Having ascended the throne as a youth, Nuh was assisted by his mother and his vizier Abu'l-Husain 'Abd-Allah ibn Ahmad 'Utbi.

[2] Sometime around his ascension, the Karakhanids invaded and captured the upper Zarafshan Valley, where the Samanid silver mines were located.

An expedition against the Buyids was mobilized in Khurisan, also in 982; it was initially successful, but the Samanid forces were subsequently crushed.

'Utbi's death sparked an uprising in the capital Bukhara; Nuh was forced to request Tash's assistance in crushing the revolt.

Nuh, due to Muhammad's advice, stripped Tash of his office and reinstated Abu'l-Hasan to the governorship.

During his retreat, Fa'iq attempted to seize Bukhara, but Nuh's Turkish general Bektuzun inflicted another defeat on him.

The Karakhanids, who in addition to their seizures of Samanid territory had inherited several petty Turkish principalities that had been virtually independent from Bukhara, launched a full-scale invasion at the end of 991.

[3] The amir then pardoned Fa'iq and gave him the governorship of Samarkand, in exchange for a promise from the latter to fight the Karakhanids.

Nuh fled, and the Karakhanids entered the capital in the late spring of 992, where they managed to capture Abu Ali Damghani.

The situation changed when Bughra Khan fell sick in Bukhara; he made Nuh's uncle Abd al-Aziz the ruler of the Samanid dynasty as an Karakhanid puppet, traveled to Samarkand, and then died on the road northward.

The garrison left in Bukhara was defeated by Nuh in the summer of that year, who had Abd al-Aziz blinded and imprisoned.

Although peace had finally been established, the years of conflict preceding it had heavily hurt the Samanids; the Karakhanids had taken control of much of the northeast, while the Ghazvanids had entrenched themselves in Khurasan and the lands south of the Oxus.