The Samanid Empire (Persian:سامانیان‎‎, Sāmāniyān), also known as the Samanid dynasty, Samanid Emirate, or simply Samanids, was a Sunni Iranian empire, ruling from 819 to 999. The empire was mostly centered in Khorasan and Transoxiana during its existence, but at its greatest extent, the empire encompassed all of today's Afghanistan, and large parts of Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Pakistan.