Sāmānides—Khorāsān, Sīstān, Balkh, Bokhārā, and Samarkand.
Būyides—The two `Irāks, Fars, Kirmān, Khuzistān, and Luristān.
Tabaristān and Jurjān were continually changing hands.
[242] He died of some malady at a place called Zarmān, whither the doctors had sent him for change of air.
[243] Dawlat Shāh, in his Lives of the Poets (see Browne’s edition, p. 44), quotes from `Unsuri the following quatrain in which the rulers of the house of Sāmān are enumerated—
Nūh kas būdand zi āl-i-Sāmān mazkūr
Dā´īm bi imārat-i-Khorāsān mashhūr
Ismā`īl ast u Ahmadī u Nasrī
Dū Nūh u dū `Abd-ul-Malik u dū Mansūr.
Translation.—Nine members of the house of Sāmān were famous in the government of Khorāsān, namely, Ismā`īl, one Ahmad, one Nasr, two Nūh’s, two `Abd el-Melik’s, and two Mansūr’s.
[244] Cf. Vambéry, Bokhara, p. 81, and Bretschneider, Mediæval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources (London, 1888), vol. i. p. 236 seqq. An interesting article was published in 1874 by Grigorieff in the Memoirs of the Eastern Branch of the St. Petersburg Archæological Society, vol. xviii. p. 191 seqq. This article contains the Turkish text of an extract from the Tārīkh-i-Munajjim-Bāshī, with an introduction, a translation, and copious notes. The name of Kara-Khānides was first suggested by Grigorieff for this dynasty, after Satuk Kara Khān, who was the first of its kings to embrace Islām. The title is more convenient than the others by which this dynasty has been known, such as Uïghūrs, Ilek-khāns, and Ilkhāns, as will appear from note below, p. [116]. Bretschneider, whom on such subjects it is hard to contradict, was by no means convinced by Grigorieff’s positive assertion that the Kara-Khānides were not Uïghūrs.
[245] The passage from his famous history, the Tārīkh-i-Jahān-Kushāy, dealing at great length with the Uïghūrs, has been translated by d’Ohsson. Cf. Histoire des Mongols, vol. i. p. 430 et seq.
[246] Narshakhi (ed. Schefer, p. 233) calls this dynasty of “Turkish Khāns” the “house of Afrāsiyāb.” Afrāsiyāb is one of the most prominent figures in Firdawsi’s great epic of kings, the Shāh Namé. B.C. 700 is given as a conjectural date of the first migration of the Turks across the Oxus—as far as India and Asia Minor. According to the coins, it appears that the Turks (under what name it is not known) entered the Greek kingdom of Bactria. Cf. Reinaud, Rélations de l’Empire, Rom. avec l’Asie Centrale (Paris, 1863), p. 227. Tradition has it that Afrāsiyāb flourished about B.C. 580. He was the emperor of Tūrān, of which Turkestān was a province, and was the great foe of Īrān. During his reign Siyāwush, son of the emperor of Īrān, Kay-Kā´ūs, having incurred his father’s displeasure, fled across the Oxus, which formed the boundary between the two kingdoms, to Afrāsiyāb, who held court at Rāmtīn. Siyāwush received Afrāsiyāb’s daughter Ferengis in marriage, with the provinces of Khotan and Chīn as her dowry. Afrāsiyāb’s brother Gersīwaz, jealous of the strangers growing power, set his brother’s mind against Siyāwush, and induced him to take the field against his son-in-law, who was captured and conveyed to Rāmtīn and there put to death. Siyāwush left a posthumous son by Ferengis, named Kay-Khosrū, who became emperor of Īrān. Kay-Khosrū, bent on avenging his father’s death, besieged Rāmtīn, drove Afrāsiyāb out of his country, and occupied it for seven years; Afrāsiyāb afterwards returned and recovered his capital, but was finally defeated and slain. Kay-Khosrū now became master of Samarkand and Bokhārā; but, wishing to devote his days to religious contemplation, resigned his government to Lohrāsp, the son-in-law of Kay-Kā´ūs, who soon exacted homage from the rulers of Tartary. Thus the Persian dynasty existed till the overthrow of Darius II.