In 287/900 he sent an army against Muhammad b. Zaid, the defacto ruler of Tabaristan and Gurgan, despite the attempts of the envoy of Muhammad to restrain him. Isma'il was successful and defeated and killed the ruler of Tabaristan. The general of Isma'il revolted, however, and in the following year Isma'il himself led an army into Tabaristan. The rebellious general, Muhammad b. Harun, fled to Dailam and Isma'il re-established Samanid rule over Gurgan and Tabaristan. Ray and all of Khurasan submitted to Isma'il but Sistan and Isfahan remained independent. Thus the heart of Ismail's domains remained Transoxiana with his capital at Bukhara. Isma'il has come down in history not so much as a capable general or as a strong ruler, although he was both, but rather as the epitome of the just and equitable ruler. Many stories in this vein about Isma'il are to be found in both Arabic and Persian sources. For example, on one occasion he found that the weights used in the city of Ray to weigh the precious metals for the taxes were too heavy. He ordered them corrected and deducted the amount of excess which already had been collected from the city taxes. Stone weights have been found with Isma'il's name on them, so we may suspect that the ruler systematized the weights and measures in his domains although it is not mentioned in the sources. Isma'il introduced other reforms in his kingdom, and even at Qazvin, his westernmost outpost, he confiscated the possessions of some of the landowners with the approbation of the common folk. Because of his campaigns, especially to the north against nomadic Turks, the heart of the kingdom, Transoxiana, was so safe from enemy attacks that the walls and other defences of Bukhara and Samarqand were neglected. As long as Isma'il lived there was no need of defensive walls but later, at the end of the dynasty, the earlier, but now dilapidated, walls were sorely missed. Ismail was loyal to the caliph but there is no evidence that he, or any of the Samanid rulers, paid tribute or taxes to Baghdad. Gifts were sent, for this was normal procedure, reports on their activities were also sent, and coins were minted in the names both of the caliph and the ruling Samanid, while both names were also mentioned in the daily prayers, at least until the rise of the Buyids. Nonetheless relations between the Samanids and the caliphs continued to be correct though formal to the end of the dynasty. All of the Samanid rulers are called amir in the sources, which in that age meant something like viceroy of the caliph, who himself was amir of all the Muslims. Like the 'Abbasid caliphs, the Samanids took throne names, for example amir-i hamid for Nuh b. Nasr; some also had posthumous names, for example Ismail was called amir-i madhi "the late amir", after his death, and Ahmad b. Ismail was called amir-i shahid, "the martyred amir", as was noted by Muqaddas.
The Rise of Samanids in Medieval Persia
