Persia, then, at the epoch of which we are now speaking, was beginning to struggle into a new national life, and to give fresh expression to its marked preference for the Shí'ite doctrine. For Ya'qúb b. Layth, if we are to credit the long account of his successful revolt against the Caliphate (for such, in effect, it was) given by the Nidhámu'l-Mulk in his “Treatise on the Art of Government” (Siyásat-náma, ed. Schefer, pp. 11-17) had strong Shí'ite leanings; though of course what is there said about his relations with the Fáṭimid Caliph (who only began to establish his power some thirty-five years after Ya'qúb's death) is an absurd anachronism. And in the Biography of eminent Shí'ites lithographed at Tihrán in A.H. 1268 (A.D. 1851-2) under the title of Majálisu'l-Múminín* (“Assemblies of True Believers”) the Ṣaffárids are included amongst the adherents of the Shí'a cause. The evidence there adduced for Ya'qúb's religious standpoint is rather quaint. Information was communicated to him that a certain Abú Yúsuf had spoken slightingly of 'Uthmán b. 'Affán; and Ya'qúb, thinking that a Sístání noble of this name was intended, ordered him to be punished. But when he was informed that it was the third Caliph, the successor of 'Umar, who had been thus reviled, he countermanded the punishment at once, saying, “I have nothing to do with the ‘Companions.’”

A third great event belonging to this period was the formidable rebellion of negro slaves (Zanj = Æthiopian) The Zanj rebellion. which for nearly fourteen years (A.D. 869-883) caused the utmost alarm and anxiety to the metropolis of Islám. The scene of this stubborn and, for a long while, successful revolt was the marshes lying between Baṣra and Wásiṭ, and the leader of these African slaves was a Persian, 'Alí b. Muḥammad of Warzanín (near Ray), who, though boasting descent from 'Alí and Fáṭima, proclaimed the doctrines not of the Shí'ites but of the Khá-rijites. The explanation of this curious fact is given by Professor Nöldeke in the excellent account of this “Servile War in the East” given in his Sketches from Eastern History (chap. v, pp. 146-175): the rebel leader knew his clientèle too well to tempt them with a bait which, though efficacious enough with his own countrymen, would have entirely failed to appeal to minds far more ready to absorb the democratic views of the Khárijites than the sentimental legitimist aspira­tions of the Shí'a. And so, as Nöldeke has pointed out (op. cit., p. 152)—

“It is abundantly clear why Karmat, one of the founders of the Karmatians, an extreme Shíite sect which was destined soon after this to fill the whole Mohammedan world with fear and dismay, should, on religious grounds, have decided not to connect himself with the negro leader, however useful this association might other­wise have been to him.”

The year A.H. 260 (= A.D. 873-4) was in several respects an important epoch in Muhammadan, especially in Shí'ite, Men of letters who died be­tween A.D. 863 and 873. history; but, before speaking of it, we may briefly mention the chief men of letters who died during the decade which preceded it, which includes the first four years of al-Mu'tamid's Caliphate.

Abú Ḥáṭim of Sajistán (Sístán), who died about A.D. 864, was the pupil of al-Aṣma'í and the teacher of the celebrated Abú Hátim of Sístán. al-Mubarrad. Some thirty-two of his works are enumerated in the Fihrist, but the only one preserved to us in its entirety (and that only in the unique Cambridge manuscript, which formerly belonged to the traveller Burckhardt) is the Kitábu'l-Mu'ammarín (“Book of the Long-lived”), published with introduction and notes by the learned Goldziher (Leyden, 1899).

Much more important was 'Amr b. Baḥr, surnamed “al-Jáḥi dh” because of his prominent eyes, a man of great Al-Jáḥidh. erudition and remarkable literary activity (†A.D. 869). He was a staunch adherent of the Mu'tazi-lite doctrine, of which one school bears his name. Of his works, which chiefly belong to the class of belles lettres (adab) several have been published: the Kitábu'l-Bayán wa't-tibyán in Cairo; and the Kitábu'l-Bukhalá (“Book of Misers”) in Leyden by Van Vloten. He also wrote a tract “on the Virtues of the Turks,” which exists in several manuscripts. He stood in high favour under al-Ma'mún and his two successors, but narrowly escaped death on the fall and execution of his patron, the wazír Ibnu'z-Zayyát. His writings are equally remarkable for style and contents, and entitle him to be placed in the foremost rank of early Arabic prose writers.

A year later than al-Jáḥidh (A.D. 870) died the great traditionist al-Bukhárí, the author of the celebrated Collec- Al-Bukhárí, Muslim, at­Tirmidhí and an-Nasá'í. tion of Traditions called the Ṣaḥíḥ, which, amongst all Sunní Muhammadans, ranks as the highest authority on this subject. Another work on the same subject, and bearing the same title, was compiled by Muslim of Níshápúr, who died a few years later (A.D. 875); another by at-Tirmidhí († A.D. 892), and a fourth by an-Nasá'í († A.D. 914). These four great traditionists were all natives of Khurásán, and were probably of Persian extraction.

The only other writers of this period who need be mentioned are the poetess Faḍl of Yamáma († A.D. 873), who in her earlier life professed Shí'ite views, and the Christian physician and translator Ḥunayn b. Isḥáq, who poisoned himself in A.D. 873 on account of the vexation caused him by his excommunication by his bishop Theodosius.

We now come to the year A.H. 260 (= A.D. 873-4), a year memorable for the following important events: (1) the “Occultation” or Disappearance of the Twelfth Imám of the Shí'ite “Sect of the Twelve;” (2) the beginning of the Pro- The year A.H. 260. paganda of the Shí'ite “Sect of the Seven,” or Isma'ílis, which led directly to the rise of the Carmathians (Qarmaṭí, pl. Qarámiṭa) and the foundation of the Fáṭimid Anti-Caliphate of North Africa and Egypt; and (3) the establishment of the Sámánid dynasty in Khurásán. In this year also the great Ṣúfí saint Báyazíd of Bisṭám died, and the theologian Abu'l-Ḥasan al-Ash'arí was born; he who was destined to give the coup de grâce to the Mu'tazilite ascendancy in Islám, and to give currency and form to that narrower and more illiberal doctrine which has given to the Muhammadan religion its rigid and stereotyped charac­ter. The religious phenomena of this critical period will be more fully discussed in the following chapter, and here we shall continue to speak chiefly of external and political events.

The rise of the Sámánid dynasty coincided with, and indeed brought about, the fall of the short-lived power of the Copper- The Sámánid Dynasty. smith's sons Ya'qúb and 'Amr, and marks the really active beginning of the Persian Renaissance. Sámán, after whom the dynasty is called, claimed descent from Bahrám Chúbín (see p. 181 supra), and the genuineness of this pedigree is admitted by the learned and exact Abú Rayḥán al-Bírúní.* He was converted from the Zoroastrian faith to Islám by Asad b. 'Abdu'lláh, the governor of Khurásán, after whom he named his son. His four grand­sons all had provincial governments in Khurásán in the Caliphate of al-Ma'mún (about A.D. 819), but Aḥmad, the second of them, was most successful in extending and con­solidating his dominions, and his two sons, Naṣr I and Isma'íl, succeeded in overthrowing the Ṣaffárid power, taking 'Amr b. Layth (who succeeded his brother Ya'qúb in A.D. 876) captive in A.D. 900, and establishing a dynasty which flourished for nearly 125 years ere it was in turn overthrown by the rising might of the House of Ghazna.

Two anecdotes concerning the Ṣaffárids, both to be found in the Nidhámu'l-Mulk's Siyásat-náma (ed. Schefer, pp. 13-16), Anecdote con­cerning the death of Ya'qúb b. Layth. are too typical and too celebrated amongst the Persians to be omitted here. The first concerns the elder brother Ya'qúb. When, after his defeat by the troops of the Caliph al-Mu'tamid on the occasion of his persistent attempt to enter Baghdad, he lay dying of colic, the Caliph, still fearing him, sent him a conciliatory letter, wherein, while reproaching him for his disobedience, he held out conditional promises of forgiveness and compensation.