[2] Since the reign of Nuh I (r. 943–954), several difficulties started appearing in the Samanid realm, namely financial shortcomings, dissatisfaction in the army, and the emergence of powerful neighbouring kingdoms such as the Buyids.

Alptigin, the leader of the ghulams and the governor of Khurasan, supported 'Abd al-Malik's son, while Fa'iq Khassa, who had known Mansur since his childhood, pressed for the latter's coronation.

"[5] Regardless, the modern historian Clifford Edmund Bosworth states that "Mansur's reign may be regarded as the last one in which the fabric of the empire held firm, such that its prosperity excited favorable comment from outsiders.

[7] After having brought stability in Khurasan, Abu'l-Hasan Muhammad Simjuri soon went to war with the Buyids, who had in that year expelled the Samanids' Ziyarid vassals from Tabaristan and Gurgan on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea.

[2] Mansur played an important role in the development and use of New Persian as a court and literary language, chiefly through his sponsorship of the translation and continuation of al-Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings by his vizier, Bal'ami.