It has been stated above that the province of Māvarā-un-Nahr, or Transoxiana, had been held during the supremacy of the Tāhirides by various members of the house of Sāmān. At the time of the overthrow of the Tāhirides by Ya`kūb ibn Layth, Nasr ibn Ahmed was governor of Samarkand. We are told[223] that, after the fall of the Tāhirides, Muwaffak sent a regal mandate to Nasr ibn Ahmed appointing him to the government of all Transoxiana, from the banks of the Oxus to the farthest East.[224] It is not apparent how he became independent of the new masters of Khorāsān;[225] but in the year 261 we find Nasr, with the help of his brother Isma`īl, engaged in the direction of affairs in Transoxiana. Narshakhi tells us that the names of both were mentioned in the public prayers, while that of Ya`kūb ibn Layth was omitted. Nasr appears to have had a natural predilection for the town of Samarkand, and on this account, perhaps, on receiving his appointment from the Caliph, he did not proceed to the then capital, Bokhārā, but sent thither a deputy in the person of his brother Isma`īl, who was then but twenty-seven years of age. Bokhārā was at this period in a state of great disorder owing to the dissensions of political and religious factions, and partly to the rapine caused by organised robber-bands which infested the country. Isma`īl, who shone as a general and an administrator, and possessed the rarer faculty of winning men’s hearts by his justice and clemency, soon established order throughout the country, and succeeded in extirpating the banditti, whose numbers, we are told, even between Rāmtīna and Barkad, amounted to 4000.[226] All would have gone well in Nasr’s dominions had not his jealousy, or proneness to listen to the voice of slander, led him to quarrel with his brother. It is not necessary to recount the various phases of these one-sided disputes. Suffice it to say that while, on the one hand, Isma`īl always remained loyal to his brother, Nasr himself was too prudent to withdraw him abruptly from Bokhārā, where he had won the esteem and affection of the people. But in A.H. 272 (885) he succumbed to the wiles of self-interested advisers and marched against his brother, who fled from Bokhārā and called upon his friend Rāfi` ibn Harthama,[227] the viceroy of Khorāsān, for aid.[228] Nasr soon brought most of the towns of Bokhārā to submission, and forbade their citizens to furnish supplies to Isma`īl and his army, who soon felt the stress of famine. So pitiable, indeed, was their plight by the time that Rāfi` arrived, that the governor of Khorāsān, rather than embark upon so losing a venture, suddenly declared to Nasr that he was not come to make war, but peace, between the brothers. Terms were soon arrived at by which the government of Bokhārā was given to Ishak, while Isma`īl was appointed tax-collector (`_āmil-i-kharāj_), A.H. 273 (886). These matters being settled, Nasr returned to Samarkand, and Rāfi` to Khorāsān.