Saturday, May 31, 2014

Ya'qub al-Saffar (840 – 879) & the Islamic Conquest (870 AD)

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"......870 A.D. marks the first time that the Kingdom of Shambhala actually came under Moslem domination…".....Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa

"Legend reports that Vasubandhu came from the "Kingdom of Shambhala' (approximately, modern Begram, otherwise known as the ancient kingdom of Kapisha, north of Kabul) located in the Afghanistan region, north-west of Peshawar....Bagram (بگرام Bagrám), founded as Alexandria
on the Caucasus and known in medieval times as Kapisa, is a small town and seat in Bagram District in Parwan Province of Afghanistan, about 60 kilometers north of the capital Kabul….in the old tradition of the 84 Mahasiddhas that the Kingdom of Uddiyana was divided between two countries, to the North and South. To the North, it bordered on the land of Shambhala (i.e., the Kingdom of Kapisa)……
Website of His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, Urgyen Trinley Dorje………..
….http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/pramodavajra.htm"….

"Ya'qub claimed the inheritance of the kings of Persia and sought "to revive their glory," and thus in 867 he sent a poem written by himself to the Abbasid caliph Al-Mu'tazz. The poem said: "With me is the Derafsh Kaviani, through which I hope to rule the nations.".....In 870/871, Ya'qub marched against the Kharijites of Herat, and defeated them. He then marched towards Karukh, and defeated another Khariji leader who was named Abd al-Rahman. Ya'qub then pardoned Abd al-Rahman and made him governor of Isfizar.....His army would later march to Ghazna, Kabul, and Bamyan, conquering these territories in the name of Islam by appointing Muslim governors. From there they moved to north of the Hindu Kush and by 870 AD the whole of Khorasan was brought under their control. The Panjshir Valley was now under Ya'qub's control....."....Bosworth, C.E. (1975). "The Ṭāhirids and Ṣaffārids".

"The Islamic conquest of Afghanistan (642–870) began in the middle of the 7th century after the Islamic conquest of Persia was completed, when Arab Muslims defeated the Sassanid Empire at the battles of Walaja, al-Qādisiyyah and Nahavand. The Muslim Arabs then began to move towards the lands east of Persia and in 652 captured the city, Herat. By 667, the Afghan area was under invasion by the Arabs but in 683 Kabul revolted and completely routed the invading army which was led by the Governor of Seistan. It was not until 870 that Kabul and the Afghan area was brought under control by the Saffarids. The near-complete conversion of Afghanistan to Islam was during the period of the Ghaznavids in the 10th century, with Kafiristan holding out until the 1890s."......Ancient Indian History and Civilization, by Sailendra Nath Sen

"... the succession of Islamic dynasties that emerged from the fractured Abbasid empire by their general geographic location......Khorasan (modern Iran, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan):
Samanids (819–999 CE)......The Samanid dynasty (Persian: سامانیان‎, Sāmāniyān), also known as the Samanid Empire, or simply Samanids (819–999),was a SunniPersian Empire in Central Asia, named after its founder Saman Khuda, who converted to Islam despite being from Zoroastrian nobility. It was a native Persian dynasty in Greater Iran and Central Asia after the collapse of the Sassanid Persian empire caused by the Arab conquest.
Ghaznavids (962–1168)
Seljuks (1034–1194)
Ghurids (1011-1215)
Khwarazmians (1077–1231)
Mongol Empire & the Ilkhanate (1231–1335)

"The Samanid dynasty (Persian: سامانیان‎, Sāmāniyān), also known as the Samanid Empire, or simply Samanids (819–999), was a Sunni Persian Empire in Central Asia, named after its founder Saman Khuda, who converted to Islam despite being from Zoroastrian nobility. It was a native Persian dynasty in Greater Iran and Central Asia after the collapse of the Sassanid Persian empire caused by the Arab conquest......they reigned for 180 years, encompassing a territory which included Greater Khorasan (including Kabul)......With their roots stemming from the city of Balkh (then, part of Greater Khorasan) the Samanids promoted the arts, giving rise to the advancement of science and literature, and thus attracted scholars such as Rudaki, Ferdowsi, and Avicenna. While under Samanid control, Bukhara was a rival to Baghdad in its glory. Scholars note that the Samanids revived Persian more than the Buyids and the Saffarids, while continuing to patronize Arabic to a significant degree. Nevertheless, in a famous edict, Samanid authorities declared that "here, in this region, the language is Persian, and the kings of this realm are Persian kings."......"....The History of Iran By Elton L. Daniel,

"Saman Khuda (Saman Khoda, Saman-khudat) was an 8th century Persian noble whose descendants (the House of Saman) later became rulers of Persian (the Samanid Empire). He was a Dehqan from the village of Saman in Balkh province in present-day northern Afghanistan (then part of Persia). In the early 8th century, he came to Merv, seat of the Caliphal governor of Khorasan, Asad ibn 'Abd Allah al-Qasri (ruled 723-727). Saman was originally a Zoroastrian,. But he was so impressed with the piety of Asad ibn 'Abd-Allah al-Qasri, the Caliphal governor of Khorasan, that he converted to Islam....Saman Khuda's grandsons were governors of Samarkand, Ferghana, Shash and Ustrushana, and Herat in recognition of their role in the suppression of a revolt...."....Shamsiddin Kamoliddin, "To the Question of the Origin of the Samanids", Transoxiana 10 (July 2005).

Kabul Shahis......."The area had been under the rule of the Buddhist and then Hindu dynasty called the Kabul Shahis since the 5th century. The Arabs were unable to succeed in converting the population because of constant revolts from the mountain tribes in the Afghan area. The Hindu Shahi were defeated in the early part of the 10th century by Mahmud of Ghazna who ruled between 998 and 1030. He expelled the Hindus from Gandhara.......Earlier in 870, Yaqub bin Laith as-Saffar, a local ruler from the Saffarid dynasty of Zaranj, Afghanistan, conquered most of present-day Afghanistan in the name of Islam. In many cases, the people he conquered had rebelled against their Islamic overlords and reverted to prior forms of worship.....From the 8th century to the 9th century, many inhabitants of what is present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, were converted to Sunni Islam. It is surmised from the writings of Al Biruni that some Pashtuns living in Pakhtunkhwa (present-day western Pakistan) had not been completely converted. Al Biruni, writing in Tarikh al Hind, also alludes to the Pashtun tribes of Pakhtunkhwa as Hindus.".....Afghanistan: a new history By Martin Ewans Edition: 2, illustrated Published by Routledge, 2002

"Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar (يعقوب بن الليث الصفار), or Ya'qub-i Laith Saffari (یعقوب لیث صفاری), born Rādmān pūr-i Māhak (Persian: رادمان پور ماهک‎) (840 – 879), a Persian coppersmith, was the founder of the Saffarid dynasty in Sistan, with its capital at Zaranj (a city now in south-western Afghanistan). He ruled territories that are now in Iran and Afghanistan, as well as portions of western Pakistan.....In Iranian folklore, Ya'qub is sometimes regarded as an Iranian Robin Hood because according to legend he stole from the wealthy and helped the poor."....The provincial Persian Ya'kub, on the other hand, rejoiced in his plebeian origins, denounced the Abbasids as usurpers, and regarded both the caliphs and such governors from aristocratic Arab families as the Tahirids with contempt". -- Ya'kub b. al-Layth al Saffar, C.E. Bosworth, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. XI, p 255

"Caliph al-Mahdi ( 775-785 CE).... had the same name as the last prophet in the Kalachakra list..... invited Buddhist scholars from India and from the huge Nava Vihara monastery in Balkh, Afghanistan to Baghdad to work at the newly constructed House of Knowledge to translate texts into Arabic..... They worked there from the late eighth to the early ninth centuries CE.

"The Panjshir Valley (also spelled Panjsheer or Panjsher; Persian: درهٔ پنجشير‎ - Dare-ye Panjšēr; literally Valley of the Five Lions) is a valley in north-central Afghanistan, 150 km north of Kabul, near the Hindu Kush mountain range. Located in the Panjshir Province it is divided by the Panjshir River. The valley is home to more than 140,000 people, including Afghanistan's largest concentration of ethnic Tajiks...Panjshir, literally meaning "Five Lions", refers to five Wali (literally, protectors), highly spiritual brothers who were centered in the valley. ."

Website of His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, Urgyen Trinley Dorje………."Legend reports that Vasubandhu came from the "Kingdom of Shambhala' (approximately, modern Begram, otherwise known as the ancient kingdom of Kapisha, north of Kabul) located in the Afghanistan region, north-west of Peshawar....Bagram (بگرام Bagrám), founded as Alexandria on the Caucasus and known in medieval times as Kapisa, is a small town and seat in Bagram District in Parwan Province of Afghanistan, about 60 kilometers north of the capital Kabul….in the old tradition of the 84 Mahasiddhas that the Kingdom of Uddiyana was divided between two countries, to the North and South. To the North, it bordered on the land of Shambhala (i.e., the Kingdom of Kapisa)"…….….http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/pramodavajra.htm

One of many peaceful villages in the Ghorband valley between Kabul and Bamiyan...... (marionkaplan.com)

"John Wood (1839)…."….Ghorbund/Ghorband Valley & Parwan.....Late in the evening we arrived, very weary and somewhat disheartened, at the bottom of a deep valley, along which was scattered a village named Sambala. "Its male inhabitants, armed to the teeth….kept hovering about the encampment…..we were early astir next morning, and anxious to quit what was rightly considered a dangerous neighborhood…..None of the villagers were stirring….we moved slowly forward, winding along the sides of the mountain…until we reached a shallow ravine….on the opposite bank stood a tower commanding ascent on that side…we were soon surrounded by armed men….an old woman stepped forward to the edge of the ravine and stayed the hand of her highly offended countrymen….the shrill piercing voice of the woman rose high above the rest….Her garments hung in tatters, and her manners and gesticulations were fierce and wild…her eloquence was successful and we were permitted to move on….we emerged a short time after sunset, into the Parwan Valley, at the village of I-angheran."........A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus.....By John Wood, Sir Henry Yule

"The Saffarid empire did not last long after Ya'qub's death. His brother and successor, Amr bin Laith, was defeated at the Battle of Balkh against Ismail Samani in 900. Amr bin Laith was forced to surrender most of his territories to the new rulers. The Saffarids were subsequently confined to their heartland of Sistan, with their role reduced to that of vassals of the Samanids and their successors......Yaghub Leis, the founder of the Saffarian Dynasty liberated Bactria after a battle on Feb, 9, 867. Yaghub was a restless warrior who defeated Arab vassal rulers one by one. In a series of battles, his army liberated Herat, Bamyan, Bactra, Kabul, and Bost......Amir Ismail Samani, the founder of the Samanian Dynasty was a powerful vassal of the Caliph of Baghdad. He defeated Amro Leis in a battle in the spring of 900 AD in Balkh. The Samanian victory reduced the Saffarian Dynasty to a minor tributary in Sistan and Iranian leaders could not unite and regain country's independence until 931.".....http://www.fouman.com/Y/Get_Iranian_History_Today.php?artid=172

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….May 2014

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