VOL 5.18

He related: Now al-Maruzan had two sons, one of whom, called

Khurrakhusrah, was very fond of Arabic and could recite poetry in

it , 921 while the other was a cavalryman who spoke Persian and

lived in the fashion of a dihqan. Al-Maruzan now appointed his

son Khurrakhusrah — Khurrakhusrah being the dearest to him of

his sons — as his deputy over Yemen, and traveled onward until,

when he was in some region of the Arab lands, he died. He was

then placed in a sarcophagus and this was carried along until it

was finally brought to Kisra. The latter ordered that sarcophagus

to be placed in his treasury and caused to be inscribed on it "In this

sarcophagus lies so-and-so, who did such-and-such," giving the

story of what he did at the two mountains . 922 News of Khurrakhusrah's adoption of Arab ways {ta'arrub), his relating of Arabic

poetry, and his entirely Arab education reached Kisra, so he

dismissed him and appointed as governor Badhan, who was in fact

the last of the Persian governors to be sent out to Yemen 923

Kisra became puffed up with vainglory because of the vast

amount of wealth and all kinds of jewels, utensils, equipment, and

horses he had accumulated. He had conquered so many of the

lands of his enemies. Events all came together to aid him, and he

was granted good fortune in his ventures. However, he was filled

with conceit and boastfulness, and was horribly avaricious; he

grudged and envied people for their wealth and possessions . 924 He

appointed a certain man from the local people ['ilj , 925 i.e., one of

921. An example of the assimilation of the Abna’ to their local environment if,

as is possible, Khurrakhusrah had an Arab mother.

922. The story of al-Maruzan's successful attack on al-Ma$ani' and his eventual

death and burial is given in IbnQutaybah, 'Uyan al-akhbar, 1 , 178-79, on the basis of the author's readings in the "books of the Persians."

923. The date of Badhan's appointment is unknown, but as noted in n. 918

above, he remained in Yemen till his conversion to Islam in 10/631.

924. Noldeke, trans. 35 1 n. 1, gives a balanced assessment of Abarwez's character and achievements, concluding that "In sum, Khusraw II is to be considered much more a weak than a bad man."

925. See for this term, n. 210 above.

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the Nabataean population of Iraq) called Farrukhzadh, son of

Sumayy, 926 from a a village called Khandaq 927 in the tassuj of Bih

Ardashir (text, Bahurasir), to take charge of collecting the arrears

of taxation ( al-baqdya ). 928 This latter person imposed on the people

 all sorts of evil afflictions, ill-treated them and tyrannized

them, confiscating their wealth unlawfully on the plea of extracting

 the arrears of land tax. He thereby rendered them disaffected,

their means of life became straitened, and Kisra and his rule became

 hateful to them.

There was related to me a narrative going back to Hisham b.

Muhammad, who said: This Kisra Abarwlz had accumulated more

wealth than any other monarch. His riders reached as far as Constantinople

 and Ifriqiyah. 929 He spent the winter in al-Mada’in

and the summer in the region between al-Mada’in and

Hamadhan. 930 It was said that he had twelve thousand women

and slave-girls, 999 elephants, and fifty thousand riding beasts

comprising finely bred horses, horses of lesser breed, and mules.

He was the most avaricious of mankind regarding jewels, vessels,

and the like. Another source, not Hisham, has stated that he had

in his palace three thousand women with whom he had sexual

relations and thousands of slave girls employed as servants, for

926. Noldeke, trans. 352 n. 1, implied — as seems reasonable in regard to an

Aramaic-speaking "Nabataean" of Iraq— that Sumayy was a Semitic name, adduc- ing the name of the Jewish prophet S.m.y who met Zoroaster at Balkh, according to al-Tabari, 1 , 681, tr. M. Perlmann. The History of al-Tabari, an Annotated Translation, IV, The Ancient Kingdoms, 76-77.

927. Literally, "trench, ditch," a place that cannot be identified exactly but

which, if it was in the vicinity of Bih-Ardashir or Seleucia, lay to the west of al-

Mada’in (see al-Tabari, I, 819, p. 15 and the references in n. 58 above).

928. On this fiscal and administrative term, see n. 253 above.

929. In early Islamic geographical usage, this region (< Latin Africa, perhaps

from the Afri, an indigenous people of the region, or the later Punic-Cartaginian

ethnic mixture there, see EP-, s.v. Ifrikiya (M. Talbi), corresponded to modem

Tunisia, but is doubtless used in this context in a looser, wider sense of "North

Africa" in general. These far-flung raids of Khusraw's are, in any case, pure legend.

930. That is, in that part of the Zagros chain which now forms southern Kurdistan. As Noldeke noted, trans 353 n. 1, it was ancient practice for rulers, from

Achaemenid times onward, to spend the winter on the Mesopotamian plain but to

move up to the drier, less torrid Iranian plateau for the summer. It was actually

Hamadhan which, some four or five centuries later, the Seljuq sultans preferred as

their usual capital, only visiting Baghdad occasionally and normally leaving a

shihnah, a military governor, there.

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377

music making and singing, and such. He also had three thousand

male servants at his hand, eighty-five hundred riding beasts on

which he could travel, 760 elephants, and twelve thousand mules

for conveying his baggage. 931 He gave orders for the building of fire

temples and appointed for them twelve thousand herbadhs for

chanting the Zoroastrian religious formulae ( li-al-zamzamah ). 932

In the eighteenth year of his reign, 933 Kisra ordered the sums

collected as land tax from his territories and its associated taxes

( tawabi ') and other sources of income, to be counted up. It was

reported back to him that the amount of silver coinage (al-

wariq ) 934 collected from the land tax and other sources of income

in that year was 420 million mithqals [in weight], which, on the

basis of seven mithqals [in weight equaling ten dirhams], is the

amount corresponding to six hundred million dirhams (i.e., silver

coins). He ordered all this to be transfered to a treasury he had

built at the city of Ctesiphon and had called Bahar h.f.r.d (?)

Khusraw, together with other sums of money he possessed, comprising

coinage of Fayruz, son of Yazdajird, and Qubadh, son of

Fayruz, amounting to twelve thousand purses [badiah], each

purse containing four thousand mithqals in coinage, 935 the whole

93 1. Substantially the same figures in Hamzah al-I§fahani, Ta’rlkh, 53, but with

an increased figure of six thousand guards {haras).

932. zamzamah, "humming, mumbling," was the term applied by the Arabs to

the liturgical chanting of the Zoroastrian priests and religious scholars or herbeds.

Noldeke, trans. 353 n. 3, gave the MP and Syriac terms for this c hanting , waz and repia respectively, and noted such still-surviving memorials of Khusraw Abarwez's palace building as the Taq/Aywan-i Kisra [see n. 666 above). More precisely, so Mr F .C. de Blois points out, waz, and perhaps zamzamah, refers to the Zoroastrian practice of speaking in a subdued voice while eating.

                                                                                                  

On the Zoroastrian clergy in general, see Noldeke, trans. 450-52, Excursus 3,

and on the herbed specifically — herbed being the oldest religious title attested

from the Sasanid period, as being that of Kerder, see n. 122 above — see Chaumont, "Recherches sui le clergd zoroastrien. Le Herbad," 55-80.

933. This would be the year 607-608.

934. Noldeke, trans. 354 n. 2, detailed and discussed the information in al-

Baladhuri, Futuh, 464, from Ibn al-Muqaffa' on the collecting of sources of revenue in the Persian empire and adduces the continuity of practice as shown, e.g., in the travel narrative of the Huguenot Sir John Chardin in seventeenth-century §afawid Persia.

935. Conventionally, a badrah in early Islamic times contained ten thousand

dirhams,- but on the equivalence of seven mithqals in weight equaling ten dirhams, these Sasanid purses contained 5,710 dirhams. See for the mithqal, n. 836 above, and for waziq - "silver coinage," EP s.v. Warik (M.L. Bates)

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of this totaling forty-eight million mithqals, the equivalent according

to the proportion seven [to ten] of 68, 5 71, 42(8] plus a half

and a third of an eighth of a dirham. In addition, there were various

kinds of jewels, garments, and the like, whose grand total God

alone could enumerate.

Kisra treated people with contempt and regarded them with

 scorn in a manner no righteous and discerning monarch should

adopt. His insolent pride and lack of respect for God reached the

point that he gave orders to the man in charge of his personal

guard at court, called Zadhan Farrukh, 936 that he should kill every

person held captive in any of his prisons,- these persons were

counted up, and their number reached thirty-six thousand. However,

 Zadhan Farrukh did not take any steps to kill them but gave

instructions for a delay in implementing Kisra's command regarding

them, adducing various reasons, which he enumerated to

Kisra. Kisra incurred for himself the hatred of the subjects of his

kingdom for various reasons. First, his contemptuous treatment of

them and his belittling of the great men of state. Second, his giving

the barbarian ( al-'ilj ) Farrukhanzadh, son of Sumayy, power over

them. Third, his command that all the prisoners should be slain.

Fourth, his intention to put to death the troops returning from

their defeat at the hands of Hiraql (Heraclius) and the Byzantines.

Hence a group of the great men of state went to 'Aqr Babil, 937

where were Shlruyah (text, "Shlri"), son of Abarwiz, and his

brothers, and where the king had appointed tutors to educate

them. [He had also appointed] cavalry guards ( asawiiah ) to prevent

them leaving that place. They now brought out Shlruyah and

936. A Persian financial official, Zadhan-farrukh, with the nickname of "the

one-eyed one," later figures in the Islamic historians' accounts of the naql al-

dlwan in Iraq, i.e., the change from Persian to Arabic as the administrative language of the finance department, effected by the caliph 'Abd al-Malik's governor of Iraq and the East, al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf al-Thaqafi. See, e.g., al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 300- 301; al-Jahshiyari, Kitab al-wuzara' wa-al-kuttab, 38-39; M. Sprengling, "From Persian to Arabic," 185-90, 194-97. Of course, this Zadhan-farrukh lived some three generations after Khusraw's commander of the guard, and it is unknown whether there was any family connection between the two men. On the name Zadhan-farrukh "the fortunate one," see Justi, Namenbuch, 377.

937. The ruins of "the palace" {'aqr) of Babel lay just to the north of the later

Islamic town of al-Hillah and slightly to the east of the Sura canal. See Le Strange, Lands, 72; Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest, 150.

[The Last Sasanid Kings]

379

entered the town of Bih Ardashlr [text, "Bahurasir") by night.

They released all those in the prisons there, and these freed captives

were joined by the fugitive troops whom Kisra had intended

to put to death. They all shouted, "Qubadh (i.e., Shlruyah) for

supreme ruler ( shahanshah )* " The next morning they proceeded

to the open space before Kisraf's palace]. His palace guards took to

their heels, and Kisra himself fled, in great terror, unaccompanied

by anyone, to one of the gardens adjacent to his palace called the

Bagh al-Hinduwan. But he was sought out and then apprehended

on the day Adhar of the month Adhar, 938 and imprisoned in the

palace of government ( dai al-mamlakah). Shlruyah entered that

palace, and the leading figures gathered round him and proclaimed

him king. He sent a message to his father bitterly upbraiding him

for his conduct. 939

There was related to me a narrative going back to Hisham b.

Muhammad, who said: Kisra Abarwiz had eighteen sons, the eldest

of whom was Shahriyar, whom Shinn had adopted as a son.

The astrologers told Kisra, "One of your sons will himself have a

son, at whose hands this throne will come to ruin and this kingdom

 be destroyed. The distinguishing sign of this son will be a

defect in a certain part of his body." For that reason, Kisra thereupon

kept his sons separated from all women, and they remained

for a long time with no access to a woman. At last, Shahriyar

complained to Shinn about this, sending to her a message in

which he complained about his lust for women and asked her to

provide him with a woman. If he could have no woman, he would

kill himself. She sent a message back to him: "I can't manage to

get women into your presence, except a woman of no consequence

who wouldn't be suitable for you to touch." He replied, "I don't

care who she is, as long as she is a woman!" So she sent to him a

938. Ndldeke, trans. 357 n. 3, noted that in Khusraw's rejoinder to SherdyVs

charges against him, the previous day. Day [ba Adhar], is named, and that this date would correspond to 25 February 628. He further noted, ibid., 357 n. 2, cf. 38r n. 3, that Armenian historians, among others, mention that it had been prophesied to Khusraw that he would die in India, and this duly occurred in the "house of the Indians."

939. The Christian Greek, Syriac, and Armenian sources on the palace revolution that overthrew Khusraw and brought Shlruyah to power are discussed at

length in Ndldeke, trans. 337 n. 4, to which can now be added the Anonymus

Guidi, tr. 29-30.

380

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maiden whom she was wont to employ for being cupped. According

to what is asserted, this maiden was the daughter of one of the

Persian nobles, but Shlrin had become angry with her for some

reason or another and had consigned her to the ranks of the cuppers. 940

When Shirin introduced the maiden into Shahriyar's presence,

he immediately leapt on her, and she became pregnant with

Yazdajird. Shirin gave orders regarding her, and she was kept

carefully confined until she gave birth. The fact of the child's birth

was kept secret for five years.

At that point, Shirin noticed that Kisra had acquired a tenderness

 toward young children, at this time when he was growing

old, so she said to him, "O king, would it gladden your heart to see

a child of one of your own sons, even though this might entail

something untoward?" He replied, "[Yes,] I don't care [what might

happen]." She gave commands for Yazdajird to be perfumed and

decked out with fine clothes, and she had him brought into Kisra's

presence, saying, "This is Yazdajird, son of Shahriyar!" Kisra summoned

 him, clasped him to his breast, kissed him, yearned toward

him, and displayed great affection for him; and from then onward

he kept Yazdajird close to him. One day, the boy was playing in his

presence when he remembered what had been foretold, so he summoned

him, had his clothes taken off, inspected him from the

front and the back, and perceived clearly the defect (or, "the defect

was clearly apparent," istabana al-naqs ) in one of his hips. He was

now filled with anger and distress, and dragged the boy off in order

to dash him to the ground. But Shirin clung to him and besought

Kisra by God not to kill him, telling Kisra, "If this is something

that is going to befall this state, then there is no possibility of

changing it." He replied. "This boy is the agent of ill-fortune about

whom I was informed (i.e., by the astrologers), so get rid of him. I

don't want ever to see him again!" Shirin therefore gave orders for

the boy to be sent to Sijistan,- but others say that, on the contrary,

he was in the Sawad with his guardians at a village called

Khumaniyah. 941

940, On Shirin, see n. 729 above. In Islamic times at least, phlebotomy, the

function of the cupper, was regarded as particularly menial and degrading, doubtless from the fact that such bodily services were usually performed by slaves. See EP- Suppl., s.v. Fassad, Hadjdjam (M. A. J. Beg).

941. The story of Yazdagird's birth and upbringing is doubtless a popular tale

that endeavored to account for the eventual disaster that overtook Yazdagird in,

the last of his line to rule in Persia, and the Sasanid dynasty as a whole.

Khumaniyah must be the Humaniyyah or Humayniyyah on the west bank of the

Tigris below al-Mada’in and just below the confluence of that river and the Kutha

canal, a place which later became of some importance in early 'Abbasid times. See Noldeke, "Zur orientalischen Geographic," 94 n. 1, Le Strange, Lands, 37.

[The Last Sasanid Kings]

38i

The Persians rose up against Kisra and killed him, aided by his

son Shlruyah, son of Maryam, the Byzantine woman (al-

Rumiyyah ). 942 The duration of his (i.e., Kisra's) power was thirtyeight

years . 943 After the elapsing of thirty-two years, five months,

and fifteen days of his rule, there took place the Prophet's migration

from Mecca to Medina . 944

[Qubadh II Shlruyah]

After him there succeeded to the royal power Shlruyah , 945

whose [regnal] name was Qubadh (E).

He was the son of [Kisra E] Abarwiz, son of Hurmuz (IV), son of

Kisra (I) Anusharwan. It has been mentioned that the great men of

state from the Persians came into Shlruyah's presence when he

had become king and after he had imprisoned his father, and said

to him, "It is not fitting that we should have two kings: either you

kill Kisra, and we will be your faithful and obedient servants, or

we shaE depose you and give our obedience to him just as we

942. See on the question of Maryam al-Rumiyyah and the historicity or otherwise of her marriage with Khusraw Abarwez, al-Tabari, I, 999, p. 312 and n. 729

above.

943. From the beginning of his first reign, Khusraw II Abarwez ruled for thirty-

eight years, 590-628. His name appears on his coins as HWSRW. See on his coins

Paruck, Sasanian Coins, 67-68, 386-90, 484-91, PlatesXX-XXI, Tables XXVIII-

XXX; G6bl, Sasanian Numismatics, 53-54, Table XII, Plate 13; Sellwood, Whit-

ting, and Williams, An Introduction to Sasanian Coins, 21, 152-58; Malek, "A

Survey of Research on Sasanian Numismatics," 237-38.

The Arabic sources on his reign include Ibn Qutaybah, Ma'arif, 665; al-Ya'qubi,

Ta’rikh, 1 , 190-96; al-Dinawari, al-Akhbar al-fiwal, 84-107 ,• al-Mas'udl, Muruf, H, 214-32 - §§ 634-53, idem, Tanbih, 39, 102, 155-56, tr. 62-63, 146, 213-16;

Hamzah al-Isfahanl, Ta’rikh, 5 3,- Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, 1 , 472-81, 492-94. Of Persian sources, see Tabari-Bal'ami, trans. n, 274-301, 304-309, 325-32. Of modem studies, see Christensen, Sassanides, 448-96; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, 234-35, 239; idem, "The Political History of Iran under the Sasanians," 164-70, 178.

944. This is very accurate, given that the Hijrah took place in Rabr I of the year

i/September 622.

945. Properly Sheroy < sher "lion," with a hypocoristic ending of a type familiar

in MP and NP and Arabized as -awayh(i). See on this ending Noldeke, "Persische

Studien. I. Persische Koseformen," 388-423. On the name Sheroy/Shlruyah in

general, see Noldeke, trans. 361 n. 2; Justi, Namenbuch, 297.

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always did before you secured the royal power." These words

struck fear into Shiruyah's heart and crushed him. He ordered

Kisra to be transported from the palace of government to the

house of a man called Marasfand . 946 Kisra was set on a common

nag, with his head covered, and conveyed to that house escorted

by a detachment of troops. On the way, they brought him past a

shoemaker who was sitting in a booth that led out on to the road.

When the shoemaker saw the detachment of cavalry troops escorting

a single rider with a muffled head, he realized that the

covered-up figure was Kisra and he struck at him with a shoemaker's

last. One of the troops escorting Kisra turned on the shoe-

maker, unsheathed his sword, cut off the shoemaker's head, and

then rejoined his comrades . 947

When Kisra was installed in Marasfand's house, Shiruyah assembled

 together all the great men of state and the members of

leading families who were at court and addressed them: "We have

thought fit, in the first place to send an envoy to our father the

king setting forth all his evil actions in his government and drawing

his attention to various aspects of these." Then he sent for a

man from Ardashlr Khurrah, who was called Asfadh Jushnas and

who, because of his position as head of the [royal] secretaries , 948

was in charge of governing the kingdom. Shiruyah said to him,

"Off you go to our father the king and tell him in our name that we

have not been the cause of the unhappy state into which he has

fallen, nor is any member of the subject population responsible,

but God has condemned you to His divine retribution in return for

your evil conduct. [First,] your crime against your father Hurmuz,

your violence toward him, depriving him of the royal power,

blinding his eyes, killing him in a most horrible fashion, and all

the great burden of guilt you have brought upon yourself by -

946. Al-Dlnawari, al-Akhbar al-tiwal, 107, has for this name H.i.s.f.t.h.

947. Noldeke, trans. 362 n. 2, noted that, in Firdawsi, the shoemaker often

serves as the outspoken representative of the masses, sometimes with comic

touches,- even so, he is not allowed here to mock and slight the fallen monarch.

948. Correcting the text's ra’is al-katibah (which would mean something like

"head of the cavalry of the military host"; katibah = "detachment of cavalry") in

the light of the parallel passage in al-Dmawari, al-Akhbar al-tiwal, 107, who has

ra’is kuttab al-iasd’il "head of the secretaries responsible for official correspon-

dence." Cf. also Noldeke, trans. 362 n. 3.

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383

injuring him. [Second,] your bad treatment of us, your sons, by keeping

us from all access to and participation in good things, and from

everything which would have brought us ease of life, enjoyment,

and happiness. [Third,] your bad treatment of those whom you

condemned to perpetual imprisonment, to the point that they

suffered hardship from extreme deprivation, wretched living conditions

and food, and separation from their homelands, wives, and

children. [Fourth,] your lack of consideration for the women

whom you appropriated for yourself; your failure to show them

any love or affection and to send them back to live with those men

by whom they already had children and progeny; and your keeping

them confined in your palace against their wills. 949 [Fifth,] what

you have inflicted on your subjects generally in levying the land

tax and in treating them with harshness and violence. [Sixth,] your

amassing a great amount of wealth, which you exacted from the

people with great brutality so that you drove them to consider

your rule hateful and thereby brought them into affliction and

deprivation. [Seventh,] your stationing the troops for long periods

along the frontiers with the Byzantines and on other frontiers,

thereby separating them from their families. 950 [Eighth,] your

treacherous behavior toward Mawriq (Maurice), the king of the

Byzantines and your ingratitude for his praiseworthy actions on

your behalf, in that he sought refuge with you, exerted himself

laudably for you, protected you from the malevolence of your

enemies, and increased the fame of your name by giving to you in

marriage the noblest and most precious in his sight of his daughters.

Moreover, you regarded your rightful obligations to him

lightly and refused to grant his request of you regarding the return

of the wooden [True] Cross, to which neither you nor any of your

fellow countrymen had any entitlement or need. 951 You know

949. Noldeke, trans. 364 n. 2, noted that this complaint about the seizure of

married women for the ruler's harem has the ring of authenticity.

950. For this complaint, in early Islamic times technically known as tafmlr, see

n. 15 1 above.

95 1. When Sheroy brought the lengthy war with Heraclius to an end, the return

of the True Cross to Jerusalem was one of the provisions of the peace treaty. The

Byzantine emperor brought it back to the Holy City personally, but the date of his

visit is notoriously difficult to ascertain and has been much discussed. The restoration of the Cross was subsequently celebrated on 14 September 629, but the city was, according to some authorities, recaptured in a March, probably March 630. See Noldeke, trans. 365 n. 2, 392 n. i; Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene, II, 244-45,- N. H. Baynes, "The Restoration of the Cross at Jerusalem," 287-99; Schick, The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule, 50.

384

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this well [now]. If you have explanations or exculpations to adduce

to us and to the subjects, then bring them forward; if you don't

have any, then show your contrition swiftly to God and return to

Him, until we announce our intentions concerning you." 952

Asfadh Jushnas committed to his mind this message to Kisra

from Shiruyah and set off from Shiruyah's court in order to convey

it to him. When he reached the place where Kisra was imprisoned,

he found a man called Jilinus (Jalinus), the commander of the

guard who had been entrusted with keeping ward over Kisra,

[1048] seated there. 953 He held conversation with Jilinus for a while, and

then Asfadh Jushnas asked him for permission to go into Kisra in

order to deliver a message from Shiruyah. Jilinus went back and

drew the curtain that veiled access to Kisra, went into his presence,

and said to him, "May God grant you long life! 954 Asfadh

Jushnas is at the gate, has recounted that the king Shiruyah has

sent him to you with a message, and now seeks an audience with

you. So decide according to your will what you wish to do." Kisra

952. Noldeke, trans. 363 n. 1, regarded this denunciation and Khusraw's rejoinder, with their fullest extant texts given here by al-Tabari, as artistic renderings of an exchange of complaints and justifications composed by someone close to the actual events yet writing after the deaths of Khusraw, Sheroy, and the latter's son

Ardashir dinring the reign of Khusraw's grandson Yazdagird in, when the Sasanid

house was still reigning in Persia. Al-Ya'qubi, Ta’rikh, I, 196, has only a brief

reference to Sheroy's risalah ghalizah, "harsh letter," but al-Dinawari, al-Akhbar

al-tiwal, 107-10, has quite a lengthy version.

953. Jalinus or Jalinus (whose name looks Greek rather than Persian; possibly he

was a Christian and had adopted a Christian name in addition to an unknown,

purely Persian one) is described by al-Dinawari, al-Akhbar al-tiwal, 107, as ra’is al- jund al-mustamitah, "commander of the troops who seek death," the ruler's personal guard (in Middle Persian, the gyan-abesparan, "those who sacrifice their

lives"). He was later to be a leading general of the Persian troops combating the

Arab invaders of Iraq and fell at al-Qadisiyyah. See al-Baladhuri, Eutuh, 258, 260; al-Tabari, I, 2169-72, 2174, etc., tr. Khalid Yahya Blankenship, The History of al- Tabari, an Annotated Translation, XI, The Challenge to the Empires, 183-86, 188, etc., and I, 2357, tr. Yohanan Friedmann, ibid., XII, The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine, 141; Noldeke, trans. 365 n. 2.

954. As Noldeke noted, trans. 366 n. 2, the imprisoned Khusraw Abarwez is

treated throughout as a monarch, with the correct etiquette of address observed, so

that Jalinus adresses him with the formula anoSag buwad! "may he be immortal!"

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385

smiled and said in a joking manner, "O Jilinus, son of Asfadh

[Jilinus Asfadhan), what you say is contrary to what intelligent

persons say. For if it is the case that the message you have mentioned

is from the king Shiruyah, then, in the face of his royal

power, it is not for us to grant permission to enter. If we do have

authority for granting permission to enter or to exclude, then

Shiruyah is not king. But the relevant aphorism here is what is

said, 'God wills a thing, and it is; the king commands a thing, and

it is put into execution/ 955 So let Asfadh Jushnas enter and deliver

the message he bears."

When Jilinus heard this speech, he went out from Kisra's presence,

took Asfadh Jushnas's hand, and said to him, "Arise, and

come into Kisra's presence, in a correct manner." Asfadh Jushnas

accordingly stood up, called for one of the attendants accompanying

him, and handed him the robe he [ordinarily] wore, pulled out

a clean, white cloth from his sleeve and used it to wipe his face. 956

Then he went into Kisra's presence. When he came face to face

with him, he fell down before him in prostration. Kisra ordered

him to get up. Hence he arose and did obeisance before Kisra. Kisra

was seated on three Khusrawani rugs woven with gold, which had

been laid on a silken carpet, and he was lolling back on three

cushions likewise woven with gold. In his hand he had a yellow,

well-rounded quince. When he noticed Asfadh Jushnas, he sat up

in a cross-legged position and placed the quince on the place

where he had been sitting. Because it was perfectly round and

because of the smoothness of the cushion on the seat, plumped

out with its stuffing, it rolled down from the topmost of the three

cushions on to the upper one of the three rugs, then from the rug to

the carpet, finally rolling off the carpet to the ground, where it

rolled some distance, becoming covered with dirt. Asfadh Jushnas

955. Echoing frequent Qur’anic phraseology, e.g., in XXXVI, 82, XL, 70/68.

956. The text has shushtaqah for this cloth. The Glossarium, p. CCCXI, has

shustaqah and adduces the commentary to Abu Dulaf al-Khazraji's Qaqidah

sasaniyyah as given in al-Tha'alibi's Yatimat al-dahr-, but the word here should be

read as suftajahu "his financial draft." See Bosworth, The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld, The Banu Sdsdn in Arabic Society and Literature, n, The Arabic Jargon

Texts, Arabic text 7, comm. v. 34, tr. 193. In any case, it seems that the action here is not that of wiping the face clean but of placing the pand&mah over the mouth to prevent pollution of a sacred object, in this case, the king's person. See Noldeke, trans. 367 n. 1, and n. 892 above.

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picked it up and rubbed it with his sleeve, moving forward to

present it to Kisra. But the latter gestured to Asfadh Jushnas to

keep it away from him, and told him, "Take it away from me!" So

Asfadh Jushnas laid it on the ground at the carpet's edge, fell back,

stood in his old place, and did obeisance before Kisra by putting his

hand on his breast. Kisra lowered his head and then uttered the

aphorism appropriate to the incident: "When one encounters adversity,

 there is no means or device ( hilah ) for making things go

forward again, and when things do go well, there is no means or

device which is able to reverse them. These two things happen in

turn, but means and devices are lacking in both cases." Then he

said to Asfadh Jushnas, "Thus this quince has rolled down and

fallen where it did, and become smeared with dirt. It is for us an

announcement, as it were, of the message you have been charged

with bringing, what you are going to do with it, and its results. For

indeed, the quince, which denotes what is good, fell from the

heights to the depths,- it did not stay on the coverings of our seat

but speedily fell to the ground, ending up far away and covered in

dirt. 957 All this happening indicates a bad omen, that the glory of

the monarchs has passed into the hands of the common masses,

that we have been deprived of royal power, and that it will not

remain long in the hands of our successors before it passes to

persons who are not of royal stock (min ahl al-mamlakah ). Now

get on with it, and speak about the message you have been charged

with delivering and the words with which you have been provided!"

Asfadh Jushnas then began to retail the message Shiruyah

had charged him to deliver, not leaving out a single word and

getting the sequence of its phrases exactly right.

Kisra made the following answer to that message: Convey back

to Shiruyah, the short-lived one, 958 [the message] from me that it

957. It appears from this that the quince was regarded by the Persians as an

emblem of good fortune (perhaps not uninfluenced by the closeness in form of bih, "good," and bihi, "quince" = the Arabic safarjalah used here in al-Tabari's text); cf. Glossarium, p. CCXCII. The significance of the quince subsequently became the focus of a minor academic controversy among German orientalists; see the details in Muth, Die Annalen von af-Tabari im Spiegel dei emopaischen Beaibeitungen, 58-59.

958. Prophetic of Sheroy's brief period of power and his early death through

epidemic disease or, according to one report, by poisoning, see al-Tabari, 1 , 1061, p. 399, and n. 984 below.

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387

is not fitting for an intelligent person that he should spread around

about anyone [tales of] venial sins and minor misdeeds without

having thoroughly convinced himself of their truth and being

completely certain in his own mind about them, let alone the

gross sins and crimes that you have spread around and published

abroad, and that you have imputed to us and laid at our door.

Moreover, the person who can best repel with contumely a sinner

and condemn the perpetrator of a crime is the one who has kept

himself free from all sins and crimes. O man who will be short

reigned, O man of little understanding, even if we were guilty of

what you have imputed to us, it is unfitting that you should spread

it abroad and upbraid us. For if you do not recognize the defects

you yourself possess, since you have spread them around concerning

us as you have done, you should be fully aware of your own

defects. So cut short your blaming us and finding fault with us,

since your ill-chosen speech only increases the public awareness

of your own ignorance and lack of judgment.

O one devoid of reason, deficient in knowledge! If there is any

real basis for your efforts in showing us up publicly as guilty of

sins which deserve death for us and you have some real proof for it,

then [you should remember that] the judges among your own religious community (i.e., the Zoroastrian one) prevent the son of a

man who has merited death from assuming his father's position

and keep him from contact with the best people, from sitting with

them and from mingling with them, except in a small number of

places, much less making him king. Furthermore, we have

attained — praise be to God and [thanks for] His beneficence! —

through our upright behavior and intentions and in our relationship

with God, with the adherents of our religious community and

faith, and with the whole group of our sons, a position in which we

have in no way fallen short nor deserved any proof of guilt or any

reproach. We shall explain the situation regarding the sins you

have imputed to us and the crimes you have laid at our door,

without any attempt on our part to diminish anything in the arguments

we have put forward and the proofs we have adduced, if

only so that you might acquire fuller knowledge of your own lack

of judgment, absence of reason and the evil nature of your actions.

[First,] regarding what you have mentioned in regard to our father

Hurmuz, our rejoinder here is that evil and malevolent -

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persons had incited him against us, to the point that he grew suspicious

of us and was carried away by hatred and rancor against us.

We perceived his revulsion from us and his bad opinion of us, and

we accordingly became fearful of remaining in his proximity, so

removed ourself from his court out of fear from him and made our

way to Azerbaijan. By that time, the royal power had become

dissolved and split apart, as is well known. As soon as we received

news of what had happened to him, we set out from Azerbaijan for

his court. But the false-hearted ( munafiq ) Bahram [Chubln] assailed

us with a great army of rebels, whose conduct merited

death, threw off his obedience, and drove us out of the kingdom.

We sought asylum in the land of the Byzantines, and came back

from there with troops and war materials, and made war on him.

As a result, he fled before us and ended up in the land of the Turks,

with destruction and perdition, as has been generally known

among people.

Finally, when we had achieved firm control of the realm and our

authority was made firm and, with the help of God, we had

dispeled for our subjects all the afflictions and calamities, on the

brink of which they had been, we then said [to ourselves], "One of

the best courses of action with which we can inaugurate our ruling

policy and begin our royal power is to take vengeance for our

father, to secure requital for him and to kill all those involved in

[shedding] his blood." Then, when we had firmly accomplished all

our intentions regarding that and had attained what we were aiming

at, we turned our attention to other aspects of the governance

of the kingdom. So we put to death everyone who had a share in

[shedding] his blood or who had schemed and plotted against him.

[Second,] regarding what you have mentioned concerning our

sons, our rebuttal here is that all the sons whom we brought into

the world, with the exception of those whom God chose to take

back unto Himself, were perfectly sound in the limbs of their

bodies. But we appointed for you guards and restrained you from

getting mixed up in things that did not concern you, out of a desire

to prevent you from doing harm to the land and the subjects. So we

established for you ample means for your living expenses, such as

for your clothing, for your riding mounts, and for everything you

needed, as you well know. In respect to you (i.e., Shlruyah) in

particular, the story is that the astrologers had decreed from your

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389

horoscope [kitab mawlidika ) that you would bring evil upon us, or

that evil would happen through your agency. Nevertheless, we did

not order you to be put to death but put a seal on the document

indicating your horoscope and handed it over to our consort

Shinn's keeping. In confirmation of the fact that we placed full

credence in that document with the indication [of the horoscope],

it happened that Furumisha, king of India, wrote to us in the

thirty-sixth year of our reign, having sent a delegation of his subjects

to us. 959 He wrote about all sorts of things and sent to us and

to you, the ensemble of our sons, presents, together with a letter to

each one of you. His presents to you — you will recall them! —

comprised an elephant, a sword, a white falcon, and a brocade coat

woven with gold. When we looked at the presents he had sent you,

we found that he had written on his letter to you, in the Indian

language, "Keep the contents of this secret." We then gave orders

that all the presents or letters he had sent to each of you should be

passed on to you all, and we [merely] kept back his letter to you

because of its superscription. We sent for an Indian scribe and

ordered the letter's seal to be broken and its contents to be read

out. There was written there, 'Rejoice, be refreshed in spirit and be

happy in mind, for you will be crowned on the day Day ba-Adhar

in the month of Adhar of the thirty-eighth year of Kisra's reign 960

and be hailed as holder of his royal power and ruler of his lands.'

We were convinced that you would only attain to royal power

through our own destruction and perdition, yet despite being certain

about this, we did not make any reduction in the living allowances,

subsidies, presents, and such, previously assigned to

you, let alone order you to be put to death. We resealed

959. As correctly conjectured by Nbldeke, trans. 371 n. 1, this name reflects that

of a leading king of the early mediaeval northern Deccan, but to be rendered as

Pulakesin II (r. ca. 609-42), from the Chalukya dynasty. It would thus have been

perfectly possible for Khusraw Abarwez to have received a delegation from this

ruler in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, i.e., 626. See A. L. Basham, The Wonder

That Was India. A Survey of the Culture of the Indian Sub-Continent before the

Coming of the Muslims, 74-75; R. C. Majumdar fed.), The History and Culture of

the Indian People, EH, The Classical Age, 234-41. An alternative interpretation of

this name was suggested, however, by von Gutstchmid, "Bemerkungen zu Tabari's Sasanidengeschichte," 746: that it represents the common Indian royal title Parame$a "supreme lord."

960. See al-Tabari, 1 , 1043, p. 379 and n. 938 above.

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Furumisha's letter with our own seal and entrusted it to our consort

Shinn, who is still alive and sound in mind and body. If you

wish to retrieve from her the indications of your horoscope and

Furumisha's letter to you and read them both in order to bring

home to you your contrition and loss, then do it!

[Third,] in regard to what you have mentioned concerning the

condition of those condemned to perpetual imprisonment, we say

in justification that the ancient kings, from the time of Jayumart

(Kayumarth) till the reign of Bishtasb, 961 used to conduct their

royal power by means of justice, and then continuously from the

time of Bishtasb till we ourselves assumed power, they conducted

it by means of justice combined with religious piety. Now, since

you are so devoid of reason, knowledge, and education, ask the

authorities ( hamalah ) in religion, the basic supports (literally,

"tent pegs," awtad) of this religious community, about the position

of those who rebel against and disobey the kings, who break

their oaths, and those who have merited death for their sins, and

they will tell you that they do not deserve to be shown mercy or

forgiveness. Know that, despite all this, we have only condemned

to perpetual imprisonment in our gaols those who, if an equitable

judgment were to be made, have merited being killed or blinded or

having a hand or leg or some other limb cut off. How often have

those appointed to guard them, or various of our ministers, mentioned

the well-deserved fate of those who merit execution and

have said, "Kill them speedily, before they find ways and means of

killing you!" Yet, because of our wish to spare lives and our dislike

of shedding blood, we acted slowly and deliberately with them and

left them to God, and we used not to go further in punishing them

beyond the imprisonment to which we limited ourselves in inflicting,

beyond depriving them of eating meat, drinking wine, and

enjoying the fragrance of aromatic herbs. In none of these things

that were withheld were we going beyond what is in the precepts

of the religious community in regard to keeping those who have

merited death from enjoying the pleasures of life and easy circum-

961. That is, from the time of Gayomard (thus the MP form), the first man, to

that of Gushtasp (Avestan WiStaspa-, MP Wishtasp), son of Luhrasp, in whose reign Zoroaster is supposed to have arisen. See Yarshater, "Iranian Common Beliefs and World View," 352-53; idem, "Iranian National History," 376-77, 466-69.

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39i

stances. [On the contrary,] we used to allot for them the food,

drink, and other necessities for keeping them in good health, and

we used not to keep them from access to their womenfolk and

from the possibility of contact for siring children and producing

progeny while they were imprisoned. Now the news has reached

us that you have decided to set free these evil doers and evil

wishers who merit execution and to give orders for demolis hing

their gaol. If you do release them, you will sin against God your

Lord, bring down harm upon yourself, and inflict injury on your

own faith and the injunctions and legal prescriptions contained in

it, which deny mercy and forgiveness for those who deserve execution.

In addition to this, [there is the fact] that the enemies of

kings never love kingly power, and those who rebel against kings

never furnish them obedience. The wise men have given the warning,

"Don't hold back from punishing those who have merited

punishment, for such hesitation entails an impairment of justice

and harmful effects on the governance of the kingdom." Although

it may give you a certain feeling of joy when you set free those evil

doers, evil wishers, and rebels who deserve execution, you will

certainly experience the [baleful] result of that in your conduct of

government and the introduction of the severest harm and

calamitousness for the people of your religious community.

[Fifth,] 962 regarding your allegations that we have only acquired,

gathered together, and laid up in our treasuries wealth, equipment

and utensils, grain, and so forth, from the lands of our kingdom by

means of the harshest methods of tax gathering, the most pressing

demands on our subjects, and the most violent tyranny, rather

than from the lands of the enemy by making war on them and

forcible seizure by ourselves of their possessions, our reply is as

follows. The best answer to any statement uttered with gross ignorance

and stupidity is not to give any answer at all, but we have

not wished to leave this aside, since not giving an answer is tantamount

to affirming the truth [of the original statement]. Our rejoinder

to the accusations laid against us is a vigorous rebuttal of

962. As Ndldeke, trans. 374 n. 1, noted, this fifth section of Khusraw's response

covers both Sheroy's fifth and sixth accusations without clearly distinguishing the

two. Sheroy's seventh and eighth accusations are not addressed by his father, as

least in the words that have come down to us.

392 [The Last Sasanid Kings]

them, and our clear exculpation is an exposition of what you have

sought from us regarding it.

Know, O ignorant one, that, after God, it is only wealth and

troops that can uphold the royal authority of monarchs, this being

especially the case with the kingdom of Persia, whose lands are

surrounded by enemies with gaping mouths ready to gulp down

what the kingdom possesses. The only thing that can keep them

from it and fend them off from those lands they avidly desire to

seize for themselves, is numerous troops and copious quantities of

weapons and war material. Now numerous troops and everything

necessary for these can only be acquired by having a great deal of

wealth and ample quantities of it; and wealth can only be amassed

and gathered together, for any contingency which may arise, by

strenuous efforts and dedication in levying this land tax. We are

not the first ones to have gathered together wealth; on the contrary,

we have merely imitated here our forefathers and our predecessors

in past times. They collected wealth just as we have,

and amassed great quantities of it, so that it might constitute a

firm backing for them in strengthening their armies, in upholding

their authority, and in [making possible] other things for which

wealth must inevitably be amassed. But then the false-hearted one

Bahram, with a gang of people like himself and with desperadoes

who merited being put to death, attacked that wealth and those

[1056] jewels in our treasuries. They scattered and dispersed them and

went off with a great deal of them, and they left behind in our

storehouses of wealth and treasuries only a few of our weapons

which they were unable to scatter to the winds or remove or else

had no desire for them. When, God be praised, we recovered our

kingly power and our authority was firmly reestablished, when

the subjects submitted to us and gave obedience, and we removed

the calamities which had befallen them, we dispatched to the

outlying parts of our land Isbabadhs, we appointed below them in

those regions Fadhusbans, and we nominated over the frontier

zones Marzbans and courageous, energetic, and tough executive

officials. All those whom we appointed we provided with a strong

backing of numerous troops, and these officials led vigorous campaigns

against the hostile kings and the enemies into the lands

facing their own territories. From the thirteenth year of our reign

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393

onward, 963 their raids against the enemies, the slaughter they

wrought, and the captives they took, [reached to such an extent]

that none of those hostile rulers could dare to raise his head even

in the heart of his own kingdom except under a protective cover,

with fearfulness, or under a grant of protection from us, let alone

to mount a raid into any part of our land or to engage in anything

unacceptable to us. Hence during all this period of years, there

came into our storehouses of wealth and our treasuries what had

been seized as plunder from the lands of our enemies, comprising

gold, silver, all sorts of jewels, copper, steel, silk, silk brocades

[ istabiaq ), 964 brocade coats, horses, weapons, captured women

and children and male prisoners, whose enormous extent cannot

be concealed and whose value is known to everyone.

When at the end of the thirteenth year of our reign we gave

instructions for the engraving of new dies for coins (naqsh sikak

hadlthah), so that we might give our orders for beginning the

minting of new silver coinage with their aid, there was found at

the end of the minting process in our storehouses of wealth, according

to what was reported back to us by the persons charged

with counting the silver which was left there, apart from the

sums of money which we had instructed should be set aside for

paying the salaries of our troops, two hundred thousand purses of

silver coinage, containing eight hundred million mithqals [in

weight]. 965

When we perceived that we had made our frontiers secure, had

repulsed the enemy from them and from our subjects, had put a

muzzle on their mouths, which had been gaping open to swallow

up what they had acquired, had extended over them (i.e., the subjects]

security, and had preserved the inhabitants of the four outlying

quarters of our land from calamities and raids, we gave orders

963. That is, the year 602, when the Byzantine emperor Maurice was overthrown and murdered (see n. 743 above), after which Khusraw could claim to be

avenging the death of the usurper Phocas.

964. This is itself a loanword in Arabic (and in Syriac), and an early one, since it

is used in the Qur’an of the silk brocade garments of the saved in Paradise (XVHI, 30/3 1; XLIV, S3; etc.). See Siddiqi, Studien iibei die persiscben Fzemdwdrter, 8 n. 2, 13; Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’an, 58-60.

965. Here, as Noldeke pointed out, trans. 376 n. 2, not meaning a weight in gold.

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for the collection of the arrears of taxation remaining from pre-

vious years and for the restoration to their original place of all the

gold and silver that had been carried off from our storehouses of

wealth and all the jewels and copperware that had come from our

treasuries . 966 Hence at the end of the thirtieth year of our reign we

gave orders for the engraving of new dies for coins, from which

silver coins could be struck, and there was found in our storehouses

of wealth, apart from what we had ordered to be set aside

for paying the salaries of our troops and apart from the sums of

money already counted up for us previously, four hundred thousand

purses of silver coinage, containing one billion, six hundred

million mithqals [in weight]. All this in addition to what God

added for us to those sums of money from what He presented to us

as booty and of His liberality and lavishness upon us, out of the

wealth of the rulers of Byzantium which the wind brought us in

ships and which we called "plunder of the winds [fay’ alriyah )." 967

From the thirtieth year of our reign to the thirty-eighth, which

is the present year, our stores of weath have not ceased growing in

extent and richness, our lands in florescence, our subjects in security

and tranquility, and our frontiers and peripheral regions in

impregnability and strength of defenses. We have now heard that

you intend, because of the abysmally low level of your manly

virtues, to scatter abroad and destroy all this wealth, acting on the

advice of evil doers who merit being put to death . 968 We are now

telling you, however, that those treasures and wealth were only

966. These activities, as Noldeke noted, trans. 377 n. 1, could hardly have been

carried out without using violence, with resultant great hardship for the populace,

and in the case of the recovery of wealth allegedly filched from the central treasury, the innocent would doubtless suffer equally with the guilty.

967. This may conceivably relate distantly to an actual happening. Ibn

Qutaybah, Ma'arif, 66 5, says that a fleet of the king of Constantinople bearing

treasure was cast up on the Mediterranean shores at Alexandria (the khaza’in al-

rib), and, slightly more circumstantially, al-Mas'udl, Muruj, n, 227-8 = § 647, says

that a fleet of treasure ships of Phocas was thrown up on the Syrian coast at

Antioch, where Khusraw's general Shahrbaraz was able to seize the wealth and

forward it to his master. Noldeke, trans. 378 n. 1, cited an authority who suggested that the incident might relate to some treasure that Heraclius despatched to North Africa, before he became involved in the Persian wars, and which was lost at sea.

968. According to Ibn Qutaybah, Ma'arif, 665, Sheroy lightened taxes and did

not collect the khardj.

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395

gathered together through exposing one's life to danger and after

intense exertion and effort in order to repel by means of them the

enemies who were surrounding the lands of this kingdom and who

were pursuing courses aimed at getting full control of what they

had acquired. Enemies like these can only be driven off, in all

periods and times, and after receiving help from God, by wealth

and troops; troops can only be kept strong by wealth; and wealth is

only of use when it is available in large and extensive amounts. So

don't contemplate dividing out this wealth and don't rush rashly

into doing it, for wealth is a protection for your royal power and

your land, and a source of strength for you against your enemies.

Asfadh Jushnas then went back to Shiruyah and related to him

what Kisra had said to him, not leaving out a single word. The

great men of state among the Persians came back and told

Shiruyah, "It is not fitting that we should have two kings. Either

you give orders for Kisra to be put to death, and we shall be your

servants, furnishing obedience to you, or else we shall depose you

and give him obedience [once more]." These words struck fear

into Shiruyah's heart and crushed him. He ordered Kisra to be

executed. Several men who had duties incumbent upon them of

vengeance against Kisra responded to the call to kill him. But

every time one of them came to Kisra, he heaped insults on the

man and repelled him strongly. No one would undertake the task

of killing Kisra until finally, a youth named Mihr Hurmuz, son of

Mardanshah, went along to kill him. Mardanshah was Kisra's

Fadhusban over the province of NImruz 969 and one of Kisra's most

obedient and trusty retainers.

Now some two years before his deposition, Kisra had asked his

astrologers and diviners 970 what his end would be, and they had

969. That is, the region of the south, see al-Tabari, I, 894, p. 149, and n. 385

above. The geography ascribed to Moses Khorenac'i defines the K'usti Nemroy as

extending from Lower Iraq and Hajar, from Isfahan, Fars, and Khuzistan, to Kirman, SIstan, Makran, and Turan (both in the later Baluchistan), Zabulistan (in

what is now eastern Afghanistan), and Daybul on the coast of Sind. See Marquart,

EianSahi, 25-47.

970. 'af ah, pi. of 'a' if, was the diviner who took auguries from the flight or cries

of birds, the practice of 'iyafah, omithomancy. Among the early Arabs, this was

essentially that practiced by the Greek and Roman augurs. See Fahd, La divination aiabe, 371, 43»-34-

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told him that his fated death ( maniyyatahu ) 971 would come from

the direction of Nlmruz. He accordingly grew suspicious of Mardanshah

and fearful of his proximity, on account of Mardanshah's

great prestige and because there was no one in that region who

could equal him in strength and power. Kisra had written to him

instructing him to travel quickly to him, until by the time Mardanshah

had reached him, he had turned over in his mind how he

might seek a pretext to kill him. But he had not found any fault in

Mardanshah. Kisra accordingly recoiled from killing him because

of his knowledge about Mardanshah's faithful obedience to him,

his good counsel to him and his eagerness to please the king. So he

resolved to spare his life but to order his right hand to be cut off,

and to compensate him for its loss by a grant of a large sum of

money, lavishing wealth on him for this. Hence he sought for a

pretext that would enable him to have Mardanshah's right hand

cut off. 972

Hands and feet and heads used to be cut off in the open space

before the royal palace ( rahbat al-mulk ). 973 On the day when he

had ordered Mardanshah's hand to be cut off, Kisra sent along a

scout and observer ( 'ayn), who was to come back to him and inform

him of what he had heard Mardanshah and the onlookers

who were present saying. When Mardanshah's right hand was cut

off, he took it up with his left hand, kissed it, and placed it in his

bosom, and he began to lament over it with his tears streaming

down, saying, "Alas for a mild and forbearing [hand], one which

used to shoot, and write, and deal blows, and engage in sport, and

dispensed largesse!" The man whom Kisra had sent along as a

scout and observer over Mardanshah went back to Kisra and told

971. maniyyah, pis. manaya and perhaps manun, is literally "the determination, decreeing, of a man's fate," hence a synonym for death and a term much used

in early Arabic poetry. See Caskel, Das Schicksal in der altaiabischen Poesie, 22-

42; H. Ringgren, Studies in Arabian Fatalism, 14-23; Mohamed Abdesselem, Le

theme de la mort dans la poesie arabe des origines d la fin du III e /IX e siicle, 57, cf. 71.

972. The story of the mutilation of the courtier by the ruler because of the

prognostication that the courtier's son would bring about Khusraw's death, is

given very briefly in al-Ya'qubi, Ta’rikh, I, 196, with the tale cut short because of a lacuna in the manuscript used by the editor Houtsma.

973. Noldeke noted, trans. 380 n. 1, the predilection of Persian kings, from

Achaemenid up to Qajar times, for public executions and mutilations.

[The Last Sasanid Kings]

397

him what he had seen and heard Mardanshah doing and saying. At

this, Kisra became full of tenderness and sympathy for him, and

regretted his impetuosity regarding Mardanshah. He sent a message

to him via one of the great men of state expressing his regret

for what he had done to Mardanshah and telling him that he

would fulfill, so far as was in his power, any request to him which

Mardanshah might make and would facilitate this for him. Mardanshah

sent back a message to Kisra by that same envoy, invok-

ing blessings on the king and saying, "O king, I have always recognized

your beneficence to me, and I thank you for it; I have

become fully convinced that what you have inflicted on me was

done unwillingly. It was merely a stroke of fate that caused this.

But I have one request to make of you: give me oaths that you will

fulfill it, so that my mind may be set at rest. Also, send to me, on

your solemn undertaking to fulfill the oath, a pious man of God,

and then I will reveal and communicate [my request] to you."

Kisra's envoy returned to his master with this message, and Kisra

hastened to put into effect Mardanshah's request, and swore

mighty oaths that he would without fail accede to his request so

long as this last did not entail anything which would weaken the

fabric of his royal power. Kisra dispatched this message to Mardanshah

via the Chief [Zoroastrian] Priest (literally, "head of the

murmurers," ra'Is al-muzamzimin ). Mardanshah sent back a message

to Kisra asking him to order his (Mardanshah's) execution, in

order that the dishonor which [now] attached to him might be

thereby effaced. 974 Kisra gave the requisite order for Mardanshah's

head to be cut off, unwilling, as he asserted, to break his oath.

When Mihr Hurmuz, Mardanshah's son, came into Kisra's presence,

the latter asked Mihr Hurmuz his name and that of his

father and his position in the state. He told him that he was Mihr

Hurmuz, son of Mardanshah, the Fadhusban of Nimruz. Kisra

said, "You are the son of a a noble, highly sufficient, and competent

man whom we requited for his faithfulness and good counsel

to us, and for his sufficiency and competence with us, in an undeserving

manner; so set to, and get on with what you have been

ordered to do!" So Mihr Hurmuz struck, with an axe that he held

974. That is, the dishonor of continuing to live as a mutilated person, hence

unable to fill any office in the state or in the Zoroastrian church.

398

[The Last Sasanid Kings]

in his hand, several blows at the sinews of Kisra's neck running

down to his shoulder, but these had no effect on Kisra. The latter

was searched, and it was discovered that a jewel in the form of an

amulet 975 had been tied on his upper arm (or, "he had tied an

amulet on his upper arm"). The amulet protected its wearer from

the effects of a sword. The amulet was accordingly taken off Kisra,

and then after that Mihr Hurmuz delivered a single blow which

killed him. 976

The news was brought to Shlruyah, who tore the front part of

the neck of his robe and wept copiously; he gave orders for Kisra's

corpse to be borne to the place of sepulture. This was done. All the

great men of state and the people of the classes just below them

( afna ’ al-nas ) 977 accompanied his corpse [to the place of burial]. He

ordered Mihr Hurmuz executed. Kisra's tenure of royal power

lasted thirty-eight years. He was killed on the day of Mah in the

month of Adhar. 978 Shxruyah killed seventeen of his brothers,

men of good education, bravery, and the manly virtues, 979 on the

advice of his minister Fayrnz 980 and at the urging of one of the

sons of Yazdin, who was the official in charge of the [collection of

the] land tax (literally, "tithes," ' ushur ) from the entire lands for

Kisra and who was called Shamta, 981 that he should put them to

death.

975. Apparently the reading here is kharazah rather than hirzah. See Addenda

et emendanda, p. dxcvi, and Glossaiium, pp. ccxvii-ccxvm.

976. Noldeke, trans. 382 n. x, discussed the information of other sources, in-

cluding Christian ones, on the exact mode of Khusraw's execution, but concluded

that there was no firm evidence concerning this mode.

977. Arabic afna', sing, finw, is defined in the lexica as "people from mixed

groups." Here the meaning clearly relates to people high in the Persian social

hierarchy who alone would accompany the catafalque of a king. Noldeke, trans.

382, has "die Ausgesehnsten der Leute," i.e., the most outstanding, prominent

people.

978. Noldeke, trans. 382 n. 2, gives the equivalent of this date as 29 February

628.

979. The Arabic sources, and also the Christian ones, have various totals for

these brothers usually around sixteen to eighteen,- Hamzah al-I§fahani, Ta’rlkh, 54, actually names eighteen of them. See the discussion in Noldeke, 383 n. 1.

980. Bal'ami's Persian rendering of al-Tabari's History, tr. n, 346, makes Sher-

oy's chief minister Barmak, son of Firuz, ancestor of the Barmaki family so prominent in the caliphate during early ‘Abbasid times. Noldeke, trans. 313 n. 2, thought that this was a later touch inserted by an enemy of the Islamic Barmakls.

981. The very defective rendering of this name in the text was read thus by the

editor Noldeke, who identified Shamta's father Yazdin from the Christian sources,

principally the Syriac historians and hagiographers and the conciliar acts of the

Nestorian Church, as Khusraw's treasurer Yazdin (see n. 737 above). One

Nestorian author, Thomas of Marga, describes Sharnfa as the real driving force

behind the conspiracy to dethrone Khusraw. See Ndldeke, trans. 357 n. 4, 383 n. 3. However, according to the Anonymus Guidi, tr. 30-31, Sham^a soon showed

himself overly ambitious for power, was accused of conspiring to seize the throne, arrested, his right hand cut off and consigned to prison by Sheroy.

On the name Yazdin, see Justi, Namenbuch, 147-48. Whether this Yazdin was

the same person as the governor of Armenia for Khusraw Abarwez, the Yazden of

the Armenian historian Sebeos (see ibid.), is unclear.