Iranian experts to search for Saffarid capital in southern Afghanistan
Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN -- A team of Iranian archaeologists plans to search for the capital of Yaqub ibn Laith as-Saffar, the founder of the Saffarid Empire, in the Nadali district of southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.
“After two years of waiting, Afghan officials have granted permission to the Iranian team to begin excavating Nadali Tepe in search of the capital by the end of the (Iranian) year,” director of the Archaeology Faculty of the University of Sistan-Baluchestan, Reza Mehrafarin, told the Persian service of CHN on Tuesday.
The Iranian calendar year ends on March 19, 2008.
The plan is a joint project approved by the University of Sistan-Baluchestan and the Archaeological Research Center of Iran (ARCI) two years ago.
Yaqub ibn Laith was an Iranian ruler from Sistan, whose capital was Zaranj (also known as Zarang). Since Afghanistan was once a part of Iranian territory, it is surmised that the Nadali Tepe is the lost capital of Yaqub ibn Laith, Mehrafarin explained.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Yaqub ibn Laith (840-879) was the founder of the Saffarid Empire, who rose from obscurity to rule much of present Iran as well as portions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After Laith’s apprenticeship as a coppersmith (Saffar, whence the name of the dynasty), he became a bandit and assembled an independent army.
He won a measure of respect from Islamic rulers in Baghdad by conquering non-Muslim areas in what is now Afghanistan.
He then began to act as an independent ruler, minting his own coinage and driving out the Tahirid dynasty from control of Khorasan, in eastern Iran.
Laith next seized control of the Iranian food-producing provinces of Fars and Ahvaz. Finally in 878 he marched on Baghdad itself but was stopped when its defenders cut irrigation dikes.
Laith is a popular folk hero in Iranian history, and it was at his court that the revitalization of the Persian language began after two centuries of eclipse by Arabic.
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