Panchronia

Saffarid Dynasty

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861 – 1003 · up to 2,436 thousand km² · Asia, Middle East

Capital: Zaranj

The Saffarid dynasty was a culturally Persianate dynasty of eastern Iranian origin that ruled over parts of Persia, Khorasan, and eastern Makran from 861 to 1002. One of the first indigenous Persian dynasties to emerge after the Islamic conquest, the Saffarid dynasty was part of the Iranian Intermezzo. The dynasty's founder was Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar, who was born in 840 in a small town called Karnin (Qarnin), which was located east of Zaranj and west of Bost, in what is now Afghanistan. A native of Sistan and a local ayyār, Ya'qub worked as a coppersmith (ṣaffār) before becoming a warlord.