Read The Great Arab Conquests Online
Authors: Hugh Kennedy
The Great Arab Conquests (33 page)
The local commander made peace with them without putting up any resistance, but Yazdgard III was still trying to mount a vigorous defence against the invaders. He ordered the lord of Kirman to launch an expedition from Hurmuz to retake the island, but this was defeated. The Muslims then moved across to the mainland and began raiding the surrounding areas. Not surprisingly the Sasanian Marzbān of Fars, Shahrak, set out to oppose them, but his army was defeated at Rashahr in 640 and he himself was killed. After this, in 642, when the victory at Nihāvand and the Arab conquest of Ahvaz had reduced the threat posed by the Persian army, the Muslims established a permanent base at the little town of Tawwaj, which became their
misr
, their military base. The city lay not on the coast itself but a few kilometres inland, where the Shapur river provided a water supply. The town was extremely hot, like all the settlements on the Persian side of the Gulf, but surrounded by palm trees. They built mosques there, presumably very simple structures of mud brick and palm. Tawwaj might have developed as a small-scale Basra or Kūfa but events were to turn out otherwise. The town continued to thrive as a commercial centre famous for its linens woven with gold thread, but its role as a military base ceased as the Muslim armies moved further inland.
misr
, their military base. The city lay not on the coast itself but a few kilometres inland, where the Shapur river provided a water supply. The town was extremely hot, like all the settlements on the Persian side of the Gulf, but surrounded by palm trees. They built mosques there, presumably very simple structures of mud brick and palm. Tawwaj might have developed as a small-scale Basra or Kūfa but events were to turn out otherwise. The town continued to thrive as a commercial centre famous for its linens woven with gold thread, but its role as a military base ceased as the Muslim armies moved further inland.
Starting from Tawwaj, Uthmān b. Abī’l-Ās embarked on the conquest of the upland areas of Fars. Fars was one of the most important provinces of the Sasanian Empire. The great monuments of the first Persian dynasty, the Achaemenids, were to be found here, and the great columned halls of Persepolis were witnesses to this ancient grandeur. It was in Fars at the city of Istakhr that the Sasanian dynasty itself originated as guardians of the temple of Anahita. The first two monarchs had created new capitals here at Jūr and Bishapur, and though later kings seldom stayed there any more, it was still remembered as the birthplace of the dynasty. Yazdgard III, in his flight, had gone back to Istakhr, back to the cradle of his dynasty, to try to rally support. Geography too was on his side. This was a land of rugged mountains, narrow passes separated by grain-growing plains and salt lakes.
We have few details of the campaign that brought this important area under Muslim rule, but the campaigning seems to have met considerable resistance. Fars was a land of mountain-top castles
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and easily defended passes. A first attempt against the capital Istakhr in 644 failed. In 647 Muslim forces, now bolstered by reinforcements from Basra, took the city of Bishapur. The uninhabited ruins of the city can still be seen today. It lies in a fertile plain at the foot of steep mountains where a river of clear fresh water tumbles through the limestone crags to the plains. Along the side of the gorge, Shapur I, the builder of the city, had ordered the carving of bas-reliefs, depicting his triumphs. At the heart of it lay a great stone fire-temple, said to have been constructed by Roman prisoners of war, captured when Shapur defeated the Roman emperor Valerian in 260. Beside that lay the subterranean temple of the water goddess Anahita. Around it spread the city itself, laid out on a grid plan like a Greek or Roman polis. The city survived the Muslim conquest but by the eighth century its population was already being drained away by the expanding city of Kāzirūn near by and the new Muslim metropolis of Shiraz. By the twelfth century, it was a deserted ruin.
25
and easily defended passes. A first attempt against the capital Istakhr in 644 failed. In 647 Muslim forces, now bolstered by reinforcements from Basra, took the city of Bishapur. The uninhabited ruins of the city can still be seen today. It lies in a fertile plain at the foot of steep mountains where a river of clear fresh water tumbles through the limestone crags to the plains. Along the side of the gorge, Shapur I, the builder of the city, had ordered the carving of bas-reliefs, depicting his triumphs. At the heart of it lay a great stone fire-temple, said to have been constructed by Roman prisoners of war, captured when Shapur defeated the Roman emperor Valerian in 260. Beside that lay the subterranean temple of the water goddess Anahita. Around it spread the city itself, laid out on a grid plan like a Greek or Roman polis. The city survived the Muslim conquest but by the eighth century its population was already being drained away by the expanding city of Kāzirūn near by and the new Muslim metropolis of Shiraz. By the twelfth century, it was a deserted ruin.
In 648 the Muslims made peace arrangements at Arrajān on the main road between Iraq and the uplands of Fars and Darābjird in the uplands to the east. Darābjird was another round city, in this case with a fortress in the centre. According to Balādhurī, it was the fountain (
shadrawn
) of the science and religion of the Zoroastrians, though he did not clarify what this tantalizing reference meant. It was nonetheless a religious leader, the Herbadh, who surrendered it to the Muslims on condition that the people were given the same terms and guarantees as for other cities in the area.
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shadrawn
) of the science and religion of the Zoroastrians, though he did not clarify what this tantalizing reference meant. It was nonetheless a religious leader, the Herbadh, who surrendered it to the Muslims on condition that the people were given the same terms and guarantees as for other cities in the area.
26
By 650 only the capital Istakhr and the round city of Jūr were holding out against the Muslims. In this year the command structure was completely revised. Authority in Fars was entrusted to the new governor of Basra, Abd Allāh b. Āmir. Abd Allāh was an aristocrat from the Prophet’s tribe of Quraysh, a man renowned for his wealth and his easygoing generosity. He dug new irrigation canals in Basra and improved the supply of water for pilgrims in Mecca. He was also a daring military commander, prepared to lead his army far from their homes in Iraq to the farthest outposts of the Sasanian Empire. His appointment also meant that all the resources of the Muslim base at Basra could be devoted to the conquest of southern and eastern Iran. As usual the accounts of this final campaign in Fars are both sparse and confused, but it seems clear that there was considerable resistance in both Jūr and Istakhr. Jūr, we are told, had been raided for some time but only fell to Ibn Āmir’s troops after a dog, which had come out of the city to scavenge in the Muslim camp, showed them a secret way back in.
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After this, it was the turn of the capital of Fars. The scanty remains of the city of Istakhr are still visible today. It lies on flat ground on the main road a few kilometres north of the ruins of ancient Persepolis. It is not a naturally fortified site but was clearly walled at this time. The defenders seem to have mounted a more prolonged resistance than anywhere else. As happened in several other places, the city was said to have surrendered on terms and then rebelled or broke the agreement. It was during the subsequent reconquest that the conflict took place. According to one account,
28
Ibn Āmir’s men took the city after fierce fighting, which included a bombardment with siege engines. The conquest was followed by a massacre in which 40,000 Persians perished, including many members of noble and knightly families who had taken refuge there.
28
Ibn Āmir’s men took the city after fierce fighting, which included a bombardment with siege engines. The conquest was followed by a massacre in which 40,000 Persians perished, including many members of noble and knightly families who had taken refuge there.
The scale of death and destruction at Istakhr seems to have been unparalleled in the conquest of west and central Iran. It was the only conflict in which siege engines are said to have been used to reduce a fortified enclosure and the only occasion on which a massacre on this scale took place. There also seems to have been a systematic attempt to destroy the main symbols of the old Persian religion, the fire-temples, and confiscate the properties: one Ubayd Allāh b. Abī Bakra is said to have made 40 million dirhams ‘extinguishing fires, destroying their temples and collecting the gifts that had been deposited in them by Zoroastrian pilgrims’.
29
Although the details are very scanty, and we have no Persian accounts to place alongside the bare Arabic narratives, it seems that there was much more resistance to the Arab invaders in Fars and especially in Istakhr than elsewhere in Iran. The role of the province as cradle and original homeland of the Sasanian dynasty may have led the local people to fight the invaders with such vigour.
29
Although the details are very scanty, and we have no Persian accounts to place alongside the bare Arabic narratives, it seems that there was much more resistance to the Arab invaders in Fars and especially in Istakhr than elsewhere in Iran. The role of the province as cradle and original homeland of the Sasanian dynasty may have led the local people to fight the invaders with such vigour.
Abd Allāh b. Āmir continued to push east from Fars, following hard on the heels of Yazdgard III, who had escaped before Istakhr fell. He moved on rapidly to the province of Kirman. Here the main towns, including Bam and the then capital Sirjān, fell quickly. We are told that many of the inhabitants abandoned their houses and lands rather than live under Muslim domination. Arabs came and settled in their properties.
The province of Sistan, or Sijistan, lies to the north and east of Kirman. Nowadays this is a sparsely inhabited and often lawless area straddling the Iran-Afghan border. It suffers a fierce continental climate, the daytime temperature regularly reaching 50°C in the summer, while in the winter blizzards sweep across the desolate landscape. Much of it is desert and the landscape is studded with the shapeless mud-brick ruins of ancient buildings. It has not always been so uninviting, and the present desolation of the area probably dates from the Mongol and Timurid invasions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The province owed its prosperity to the waters of the Helmand river, which brings the meltwater of the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan to the plains. Like the Murghab river at Merv and the Zarafshan in Samarqand and Bukhara, the river could be used to irrigate fertile lands before it petered out in the desert. Early Islamic travellers commented favourably on the fields and crops of areas that are now treeless wastes. Sistan took its name from the Sakas, an Indo-Iranian people who played an important role in the history of the Parthian period: mail-coated Saka cavalry were an important element in the Parthian army that famously defeated the Roman general Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC. All memory of the Sakas had been lost by the time of the Muslim conquest, but the Sistanis retained a reputation for hardiness and military prowess, though mostly as foot soldiers.
Sistan was also important as the setting for some of the most important events in the
Shahnāmah
, the Persian national epic poem. The province was the home of the great hero Rustam, the warrior par excellence of the ancient Iranian tradition. It was this Rustam who slew his son Sohrab in ignorance in one of the most famous dramas of the entire corpus. As they have come down to us, the stories were composed by the poet Firdawsi in the early eleventh century. In fact, legends of Rustam were well known by the time of the coming of Islam, not just in Iran but also in the Arabian peninsula. We are told that they were recited in Mecca in the Prophet’s lifetime and are said to have distracted frivolous minds from his preaching. It is not clear what, if any, historical truth lay behind the legends, but the so-called stable of Rakhsh, Rustam’s celebrated horse, was still shown to travellers in the early Islamic period. At the time of the conquests, the province boasted a famous Zoroastrian fire at Karkūya. It survived the Muslim conquest and was still in use in the thirteenth century when it was said to have two domes dating ‘from the time of Rustam the Strong’. The fire, which was never allowed to go out, lay underneath the domes. It was served by a group of priests. The priest on duty sat well back from the flames with a veil over his mouth so as not to pollute them with his breath. He fuelled the fire with tamarisk logs, put on with silver tongs. We have no idea when the temple was destroyed but it may have been a victim of the chaos that engulfed the whole area at the time of Timur’s invasions at the end of the fourteenth century.
Shahnāmah
, the Persian national epic poem. The province was the home of the great hero Rustam, the warrior par excellence of the ancient Iranian tradition. It was this Rustam who slew his son Sohrab in ignorance in one of the most famous dramas of the entire corpus. As they have come down to us, the stories were composed by the poet Firdawsi in the early eleventh century. In fact, legends of Rustam were well known by the time of the coming of Islam, not just in Iran but also in the Arabian peninsula. We are told that they were recited in Mecca in the Prophet’s lifetime and are said to have distracted frivolous minds from his preaching. It is not clear what, if any, historical truth lay behind the legends, but the so-called stable of Rakhsh, Rustam’s celebrated horse, was still shown to travellers in the early Islamic period. At the time of the conquests, the province boasted a famous Zoroastrian fire at Karkūya. It survived the Muslim conquest and was still in use in the thirteenth century when it was said to have two domes dating ‘from the time of Rustam the Strong’. The fire, which was never allowed to go out, lay underneath the domes. It was served by a group of priests. The priest on duty sat well back from the flames with a veil over his mouth so as not to pollute them with his breath. He fuelled the fire with tamarisk logs, put on with silver tongs. We have no idea when the temple was destroyed but it may have been a victim of the chaos that engulfed the whole area at the time of Timur’s invasions at the end of the fourteenth century.
Sistan was also the home of a small Christian community. Out here, the east of the Sasanian Empire, the Christians were all Nestorian, that is to say that they belonged to the eastern Syrian Church, regarded as heretics by the Greek ‘Orthodox’ of Constantinople. It is typical that most of our information about this community comes down as a result of a dispute about the election of rival bishops in 544, when the patriarch at Ctesiphon had to broker a compromise that left one bishop at the capital Zaranj and another further east at Bust, now in southern Afghanistan. A Christian text composed in about 850 also records a monastery of St Stephen in Sistan, but the history and whereabouts of this establishment are otherwise completely unknown.
The Arab invasion of Sistan
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was the logical continuation of Abd Allāh b. Āmir’s drive to the east in pursuit of Yazdgard III as he fled to escape the invaders. The route from Kirman to Sistan was always difficult, lying as it did across the corner of the great salt desert, the Dashti-Lut. The road is long and hard, and the first Muslim raid was wiped out, not by the heat, but by a fierce snowstorm. In 651-2 Abd Allāh sent an expedition into the province. As usual, many towns surrendered, content to make terms that would spare them war and destruction. The local capital, Zaranj, however, was a well-fortified city, with a powerful citadel which some said had been constructed by Alexander the Great. Here there was some fierce fighting before the Marzban agreed to make terms. He held a council of the local notables, including the
mobadh
, a Zoroastrian religious leader, and they agreed to surrender to avoid further bloodshed. The terms were the payment of a million silver dirhams in tribute each year along with a thousand slave boys, each with a golden cup in his hand. After the capture of Zaranj, the invaders considered making an attack on Bust, the leading city of southern Afghanistan, but they encountered fierce resistance.
30
was the logical continuation of Abd Allāh b. Āmir’s drive to the east in pursuit of Yazdgard III as he fled to escape the invaders. The route from Kirman to Sistan was always difficult, lying as it did across the corner of the great salt desert, the Dashti-Lut. The road is long and hard, and the first Muslim raid was wiped out, not by the heat, but by a fierce snowstorm. In 651-2 Abd Allāh sent an expedition into the province. As usual, many towns surrendered, content to make terms that would spare them war and destruction. The local capital, Zaranj, however, was a well-fortified city, with a powerful citadel which some said had been constructed by Alexander the Great. Here there was some fierce fighting before the Marzban agreed to make terms. He held a council of the local notables, including the
mobadh
, a Zoroastrian religious leader, and they agreed to surrender to avoid further bloodshed. The terms were the payment of a million silver dirhams in tribute each year along with a thousand slave boys, each with a golden cup in his hand. After the capture of Zaranj, the invaders considered making an attack on Bust, the leading city of southern Afghanistan, but they encountered fierce resistance.
The last of the Sasanian kings, Yazdgard III, was still on the run, looking for a place of refuge where he could rally the fugitive remnants of his army.
31
The king was offered asylum in the mountainous principality of Tabaristān. This would probably have saved his life, but it would have been impossible to mobilize sufficient resources in Tabaristān to recover his kingdom. There is also a tradition that he appealed for support from the rulers of China. Instead he headed for Sistan, probably intending to reach Khurasan in the end. According to later tradition, he insisted on moving with a swollen and luxurious court, despite his straitened circumstances. He is said to have had 4,000 people with him: slaves, cooks, valets, grooms, secretaries, wives and other women, old people and children of the household - but not a single warrior. What made the situation worse for his reluctant hosts was that he also had no money to feed them: they would need to be generous as well as brave.
32
His appeals for assistance in Sistan fell on deaf ears: after all, he had only been king for a very short time and had no tradition of loyalty to rely on. The local lords seem to have preferred the idea of making their own peace with the invaders rather than pledging their loyalty to a king with a track record of failure.
31
The king was offered asylum in the mountainous principality of Tabaristān. This would probably have saved his life, but it would have been impossible to mobilize sufficient resources in Tabaristān to recover his kingdom. There is also a tradition that he appealed for support from the rulers of China. Instead he headed for Sistan, probably intending to reach Khurasan in the end. According to later tradition, he insisted on moving with a swollen and luxurious court, despite his straitened circumstances. He is said to have had 4,000 people with him: slaves, cooks, valets, grooms, secretaries, wives and other women, old people and children of the household - but not a single warrior. What made the situation worse for his reluctant hosts was that he also had no money to feed them: they would need to be generous as well as brave.
32
His appeals for assistance in Sistan fell on deaf ears: after all, he had only been king for a very short time and had no tradition of loyalty to rely on. The local lords seem to have preferred the idea of making their own peace with the invaders rather than pledging their loyalty to a king with a track record of failure.
From Sistan he moved on to Khurasan. It was here in the north-east corner of his empire, in a land he may never have visited before, that the endgame of the Sasanian Empire was played out. It was a miserable end to a great story; no heroic resistance against the odds here. The fugitive king seems to have been regarded as a liability, an unwanted guest rather than a hero, and the divisions that had undermined the Sasanian resistance to the Arab invasion continued to the very end. At Tus the local lord gave him gifts but also made it clear that the citadel was not big enough to contain his entourage; he would have to move on.
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