The Samanid, Ghaznavid, and Seljuq Dynasties

Under the Abbasid caliphs, Persians had come to play an increasingly important part in the administration and culture of the Islamic state, and as the Abbasid empire fragmented, an Iranian dynasty of governors, the Samanids (819-1005), arose in the eastern provinces of Khurasan and Transoxania. The Samanids made Bukhara in Transoxania a leading centre of Islamic culture and, in particular, they presided over a revival of poetry. It was a Samanid ruler who commissioned the Shahnama (Book of Kings), the poet Firdawsi's (935-1020) great epic of Persian history and legend, which was to figure so largely in the artistic iconography of the following centuries. Samanid culture was later greatly admired by the Turkish Ghaznavids, who took over much of their former territory. Besides ruling over Khurasan, Afghanistan, and most of Iran, the Ghaznavids' repeated raids into India led to their eventually establishing themselves in the Punjab; and they adorned their capital, Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan, with Indian works of art. Mahmud of Ghazna (998-1030) became a hero in the eyes of later generations of Indian Muslims, and was a model for later Turkish and Mongol rulers - a good Muslim who was also successful general and patron of the arts.
    The downfall of the Ghaznavids came through their use of Oghuz Turks recruited from the steppes to the north to serve as mercenaries. In the 1030s, under the leadership of the Seljuq clan, many of these Turks rebelled and in 1055 the Seljuq leader, Tughril Beg (1038-63), having driven the Ghaznavids out of Khurasan, entered Baghdad. He induced the Abbasid caliph to grant him the title of sultan (literally "power"). The greater Seljuqs, as his dynasty is known, ruled over Iran, Iraq, and most of Syria, albeit in the name of caliph. A little later in the eleventh century a separate branch of the family moved him into Anatolia and established the Seljuq sultanate of Rum on what had previously been Byzantine territory.

The massive recruitment of Turkish slave soldiers by the Abbasid caliphs, followed by the rise of first the Ghaznavids and then the Seljuqs, signified the coming of the age of the Turks, who were to predominate in both the armies and governments of the eastern Muslim lands for centuries to come. In the far west, Spain was ruled by a succession of princes and North African clans.

Islamic Art
Robert Irwin