He continued to be on good terms with Mowaffak, at whose wish he imprisoned the Kurd Mohammed,[[82]] son of Obaidalláh, a thoroughly untrustworthy person, who had even on occasions been in treaty with the Zenj. But after the total suppression of the negro rebellion (autumn 883), and after the effects of the exertions it had required had been partially recovered from, the aspect of matters changed. Mowaffak hoped to be able to restore the power of the central government in other parts of the empire also, and especially in Párs. We must assume that he, at least for form’s sake, negotiated with Amr, but that the latter rejected every concession. Only thus can we explain the unusually abrupt character of the action taken against him. On 25th March 885, the Caliph Motamid caused the pilgrims from Khorásán, who were in Bagdad on their way to Mecca, to be called together and personally informed that Amr was deposed from the governorship of Khorásán, and Mohammed the Táhirid restored to his post. He then anathematised the former in their presence, and gave orders that he should be cursed from every pulpit. The deposition applied also, of course, to all the other dominions of as-Saffár. To give effect to these orders was not easy. In the case of the remoter provinces, all that could be done for the time was to detach the people from their lord in the manner indicated. But in the nearer Párs it was possible to take more vigorous measures. As early as the middle of February 885, an army set out from Wásit for that province against Amr. Unfortunately, we know very little about the course of this war. The ruler of Ispahán inflicted on Amr (to whom he had shortly before been tributary) a severe defeat, and plundered his entire camp (probably in August 886). In August 887 Mowaffak himself set out for Párs. Amr despatched several divisions against him; but as the general in command of the vanguard went over to the enemy, he was compelled to evacuate the province. The regent followed him to Kermán; his plan no doubt was to track him to his native seat. Amr withdrew from Kermán also into Sístán; during this retreat his son Mohammed died. But Mowaffak was not in a condition to occupy Kermán even, which was in great part a desert, and the citadels of which were, we may suppose, mainly in the hands of Amr’s people; to press on through the frightful wilderness to Sístán was not for a moment to be thought of. Nature had set insuperable limits to the enterprise.
Here begins a course of shifting politics, in which only a few of the leading movements are known to us. Mowaffak must have recognised that he was not yet in a position to subdue as-Saffár, and that it was expedient to come to terms with him. In May or June 889, accordingly, the post of military governor of Bagdad was again conferred upon Amr, and his name inscribed on the standards, lances, and shields in the government office “on the bridge.” Some weeks later Amr again appointed Obaidalláh his deputy in this post. This presupposes that a peace had been previously concluded, in which he had received back all, or nearly all, his provinces. That he continued to be ruler of Párs is attested by a series of his coins, extending from 888 or 889 to 898 or 899, better than by any writings of the historians. But as early as February 890 he was again deprived of his dignity as governor. Perhaps he was dissatisfied with the concessions he had received, and this was intended as a punishment. In the East, too, his hands were quite full. He had become suspicious of his youngest brother Alí, and had therefore thrown him into prison along with both his sons, but these had made their escape (890-1) to Ráfi, a rough, unscrupulous warrior of Yakúb’s, who had skilfully availed himself of circumstances gradually to become master of a great part of Khorásán, and had also made Rai his own. Alí died while with him, but the breach was not thereby healed. At this point Ráfi came into conflict also with the new Caliph Motadid, who began to reign on 16th October 892, shortly after the death of his father Mowaffak. The Caliph consequently again appointed Amr to the governorship of Khorásán. While Ráfi was inflicting defeat on the Ispahánese, whom the Caliph had at the same time stirred up against him, Amr took his capital Níshábúr (July or August 893). Ráfi, however, did not abandon all hope of his cause, but now allied himself with the Alid prince of Tabaristán; and when Amr quitted Níshábúr some time afterwards, he stepped into the place, caused the public prayer to be offered for the Alid, and professed the Shíite faith. Through force of circumstances Amr thus became the champion of orthodoxy and of the Commander of the Faithful against the heretics. How good his understanding now once more was with the court is shown by the large presents received from him in Bagdad in May 896. Besides 4,000,000 dirhems (nearly £75,000), they included a number of blood-camels and, very particularly, a bronze image, richly decked with precious stones, of a goddess who (in Indian fashion) had four arms; in front of the image, upon the car on which it was borne, were a number of other smaller idols. The whole were publicly exhibited for three days to the inhabitants of Bagdad. From this we gather that in the meanwhile Amr had carried his arms again into the eastern heathen lands which were subject to Indian influences, and this also is expressly testified. He had permanent hold of the city of Ghazni, where, among other works, he built a bridge.
While his presents were arriving in Bagdad, Amr was already in the field against Ráfi. The siege of Níshábúr began in the end of May. Ráfi was unable to hold out for long, and fled, but was pursued and beaten by Amr, whose account of what occurred, sent to the Caliph, was read before the grandees of the empire on Tuesday, 22nd December 896. Within eight days a further dispatch arrived, to the effect that the miscreant had been again defeated near Tús (north-east from Níshábúr), had thence fled to Khárizm, and there had been slain (Friday, 19th November). This letter, showing, as it did, how the hand of God had once more annihilated the foes of the house of Abbás, was read in all the great mosques at public worship on the following Friday (31st December 896). On Thursday, 10th February 897, Amr’s messenger arrived with the head of Ráfi, which was publicly shown all that day. Motadid had undoubtedly good reason for hating the vanquished man. That Ráfi had done homage to the descendant of Alí was bad enough in the eyes of the Caliph, who assumed a consuming zeal for orthodoxy, but it was much worse that he should publicly have charged Motadid with having compassed the death of his uncle Motamid, in order to hasten his own succession. This reproach was all the less pleasant if, as seems likely, it was founded on truth.
Amr, into whose hands the victory over Ráfi had brought his two nephews also, was now in undisputed possession of Khorásán. In the course of the year 897 there arrived in Níshábúr a messenger of the Caliph, who, besides a variety of complimentary gifts, invested him with the government of Rai. In return for this, Amr sent a large sum for the pious purpose of setting up hospices for the accommodation of pilgrims on the road from Irák to Mecca. He had now reached his culminating point, and was actually stronger than Yakúb had ever been.
Motadid, perhaps the ablest Caliph since Mansúr, a man whose one object was to restore the caliphate to its former glories, could not long endure so powerful a subject. Amr’s want of moderation came to the Caliph’s aid. He pressingly urged that he might receive the lands beyond the Oxus, which certainly had long been regarded as a dependency of Khorásán, and on which Yakúb, it would seem, had cast longing eyes. The ruling house there for some time had been that of the Sámánids, who had succeeded in raising to high prosperity the extensive oases surrounded by barbarous nomads. The cunning Motadid acceded to this petition, and in February 898 sent to Amr the tokens of his investiture with Transoxania. Simultaneously, it is said, he wrote to Ismáíl the Sámánid to the effect that he had deposed Amr, and now named him (Ismáíl) governor of Khorásán; this, however, is not probable, Amr’s investiture with Transoxania having taken place in such solemn form. Even without this he was sure to gain his end, which was to set the two princes by the ears, and at least to weaken Amr seriously; for it was a thing of course that Ismáíl should resist. Amr now sent an army to cross the Oxus near Amol (approximately where the straight line drawn from Níshábúr to Bukhárá intersects the river). But, on the Sámánid’s advancing to meet it, Amr’s army drew back a considerable distance, and near Abíwerd, where the cultivated part of Khorásán borders on the desert, sustained a great defeat (Monday, 29th October 898). Ismáíl thereafter retired. Amr now resolved, against the advice of his counsellors, to take the field in person. Then, or even earlier, it is said, Ismáíl wrote to him urging him to be satisfied with his great kingdom; but he would not listen, and when the difficulty of passing the mighty Oxus was represented to him, his reply was: “I could, if I choose, dam it up with money bags.” He betook himself to Balkh, which lies pretty near the river. Ismáíl advanced to meet him with a superior army. It is expressly noted that that army included the “owners of the soil;” if not patriotism, strictly so called, there entered into the struggle a determination to protect their well-governed land from the violence and greed of the Sístánese. Ismáíl was successful in investing Balkh, and putting it in a state of siege; perhaps Amr had previously lost a battle. It was in vain that he sued for peace. He was compelled to fight, but his troops soon fled, and dispersed in various directions; he himself got entangled in a marsh, was taken prisoner (April 900), and sent in chains to Samarcand. Ismáíl sent a suitable message to the Caliph; the news arrived on Wednesday, 28th May. Whether Motadid had continued to recognise Amr, or whether he had already had due regard to the successes of the Sámánid, is not known; now at all events it was matter of course that he should praise the victor as his obedient officer, and censure the vanquished as a rebel. Khorásán thenceforward became for a long time a possession of the house of Sámán; but Párs was given by the Caliph, about the middle of July, to another. Ismáíl is reported to have given Amr his choice between being detained a prisoner with himself or being sent to the Caliph; he is said to have chosen the latter. If this be the fact, he had radically mistaken the character of Motadid.
The friendship that had subsisted between the two since the accession of the latter had never been sincere; at no time had the Caliph seen in as-Saffár anything but a usurper of his lawful rights, who had attained to power only injuriâ temporum. But probably it was at the Caliph’s own express demand that Amr was delivered up to him. He had sent messengers to bring him; and the fact that these did not arrive in Bagdad till 23rd April 901, indicates protracted negotiations. The Sámánid had sent an attendant along with Amr, with instructions at once to behead him if any movement should occur in his favour. The mighty ruler, whose presents and trophies four short years before had been the finest spectacle that could be furnished to the mob of Bagdad, was now paraded before that mob in procession, as customary at the arrest of great State offenders or heretical princes. From henceforward the Saffárs were now officially designated as unbelievers or arch-heretics, certainly with great injustice. The one-eyed, sun-burnt captive sat upon a great caparisoned two-bunched camel,[[83]]—one of the animals that he himself had sent in a present on the occasion just alluded to,—clothed in a rich silken robe, and with a tall cap upon his head. The sight touched the very mob in the street, and they refrained from the customary reproaches and curses. A contemporary poet tells—half pityingly, half mockingly—how, during this ride, Amr lifted up his hands to God and prayed to be delivered from this trouble, and to be allowed to become a coppersmith once more. The Caliph caused the unhappy man to be brought into his presence, and curtly said to him: “This comes of thy insolence.” He was then cast into prison, where he lived on for about a year. In the beginning of April 902 (the date of Motadid’s death) he was murdered. This, perhaps, was done at the instance of one of the grandees, who was afraid that Amr might again return to power by the aid of the successor to the throne, with whom he stood on a good footing. But it is also possible that the dying Motadid[[84]] may himself have given the order to have him put to death; it was not inconceivable that as-Saffár, should he chance to make his escape in the confusion attending the change of sovereign, might yet become a great trouble to the new Caliph. So long as he lived he was “an object of hope and fear.” In fact, rather more than a year before this (February 901), “out of wrath for Amr,”[[85]] troops which had served under him had raised upon the shield his grandson Táhir, son of Mohammed (who had died in 887), taken Párs from the Government, and threatened Susiana.
Amr was hardly so doughty a warrior as his brother; he was not unfrequently worsted. But his great craft is spoken of with admiration, and the skill with which he watched over his people by means of a careful system of espionage. He was greatly beloved by his soldiers. Like Yakúb, he kept a full treasury. Occasionally his high officers, even those who enjoyed his special favour, were compelled to surrender large sums which they had gained per fas or, oftener, per nefas; it is only the sovereign exchequer[[86]] that in the East, and most of all in Persian lands,[[87]] can digest every kind of unrighteous gain. By good finance and great cleverness, Amr always came out successfully from his misfortunes, until at last his land-hunger and the double-dealing of his suzerain completely undid him. Posterity, for the most part, soon forgot him; only a few considerable ecclesiastical and other edifices continued to testify to his power and magnificence.
His grandson Táhir continued to play a part for some years in Párs and Sístán, until at last he too, in a struggle with a former Mamlúk of Amr, was taken captive and sent to Bagdad (908-9). Several other Saffárids, among them three sons of Alí, came forward in the following years, but all were overpowered. Three of them, among whom was a great-grandson of Amr, also named Amr, were subdued by the Sámánid Ismáíl and his successor; this Amr had been chosen by the Sístánese as their ruler in 914.[[88]]
Fifty years later we find Khalaf, son of Ahmed, ruling Sístán, under an overlordship of the Sámánids, which was little more than a name. In his elevation he had been helped by the circumstance that, through his mother Bánó, he was a descendant of Amr. Contemporaries even designate him as “descended from Amr.” His native country, it is clear, still held as-Saffár’s name in high honour. Khalaf was a very pious ruler; a protector of poets, who sang his praises; and of scholars, to whose number he is himself reckoned. Amongst other literary works, he caused a commentary on the Koran, in one hundred volumes, to be prepared, the largest of the numerous books of this kind of which we have any information. But yet he, too, cared more for property and power than for piety or culture. Tradition represents him not only as a cunning, but also as a rather untrustworthy person. Out of mistrust he threw his son Táhir into prison, where he died—a suicide, it was alleged. After many vicissitudes of fortune, Khalaf fell into the hands of the great conqueror Mahmúd of Ghazni (1002-3), and died in captivity in March 1008. His son Abú Hafs survived him, and entered the service of Mahmúd. So ended the mighty race of princes of Sístán.