Ya'qub ibn al-Layth Saffar (Persian: یعقوب لیث صفاری, romanized: Ya'qub-e Leys-e Saffari; 25 October 840 – 5 June 879) was a coppersmith and the founder of the Saffarid dynasty of Sistan, with its capital at Zarang (a city now in south-western Afghanistan). Under his military leadership, he conquered much of the eastern portions of Greater Iran consisting of modern-day Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan as well as portions of western Pakistan and a small part of Iraq. He was succeeded by his brother, Amr ibn al-Layth.
Ya'qub was born in 840, of eastern Iranian origin, in a small town called Karnin (Qarnin), which was located east of Zaranj and west of Bost (Lashkargah), in what is now Afghanistan. Information about his genealogy and social background is lacking. Clifford Edmund Bosworth explains that several Sunni sources were invariably hostile to Ya'qub because of the disrespect he showed toward the Abbasid caliph. "Some sources accused Ya'qub of being a Khariji, Ibn Khallikan labeled him a Christian, and Nizam al-Mulk claimed that he converted to Ismailism". However, these claims came roughly a century after Yaqub's death, and most sources agree on Ya'qub's ascetic lifestyle. Historian, D G Tor, presents numerous evidences supporting that Ya'qub was a devout Sunni warrior. All of the religious figures associated with Ya'qub were orthodox Sunni Muslims.
According to numerous sources, he was extremely poor, and because of this, he occasionally consumed bread and onions. His family moved to the city of Zaranj due to the occasional sectarian violence between the Sunnis and Kharijites. Ya'qub began work as a coppersmith ("saffar"), while his brother Amr ibn al-Layth worked as a mule-hirer.
Ya'qub, along with his brothers Amr ibn al-Layth, Tahir ibn al-Layth and Ali ibn al-Layth, later joined the ayyars under Salih ibn al-Nadr, who had opposed the Abbasids and began ruling in Bost. By 854, the ayyars managed to expel Ibrahim ibn al-Hudain, who was the Tahirid governor of Sistan. Another ayyar leader, Dirham ibn Nasr, succeeded in unseating Salih as the king of Sistan in 858. However, in 861, Ya'qub overthrew Dirham, and gave himself the title of Emir at that point.
Campaigns in Sistan and Khorasan
Ya'qub attracted the attention of an Abbasid caliph by first battling Kharijites in his homeland of Sistan. In 864, "Yaʿqub led an expedition to Bost against his former master Salih, and then into ar-Rukkaj and Zamindāvar against the local ruler there, the Zunbil, killing him and securing an immense booty." He also managed to capture several family members of the Zunbils, including the Zunbil king's son. He then vanquished the Hindu Shahis, conquering their capital Kabul. He later moved against the Kharijites in northern Sistan, winning a decisive victory and killing their leader Ammar ibn Yaser in 865. Ya'qub's campaigns marked the decline of militant Kharijism in the East. After having defeated the Ammar, Ya'qub held a celebration. During the celebration, one of the members of the court made a speech in Arabic. Ya'qub asked the latter why he made a speech in a language which he could not understand. One of Ya'qub's secretaries, Muhammad ibn Vasif, then made a qasida in Persian.
Ya'qub claimed the inheritance of the kings of Persia and sought "to revive their glory," and thus in 867 he sent a poem written by himself to the Abbasid caliph Al-Mu'tazz. The poem said: "With me is the Derafsh Kaviani, through which I hope to rule the nations."
In 870/871, Ya'qub marched against the Kharijites of Herat, and defeated them. He then marched towards Karukh, and defeated another Khariji leader who was named Abd al-Rahman. Ya'qub then pardoned Abd al-Rahman and made him governor of Isfizar.
His army would later march to Ghazna, Kabul, and Bamyan, conquering these territories from the Hindu Shahi, and appointing Muslim governors. From there they moved to north of the Hindu Kush and by 870 AD the whole of Khorasan was brought under their control. According to Muhammad Aufi's Jawami ul-Hikayat, during his invasion of Zabul, Yaqub employed a ruse to surrender after being allowed to pay homage to the ruler along with his troops, lest they disperse and become dangerous to both sides. Yaqub's troops "carried their lances concealed behind their horses and were wearing coats of mail under their garments. The Almighty made the army of Rusal (probably Rutbil), blind, so that they did not see the lances. When Yaqub drew near Rusal, he bowed his head as if to do homage, but raised a lance and thrust it in the back of Rusal so that he died on the spot. His people also fell like lightning upon the enemy, cutting them down with their swords and staining the earth with the blood of the enemies of the religion. The infidels when they saw the head of Rusal upon the point of a spear took to flight and great bloodshed ensued. This victory, which he achieved, was the result of treachery and deception, such as no one had ever committed."
Ashirbadi Lal Srivastava states that after this victory by Yaqub over Zabul, the position of Lallya alias Kallar, the Brahmin minister who had overthrown the last Kshatriya king of Kabul Lagaturman, seems to have become untenable. He shifted his capital to Udhaband in 870 AD. Lallya, credited as an able and strong ruler by Kalhana in Rajatarangini, was driven out by Ya'qub from Kabul within a year of his usurpation according to Srivastava.
The Panjshir Valley was now under Ya'qub's control, which made him able to mint silver coins. In 873, Ya'qub ousted the Tahirids from their own capital of Nishapur, and captured its ruler Muhammad ibn Tahir, which led to conflicts with the Abbasid caliphate. During one of Ya'qub's numerous battles, his face was disfigured to the point that he could only eat through a pipe in his mouth for twenty days.
Ya'qub had captured several relatives of the Zunbil's family after defeating Salih b. al-Nasr. Zunbil's son escaped from captivity in 869 and quickly raised an army in al-Rukhkhaj, later seeking refuge with the Kabul-Shah. Per Gardizi, Ya'qub undertook another expedition in 870 which advanced as far as Kabul and Bamiyan. According to Tarikh-e-Sistan, Bamiyan was captured in 871 and its idol-temple was plundered. Ya'qub defeated Kabul in 870 and again had to march there in 872 when the Zunbil's son took possession of Zabulistan. Ya'qub captured him from the fortress of Nay-Laman where he had fled. In 871, Ya'qub sent 50 gold and silver idols he gained by campaigning from Kabul to Caliph Al-Mu'tamid, who sent them to Mecca.
Ya'qub set out west for Fars with the intention of subjugating the province. Sources disagree on what happened next, but Ya'qub was eventually dissuaded from continuing his expedition, and he turned back toward Sistan. His withdrawal is described as having been caused either by the governor Muhammad ibn Wasil's submission to him, or by the arrival of emissaries sent by the caliphal government to convince him to abandon his westward advance. In either case, Muhammad soon afterwards reached a rapprochement with the central government, and in 872 he handed over the kharaj (tax revenues), and possibly the government of Fars, to a caliphal representative. Ya'qub later traveled to Tabaristan in 874, and battled the Zaydid leader al-Hasan ibn Zayd. Ya'qub collected taxes in Tabaristan's capital Amul before departing for Rayy.
Ya'qub ibn al-Layth once again set out for Fars, this time, invading it and advancing to Estakhr, seizing Muhammad's treasuries there. Muhammad departed from Khuzestan, and returned to Fars in an attempt to stop Ya'qub. They met near Lake Bakhtegan in August 875, and in the resulting battle, Muhammad, despite having a numerically superior army, was defeated. Muhammad was forced to flee; Ya'qub looted Muhammad's stronghold at Sa'idabad and took control of Fars.
In 876, the Abbasid representative Al-Muwaffaq offered Ya'qub governorship of Khurasan, Tabaristan, Fars, Gurgan, and Ray, and to appoint him as head of security in Baghdad. Ya'qub, sensing that the offer was made due to the weakness of the caliph, rejected it and wrote back that he would be advancing to the capital. The offer also alienated the Turks of Samarra, who felt that Ya'qub represented a threat to their interests. Seeing that an agreement with the Saffarid was impossible, the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tamid decided upon war and pronounced a formal curse upon Ya'qub. On 7 March 876, al-Mu'tamid left Samarra, leaving his son Al-Mufawwad in charge of the capital. On 15 March he arrived at Baghdad, before arriving near Kalwadha and setting up camp.