culture by patronizing Rudaki, Bal'ami and Daqiqi. The Samanids determinedly propagated Sunni Islam, and repressed Ismaili Shiism but were more tolerant of Twelver Shiism. Islamic architecture and Islamo-Persian culture was spread deep into the heartlands of Central Asia by the Samanids. Following the first complete translation of the Qur'an into Persian in the 9th century, populations under the Samanid empire began accepting Islam in significant numbers. The arabization of the Samanids was clearly minimal compared to the almost entirely arabized Tahirids. Despite Arabic literature and science flourishing in the Samanid Empire, its distance from Baghdad allowed the Samanids to be a crucial element in the renaissance of New Persian language and culture. This Persianate culture variant was the first to use a language besides Arabic in Islamic culture. Although the Zoroastrian population had previously been suppressed by the Abbasid Caliphate, according to Al-Masudi, the Samanid empire still had fire-temples that were still being venerated by the present Zoroastrian population. Despite the fact that the Samanids professed Sunni Islam, however, they were much more tolerant towards its Zoroastrian population than the previous empires. Through zealous missionary work as many as 30,000 tents of Turks came to profess Islam and later under the Ghaznavids more than 55,000 under the Hanafi school of thought. The mass conversion of the Turks to Islam eventually led to a growing influence of the Ghaznavids, who would later rule the region. Under Nuh II, a Hanafi work, which was being used to contest Ismailism, was translated into Persian. Agriculture and trading were the economic bases of the Samanid State. The Samanids heavily engaged in trade with Europe. Thousands of Samanid coins have been found in the Baltic and Scandinavia. Literature [[File:The Sasanian King Khusraw and Courtiers in a Garden, Page from a manuscript of the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdawsi, late 15th-early 16th century.jpg|thumb|right|The Sasanian king Khosrow II and his courtiers in a garden, page from a manuscript of the Shahnameh, late 15th-early 16th century. Brooklyn Museum.]] During the 9th and 10th centuries, there was a large amount of growth in literature, mostly in poetry. It was during the Samanid period that Persian literature appeared in Transoxiana and was formally recognized. The advancement of an Islamic New Persian literature thus started in Transoxiana and Khorasan instead of Fars, the homeland of the Persians. The best known poets of the Samanid period were Rudaki (d. 941), Daqiqi