86

The Sīmjūrids

300–92/913–1002

Governors in Khurasan and feudatories in Quhistān

300–1/913–14

Sīmjūr al-Dāwatī, Abū ‘Imrān, governor for the Sāmānids in Sistan, d. between 318/930 and 324/936

310–14/922–6

Ibrāhīm b. Sīmjūr, Abū ‘Alī, first governorship in Khurasan

333–4/945–6

Ibrahim b. Sīmjūr, second governorship, d. 336/948

345–9/956–60

Muḥammad I b. Ibrāhīm, Abu ’l-Hasan, first governorship in Khurasan

350–71/961–82

Muḥammad I b. Ibrāhīm, second governorship, d. 378/989

⊘ 374–7/984–7

Muḥammad II b. Muḥammad I, Abū ‘Ali al-Muzaffar ‘Imad al-Dawla, Amīr al-Umara’, al-Mu’ayyad min al-Samā’, first governorship in Khurasan

385/995

Muḥammad II, second governorship, d. 387/997

?

‘Alī b. Muḥammad I, Abu ’l-Qāsim, commander in Khurasan until 392/1002, d. at some point thereafter

The Sīmjūrids began as Turkish military slaves of the Sāmānids (see above, no. 83), Sīmjūr being the ceremonial ink-stand bearer (dawātī) of Isma’il b. Aḥmad. He rose to prominence when the Sāmānids temporarily drove out the Ṣaffārids (see above, no. 84) and occupied Sistan. Thereafter, the family were prominent throughout the tenth century in the warfare of the Sāmānids with their enemies in northern and eastern Persia, often as governors in Khurasan and with a territorial base in their Quhistān estates, and were finally involved in the chaos there as the Sāmānid amirate broke up, after which the family largely drops out of mention.

Sachau, 11 no. 15; Zambaur, 205.

EI2 ‘Simdjūrids’ (CE. Bosworth).

Erdoğan Merçil, Sîmcûrîler, n.p. n.d. = a series of articles in Tarih Dergisi, no. 32 (1979), 71–88; Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, nos 10–11 (1979–80), 91–6; Tarih Dergisi, no. 33 (1980–1), 115–32; Belleten, 49, no. 195 (1985), 547; and Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, no. 13 (1989), 123–38, with a genealogical table at p. 138.

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