The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c11.58.3

v1.c11.58.3

But it has very appropriately been remarked that ‘when provincial governments in the east begin to become hereditary they are in a fair way to becoming kingdoms.’⁵ Moreover the power of the Abbasid Caliphs was also beginning to decline rapidly and dynasties rose all over the empire.⁶ They could no longer adequately support their distant viceroys with men and money.⁷ The effect of all these was a weakening of Arab control over Sind, which is illustrated by their expulsion from Sindān in Cutch in the reign of the Caliph al-Mu‘taṣim (833-42 A.D.).¹ The Caliphs appear to have lost all effective control over Sind from about the year A.H. 257 (870-71 A.D.) when Ya‘qūb ibn Layth established on the ruins of the Tahirids an independent dynasty. In that year the helpless Caliph formally conferred upon Ya‘qūb the government of Sind, Balkh, and Tukhāristān, in addition to Sijistān and Kirman, with which he had already been invested.² The Ṣaffārid dynasty thus founded was soon replaced in about the year 288 A.H. (900-901 A.D.) by the Sāmānids of Transoxania³ who finally reduced Sijistān to submission in A.H. 300.⁴ But there are no facts to prove, nor reasons to believe, that either the Ṣaffārids or the Sāmānids exerted any effective control over so remote a province as Sind.