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Following Arab invasions into Iran and their territorial expansion within the Sasanian realm, Iranian discontent with Arab rulers grew, particularly during the Umayyad and Abbasid periods. These grievances sparked uprisings and revolts, eroding Arab control over the eastern reaches of the Islamic Empire and gradually enabling local governments in the east to assert autonomy. Amidst conflicts on its western borders and engagements with the Byzantine Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate grew uneasy as local governments like the Tahirids, Saffarids, and Samanids declared independence, albeit with nominal allegiance to Baghdad. Among these emerging powers, the Samanids of Transoxiana, centered in Bukhara, rose to prominence. Originally prominent commanders within the Abbasid army, the Samanid rulers, with the backing of their people and forces, navigated toward independence. Initially part of the Abbasid army hierarchy and beneficiaries of military training under the Abbasid regime, the Samanid emirs seized the opportunity created by the weakened Caliphate and conflicting interests with Baghdad, establishing a semi-independent government in the east. In this historical context, military forces and militarism held significant importance for all the established systems in the eastern regions, including the Samanids. The military played a pivotal role in shaping and sustaining Iranian local governments like the Samanids.

The Urartu civilization is one of the old civilizations of the Azerbaijan region. Urartus ruled over northwestern part of Iran, Caucasia, eastern Turkey and even northern part of today Syria. Their language does not belong to Indo-European or Semitic language families. Their language was an agglutinative language. There are lots of inscriptions related to Urartus in East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan and Ardabil in northwestern Iran. These inscriptions and Urartu castles in the region have Turkish names. The researcher tried to find out whether there is any relationship between Urartu language and Azerbaijani Turkish language of local people of the region. The cognate based study and comparing roots of the words between ancient Turkish and Urartu language showed that Urartu and Turkish words have the same roots. There are also grammatical similarities between these two languages in using suffixes like –li and –ni for showing relationship and possessiveness. Furthermore, in Urartu language like Kazakh Turkish suffix –u is used to make an infinitive verb. Some Uratian names like Turkish names start with prefix ar/er. The name of some Urartian Gods have meaning in Turkish. As a result, Urartu language must be an Altaic language and a proto-Turkic language.

This paper utilizes an approach that combines studies of Samanid period artifacts and textual accounts with modern genetic studies to explore the identity of the people who were involved in long distance trade from the far eastern regions of the Central Asia into Northern Europe. Although this study does not analyze the Samanid works, it reiterates and illustrates how important Iran/Persia was in the history of Europe as well as Central Asia. The information contained in the artifacts and texts gives us the evidence needed to understand the vast trade network and the people who were responsible for the movement of these goods, people and ideas. This study reconfirmed recent genetic studies that the people, collectively termed Rus or Vikings, were a mixture primarily of Scandinavians, Slavs, and Turks, with additional admixing with local populations. The importance of the Persian and Arabic sources addressing contact between the Rus and Eastern people has been thoroughly discussed by Thorir Jonsson Hraundal. In these texts, the Rus were referred to by different names including Majus, Northmanni, Urduman, Warank as well as by other names. One of his many observations is the unmistakable influence of Turkic culture on that of the Rus. This complex ancestry is supported by recent genetic studies and will be discussed in more detail below in light of archaeological evidence. Thus, the term Rus refers to a way of life rather than a homogenous ethnic or cultural group. However, this study refined the identity of the people responsible by observing a correlation between the distribution of the genetic haplogroup R1a sub-clade and the long-distance trade routes across Central Asia to Northern Europe, with the central focus in Eastern Europe. Despite the vast distance, the evidence indicates that there were cultural contacts between people with linked ancestry. The study is important because it begins to reveal the unexpected influence of Eastern cultures on those of Northern Europe.