A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

The Samanids 75
of their sentiments… Their basic coin is the dirham, whereas the dinar serves
only as the theoretical monetary unit....
...They say that the population of Bukhara was in remote antiquity composed
of immigrants from Istakhr [a city in Fars].The Samanids chose Bukhara
as their capital because it was the closest Transoxanian city to Khurasan:
whoever possesses this city has Khurasan before him and Transoxania behind
him ...The territory of Bukhara borders Sogdia on the east; some people,
however, consider Bukhara, Kesh and Nasaf to be part of Sogdia....The chief
city of Sogdia is Samarkand.
Spiritual, intellectual and artistic life in the Samanid domains thrived,
although it is impossible to isolate it from similar florescence in several
other parts of the Islamic world, beginning with the neighboring
Khwarazm.Ceramics, metalwork, and wall painting are all attested by
archeological finds or through literature.Buildings erected by the
Samanids have not survived, except for a mausoleum in Bukhara attributed
to the aforementioned Ismail: famous as the “Samanid mausoleum,”
it is a gem rightly cherished as one of the most appealing and
original examples of Islamic architecture.
The Samanids are also remembered, however, for the jihad that they
waged on the northeastern frontier of their territories, in the Bilad al-
Turk, the Turkestan of that period.One significant date is 893, when
Ismail crossed the Syr Darya, took Talas (which we have mentioned as
the scene of the memorable battle between the Arabs and Chinese in
751; although they won, the Arabs withdrew after the event) and turned
the local Nestorian church into a mosque.This incident reminds us of
the symbiotic relationship that had existed between the heathen Turks
and the Christian, Buddhist, and other sedentaries – whether Sogdian
or Turkic – in these fringes of the Inner Asian steppe belt.Most Turkic
nomads were still pagan despite the inroads made by Christianity and
Buddhism among them, and it was the Samanid campaigns that set in
motion their massive conversion to Islam. Jihad was only an initial and
relatively minor stage in the process, however.Two other forms of conversion
were characteristic of this area and period, that is, Semireche
and westernmost Sinkiang in the second half of the tenth century and
first half of the eleventh: namely, the proselytic one practiced by inspired
dais or missionary dervishes who on their own ventured into the steppes
and, often living in the aforementioned ribats, preached to the nomads,
and a pragmatic or political one by which Turkic chieftains chose to
adopt the new religion and effect wholesale conversions of their tribes.
Modern historiography has labeled these chieftains as Qarakhanids or