- Saman Khuda
Saman Khuda (Saman Khoda, Saman-khudat) is the founder of the
Samanid dynasty – "The House of Saman". He was a landowner from the village of Saman inBalkh province in northernAfghanistan , who arrived in the early 8th century inMerv to the court of the Caliphal governor ofKhorasan , Asad ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Qasri (723-727), adopted Islam under his patronage, and named his son Asad in his honor. Caliphal-Mamun (786-833) subsequently appointed Asad's four sons – Saman Khuda's grandsons – to be rulers ofSamarqand ,Ferghana ,Shash andUstrushana , andHerat in recognition of their role in the suppression of a revolt against the Caliph. [ [http://www.transoxiana.org/0110/kamoliddin_bahram_chobin.html#16sym Shamsiddin Kamoliddin, "To the Question of the Origin of the Samanids", "Transoxiana" 10 (July 2005)] .] The Samanid dynasty was thus started, rising to its peak of glory during the rule of Saman Khuda's great-grandsonIsmail Samani (892-907).According to later sources, Saman was supposedly descended from the
Sasanian generalBahram Chobin , a noble of the ancient Iranian Mehran clan, who played an important role in the history of the later Sasanians. [R.N. Frye, "The Golden Age of Persia", London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1996, p. 200.] According to yet other sources, Saman was originally aZoroastrian noble from Balkh province, [ [http://www.avesta.org/dhalla/history6.htm M.N. Dhalla, History of Zoroastrianism (1938), part 6, Chapter XLIII] ] who became so impressed with the piety of Asad ibn 'Abd-Allah al-Qasri, the Caliphal governor ofKhorasan , that he converted toIslam . [Encyclopaedic Survey of Islamic Culture, pg. 84 Mohammad Taher]Notes
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