Abd-ar-Rahman ibn Samura

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Samura was a general of the Rashidun Caliphate and the succeeding Umayyad Caliphate, and caliphal governor of Sistan in the 7th century CE.

Biography According to Ibn Manzur, Ibn Samura was a Qurayshite. His father was Samura ibn Habib ibn Rabi'a ibn Abd Shams ibn Abd Manaf ibn Qusayy ibn Kilab.

By 652, Ibn Samura had replaced Rabi ibn Ziyad al-Harithi as the governor of Sistan.

During the Muslim conquest of Sistan, Ibn Samura was sent by the governor of Basra, Abd Allah ibn Amir to Sistan, and then initiated the Muslim conquest of Khorasan, where he first secured peace in a place named "land of al-Dawar". Ibn Samura explained to the marzbān: "my intention was to show you that this idol can do neither any harm nor good." Bost and Zabul submitted to the Arabs by treaty in 656 CE.

It is then recorded by Abu Labid that when the army was trying to get their hands on the spoils of war, Ibn Samura stood up and warned them by narrating a hadith he heard from Muhammad that the Prophet forbade the seizing of spoils of war before it is distributed first. Subsequently those who took the booty returned what they had taken, and he then distributed it among them.

Then Ibn Samura sent the spoils of war to Abdullah ibn Amir. Bost (Sīstān) and Zabulistan submitted by a treaty of capitulation, which was also signed with the marzban of Kerman before the death of Caliph Uthman in 656.

After Mu'awiya deposed Ibn Samura from Sīstān in 665, he retired to Basra where the slaves he had brought from Kabul built a mosque in his house in the building style of Kabul. He died in Basra in 670.