Abstract :
The Sāmānid-era drive to Islamize Central Asia led not only to increased
Islamic influence within the steppes, but, concomitantly, to the transformation
of internal Muslim political life. Developments within the Muslim
oecumene that were shaped or influenced by this Drang nach Osten
range from the legitimizing of the political fragmentation of the
Persianate Dynastic period to changes in Muslim military culture and practice,
the successful religious conversion of the Turkic steppe; and growing
Turkic influence inside the Sāmānid realms, culminating not only in the
downfall of the Sāmānids, but in the end of the era of Iranian political
and military dominance and the beginning of a millennium of Turkic
political hegemony.
