Shahnameh was originally drafted by Ferdowsi for the Princes of
Samanids, who were responsible for revival of the Persian cultural traditions after the Arab invasion.
This was when the caliph al-Ma'mun placed the administration of the Transoxanian cities and regions (Samarqand, Ushrusana, Ferghana, Shash, as well as Herat) under the rule of the
Samanids from Balkh.
The
Samanids had Tajik-Aryan affiliation and were sympathetic to preserving the Aryan heritage.
Bokhara's chequered history saw the golden age of the
Samanids in the ninth and 10th centuries, and its recovery from the 13th century onslaught of Genghis Khan's hordes, to once again become a religious hub for the region in the 16th century, with rich patrons sponsoring hundreds of exquisitely built mosques and madressahs.
Al-Jayhani was a geographer at the court of the
Samanids in the 10th century and whose work includes a chapter on the Magyars, a nomadic pagan tribe that lived on the Eurasian steppe and were the ancestors of Christian Hungarians.
At the beginning of the Sasanian style common in the art of metalworking, but later was incorporated Islamic style using themes and archaism of the Sasanian period before the period Buwayhid and
Samanids in Iran, under ordinary Iranians.
In the 10th century, Muslim rulers called
Samanids, from Bukhara (in what is now Uzbekistan), extended their influence into Afghanistan, and the complete conversion of Afghanistan to Islam occurred during the rule of the Gaznavids in the 11th century.
Al-Maturidi was able to flourish "under the powerful rule of the
Samanids, who ruled practically the whole of Persia from 261/874 to 389/999 actively patronized science and literature, and gathered around their Court a number of renowned scholars."(Ali 1963, 1: 260).
Allan, a senior scholar in the history of Islamic architecture, offers a significant addition to the scholarship with this beautifully illustrated, authoritative excursus on the monuments and defining features and styles of Shi'a art and architecture, surveying the development of the style and the history and use of specific monuments from the
Samanids to the present day.
The greatest value of this work to scholars and students interested in the premodern Islamic world is that Silverstein places this detailed description of postal systems into the broader picture of the political traditions of particular dynasties and rulers, notably the pre-Umayyads, Umayyads, Abbasids,
Samanids, Ghaznavids, Fatimids, Seljuks, II-Khanids, and Mamluks.
In the tenth-century the Persian
Samanids made Bukhara their capital, while in the eleventh-twelfth centuries the Karakhanid Turks made Samarkand theirs.