. G., Wiet, Les atours prǩcieux, Cairo, 1955, 202Google Scholar (Khawārij at Juwain and Kurunk in Sțstāfn); takhr, , Kitāb masālik al–mamālik, ed. Goeje, de, Leiden, 1927 166 (Bam), 226–7 (karūkh and Astarabiyān in Bādgh);Google Scholar

44 Mu‘jam al–buldān, ed. Wüstenfeld, , Leipzig, 1866–73, III, 42;Google Scholar cf. Spuler, B., Iran in frühislamischer Zeit, Wiesbaden, 1952, 170.Google Scholar

45 See Ismail, Osman S. A., ‘Mu‘tasim and the Turks’, BSOAS, XXIX, 1, 1966, 12–24, and for this whole process of change, Levy, The social structure of Islam, 407 ff., and Sourdel and Bosworth, EI, second ed., s.v. ghulām.Google Scholar

46 cf. Ta'rīkh–i Sīstān, 252–3.

47 ibid., 215.

48 Ibn Jgakkuj??ān, tr., IV, 333.Google Scholar

49 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 226; Murūj, al–dhahab, VIII, 49–50;Google Scholarcf. Gardīzī, ed. Nāzim, 13, ed. Nafīsī, 114. The correspondence between the arrangements for this ceremonial levé and those of the Ghaznavids in their palaces at Ghazna and Bust, as known to us from literary sources like Baihaqī and from the murals of the palace at Lashkar–i Bāzār, is striking; see Bosworth, , The Ghaznavids, 104, 135 ff.Google Scholar

50 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 257.

51 ibid., 326.

52 ibid., 332. This Ḥjājib al–Ḥjājiāb is specifically distinguished from the Sipahsālār or Commander–in–Chief of the army in general; possibly he was commander of the slave troops.

53 cf. Hrbek, I., ‘Die Slawen im Dienste der Fāṭimiden’, Archiv Orientálni, XXI, 4, 1953, 543–81;Google ScholarBosworth, , ‘Ghaznevid military organisation’, Der Islam, XXXVI 1–2, 1960, 37℃77Google Scholar; idem, EI, second ed., s.v. ghulām (§ ii. Persia.)

54 Ta'rīkh-i, 279. Iyās's actual words to Tāhir as he departed were ‘We carved out this emprire by our swords, but you are endeavouring to hold it by fivolous amusements. Kingly power cannot be retained by sport and play; it can only be maintained through justice, religious sanction, statesmanship, oratory, the whip, and the sword’. This Iyās is apparently identical with the Abū Qābās who is mentioned by Ṭabarī as seeking refuge at the Caliphal court; al-Muktafī refused Tāhir's request for him to be extradited to Sīstān (Ṭabarī III, 2255; Ibn al- Athī VII, 377–).

55 Professor Sir Harold Bailey tells me that there is no obviously suitable Indian name which would fit this, although the second element could be from -vīra-‘hero’.

56 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 307, 309, 346, 350.

57 cf. ibid., 283; ‘Utbī, al-ta'rīkh al-yamīnī, with commentary by Manīnī, Cairo, 1286/1869, I, 100–; and Ibn al-Athīr, VIII, 417, where Khalaf b. Aḥmad catapults sacks full of vipers (sīstān was notorious for the virulence of its snakes) out on to the forces besiging him.

58 Fakhr-i Mudabbir, Ādāb al-muāB;k, India Office MS 647, ff. 103a-b; Mas'ūdī, , Murūj al-dhahab, VIII 55; Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 268Google Scholar

59 cf. Bosworth, Ș Ghaznevid military organisation ș, 61–4, and idem, EI, second ed., s.v.fīl (§ Ș As beasts of war ș ).

60 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 205–336, cf. also 347.

61 ‘Zur Hseeresverwaltung der Ābbāsiden. Studie über Abulfarağ’, Der Islam, XXIX, 3, 1950, 257–90.Google Scholar

62 Funduq, Ibn, Ta'rīkh–i Baihaq, 151–4.Google Scholar

63 Gardīzī, , ed. Nāzim, , 15, ed. Nafīsī 116;Google ScholarKhallikān, Ibn, tr., IV, 322; and see above, p. 538.Google Scholar

64 Gardīzī, loc. cit.

65 Ta'rīkh–i Sīstān, 246; Hilā al–Sābi', Kitāb al–wuzarā', cited in Hoenerback, art, cit., 279. The Sāmānids, successors to the Saffārid heritage in Khurāsān, paid their troops every four months or 120 days, according to Khwārazmī, Mafātīh al–‘um ed. G. van Vloten, Leiden, 1895, 65. For Būyid practice here, See Bosworth, , ‘Military organisation under the Bū of Persia and Iraq’, Oriens, XVIII–XIX, 1965–6Google Scholar, [pub]. 1967, 164‖6, and for the Ghaznavid one, idem, ‘Ghaznevid military organisation’, 71–4.

66 Ta'rīkh–i Sīstān, 332.Google Scholar

67 Gardīzī, , ed. Nāzim, , 16, ed. Nafisī117;Google ScholarKhallikān, Ibn, tr., IV, 322–4;Google ScholarBarthold, , Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion, 221.Google Scholar Sahl b. Hamdān is not mentioned in the Ta'rīkh–i Sīstān, but was perhaps a brother of the Muhammad b. Ḥamdān b. ‘Abdullāh, governor of Zābulistān and prominent in events at the end of ‘Anmr’s reign, see ibid., 259–60.

68 Ibn Khallikān, tr., IV, 314,

69 Al_Ahkām al-sultāniyya, ed. Enger, M., Constitutiones politicae, Bonn, 1853, 352,Google Scholar, tr. Fagnan, E., Les statuts gouvernementaux, Algiers, 439–40.Google Scholar

70 Hoenerbach, art. cit., 269–74.

71 Irvine, W., ‘The army of the Indian Moghuls: its organisation and administration’, Jras, 1896, 549–.Google Scholar

72 See Bosworth, ‘Military organisation under the Būyids of Persia and Iraq’, 163. The prevention of false musters was, of course, equally the reason for the Mughal Akbar‘s measures, cf. Marquart, Irvine, art. cit., 547–8Google Scholar

73 Ta‘rī-i sīstān, 547–60.

74 ibid., 214; Khallikān, Ibn, tr., IV, 309–10Google Scholar; cf. Tabarī, , III, 1705Google Scholar, and Ibn, al-Athīr VII, 131.Google Scholar

75 Perhaps the Muhammad b. Wāsil who had rebelled in Bust in 224/839 against the Ṭāhirid governor there, Sayyār b. Naṣr b. Manṣūr (Ta'rίkh-i Sίstān, 188).

76 ibid., 226, 230; but the figure of 500 camels and 500 asses for the beasts comprising the teams is surely exaggerated. Cf. also Ṭabarī, III, 1889, and Ibn al-Athīr, VII, 191, where the figure of 40, 000, 000 dirhams is given for Muḥammad b. Wāșil’s private fortune, looted by Ya‘qũb.

77 Ṭabarī, III, 1841; Mas‘ūdī, Murūj al-dhahab, VIII 125–6; Ta’rīkh-i sīstān, 216; cf. J., Marquart, Ērānšahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses XorenacĨi (Abh. Der Königl. Gesell. der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Phil. Hist. Kl., NF, III, 3), Berlin, 1901Google Scholar

78 Ta’rīkh-i Sīstān, 234, 246, 295, cf. Ibn, al-athīr, VIII 42.Google Scholar

79 Ta’rīkh-i Sīstān, 257, 263, 280; Mas‘ūdī, Murūj al-dhahab, VIII, 46: Ibn Khallikān, tr., IV, 319–20.

80 See on these changes, Cahen, , ‘L'évolution de l'iqta‘ du IXeau XIIIe siècle, Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, VIII, 1953, 30 ff.Google Scholar; Lambton, A. K. S., Landlord and peasant in Persia, London, 1953, 50–1Google Scholar; Bosworth, , ‘Military organisation under the Būyids of Persia and Iraq’, 159–161.Google Scholar

81 See a discussion of this problem by idem, in Philologiac Turcicae Fundamenta, III ch. on ‘The Turks in the Islamic lands up to the mid-11th century’ (forthcoming).

82 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 274.

83 ibid., 208.

84 ibid., 234 (there is an unfortunate lacuna in the text where details of the arbitration are given), 236–7, 247.

85 ibid., 257–8.

86 ibid., 280–4, 287.

87 ibid., 285–6, cf. Tabarī, III 2283, and Ibn al-Athīr, VII, 42.

88 Ta'rīkh-i Sīstān, 290–1.

89 ibid., 197, 205 cf. Bosworth, , Sīstān under the Arabs, 119.Google Scholar

90 Ta'rīkh-i Sīn, 227 (cf. Tabarī, , III, 1889, and Ibn al-Athīr, VII, 190–1), 288Google Scholar; Ibn Khallikān, tr., IV, 314.

91 Rᚽhrāwarī, Dhail Tajārib al-umam, in Amedroz, H. F. and Margoliouth, D. S. (ed.), The eclipse of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate, Oxford, 1921–2, III, 195, tr., VI, 206.Google Scholar