At the same time 'Amr was pushing into Egypt, other Arab armies were seeking to consolidate their hold on Iraq and to prepare the ground for extending their conquests into Iran. To realize these aims they needed a headquarters. They could have used the Persian capital, Seleucia-Ctesiphon, but it was such an enormous sprawling site that it was likely deemed unsuitable for a military base, and perhaps also it smacked too strongly of the ancien regime. Instead
They established two large garrisons, Basra and Kufa. The former, notes a contemporary chronicler, was founded by Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, a native Yemeni and early companion of Muhammad, “at the point where the Tigris flows into the great sea, situated between cultivated land and the desert.” The latter, Kufa, was commissioned by another early companion of Muhammad and a veteran of campaigns in Persia, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas; it was located farther to the north, at a bend on the Euphrates opposite the old Arab Christian settlement of Hira.19 Though they were initially only intended for the quartering of Arab troops, who would then be sent off to participate in further conquests to the north and to the east, the garrisons soon became flooded with large numbers of prisoners-of-war brought from all over the Middle East and Central Asia and with men hoping to get rich by offering services to the newly wealthy Arabs, making them into booming cosmopolitan cities.
In the early 640s the Arabs launched incursions into Iran from three different directions. One line of advance took them into Khuzistan, a province in the far southwest of modern Iran. At its heart was the mighty Karun River, which begins in the Zagros Mountains and then flows west and south, emptying into the Persian Gulf right next to the river Tigris. The Sasanian dynasty had invested much money and labor in the region, restoring and building canals in the north to increase agricultural yields, in particular of cereals, sugarcane, and rice, and so it was a rich prize for whoever could control it (Figure 3.2). The cities of Jundishapur and Karka d-Ledan submitted, but Hormizdan, a senior Persian general, managed to muster some troops and hold the other two key cities of the province, Shush and Shustar. He initially struck a deal with Abu Musa, promising to pay tribute, but after two years, having reinforced his position, he broke the peace and killed the men who served as ambassadors between them. Abu Musa dispatched troops, against which Hormizdan sent a number of squadrons, but all were defeated. The Arabs began with Shush, ancient Susa, the favorite residence of Darius the Great, and within a few days they had taken it. “They slew all the distinguished citizens and seized a building called the house of Daniel, appropriating the treasure that was stored there,” including a silver chest containing a mummified corpse, said to be either that of the prophet Daniel or of King Darius himself. Next
FIGURE 3.2 Bridge over the river Karun at Shustar in southwest Iran. Drawing from ca. 1880 by Jeanne Dieulafoy.
The Arabs moved on to another ancient city, Shustar, which lay on an island in the river Karun and was well protected on all sides. For two years they besieged it without making any progress. But then a native of Qatar who lived there conspired with a friend who had a house on the walls to let them in on the proviso that they receive a third of the spoils. The Arabs on the outside agreed to this and the two men gave them access by tunneling under the walls. “Thus the Arabs took Shustar, spilling blood as though it was water.”
The second and principal line of the Arab march into Iran was via the same ancient route through the Zagros Mountains that Alexander the Great had taken long before and that the Mongols would take long after. Crossing from Iraq, they passed Kermanshah and proceeded to Nihawand, which commands entry into the rich agricultural lands of the Iranian plateau. It was crucial for the Persians, after losing the fertile plains of southern Iraq, to halt the Arab advance here before they lost yet another major center of food production. The contemporary chronicler Sebeos evidently considered the encounter important, for he paid careful attention to its dating: “It happened in the first year of Constans, king of the Byzantines, and in the tenth year of Yazdgird, king of the Persians,” namely 641-42. The Arabs fielded “40,000 men equipped with swords,” he says, against which the Persians mustered “a force of 60,000 fully armed men.” For three days the two sides confronted each other, with heavy losses diminishing the infantry of both parties. Suddenly a rumor circulated among the Persians that their enemy had received reinforcements. In their nervous state the Persian troops did not wait to confirm this information, but during the night abandoned their camp. The Arabs made an attack against the Persian position the following morning, but found no one there, and so instead they raided the surrounding area. “Spreading forays across the whole land they put man and beast to the sword; capturing twenty-two fortresses they slaughtered all the living beings in them.”
Third, the Arabs conducted attacks all along the southern coastal flank of Iran from the mouth of the Tigris to the ports of northwest India. Again it is Sebeos who is our main informant, and he tells us that his source is “men who had been taken as captives.” The Arab king, he says, dispatched ships from east Arabia to raid all along the southern coast of Iran as far as the borders of India. In the early stages, they would return to their bases in east Arabia, but after a time they sought to establish a garrison in southwest Iran so that they could follow up the naval attacks with maneuvers on land. The man responsible for organizing this was 'Uthman ibn Abi al-'As, of the tribe of Thaqif, who had served as governor of Bahrain and Oman from 636 to 650 and commanded operations against the coastal region of Fars from 640 to 650. He captured the town of Tawwaj, southwest of Shiraz, in 640 and stationed troops there. Their numbers were presumably limited, however, for they were unable to capture the mountain strongholds of Istakhr and Jur. This was only achieved once there was a new governor of Basra installed in 649, namely 'Abdallah ibn 'Amir, who was of the prophet’s tribe of Quraysh and seems to have been an energetic and competent leader. He mobilized the extensive manpower based at Basra to launch a major assault on the heartlands of the Sasanian royal family at Fars. According to Muslim sources, Jur and Istakhr put up a fierce fight, but both eventually fell sometime in the early 650s. The latter allegedly suffered the massacre of40,000 of its inhabitants, including many of the Sasanian elite who had sought sanctuary there in the homeland of their kings.20
The Arabs wished to ensure that there would be no Sasanian-led comeback, and this is why they visited such harsh treatment on southwest Iran, eliminating the members, supporters, and strongholds of this royal house. With this done, they had one obvious task left: to remove the last Sasanian ruler. An Arab army marched from southwest Iran all the way to the northeast, “the land of the Parthians,” to catch up with Yazdgird, who was now holed up in Merv, in modern Turkmenistan, having been “spurned by the grand nobles” of Iran. Khurrazad, the prince of Media (northwest Iran) after the death of his brother Rustam, had also headed eastward, intending to join up with the other Persian troops fighting the Arabs, but, Sebeos tells us, unfortunately without clarification, he rebelled and “fortified himself in some place.” Muslim sources maintain that he disagreed strongly with Yazdgird over their next course of action. Whereas the latter wanted to go to the Turks or the Chinese to plead for support against the Arabs, since they were the only peoples with sufficient surplus manpower, Khurrazad was adamant that he should not abandon his own people and that it would be a dangerous move to enter foreign lands when in such a position of weakness. His own preference was to make some sort of deal with the Arabs to buy themselves time.
Whatever the reason, Khurrazad decided that he personally would throw in his lot with the Arabs. This was a disaster for the emperor; the powerful army of Media was crucial to his aim of defeating the fast approaching Arab forces and their defection unsettled those left behind. He turned eastward, but the Arabs caught up with him and quickly routed his troops. Yazdgird survived this encounter but was murdered only a short while later in obscure circumstances. Contemporary authors give few details, but stories and speculation inevitably ran rife about his demise. The most popular version relates that he hid in a mill on a river by the gate of the city of Merv, the owner of which discovered him, killed him, and brought his head to the governor. There are, however, numerous different theories about the identity of the killer (the miller, a Turk, a coalition of east Iranian lords angry at the straits that the family of Sasan had brought them to), the manner of death (a blow to the head or drowning), and whether it was an accident (perhaps the miller did not realize who the intruder was) or a conspiracy (a deal between Mahawayh, governor of Merv, and the Buddhist prince Nizak, the latter offended because Yazdgird had spurned his request to marry his daughter).21
The slaying of Yazdgird at the hands of a steppe people was certainly a momentous and shocking event, but it had happened before: the emperor Peroz I and his army had been cut down by the Hephthalites in Gurgan in ad 484, and yet the Persian Empire had lived on. There was, then, the chance of a comeback this time too, and certainly Yazdgird’s sons still struggled to recapture their birthright. Peroz III, the elder son, begged and cajoled the Turks and Chinese to give him troops and during the first Arab civil war (656-60) he made some progress in east Iran, even striking his own coins. At this time the emperor Gaozong (650-83)—or perhaps rather the real power in China, the indomitable empress Wu (655-705)—established a protectorate in the far east of Iran named the “Persian area command” and recognized Peroz as its chief. However, in 663 the Arabs resumed their eastward advance, forcing the young prince to retreat and to seek refuge in the Chinese capital, Chang’an (modern Xi’an), where he set up a Persian court in exile. He, or perhaps his son Narseh, made another attempt in 677, but the Chinese force would accompany him only part of the way; the enterprise came to nought—marching from so far east to attack the Arab garrison cities that lay so far west, in Iraq, was just too difficult. Peroz died in his makeshift court in Chang’an around 680 and is commemorated by a statue inscribed with the legend: “Peroz, king of Persia, grand general of the right courageous guard and commander-in-chief of Persia.” The name of his brother Bahram also lived on, not so much for what he did, but for what nostalgic Persians hoped that he might do, and these hopes they poured into poetry anticipating the return to past glory that would accompany “the coming of the miraculous Bahram.”22
World History
