Iranian Kingship, the Arab Conquest and Zoroastrian Apocalypse: The History of Fars and Beyond in Late Antiquity (600-900 CE) by Touraj Daryaee. Published in 2012 by The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, 136, Bombay Samachar Marg, Bombay 400023. Pp: 97. Price: Not mentioned.
Much has been written about the Arab conquest of Sasanian Iran as Dr Touraj Daryaee’s copious references attest. What the author of this slim volume has added to this memorable chapter in history is the juxtaposition of literary sources with the material evidence provided by archeology and numismatics. Using all these sources he has examined the crumbling tapestry of the empire to display the death throes that began even as the fabled Khusro Parwez (Khusro II) consolidated his power around the Persian
Gulf, conquered Armenia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Libya, invaded Jerusalem and took its "True Cross.”
The act shocked the Eastern Roman Empire into retaliation and its emperor Heraclius sacked the sacred Zoroastrian fire temple Adur Gushnasp at Takht-e Suleyman in the heart of the Sasanian Empire in 624 CE. "The first real crusade between the Christian world and the East had taken place and the Arab Muslims had not begun their conquest,” notes Daryaee. "In a matter of years, Khusro II went from a world conqueror, emulating the Achemenid territorial integrity, to a humiliated king” unable to protect his temples and his people.
But the seed of decay had been laid when Khusro had to fight his general Wahram Cobin for the Sasanian throne. Cobin "considered himself a legitimate king since he minted coins for two years (and) captured the imagination of the people” with songs and stories that have survived in Arabic and Persian, states Daryaee. Khusro’s uncle Wistahm had minted coins too in Media where he had fled from Khusro’s wrath. Thus in the last decade of the sixth century two individuals "not deemed to be legitimate rulers” minted coins in their own names — breaking a 366-year tradition when a Sasanian monarch alone did so. Khusro targeted all who had stood in his path to the throne and won it only with the help Armenian forces supplied by the Roman emperor Maurice. Khusro II’s 38-year reign ended when he "was removed in 628 CE by the nobility and all the invaded territories were returned to the Romans by 630 CE,” writes Daryaee.
Basing his "relative chronology” on textual sources counterbalanced by numismatics, Daryaee finds a succession of seven monarchs between 628 and 632 CE when Yezdegird III mounted the throne. None of them, including Yezdegird (who was killed in 651 CE) ruled over the entire empire. Most of them fell like skittles. Some have a place in the texts. Some are named on coins but not acknowledged in written accounts and vice versa. "It appears that the Sasanian military and local lords became the major force in controlling power (rather) than dynastic lineage.” Yezdegird himself is termed a "wandering” king, moving from province to province as his support dwindled. So though coins in his name were struck in a number of cities, Daryaee cautions us that few mints were active at the same time. "By the seventh century… local politics and regional issues became paramount over state solidarity,” states the author.
The province of Fars was the most difficult for the Arabs to conquer and to hold. The jockeying for status and spoils among the invaders — fitna — civil war or power struggle between different Arab interests gave the Zoroastrians opportunities to mutiny and kept the administration off balance by not paying tribute or tax. Many of the cities of Fars revolted many times and were re-conquered. Hence the confusion over the date of their fall to the invaders. Accounts of the early years of the invasion are prolific in Arabic sources, notes the author providing synopses from the well-known historians like Tabari, Baladhuri and Ibn Balkhi. Differences in these accounts however lead to questions of accuracy. "The epigraphic and numismatic
sources give us much information on the person or official whose name is inscribed on the seal or struck on the coin, where the seal or coin is from, when the coin was struck, the religious conviction of the owner or governor under whom it was struck and, depending on the material used, what was the economic situation or status of the person,” states Daryaee.
As Yezdegird fled eastward in the face of the Arab invasion, Kerman and Sistan remained the last Zoroastrian strongholds. It was from Sistan that Yezdegird sought Chinese help which came to the aid of his son Peroz. "This event coincides with reports of the loss of Sistan from Arab control between the years 658 and 673 CE,” and Sistan minted coins with Yezdegird III’s year 20, notes Daryaee.
"Arab Muslim disunity …fuelled or prolonged local
resistance and created a disintegrated province out of Fars and other places, where many Iranians
and Arabs contended for control.” Eventually, however, a system of "co-regency” was established, with an Arab and an Iranian sharing gubernatorial power when the Marwanids came to power. Mansur and Farroxzad
were two of the Iranians who were able to mint coins in their own names. The process continued
in the eighth and ninth centuries but by then the Zoroastrian
gentry had been "co-opted into the Islamic caliphate,
and ‘orthodox’ Zoroastrians were not a part of them…Zoroastrian sources provide evidence of a resistance that had ceased to be political and violent and had, instead, become apocalyptic and internalized…
"By the eighth century, the Zoroastrians
of Fars expressed their hopes for a better future through their apocalyptic
literature. This was a reaction to a hopeless situation, where there was no one person or local lord capable of bringing about another period of Zoroastrian Persian rule.” Daryaee cites passages from the Zardust Name, the Bundahisn, Zand I Wahman Yasn, collating them with the events of those times which so dismayed the Zoroastrians.
"The importance of these sources is that they present the Zoroastrian view as to how history was unfolding and nearing the end in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries CE…(and) demonstrate the reaction of the Zoroastrian community.” Their only hope of salvation lay in the spiritual world, notes Daryaee.
An art paper presentation of the three Government Research Fellowship Lectures delivered by Daryaee in August 2010 the text is embellished with graphics of seals, coins and maps and color depictions of the Khusro-Heraclius war sourced from a Roman mosaic and manuscript. These Government Research
Fellowship Lectures form an integral part of the program at the KRCOI and have been the source of some outstanding intellectual presentations, notes the Foreword by KRCOI president Muncherji Cama.
Daryaee himself has a number of publications to his name, largely focusing on the history of Sasanian
Iran. In charge of the website Sasanika: Late Antique Near East Project which aims at collecting all the available sources on the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE), Daryaee edits The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies and also serves on other editorial boards, informs the introduction to the author. He has dedicated this book to his father Iraj.