(or ʿAlī b. ʿOṯmān b. Ḥarb), ephemeral Saffarid amir of the so-called “third Saffarid dynasty”.

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Volume I, Fascicle 8, pp. 849

ʿALĪ B. ḤARB (or ʿAlī b. ʿOṯmān b. Ḥarb), ephemeral Saffarid amir of the so-called “third Saffarid dynasty” (described in the sources as the “molūk of Nīmrūz”); reigned briefly and died in 622/1225. In the early 7th/13th century, Sīstān, along with all the eastern Islamic lands, seems to have fallen into disorder with the irruption of the Mongols in 614/1217 and after. An additional factor making for instability was the activity of the Ismaʿilis of Qūhestān, the district of Khorasan immediately to the north of Sīstān; their emissaries in 618/1221 assassinated the Saffarid Amir Yamīn-al-dawla Bahrāmšāh. His son Noṣrat-al-dīn was killed by the Mongols, and soon afterwards the aid of the forces of the Quṭluḡ Khan ruler of Kermān, Borāq (Baraq) Ḥāǰeb, was called in to support a claimant to the throne. The ruler Šehāb-al-dīn Maḥmūd b. Ḥarb (b. ʿOṯmān b. Ḥarb?) was killed in 622/1225, and his brother ʿAlī, called Zāhed (“the ascetic”), took over the reign. He died in the same year, and a member of the Khwarazmian ruling family, Tāǰ-al-dīn Inaltigin, assumed de facto power.

C. Edmund Bosworth