Oshrusana

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oshrusana (Persian اُشروسنه - Ošrūsäne), also known as Sudujshana, Usrushana, Ustrushana, Eastern Chao, was a former Iranian region in Transoxiana. The Oshrusana lay to the south of the great, southernmost bend of the Syr Darya and extended roughly from Samarkand to Khojand.

The rulers of the Ustrushana went by the title of "Afshin", and the most famous of whom was Khedār (arabicised Haydar) b. Kāvūs. Our early knowledge of the ruling family of Oshrusana is derived from the accounts by the Islamic historians (Tabari, Baladhuri, Ya'qubi) of the final subjugation of that region by the 'Abbasid caliphs and the submission of its rulers to Islam.

However, during the reign of the caliph Mahdi (775-85) the Afshin of Oshrusana is mentioned among several Iranian and Turkish rulers of Transoxania and the Central Asian steppes who submitted nominally to him.^[1] But it was not until Harun al-Rašid's reign in 794-95 that Fazl b. Yahya Barmalti led an expedition into Transoxania and received the submission of the ruling Akin^[2], this Kharākana had never previously humbled himself before any other potentate. Further expeditions were nevertheless sent to Oshrusana by Ma'mūn when he was governor in Marv and after he had become caliph. Kavus, son of the Afshin Karākana who had submitted to Fazl b. Yahya, withdrew his allegiance from the Arabs; but shortly after Ma'mun arrived in Baghdad from the east (817-18 or 819-20), a power struggle and dissensions broke out among the reigning family of Oshrusana.

There are indications that semi-autonomous Afshins continued to rule over the Ustrushana after control of the region was wrested from the Abbasids by the Saffarids and, soon after, the Samanids.