Samanids - Decline and Fall

Decline and Fall

The power of the Samanids began to crumble in the latter half of the 10th century. In 962, one the ghulams, Alp Tigin, commander of the army in Khurasan, seized Ghazna and established himself there. His successors, including Sebük Tigin, however continued to rule as Samanid "governors". With the weakened Samanids facing rising challenge from the Karakhanids for control of Transoxania, Sebük later took control of all the provinces south of the Oxus and established the Ghaznavid Empire.

In 992, a Karakhanid, Harun Bughra Khan, grandson of the paramount tribal chief of the Karluk confederation Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan, captured Bukhara, the Samanid capital. Harun however died shortly afterwards, and the Samanids returned to Bukhara. In 999, Nasr b. Ali, a nephew of Harun, returned and took possession of Bukhara, meeting little resistance. The Samanid domains were split up between the Ghaznavids, who gained Khorasan and Afghanistan, and the Karakhanids, who received Transoxania; the Oxus River thus became the boundary between the two rival empires. The Samanid Isma'il II al-Muntasir, escaped from Karakhanid captivity and attempted to restore the Samanid dynasty, but was killed by an Arab bedouin chieftain in 1005.