Ushrusaniyya
The Ushrusaniyya initially served under the prominent general al-Afshin, but they remained active after his downfall, and are frequently mentioned during the period known as the Anarchy at Samarra.
[3] After the Abbasids came to power in 750, the princes of Ushrusana made submissions to the caliphs during the reigns of al-Mahdi (r. 775–785) and Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), but these appear to have been nominal acts[4] and the people of the region continued to resist Muslim rule.
[6] From this point on, Ushrusana was generally considered to be part of the Abbasid state, although the afshīns were allowed to retain their control over the country as subjects of the caliph.
[10] The formation of the Ushrusaniyya regiment was part of a general policy initiated by al-Ma'mun and expanded by al-Mu'tasim (r. 833–842) to recruit soldiers from the various frontier districts of Transoxiana.
Following this, he was put in charge of part of the Muslim army during al-Mu'tasim's 838 expedition against the Byzantines, and he played a leading role during the siege of Amorium.
[15] Modern estimates on the overall size and composition of the Samarran military vary widely, but the Ushrusaniyya are generally considered to have made up only a small portion of the army.
Archaeologist Derek Kennet, after surveying the remains of the military cantonments in Samarra, estimated that al-Matria was home to 11,847 soldiers (Ushrusaniyya and non-Ushrusaniyya alike) during the reign of al-Mu'tasim, out of a total army size of 94,353;[21] other historians, however, have considered these numbers to be too large.
During a riot in Samarra, in which the Ushrusaniyya were sent out to restore order, the troops fought the rioters with multiple weapons, firing arrows (nushshāb) into the hostile crowd and engaging them with swords (suyūf).
[25] Al-Ya'qubi notes that after al-Afshin's death, the Turkish commander Wasif al-Turki and his followers took up residence in al-Matira during the caliphate of al-Wathiq (r. 842–847),[26] and it is possible that the Ushrusaniyya were displaced from that area and forced to settle elsewhere in the city.
In 847, for example, they participated in Bugha al-Kabir's expedition against the disorderly Banu Numayr in western Arabia, during which they were under the command al-Afshin's former lieutenant Wajin al-Ushrusani.
Al-Mutawakkil's son al-Muntasir (r. 861–862), who was complicit in his father's death, had sought to make allies of the Ushrusaniyya in the days leading up to the murder, and many of them threw their support behind him.
When riots broke out in the capital in favor of al-Musta'in's rival al-Mu'tazz, they were deployed to help suppress the dissidents, but suffered heavy casualties during the fighting.
