Saffarid dynasty

The Saffarids patronized the Persian language in the form of court poetry and established Persianate culture.^[20] 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.^[21]

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.^[22]

The religion of the Saffarids, particularly its founder Ya'qub, has been a topic of debate.^[23] The majority of the sources are hostile to the Saffarids giving many contradictory claims: Ibn Khallikan claims he was a Khariji,^[24] Nizam al-Mulk as an Ismaili,^[25] Hamdallah Mustawfi as an extremist Shi'ite intent on destroying Islam,^[26] 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.^[27] The Abbasids also seem to have created propaganda that he was a Persian Nationalist.^[28][b] 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.^[30] Modern scholars like C.E. Bosworth ascribe to the dynasty the lack of any major religious beliefs and Kharijite sympathies.^[31] While archeologist Barry Cunliffe, states the Saffarids were Shia Muslim.^[32]

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.^[33][34]

Even before the rise of Ya'qub, one of the leading scholars of Zaranj, the Hanafi^[35] Uthman ibn Affan al-Sijzi student of Mutamir ibn Sulayman [ar],^[c] 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.^[36][37] Ya'qub held Uthman in great reverence, and later when in Fars, he was personally accompanied by the province's greatest muhaddith: Yaqub ibn Sufyan Al-Fasawi [ar], teacher of both Tirmidhi and Nasa'i, tasking him with defending the honor of Uthman al-Sijzi.^[38] Ya'qub also appointed the hadith scholar and linguist Abu Amr Shimr ibn Hamdawayh alHarawi to office.^[39]

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.^[40] 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.^[41]

In Nishapur, the mainstay of Saffarid support was from one of the three most preeminent Hadith scholars in the world at the time: Muhammad ibn Yahya Dhuhli [ar], 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)^[42] would rise for.^[43] His son Yahya (known as Haykan) - whose knowledge, according to al-Mizzi, eclipsed even his father's ^[44]- 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.^[45][d]

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.^[47]

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"^[48]: 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)^[49] warrior-scholars of the Byzantine and later Turkic frontiers known as the muṭaṭawwi'a - the volunteer border warriors for the faith.^[50] 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.^[51]

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.^[52] Similarly, the defeated Tahirid subgovernor of Herat, the Samanid Ibrahim b. Ilyas b. Asad, described Ya'qub as being of "a ghazi nature".^[53] 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.^[54]

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.^[55] 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.^[56] A.C.S Peacock has called Tor’s argument convincing,^[57][e] and Mohsen Rahmati has called it persuasive.^[58]

• Iranian Intermezzo
• Nasrid dynasty (Sistan)
• Mihrabanids
• Samanids
• Ghaznavids
• Muhammad ibn Wasif
• List of kings of Persia
• Hindu Shahi–Saffarid wars