Editing Samandar (city) (section)

==History==
The Russian scholar [[Svetlana Pletnyova]] suggested that the name "Samandar" meant "Farthest Gate" in [[Middle Persian]], and that the town was built by the [[Sassanid]] ruler [[Khosrow I]] in the 6th century.{{sfn|Brook|2018|p=30}} Other scholars have proposed that the name of the city may derive from the name of a [[Hun]]nish tribe "Zabender". The [[Greece|Greek]] writer [[Theophylact Simocatta]] refers to a migration of Zabender from Asia to Europe in about 598; in addition, an [[Armenia]]n book on geography attributed to [[Moses of Chorene]] mentions a town "M-s-n-d-r" in the land of Huns located to the north of Derbent.

Samandar became the second capital of the [[Khazar Khaganate]] in the 720s, after [[Balanjar]] was abandoned as a result of the [[Arab–Khazar wars|Umayyad invasion]]. For the same reason, the capital was moved again further north to [[Atil]], sometime between 730 and 750.{{sfn|Brook|2018|p=20}}

According to the 10th-century geographers [[al-Istakhri]] and [[Ibn Hawqal]], Samandar was inhabited by [[Jew]]s, [[Christianity|Christians]], [[Muslims]], and members of other religious faiths, each of which had its houses of worship. According to al-Istakhri, Samandar was famous for its fertile gardens and vineyards, and a lively centre of commerce with several markets; the city was mostly built of wood.{{sfn|Brook|2018|pp=30–31}} Samandar, like Atil, was destroyed by [[Kievan Rus']] prince [[Sviatoslav I of Kiev|Sviatoslav]] in the 960s, leading to a decline and disappearance of Khazaria.