The Elamites, Medians, and Achaemenids characterized by an absence of the Levalloisian technique of

chipping flint and thus differs from the well-defined Middle

The early history of Iran may be divided into three phases: (1) the Paleolithic industries known elsewhere in the Middle East. The
prehistoric period, beginning with the earliest evidence of economic and social level associated with this industry is that of
humans on the Iranian plateau (c. 100,000 BC) and ending roughly fairly small, peripatetic hunting and gathering groups spread out
at the start of the 1st millennium BC, (2) the protohistoric period, over a thinly settled landscape.
covering approximately the first half of the 1st millenniumBC,
and (3) the period of the Achaemenian dynasty (6th to 4th century Locally, the Mousterian is followed by an Upper Paleolithic flint
BC), when Iran entered the full light of written history. The industry called the Baradostian. Radiocarbon dates suggest that
civilization of Elam, centred off the plateau in lowland Khūzestān, this is one of the earliest Upper Paleolithic complexes; it may have
is an exception, for written history began there as early as it did in begun as early as 36,000 BC. Its relationship to neighboring
neighbouring Mesopotamia (c. 3000 BC). industries, however, remains unclear. Possibly, after some
cultural and typological discontinuity, perhaps caused by the
The sources for the prehistoric period are entirely archaeological. maximum cold of the last phase of the Würm glaciation, the
Early excavation in Iran was limited to a few sites. In the 1930s Baradostian was replaced by a local Upper Paleolithic industry
archaeological exploration increased, but work was abruptly called the Zarzian. This tool tradition, probably dating to the
halted by the outbreak of World War II. After the war ended, period 12,000 to 10,000 BC, marks the end of the Iranian
interest in Iranian archeology revived quickly, and, from 1950 Paleolithic sequence.
until archaeological study was dramatically curtailed after 1979,
numerous excavations revolutionized the study of prehistoric The Neolithic Period (New Stone Age)
Iran.
Evidence indicates that the Middle East in general was one of the
For the protohistoric period the historian is still forced to rely earliest areas in the Old World to experience what the Australian
primarily on archaeological evidence, but much information archaeologist V. Gordon Childe called the Neolithic revolution.
comes from written sources as well. None of these sources, That revolution witnessed the development of settled village
however, is both local and contemporary in relation to the events agricultural life based firmly on the domestication of plants and
described. Some sources are contemporary but belong to animals. Iran has yielded much evidence on the history of these
neighbouring civilizations that were only tangentially involved in important developments. From the early Neolithic Period
events in the Iranian plateau—for example, the Assyrian and (sometimes called the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age) comes
Babylonian cuneiform records from lowland Mesopotamia. Some evidence of significant shifts in tool manufacture, settlement
are local but not contemporary, such as the traditional Iranian patterns, and subsistence methods, including the fumbling
legends and tales that supposedly speak of events in the early 1st beginnings of domestication of both plants and animals, at such
millennium BC. And some are neither contemporary nor local but western Iranian sites as Āsīāb, Gūrān, Ganj Dareh (Ganj Darreh),
are nevertheless valuable in reconstructing events in the and Ali Kosh. Similar developments in the Zagros Mountains, on
protohistoric period (e.g., the 5th-century-BC Greek historian the Iraqi side of the modern border, are also traceable at sites such
Herodotus). as Karīm Shahīr and Zawi Chemi–Shanidar. This phase of early
experimentation with sedentary life and domestication was soon
For the study of the centuries of the Achaemenian dynasty, there followed by a period of fully developed village farming as
is sufficient documentary material so that this period is the defined at important Zagros sites such as Jarmo, Sarāb, upper Ali
earliest for which archaeology is not the primary source of data. Kosh, and upper Gūrān. All these sites date wholly or in part to
Contributing to the understanding of the period are, among other the 8th and 7th millennia BC.
sources, economic texts from Mesopotamia, Elam, and Iran;
historical inscriptions such as that of Darius I (the Great) at By approximately 6000 BC these patterns of village farming were
Behistun (modern Bīsotūn); contemporary and later classical widely spread over much of the Iranian plateau and in lowland
authors; and later Iranian legends and literature. Khūzestān. Tepe Sabz in Khūzestān, Hajji Firuz in Azerbaijan,
Godin Tepe VII in northeastern Lorestān, Tepe Sialk I on the rim
The prehistoric period of the central salt desert, and Tepe Yahya VI C–E in the southeast
are all sites that have yielded evidence of fairly sophisticated
The Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age) patterns of agricultural life (Roman numerals identify the level of
excavation). Though distinctly different, all show general cultural
Enigmatic evidence of human presence on the Iranian plateau as connections with the beginnings of settled village life in
early as Lower Paleolithic times comes from a surface find in the neighbouring areas such as Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Central
Bākhtarān valley. The first well-documented evidence of human Asia, and Mesopotamia.
habitation is in deposits from several excavated cave and rock-
shelter sites, located mainly in the Zagros Mountains of western The 5th to mid 3rd millennia
Iran and dated to Middle Paleolithic or Mousterian times (c.
100,000 BC). There is every reason to assume, however, that future Rather less is known of the cultures in this time range in Iran than
excavations will reveal Lower Paleolithic habitation in Iran. The of contemporary cultures elsewhere in the ancient Middle East.
Mousterian flint tool industry found there is generally Research has tended to concentrate on the Neolithic and

1
protohistoric periods, and the scattered evidence for important
cultural and artistic developments in the Chalcolithic Period
(Copper Age) and Early Bronze Age resists coherent summary. It
is clear that trends that began in the late Neolithic Period
continued in the millennia that followed and that the rugged,
broken landscape of the Iranian plateau forced people into a
variety of relatively isolated cultures. In no instance, with the
important exception of Elam (see The Elamites, below), did Iran
participate in the developments that led to fully urban civilization
in lowland Mesopotamia to the west or in the Indus valley to the
east. Throughout prehistory the Iranian plateau remained at the
economic and cultural level of village life achieved in the
Neolithic Period. The separate cultural areas on the plateau are as
yet barely understood by the modern archaeologist in any terms
other than through the painted pottery assemblages found at
several sites throughout Iran. Though they developed in
comparative isolation, each of these areas does yield some
evidence of cultural contact with its immediate neighbours and, in
some striking cases, with developments in the centres of higher
civilization in Mesopotamia. Trade would appear to be the
principal mechanism by which such contacts were maintained,
and often Elam appears to have acted as an intermediary between
Sumer and Babylon on the one hand and the plateau cultures on
the other. Trade across the northern part of the plateau, through
the sites of Tepe Hissar and Sialk, most probably involved
transshipping semiprecious stones such as lapis lazuli from
Afghanistan to Mesopotamia. The appearance of proto-Elamite
tablets in Sialk IV may bear witness to such trade. So also may the
appearance of similar proto-Elamitetablets at Tepe Yahya south of
Kermān and in the great central desert provide evidence of trade
connections between Mesopotamia and the east—in this case a
trade that may have centred on specific items such as steatite and
copper. Parsa perhaps also participated in such trade networks, as
is suggested by the appearance there, alongside strictly local
ceramics, of wares that have clear Mesopotamian affinities. In the
west-central Zagros, outside influences from both the north and
the west can be traced in the ceramic record; such is also the case
for local cultures in Azerbaijan to the northwest. In general,
however, these millennia represent a major dark age in Iranian
prehistory and warrant considerably more attention than they
have received.
The late 3rd and 2nd millennia
The beginning of this period is generally characterized by an even of the currently ruling dynasty. This viceroy was heir
more marked isolation of the plateau than earlier, while the latter presumptive to the overlord. Yet a third official, the regent or
halfof the period is one of major new disruptions, heretofore
unique in Iranian history, that laid the groundwork for
developments in the protohistoric period. In northwestern and
central western Iran, local cultures, as yet barely defined beyond
their ceramic parameters, developed in relative isolation from
events elsewhere. All occupation had ceased at Tepe Sialk, but the viceroy. Only if all brothers were dead was the prince of Susa
painted pottery cultures characteristic of earlier Hissar and of the promoted to viceroy, thus enabling the overlord to name his own
sites in the Gorgān lowland in the northeast continued. Little
Mesopotamian influence is evident, though some contacts
between Elam and the plateau remained. Beginning perhaps as
early as 2400 BC but more probably somewhat later, a radical
transformation occurred in the culture of the northeast: earlier
painted potteries were entirely replaced by a distinctive gray or
2
gray-black ceramic associated with a variety of other artifacts,
primarily weapons and ornaments in copper or bronze, which
were also unique. Whether this cultural change represents a
strictly local development or testifies to an important intrusion of
new peoples into the area is still under debate. In any case, none
of these developments can be traced to Mesopotamia or toother
areas to the west, regions which had previously been the sources
of outside influences on the Iranian plateau. Somewhat later the
local cultures of central and northwestern Iran were apparently
influenced by developments in northern Mesopotamia and
Assyria, along patterns of contact that had been well established
in earlier periods. Yet this contact, as it is observed at Godin III,
Hasanlu VI, and Dinkha Tepe, did not cause any major
dislocation of local cultural patterns. In the second half of the 2nd
millennium, however, western Iran—at first perhaps gradually
and then with striking suddenness—came under the influence of
the gray and gray-black ware cultures that had developed earlier
in the northeast. There the impact of these influences was such as
to definitely suggest a major cultural dislocation and the
introduction of a whole new culture—and probably a new people
—into the Zagros. It was this development that marked the end of
the Bronze Age in western Iran and ushered in the early
protohistoric period.
The Elamites
Whereas the Iranian plateau did not experience the rise of urban,
literate civilization in the late 4th and early 3rd millennia on the
Mesopotamian pattern, lowland Khūzestān did. There Elamite
civilization was centred. Geographically, Elam included more
than Khūzestān; it was a combination of the lowlands and the
immediate highland areas to the north and east. Elamite strength
was based on an ability to hold these various areas together under
a coordinated government that permitted the maximum
interchange of the natural resources unique to each region.
Traditionally this was done through a federated governmental
structure.
Closely related to that form of government was the Elamite
system of inheritance and power distribution. The normal pattern
of government was that of an overlord ruling over vassal princes.
In earliest times the overlord lived in Susa, which functioned as a
federal capital. With him ruled his brother closest in age, the
viceroy, who usually had his seat of government in the native city
prince of Susa (the district),shared power with the overlord and
the viceroy. He was usually the overlord's son or, if no son was
available, his nephew. On the death of the overlord, the viceroy
became overlord. The prince of Susa remained in office, and the
brother of the old viceroy nearest to him in age became the new
son (or nephew) as the new prince of Susa. Such a complicated
system of governmental checks, balances, and power inheritance
often broke down, despite bilateral descent and levirate marriage
(the compulsory marriage of a widow to her deceased husband's
brother). What is remarkable is how often the system did work; it
was only in the Middle and Neo-Elamite periods that sons more
often succeeded fathers to power.
Elamite history can be divided into three main phases: the Old,
Middle, and Late, or Neo-Elamite, periods. In all periods Elam
was closely involved with Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria,
sometimes through peaceful trade but more often through war. In
like manner, Elam was often a participant in events on the Iranian
plateau. Both involvements were related to the combined need of
all the lowland civilizations to control the warlike peoples to the
east and to exploit the economic resources of the plateau.
The Old Elamite period
The earliest kings in the Old Elamite period may date to
approximately 2700 BC. Already conflict with Mesopotamia, in
this case apparently with the city of Ur, was characteristic of
Elamite history. These early rulers were succeeded by the Awan
(Shūstar) dynasty.The 11th king of this line entered into treaty
relations with the great Naram-Sin of Akkad (reigned c. 2254–c.
2218 BC). Yet a new rulinghouse soon appeared, the Simash
dynasty (Simash may have been in the mountains of southern
Lorestān). The outstanding event of this period was the virtual
conquest of Elam by Shulgi of the 3rd dynasty of Ur (c. 2094–c.
2047 BC). Eventually the Elamites rose in rebellion and overthrew
the 3rd Ur dynasty, an event long remembered in Mesopotamian
dirges and omen texts. About the mid 19th century BC, power in
Elam passed to a new dynasty, that of Eparti. The third king of
this line, Shirukdukh, was active in various military coalitions
against the rising power of Babylon, but Hammurabi was not to
be denied, and Elam was crushed in 1764 BC. The Old Babylon
kingdom, however, fell into rapid decline following the death of
Hammurabi, and it was not long before the Elamites were able to
gain revenge. Kutir-Nahhunte I attacked Samsuiluna (c. 1749–c.
1712 BC), Hammurabi's son, and dealt so serious a defeat to the
Babylonians that the event was remembered more than 1,000
years later in an inscription of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. It
may beassumed that with this stroke Elam once again gained
independence. The end of the Eparti dynasty, which occurred
possibly in the late 16th century BC, is buried in silence.
The Middle Elamite period
After two centuries for which sources reveal nothing, the Middle
Elamite period opened with the rise to power of the Anzanite
dynasty, whose homeland probably lay in the mountains
northeast of modern Khūzestān. Political expansion under
Khumbannumena (c. 1285–c. 1266 BC), the fourth king of this line,
proceeded apace, and his successes were commemorated by his
assumption of the title “Expander of the Empire.” He was
succeeded by his son, Untash-Gal (Untash [d] Gal, or Untash-
Huban), a contemporary of Shalmaneser I of Assyria (c. 1274–c.
1245 BC) and the founder of the city of Dūr Untash (modern
Choghā Zanbīl). In the years immediately following Untash-Gal's
reign, Elam increasingly found itself in real or potential conflict
with the rising power of Assyria. Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria
campaigned in the mountains north of Elam in the latter part of
the 13th century BC. The Elamites under Kidin-Khutran, the
second king after Untash-Gal, countered with a successful and
devastating raid on Babylonia. In the end, however, Assyrian
3
power seems to have been too great. Tukulti-Ninurta managed to
expand, for a brief time, Assyrian control well to the south in
Mesopotamia. Kidin-Khutran faded into obscurity, and the
Anzanite dynasty came to an end.
After a short period of dynastic troubles, the second half of the
Middle Elamite period opened with the reign of Shutruk-
Nahhunte I (c. 1160 BC). Two equally powerful and two rather
less impressive kings followed this founder of a new dynasty,
whose home was probably Susa, and in this period Elam became
one of the great military powers of the Middle East. Tukulti-
Ninurta died about 1208 BC, and Assyria fell into a period of
internal weakness and dynastic conflict. Elam was quick to take
advantage of this situation by campaigning extensively in the
Diyālā River area and into the very heart of Mesopotamia.
Shutruk-Nahhunte I captured Babylon and carried off to Susa the
stela on which was inscribed the famous law code of Hammurabi.
Shilkhak-In-Shushinak, brother and successor of Shutruk-
Nahhunte's eldest son, Kutir-Nahhunte, still anxious to take
advantage of Assyrian weakness, campaigned as far north as the
area of modern Kirkūk. In Babylonia, however, the 2nd dynasty
of Isin led a native revolt against such control as the Elamites had
been able to exercise there, and Elamite power in central
Mesopotamia was eventually broken. The Elamite military empire
began to shrink rapidly. Nebuchadrezzar I of Babylon (c. 1119–c.
1098 BC) attacked Elam and was just barely thwarted. A second
Babylonian attack succeeded, however, and the whole of Elam
was apparently overrun, ending the Middle Elamite period.
It is noteworthy that during the Middle Elamite period the old
system of succession to, and distribution of, power appears to
have broken down. Increasingly, son succeeded father, and less is
heard of divided authority within a federated system. This
probably reflects an effort to increase the central authority at Susa
in order to conduct effective military campaigns abroad and to
hold Elamite foreign conquests. The old system of regionalism
balanced with federalism must have suffered, and the fraternal,
sectional strife that so weakened Elam in the Neo-Elamite period
may have had its roots in the centrifugal developments of the 13th
and 12th centuries BC.
The Neo-Elamite period
A long period of darkness separates the Middle and Neo-Elamite
periods. In 742 BC a certain Huban-Nugash is mentioned as king
in Elam. The land appears to have been divided into separate
principalities, with the central power fairly weak. During the next
century the Elamites constantly attempted to interfere in
Mesopotamian affairs, usually in alliance with Babylon, against
the constant pressure of Neo-Assyrian expansion. At times they
were successful with this policy, both militarily and
diplomatically, but on the whole they were forced to give way to
increasing Assyrian power. Local Elamite dynastic troubles were
from time to time compounded by both Assyrian and Babylonian
interference. Meanwhile the Assyrian army whittled away at
Elamite power and influence in Luristan. In time these internal
and external pressures produced a near total collapse of any
meaningful central authority in Elam. In an effort to clean up a
political and diplomatic mess that had become a chronic headache
for the Assyrians, Ashurbanipal's armies mounted a series of combined evidence. If it is so, then the earliest Iranians in the
campaigns between 692 and 639 BC that utterly destroyed Susa, Zagros Mountains can be dated to Iron Age I times, about 1300
pulling down buildings, looting, and sowing the land of Elam BC. Archaeologically, the culture of Iron Age II times can be seen
with salt. as having evolved out of that of the Iron Age I period, and,
though the development is less clear, the same can be said of the
The protohistoric period and the kingdom of the Medes relationship between the cultures ofIron Age II and III. The
spread of the Iron Age I and II cultures in the Zagros is restricted
The beginning of the Iron Age is marked by major dislocations of and would appear to correspond fairly well with the distribution
cultural and historical patterns in western Iran (almost nothing is of Iranians known from the written documents. The distribution
known of the eastern half of the plateau in the Iron Age). The Iron of the Iron Age III culture, on the other hand, is, at leastby the 7th
Age itself is divided into three periods: Iron Age I (c. 1300–c. 1000 century BC, much more widespread and covers almost the whole
BC), Iron Age II (c. 1000–c. 800/750 BC), andIron Age III (c. 750–c. of the Zagros. Thus, the argument that links these archaeological
550 BC). The latter is the archaeological equivalent of what patterns with the Iranian migration into the area associates the
historically can be calledthe Median period. Iron Age I and II cultures with the early penetration of the
Iranians into the more eastern Zagros and with their infiltration
The coming of the Iranians westward along the major routes crosscutting the main mountain
alignments. Those areas where traces of the Iron Age I and II
Though isolated groups of speakers of Indo-European languages cultures do not appear were the regions still under the control of
had appeared and disappeared in western Iran in the 2nd non-Iranian indigenous groups supported by Urartu, Assyria,
millennium BC, it was during the Iron Age that the Indo- and Elam. The widespread Iron Age III culture is then associated
European Iranians rose to be the dominant force on the plateau. with the rise to power of the Median kingdom in the 7th and early
By the mid 9th century BC two major groups of Iranians appeared 6th centuries BC and the Iranianization of the whole of the Zagros
in cuneiform sources: the Medes and the Persians. Of the two the Mountains.
Medes were the more widespread and, from an Assyrian point of
view, the more important group. When Assyrian armies raided as The kingdom of the Medes
far east as modern Hamadān, they found only Medes. In the more
western Zagros they encountered Medes mixed with non-Iranian Traditionally, the creator of the Median kingdom was one
indigenous peoples. Early in the 1st millennium Iranian Medes Deioces, who, according to Herodotus, reigned from 728 to 675
already controlled almost all of the eastern Zagros and were BC and founded the Median capital Ecbatana (modern
infiltrating, if not actually pushing steadily into, the western Hamadān). Attempts have been made to associate Dāiukku, a
Zagros, in some areas right up to the edge of the plateau and to local Zagros king mentioned in a cuneiform text as one of the
the borders of lowland Mesopotamia. Persians also appear in captives deported to Assyria by Sargon II in 714 BC, with the
roughly the same areas, though their exact location remains Deioces of Herodotus, but such an association is highly unlikely.
controversial. At times they seem to have settled in the north near To judge from the Assyrian sources, no Median kingdom such as
Lake Urmia, at times in the central western Zagros near modern Herodotus describes for the reign of Deioces existed in the early
Kermānshāh, later certainly in the southwestern Zagros 7th century BC; at best, he is reporting a Median legend of the
somewhere near the borders of Elam, and eventually, of course, in founding of their kingdom.
the region of Fārs. It has been argued that these various locations
represent a nomadic tribe on the move; more likely they represent According to Herodotus, Deioces was succeeded by his son
more than one group of Persians. What is reasonably clear from Phraortes (reigned 675–653 BC), who subjugated the Persians and
the cuneiform sources is that these Medes and Persians (and no lost his life in a premature attack against the Assyrians. Some of
doubt other Iranian peoples not identified by name) were moving this tale may be true. Assyrian texts speak of a Kashtariti as the
into western Iran from the east. They probably followed routes leader of a conglomerate group of Medes, Scythians, Mannaeans,
along the southern face of the Elburz Mountains and, as they and miscellaneous other local Zagros peoples that seriously
entered the Zagros, spread out to the northwest and southeast threatened the peace of Assyria's eastern borderlands during the
following the natural topography of the mountains. Where they reign of Esarhaddon (680–669 BC). It is possible that Phraortes is
could, they infiltrated farther west—for example, along the major this Kashtariti, though the suggestion cannot be proved either
pass across the mountains from Hamadān to Kermānshāh. In historically or linguistically. That a Median king in this period
doing so, they met resistance from the local settled populations, exerted political and military control over the Persians is entirely
who often appealed to Urartu, Assyria, and Elam for assistance in reasonable, though it cannot be proved.
holding back the newcomers. Such appeals were, of course, most
welcome to these great powers, who were willing to take Beginning as early as the 9th century BC and with increasing
advantage of the situation both to advance their interests at each impact in the late 8th and early 7th centuries, groups of nomadic
other's expense and to control the Iranian threat to themselves. warriorsentered western Iran, probably from across the Caucasus.
It has been suggested that the introduction of gray and gray-black Dominant among these groups were the Scythians, and their
pottery into western Iran from the northeast, which signals the entrance into the affairs of the western plateau during the 7th
startof the Iron Age, is the archaeological manifestation of this century may perhaps mark one of the turning points in Iron Age
pattern of a gradual movement of Iranians from east to west. The history. Herodotus speaks in some detail of a period of Scythian
case is by no means proved, but it is a reasonable reading of the domination, the so-called Scythian interregnum in Median

4
dynasty history. His dating of this event remains uncertain, but
traditionally it is seen as falling between the reigns of Phraortes
and Cyaxares and covering the years 653 to 625 BC. Whether such
an interregnum ever actually occurred and, if it did, whether it
should not be dated later than this are open questions. What is
clear is that by the mid 7th century BC there were a great many
Scythians in western Iran, that they—along with the Medes and
other groups—posed a serious threat to Assyria, and that their
appearance threw previous power alignments quite out of
balance.
Herodotus reports how, under Cyaxares of Media (625–585 BC),
the Scythians were overthrown when their kings were induced at
a supper party to get so drunk that they were then easily slain. It
is more likely that about this time either the Scythians withdrew
voluntarily from western Iran and went off to plunder elsewhere
or they were simply absorbed into a rapidly developing
confederation under Median hegemony. Cyaxares is a fully
historical figure who appears in the cuneiform sources as
Uvakhshatra. Herodotus speaks of how Cyaxares reorganized the
Median army into units built around specialized armaments:
spearmen, archers, and cavalry. The unified and reorganized
Medes were a match for the Assyrians. They attacked one of the
important Assyrian border cities, Arrapkha, in 615 BC,
surrounded Nineveh in 614 but were unable to capture it, and
instead successfully stormed the Assyrian religious capital,
Ashur. An alliance between Babylon and the Medes was sealed
by the betrothal of Cyaxares' granddaughter to Babylonian King
Nabopolassar's son, Nebuchadrezzar II (605–562 BC). In 612 the
attack on Nineveh was renewed, and the city fell in late August
(the Babylonians arrived rather too late to participate fully in the
battle). The Babylonians and the Medes together pursued the
fleeing Assyrians westward into Syria. Assyrian appeals to Egypt
for help came to naught, and the last Assyrian ruler, Ashur-uballiṭ
II, disappeared from history in 609.
The problem, of course, was how to divide the spoils among the
victors. The cuneiform sources are comparatively silent, but it
would seem that the Babylonians fell heir to all of the Assyrian
holdings within the Fertile Crescent, while their allies took over
all of the highland areas. The Medes gained control over the lands must have frightened many.
in eastern Anatolia that had once been part of Urartu and
eventually became embroiled in war with the Lydians, the
dominant political power in western Asia Minor. In 585 BC,
probably through the mediation of theBabylonians, peace was
established between Media and Lydia, and the Halys (Kızıl) River the fabulously wealthy Croesus. Lydian appeals to Babylon were
was fixed as the boundary between the two kingdoms. Thus a
new balance of power was established in the Middle East among
Medes, Lydians, Babylonians, and, far to the south, Egyptians. At attacked, and an indecisive battle was fought in 547 BC on the
his death Cyaxares controlled vast territories: all of Anatolia to the Halys River. Since it was late in the campaigning season, the
Halys; the whole of western Iran eastward, perhaps as far as the
area of modern Tehrān; and all of southwestern Iran, including
Fārs. Whether it is appropriate to call these holdings a kingdom is kept coming. He caught and besieged theLydians in the citadel at
debatable; one suspects that authority over the various peoples,
Iranian and non-Iranian, who occupied these territories was
exerted in the form of a confederation such as is implied by the
ancient Iranian royal title, king of kings.
Astyages followed his father, Cyaxares, on the Median throne
5
(585–550 BC). Comparatively little is known of his reign. All was
not well with the alliance with Babylon, and there is some
evidence to suggest that Babylonia may have feared Median
power. The latter, however, was soon in no position to threaten
others, for Astyages was himself under attack. Indeed, Astyages
and the Medians were soon overthrown by the rise to power in
the Iranian world of Cyrus II (the Great) of Persia.
The rise of the Persians under Cyrus II
The ruling dynasty of the Persians that was settled in Fārs in
southwestern Iran (possibly the Parsumash of the later Assyrian
records) traced its ancestry back to an eponymous ancestor,
Hāxamanish, or Achaemenes. There is no historical evidence of
such a king's existence. Traditionally, three rulers fell between
Achaemenes and Cyrus II: Teispes, Cyrus I, and Cambyses I.
Teispes, freed of Median domination during the so-called
Scythian interregnum, is thought to have expanded his kingdom
and to have divided it on his death between his two sons, Cyrus I
and Ariaramnes. Cyrus I may have been the king of Persia who
appears in the records of Ashurbanipal swearing allegiance to
Assyria after the devastation of Elam in the campaigns of 642–639
BC, though there are chronological problems involved with this
equation. When Median control over the Persians was supposedly
reasserted under Cyaxares, Cambyses I is thought to have been
given a reunited Persia to administer as a Median vassal. His son,
Cyrus II, married the daughter of Astyages and in 559 inherited
his father's position within the Median confederation.
Cyrus II certainly warranted his later title, Cyrus the Great. He
must have been a remarkable personality, and certainly he was a
remarkable king. He united under his authority several Persian
and Iranian groups who apparently had not been under his
father's control. He then initiated diplomatic exchanges with
Nabonidus of Babylon (556–539 BC), which justifiably worried
Astyages. Eventually he openly rebelled against the Medes, who
were beaten in battle when considerable numbers of Median
troops deserted to the Persian standard. Thus in 550 the Median
empire became the first Persian empire, and the Achaemenian
kings appeared on the international scene with a suddenness that
Cyrus immediately set out to expand his conquests. After
apparently convincing the Babylonians that they had nothing to
fear from Persia, he turned against the Lydians under the rule of
to no avail. He then took Cilicia, thus cutting the routes over
which any help might have reached the Lydians. Croesus
Lydians thought the war was over for that year, returned to their
capital at Sardis, and dispersed the national levy. Cyrus, however,
Sardis and captured Croesus in 546. Of the Greek city-states along
the western coast of Asia Minor, heretofore under Lydian control,
only Miletus surrendered without a fight. The others were
systematically reduced by the Persian armies led by subordinate
generals. Cyrus himself was apparently busy elsewhere, possibly
in the east, for little is known of his activities between the capture
of Sardis and the beginning of the Babylonian campaign in 540. the Egyptian desert west of the Nile), which, according to
Herodotus, was defeated by a massive sandstorm; and one led by
Nowhere did Cyrus display his political and military genius Cambyses himself to Nubia. This latter effort was partly
better than in the conquest of Babylon. The campaign actually successful, but the army suffered badly from a lack of proper
began when he lulled the Babylonians into inactivity during his provisions on the return march. Egypt was then garrisoned at
war with Lydia, which, since it was carried to a successful three major points: Daphnae in the east delta, Memphis, and
conclusion, deprived the Babylonians of a potential ally when Elephantine, where Jewish mercenaries formed the main body of
their turn came. Then he took full advantage of internal troops.
disaffection and discontent within Babylon.Nabonidus was not a
popular king: he had paid too little attention to home affairs and In 522 BC news reached Cambyses of a revolt in Iran led by an
had alienated the native Babylonian priesthood. The writer of impostor claiming to be Bardiya, Cambyses' brother. Several
Deutero-Isaiah, speaking for many of the captive Jews in Babylon, provinces ofthe empire accepted the new ruler, who bribed his
undoubtedly represented the hopes of many of Nabonidus's subjects by remitting taxes for three years. Cambyses died—
subjects that Cyrus was a potential deliverer. With the stage thus possibly by his own hand but more probably from infection
set, the military campaign against Babylon came almost as an following an accidental sword wound—as he hastened home to
anticlimax. The fall of the greatest city in the Middle East was regain control. Darius, a leading general in Cambyses' army and
swift; Cyrus marched into town in the late summer of 539 BC, one of the princes of the Achaemenid family, raced homeward
seized the hands of the statue of the city god Marduk as a signal with the troops in order to crush the rebellion in a manner
of his willingness to rule as a Babylonian and not as a foreign profitable to himself.
conqueror, and was hailed by many as the legitimate successor to
the throne. In one stride Cyrus carried Persian power to the Cambyses has been rather mistreated in the sources, partly
borders of Egypt, for with Babylon came all that it had seized because of the prejudices of Herodotus's Egyptian informers and
from the Assyrians and gained in the sequel. partly because of the propagandist motives of Darius I. Cambyses
is reported to have ruled the Egyptians harshly and to have
Little is known of the remainder of Cyrus's reign. The rapidity desecrated their religious ceremonies and shrines. His military
with which his son and successor, Cambyses II, initiated a campaigns out of Egypt were all reported as failures. He was
successful campaign against Egypt suggests that preparations for accused of suicide in the face of revolt at home. It was even
such an attack were well advanced under Cyrus. But the founder suggested that he was mad. There is, however, little solid
of Persian power was forced to turn east late in his reign to protect contemporary evidence to support these charges.
that frontier against warlike tribes who were themselves in part
Iranians and who threatened the plateau in the same manner as Darius I
had the Medes and the Persians more than a millennium earlier.
One of the recurrent themes of Iranian history is the threat of Darius I, called the Great, tells in detail the story of the overthrow
peoples from the east. How much Cyrus conquered in the east is of the false Bardiya and of the first year of his own rule in his
uncertain. What is clear is that he lost his life in 529 BC, fighting famous royal inscription cut on a rock face at the base of Mount
somewhere in the region of the Oxus (Amu Darya) and Jaxartes Bīsotūn, a few miles east of modern Kermānshāh. Some historians
(Syr Darya) rivers. consider Darius's account to be mere propaganda and argue
instead that Bardiya was not an imposter. According to Darius,
The Achaemenian dynasty six leading Achaemenian nobles assisted in slaying the imposter
and together proclaimed Darius the rightful heir of Cambyses.
Cambyses Darius was a member of the Achaemenian royal house. His great-
grandfather was Ariaramnes, son of Teispes, who had shared
On the death of Cyrus the Great, the empire passed to his son, power in Persia with his brother Cyrus I. Ariaramnes' son,
Cambyses II (reigned 529–522 BC). There may have been some Arsames, and his grandson, Hystaspes (Darius's father), had not
degree of unrest throughout the empire at the time of Cyrus's been kings in Persia, as unified royal power had been placed in
death, for Cambyses apparently felt it necessary to secretly kill his the hands of Cambyses I by Cyaxares. Neither is named a king in
brother, Bardiya (Smerdis), in order to protect his rear while Darius's own inscriptions. Hystaspes was, however, an important
leading the campaign against Egypt in 525. The pharaoh Ahmose royal prince and apparently the governor of Persis. Darius
II of the 26th dynasty sought to shore uphis defenses by hiring himself was in the mold of Cyrus the Great—a powerful
Greek mercenaries but was betrayed by the Greeks. Cambyses personality and a dynamic ruler.
successfully managed to cross the hostile Sinai Desert,
traditionally Egypt's first and strongest line of defense, and It took more than a year (522–521 BC) of hard fighting to put
brought the Egyptians under Psamtik III, son and successor of down the revolts associated with Bardiya's claim to the throne
Ahmose, to battle at Pelusium. The Egyptians lost and retired to and Darius's succession to power. Almost every province of the
Memphis, which subsequently fell to the Persians. Three empire was involved in the conflict, including Persia and, most
subsidiary campaigns were then mounted, all of which are particularly, Media. A balanced policy of clemency backed by the
reported as failures: one against Carthage, though the Phoenician swift and thorough punishment of any captured rebel leader, in
sailors, who were the backbone of the Persian navy, declined to combination with a well-coordinated and carefully timed
sail against their own colony; one against the oasis of Amon (in distribution of loyal forces, eventually brought peace to the

6
empire and undisputed power to Darius. He then turned his
attention to the organization and consolidation of his inheritance,
and it was for this role—that of lawgiver and organizer—that he
himself, to judge from his inscriptions, most wished to be
remembered.
Such activities, however, did not prevent Darius from following
an active expansionist policy. Campaigns to the east confirmed
gains probably made by Cyrus the Great and added large sections
of the northern Indian subcontinent to the list of Persian-
controlled provinces. Expansion in the west began about 516 BC
when Darius moved against the Hellespont as a first step toward
an attack on theScythians along the western and northern shores
of the Black Sea. The real strategic purpose behind this move
probably was to disrupt and, if possible, interrupt Greek trade
with the Black Sea area, which supplied much grain to Greece.
Crossing into Europe for the first time, Darius campaigned with
comparatively little success to the north of the Danube River. He
retreated in good order, however, with only limited losses, and a
bridgehead across the Hellespont was established.
Perhaps partly in response to these developments or perhaps for
more purely internal reasons, the Ionian Greek cities on the west
coast of Asia Minor revolted against Persian rule in 500 BC. The
Persians were apparently taken by surprise, and at first the
rebellion prospered. The Ionians received some limited assistance
from the Athenians and in 498 felt strong enough to make
another offensive. With one hand Darius negotiated; with the
other he assembled a counterattack. The first Persian military
efforts proved only partially successful, however, and the Ionians
enjoyed another respite in the years 496–495. A renewed Persian
offensive in 494 was successful. The Greek fleet was badly beaten
off Miletus, and the Persian land army began a systematic
reduction of the rebel cities. About 492 Mardonius, a son-in-law
of Darius, was made special commissioner to Ionia. He
suppressed local tyrants and returned democratic government to
many cities. In time the wounds caused by the revolt and its
suppression healed, and by 481 Xerxes was able to levy troops in
this region with little trouble.
By 492 BC Mardonius had also recovered Persian Thrace and
Macedonia, first gained in the campaign against the Scythians and
lost during the Ionian revolt. There followed the Persian invasion
of Greece that led to Darius's defeat at the Battle of Marathon late
in the summer of 490 BC. The great king was forced to retreat and
to face the fact that the Greek problem, which had probably
seemed to thePersians a minor issue on the western extremity of
the empire, would require a more concerted and massive effort.
Thus began preparations for an invasion of Greece on a grand,
coordinated scale. These plans were interrupted in 486 by two
events: a serious revolt in Egypt, and the death of Darius.
Xerxes I
Xerxes (reigned 486–465 BC), Darius's eldest son by Queen
Atossa, was born after his father had come to the throne; he had
been designated official heir perhaps as early as 498, and while
crown prince he had ruled as the king's governor in Babylon. The
new king quickly suppressed the revolt in Egypt in a single
7
campaign in 484. Xerxes then broke with the policy followed by
Cyrus and Darius of ruling foreign lands with a fairly light hand,
and, in a manner compatible with local traditions, he ruthlessly
ignored Egyptian forms of rule and imposed his will on the
rebellious province in a thoroughly Persian style. Plans for the
invasion of Greece begun under Darius were then still further
delayed by a major revolt in Babylonia about 482 BC, which also
was suppressed with a heavy hand.
Xerxes then turned his attention westward to Greece. He
wintered in Sardis in 481–480 and thence led a combined land and
sea invasion of Greece. Northern Greece fell to the invaders in the
summer of 480, the Greek stand at Thermopylae in August of 480
came to naught, and the Persian land forces marched on Athens,
taking and burning the Acropolis. But the Persian fleet lost the
Battle of Salamis, and the impetus of the invasion was blunted.
Xerxes, who had by then been away from Asia rather long for a
king with such widespread responsibilities, returned home and
left Mardonius in charge of further operations. The real end of the
invasion came with the Battle of Plataea, the fall of Thebes (a
stronghold of pro-Persian forces), and the Persian naval loss at
Mycale in 479. Of the three, thePersian loss at Plataea was
perhaps the most decisive. Up until Mardonius was killed, the
issue of the battle was probably still in doubt, but, once leaderless,
the less organized and less disciplined Persian forces collapsed.
Time and again in later years this was to be the pattern in such
encounters, for the Persians never solved the military problem
posed by the disciplined Greek hoplites.
The formation of the Delian League, the rise of Athenian
imperialism, troubles on the west coast of Asia Minor, and the
end of Persian military ambitions in the Aegean followed rapidly
in the decade after Plataea. Xerxes probably lost interest in the
proceedings and sank deeper and deeper into the comforts of life
in his capital cities of Susa, Ecbatana, and Persepolis. Harem
intrigues, which were steadily to sap the strength and vitality of
the Achaemenian Empire, led to the king's assassination in 465
BC.
Artaxerxes I to Darius III
The death of Xerxes was a major turning point in Achaemenian
history. Occasional flashes of vigour and intelligence by some of
Xerxes' successors were too infrequent to prevent eventual
collapse but did allow the empire to die gradually. It is a tribute
to Cyrus, Cambyses,and Darius that the empire they constructed
was as resilient as it proved to be after Xerxes.
The three kings that followed Xerxes on the throne— Artaxerxes I
(reigned 465–425 BC), Xerxes II (425–424), and Darius II Ochus
(423–404)—were all comparatively weak as individuals and as
kings, and such successes as the empire enjoyed during their
reigns were mainly the result of the efforts of subordinates or of
the troubles faced by their adversaries. Artaxerxes I faced several
rebellions, the most important of which was that of Egypt in 459,
not fully suppressed until 454. An advantageous peace (the Peace
of Callias) with Athens was signed in 448 BC, whereby the
Persians agreed to stay out of the Aegean and the Athenians
agreed to leave Asia Minor to the Achaemenids. Athens broke the
peace in 439 in an attack on Samos, and in its aftermath the
Persians made some military gains in the west. Xerxes II ruled
only about 45 days and was killed while in a drunken stupor by
the son of one of his father's concubines. Theassassin was himself
killed by Darius II, who rose to the throne through palace
intrigue. Several revolts marred his reign, including one in Media,
which was rather close to home.
The major event of these three reigns was the Peloponnesian War
between Sparta and Athens, which was fought, with occasional
pauses, over the latter decades of the 5th century BC. The
situation was ripe for exploitation by the famous “Persian
archers,” the gold coins of the Achaemenids that depicted an
archer on their obverse and that were used with considerable skill
by the Persians in bribingfirst one Greek state and then another.
Initially the Persians encouraged Athens against Sparta and from
this gained the Peace of Callias. Then, after the disastrous
Athenian campaign against Sicily in 413, the Persians intervened
on Sparta's side. By the treaty of Miletus in 412, the Persians
recovered complete freedom in western Asia Minor in return for
agreeing to pay for seamen to man the Peloponnesian fleet.
Persian gold and Spartan soldiers brought about the fall of Athens
in 404 BC. Despite the fact that the Persians played the two sides
against each other to their own advantage, they should have done
better. One observes a certain lack of control from Susa by the
king in these proceedings, and the two principal governors in
Asia Minor who were involved, Tissaphernes of Sardis and
Pharnabazus of Hellespontine Phrygia, seemed to have permitted
a personal power rivalry to stand in the way of a really
coordinated Persian intervention in the Greek war. When Egypt
revolted in 405 BC, Persia was unable to do much about it, and
from that point forward Egypt remained essentially an
independent state.
revolted again in 401 BC and, supported by 10,000 Greek
mercenaries, marched eastward to contest the throne. He was
defeated and killed at the Battle of Cunaxa in Mesopotamia that
summer. The Greek mercenaries, however, were not broken and,
though harried, left the field in good order and began their
famous march, recorded in the Anabasis of Xenophon, north to
the Black Sea and home. Probably no other event in late
Achaemenian history revealed more clearly to the Greeks the
essential internal weakness of the Achaemenian Empire than the
escape of so large a body of men from the very heart of the
Persian domain.
Since 379 BC Artaxerxes had been gathering Greek mercenaries in
order to mount a campaign against Egypt. An attack in 373 failed
against the native Egyptian 30th dynasty. On the heels of this
failure came the revolt of the satraps, or provincial governors.
Several satraps rose against the central power, and one, Aroandas
(Orontes), a satrap of Armenia, went so far as to stamp his own
gold coinage as a direct challenge to Artaxerxes. The general plan
of the rebels appears to have been for a combined attack. The
rebel satraps were to coordinate their march eastward through
Syria with an Egyptian attack, under the king Tachos, and
support by Greek mercenaries. The Egyptian attack was called off
because of a revolt in Egypt by Tachos's brother, and Artaxerxes
managed to defeat the satraps whowere left alone to face the
king's wrath. Several of the satraps, including Aroandas, were
actually forgiven and returned to their governorships. In general
the impression is that, in the end, rather than fight the central
authority, the satraps were willing to return to their own
provinces and plunder there in the name of Artaxerxes. Perhaps
they saw that they actually had more authority and more control
over real events in their own provincial territories than
Artaxerxes had in his empire.

Artaxerxes II came to the throne in 404 and reigned until 359 BC. Plot and counterplot, harem intrigue, and murder brought
The main events of his long rule were the war with Sparta that Artaxerxes III to the throne in 359 BC. He promptly exterminated
endedwith a peace favourable to the Persians; the revolt and loss many of his relatives who might have challenged his rule—all to
to the empire of Egypt; the rebellion of Cyrus the Younger, no avail, for revolts continued to rock the empire. A fresh attempt
brother of the king; and the uprising known as the revolt of the to win back Egypt was repulsed in 351. This setback encouraged
satraps. revolt in Sidon and eventually in all of Palestine and Phoenicia.
Parts of Cilicia joined the rebellion, but the revolt there was
Sparta, triumphant over Athens, built a small empire of its own crushed in 345, the same year it had begun. Peace was achieved
and was soon involved in a war against the Persians, the principal only temporarily; mercenaries from Thebes and the Argives, as
issue again being the Greek cities of Asia Minor. While Sparta well as from the Greek cities of Asia Minor, gathered for a new
played one Persian governor in Anatolia against the other, the attempt on Egypt. Led by Artaxerxes III himself, it succeeded in
Persians spent gold in Greece to raise rebellion on Sparta's home 343 BC. But the local Egyptian dynasty fled south to Nubia, where
ground. The Persians rebuilt their fleet and placed a competent it maintained an independent kingdom that kept alive the hopes
Athenian admiral, Conon, in command. The contest continued of a dynastic revival. Persia then misplayed its hand in Greece by
from 400 to 387, with Sparta forced to act on an ever-shrinking refusing aid to Athens against the rising power of Philip II of
front. A revitalized Athens, supported by Persia, created a balance Macedon. In 339 BC Persian troops were fighting alone in Thrace
of power in Greece, and eventually Artaxerxes was able to step in, against the Macedonians, and in the following year, at the Battle
at the Greeks' request, and dictate the so-called King's Peace of of Chaeronea, Philip extended his hegemony over all of Greece—
387–386 BC. Once again the Greeks gave up any claim to Asia a united Greece that was to prove impervious to Persian gold.
Minor and further agreed to maintainthe status quo in Greece
itself. Artaxerxes was poisoned by his physician at the order of the
eunuch Bagoas. The latter made Artaxerxes' youngest son, Arses,
Cyrus the Younger, though caught in an assassination attempt at king (338–336 BC) in hopes of being the power behind the throne,
the time of Artaxerxes' coronation, was nevertheless forgiven and but Arses did not bend easily to Bagoas's will. He attempted to
wasreturned to the command of a province in Asia Minor. But he poison the kingmaker but was himself killed in retaliation. Bagoas

8
then engineered the accession of Darius III, a 45-year-old former
satrap of Armenia. So many members of the royal house had been
murdered in the court intrigue that Darius probably held the
closest blood claim to the throne by virtue of being the
grandnephew of Artaxerxes II. Darius was able to put down yet
another rebellion in Egypt under Khababash in 337–336 BC, but
the beginning of the end of the Achaemenian Empire came soon
afterward, in May 334, when he lost the Battle of Granicus to
Alexander the Great. Persepolis fell to the invader in April 330,
and Darius, the last Achaemenid, was murdered in the summer of
the same year while fleeing the conqueror. His unfinished tomb at
Persepolis bears witness to his lack of preparation.
Alexander did not win his victories easily, however, and the
catalog of troubles that marked the latter part of the Achaemenian
Empire—rebellions, murders, weak kings trapped in the harems,
missed chances, and foolish policies—cannot be the whole story.
The sources, mostly Greek, are often prejudiced against the
Persians and tend to view events from but a single point of view.
No government could have lasted so long, found its way
somehow through so many difficulties, and in the end actually
have fought so hard against the conqueror without having much
virtue with which to balance its vices.
Achaemenian society and culture
The culture that developed under the Achaemenids was in reality
the collective societies and cultures of the many subject peoples of
the empire. From this mosaic it is sometimes difficult to sort out
that which isdistinctively Persian or distinctively a development
of the Achaemenian period and therefore perhaps an early Iranian
contribution to general Middle Eastern society and culture.
Language
The languages of the empire were as varied as its peoples. The
Persians, at least originally, spoke Old Persian, a southwestern
dialect of Iranian (Median was a northwestern Iranian dialect),
and were a nonliterate society. Their language was first written
when Darius commanded that a script suitable for this purpose be
invented so that he might inscribe the record of his rise to power
at Bīsotūn (the inscriptions in Old Persian attributed to earlier
kings were likely written during the reign of Darius or are later
historical forgeries). That few could read Old Persian might be the
reason why Darius at Bīsotūn established the tradition that royal
inscriptions should be trilingual in Old Persian, Babylonian, and
Elamite. Old Persian was never a working written language of the
empire. Elamite, written on clay tablets, appears to have been the
language of many of the administrators in Persis and, it may be
assumed, in Elam. Archives of administrative documents in
Elamite have been found at Persepolis. Aramaic, however, was
the language of much of the empire and was probably the
language most used in the imperial bureaucracy. The beginnings
of the strong influence of Aramaic on Persian, which is so evident
in the Middle Persian of Sāsānian times, can already be seen in the
Old Persian royal inscriptions of late Achaemenian times. (See
also Iranian languages.)
Social organization
9
Little is known of Iranian social organization in the period. In
general, it was based on feudal lines that were drawn in part by
economic and social functions. Traditional Indo-Iranian society
consisted of three classes: the warriors or aristocracy, the priests,
and the farmers or herdsmen. Crosscutting these divisions was a
tribal structure based on patrilineal descent. The title king of
kings, used even in the 20th century by the shahs of Iran, implies
that the central authority exercised power through a pyramidal
structure that was controlled at levels below the supreme
authority by individuals who were themselves, in a certain sense,
kings. Traditionally, the king was elected from a particular family
by the warrior class; he was sacred, and a certain royal charisma
attached to his person.
Such a method of organizing and controlling society undoubtedly
changed under the influences and demands of imperial power
and underwent much modification as Iranians increasingly
borrowed social and political ideas from the peoples they ruled.
Even in later times, nevertheless, there is evidence that the
original Iranian concepts of kingship and social organization were
still honoured and remained the ideals of Persian culture.
Religion
Iranian religion in the pre-Achaemenian and Achaemenian
periods is a subject on which there is little scholarly agreement.
When the Iranians first entered the dim light of the protohistoric
period, they were certainly polytheists whose religious beliefs and
practices closely paralleled other Indo-Iranian and Indo-European
groups at the same stage in history. Their gods were associated
with natural phenomena, with social, military, and economic
functions, and with abstract concepts such as justice and truth.
Their religious practices included, among others, animal sacrifice,
a reverence for fire, and the drinking of the juice of the haoma
plant, a natural intoxicant.
Probably about 600 BC there arose in the northeast of the plateau
the great Iranian religious prophet and teacher Zoroaster
(Zarathushtra). The history of the religion that he founded is even
more complicated and controversial than the history of pre-
Zoroastrian Iranian religion. Yet certain features of his religious
reform stand out. He was an ethical prophet of the highest rank,
stressing constantly the need to act righteously and to speak the
truth and abhor the lie. In his teaching, the lie was almost
personified as the Druj, chief in the kingdom of the demons, to
which he relegated many of the earlier Indo-Iranian deities. His
god was Ahura Mazdā, who, it seems likely, was a creation, in
name and attributes, of Zoroaster. Though in a certain sense
technically monotheistic, early Zoroastrianism viewed the world
in strongly dualistic terms, for Ahura Mazdā and the “Lie” were
deeply involved in a struggle for the human soul. Zoroaster, as
might be expected, attempted to reform earlier Iranian religious
practices and beliefs. He first rejected and then perhaps allowed
in a modified form the practice of the haoma cult, clearly
condemned the practice of animal sacrifice, and elevated to
central importance in the ritual a reverence for fire. Fire worship,
however, is a misnomer, because the Zoroastrians have never
worshiped fire but rather have revered it as the symbol par
excellence of truth.
The crucial question is: Were the Achaemenids Zoroastrians or at
least followers of the prophet in the terms in which they
understood his message? Possibly Cyrus the Great was, probably
Darius I was, and almost certainly Xerxes I and his successors
were. Such a simple answer to the question is possible, however,
only if it is understood that Zoroastrianism as a religion had
already undergone considerable development and modification
since Zoroaster's lifetime, influenced by the beliefs and practices
and by the religions of those people of the Middle East with
whom the expanding Iranians had intimate contact.
The god of the Achaemenian kings was the great Ahura Mazdā,
from whom they understood they had received their empire and
with whose aid they accomplished all deeds. Xerxes and his
successors mention other deities by name, but Ahura Mazdā
remains supreme. Darius names only Ahura Mazdā in his
inscriptions. More significant, however, is Darius's tone, which is
entirely compatible with the moral tone of Zoroaster and, in some
instances, even compatible with details of Zoroaster's theology.
During the reigns of Darius and Xerxes, the archaeological record
reveals that religious rituals were in force that were also
compatible with an evolved and evolving Zoroastrianism. The
haoma cult was practiced at Persepolis, but animal sacrifice is not the empire and the Persians' understanding of how that empire
attested. More important, fire clearly played a central role in
Achaemenian religion.
There may have been religious overtones in the quarrel between
Cambyses and Darius on the one hand and the false Bardiya—a
magus, or Median priest—on the other. Certainly there were
religious as well as political motivations behind Xerxes'
suppression of the daeva ( deva ) worshipers and the destruction founded by Darius the Great and used by all his successors, one
of their temple. It is possible that there was some conflict among
the royal Achaemenids,who were followers of one form of
Zoroastrianism, the supporters of a different version of
Zoroastrianism as practiced by other Iranians, believers in older
forms of Iranian religion, and believers in foreign religions, which created by any of the foreign groups who supplied the king of
in the light of Zoroaster's teachings were reprehensible.
Compromises and syncretism, however, probably could not be
prevented. Though the Zoroastrian calendar was adopted as the
official calendar of the empire in the reign of Artaxerxes I, by the
time of Artaxerxes II the ancient Iranian god Mithra and the
goddess Anāhitā (Anahīti) had been accepted in the royal religion peoples for artists because they were themselves crude barbarians
alongside Ahura Mazdā.
Thus, in a sense, the Achaemenian kings were Zoroastrians, but
Zoroastrianism itself was probably no longer exactly the religion
Zoroaster had attempted to establish. What the religion of the
people beyond court circles may have been is almost impossible
to say. One suspects that a variety of ancient Iranian cults and
beliefs were prevalent. The magi, the traditional priests of the
Medes, may have wielded more influence in the countryside than examples suffice: the tradition of the columned hall in
they did at court, and popular beliefs and practices may have
been more deeply influenced by contact with other peoples and
other religions. Later classical Zoroastrianism, as known in the
Sāsānian period, was an amalgam of such popular cults, of the
religion of the Achaemenian court, and of the teachings of the
prophet in their purer form. (See also Zoroastrianism.)
10
Art
Achaemenian art, like Achaemenian religion, was a blend of
many elements. In describing, with justifiable pride, the
construction of his palace at Susa, Darius says,
The cedar timber—a mountain by name Lebanon—from there it
was brought…the yakā-timber was brought from Gandara and
from Carmania. The gold was brought from Sardis and from
Bactria…the precious stone lapis-lazuli and carnelian…was
brought from Sogdiana. The…turquoise from Chorasmia…. The
silver and ebony…from Egypt…the ornamentation from Ionia…
the ivory…from Ethiopia and from Sind and from Arachosia….
The stone-cutters who wrought the stone, those were Ionians and
Sardians. The goldsmiths…were Medes and Egyptians. The men
who wrought the wood, those were Sardians and Egyptians. The
men who wrought the baked brick, those were Babylonians. The
men who adorned the wall, those were Medes and Egyptians.
This was an imperial art on a scale the world had not seen before.
Materials and artists were drawn from all the lands ruled by the
great king, and thus tastes, styles, and motifs became mixed
together in an eclectic art and architecture that in itself mirrored
ought to function. Yet the whole was entirely Persian. Just as the
Achaemenids were tolerant in matters of local government and
custom as long as Persians controlled the general policy and
administration of the empire, so also were they tolerant in art so
long as the finished and total effect was Persian. At Pasargadae,
the capital of Cyrus the Great and Cambyses in the Persian
homeland (Fārs), and at Persepolis, the neighbouring city
can trace to a foreign origin almost all the details in the
construction and embellishment of the architecture and the
sculptured reliefs, but the conception, planning, and overall
finished product are distinctly Persian and could not have been
kings with artistic talent. This was true also of the decorative arts,
at which the Persians excelled: fine metal tableware, jewelry, seal
cutting, weaponry and its decoration, and pottery.
It has been suggested that the Persians called on the subject
with little taste and needed quickly to create an imperial art to
match their sudden rise to political power. Yet excavations at sites
from the protohistoric period show this not to have been the case.
Cyrus may have been the leader of Persian tribes not yet as
sophisticated nor as civilized as the Babylonians or Egyptians,
but, when he chose to build Pasargadae, he had a long artistic
tradition behind him that was probably already distinctly Iranian
and that was in many ways the equal of any. To show this, two
architecture and fine gold work. The former can now be seen as
belonging to an architectural tradition on the Iranian plateau that
extended back through the Median period to at least the
beginning of the 1st millennium BC. The rich Achaemenian gold
work, which inscriptions suggest may have been a specialty of the
Medes, was in the tradition of the delicate metalwork found in
Iron Age II times at Hasanlu and still earlier at Marlik. Persepolis,
primarily the creation of Darius and Xerxes, is one ofthe great Both the civil and the military administration, as well as public
artistic legacies of the ancient world, with its carefully and private trade, were greatly facilitated by the famous royal
proportioned and well-organized ground plan, rich architectural Achaemenian road system. Communications throughout the
ornament, and magnificent decorative reliefs. empire were better than any previous Middle Eastern power had
maintained. The famous road from Susa to Sardis in western Asia
The organization and achievement of the Achaemenian Empire Minor is the best known of these imperial highways. It was an all-
weather road maintained by the state. Over it ran a governmental
At the centre of the empire sat the king of kings. Around him was postal system based on relay stations with remounts and fresh
gathered a court composed of powerful hereditary landholders, riders located a day's ride apart. The speed with which a message
the upper echelons of the army, the harem, religious functionaries, could travel from the provinces to the king at Susa was
and the bureaucracy that administered the whole. This court lived remarkable.
mainly in Susa but went in the hot summer months to Ecbatana
(modern Hamadān), probably in the spring to Persepolis in Fārs, On the whole, Persian rule sat lightly on the subject peoples, at
and perhaps sometimes to Babylon. In a smaller version it least under the early Achaemenids. It was a conscious policy of
traveled with the king when he was away in the provinces. Cyrus and Darius to permit conquered nations to retain their own
religions, customs, methods of doing business, and even to some
The provinces, or satrapies, were ruled by satraps (governors), extent forms of government. This policy was exemplified by
technically appointed by the central authority but who often Cyrus's attitude toward the Babylonians, which led to his being
became hereditary subkings, particularly in the later years of the accepted as the rightful successor of Nabonidus, his willingness to
empire. They were surrounded and assisted in their functions by permit the Jews to return to Palestine and to their own way of life,
a court modeled on that of the central government and were and his successors' concern that this promise be honoured;
powerful officials. The great king was nevertheless theoretically Cambyses' behaviour in Egypt and his acceptance by the
able to maintain considerable control in local affairs. He was the Egyptians as founder of a legitimate new Egyptian dynasty; and
last court of appeal in judicial matters. He directly controlled the the policy adopted under Mardonius toward the Ionian cities
standing military forces stationed in the provinces, though as time following their rebellion. Perhaps even in the later empire,
went on the military and civil authority in the provinces tended to rebellious peoples, governments, and leaders were too often
become combined under the satrap. The king was also aided in forgiven and not suppressed with the thoroughness sometimes
keeping control in the provinces by the so-called king's eyes or, characteristic of other regimes. Lapses in this policy, such as
better, the king's ears—officials from the central government who Xerxes' violent reaction to rebellion in Babylon, stand out in
traveled throughout the empire and who reported directly back to therecord.
the king on what they learned. The number of provinces and their
boundaries varied greatly from time to time; at the beginning of Law played an important role in the administration of the empire,
Darius's reign there were 20 provinces. In general, as time went and stories of Persian justice abound in the Greek sources. Darius
on, the number increased, partly because of the need to reassert particularly wished to be remembered as the great lawgiver, and
control over the satraps by decreasing their power base, partly law reform was one of the cornerstones in his program for
because the feudal structure that underlay Persian society reorganizing the empire. To judge from the Babylonian evidence,
required rewarding more and more people with a role in two sets of law, possibly administered by two sets of courts, were
government, and partly because the original 20 provinces were in force in the provinces. One was the local law, undoubtedly
undoubtedly simply too large to permit efficient administration. based on custom and previous local codifications; the other was
the Persian, or imperial, law, based ultimately on the authority of
The army was a particularly important element within the empire. the great king. A new word for law appeared in the Middle East
It, too, developed and changed with time. After Cyrus the Persian in Achaemenian times, the Iranian dāta, and was borrowed by the
tribal levy, based on the responsibility of all male Persians to fight Semitic languages used in the empire. In Babylonian and
for the king, was replaced by a professional standing army Aramaic, sources give evidence for Persian judges called by the
supplemented by a troop levy from the subject peoples in times of Iranian word dāta-bar. These were probably the judges of the
intensive military activity. The elite of the standing army were the imperial courts.
10,000 “immortals,” composed of Persians and Medes, 1,000 of
whom were the personal guard of the king. The person who With legal reform came reform and unification of tax structures.
controlled this elite guard, as did Darius on the death of The tax structure of the empire was apparently based on the
Cambyses, usually controlled all. The troops of the imperial levy principle that all of the conquered lands were the actual property
fought alongside the regular army in national units, were armed of the king. Thus taxes were rather rents, and the Persians and
according to their individual customs, but were usually officered their land, Fārs, by virtue of not being a conquered people or
by Persians. Permanent bodies of troops were stationed at land, were always tax-free. Each province was required to pay
strategic points throughout the empire, and, to judge from the yearly a fixed amount in gold or silver, and each vassal state paid
garrison at Elephantine in Egypt, these were actually military a fixed tribute in kind. Again going on the Babylonian evidence,
colonies, firmly settled into the local countryside. Greek in previous times agricultural taxes had been levied in fixed
mercenaries were used with increasing frequency in later years, amounts regardless of the fluctuating quality of the harvest, but
and many Greeks fought faithfully for Persian silver. under Darius all land was surveyed, an estimate of its yield

11
(based on an average of the harvests over several years) was from survived from a family banking business in Babylonia—the house
time to time established, and taxes were levied in fixed amounts of Murashu and sons of Nippur—covering the years c. 455–403
based on a percentage of that average yield. This was not quite an BC; the firm evidently prospered greatly by lending money and
income tax, since it was not based on a percentage of each year's by acting as a middleman in the system of tax collection. Interest
production, but it was at least a reasonable figure based on a rates were high, but borrowers were numerous.
reasonable production average.
As time went on, there were clearly more and more such
Breakdowns often occurred in the Achaemenids' effort to borrowers, for the later empire is marked by a general economic
maintain a productive balance between local social structures, decline. The principal cause of this decline was the unsettled
customs, laws,and government and the demands of the empire. political conditions, but other, more indirect causes were unwise
The failure of the Persians to find such a balance when dealing government interference in the economy, overtaxation, and the
with what was for them an extremely strange system of social and removal of too much hard money from the economy. Gold and
political organization—the Greek polis, or city-state—probably silver tended to drain into the treasury of the central government
lay at the heart of their never-ending troubles in Ionia as much as from the provinces, and too little found its way back into general
did the power and ambitions of mainland Greeks. Yet even the circulation. Disastrous inflation was the result. The large sums of
Ionians, at the best of times, often realized the mutual advantages money paid to foreign mercenaries and as bribes to foreign
and benefits of the king's peace and a unified western Asia under governments must also have contributed to an unfavourable
a tolerant central administration. balance of payments that in turn stimulated inflation. Such
conditions hardly strengthened the empire and must have
The economy of the empire was very much founded on that king's contributed, in ways that cannot be documented with certainty, to
peace; it was when the peace broke down with ever-increasing the political unrest that was their own main cause.
frequency during the last century of Achaemenian rule that the
economy of the empire went into a decline that undoubtedly Ultimately, the achievement of the Achaemenian Persians was
contributed significantly to the eventual political and military that they ruled with such creative tolerance over an area and a
collapse. Wealth in the Achaemenian world was very much time that, for both the Middle East and for Europe, included the
founded on land and on agriculture. Land was the principal end of the ancient and the beginning of the modern world. In one
reward that the king had available for those who gave service or sense, theancient Middle East died when Cyrus marched into
who were in positions of great political or military power in the Babylon. Others would argue that its death came when Alexander
empire. Under Darius there was a measure of land called a “bow” burned Persepolis. The question remains open. What is clear is
that was originally a unit considered sufficient to support one that the Achaemenian Empire—the largest anyone had ever yet
bowman, who then paid his duty for the land in military service. tried to hold together and one that was not surpassed until Rome
At the other end of the scale were enormous family estates, which reached its height—was a profound force in western Asia and in
often increased in size over the years and which were or became Europe during an important period of ferment and transition in
hereditary holdings. They were often administered by absentee human history. That era was one of major developments in art,
landlords. Such major landholdings were, as one would expect, philosophy, literature, historiography, religion, exploration,
usually in the hands of Iranians, but non-Iranians were also able economics, and science, and those developments provided the
to amass similar wealth and power, thereby testifying once again direct background for the further changes, along similar lines,
to the inherent tolerance with which the empire was that made the Hellenistic period so important in history.
administered. The Achaemenids themselves took a positive role in Hellenism probably would not have been possible, at least not in
encouraging agriculture by investing state funds and effort in the form we know it, if it had had to build directly on the rather
irrigation and the improvement of horticulture. more narrow and less ambitious bases of the individual
civilizations of Babylon, Egypt, or Greece. In a sense, the
They also invested in and endeavoured to promote trade, a major Achaemenian Persians passed on a concept of empire that, much
source of imperial wealth. The effect of the state-maintained road modified by others, has remained something of a model of how it
system on the encouragement of trade has already been is possible for diverse peoples with variant customs, languages,
mentioned. Equal attention was paid to developing seaborne religions, laws, andeconomic systems to flourish with mutual
trade. State-sponsored voyages of exploration were undertaken in profit under a central government. In narrower terms, but for the
order to search for new markets and new resources. Darius Iranians themselves no lessimportant, the Achaemenian Empire is
completed a project, begun by the Egyptians, that connected the seen as the beginning of the Iranian nation, one of the pivotal
Nile to the Red Sea by a canal, so that routes across the Arabian peoples in the modern Middle East.
Sea and into the Persian Gulf could be used to link the eastern and
western ends of his empire. As part of the same program, port The Hellenistic and Parthian periods
development on the Persian Gulf coast was encouraged. Imperial
standardized weights and measures, efforts to develop and use Alexander and his successors
coinage, and standardizingthat coinage in the king's name were
all policies intended to encourage commerce and economic Between 334 and 330 BC Alexander completed the conquest of the
activity within the realm. whole Achaemenian Empire. (For the story of the conquest, see
Alexander the Great and ancient Greek civilization: Alexander the
Banking also played a role in the economy. Documents have Great.) Alexander's burning of the royal palace at Persepolis in

12
330 symbolized the passing of the old order and the introduction Seleucids' “pro-Macedonian” policies, was one of the principal
of Greek civilization into western Asia. Greek and Macedonian causes for the progressive decline of the Seleucid empire.
soldiers settled in large numbers in Mesopotamia and Iran.
Alexander encouraged intermarriage and fostered Greek culture, The second of the human factors, the nomads, inhabited the
but he also retained a large part of the Achaemenian immense territories beyond the northern frontiers. They fought
administrative structure and introduced Oriental elements and constantly with the settled populations but could nevertheless
Greek political institutions. occasionally ally with them in the face of necessity. When
Alexander arrived on the banks of the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) River,
Alexander left no heir. His death in 323 BC signaled the beginning it marked the limit of the “civilized” world; beyond stretched the
of a period of prolonged internecine warfare among the Eurasian wilderness. The Roman historian Quintus Curtius
Macedonian generals for control of his enormous empire. By the recounts Alexander's meeting with a delegation of Scythians who
end of the 4th century BC, Seleucus I Nicator had consolidated gave him a warning.They told him,
his control over that part of Alexander's territory that had
corresponded to the Achaemenian Empire. Seleucus—who, with Just cross the Tanais [properly the Jaxartes] and you will see how
his son Antiochus I Soter, assumed supreme power—established far Scythia stretches. You will never conquer the Scythians. Our
a government with two capitals: Antioch on the Orontes River in poverty makes us quicker than your army, which bears plunder
Syria and Seleucia on the Tigris River in Babylonia. The greatest from so many nations. Just when you think we are far away, then
part of western Asia—from the Aegean to the Punjab—belonged will you see us in your camp. We know how to pursue and how
to this vast Seleucid kingdom, and to its diverse and varied to flee with the same swiftness. [One recalls here the famous
populace must be added several allied Greek cities, both in Greece “Parthian shot,” a metaphor drawn from a neighbouring people.]
and in Asia Minor. (See also Mesopotamia, history of: We seek out those deserts totally devoid of human culture rather
Mesopotamia from c. 320 BC to c. AD 620.) than the cities and the rich countryside.

The nobles and the nomads These words sum up what the nomad world represented to an
empire that stretched several thousand miles from east to west.
As he was finishing the conquest of eastern Iran—and at a The settled population knew the threat only too well. Alexander
moment when his attention was being drawn toward the conquest was not the first to cross swords with the nomads. Cyrus II,
of India—Alexander was confronted by two human factors that founder of the Achaemenian Empire, had paid with his life while
were of the greatest importance for the future of his empire. The fighting them, and Darius I, believing he could take them from
first of these was the powerful local aristocracy of this part of the behind through southern Russia, suffered a crushing defeat in his
Achaemenian Empire, which held enormous properties and campaign against the Scythians along the shores of the Black Sea.
dominated the indigenous population. The second was the nomad
population that for centuries had wandered along the northern If the nomads and the eastern Iranian nobility were the two
and northeastern frontiers of Iran. dominant factors in the decline of the Seleucid kingdom and if the
events they provoked were some of the principal causes for the
Alexander seems to have admired greatly the barons of eastern exhaustion and eventual fall of that state, these same causes later
Iran; he had taken note of their ardour during the two years of played a significant role in the collapse of Parthian power. Parthia
hard and constant fighting in his conquest of northeastern Iran. was undermined by an aristocracy that retained its military
Realizing how such a force could benefit the future of his empire, power and refusedto bend before the royal will or to give up its
Alexander convoked an assembly of Bactrian nobles. He ordered meddling in the country's politics. In the meantime the kingdom's
30,000 young men to be chosen for training in the Macedonian unruly nomadic neighbours to the north and the northeast, at the
military disciplines. He understood the importance and cost of the lives of several Parthian sovereigns, weakened the
effectiveness of the Iranian light cavalry armed with the bow, and kingdom and sometimes added a complementary element to the
his army would make use of this training in its march toward the often numerous intrigues of the pretenders to supreme power
plains of India. Alexander married Roxana of Sogdiana, daughter during the course ofthe almost half a millennium of the existence
of a chief of one of the conquered countries, thereby symbolizing of the Parthian kingdom.
the union of the two peoples.
The Seleucids
But Alexander was not unaware that other measures were needed
to ensure his control of these vast territories. He founded many In the struggle for power after Alexander's death, Seleucus I
new cities, or refounded some that were already in existence. brought under his control the whole eastern part of Alexander's
Many of these were placed strategically along the northern empire. But even before he had consolidated his control over this
frontiers as protection. Almost half of these new cities were territory, the eastern provinces on the Indian frontier had begun
located in the high (eastern) satrapies. This policy of Alexander's to revolt. By about 304 BC Seleucus was forced to abandon these
would soon be abandoned by the Seleucids, whose efforts at city to Candra Gupta I, the founder of the great Maurya empire in
planning were mostly confined to their western possessions. In India. This was a serious loss to the Seleucids, for they lost not
contrast with Alexander, the Seleucids were unable to maintain only the Indian territory conquered by Alexander but also frontier
the good rapport with the eastern Iranian nobility that Alexander districts west of the Indus River. As recompense, Seleucus
had believed essential. And this deficiency, a result of the received 500 elephants, which he took back with him to Syria.

13
From this time on, the west was dominant in the Seleucids'
politics, to the detriment of their eastern possessions. This near Revolt of the high satrapies
disinterest of the Seleucids in the far-off eastern regions must have
alienated the Greeks who had settled there, far from their The empire of the Seleucids, like that of the Achaemenids before
homeland, and the thought of taking back their full independence them, was shaken by revolts of the satraps. The difficult situation
could not have been far from their minds. in the west and the grave reverses suffered by the royal house
accelerated the weakening of the Macedonian kingdom. The loss
Soon afterward (c. 290–280 BC) the two eastern provinces of of its eastern possessions in the 3rd century BC, however, proved
Margiana and Aria suffered an invasion by nomads. But the fatal to the Seleucid cause. Diodotus I, a Greek who found
invasion was repelled, and the nomads were pushed back beyond himself at the head of the satrapy of Bactria, led a revolt that
the Jaxartes. Demodamas, a general to the first two Seleucid kings, brought independence about 250 BC; at about the same time,
crossed the river and even put up altars to Apollo, ancestor of the Arsaces led the Scythian Parni into Parthia and defeated
dynasty. Alexandria in Margiana and Heraclea in Aria, founded Andragoras, establishing an independent native dynasty.
by Alexander, wererebuilt by Antiochus I under the names
Antioch and Achaea, respectively, and a wall nearly 100 miles Parthia was the first province to detach itself from the Seleucid
(160 km) long was put up to protect the oasis of Merv against empire, just as it had been the first to rise up on the occasion of
future invasions, the menace of which was never far away. the accession of Darius the Great. Andragoras, though he did not
Patrocles received a commission to explorethe Caspian Sea. declare himself king, showed his independence by minting his
own coins.At this time Parthia was one of the poorer of the high
Seleucus I and his successors hoped to Hellenize Asia and held satrapies, caught between the mountains and the great central
the conviction that the Greeks and Macedonians were a superior desert and without large agricultural resources. This satrapal
people and the bearers of a superior civilization. A network of independence might seem surprising if it were not for the fact
cities and military colonies was built to assure the stability of a that the main route for the silk trade crossed right through Parthia
state whose inhabitants would be Asians. The Greek language over a distance of more than 100 miles (160 km). The tolls the
made deep inroads, especially among the families of those caravans paid must have produced a sizable income.
numerous Greeks who married the local women and among those
engaged in commerce. But after the 2nd century BC and the The defection of Diodotus I is still easier to understand. Bactria, a
slowing of the Greco-Macedonian immigration, the Greek vast country of a “thousand cities,” was located at the junction of
language lost ground and the local element became dominant. the routes to China and India, and it was rich in cultivable land.
The Greco-Bactrian kingdom founded by Diodotus expanded
The people of Iran, particularly those in the upper stratum of rapidly, embracing Sogdiana and Aria and extending southward
society, borrowed nothing from Hellenism but its exterior forms. and southeastward.
Even the Iranians who lived in such cities as Seleucia or Susa do
not seem to have been deeply affected by Greek ideas. Being at some distance from the west, Diodotus and his
successors gradually adopted the customs and lifestyles of their
The movement of Iranian peoples subjects. The closer these ties were drawn, the stronger became
the loyalty of the Bactrians. It is believed that the separation of
The victories of Alexander had brought the Greeks to the limits of Diodotus from the Seleucids might, over the long term, have
the known world. But less than a century after Alexander's death seemed to the Bactrians and Sogdians as the realization of their
there began a great movement back, propelled by stirring peoples political destiny, and they might have looked on these satraps as
in the Iranian world. In a movement westward from the 3rd men acting in their interest. For more than a century (230–130 BC)
century BC, the Sarmatians occupied the northern shore of the this kingdom held the frontiers and barred the route to the
Black Sea. While driving back their close relatives, the Scythians, nomads.
they succeeded in “Sarmatizing” the Greek cities along its shores.
At the end of the 3rd century, there began in Chinese Turkistan a The rise of the Parthians
long migration of the Yuezhi, an Iranian people who invaded
Bactria about 130 BC, putting an end to the Greco-Bactrian Invasion of the Parni
kingdom there. (In the 1st century BC they created the Kushān
dynasty, whose rule extended from Afghanistan to the Ganges Arsaces, who was chief of the Parni (a member tribe of the Dahae
River and from Russian Turkistan to the estuary of the Indus.) confederation) must have begun his struggle against the Seleucids
Finally, the Parni, a nomadic or seminomadic people from Iran, from 247 BC, the year from whichthe Parthians dated their
appeared in the mid 3rd century BC. Taking a median direction history. This does not necessarily mean that Arsaces was crowned
between the Sarmatians and Yuezhiuezhi, the Parni gained king in 247. Other Iranian dynasties (e.g., the Sāsānids; see below
control of the Seleucid satrapy of Parthia andcreated the Parthian The Sāsānian period) dated the beginning of their eras from the
(Ashkanian) kingdom. The Parthian state restored Achaemenian time when they began to establish their power rather than from
power for nearly half a millennium, and its arrival coincided with the time of coronation of the first monarch of their line.
the expansion of Rome and played a significant role in the
destinies of the world during the last three centuries BC and the Daho-Parno-Parthian tribes “chose chiefs for war and princes for
first two centuries AD. peace” from among the closest circle of the royal family. They

14
were famous for their breeding of horses, their combat cavalry,
and their fine archers. Alexander encountered them during his
Bactrian campaign, and the Greek writers who recorded his reign
remarked on their agility and effectiveness as horsemen. They
were a people who kept the traditions of patriarchal tribal
organization. The Parni, with Arsaces at their head, took the
province of Parthia after having beaten Andragoras; soon
neighbouring Hyrcania was annexed, and the Parni reached the
Caspian Sea. Arsaces had himself crowned in the city of Asaak,
and the tribe took the name of the Parthians, their close relatives,
which was derived from a word meaning “exiled.” Their
language was closely related to Scythian and Median. The
dynasty these people produced never broke its links with the
people, and rare was the Arsacid dynastic sovereign who did not
turn to his peoplein time of danger.
Formation of the Parthian state
Although the two new kingdoms, that of Arsaces I's Parthians and
the Greco-Bactrian kingdom of Diodotus I, sprang up almost
simultaneously and very near each other, there were notable
differences between them. The motivating force behind the
rebellion in Bactria was an association—or perhaps even a
collaboration—between the local nobility (large landholders who
dominated the whole indigenous population) and the local Greek
community. Both groups were opposed to the Macedonian
domination represented by the Seleucid dynasty.
The makeup of the Parthian kingdom seems to have been
different. It was essentially built on the relationship of the
inhabitants of Parthia to the neighbouring tribes outside the static
frontiers—an ethnic mass, half nomadic and half settled, that
inhabited the north of Iran. The success of Arsaces and his men
was based on their strength, their spirit, and the weakness of their
enemies. The Greek element present in Parthia does not seem to
have played a role similar to that played by its counterpart in
Bactria. In fact, the Parthians,at least initially, may have been
hostile to the local Greek populations. During their war with
Antiochus III (see below ), they massacred all the Greek
inhabitants of the city of Syrinx in Hyrcania.
Arsaces
Arsaces seems to have enjoyed great fame among the tribes. His
name remained linked with the names of the sovereigns of this
dynasty, who succeeded each other for the four and a half
centuries of the Parthian state. His image regularly appeared on
the obverseof Parthian coins until the end of the period.
The rupture of the communications link between the Seleucid
capitals and the east caused by Arsaces' success placed Diodotus
in a difficult situation. He seems to have wanted to collaborate
with Seleucus II Callinicus in a campaign he was preparing
against the Parthians. The death of Diodotus (c. 234 BC) and the
accession of his son, Diodotus II, reversed matters, for the young
successor changed his father's policy and joined with Arsaces. It
was not until 232 or 231 BC that Seleucus arrived in the east to put
down the rebellion. Arsaces, who had remained closely allied
with the nomads to the north, sensed his own weakness in the
15
face of Seleucus's army and fled to the home of the Apasiacae, or
“Scythians of the Waters.” Seleucus tried to cross the Jaxartes but,
having suffered losses at the hands of the nomads, decided to
return to Syria after receiving alarming news from the west. He
made peace with Arsaces, who recognized his suzerainty.
From that time on, Arsaces changed his policy: he acted no longer
as a nomad but rather as a chief of state—a worthy successor to
the Seleucids, whose example he followed, in Parthia. He had
himself crowned. Besides Asaak and Dārā (an impregnable
fortress), he founded such cities as Nisā, where he would be
buried. These new cities were usually named for the king or the
dynasty. Arsaces seemsnot to have infringed on the rights of the
Greeks and Macedonians living in these cities, perhaps hoping to
win their support. From the beginning, while maintaining the
autonomy of the cities, he made use of propaganda to ensure their
continuing obedience. He installed his capital at Hecatompylos,
on the Silk Road. His death is dated between 217 and 211 BC.
Artabanus I
Arsaces' successor, Artabanus I (reigned c. 211–191 BC),
sometimes known as Arsaces II, continued the work of
consolidation. Artabanus, already solidly established in Parthia
and Hyrcania, tried to extend his possessions toward Media. But
events in the neighbouring Greco-Bactrian kingdom worked
against him: Diodotus II (accused, it is thought, of treason to
Hellenism through his alliance with the nomads) lost his throne,
which passed to Euthydemus by the time the Syrian army of the
Seleucid king Antiochus III(the Great) arrived in Hyrcania.
The wave of revolts by the eastern satraps, which began a
movement away from unity in the state, also affected western
Iran; the beginning of the reign of Antiochus (223–187 BC) was
marked by the dissidence of Molon and his brother Alexander,
satraps of Media and Persis, respectively. Antiochus did not
undertake his campaign for recovery of the high satrapies—a
project his father had planned and never carried out—until 212
BC. At that time his kingdom stretched no farther east than
Media, Persis, Susiana, and Carmania. His operations against
Artabanus were successful; he took Hecatompylos and crossed
the mountains separating it from Parthia, which he occupied.
Artabanus fled and took refuge with the friendly Apasiacae, as
had his father, Arsaces. However, the conflict between the
Seleucids and Parthia was ended by a compromise, just as it had
been at the time of the invasion of Seleucus II. Because a much
more important struggle, against the Bactrian kingdom of
Euthydemus, awaited Antiochus, he preferred to make peace
with Artabanus, to whom he accorded the title of king in
exchange for recognition of his fealty, and he obliged the Parthian
to send troops to reinforce the Syrian army. The rear of the
Seleucid king was safeguarded, but the two provinces held by
Artabanus were definitively lost by the Macedonians.
The period following Antiochus's campaign against the Parthians
was marked by a strong resistance by the Bactrian cavalry at the
frontier and by a Seleucid siege of Bactra, for two years the
Bactrian capital (208–207 BC). There, too, the Seleucid king made
peace: Euthydemus, like Artabanus, kept his title of king.
Demetrius, son of Euthydemus, married a daughter of Antiochus states. Toward 160 BC the power to unite most of the high
the Great, thus preserving his political prestige. satrapies and other eastern satrapies could come only from the
Parthians, who under Mithradates began the assault. They
Having acquired war elephants and provisions for his army in occupied Media in 155, which opened the route to Mesopotamia.
Bactria, Antiochus crossed the Hindu Kush into the Kabul valley, In 148–147 Mithradates reached Ecbatana, where he moved his
where heconcluded a pact with the Indian king Sophagasenos, capital. Rhagae was “refounded” and given the dynastic name of
secured still more elephants, and returned by way of southern Arsacia, and in 141 Mithradates took Seleucia on the Tigris and
Iran. The results ofthis long campaign were meagre. Antiochus was recognized king of Babylonia. His forces conquered Susiana
recognized the independence of two kingdoms, that of the and Elymais, either at this time or after 139. In 141 he was obliged
Parthians and that of Euthydemus, which previously had been no to leave Hyrcania for his eastern possessions, which were
more than satrapies. The struggle must have weakened these two evidently being menaced by hostile movements of the nomads.
states, but, after their status was legalized, they proceeded to There he spent the remaining three years of his reign.
reestablish their material and military resources.
The Seleucid king Demetrius II, probably aware of Mithradates'
Phraates I difficulties in the east, undertook an effort to recover
Mesopotamia, but after a few successes he suffered defeat and
Precise information is not available concerning the reign of was taken prisoner (139 BC). He was sent to Hyrcania and was
Priapatius (c. 191–176 BC), who succeeded Artabanus and whose married there to a daughter of Mithradates, who by this union
name appears in documents found in excavations at Nisā. Under became related to the house of Seleucus. The army of Demetrius
his son Phraates I (reigned c. 176–171 BC), the young Parthian included Greco-Bactrian and Elymaian troops—which is
kingdom seems to have recuperated sufficiently to have taken up understandable—as well as men from Persis, or Persians, who by
once again its expansionist activities. It attacked Media, succeeded their cooperation with the Macedonians seem to indicate their
in the conquest of the Mardi tribe near the Caspian Sea, and set up opposition to the expansionism of the Parthians, whom they
a defense of the “Caspian Gates,” an important strategic point of considered foreigners and conquerors. Iran under the Parthians
penetration in Phraates' possessions. Overturning tribal tradition, was an empire but not yet a nation.
which reserved the succession to the throne to the eldest son, he
wisely designated as a successor—even though he had several Phraates II
sons—his brother Mithradates.
Like his father, Mithradates I, Phraates II (reigned c. 138–128 BC)
The “phil-Hellenistic” period (c. 171 BC–AD 12) was to remain for some time in the eastern provinces. He also
endured a last Macedonian attempt to break the Parthian
The accession of Mithradates I about 171 BC opened a new period advance. Antiochus VII Sidetes—brother of Demetrius II, who
in the destinies of the Parthian kingdom, which historians call had been taken prisoner—assembled a powerful army, which
“phil-Hellenistic” and which lasted until AD 12. This period was once more included men of Persis and Elymais. The strength in
characterized by a strong Hellenistic cultural influence, numbers and the wealth of this army made an impression on
manifested in the use of the Greek language and in particular in contemporaries, who reported that even the simple soldiers wore
the arts, where, however, national traditions were not completely shoes cobbled with gold. Phraates was beaten in several battles,
abandoned. but time worked on his side. With the arrival of winter, Antiochus
quartered his troops in several localities in Media. The local
Mithradates I population, exasperated by the undisciplined Syrian soldiery,
rose up in revolt. Antiochus was killed and his son taken prisoner
Parthian military, political, and economic power expanded (129 BC). Thanks to the loyalty of the Medians, whose sentiments
considerably following the accession of Mithradates I. The king contrasted with those of the Persians, Phraates wasvictorious. The
began with an attack on the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, which at the year 129 BC was a turning point in the history of the eastern
time was going through a period of weakness; then he turned Mediterranean: Greco-Macedonian domination received a
against the west and declared himself independent of the decisive blow; it would survive for only 46 more years.
Seleucids. To show his complete independence—he was the first
of the Parthian sovereigns to do so—he began issuing coins The route to great acquisitions in the west seemed to open before
bearing his likeness wearing a royal diadem like the Seleucid Phraates, if the nomads did not stop him. Weakened in his
kings. On the reverse side was a representation of Arsaces, struggle against Antiochus VII, he called on the Śaka nomads to
ancestor of the Parthian dynasty, seated on an omphalos the north of his frontiers for aid, promising them payment. The
(hemispheric altar) and holding a bow, in imitation of Seleucid reinforcements arrived too late to be of use; he sent them back,
coins that showed Apollo in the same way, as the ancestor of the which provoked them to revolt and pillage the countryside. The
Seleucids. Greek prisoners drafted by Phraates into his army participated in
the pillaging, and Phraates lost his life fighting them. The same
The Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes took action against fate was reserved for his successor and uncle, Artabanus II (c.
Mithradates but was killed at Tabae (or Gabae, probably present 128–124/123 BC). The Śaka were pushed back with some
Eṣfahān). His death brought about a widespread dislocation of difficulty toward Drangiana, to whichthey gave their name,
the Macedonian kingdom, which crumbled into several smaller Sakastan (Sīstān). Another branch of the vast nomadic movement

16
crossed the Oxus and put an end to the Greco-Bactrian kingdom,
on the ruins of which the powerful Kushān kingdom was to be
built.
The second stage of the phil-Hellenistic period extends from the
first quarter of the 2nd century until about 30 BC and embraces a
period when Parthia reached the apogee of its power and
worldwide territorial expansion.
level comparable to that of the Achaemenian Empire. After the
death of Mithradates II, a short period of intrigue and rivalry saw
the succession, in turn, of Gotarzes I, Orodes I, and Sanatruces.
The latter came to power late in life and was replaced in 70 BC by
his son, Phraates III (70–58/57 BC), under whom sustained
contacts with Rome took place.
Wars with Rome

Mithradates II In 69 BC the Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus, in charge

of looking after Roman interests in the East, attempted to lure
The reign of Mithradates II, from 123 to 88 BC, constitutes the Phraates III into an alliance that would help Rome in its struggle
most glorious chapter of Parthian history. It put an end to the against Pontus and Armenia, but the Parthian king, while still
ambitions of Artabanus's son Himerus, left by his father as maintaining “friendly” relations with Rome, retained his
governor of Mesopotamia, and brought Hyspaosines, king of neutrality. An agreement with the Romans renewed the
Mesene (Characene), who had extended his possessions too far Euphrates line as a frontier. Three years later the Roman general
toward the north, back into submission. In the east the Śaka were Pompey the Great replaced Lucullus and succeeded in concluding
on the move—soon an independent state would be formed there a real alliance with Phraates III. This proved, however, to be of
that would push toward eastern Iran and India; in the 1st century short duration, for affairs in Armenia, aggravated by Roman
BC two dynasties, the Indo-Scythian and the Indo-Parthian, operations on Parthian territory, had brought thetwo empires to a
whose members would remain closely linked to the Arsacid parting of the ways. Pompey replied to Phraates' protestations by
dynasty, were to reign in that region. They would disappear after occupying Gordyene, a vassal state of the Parthians, and
being absorbed by the Kushān kingdom. addressed Phraates with the simple title “king.” Pompey did not
trouble himself over entering into direct relations with the
The eastern frontiers of Mithradates II incorporated Margiana and sovereigns of Media and Elymais, vassals of Phraates. The
Aria. Once order was restored in the east, the king turned toward position taken by the Romans toward the king of kings was rather
the west: he placed Tigranes II (the Great) on the throne of more like that of conquerors than of allies. Pompey's policy
Armenia, and, extending his hegemony over this kingdom and became clear: from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf, he hoped to
over eastern Asia Minor, he organized pressure on the last create a wall of states friendly to Rome that would encircle
Seleucids. A meeting with Rome, which had already formed a Parthia, in preparation for Roman conquest.
“Province of Asia” in Asia Minor, became inevitable and took
place in 92 BC on the Euphrates River between the Roman general That action fell within the jurisdiction of the Roman triumvir
Lucius Cornelius Sulla and the Parthian ambassador Orobaze. Marcus Licinius Crassus. As early as 57 BC a conflict with Rome
Mithradates II wisely refused to agree to follow in the Roman broke out over the case of Mithradates III (58/57–55 BC), who,
path and preferred to retain his neutrality in the struggle between opposing Orodes II (c. 57–37/36 BC), his brother (both having
Rome and Mithradates VI Eupator of Pontus. Rome in the west killed their father, Phraates III), fled to Syria and asked the legate
and Parthia in the east met as Alexander's successors and, with a Aulus Gabinius for aid and asylum. The Roman Senate forbade
common accord, settled the inheritance. The two parties Gabinius to involve himself in the dispute over the succession to
recognized the Euphrates as a common frontier. It seems there the Parthian throne. Three years later the tension between the two
was no longer a question of either an alliance or a signed powers was settled in bloody fashion, and the rupture was
convention. Upon his return, Orobaze paid with his head for the consummated in 53 BC. Without provocation, the army of
lèse-majesté he had committed by accepting a seat lower than Crassus—the only one of the triumvirs without military glory
Sulla's at their meeting. (Julius Caesar was conqueror of Gaul, and Pompey was
conqueror of the Middle East)—crossed the Euphrates. Orodes
For the first time, Parthian power entered into direct contact with protested and invoked the treaty of friendship in vain. Crassus
the Chinese empire and received an embassy from the Han refused to reply until he arrived at Seleucia on the Tigris. It was
emperor Wudi (140–87 BC), who dispatched an escort of 20,000 abrutal breaking of all the agreements concluded in 69 and 66 BC.
men to meet the Parthians. The Chinese were particularly
interested in the horses raised in Fergana, which they needed to The Battle of Carrhae (53 BC), with the Parthians led by Surenas
create a cavalry to fight the nomadic Xiongnu on their northern with his light and heavy cavalry, cost Rome seven legions and the
border. livesof Crassus and his son. Through Surenas's brilliant victory
the routes to Iran and India were closed to Rome, and its
At the zenith of his power, Mithradates II took the title of “king of ambitions in the Orient were so weakened that the Euphrates
kings”; in the east as well as in the west, his empire achieved a became not only a political but also a spiritual frontier; no effort at
positionof power and stability previously unknown. He Romanization beyond itwas possible any longer. A united Greco-
maintained diplomatic relations with the two greatest world Iranian front protected Asia against the Romanization of
powers, Rome and China. Mithradates I, Phraates II, and Iranianized Hellenism and destroyed the myth of Roman
Mithradates II were the true creators of the Parthian state, invincibility.
winning for it military and economic victories and raising it to a

17
The insignia of the Roman legions fell into Parthian hands, and supported by Rome, forced Phraates IV to leave Mesopotamia
10,000 Roman prisoners were sent into captivity in Margiana. The and take refuge with his eastern neighbours, the Scythians, who
victory over Crassus had great repercussions among the peoples restored him to power. Driven out, Tiridates took refuge at Rome.
of the East. It shook the Roman position in Asia Minor, Syria, and He returned again in 26 BC, after which Phraates was able to
Palestine, while it restored the Parthians' confidence in their definitively reestablish his power at the same time that Octavian
power and in their ability to resist Rome and promised them a was inaugurating the imperial period of Roman history.
dominant position among the peoples of the East. According to
the Greek writer Plutarch, the severed head of Crassus was Settlement with Rome
brought to Orodes likea hunting trophy while he was attending a
presentation of Euripides' play The Bacchae. The new stage in the phil-Hellenistic period began about 31 BC,
when, after his victory over Mark Antony, Octavian (now Caesar
The Parthian counterthrust in 52–50 BC under the command of Augustus) was the sole master in Rome. Before that, however, he
Prince Pacorus (Pakores) was not crowned with success. The had already proposed to Phraates an alliance and a treaty ending
Arsacid army did not know how to organize long campaigns or the war. The Battle of Carrhae and Antony's defeat had raised
how to lay siege to fortified cities. But soon, civil war in Rome Parthia to a major power in the eyes of Rome. Augustus put
reinforced the position of the Parthians, and Pompey, after being pressure on Phraates IV through the pretender Tiridates and even
defeated by Caesar, thought of taking refuge among them. It is tried military intervention. In the end a pact was signed in 20 BC
thought that Orodes,taking advantage of this lull, succeeded in that allowed Roman prisoners and the insignia of the conquered
resolving difficulties in the east with the Yuezhiuezhi, even legions to be returned. A new stage began in relations between
perhaps with the Kushān. In 48 BC, with Pompey dead, Caesar the two states, marked by the conclusion of a real peace that
was the absolute master of the Roman world. He was preparing to recognized the Euphrates as a frontier between them. Phraates
avenge Crassus's defeat when he was assassinated in 44 BC. The was dealt with as the sovereign of a great nation. Rome
duty of following through on Caesar's project fell to Mark renounced its ambitions in the east, and Augustus inaugurated a
Antony. Pacorus, anticipating Antony, crossed into Syria after policy of respect. The two states could do nothing but profit from
having concluded an agreement with Quintus Labienus, a Roman the agreement, for a defeat would have been fatal to either power
commander on the side of Caesar's assassins who had gone over and a victory hazardous. The caravan route to India and China
to the Parthians. The successes of the two armies were startling: was reopened. Augustus received ambassadors from the many
Labienus took all of Asia Minor, Pacorus all of Syria and Palestine. eastern peoples, including the Indo-Scythians and the Sarmatians.
For nearly two years all the western provinces of the The only country in the east where Rome remained active was
Achaemenids remained in Parthian hands. In Rome it was Armenia.
rumoured thatthe Parthians were planning to invade Italy itself.
But the successes of the Arsacid armies were as ephemeral as they All obstacles, however, were not necessarily eliminated. There
were remarkable. Disagreement between the two generals remained the question of Armenia: if it was controlled by Rome, it
weakened their effect. In 39 BC Labienus was conquered by would be a channel for penetration into Parthia from the north,
Roman forces under Publius Ventidius and slain. Asia Minor was but if it was controlled by Parthia, it would offer an outlet on the
recovered by the Romans, and the following year the same fate Black Sea, over which Rome asserted its authority. The rivalry of
struck Pacorus and his conquests. the two powers over this country would remain for centuries a
stumbling block to peace.
Under Orodes II the Parthians had reached the zenith of their
power: in the west the Arsacids had for a short time reestablished Toward 10 or 9 BC Phraates sent his four sons and grandsons to
the empire of the Achaemenids almost in its entirety. Their Rome, a gesture that was both one of confidence in a “friendly”
successes in the east seem to have been equally important. Their power and also a guarantee that his throne would pass to his son
capital was moved to Ctesiphon, where a military camp was by Musa, an Italian slave girl given him by Augustus. This son
transformed into a great metropolis, facing Seleucia across the would assassinate his father with his mother's help and occupy
Tigris. At Nisā the city was expanded, the royal palaces were the throne as Phraates V from 2 BC to AD 4 after having married
enlarged, and the royal hypogea (catacombs) were enriched with his mother.
precious pieces of fine Greco-Iranian art.
The end of the “phil-Hellenistic” period is marked by the clash of
In 37 BC Orodes was assassinated by his son Phraates IV, who the ruling class with foreign influences that had penetrated life in
also did away with his brothers and his eldest son. In 36 BC Mark Parthian society. These influences came from Rome and were
Antony began to carry out the revenge Caesar had planned. He often introduced by princes of the Arsacid house returning from
brought his army to Armenia, through which he planned to enter stays abroad. The short reign of Orodes III (AD 4–6/7) was
Media and attack Parthia from the north. But cold weather and followed by that of Vonones I (7/8–11), a son of Phraates IV who,
Phraates' cavalry combined to force Antony to abandon the fight because of his Roman habits, was driven out by the Parthian
and return to Syria. In 34 BC he launched another campaign and nobility, whose role by that time had become dominant in internal
again suffered heavy losses, and his power struggle with Octavian politics and dynastic questions. Vonones' fall brought about a
forced him to abandon his plans for war against the Parthians. change in the destinies of the country.

About 30 BC Tiridates II, a pretender to the throne of Parthia The “anti-Hellenistic” period (AD 12–162)

18

A new and important period in Parthian history, often called
“anti-Hellenistic,” embraces a century and a half, from AD 12 to
162. It is characterized by an expansion of the native Parthian
culture and an opposition to all things foreign. The weakness of
the reigning dynasty opened wide avenues to the nobility to
involve themselves in the official existence of the state. They chose
the sovereign whose reign opened the first stage in this new
period.
Artabanus III
The king chosen by the barons to replace Vonones was Artabanus
III (reigned 12–38). They were certainly mistaken in believing they
would find in him an easy instrument to manipulate. Artabanus
was the son of a viceroy of Hyrcania and was Arsacid only on his
mother's side. Under his rule Parthia entered abrilliant but
troubled era, one completely dominated by the personality of this
violently anti-Roman sovereign who was eager to drive Rome out
of Asia. However, after he failed to place his son on the throneof
Armenia, for years Artabanus avoided precipitating matters with
Rome and dedicated himself to internal reforms, among which
centralization was the most important.
The humbling of the great nobles, an enterprise in which he was
sustained by the lesser nobles, became necessary. He had to
reduce the hereditary privileges the barons had carved out for
themselves. It was also necessary to reorganize the states that
made up the kingdom. He put princes of his family on the thrones
of Mesene, Persis, Elymais, Atropatene—all little states that were
governed by menloyal to the throne. But it proved impossible for
him to put down a revolt in the eastern possessions, where the
Indo-Parthian king Gondophares declared himself independent
(c. 19) and took the title “king of kings.”
It is thought that the position taken toward the city-states, about
which precise information is lacking, was the reason for the
seven-year-long revolt of Seleucia on the Tigris. The fighting there
took place between the Greek and Hellenized elements and the
Semites, who demanded their right to participate in the autonomy
of the city and who supported pretenders against Artabanus III.
A new attempt to place a son on the throne in Armenia angered
Rome, which, with the aid of the nobility, sent for Tiridates III, a
pretender the barons had crowned at Ctesiphon. Artabanus was
forced to take refuge with the Dahae, who helped him win back
his throne. In 37 a meeting with a representative of Rome on a
bridge in the middle of the Euphrates allowed an agreement to be
reached that maintained the status quo in Armenia and
recognized Parthian sovereignty with the river as the frontier.
Artabanus, a strong personality, did not seek to impose his
kingdom as a world power, but he did not hesitate to make plans
to regain the western provinces, the former Achaemenian
possessions.
Dissolution of the Parthian state
The period from 51 to 122 is one in which the Parthian state
slowly dissolved and decomposed into several small countries,
19
and various parties lay claim to the throne—an inevitable result of
the weakness of the central power. In the 1st century AD the
Parthian empire, according to the Roman historian Pliny, was
composed of 18 kingdoms, 11 in the north and seven in the south,
some governed by Arsacid princes and others by local dynasties.
In 58 Hyrcania became independent. In the realm of external
affairs, an effort was made to maintain good relations with Rome,
especially because of the new kingdom of the Kushān, which was
causing concern on the eastern frontiers. It might be for this
reason that in 87 Parthia sent an embassy to neighbouring China
to the east of the Kushān. Internally, the ethnic upsurge became
more accentuated.
After the short reign of Vonones II (51), the throne passed to
Vologeses I (reigned 51–80), an ardent anti-Roman. One of his
brothers, Vonones, was made king of Media. Vologeses I wanted
his second brother, Tiridates, to be king of Armenia—putting him
in position to break with Rome, which opposed him militarily.
Upon orders from Nero, the Roman general Corbulo secured
Armenia, but his operations were broken off by the exchange of
ambassadors. An agreement was finally reached: in 66 Tiridates
left for Rome with his whole family, surrounded by a retinue of
princes and 3,000 Parthian nobles. He received from Nero the
crown of Armenia. Parthian control and the end of hostilities
were announced by closing the doors to the Temple of Janus.
Nationalist sentiment—which had been expressed under
Artabanus III in a genealogical table invented to prove the
Achaemenian descent of the Arsacid house—also manifested
itself under Vologeses I: the Avesta, the holy book of the Iranians,
was compiled, and coins were issued on which, for the first time,
Pahlavi (Middle Persian) characters were added to the Greek
legend.
In 78 Pacorus II came to the throne, to be supplanted in 79 by the
ephemeral Artabanus IV (80/81), who was then replaced
permanently by Pacorus II. During his reign the country showed
signs of a profound decomposition. The barons refused to obey
the crown. In the provinces the army and the finances were in the
hands of the nobility. Aristocrats occupied the highest positions,
which became hereditary. Plots with Rome were hatched, and the
nobility felt itself the equal of the dynasty, ready to revolt in
defense of their privileges. Externally, the dynasty was unable to
count on Rome, which constantly plotted in support of new
pretenders. In 109/110 Pacorus II was eclipsed by Osroes, his
brother or brother-in-law, but he maintained limited power until
his death in 115/116.
In 114 the emperor Trajan invaded Armenia. In vain did the king
put his crown at Trajan's feet—he was defeated by the Roman
soldiery. With Armenia occupied, the emperor descended with
his army into Mesopotamia. All of Babylonia was taken, and
Ctesiphon, the capital, fell into the hands of the Romans, who
carried off a daughter of Osroes and the golden throne of the
Parthian kings. Victorious, Trajan went as far east as the Persian
Gulf. Iranian reaction was not long in coming. Faced with the
gravity of the Roman offensive, all the princes of the royal house,
formerly divided by internal strife, united against the invader. At
Ctesiphon Trajan crowned a new vassal king, but revolt was in
the wind, and attempts to disunite the Parthian chiefs failed. The
Romans suffered losses, and, after a reverse on the walls of Hatra,
The tensions between the two states did not diminish when
Trajan abandoned the campaign and died on his way home. Vologeses V (or IV; reigned 191–208/209) supported a pretender
Trajan's successor, Hadrian (reigned 117–138), abandoned all (Pescennius Niger) against Septimius Severus. The latter became
pretensions to Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. emperor in 193 and began operations that permitted him to
occupy first northern and then southern Mesopotamia and, for
Hadrian's desire for peace seems to have been sincere. He sent the third time in a century, Ctesiphon. The Parthians in their
back Osroes' daughter, promised to return the golden throne, and retreat adopted a scorched-earth policy. As under Trajan, the
did not try to profit from the long power struggle between Osroes starving Roman army went back up the Tigris, failed in its
and Vologeses III (or II). He even invited Osroes to come to attempt to take Hatra, and left the country.
Rome.
Vologeses VI (or V), son of the previous king, succeeded him
Peace with Rome (reigned 209–c. 222), but his throne was contested—and the
Thus ensued four decades of peace with Rome. The status quo it empire divided (see below )—from 213 on by another prince,
maintained with its western neighbour seems even to have been a Artabanus V (c. 213–224), who was able to maintain his claim
necessity for Parthia, the expansion of the Kushān kingdom on the with the support of the kingdom of Media (see table for
eastern frontiers having reached the peak of its power under King chronology). A new Roman invasion of Mesopotamia took place
Kaniṣka (Kanishka). Accurate information about the relations under Caracalla, the casus belli being the refusal of Artabanus V
between the Kushān and the Parthians is not available, but this to give Caracalla his daughter in marriage. The young emperor
long peace sought with Rome suggests that certain precautions dreamed of rebuilding Alexander's empire but succeeded only in
were necessary for the kingdom of Iran. pillaging Media and destroying the hypogea of the Arsacid kings
at Arbela. The Parthian reply was harsh. Artabanus avenged
The end of the Parthian empire (162–226) himself by invading the Roman provinces and destroying several
cities. Rome sued for peace. Artabanus's conditions were too hard
The 40 years' peace was succeeded by almost uninterrupted and were refused. Hostilities were taken up again and once more
hostilities with Rome, with varied success; Parthia was more turned in favour of the Parthians, who were so successful that the
vulnerable because of the exposed position of its capital. emperor Macrinus paid a large sum to make peace.

The reigns of Vologeses III (or II; c. 105/106–147?) and especially
Vologeses IV (or III; 148–192), the latternot having to dispute the
throne with a pretender, could by their lengths be a sign that the
country might have experienced a certain stability. But
underneath the apparent calm the intrigues continued, with Rome
receiving embassies from the Hyrcanians, the Bactrians, and
doubtless from the Kushān.
A new clash with Rome came in 161, this time on the initiative of
Vologeses IV (or III), who considered himself strong enough to
attack. He occupied Armenia, crossed the Euphrates, and invaded
Syria, which for two centuries had not seen Parthian cavalry. And,
although the country had been Roman since the time of Pompey,
the Syrian population, which included Jews driven from Palestine
by the Romans, received the Parthians as liberators. The situation
became so serious that Lucius Verus, co-emperor with Marcus
Aurelius, was dispatched to the east with strong reinforcements
taken from the fronts on the Danube and the Rhine. The Romans
retook Armenia (163) and succeeded in a campaign similar to
Trajan's: Dura-Europus was taken and remained Roman until its
destruction by the Sāsānids; Seleucia on the Tigris, despite the
welcome it reserved for the Romans, was sacked; and in 164 or
165 for the second time Ctesiphon fell into the hands of Romans,
who razed the royal palace.
Since 208 Pāpak (Bābak), a lesser prince of Persis, had been
preparing a revolt, which his son Ardashīr I finally declared
openly. A battle took place between him and Artabanus V in 224;
the Parthian was killed, and the throne of Iran passed into the
hands of the Sāsānids, anew dynasty, originally from Fārs, the
cradle of the Achaemenids.
The Iran of the Parthians—in the middle between the Romans in
the west and the Kushān in the east, a region strategically crucial
for international commerce—maintained open roads, created
cities, and encouraged exchanges that were the lifeblood of this
great empire stretching from the portals of China and India to the
Roman Empire. Tolerant in religion, it was Parthia that
contributed to the dissemination of Buddhism to China, where a
Parthian prince spread the word of Buddha near the mid 2nd
century AD. For nearly half amillennium Parthia pursued its
great ambition to recover the western provinces of the
Achaemenids. Undermined by internal weaknesses, Parthia
finally succumbed, leaving its great dreams to its successors, the
Sāsānids.
The Sāsānian period
Foundation of the empire

Once more success was not continuous. The Roman army had
come from Armenia and crossed through Azerbaijan, where it
was exposed to plague. Contaminated, the Roman army was
sorely tried by disease and obliged to retreat, but not definitively.
Lucius Verus, repeating his campaigns in Armenia and northern
Mesopotamia, inflicted heavy losses on the Parthians.
Rise of Ardashīr I
At the beginning of the 3rd century AD, the Arsacid empire had
been in existence for some 400 years. Its strength had been
undermined, however, by repeated Roman invasions, and the
empire became once more divided, this time between Vologeses

20
VI (or V), who seems to have ruled at Ctesiphon, on the left bank The chronology of events in the early Sāsānian period was
of the middle Tigris in what is now Iraq, and Artabanus V, who calculated by the German Orientalist Theodor Nöldeke in 1879,
was in control of Iran and whose authority at Susa, in and his system of dating is still generally accepted. The discovery
southwestern Iran, is attested by an inscription from 215. (See also of fresh evidence in manuscript materials dealing with the life of
Mesopotamia, history of: The Sāsānian period.) Mani, a religious leader whose activities fall in the early Sāsānian
period, led to a reassessment of Nöldeke's calculations by another
It was against Artabanus V that a challenger arose in Persis. German, Walter Bruno Henning, by which the principal events
Ardashīr I, son of Pāpak and a descendant of Sāsān, was the ruler are dated about two years earlier. Another alternative was
of one of the several small states into which Persia had gradually proposed by the Iranian scholar Sayyid Hasan Taqizadeh, who
been divided. His father had taken possession of the city and preferred a sequence by which the same events are placed about
district of Istakhr (Estakhr), which had replaced the old residence six months later than the dates established by Nöldeke. Since the
city of Persepolis, a mass of ruins after its destruction by dating systems employed by the Sāsānians themselves were
Alexander the Great in 330 BC. Pāpak was succeeded by his eldest based on the regnal years of the individual kings, whose exact
son, who was soon killed in an accident, and in AD 208 Ardashīr coronation dates are often subject to disputation, several details
replaced his brother. He first built for himself a stronghold at Gūr, remain uncertain, and their definite solution has not been
named, for its founder, Ardashīr-Khwarrah (“Ardashīr's Glory”), possible. A firmer basis of calculation is obtained when the
now Fīrūzābād, southeast of Shīrāz in Fārs. He subdued the ancient sources quote dates in terms of the Seleucid era, either
neighbouring rulers and in the process disposed of his own according to the computation that prevailed in Babylonia, which
remaining brothers. His seizure of such areas as Kermān, Eṣfahān, started from 311 BC, or after the Syrian reckoning, beginning in
Elymais, and Mesene—to the east, north, and west of Fārs, 312 BC. See the table for dates of events of the early Sāsānian
respectively—led to war with Artabanus, his suzerain. The period as they can be established on direct numismatic or literary
conflict between the two rivals lasted several years, during which evidence in the differing chronological systems of Nöldeke,
time the Parthian forces were defeated in three battles. In the last Henning, and Taqizadeh. The table of reign dates of the kings is
of these, the battle on the plain of Hormizdagān (224), Artabanus based mainly on Nöldeke's system.
was killed.
Wars of Shāpūr I
There is evidence to support the assumption that Ardashīr's rise
to power suffered several setbacks. Vologeses VI (or V) struck Shortly before his death, probably because of failing health,
coins at Seleucia on the Tigris as late as AD 228/229 (the Seleucid Ardashīr abdicated the throne in favour of his chosen heir, his son
year 539). Another Parthian prince, Artavasdes, a son of Shāpūr I. The latter assumed the responsibilities of government
Artabanus V, known from coins on which he is portrayed with the but delayed his coronation until after his father's death. Coins
distinguishing feature of a forked beard, seems to have exercised thus exist showing Ardashīr together with his son as heir
practical independence even after 228. Numismatic evidence apparent and Shāpūr alone wearing the eagle cap, indicating the
further reflects the stages of Ardashīr's struggle for undisputed exercise of royal rule before his coronation—besides the normal
leadership. He appears on his coins with four different types of series showing Shāpūr crowned as king.
crowns: as king of Fārs, as claimant to the throne before the battle
at Hormizdagān, and as emperor with two distinctly different Shortly after his accession, Shāpūr was faced with an invasion of
crowns. It has been suggested that this evidence points to two Persia by the emperor Gordian III (reigned 238–244):
separate coronation ceremonies of Ardashīr as sovereign ruler, the
second perhaps indicating that he may have lost the throne The emperor Gordian levied in all of the Roman empire an army
temporarily. of Goths and Germans and marched against Asūristān [Iraq], the
empire of Iran and us. On the border of Asūristān, at Massice
According to al-Ṭabarī, the Muslim historian (9th–10th century), [Misikhe on the Euphrates], a great battle took place. The emperor
Ardashīr, after having secured his position as a ruler in western Gordian was killed and we destroyed the Roman army. The
Iran, embarked on an extensive military campaign in the east Romans proclaimed Philip [the Arabian; reigned 244–249]
(227) and conquered Sakastan (modern Sīstān), Hyrcania emperor. The emperor Philip came to terms, and as ransom for
(Gorgān), Margiana(Merv), Bactria (Balkh), and Chorasmia their lives he gave us 500,000 dinars and became our tributary.
(Khwārezm). The inference that this campaign resulted in the For that reason, we renamed Massice Fīrūz-Shāpūr [“Victorious
defeat of the powerful Kushān empire is supported by the further (Is) Shāpūr”].
statement of al-Ṭabarī that the king of the Kushān was among the
eastern sovereigns, including the rulers of Tūrān (Quzdar, south Several years later, in 256 (or 252), another confrontation between
of modern Quetta) and of Mokrān (Makran), whose surrender the Persians and Romans occurred:
was received by Ardashīr. These military and political successes
were further extended by Ardashīr when he took possession of We attacked the Roman empire and we destroyed an army of
the palace at Ctesiphon and assumed the title “king of kings of the 60,000 men at Barbalissus [in Syria]. Syria and its surrounding
Iranians” and, across the Tigris River, when he refounded and areas we burned, devastated and plundered. In this one campaign
rebuilt the city of Seleucia under the new name Veh-Ardashīr, the we captured of the Roman empire 37 cities,
“Good Deed of Ardashīr.”
including Antioch, the capital of Syria, itself. A third encounter

21
took place when the emperor Valerian came to the rescue of the geographic enumeration: (1) Persis (Fārs), (2) Parthia, (3) Susiana
city of Edessa, Syria (modern Urfa, Turkey), which was besieged (Khūzestān), (4) Maishān (Mesene), (5) Asūristān (southern
by the Persian army: Mesopotamia), (6) Adiabene, (7) Arabistān (northern
He [Valerian] had with him [troops from] Germania, Rhaetia… Mesopotamia), (8) Atropatene (Azerbaijan), (9) Armenia, (10)
[follow the names of some 29 Roman provinces], a force of 70,000 Iberia (Georgia), (11) Machelonia, (12) Albania (eastern Caucasus),
men. Beyond Carrhae and Edessa there was a great battle between (13) Balāsagān up to the Caucasus Mountains and the Gate of
the emperor Valerian and us. We made the emperor Valerian Albania (also known as Gate of the Alans), (14) Patishkhwagar
prisoner with our own hands; and the commanders of that army, (all of the Elburz Mountains), (15) Media, (16) Hyrcania (Gorgān),
the praefectus praetorii, senators and officers, we made them (17) Margiana (Merv), (18) Aria, (19) Abarshahr, (20) Carmania
allprisoner, and we transported them to Persia. We burned, (Kermān), (21) Sakastan (Sīstān), (22) Tūrān, (23) Mokrān
devastated and plundered Cilicia and Cappadocia…[follow the (Makran), (24) Paratān (Paradene), (25) India (probably restricted
names of 36 cities]. to the Indus River delta area), (26) Kūshānshahr, until as far as
Peshāwar and until Kashgar and (the borders of) Sogdiana and
The source for these quotations is Shāpūr's own account of the Tashkent, and (27), on the farther side of the sea, Mazun (Oman).
events. It was unknown until 1938, when expeditions sponsored This empire, considerably more extensive than that controlled by
by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago discovered a the Arsacid dynasty, was governed by members of the royal
long inscription on the walls of an Achaemenian building known family and by appointed officials directly responsible to the
as the Kaʿbe-ye Zardusht (“Kaaba of Zoroaster”). The text is in throne. The greater degree of centralization thus attained by the
three languages, Sāsānian Pahlavi (Middle Persian), Parthian, and Sāsānian government partly explains its increased military
Greek. Besides the narrative of the military operations, the effectiveness in comparison with the Arsacid administration.
inscription provides a description of the Persian empire of the Tight organization of the numerous central and provincial
time and an inventory of the Zoroastrian religious foundations officials,whose ranks in the bureaucratic structure on different
established by Shāpūr to commemorate his victorious wars. These levels were strictly defined, also contributed toward general
foundations were fire temples dedicated to the “soul” (memory) administrative efficiency.
of the founder himself, members of the royal family, and
prominent officials who had served under Shāpūr and his Another trend that developed in the Sāsānian period, although it
predecessor. The list of the officials, who are specified by the had already made itself felt under the Arsacids, was a strict
positions they held, throws light on the administrative principle of dynastic legitimacy. For a usurper not of the royal
organization of the empire. blood to come to the throne was an extremely rare occurrence,
though it was in fact accomplished by Bahrām VI Chūbīn in 590.
Organization of the empire Loyalty was given, however, to the whole royal house, rather as it
was in the later Ottoman Empire. The person of the individual
In contrast to his father, who claimed to be “king of kings of Iran” ruler was a matter of comparatively lesser importance, and one
(shāhanshāh īrān), Shāpūr I assumed the title “king of kings of member of the dynasty could readily be removed and replaced by
Iran and non-Iran” (shāhanshāh īrān ud anīrān). This formula was another. In accordance with this principle of legitimacy, Persian
retained by his successors as the regular designation of the tradition carried the Sāsānian line back to the Achaemenids and,
Sāsānian emperors. The hereditary local dynasties, which under ultimately, to the kings of the legendary period.
the Arsacids had ruled many of the most important provinces,
were to a large extent abolished. Instead, such areas as Maishān Religious developments
(Mesene), in western Iran, and Sakastan (Sīstān), in eastern Iran,
were now ruled by members of the Sāsānian family, who were Zoroastrianism
appointed by the sovereign with the title of shāh (king). Among
such provincial governors, precedence was often given to the heir The ancestors of Ardashīr had played a leading role in the rites of
to the throne, who was placed in control of large territories, such the fire temple at Istakhr, known as Ādur-Anāhīd, the Anāhīd
as the former Kushān empire (Kūshānshahr) and Armenia, and Fire. With the new dynasty having these priestly antecedents, it
given the title “great king” (wuzurg shāh). This arrangement seems only natural that there would have been important
lasted until the early 4th century AD, and such emperors as developments in the Zoroastrian religion during the Sāsānian
Shāpūr I and Hormizd II are known to have first held the title period. In fact, the evolution of Zoroastrianism as an organized
kūshānshāh as governors of the areas of Bactria, Sogdiana, and religion into something resembling its modern form can be
Gandhāra. Next in the hierarchy came the few remaining regarded as having begun in this period. Under the Parthians,
hereditary vassals, such as the kings of Iberia (now Georgia) in local magi (priests) had no doubt continued to perform the
the Caucasus, and the chief nobles of the empire, among whom traditional ceremonies associated with the old Iranian deities, the
the Warāz, Sūrēn, and Karēn families retained their prominent fire cult, the creed preached by Zoroaster, with its emphasis on
position from Parthian times. Next in line were the satraps, whose the worship of Ahura Mazdā, and even the cults of cosmopolitan
importance had diminished and who were now no more than the deities that were introduced in the Hellenistic period and later.
administrators of larger cities or court officials.
Under the Sāsānians, stress was increasingly placed on the fire
The list of provinces given in the inscription of Kaʿbe-ye Zardusht cult and the worship of Ahura Mazdā. Strong mutual
defines the extent of the empire under Shāpūr, in clockwise relationships, furthermore, were developed between religion and

22
the state, and an ecclesiastical organization was set up in which of official recognition in early Sāsānian times. In the reign of
every local district of any importance had its own mobed Khosrow I (531–579), however, the “sect of the Zurvānites” was
(“priest”; originally magupat, “chief priest”). At their head stood declared to be heretical. The chief trend of Sāsānian religion, apart
the mobedān mobed (“priest of priests”), who, in addition to his from the process of being institutionalized, was toward
purely religious jurisdiction, appears, especially in later times, to elaborating its ritual and doctrine of purity. A complete and
have had a more or less decisive voice in the choice of a successor detailed system of casuistry was developed, which dealt with all
to the throne and in other matters of state. There is also some things allowed and forbidden and with the forms of pollution and
evidence that the mobeds, by virtue of their proficiency in reading the expiation of each. One of the consequences of this
and writing in general and in the interpretation of the sacred development was that increasing emphasis was placed on
scriptures in particular, performed the duties of registrars and orthodoxy and rigorous obedience to priestly injunctions.
scribes in semireligious or nonreligious matters, like the Christian Nonorthodox and heretical cults and forbidden manners and
clergy in medieval Europe. This situation in turn makes it likely customs came to be regarded as a pollution of the land and a
that the priestly library buildings not only contained the sacred serious offense to the true God. It was the duty of the believer to
texts, charters, and other church records but also served as combat and destroy the unbelievers and the heretics. In short, the
repositories of local archives, title deeds, and other documents of tolerance of the Achaemenids and the indifference of the Arsacids
a legal nature. The building known as Kaʿbe-ye Zardusht and were gradually replaced by religious intolerance and persecution.
referred to as a bun-khānag (“foundation house”) may well have
served this very purpose. Despite his priestly family origin, Ardashīr himself seems not to
have been the person responsible for initiating these new
In the matter of religious practice, the theology of the Sāsānians directions in religious affairs. It was once believed that the
appears to have developed from that of their home province of institutionalization of the Zoroastrian church and the codification
Persis. There, extraneous religious influences were limited. The of its scriptures and beliefs were the work of a high priest named
opposition between the good spirit of light and the demons— Tansar, a contemporary of Ardashīr I, of whose activities an
between Ahura Mazdā (Ormizd) and Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) account is preserved in the Letter of Tansar, contained in the
—remained the essential dogma. All the other gods and angels History of Ṭabaristān (Tārīkh-e Ṭabaristān) by the Persian writer
were restricted to the role of subordinate servants of Ahura Ibn Isfandiyār (flourished 12th–13th century). New inscriptional
Mazdā, whose highest manifestation on earth was not so much evidence, however, suggests that, if Tansar was, in fact, a
the sun or the sun god Mithra (Mihr) but rather the holy fire historical personage, his role in religious matters was
guarded and attended by his priests. At the same time, the names overshadowed by Kartēr (Karder). The latter, an ehrpat (or
of such deities as Verethraghna (Wahrām), Mithra, and Anāhitā herbed, “master of learning”) and mobed (or magupat, “priest”)
(Anāhīd) were still associated with the names of fire temples or already prominent under Shāpūr I, appeared during the reigns of
classes of fires. Divine names were also used to designate the 30 Bahrām I (reigned 273–276) and Bahrām II (276–293) as the
days of each month and of the 12 months of the year, plus five dominant figure in the Zoroastrian church. As stated in the Kaʿbe-
epact days, called gahānīg, to align the lunar with the solar year. ye Zardusht inscription of Kartēr, he claims credit for suppressing
non-Zoroastrian religious communities in Iran (“and Jews,
All the prescriptions of purity were scrupulously observed. The Buddhists, Brahmans, ‘Nazoreans,' Christians…were struck
elaborate ritual still maintained in modern times by the Parsi for upon”), imposing orthodoxy and discipline on the priesthood
the purification and custody of the sacred fire was no doubt (“the heretics [ahlomog]…who in the Magus estate did not attend
observed under the Sāsānians. The officiating priest was girt with to the Mazdean religion and the services to the gods with
a sword and carried in his hand the barsman (barsom), or bundle discrimination, I struck them with punishment and I castigated
of sacred grass. His mouth was covered to prevent the sacred fire them”), and establishing royal foundations for the maintenance of
from being polluted by his breath. The practice of animal sacrifice, priests and of sacred fires. (See also Zoroastrianism.)
abhorred by the modern followers of Zoroaster, is attested for the
Sāsānian period at least as late as the reign of Yazdegerd I (399– Christianity
420). On the days of the important festivals, such as Nōgrūz
(Nōrūz), the first day of the vernal equinox, and on the day of The reference in the Kartēr inscription to two sects of Christians
Mihragan (the 16th day of the seventh month), the sacred fire was continues the indications from Syriac sources that Christianity
displayed to the faithful(wehden) at nightfall from some vantage had by that time (the second half of the 3rd century) gained a firm
point. Under the Sāsānians the injunction not to pollute the earth footing in the lands of the Tigris and the Euphrates, where it was
by contact with corpses but to expose the dead on mountaintops strongest among the Aramaic-speaking communities. Ultimately,
to vultures and dogs was strictly observed. Ahura Mazdā Christian missionary effort came to expand over the whole of Iran
preserved his character as a nationalgod who bestowed victory and even beyond. As long as the Roman Empire remained pagan,
and world dominion on his worshipers. In rock-relief sculptures the Christian communities of Iran lived undisturbed by
he appears on horseback as a god of war. persecution, while the Christians themselves showed outspoken
hostility toward such heterodox sects as the Manichaeans and the
Theology was further developed, and an attempt was made to Gnostic followers of Marcion (the Marcionites) and Bardesanes,
modify the old dualistic concept by considering both Ahura who existed side by side with them. Once the emperor
Mazdā and Angra Mainyu as emanations of an original principle Constantine I (the Great; reigned 306–337) made Christianity the
of infinite time ( Zurvān). This doctrine enjoyed a certain degree official religion of the Roman world, the Iranian Christians were

23
drawn to feel a certain sympathy for their foreign coreligionists,
and political significance came to be attached by the Sāsānian
rulers to these religious connections with an often hostile foreign
power. After 339 the Christians of Iran were subjected to severe
persecutions at the hands of Shāpūr II and his successors.
Nonetheless, substantial Christian communities survived in parts
of Iran long after the end of the Sāsānian dynasty.
Manichaeism
During the reign of Shāpūr I a new religious leader and
movement made their appearance. Mani (216?–274?) was the
offspring of a Parthian family resident in Babylonia (“a thankful
disciple I am, risen from Babel's land”) but was himself a speaker
of Aramaic. Knowledge of his teachings was greatly increased by
the discovery in the early 20th century of many fragments of
Manichaean literature in eastern Turkistan. Subsequently a large
part of the Kephalaia, a collection of the religious injunctions of
Mani, was recovered in a Coptic version found in Egypt. These
texts can now be collated with the versions of Manichaean
doctrines as reported bythe Church Fathers, including St.
Augustine. From this cumulative documentation, to which other
sources can be added, it appears, among other things, that Mani's
teachings were formulated under the strong influence of Gnostic
ideas and philosophy. Mani proclaimed himself to be the last and
greatest Apostle of Jesus as well as the Paraclete announced in the
Gospel According to John. Withthe Gnostic interpretation of the
Gospel, Mani tried to combine the doctrines of Zoroaster and
Jesus in order to create a new religion of auniversal character.
There is a tradition that he made his first appearance as a teacher
on the coronation day of Shāpūr (April 12, 240, or April 9, 243),
but other evidence suggests that Mani was not necessarily in Iran
at the time and may have been on a sea journey to India when he
started preaching. He later returned and found many followers,
among whom were Fīrūz (Pērōz) and Mihrshāh, governorof
Maishān (Mesene), both brothers of Shāpūr. Even the king
himself is said to have been impressed and to have granted the
prophet several personal interviews. On the last such occasion,
Mani presented the king with his first book, the Shāpuragān
(Shabuhragan), a summary of his teachings (“dedicated to
Shāpūr”) written in the Middle Persian language, which provides
further evidence of a degree of royal favour. During Shāpūr's
reign the religion of Mani was thus propagated in and beyond
Iran. The heir to the throne, Hormizd I, was also favourably
disposed toward him. Shāpūr's younger son, Bahrām I, however,
yielded to pressure from the priestly establishment, and Mani was
executed. After that, Manichaeism was persecuted and destroyed
in Iran. Yet it maintained itself not only in the West, penetrating
far into the Roman Empire, but also in the East, in Khorāsān and
beyond the boundaries of the Sāsānian empire. There the seat of
its leader was at Samarkand, whence it penetrated Central Asia.
Art and literature
Perhaps the most characteristic and certainly among the most
impressive relics of Sāsānian art are the great rock sculptures
carved on the limestone cliffs that are found in many parts of the
country. The best-known groups are at Naqsh-e Rostam and
Naqsh-e Rajab, both near Persepolis, and at Bishāpūr, an ancient
24
city a few miles north of Kāzerūn in Fārs. At Fīrūzābād—the
ancient Gūr, also in Fārs—are two reliefs of Ardashīr I, one
depicting the overthrow of Artabanus V, the other depicting an
investiture scene.Not far away, in the valley at Sar Mashhad, a
representation of Bahrām II shows that king in the process
ofslaying two lions. At Dārābgerd, about 180 miles (290 km)
southwest of Shīrāz, Shāpūr I is shown triumphing over three
Roman emperors—Gordian III, Philip the Arabian, and Valerian.
At Naqsh-e Bahrām,north of Kāzerūn, Bahrām III is depicted
enthroned. The same ruler appears at Qaṣr-e Abū Nasr, near
Shīrāz, and at Gūyom, not far from there. Sāsānian sculptured
reliefs are less numerous outside Fārs, but a Sāsānian equestrian
that once existed at Rayy (ancient Rhagae), southeast of modern
Tehrān, was replaced in the 19th century by a representation of
Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh, a member of the then-ruling Qājār dynasty. At
Salmās, near Lake Urmia, Ardashīr I is shown on horseback while
receiving the surrender of a Parthian personage. There are also
later Sāsānian sculptures at Ṭāq-e Bostān, near Kermānshāh,
showingArdashīr II, Shāpūr III, and Khosrow II. In many of these
representations the Sāsānian kings can be identified by their
individual crowns.
The most ambitious and celebrated architectural achievement of
the dynasty is the vast palace at Ctesiphon, built by Khosrow II
(590; 591–628), a part of which is still standing. It is known as the
Ṭāq Kisrā and is notable for its great barrel vault in baked brick, a
typically Sāsānian architectonic device. Many Sāsānian buildings
can also be seen in Fārs, where the characteristic construction is of
limestone blocks embedded in strong mortar. The most important
of these are near Shīrāz: the palace of Ardashīr I to the south at
Fīrūzābād and a small, well-preserved palace at Sarvestān,
southeast of Shīrāz, in which the rooms are roofed with domes
and squinches, features often found in Sāsānian architecture.
Excavations at Bishāpūr, or Shāhpūr, have revealed some mosaic
floors and other features of this important Sāsānian town.
Numerous fire temples of the period survive, especially in Fārs;
these are square buildings roofed by a dome over four arches.
Sāsānian remains of considerable extent also exist at Qaṣr-e
Shīrīn, on the road from Baghdad to Tehrān, and at Gondēshāpūr,
modern Shāhābād, south of Dezfūl.
Generally speaking, the Sāsānian era was one of a renaissance in
Iranian art, which, if not quite on the same level as the
Achaemenian achievement, was of no small importance.
Metalwork reached a high level of artistry and craftsmanship; its
most characteristic decorative themes are hunting scenes
portraying the Sāsānian kings in action. A gold and enamel
drinking vessel (now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris) from
the time of Khosrow I—known as the Cup of Solomon and,
according to one tradition, a gift from the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd
to Charlemagne—is perhaps the most sumptuous specimen of
Sāsānian metalworking. The art of gem engraving produced
many fine intaglio stamp seals and cameos. The coins invariably
bear a Pahlavi inscription; on the obverse(see photograph) is the
head of the king, wearing his characteristic crown, accompanied
by his name and title, while on the reverse is the fire altar with its
guardians and a legend such as “Fire of Ardashīr” or “Fire of
Shāpūr” or, in the later period, an abbreviated mint name and the
regnal date. (For additional discussion of Sāsānian visual arts,see Narses, the monument has a long inscriptionin Parthian and
art and architecture, Iranian.) Middle Persian that tells the story of the events. In 296 Narses was
forced to conclude a peace treaty with the Romans by which
The acquaintance with Greek language and literature maintained Armenia remained under Roman suzerainty and certain areas in
by the Arsacid court had begun to decline duringthe last century northern Mesopotamia were ceded to Rome. By this treaty, which
of that dynasty. Greek versions nonetheless accompany the lasted for 40 years, the Sāsānians withdrew completely from the
Parthian and Middle Persian texts of the inscriptions of Ardashīr I disputed districts. The Roman Empire had meanwhile become
and Shāpūr I, as in the case of the Kaʿbe-ye Zardusht inscription. Christian, and the Syro-Christian populations of Mesopotamia
Later inscriptions, however, are only in Parthian and Middle and Babylonia began to feel sympathy with Roman policies for
Persian, as in the case of the inscription of Narses at Paikuli. religious reasons. Christianity also became predominant in
Armenia after its king adopted the Christian faith in 294. The
Most of the comparatively few remaining examples of literature in Sāsānian emperors consequently felt the need to consolidate their
Book Pahlavi—a form of Middle Persian somewhat different from Zoroastrianism, and efforts were made to perfect and enforce
that used in the Sāsānian inscriptions—is of late or post-Sāsānian state orthodoxy. All heresywas proscribed by the state, defection
date in its actual form, if not in content. This is partly due to the from the official faith was made a capital crime, and persecution
fact that the transition from an oral to a written literary tradition of the heterodox, the Christians in particular, began. Competition
(both religious and secular compositions) took place in the latter between Iran and Rome-Byzantium thus took on a religious
part of the Sāsānian era. A passage in a religious text states that “it dimension.
is proper to consider the living spoken word more weighty than
the written.” It should be added that most Sāsānian literary A new war was inevitable. It was begun by Shāpūr II in 337, the
remains are primarily of religious and historical rather than of year of the death of Constantine I. Shāpūr besieged the fortress
literary interest. Just as foreign learning appears in religious city of Nisibis three times without success. The emperor
works, likewise foreign prose works of entertainment came to Constantius II (reigned 337–361) conducted the war weakly, but
Persia, where they were translated; among them, in the time of Shāpūr was distracted by the appearance of a new enemy, the
Khosrow I, were Hellenistic romance literature and Indian books nomadic Chionites, on his eastern frontier. After a long campaign
of tales, such as Kalīlag and Dimnag, based on the Indian Pañca- against them (353–358), he returned to Mesopotamia and, with
tantra, or the legends of Barlaam and Josaphat (Balauhar and the help of Chionite auxiliaries, captured the city of Amida
Budasaf). (modern Diyarbakır, Turkey) on the upper Tigris, an episode
vividly narrated by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus
Foreign policy (c. 330–395). The emperor Julian the Apostate (361–363) reopened
hostilities after the death of Constantius but died after having
In foreign policy the issues under the Sāsānian kings remained, as reached the vicinity of Ctesiphon. His successor, Jovian (363–
of old, the defense and, when possible, the expansion of the 364), was forced to give up the Roman possessions on the Tigris,
eastern and western frontiers. The successful military campaigns including Nisibis, and to abandon Armenia and his Arsacid
in the eastern areas by Ardashīr I and Shāpūr I, which resulted in protégé, Arsaces III, to the Persians. The greater part of Armenia
the annexation of the western part of the Kushān empire, have then became a Persian province.
already been mentioned.
Intermittent conflicts from Yazdegerd I to Khosrow I
Conflicts with Rome
After about two decades of disturbed reigns ( Ardashīr II, Shāpūr
In the west the old contest for northern Mesopotamia—with the III, Bahrām IV), Yazdegerd I came to the throne in 399. His reign
fortified cities of Carrhae, Nisibis, and Edessa—continued. The is viewed differently by Christian and Zoroastrian sources. The
Sāsānians were all the more eager to regain and retain control of former praise his clemency; the latter refer to him as “Yazdegerd
Armenia because there the Arsacid dynasty still survived and the Sinful.” His initial inclination toward tolerance of Christianity
turned for protection to Rome, with which, in consequence, new and Judaism was met by resistance on the part of the nobility.
wars continually broke out. In the reign of Bahrām II (276–293), Because of their attitude and because of the growing fanaticism of
the Roman emperor Carus (282–283) invaded Mesopotamia the Christians, Yazdegerd was forced to turn to repression. After
without meeting opposition and reached Ctesiphon. His sudden his death (420)the nobles refused to admit any of Yazdegerd's
death, however, caused the Roman army to withdraw. Bahrām II sons to the throne. But one of them, Bahrām, had the support of
had been prevented from meeting the Roman challenge by the al-Mundhir, Arab king of Al-Ḥīrah (east of the lower Euphrates)
rebellion of his brother, the kūshānshāh Hormizd, who tried to and a Sāsānian vassal, and also, apparently, of Mihr-Narseh, chief
establish an independent eastern empire. This attempt ended in minister in Yazdegerd's last years, who was retained in office, and
failure, however, and Bahrām II appointed his younger son, the Bahrām eventually won the throne. As King Bahrām V (420–438),
future Bahrām III, as viceroy of Sakastan (Sīstān). After Bahrām II surnamed Gūr (for the onager, or wild ass), he became the
died, Narses, the youngest son of Shāpūr I, contested the favourite of Persian popular tradition, which exuberantly
succession of Bahrām III and won the crown. In memory of his celebrates his prowess in hunting and in love. Unsuccessful in
victory, Narses erected a tower at Paikuli, in the mountains west war with Byzantium (421–422), Bahrām V made a 100-year peace
of the upper Diyālā River, which was discovered in 1843 by the and granted freedom of worship to the Christians. Inthe east he
British Orientalist Sir Henry Rawlinson. Decorated with busts of did succeed in repelling an invasion by the Hephthalites. In the

25
following decades, however (the second half of the 5th century),
Hephthalite attacks continued to harass and weaken the
Sāsānians. Fīrūz (reigned 457–484) fell in battle against them; his
treasures and family were captured, and the country was
devastated. His brother Balāsh (484–488), unable to cope with
continuing incursions, was deposed and blinded. The crown fell
to Kavadh (Qobād) I, son of Fīrūz. While the empire continued to
suffer distress, hewas dethroned and imprisoned (496), but he
escaped to the Hephthalites and was restored (499) with their
assistance. The Nestorian doctrine (claiming that divine and
human persons remained separate in the incarnate Christ) had by
then become dominant among the Christians in Iran and was
definitely established as the accepted form of Christianity in the
Sāsānian empire.
Kavadh I proved himself a vigorous ruler. He restored peace and
order in the land. Amida was destroyed during his campaign
against the Romans in 502, but another inroad by the Hephthalites
in the east compelled him to ratify a peace treaty with the
Byzantines. Toward the end of his reign, in 527, he resumed the
war and defeated the Byzantine general Belisarius at Callinicum
(531) with the support of al-Mundhir II of Al-Ḥīrah. Earlier in his
reign he had moved away from the Zoroastrian church and
favoured Mazdakism, a new socioreligious movement that had
found support among the people. The crown prince, Khosrow,
however, was an orthodox Zoroastrian; toward the end of his
father's reign, in collaboration with the chief mobed, he contrived
to condemn the Mazdakites, who were destroyed in a great
massacre in 528. On his father's death, after acceding as Khosrow
I (531–579), he concluded peace with theByzantine emperor
Justinian (532). He reestablished Zoroastrian orthodoxy, and,
although some persecution of Christian communities occurred
during periods of tension with Byzantium, the restoration of
peace brought about a considerable amount of religious tolerance.
Khosrow I was one of the most illustrious Sāsānian monarchs.
From his time dates a new and more equitable adjustment of the
imperial tax system. The levying of land revenue in kind was
replaced by a fixed assessment in cash, and these assessments
continued in force later under the Arab administration. His
reputation as an enlightened and just ruler was high during his
lifetime and later became legendary. When Justinian I closed the
26
philosophy school in Athens in 529, the last Neoplatonists turned
to Khosrow in hopes of findingin him the true philosopher-king.
Although they were disillusioned by conditions at his court, their
gratitude was great when Khosrow obtained for them the right to
return to Athens. From 540 onward Khosrow had been
conducting a long war against Justinian, which, although
interrupted by several armistices, lasted until the so-called 50
years' peace of 561. Khosrow also extended his power to the Black
Sea and inflicted heavy defeats on the Hephthalites. These
military successes resulted partly because the armed forces and
the chain of command were reorganized several times during
Khosrow's long reign.
Conflicts with the Turks and Byzantium
About 560 a new nation, that of the Turks, had emerged in the
east. By concluding an alliance with a Turkish leader called
Sinjibu (Silzibul), Khosrow was able to inflict a decisive defeat on
the Hephthalites, after which event a common frontier between
the Turkish and Sāsānian empires was established. Inevitably,
this alliance became a source of possible friction, and the Turks
sometimes acted as an ally of Byzantium against Iran in a second
war (572–579).
Khosrow bequeathed this war to his son Hormizd IV (579–590),
who, in spite of repeated negotiations, failed to reestablish peace
between Byzantium and Iran, and fighting occurred
intermittently throughout his reign. Hormizd was unable to
display the same authority as his father, and he antagonized the
Zoroastrian clergy by failing to take action against the Christians.
He finally fell victim to a conspiracy headed by the general
Bahrām Chūbīn. Hormizd's son, Khosrow II, was set up against
his father and forced to acquiesce when Hormizd was executed.
New unrest broke out, in which Bahrām Chūbīn—though not of
royal lineage—attempted to secure the throne. Simultaneously
another pretender, Prince Bestām, decided to try his luck.
Khosrow fled to Byzantium, and the emperor Maurice undertook
to restore him by military force. Bahrām Chūbīn was routed (591)
and fled to and was killed by the Turks, and Khosrow again
ascended the throne in Ctesiphon. Bestām held out in Media until
596.
During the two reigns (590 and 591–628) of Khosrow II—
surnamed Parvīz (the “Victorious”)—the Sāsānids achieved
unprecedented splendour and material wealth. The assassination
of Maurice (602) impelled Khosrow to war against Byzantium, in
the course of which his armies penetrated as far as Chalcedon
(opposite Constantinople), ravaged Syria, and captured Antioch
(611), Damascus (613), and Jerusalem (614); in 619 Egypt was
occupied. The Byzantine Empire was, indeed, at its lowest ebb.
It took the great emperor Heraclius, who was crowned in 610,
many years to rebuild the nucleus of a new army. This done,
however, he set out in 622 and retaliated vigorously against the
Persians, whose armies were defeated everywhere. In 624
Heraclius invaded Atropatene (Azerbaijan) and destroyed the
great Zoroastrian fire temple; in 627 he entered the Tigris
provinces. Khosrow II attempted no resistance, and a revolution
followed in which he was defeated and slain by his son Kavadh
(Qobād) II (628). When Kavadh died a few months later, anarchy
resulted. After a succession of short-time rulers, Yazdegerd III,
grandson of Khosrow II, came to the throne in632.
two empires against fellow Arabs who roamed deeper in the
Arabian Desert. Also, Meccan and Medinese Arabs had
established commercial connections with the Byzantines and
Sāsānids. The immunity of Mecca's ancient sanctuary, the Kaʿbah,
against outlawry and outrage had promoted this city's
commercial importance. The Kaʿbah was cleansed of idols by
Muhammad, who had himself once been engaged in commerce.
He made it the sanctuary of a monotheistic faith whose sacred
writings werefilled with the injunctions and prohibitions needed
by a business community for secure and stable trading.
Arab tribalism beyond urban fringes was less easily broken than
idols. It was embedded in the desert sparsity that led to warfare
and carefully counting a tribe's male offspring. After Mecca and
Medina had become Muslim, it was essential that the Muslims
win the desert Arabs' allegiance in order to secure the routes they
depended on for trade and communication. In the process of
doing this, wars over water holes, scanty pastures, men-at-arms,
and camels were enlarged into international campaigns of
expansion.

Triumph of the Arabs The vulnerability of Sāsānian Iran assisted the expansionist
process. In 623 the Byzantine emperor Heraclius reversed Persian
All these prolonged and exhausting hostilities drastically reduced successes over Roman arms—namely, by capturing Jerusalem in
the powers of both Byzantium and Iran. The door was open to a 614 and winning at Chalcedon in 617. His victim, Khosrow
newlyemerging force that challenged both states and religions— Parvīz, diedin 628 and left Iran prey to a succession of puppet
the Arabs. After several encounters, the fate of the Sāsānian rulers who were frequently deposed by a combination of nobles
empire was decided in the battle of Al-Qādisiyyah (636/637)—on and Zoroastrian clergy. Thus, when Yazdegerd III, Iran's last
one of the Euphrates canals, not far from Al-Ḥīrah—during which Sāsānid and Zoroastrian sovereign, came to the throne in 632, the
the Sāsānian commander in chief, Rostam, was killed. Ctesiphon year of Muhammad's death, he inherited an empire weakened by
with its treasures was at the mercy of the victors. Yazdegerd III Byzantine wars and internal dissension.
fled to Media, where his generals tried to organize new resistance.
The Battle of Nahāvand (642), south of Hamadān, put an end to The former Arab vassals on the empire's southwestern border
their hopes. Yazdegerd sought refuge in one province after realized that their moment had arrived, but their raids into
another, until at last, in 651, he was assassinated near Merv. Sāsānian territory were quickly taken up by Muḥammad's
caliphs, or deputies, at Medina—Abū Bakr and ʿUmar ibn al-
With the fall of the empire, the fate of its religion was also sealed. Khaṭṭāb—to become a Muslim, pan-Arab attack on Iran.
The Muslims officially tolerated the Zoroastrian faith, though
persecutions were not unknown. Little by little it vanished from An Arab victory at Al-Qādisiyyah in 636/637 was followed by the
Iran, except for a few surviving adherents who remain to the sack of the Sāsānian winter capital at Ctesiphon on the Tigris.
present day in Yazd and a few other places. Other Zoroastrians The Battle of Nahāvand in 642 completed the Sāsānids'
emigrated to western India, where they are now chiefly vanquishment. Yazdegerd fled to the empire's northeastern
concentrated in Mumbai (Bombay). These Parsi (Persians) have outpost, Merv, whose marzbān, or march lord, Mahūyeh, was
preserved only a relatively small portion of their sacred writings. soured by Yazdegerd's imperious and expensive demands.
They still number their years by the era of Yazdegerd III, the last Mahūyeh turned against his emperor and defeated him with the
king of their faith and the last Sāsānian sovereign of Iran. help of Hephthalites from Bādghis. The Hephthalites, an
independent border power, had troubled the Sāsānids since at
The advent of Islam (640–829) least 590, when they had sided with Bahrām Chūbīn, Khosrow
Parvīz's rebel general. A miller near Merv murdered the fugitive
The Arab invasion of Iran made a break with the past that affected Yazdegerd for his purse.
not only Iran but all of western Asia and resulted in the
assimilation of peoples who shaped and vitalized Muslim culture. The Sāsānids' end was ignominious, but it was not the end of
(See also Islamic world.) The Prophet Muhammad had made Iran. Rather, it marked a new beginning. Within two centuries
Medina, his adopted city, and Mecca, his birthplace, centres of an Iranian civilization was revived with a cultural amalgam, with
Arabian movement that Muslim Arabs developed into a world patterns of art and thought, with attitudes and a sophistication
movement through the conquest of Iranian and Byzantine that were indebted to its pre-Islamic Iranian heritage—a heritage
territories. Neither Sāsānian Iran nor the Byzantine Empire had changed but also stirred into fresh life by the Arab Muslim
been unfamiliar to those Arabs who were the former's Lakhmid conquest.
and the latter's Ghassānid vassals, the frontier guardians of the

27
Abū Muslim's revolution transmitted to them. Centuries later this Shīʿism became the
official Islamic sect of Iran. In the interim, Shīʿism was a rallying
Less time was needed before a new Islamic beginning: Abū point for socially and politically discontented elements within the
Muslim's movement, which began in Khorāsān in 747 and was Muslim community. In addition to the Khārijites, another
caused by Arab assimilation with Iranians in colonized regions. minority sect was thus formed, hostile from the beginning to the
This revolution followed years of conspiracy directed from Umayyad government that seized power on ʿAlī's death. The
Medina and across to Khorāsān along the trade route that linked majority of Muslims avoided both the Shīʿite and Khārijite
East Asia with Merv and thence with the West. Along the route, positions, following instead the sunnah , or “practice,” as these
merchants with contacts in the Mesopotamian Arab garrison cities believers conceived the Prophet to have left it and as Abū Bakr,
of Al-Kūfah, Wāsiṭ, and Al-Baṣrah acted as intermediaries. ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī, too—known as al-khulafāʾ al-rāshidūn
Iranians who converted to Islam and became clients, or al-mawālī, (Arabic: “the rightly guided caliphs”)—had observed and
of Arab patrons played direct and indirect parts in the codified it.
revolutionary movement. The movement also involved Arabs
who had become partners with Khorāsānian and Transoxanian Abū Muslim's revolutionary movement was, as much as
Iranians in ventures in the great east-west trade and intercity anything, representing Medinese mercantile interests in the
trade of northeastern Iran. The revolution was, nevertheless, Hejaz, dissatisfied with Umayyad inability to shelter Middle
primarily an Arab Islamic movement that intended to supplant a Eastern trade under a Pax Islamica. To promote the revolution
militaristic, tyrannical central government—whose fiscal aimed to destroy Umayyad power, the movement exploited
problems made it avid for revenue—by one more sympathetic to Shīʿite aspirations and other forces of disenchantment. The
the needs of the merchants of eastern Islam. Abū Muslim, a Khārijites were excluded, since their movement opposed the idea
revolutionary of unknown origin, was able to exploit the of a caliphate of the kind Abū Muslim's adherents were fighting
discontent of the merchant classes in Merv as well as that of the to establish—one that could command sufficient respect to hold
Arab and Iranian settlers. The object of attack was the Umayyad together an Islamic universal state. A discontented element ready
government in Damascus. to Abū Muslim's hand in Khorāsān, however, was not a religious
grouping but Arab settlers and Iranian cultivators who were
When Muhammad died in 632, his newly established community burdened by taxation.
in Medina and Mecca needed a guiding counselor, an imam, to
lead them in prayers and an amīr al-muʾminīn, a “commander of In Iran the first Arab conquerors had concluded treaties with local
the faithful,” to ensure proper application of the Prophet's Iranian magnates who had assumed authority when the Sāsānian
divinely inspired precepts. As the Prophet, Muhammad could imperial government disintegrated. These notables—the
never be entirely succeeded, but it was accepted that men who marzbāns and landlords (dehqāns)—undertook to continue tax
had sufficient dignity and who had known him could fulfill the collection on behalf of the new Muslim power. The advent of
functions, as his caliphs (deputies) and imams. After Abū Bakr Arab colonizers, who preferred to cultivate the land rather than
and ʿUmar, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān was chosen for this role. campaign farther into Asia, produced a further complication.
Once the Arabs had settled in Iranian lands, they, like the Iranian
By ʿUthmān's time, factionalism was growing among Arabs, cultivators, were required to pay the kharāj , or land tax, which
partly the result of the jealousies and rivalries that accompanied was collected by Iranian notables for the Muslims in a system
the acquisition of new territories and partly the result of the similar to that which had predated theconquest. The system was
competition between first arrivals there and those who followed. ripe for abuse, and the Iranian collectors extorted large sums,
There was alsouncertainty over the most desirable kind of arousing the hostility of both Arabs and Persians.
imamate. One faction, the Shīʿites, supported ʿAlī, Muhammad's
cousin and the husband ofthe Prophet's favourite daughter, Another source of discontent was the jizyah , or head tax, which
Fāṭimah, for the caliphate, since he had been an intimate of was applied to non-Muslims of the tolerated religions—Judaism,
Muhammad and seemed more capable than the other candidates Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. After they converted to Islam,
of expressing Muhammad's wisdom and virtue as the people's Iranians expected to be exempt from this tax. But the Umayyad
judge. The desire for such a successor points to disenchantment government, burdened with imperial expenses, often refused to
with ʿUthmān's attempt to strengthen the central government and exempt the Iranian converts.
impose demands on the colonies. His murder in 656 left his
Umayyad relatives poised to avenge it, while ʿAlī was raised to The tax demands of the Damascus government were as distasteful
the caliphate. A group of his supporters, the Khārijites, desired to those urbanized Arabs and Iranians in commerce as they were
more freedom than ʿAlī was willing to grant, with a return to the to those in agriculture, and hopes of easier conditions under the
simplest interpretation of the Prophet's revelation in the new rulers than under the Sāsānids were not fully realized. The
Qurʾān,along puritanical lines. Umayyads ignored Iranian agricultural conditions, which
required constant reinvestment to maintain irrigation works and
A Khārijite killed ʿAlī in 661. The Shīʿites thenceforth crystallized to halt the encroachment of the desert. This no doubt made the
into the obverse position of the Khārijites, emphasizing ʿAlī's tax burden, from which no returns were visible, all the more
relationshipto the Prophet as a means of making him and his odious. Furthermore, the regime failed to maintain the peace so
descendants by Fāṭimah the sole legitimate heirs to the Prophet, necessary to trade. Damascus feared the breaking away of remote
some of whose spiritual power was even believed to have been provinces where the Arabcolonists were becoming assimilated

28
with the local populations. The government, therefore,
deliberately encouraged tribal factionalismin order to prevent a
united opposition against it.
Thus the revolution set out to establish an Islamic ecumene above
divisions and sectarianism, the Pax Islamica already referred to,
which commerce required and which Iranian merchants without
status in the Sāsānian social hierarchy looked to Islam to provide.
Ease of communication from the Oxus (modern Amu Darya)
River to the Mediterranean Sea was wanted but without what
seemed like a nest of robbers calling themselves a government
and straddling the route at Damascus. In 750 Umayyad power
was destroyed, and the revolution gave the caliphate to the
ʿAbbāsids (see Islamic world and Iraq: The ʿAbbāsid Caliphate).
Hejazi commercial interests had in a sense overcome the military
party among leading Muslim Arabs. Greater concern for the east
was manifested by the new caliphate's choice of Baghdad as its
capital—situated on the Tigris a short distance north of Ctesiphon
and designed as a new city, to be free of the factions of the old
Umayyad garrison cities of Al-Kūfah, Wāsiṭ, and Al-Baṣrah.
The ʿAbbāsid Caliphate (750–821)
The revolution that established the ʿAbbāsids represented a
triumph of the Islamic Hejazi elements within the empire; the
Iranian revival was yet to come. Nevertheless, ʿAbbāsid concern
with fostering eastern Islam made the new caliphs willing to
borrow the methods and procedures of statecraft employed by
their Iranian predecessors. At Damascus the Umayyads had
imitated Sāsānian court etiquette, but at Baghdad Persianizing
influences went deeper and aroused some resentment among the
Arabs, who were nostalgic for the legendary simplicity of human
relations among the desert Arabs of yore. Self-conscious schools
of manners grew up in the new metropolis, representing the
competitive merits of the Arabs' or Persians' ancient ways. To
counter the widespread Arab chauvinism still present after the
ʿAbbāsid revolution, there arose a literary-political movement
known as the shuʿūbiyyah , which celebrated the excellence of
non-Arab Muslim peoples, particularly the Persians, and set the
stage for the resurgence of Iranian literature and culture in the
decades to come. Regard for poetry—the Arabs' vehicle of folk
memory—increased, and minds and imaginations were
quickened. Philosophical enquiry was developed out of the need
for precision about the meaning of Holy Writ and forthe
establishment of the authenticity of the Prophet's dicta, collected
as Hadith—sayings traditionally ascribed to him and recollected
and preserved for posterity by his companions. An amalgam
known as Islamic civilization was thus being forged in Baghdad
in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Iranian intellect, however, played
a conspicuous part in what was still an Arab milieu. Works of
Indian provenance were translated into Arabic from Pahlavi, the
written language of Sāsānian Iran, notably by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (c.
720–757). The wisdom of both the ancient East and West was
received and discussed in Baghdad's schools. The metropolis's
outposts confronted Byzantium as well as infidel marches in
Afghanistan and Central Asia. Cultural influences came from both
directions. Curiosity in the pursuit of knowledge had been
enjoined by the Prophet “even as far as China.” This
29
cosmopolitanism was not new to the descendants of the urban
Arabs of Mecca or to the Iranians, whose land lay across the
routes from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. Both peoples knew
how to transmute what was not originally their own into forms
that were entirely Islamic. Islam had liberated men of the scribal
and mercantile classes who in Iran had been subject to the dictates
of a taboo-ridden and excessively ritualized Zoroastrianism and
who in Arabia had been inhibited by tribal feuds and prejudices.
Despite the development of a distinctive Islamic culture, the
military problems of the empire were left unsolved. The
ʿAbbāsids were under pressure from the infidel on several fronts
—Turks in Central Asia, pagans in India and in the Hindu Kush,
and Christians in Byzantium. War for the faith, or jihad, against
these infidels was a Muslim duty. But, whereas the Umayyads
had been expansionists andhad seen themselves as heads of a
military empire, the ʿAbbāsids were more pacific and saw
themselves as the supporters of more thanan Arab, conquering
militia. Yet rebellions within the imperial frontiers had to be
contained and the frontiers protected.
Rebellion within the empire took the form of peasant revolts in
Azerbaijan and Khorāsān, coalesced by popular religious appeals
centred on men who assumed or were accorded mysterious
powers. Abū Muslim—executed in 755 by the second ʿAbbāsid
caliph, al-Manṣūr, who feared his influence—became one such
messianic figure. Another was al-Muqannaʿ (Arabic: “the Veiled
One”), who usedAbū Muslim's mystique and whose movement
lasted from 777 to 780. The Khorram-dīnān (Persian: “Glad
Religionists”), under the Azerbaijanian Bābak (816–838), also
necessitated vigorous military suppression. Bābak eluded capture
for two decades, defying the caliph in Azerbaijan and western
Persia, before being caught and brought to Baghdad to be
tortured and executed. These heresiarchs revived such creeds as
that of the anti-Sāsānid religious leader Mazdak (died 528 or
529), expressive of social and millenarian aspirations that were
later canalized into Sufism on the one hand and into Shīʿism on
the other.
Sīstān, Iran's southeastern border area, had a tradition of chivalry
as the ancient homeland of Iranian military champions. Their
tales passed to posterity collectively in the deeds of Rostam, son
of Zāl, in Ferdowsī's Shāh-nāmeh , the Persian national epic. On
the route to India, Sīstān was also a centre of trade. Its agrarian
masses were counterbalanced by an urban population whose
economy could be bolstered by plunder gained through military
forays into still non-Muslim areas under the rule of the southern
Hephthalites—the Zunbīls of the Hindu Kush's southwestern
flanks—whose command of trade routes with India had to be
contested when the existing partnership in this command broke
down.
Early exploitation of the province's agriculture by Arab governors
had, however, debilitated the rural life, and Khārijites, who found
refuge in Sīstān from the Umayyads, organized or attracted bands
of local peasants and vagabonds who had strayed south from
Khorāsān. The presence of these groups indicates agricultural
depression following the first century of rule by nonagricultural
Arabs who had failed to grasp the needs of the Iranian cultivators.
Khārijite bands isolated the cities and threatened their supplies. regularly paid in cash, absorbing many Khārijites into its ranks.
Sīstān needed an urban champion who could come to terms with This and his extension of Islam into pagan areas of Sind and
the Khārijites and divert them to what could legitimately be Afghanistan earned him the caliph's gratitude, which Yaʿqūb
termed jihad across the border, forming the gangsters into a well- courted by sending golden idols captured from infidels to be
disciplined loyal army. Such a man was Yaʿqūb ibn Layth, who paraded in Baghdad. Yaʿqūb's attitude toward the imam's
founded the Ṣaffārid dynasty, the first purely Iranian dynasty of claiming political subservience was, nevertheless, strikingly
the Islamic era, and threatened the Muslim empire with the first similar to that of the caliph-rejecting Khārijites. He turned his
resurgence of Iranian independence. attention inward instead of outside the pale of Islam. He seized
Baghdad's breadbaskets—Fārs and Khūzestān—and drove the
The “Iranian intermezzo” (821–1055) Ṭāhirid emir from Neyshābūr. His march on Baghdad itself was
halted only by the stratagem devised by the caliph's commander
Yaʿqūb ibn Layth's movement differed from Ṭāhir ibn al-Ḥusayn's in chief, who inundated Yaʿqūb's army by bursting dikes. Yaʿqūb
establishment of a dynasty of Iranian governors over Khorāsān in died soon after, in 879. He had made an empire, minted his own
821. The latter's rise marks the caliph's recognition, after the coinage, fashioned a new style of army loyal to its leader rather
difficulties encountered in Iran by Hārūn al-Rashīd (reigned 786– than to any religious or doctrinal concept, and required that
809), that the best way for the imam and amīr al-muʾminīn at verses in his praise be put into his own language—Persian—from
Baghdad to ensure military effectiveness in eastern Islam was by Arabic, which he did not understand. He began the Iranian
appointing a great general to govern Khorāsān. Ṭāhir had won resurgence.
Baghdad from Hārūn's son al-Amīn in favour of his other son, al-
Maʾmūn, in the civil war between the two after their father's The collapse of the Ṭāhirid viceroyalty left Baghdad faced with a
death. Ṭāhir was descended from the mawālī of an Arab leader in power vacuum in Khorāsān and southern Persia. The caliph
eastern Khorāsān. He was, therefore, of Iranian origin, but, unlike reluctantly confirmed Yaʿqūb's brother ʿAmr as governor of Fārs
Yaʿqūb, he did not emerge out of his own folk and because of a and Khorāsān but withdrew his recognition on three occasions,
regional need. Instead, he rose as a servant of the caliphate, as and ʿAmr's authority was disclaimed to the Khorāsānian pilgrims
whose lieutenant he was, in due course, appointed to govern a to Mecca when they passed through Baghdad. But ʿAmr remained
great frontier province. He made Neyshābūr his capital. Though useful to Baghdad so long as Khorāsān was victimized by the
he died shortly after gaining the right of having his name rebels Aḥmad al-Khujistānī and, for longer, Rāfiʿ ibn Harthama.
mentioned after the caliph's in the khuṭbah (the formal sermon at After Rāfiʿ had been finally defeated in 896, ʿAmr's broader
the Friday congregations of Muslims when those with authority ambitions gave the caliph al-Muʿtaḍid his chance. ʿAmr conceived
over the community were mentioned after the Prophet), his family designs on Transoxania, but there the Sāmānids held the caliph's
was sufficiently influential and respected at Baghdad to retain the license to rule, after having nominally been Ṭāhirid deputies.
governorship of Neyshābūr until the Ṭāhirids were ousted from When ʿAmr demanded and obtained the former Ṭāhirid tutelage
the city by Yaʿqūb in 873. Thereafter they retired to Baghdad. over the Sāmānids in 898, Baghdad could leave the Ṣaffārid and
Sāmānid to fight each other, and the Sāmānid Ismāʿīl (reigned
Discussion of the rise of “independent” Persian dynasties such as 892–907) won. ʿAmr was sent to Baghdad, where he was put to
the Ṭāhirid in the 9th century has to be qualified: not only does death in 902. His family survived as Sāmānid vassals in Sīstān
the skillful ʿAbbāsid statecraft need to be considered, but also the and were heard of until the 16th century. Yaʿqūb remains a
Muslims' need for legality in a juridical-religious setting must be popular hero in Iranian history.
recognized. The majority of Muslims considered the caliph to be
the legitimate head of the faith and the guarantor of the law. Such The Sāmānids
a guarantee was preeminently the need of merchants in the cities There was nothing of the popular hero in the Sāmānids' origin.
of Sīstān, Transoxania, and central Iran. Their eponym was Sāmān-Khodā, a landlord in the district of
Balkh and, according to the dynasty's claims, a descendant of
In the Caspian provinces of Gīlān and Ṭabaristān (Māzandarān) Bahrām Chūbīn, the Sāsānian general. Sāmān became Muslim.
the situation was different. The Elburz Mountains had been a His four grandsons were rewarded for services to the caliph al-
barrier against the integration of these areas into the Caliphate. Maʾmūn (reigned 813–833) and received the caliph's investiture
Small princely families—the Bāvands, including the Kāʾūsiyyeh for areas that included Samarkand and Herāt. They thus gained
and the Espahbadiyyeh (665–1349), and the Musāfirids, also wealthy Transoxanian and east Khorāsānian entrepôt cities,
known as Sallārids or Kangarids (916–c. 1090)—had remained where they could profit from trade that reached across Asia, even
independent of the caliphal capitals, Damascus and Baghdad, in as far as Scandinavia, and from providing Turkish slaves—much
the mountains of Daylam. When Islam reached these old Iranian in demand in Baghdad as royal troops—while they protected the
enclaves, it was brought by Shīʿite leaders in flight from frontiers and provided security for merchants in Bukhara,
metropolitan persecution. It was not the Islam of the Sunnite state. Samarkand, Khujand, and Herāt. With onetransitory exception,
they upheld Sunnism and at each new accession to power paid a
The Ṣaffārids tribute to Baghdad for the tokens of investiture from the caliph
whereby their rule represented lawful authority. Thus, legal
Yaʿqūb ibn Layth began life as an apprentice ṣaffār (Arabic: transactions in Sāmānid realms would be valid, and Baghdad
“coppersmith”), hence his dynasty's name, Ṣaffārid. Taking to received tribute in return for the insignia prayed over and signed
military freebooting, he mustered an army that he disciplined and by the caliph. This tribute took the place of regular revenue,so

30
that it represented a solution of the taxation problems and
consequent resentments that had bedeviled the Umayyad regime.
In modern assessments of imperial power, Baghdad may seem to
have been politically the weaker for this type of arrangement, but
ensuring the reign of Islam in peripheral provinces was important
to the caliphs. Islam's portals to East Asia were adequately
guarded, the supply of Turkish slaves essential for the caliph's
bodyguard was maintained, and Turkish pagan tribes were
converted to Islam under the Sāmānids.
The Iranian renaissance
The Sāmānid aura lasted from 819 until it was eclipsed in 999. Its
supremacy in northeastern Islam began in 875, when the Sāmānid
emir, Naṣr I, received the license to govern all of Transoxania.
Sāmānid emirs succeeded the Ṭāhirid-Ṣaffārid power in
Khorāsān, and under them the Iranian renaissance at last came to
fruition. Shaped out of the vernacular of northeastern Iranian
courts and households and making skillful use of additional
Arabic vocabulary, the Persian language emerged as a literary
medium. Persian notation had been used in the first Muslim
dīwāns, or chancelleries, in accountancy, because the first civil
servants in the old Iranian areas had been Iranians. In 697 the
ruthless Umayyad governor Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf had ordered the
change to Arabic notation, marking the final dethronement of
Pahlavi characters. When Modern Persian began to develop as a
written language two centuries later, its alphabet was Arabic. It
emerged as poetry, by which it was disciplined into a most
expressive and flexible tongue, with the flexibility resulting from
perfect control of a highly formal medium. The discipline was that
of Arabic prosody, to which scenes of a verdure unknown to the
Arab poet in the desert added, in the words of Iranian poets, a
new and lustrous imagery. Rivaling the Arabs' tales of ancient
valour was the Iranian legend versified under Sāmānid patronage
in the Shāh-nāmeh (“Book of Kings”), Iran's national epic,
composed by Ferdowsī of Ṭūs in Khorāsān over a 30-year period
and finally completed after the eclipse of the Sāmānids, in
1009/10.
Under the Sāmānids, Bukhara rivaled Baghdad as a cultural
capital of Islam. Besides the Persian poet Rūdakī (died 940/941),
who had crystallized the language and imagery of Persian lyrical
poetry as Ferdowsī (died between 1020 and 1026) was to do for
that of the epic, patrons such as Naṣr II (reigned 914–943)
attracted poets and scholars to Bukhara, many producing literary
and academic works in both Persian and Arabic. A written
Persian evolved that has survived with remarkably little change.
The Ghaznavids
Rūdakī, in a poem about the Sāmānid emir's court, describes how
“row upon row” of Turkish slave guards were part of its
adornment. From these guards' ranks two military families arose
—the Sīmjūrids and Ghaznavids—who ultimately proved
disastrous to the Sāmānids. The Sīmjūrids received an appanage
in the Kūhestān region of southern Khorāsān. Alp Tigin founded
the Ghaznavid fortunes when he established himself at Ghazna
(modern Ghaznī, Afghanistan) in 962. He and Abū al-Ḥasan
Sīmjūrī, as Sāmānid generals, competed with each other for the
31
governorship of Khorāsān and control of the Sāmānid empire by
placing on the throne emirs they could dominate. Abū al-Ḥasan
died in 961, but a court party instigated by men of the scribal class
—civilian ministers as contrasted with Turkish generals—rejected
Alp Tigin's candidate for the Sāmānid throne. Manṣūr I was
installed, and Alp Tigin prudently retired to his fief of Ghazna.
The Sīmjūrids enjoyed control of Khorāsān south of the Oxus but
were hard-pressed by a third great Iranian dynasty, the Būyids,
and were unable to survive the collapse of the Sāmānids and the
rise of the Ghaznavids.
The struggles of the Turkish slave generals for mastery of the
throne with the help of shifting allegiance from the court's
ministerial leaders both demonstrated and accelerated the
Sāmānid decline. Sāmānid weakness attracted into Transoxania
the Qarluq Turks, who had recently converted to Islam. They
occupied Bukhara in 992 to establish in Transoxania the
Qarakhanid, or Ilek Khanid, dynasty. Alp Tigin had been
succeeded at Ghazna by Sebüktigin (died 997). Sebüktigin's son
Maḥmūd made an agreement with the Qarakhanids whereby the
Oxus was recognized as their mutual boundary. Thus the
Sāmānids' dominion was divided and Maḥmūd was freed to
advance westward into Khorāsān to meet the Būyids.
The Būyids
The Būyids (or Buwayhids) share with the Sāmānids the palm for
having brought to fruition the Iranian renaissance. They achieved
Iranian political reascendancy by doing what Yaʿqūb ibn Layth
had failed to do and what the Sāmānids would probably have
considered illegal to do: they captured Baghdad and made the
caliph their puppet. As far east as the city of Rayy, western,
central, and southern Iran were once more ruled by an Iranian
dynasty. At the peak of the Būyid empire, the Būyid base second
to Baghdad becameFārs, whence the Achaemenids and the
Sāsānids had sprung. Politically, the Būyids effected the
Iranianization of the metropolitan government in Baghdad. Yet,
by the very fact that they saw in the caliphate an institution of
enough purely political significance to merit its dramatic
takeover, they paradoxically left the caliphate's political role
emphasized by what at first sight might seem to have been
deepest humiliation. Spiritually, the caliphate held no appeal for
the Būyids, who were Shīʿite. Politically and juridically, as the
stabilizing factor over the Islamic peoples, the Būyids, in spite of
their own religious affiliation, maintained the caliphate.
The homeland of the Būyids was Daylam, in the Gīlān uplands in
northern Iran. There, at the end of the 9th century, hardy valley
dwellers had been stirred into martial activity by a number of
factors, among them the rebel Rāfiʿ ibn Harthama's attempt to
penetrate the region, ostensibly with Sāmānid support. ʿAmr ibn
Layth had pursued the rebel into the region. Other factors had
been the formation of Shīʿite principalities in the area and
continued Sāmānid attempts to subjugate them. After the Ṭāhirid
collapse, the lack of stability in northern Iran south of the Elburz
Mountains attracted many Daylamite mercenaries into the area
on military adventures. Among them Mākān ibn Kākī served the
Sāmānids with his compatriots, the sons of Būyeh, and their allies
the Ziyārids under Mardāvīj. Mardāvīj introduced the three
Būyid brothers to the Iranian plateau, where he established an
empire reaching as far south as Eṣfahān and Hamadān. He was
murdered in 935, but his Ziyārid descendants sought Sāmānid
protection. They adhered to Sunnism and maintained themselves
in the region southeast of the Caspian Sea. The Ziyārid Qābūs ibn
Voshamgīr (reigned 978–1012) built himself a tomb tower, the
Gonbad-e Qābūs (1006–07), which remains one of Iran's finest
monuments. Also still extant is a work of his descendant ʿUnṣur
al-Maʿālī Keykāʾūs (reigned 1049–90), the Qābūs-nāmeh, a prose
“Mirror for Princes,” which is a valuable document on the social
and political life of the time.
Mardāvīj's expansionism south of the Elburz was taken up by his
Būyid lieutenants: the eldest brother, ʿAlī, consolidated power for
himself in Eṣfahān and Fārs and obtained the caliph's recognition;
another brother, Ḥasan, occupied Rayy and Hamadān; and the
youngest brother, Aḥmad, took Kermān in the southeast and
Khūzestān in the southwest. The caliphs al-Muttaqī and al-
Mustakfī of the 940s were at the mercy of the Turkish slaves in
their palace guard. The generals of the guard competed with each
other for the office ofamīr al-umarāʾ (commander in chief), who
virtually ruled Iraq on behalf of the caliphs. When Aḥmad gained
Khūzestān, he was close to the scene of the amīr al-umarāʾ
contests, which he chose to settle by himself. Aḥmad entered
Baghdad in 945 and assumed control of the caliphate's political
functions. The caliph became a Būyid protégé and conferred on
Aḥmad the title of Muʿizz al-Dawlah. ʿAlī became ʿImād al-
Dawlah, and Ḥasan became Rukn al-Dawlah. All these titles
implied that the Būyids were the upholders of the Muslim
ʿAbbāsid dawlah, or state. In practice, however, the dawlah
became a Daylamite state. It should be noted that the titles the
caliph assigned the Būyids did not include the word dīn, or
religion (as in Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, “Righteousness of Religion”), which
the caliph awarded exclusively toSunnite officials, thus
emphasizing the continuing independence of the caliphate as a
religious institution.
Later Būyid titles increased in grandeur. Even the old
Achaemenian title of shāhanshāh , king of kings, reappeared—a
title Aḥmad may have thought appropriate for an Iranian whose
family reconquered Iran south of the Elburz Mountains. As
suggested above, Būyid titlesemphasized political and territorial
sovereignty. This sovereignty reached its greatest extent under
Rukn al-Dawlah's son, ʿAḍud al-Dawlah, who, after the deaths of
his father and uncles, ruled an empire that comprised all of Persia
west and south of Khorāsān and included Iraq, with Baghdad at
its heart. ʿAḍud al-Dawlah pursued peace negotiations with
Byzantium, perhaps to free himself for his cherished project of an
Egyptian campaign against the rival caliphate of the Shīʿite
Fāṭimids, established in North Africa in 909, which had been
relocated in Egypt in 969. ʿAḍud al-Dawlah's concern with the
middle kingdom and its westward extension toward the
Mediterranean increased his hostility toward the Fāṭimids, despite
his own Shīʿite persuasion. In the north he drove the Ziyārids out
of Ṭabaristān, which struck a blow against the Sāmānids'
influence in the Caspian area.
The Seljuqs
ʿAḍud al-Dawlah is celebrated for public works, of which the dam
he built across the Kor River near Shīrāz, the Band-e Amīr Ṭoghrıl I had proclaimed himself sultan at Neyshābūr in 1038 and
32
(“Prince's Dam”), remains. He embellished the tomb of ʿAlī at Al-
Najaf in Iraq, where he himself was also buried. He built libraries,
schools, and hospitals, and he was the patron of the Arabic poet
al-Mutanabbī. Some Arabic verses of his own are still extant.
Although ʿAḍud al-Dawlah was undoubtedly one of Iran's
greatest rulers, his fratricidal wars, conducted with terrible
intractability on his way to power, initiated Būyid decline. The
descendants of the early Būyids reversed the mutual fidelity of
the first three brothers. The power this fidelity had achieved and
ʿAḍud al-Dawlah had made into a world force crumbled after his
death in 983.
His base had been Shīrāz, which he beautified and established as
a cultural centre, but he died at Baghdad, where he chose to keep
close to the caliph, whose daughter he married and from whom
he took the title “the Crown of the Community” and the privilege,
like the caliph, of having drums beaten at his gate on the calls to
prayer. He also had his name mentioned after that of the caliph
al-Ṭaʾiʿ in the khuṭbah. The Būyids avoided the policy, which in
all likelihood would have disrupted the empire, of favouring the
Shīʿites. Instead, they offered consolations of an emotional sort to
the Shīʿites in the form of public rites on the anniversaries of the
Shīʿite martyrs, notably the one commemorating the massacre of
ʿAlī's son Ḥusayn and his followers under the Umayyads at
Karbalāʾ in Iraq.
Although the Būyids were careful to avoid sectarian strife, family
quarrels weakened them sufficiently for Maḥmūd of Ghazna to
gain Rayy in 1029. But Maḥmūd (reigned 998–1030) went no
farther: his dynasty paid great deference to the caliphate's
legitimating power, and he made no bid to contest the Būyids'
role as its protectors. Maḥmūd's agreement with the Sāmānids'
Ilek Khanid successors, that the Oxus should be their mutual
boundary, held, but south of the river the Ghaznavids had to
contend with their own distant relatives, the Oğuz Turks.
Contrary to the sage counsel of Iranian ministers, Maḥmūd and
his successor Masʿūd (reigned 1031–41) permitted these tribesmen
to use Khorāsānian grazing grounds, which they entered from
north of the Oxus. United under descendants of an Oğuz leader
named Seljuq, between 1038 and 1040 these nomads drove the
Ghaznavids out of northeastern Iran. The final encounter was at
Dandānqān in 1040.
After their defeat by the Seljuqs, the Ghaznavids, patrons of
Islamic culture and letters, were deflected eastward into India,
where Maḥmūd had already conducted successful raids. The
raids took the form of jihad (or holy war), and the Ghaznavids
carried Islam and Persian Muslim art to the Indian subcontinent.
In Iran it was the Seljuqs' turn to create a new imperial synthesis
with the ʿAbbāsid caliphs. Ṭoghrıl Beg, the Seljuq sultan, entered
Baghdad in 1055, and Būyid power was terminated, thus ending
what Vladimir Minorsky, the great Iranologist, called the “Iranian
intermezzo.”
The Seljuqs and the Mongols
had espoused strict Sunnism, by whichhe gained the caliph's
confidence and undermined the Būyid position in Baghdad. The
Oğuz Turks had accepted Islam late in the 10th century, and their
leaders displayed a convert's zeal in their efforts to restore a
Muslim polity along orthodox lines. Their efforts were made all
the more urgent by the spread of Fāṭimid Ismāʿīlī propaganda
(Arabic daʿwah) in the eastern Caliphate by means of an
underground network of propagandists, or dāʿīs, intent on
undermining the Būyid regime, and by the threat posed by the
Christian Crusaders.
The Būyids' usurpation of the caliph's secular power had given
rise to a new theory of state formulated by al-Māwardī (died
1058). Al-Māwardī's treatise partly prepared the theoretical
ground for Ṭoghrıl's attemptto establish an orthodox Muslim state
in which conflict between the caliph-imam's spiritual-juridical
authority on the one side and the secular power of the sultan on
the other could be resolved, or at least regulated, by convention.
Al-Māwardī reminded the Muslim world of the necessity of the
imamate; but the treatise realistically admitted the existence of,
and thus accommodated, the fact of military usurpation of power.
The Seljuqs' own political theorist al-Ghazālī (died 1111) carried
this admission further by explaining that the position of a
powerless caliph, overshadowed by a strong Seljuq master, was
one in which the latter's presence guaranteed the former's
capacity to defend and extend Islam.
The caliph al-Qāʾim (reigned 1031–75) replaced the last Būyid's
name, al-Malik al-Raḥīm, in the khuṭbah and on the coins with
that of Ṭoghrıl Beg; and, after protracted negotiation ensuring
restoration of the caliph's dignity after Shīʿite subjugation, Ṭoghrıl
entered Baghdad in December 1055. The caliph enthroned him
and married a Seljuq princess. After Ṭoghrıl had campaigned
successfully as far as Syria, he was given the title of “king of the
east and west.” The new situation was justified by the theory that
existing practice was legal whereby a new caliph could be
instituted by the sultan, who possessed effective power and
sovereignty, but that thereafter the sultan owed the caliph
allegiance because only so long as the caliph-imam's juridical
faculties were recognized could government be valid.
Ṭoghrıl Beg died in 1063. His heir, Alp-Arslan, was succeeded by
Malik-Shah in 1072, and the latter's death in 1092 led to succession
disputes out of which Berk-Yaruq emerged triumphant to reign
until 1105. After a brief reign, Malik-Shah II was succeeded by
Muḥammad I (reigned 1105–18). The last “Great Seljuq” was
Sanjar (1118–57), who had earlier been governor of Khorāsān.
Alp-Arslan had nearly annihilated the Byzantine army at
Manzikert in 1071, opening Asia Minor to those dependent
tribesmen of the Seljuqs of whom Iran and the world were to hear
more in the period of Ottoman power. Transoxania was subdued,
the Christians in the Caucasus chastised, and the Fāṭimids
expelled from Syria. An empire was for a short time achieved
whose extent and stability enabled Alp-Arslan's and Malik-Shah's
great minister, Niẓām al-Mulk (died 1092), to pay a ferryman on
the Oxus River with a draft cashable in Damascus.
Building and maintaining such a great empire necessitated a
33
military regime and a vast war machine. The price to be paid later
was oppression by military commanders and their units, set free
to compete with each other and harry the land after the machine
fell out ofthe grasp of powerful sultans. The soldiers had been
remunerated by grants of land called iqṭāʿ s, which were
originally usufructuary but developed over time into hereditary
properties. The grants later became nuclei out of which petty
principalities grew with the decline of the central power. The
cultivators were left at the mercy of military overlords in
possession of the soil.
The great minister Niẓām al-Mulk was typical of the Iranian
bureaucracy, which, in an area prone to invasion, was often called
on to attempt to cushion the impact of the brute military force of
nomadic invaders and contain it within the bounds of
administrative, economic, and cultural feasibility. For his Turkish
masters he wrote the Seyāsat-nāmeh (“Book of Government”), in
which he urged the regulation of royal court procedures in line
with Sāmānid models and the restriction of the arrogance and
cupidity of the military fief holders. His book is the measure of
the Seljuqs' failure to provide enduring stability and equitable
government. Had they done so, such a work would have been
unnecessary.
The Ismāʿīliyyah
Of one disruptive force Niẓām al-Mulk's book is dramatically
descriptive, in terms betraying near panic. The Seljuqs failed to
nip in the bud the power of the Ismāʿīliyyah, originally spread
throughout the eastern Islamic world by clandestine Fāṭimid dāʿīs
—many of whose cells later split from the mainstream of events in
Egypt to become an independent organization within the Seljuq
empire. This organization exercised power by terrorism, and the
name given its adherents by Europeans in the Middle Ages,
Assassins (from ḥashīshī, denoting a consumer of hashish), has
become a common noun in English. Ismāʿīlī doctrine consisted of
an esoteric system combining extremist (Arabic ghulāt) Shīʿite
beliefs and a complex theology heavily permeated by the form
and content of Hellenistic philosophy. Ismāʿīliyyah recognized
only 7 of the imams in descent from ʿAlī and Fāṭimah, whereas the
Ithnā ʿAsharī Shīʿism—that followed by the Būyids and the
dominant sect of modern Iran—recognized 12.
The movement in Iran crystallized under the leadership of
Ḥasan-e Ṣabbāḥ, who had been trained in Fāṭimid Egypt. In 1090
Ḥasan gained the castle of Alamūt in the Elburz Mountains, and
the order's principal cells were thereafter situated, so far as
possible, in similar impregnable mountain strongholds. From
these centres, fidāʾī s, or devotees ready to sacrifice their lives,
issued forth and permeated society, spreading their mission as
peddlers and itinerant tailors and gaining influence among the
urban artisan and weaving classes. They were also often able to
win the confidence of many highly placed women and children,
whom they could please with novelties of dress or toys. Niẓām al-
Mulk himself was assassinated by one of the fidāʾīs, but it is
possible that this was done with the connivance of one of Malik-
Shah's wives, whose son the vizier did not support for the
succession.
The Ismāʿīliyyah were able to puncture Seljuq power but not caliph; he set up an anticaliph of his own and further antagonized
destroy it. In the end the Seljuq empire collapsed where it had his Muslim subjects, who were unremittingly suspicious of a
begun—in Khorāsān, where Sultan Sanjar ultimately failed to regime once subject to the Karakitai infidels and whose Kipchak
control Turkmen tribes related to him by blood. Sanjar could not mercenary militia and brutal commanders brought cruelty and
rely on military commanders his family had raised to high posts desolation wherever they marched. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad was
and had rewarded with land and provincial powers. The unable to control his army leaders, who had tribal connections
tribesmen refused to be coerced into paying taxes. In 1153 they with such influential people at court as his own mother. The post-
captured the old sultan and, although allowing him all the respect Karakitai wars between him and Küchlüg Khan damaged the
of his regal position, kept him captive for three years. safety of the Central Asian trade arteries from China to the West.
The great Mongol leader Genghis Khan took Beijing in 1215 and,
The Khwārezm-Shahs as lord of China, was concerned with Chinese trade outlets. The
situation between Küchlüg and the Khwārezm-Shah sultan
Atsiz was the military leader who, after Sultan Sanjar's capture in afforded scope as well as a pretext for the Mongols' westward
1153, succeeded in supplanting Seljuq power in northeastern Iran. advance, if only to restore the flow of trade.
His ancestor, Anūṣtegin, had been keeper of Malik-Shah's kitchen
utensils and had been rewarded with the governorship of The Mongol invasion
Khwārezm on the Oxus, where he founded the Khwārezm-Shah
dynasty (c. 1077–1231). Regions elsewhere in Iran, on the passing Misunderstanding of how essentially fragile Sultan ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn
of Seljuq supremacy, became independent under atabeg s, who Muḥammad Khwārezm-Shah's apparently imposing empire was,
were originally proxy fathers and tutors sent with young Seljuq its distance away from the Mongols' eastern homelands, and the
princes when these were deputed to govern provinces. At first the strangeness of new terrain all doubtless induced fear in the
atabegs took power in the names of Seljuq puppets. When this Mongols, and this might partly account for the terrible events
fiction lapsed, atabeg dynasties such as the Eldegüzids of with which Genghis Khan's name has ever since been associated.
Azerbaijan (c. 1137–1225) and Salghurids of Fārs (c. 1148–1270) The terror his invasion brought must also be ascribed to his quest
split Iran into independent rival principalities. for vengeance. Genghis Khan's first two missions to Khwārezm
had been massacred; but the place of commercial motives in the
The Salghurid court in Shīrāz especially fostered the arts, as Mongol's decision to march to the west is indicated by the fact
parvenu, competitive courts are wont to do. The poet Saʿdī (died that the first wasa trade mission. The massacre and robbery of this
1292) was a contemporary in Shīrāz of the Salghurid atabeg Abū mission at Utrār by one of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad's governors
Bakr ibn Saʿd ibn Zangī (reigned 1231–60), whom he mentions by before it reached the capital made Genghis single out Utrār for
name in his Būstān (“The Orchard”), a book of ethics in verse. especially savage treatment when the murder of his second,
Abū Bakr's father, Saʿd, for whom Saʿdī took his pen name, purely diplomatic, mission left him no alternative but war.
conferred great prosperity on Shīrāz.
His guides were Muslim merchants from Transoxania. They had
Saʿd ibn Zangī came to terms with the Khwārezm-Shahs. Their to witness one of the worst catastrophes of history. During 1220–
power in Transoxania was secured by acceptance of tributary 21 Bukhara, Samarkand, Herāt, Ṭūs, and Neyshābūr were razed,
status to the non-Muslim Karakitai empire of Central Asia. They and the whole populations were slaughtered. The Khwārezm-
endeavoured to emulate the Seljuqs by following an expansionist Shah fled, to die on an island off the Caspian coast. His son Jalāl
policy in Iran south of the Oxus. Saʿd ibn Zangī, in his relations al-Dīn survived until murdered in Kurdistan in 1231. He had
with the Khwārezm-Shah, set the pattern his successor Abū Bakr eluded Genghis Khan on the Indus River, across which his horse
followed later. These atabegs saved Fārs from outright invasion swam, enabling him to escape to India. He returned to attempt
by northern military powers by paying heavy tribute. This tribute restoring the Khwārezmian empire over Iran. However, he failed
was the price of Shīrāz's remaining the peaceful haven of the arts to unite the Iranian regions, even though Genghis Khan had
in which Saʿdī and after him Ḥāfeẓ (died 1390) flourished, to withdrawn to Mongolia, where he died in August 1227. Iran was
continue the Persian literary tradition begun under the Sāmānids left divided, with Mongol agents remaining in some districts and
and continued under both the Ghaznavids and the Seljuqs. local adventurers profiting from the lack of order in others.

The collapse of the Karakitai empire northeast of the Oxus was
partly accelerated by the unsuccessful bid of Khwārezm-Shah
ʿAlāʾ al-DīnMuḥammad (reigned 1200–20) to win Muslim
approval while releasing himself from the Khwārezm-Shahs'
humiliating tributary status to an infidel power. But the coup de
grâce to the Karakitai empire was delivered by its own vassal
from the east, the Mongol leader Küchlüg Khan, who from 1211
onward was to be a direct opponent of the Khwārezm-Shahs in
Central Asia. The Karakitai had been defeated, but the situation
on the Khwārezm-Shah's eastern border had worsened.
Meanwhile, Sultan ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad quarreled with the
The Il-Khans
A second Mongol invasion began when Genghis Khan's grandson
Hülegü Khan crossed the Oxus in 1256 and destroyed the
Assassin fortress at Alamūt. With the disintegration of the Seljuq
empire, the Caliphate had reasserted control in the area around
Baghdad and in southwestern Iran. In 1258 Hülegü besieged
Baghdad, where divided counsels prevented the city's salvation.
Al-Mustaʿṣim, the last ʿAbbāsid caliph of Baghdad, was trampled
to death by mounted troops (in the style of Mongol royal
executions), and eastern Islam fell to pagan rulers.

34
Hülegü hoped to consolidate Mongol rule over western Asia and Ghāzān made strenuous efforts to regulate taxes, encourage
to extend the Mongol empire as far as the Mediterranean, an industry, bring wasteland into cultivation, and curb the abuses
empire that would span the Earth from China to the Levant. and arrogance of the military and official classes. Facilities for
Hülegü made Iran his base, but the Mamlūks of Egypt (1250– domestic and foreign merchants were furnished. Buildings were
1517) prevented him and his successors from achieving their great constructed and irrigation channels dug. Medicinal and fruit-
imperial goal, by decisively defeating a Mongol army at ʿAyn Jālūt bearing plants were imported and the cultivation of indigenous
in 1260. Instead, a Mongol dynasty, the Il-Khans, or “deputy ones encouraged. Observatories were built and improved—a sure
khans” to the great khan in China, was established in Iran to indication of concern with agricultural improvement, for seasonal
attempt repair of the damage of the first Mongol invasion. The planning required accurate calendars. He fostered Muslim
injuries Iran had suffered went deep, but it would be unfair to sentiment by showing consideration for the sayyids, who claimed
attribute them all to Ghengis Khan's invasion, itself the climax to a descent from the Prophet's family, and it seems probable that he
long period of social and political disarray under the Khwārezm- wished to eradicate or overlay Shīʿite-Sunnite sectarian
Shahs and dating from the decline of the Seljuqs. divisiveness, for Ghāzān's Islam appears tohave been designed to
appeal equally to both persuasions. Any slight bias in favour of
The Il-Khanid dynasty made Azerbaijan its centre and the Shīʿites might be attributed to a desire to capture the emotions
established Tabrīz as its first capital until Solṭānīyeh was built and imagination of many of the humble people who had reacted
early in the 14th century. At first, repair and readjustment of a against the Seljuqs' zeal for Sunnism and craveda teaching that
stricken society were complicated by the collapse of law. The included millennial overtones. Shīʿism had been liberated by the
caliphate, as the symbol of Muslim legality, had been eroded by fall of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate, and its belief in the reappearance of
ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad and by its own withdrawal into a the 12th imam, who was to inaugurate peace and justice in the
temporal state in Iraq and the Tigris-Euphrates estuary region. world, satisfied this popular craving for religious solace.
But it had retained enough vitality for Sultan Muḥammad's action
in setting up an anticaliph to have alienated influential members Ghāzān's work was carried on, but less successfully, by his
of his subject people. After 1258 it was gone altogether, while successor Öljeitü (1304–16). Between 1317 and 1335, though he
Hülegü Khan showed considerable religious eclecticism and had, finally relinquished the expensive campaigns against Egypt for
in any event, the yāsā , or tribal law, of Genghis Khan to apply as the opening to the Mediterranean, Abū Saʿīd was unable to keep
the law of the Mongol state, in opposition to, or side by side with, the Il-Khanid regime consolidated, and it fell apart on his death.
the Sharīʿah, the law of Islam. Ghāzān's brilliant reign survives only in the pages of his historian,
Rashīd al-Dīn. Warsagainst Egypt and their own Mongol kinsmen
The Il-Khans' religious toleration released Christians and Jews in Asia had in fact hampered the Il-Khans in accomplishing a
from their restrictions under the Islamic regime. Fresh talent thus satisfactory reintegration of an Iranian polity.
becameavailable, but competition for new favours marred what
good effects this release might have had on interfaith relations. It
As the atabegs had done after the Seljuqs, Il-Khanid military
took time for Iranian administrators to resume their normal role emirs began to establish themselves as independent regional
after the invasion and to restore some semblance of administrative potentates after 1335. At first, two of them, formerly military
order and stability. Their process was impeded by the paganism chiefs in the Il-Khans' service, competed for power in western
of the new conquerors as well as by jostling for influence among Iran, ostensibly acting on behalf of rival Il-Khanid puppet princes.
classes of the conquered, not in this instance exclusively Muslim. Ḥasan Küchük (the Small) of the Chūpānids was eventually
At the same time, a shattered agrarian economy was burdened by defeated by Ḥasan Buzurg (the Tall) of the Jalāyirids, who set up
heavy taxes, those sanctioned by the Sharīʿah being added to by the Jalāyirid dynasty over Iraq, Kurdistan, and Azerbaijan; it
those the yāsā provided for, so that the pressure of exploitation lasted from 1336 to 1432. In Fārs, Il-Khanid agents, the Injuids,
was increased by Mongol tax innovations as well as by the after a spell of power during which Abū Isḥāq Injū had been the
invaders' cupidity. poet Hāfeẓ's patron, were ousted by Abū Saʿīd's governor of
Yazd, Mubāriz al-Dīn Muẓaffar. Thus in 1353 Shīrāz became the
The pressure was increased beyond the economy's endurance: the Muẓaffarid dynasty's capital, which it remained until conquest by
Il-Khanid government ran into fiscal difficulties. An experiment Timur in 1393.
with paper currency, modeled on the Chinese money, failed
under Gaykhatu (reigned 1291–95). Gaykhatu was followed The Timurids and Turkmen
briefly by Baydu (died 1295), who was supplanted by the greatest
of the Il-Khans, Maḥmūd Ghāzān (1295–1304). Ghāzān Timur (Tamerlane) claimed descent from Genghis Khan's family.
abandoned Buddhism—the faith in which his grandfather The disturbed conditions in Mongol Transoxania gave this son of
Abagha, Hülegü's successor (1265–82), had reared him—and a minor government agent in the town of Kesh the chance to
adopted Islam. One of his chief ministers was also his biographer, build up a kingdom in Central Asia in the name of the Chagatai
Rashīd al-Dīn, of Jewish descent. He seems deliberately to have Khans, whom he eventually supplanted. He entered Iran in 1380
striven to present Ghāzān, whom he styles the “emperor of Islam” and in 1393 reduced the Jalāyirids after taking their capital,
(pādshāh-e eslām), as a ruler who combined the qualities and Baghdad. In 1402 he captured the Ottoman sultan, Bayezid I, near
functions of both the former caliphs and ancient Iranian “great Ankara. He conquered Syria and then turned his attention to
kings.” campaigns far to the east of his tumultuously acquired and ill-
cemented empire; he died in 1405 on an expedition to China.

35
Timur left an awesome name and an ambiguous record of flights the state of taxes introduced under the Mongols and not
of curiosity into the realms of unorthodox religious beliefs, sanctioned by the Muslim canon. But the inquiries made by the
history, and every kind of inquiry concerning lands and peoples. Sunnite religious authorities antagonized the vested interests,
He showed interest in Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism that damaged the popularity of the Ak Koyunlu regime, and
varied from a scholastic study of ascetic techniques for mastering discredited Sunnite fanaticism.
the carnal self to complete abandonment of all forms of authority
in the belief that faith alone is necessary for salvation. Sufism had
This attempt to revive strict Sunnite religious values through
increased in the disturbed post-Seljuq era as both the consolation revenue reform or to effect the latter under the guise of religion
and the refuge of desperate people. In Sufism Timur may have no doubt gave impetus to the spread of Ṣafavid Shīʿite
hoped to find popular leaders whom he could use for his own propaganda. Another factor must have been related to the same
purposes. His encounters with such keepers of the consciences of general economic decline that made Sultan Yaʿqūb's fiscal reforms
harried, exploited, and ill-treated Iranians proved that they knew necessary in the first place. Sheikh Ḥaydar led a movement that
him perhaps better than he knew himself. Whatever his motives had begun as a Sufi order under his ancestor Sheikh Ṣafī al-Dīn of
may have been, the reverse of stability was his legacy to Iran. His Ardabīl (1253–1334). This order may be considered to have
division ofhis ill-assimilated conquests among his sons served to originally represented a puritanical, but not legalistically so,
ensure that an integrated Timurid empire would never be reaction against the sullying of Islam, the staining of Muslim
achieved. lands, by the Mongol infidels. What began as a spiritual,
otherworldly reaction against irreligion and the betrayal of
The nearest a Timurid state came to being an integrated Iranian spiritual aspirations developed into a manifestation of the Shīʿite
empire was under Timur's son Shah Rokh (reigned 1405–47), who quest for dominion over a Muslim polity. By the 15th century, the
endeavoured to weld Azerbaijan and western Persia to Khorāsān Ṣafavid movement could draw on both the mystical emotional
and eastern Persia to form a united Timurid state for a short and force of Sufism and the Shīʿite appeal to the oppressed populace
troubled period. He succeeded only in looselycontrolling western to gain a large number of dedicated adherents. Sheikh Ḥaydar
and southern Iran from his beautiful capital at Herāt. Azerbaijan inured his numerous followers to warfare by leading them on
demanded three major military expeditions from this pacific expeditions from Ardabīl against Christian enclaves in the nearby
sovereign and even so could not long be held. He made Herāt the Caucasus. He was killed on one of these campaigns. His son
seat of a splendid culture, the atelier of great miniature painters Ismāʿīl was to avenge his death and lead his devoted army to a
(Behzād notable among them), and the home of a revival of conquest of Iran whereby Iran gained a great dynasty, a Shīʿite
Persian poetry, letters, and philosophy. This revival was not regime, and in most essentials its shape as a modern nation-state.
unconnected with an effort to claim for an Iranian centre once
more the palm of leadership in the propagation of Sunnite Gone were the days of rule by converted and zealous Sunnite
ideology: Herāt sent copies of Sunnite canonical works on request Turks or by Mongols of ambiguous spiritual allegiance. Iran's
to Egypt. The reaction, in Shīʿism's ultimate victory under the defilement was removed by the swelling tide of Shīʿism, which
Ṣafavid shahs of Persia, was, however, already being prepared. bore Ismāʿīl to the throne his family was to occupy without
interruption until 1722, in one of the greatest epochs of Iranian
Western Iran was dominated by the Kara Koyunlu, the “Black history.
Sheep” Turkmen. In Azerbaijan they had supplanted their former
masters, the Jalāyirids. Timur had put these Kara Koyunlu to The Ṣafavids (1501–1736)
flight, but in 1406 they regained their capital, Tabrīz. On Shah
Rokh's death, Jahān Shah (reigned c. 1438–67) extended Kara Shah Ismāʿīl
Koyunlu rule out of the northwest deeper into Iran at the
Timurids' expense. The Timurids relied on their old allies, the In 1501 Ismāʿīl I (reigned 1501–24) supplanted the Ak Koyunlu in
Kara Koyunlu's rival Turkmen of the Ak Koyunlu, or “White Azerbaijan. Within a decade he gained supremacy over most of
Sheep,” clans, who had long been established at Diyarbakır in Iran as a ruler his followers regarded as divinely entitled to
Turkey. The White Sheep acted as a curb on the Black Sheep, sovereignty. The Ṣafavids claimed descent—on grounds that
whose Jahān Shah was defeated by the Ak Koyunlu Uzun Ḥasan modern research has shown to be dubious—from the Shīʿite
by the end of 1467. imams. Muslims in Iran, therefore, could regard themselves as
having found a legitimate imam-ruler, who,as a descendant of
Uzun Ḥasan (1453–78) achieved a short-lived Iranian empire and ʿAlī, required no caliph to legitimate his position. Rather, Ṣafavid
even briefly deprived the Timurids of Herāt. He was, however, political legitimacy was based on the religious order's mixture of
confronted by a new power in Asia Minor—the Ottoman Turks. Sufi ecstaticism and Shīʿite extremism (Arabic ghulū), neither of
His relationship with the Christian emperor at Trebizond which was the dusty scholasticism of the Sunnite or Shīʿite legal
(Trabzon) through his Byzantine wife, Despina, involved Uzun schools. The dynasty's militarysuccess was based both on Ismāʿīl's
Ḥasan in attempts to shield Trebizond from the ineluctable skill as a leader and on the conversion of a number of Turkmen
Ottoman advance. The Ottomans crushingly defeated him in 1473. tribes—who came to be known as the Kizilbash (Turkish: “Red
Under his son Yaʿqūb (reigned 1478–90), the Ak Koyunlu state Heads”) for the 12-folded red caps these tribesmen wore,
was subjected to fiscal reforms associated with a government- representing their belief in the 12 imams—to this emotionally
sponsored effort to reapply rigorous purist principles of Sunnite powerful Sufi-Shīʿite syncretism. The Kizilbash became the
Islamic rules for revenue collection. Yaʿqūb attempted to purge backbone of the Ṣafavid military effort, and their virtual

36
deification of Ismāʿīl contributed greatly to his swift military Sherley. Sherley was versed in artillery tactics and, accompanied
conquest of Iran. In later years, though, extremist (ghulāt) zeal by a party of cannon founders, reached Qazvīn with his brother
and its chiliastic fervour began to undermine the orderly Anthony in 1598. The bureaucracy, too, was carefully
administration of the Ṣafavid state. Ismāʿīl's attempt to spread reorganized, but the seeds of the sovereignty's weakness lay in
Shīʿite propaganda among the Turkmen tribes of eastern Anatolia the royal house itself, which lacked an established system of
prompted a conflict with the Sunnite Ottoman Empire. Following inheritance by primogeniture. A reigning shah's nearest and most
Iran's defeat by the Ottomans at the Battle of Chaldiran, Ṣafavid acute objects of suspicion were his own sons. Among them,
expansion slowed, and a process of consolidation began in which brother plotted against brother over who should succeed on their
Ismāʿīl sought to quell the more extreme expressions of faith father's death. Intriguers,ambitious for influence in a subsequent
among his followers. Such actions were largely preempted, reign, supported one prince against another. ʿAbbās did not adopt
however, by Ismāʿīl's death in 1524 at the age of 36. the Ottoman sultans' practice of eliminating royal males by
murder (as a child he had been within a hair's breadth of being a
The new Iranian empire lacked the resources that had been victim of such a policy). Instead,he instituted the practice of
available to the caliphs of Baghdad in formertimes through their immuring infant princes in palace gardens away from the
dominion over Central Asia and the West: Asia Minor and promptings of intrigue and the world at large. As a result, his
Transoxania were gone, and the rise of maritime trade in the West successors tended to be indecisive men, easily dominated by
was detrimental to a country whose wealth had depended greatly powerful dignitaries among the Shīʿite ʿulamāʾ—whom the shahs
on its position on important east-west overland trade routes. The themselves had urged to move in large numbers from the shrine
rise of the Ottomans impeded Iranian westward advances and cities of Iraq in an attempt to bolster Ṣafavid legitimacy as an
contested with the Ṣafavids' control over both the Caucasus and orthodox Shīʿite dynasty.
Mesopotamia. Years of warfare with the Ottomans imposed a
heavy drain on the Ṣafavids' resources. The Ottomans threatened The Afghan interlude
Azerbaijan itself. Finally, in 1639 the Treaty of Qaṣr-e Shīrīn (also
called the Treaty of Zuhāb) gave Yerevan in the southern Ḥusayn I (reigned 1694–1722) was of a pious temperament and
Caucasus to Iran and Baghdad and all of Mesopotamia to the was especially influenced by the Shīʿite divines, whose conflicting
Ottomans. advice, added to his own procrastination, sealed the sudden and
unexpected fate of the Ṣafavid empire. One Maḥmūd, a former
Shah ʿAbbās I Ṣafavidvassal in Afghanistan, captured Eṣfahān and murdered
Ḥusayn in his cell in the beautiful madrasah (religious school)
The Ṣafavids were still faced with the problem of making their built in his mother's name.
empire pay. The silk trade, over which the government held a
monopoly, was a primary source of revenue. Ismāʿīl's successor, The Afghan interlude was disastrous for Iran. In 1723 the
Ṭahmāsp I (reigned 1524–76), encouraged carpet weaving on the Ottomans, partly to secure more territory and partly to forestall
scale of a stateindustry. ʿAbbās I (reigned 1588–1629) established Russian aspirations in the Caucasus, took advantage of the
trade contacts directly with Europe, but Iran's remoteness from disintegration of the Ṣafavid realm and invaded from the west,
Europe, behind the imposing Ottoman screen, made maintaining ravaging western Persia. Nādr, an Afshārid Turkmen from
and promoting these contacts difficult and sporadic. ʿAbbās also northern Khorāsān, was eventually able to reunite Iran, a process
transplanted a colony of industrious and commercially astute he began on behalf of the Ṣafavid prince Ṭahmāsp II (reigned
Armenians from Jolfā in Azerbaijan to a new Jolfā adjacent to 1722–32), who had escaped the Afghans. After Nādr had cleared
Eṣfahān, the city he developed and adorned as his capital. The the country of Afghans, Ṭahmāsp made him governor of a large
Ṣafavids had earlier moved their capital from the vulnerable area of eastern Iran.
Tabrīz to Qazvīn. After eliminating the Uzbek menace from east
of the Caspian Sea in 1598–99, ʿAbbās could move his capital Religious developments
south to Eṣfahān, more centrallyplaced than Qazvīn for control
over the whole country and for communication with the trade As in the case of the early Sunnite caliphate, Ṣafavid rule had
outlets of the Persian Gulf. ʿAbbās engaged English help to oust been based originally on both political and religious legitimacy,
the Portuguese from the island of Hormuz in 1622. He also strove with the shah being both king and divine representative. With the
to lodge Ṣafavid power strongly in Khorāsān. There, at Mashhad, later erosion of Ṣafavid central political authority in the mid-17th
he developed the shrine of ʿAlī al-Riḍā, the eighth Shīʿite imam, as century, the power of the Shīʿite clergy in civil affairs—as judges,
a pilgrimage centre to rival Shīʿite holy places in Mesopotamia, administrators, and court functionaries—began to grow, in a way
where visiting pilgrims took currency out of Ṣafavid and into unprecedented in Shīʿite history. Likewise, the ʿulamāʾ began to
Ottoman territory. take a more active role in agitating against Sufism and other
forms of popular religion, which remained strong in Iran, and in
Under ʿAbbās, Iran prospered. The monarch continued the policy enforcing a more scholarly type of Shīʿism among the masses. The
begun under his predecessors of eradicating the old Sufi bands development of the taʿziyyah—a passion play commemorating
and ghulāt extremists whose support had been crucial in building the martyrdom of al-Ḥusayn and his family—and the practice of
the state. The Kizilbash were replaced by a standing army of slave visits to the shrines and tombs of local Shīʿite leaders began
soldiers loyal only to the shah, who were trained and equipped on during this period, largely at the prompting of the Shīʿite clergy.
European lines with the advice of the English adventurer Robert

37
These activities coincided with an escalated debate between Shīʿite
scholars in Iran and Iraq over the role played by the clergy in
interpreting Islamic precepts. One faction felt that the only sound
source of legal interpretation was the direct teachings of the 12
infallible imams, in the form of their written and oral testaments
(Arabic akhbār, hence the name of the sect: the Akhbāriyyah).
Their opponents, known as the Uṣūliyyah, held that a number of
fundamental sources (uṣūl) should be consulted but that the final
source for legal conclusions rested in the reasoned judgment of a
qualified scholar, a mujtahid. The eventual victory of the
Uṣūliyyah in this debate during the turbulent years at the end of
the Ṣafavid empire was to have resounding effects on both the
shape of Shīʿism and the course of Iranian history. Thestudy of
legal theory (fiqh), the purview of the mujtahids, became the
primary field of scholarship in the Shīʿite world, and the rise of
the mujtahids as a distinctive body signaled the development of a
politically conscious and influential religious class not previously maintaining himself at the head of an Afshārid state in Khorāsān,
seen in Islamic history.
This rising legalism also facilitated the implementation of a theory held Azerbaijan, whence Moḥammad Ḥasan Khan Qājār
that was first voiced in the mid-16th century by the scholars ʿAlī
al-Karakī and Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī, which called for the clergy to this post-Nādir Shah Afghan remnant in northwestern Iran but
act as a general representative (nāʾib al-ʿamm) of the Hidden
Imam during his absence, performing such duties as
administering the poor tax (zakāt) and income tax (khums, “one-
fifth”), leading prayer, and running Sharīʿah courts. A strong
Ṣafavid state and the presence of influential Akhbārī scholars at
first managed to suppress the execution of these ideas, but the
complete collapse of central authority in Iran during the 18th
century accelerated the already considerable involvement of the
clerisy in state and civil affairs, a trend that would continue until (regent) for the Ṣafavid Esmāʿīl III. Karīm Khān never claimed the title
modern times.
Nādir Shah (1736–47)
Nādr later dethroned Ṭahmāsp II in favour of the latter's son, the encouraged agriculture and entered into trade relations with Great
more pliant ʿAbbās III. His successful military exploits, however,
which included victories over rebels in the Caucasus, made it
feasible for this stern warrior himself to be proclaimed monarch— briefly. In 1789 Loṭf ʿAlī Khān (ruled 1789–94) proclaimed himself as
as Nādir Shah—in 1736. He attempted to mollify Persian-Ottoman the new Zand king and took energetic action to put down a rebellion led
hostility by establishing in Iran a less aggressive form of Shīʿism,
which would be less offensive to Ottoman sensibilities; but this
experiment did not take root. Nādir Shah's need for money drove
him to embark on his celebrated Indian campaign in 1738–39. His
capture of Delhi and of the Mughal emperor's treasure gave Nādir
booty in such quantities that he was able to exempt Iran from
taxes for three years. His Indian expedition temporarily solved the
problem of how to make his empire financially viable.
How large this problem loomed in Nādir Shah's mind is
demonstrated by his increasingly morbid obsession with treasure
and jewels. After suspecting his son of complicity in a plot against
him in 1741, Nādir Shah's mind seems to have become unhinged;
his brilliance and courage deteriorated into a meanness and
capricious cruelty that could no longer be tolerated. In 1747 he
was murdered by a groupof his own Afshārid tribesmen, together
with some Qājār chiefs—a sad end to one of Iran's greatest
leaders.
Nādir had been the first modern Iranian leader to perceive the
38
importance of having his own navy, and in 1734 he had
appointed an “admiral of the gulf.” Ships were purchased from
their British captains, and by1735 the new Iranian navy had
attacked Al-Baṣrah. What really mattered, however, were the
land forces. Nādir Shah's reign exemplified the fact that, to be
successful, a shah of Iran had to prove himself capable of
defending his realm's territorial integrity and of extending its
sources of wealth and production by conquest. To these ends,
Nādir Shah built up a large army composed of tribal units under
their own chiefs, such as his Afshārid kinsmen and the Qājār and
Bakhtyārī.
But on Nādir Shah's death his great military machine dispersed,
its commanders bent on establishing their own states. Aḥmad
Shah Durrānī founded a kingdom in Afghanistan based in
Kandahār. Shah Rokh, Nādir Shah's blind grandson, succeeded in
its capital at Mashhad. The Qājār chief Muḥammad Ḥasan took
Māzanderān south of the Caspian Sea. Āzād Khan, an Afghan,
ultimately expelled him. The Qājār chief, therefore, disposed of
was himself unable to make headway against a new power
arising in central and southern Iran, that of the Zands.
(1750–79), Iranian dynasty that ruled southern Iran.
Following the death of the Afshārid ruler Nāder Shāh (1747), Karīm
Khān Zand became one of the major contenders for power. By 1750 he
had sufficiently consolidated his power to proclaim himself as vakīl
of shāhanshāh (“king of kings”); instead he maintained Esmāʿīl as a
figurehead. Karīm Khān, with 30 years of benevolent rule, gave
southernIran a much needed respite from continual warfare. He
Britain. His death in 1779 was followed by internal dissensions and
disputes over successions. Between 1779 and 1789 five Zand kings ruled
by Āghā Moḥammad Khān Qājār that had begun at Karīm Khān's
death. Outnumbered by the superior Qājār forces, Loṭf ʿAlī Khān was
finally defeated and captured at Kermān in 1794. His defeat marked the
final eclipse of the Zand dynasty, which was supplanted by that of the
Qājārs.
The Zand dynasty (1750–79)
Muḥammad Karīm Khan Zand entered into an alliance with the
Bakhtyārī chief ʿAlī Mardān Khan in an effort to seize Eṣfahān—
then the political centre of Iran—from Shah Rokh's vassal, Abū al-
Fatḥ Bakhtyārī. Once this goal was achieved, Karīm Khan and ʿAlī
Mardān agreed that Shah Sulṭān Ḥusayn Ṣafavī's grandson, a boy
named Abū Ṭurāb, should be proclaimed Shah Ismāʿīl III in order
to cement popular support for their joint rule. The two also
agreed that the popular Abū al-Fatḥ would retain his position as
governor of Eṣfahān, ʿAlī Mardān Khan would act as regent over
the young puppet, and Karīm Khan wouldtake to the field in
order to regain lost Ṣafavid territory. ʿAlī Mardān Khan, however,
broke the compact and was killed by Karīm Khan, who gained
supremacy over central and southern Iran and reigned as regent
or deputy (vakīl) on behalf of the powerless Ṣafavid prince, never
arrogating to himself the title of shah. Karīm Khan made Shīrāz
his capital and did not contend with Shah Rokh (reigned 1748–95)
for thehegemony of Khorāsān. He concentrated on Fārs and the
centre but managed to contain the Qājār in Māzanderān, north of
the Elburz Mountains. He kept Āghā Muḥammad Khan Qājār a
hostage at his court in Shīrāz, after repulsing Muḥammad Ḥasan
Qājār's bids for extended dominion.
Karīm Khan's geniality and common sense inaugurated a period
of peace and popular contentment, and he strove for commercial
prosperity in Shīrāz, a centre accessible to the Persian Gulf ports
and trade with India. After Karīm Khan's death in 1779, Āghā
Muḥammad Khan escaped to the Qājār tribal country in the north,
gathered a large force, and embarked on a war of conquest.
The Qājār dynasty (1796–1925)
Between 1779 and 1789 the Zands fought among themselves over
their legacy. In the end it fell to the gallant Loṭf ʿAlī, the Zands'
last hope. Āghā Muḥammad Khan relentlessly hunted him down
until he overcame and killed him at the southeastern city of
Kermān in 1794. In 1796 Āghā Muḥammad Khan assumed the
imperial diadem, and later in the same year he took Mashhad.
Shah Rokh died of the tortures inflicted on him to make him
reveal the complete tally of the Afshārids' treasure. Āghā
Muḥammad was cruel and he was avaricious.
Karīm Khan's commercial efforts were nullified by his successors'
quarrels. With cruel irony, attempts to revive the Persian Gulf
trade were followed by a British mission from India in 1800,
which ultimately opened the way for a drain of Persian bullion to
India. This drain was made inevitable by the damage doneto
Iran's productive capacity during Āghā Muḥammad Khan's
campaigns to conquer the country.
The age of imperialism
Fatḥ ʿAlī Shah (reigned 1797–1834), in need of revenue after
decades of devastating warfare, relied on British subsidies to
cover his government's expenditures. Following a series of wars,
he lost the Caucasus to Russia by the treaties of Golestān in 1813
and Turkmanchay (Torkmān Chāy) in 1828, the latter of which
granted Russian commercial and consular agents access to Iran.
This began a diplomatic rivalry between Russia and Britain—with
Iran the ultimate victim—that resulted in the 1907 Anglo-Russian
Convention giving each side exclusive spheres of influence in
Iran, Afghanistan, and Tibet.
The growth of European influence in Iran and the establishment
of new transportation systems between Europe and the Middle
East were followed by an unprecedented increase in trade that
ultimately changed the way of life in both urban and rural areas
of Iran. As with other semicolonized countries of this era, Iran
became a source of cheap raw materials and a market for
industrial goods from Western countries. A sharp drop in the
export of manufactured commodities was accompanied by a
significant rise in the export of rawmaterials such as opium, rice,
tobacco, and nuts. This rapid change made the country more
39
vulnerable to global market fluctuations and, because of an
increase in acreage devoted to nonfood export crops, periodic
famine. Simultaneously, in an effort to increase revenue, Qājār
leaders sold large tracts of state-owned lands to private owners—
most of whom were large merchants—subsequently disrupting
traditional forms of land tenure and production and adversely
affecting the economy.
Hājjī Mīrzā Āghāsī, a minister of Moḥammad Shah (reigned 1834–
48), tried to activate the government to revive sources of
production and to cement ties with lesser European powers, such
as Spain and Belgium, as an alternative to Anglo-Russian
dominance, but little was achieved. Nāṣer al-Dīn Shah (reigned
1848–96) made Iran's last effort to regain Herāt, but British
intervention in 1856–57 thwarted his efforts. Popular and
religious antagonism to the Qājār regime increased as Nāṣer al-
Dīn strove to raise funds by granting foreign companies and
individuals exclusive concessions over Iranian import and export
commodities and natural resources in exchange for lump cash
payments. The money paid for concessions was ostensibly for
developing Iran's resources but instead was squandered by the
court and on the shah's lavish trips to Europe.
Popular protest and the Constitutional Revolution
In 1890 Nāṣer al-Dīn Shah granted a nationwide concession over
the sale and importation of tobacco products to a British citizen.
However, popular protest compelled Nāṣer al-Dīn to cancel the
concession, demonstrating several factors of crucial significance
for the years to come: first, that there existed in Iran a mercantile
class of sufficient influence to make use of such broad, popular
sentiment and, second, that such public outpourings of discontent
could limit the scope of the shah's power. More important, the
protest demonstrated the growing power of the Shīʿite clergy,
members of which had played a crucial role in rallying Iranians
against the monopoly and which was to have great influence over
political changes to come.
The “Tobacco Riots”—as this episode came to be known—were a
prelude to the Constitutional Revolution that was to occur in the
reign of Moẓaffar al-Dīn Shah (1896–1907), during a time when
the country suffered deep economic problems associated with its
integration into a world economy. Iran had remained on the silver
standard after most countries had left bimetallism for a gold
standardin the late 1860s. Silver values in Iran slipped from the
1870s onward, and silver bullion drained out of the country,
which lead to high rates of inflation and to bread riots. Further, in
1898 the government retained a foreign adviser to restructure the
Customs Bureau. That action increased government revenue but
alarmed Iranian merchants who feared further tax increases,
including a substantial land tax. Merchants and landowners
appealed for help to the ʿulamāʾ, with whom they had
traditionally maintained close ties. Many of the clergy had
themselves become increasingly hostile to the Qājār regime
because the clerics had become indignant over government
interference in spheres that traditionally were administered by
the clergy (such as the courts and education) and over fears that
the government might tax vaqf land (mortmain, administered by
the clergy). In a trend begun in the Ṣafavid period, a number of
influential mujtahids began to concern themselves with matters of
government, to the point of questioning the regime's legitimacy.
Even the shahs' earlier suppression of the Bābī and Bahāʾī
movements, viewed as heresy by the majority of the Shīʿite
establishment, failed to ingratiate the regime with the ʿulamāʾ.
Together these groups—ʿulamāʾ, merchants, and landowners—
began to criticize the privileges and protections accorded to
European merchants and called for political and legal reforms.
northern Iran and theCaucasus and the British along the Persian
Gulf). The Russians issued an ultimatum demanding Shuster's
dismissal. When the Majles refused, Russian troops advanced
toward Tehrān, and the regent of the young Aḥmad Shah
(reigned 1909–25) hastily dismissed Shuster and dissolved the
Majles in December 1911.
Rise of Reza Khan

At the same time, Iran was increasingly interacting with the West. Until the beginning of World War I, Russia effectively ruled Iran,
This contact sparked an interest in democratic institutions among but, with the outbreak of hostilities, Russian troops withdrew
the members of a nascent intellectual class, which itself was a from the north of the country, and Iranians convened the third
product of new, Western-style schools promoted by the shah. Majles. Jubilation was short-lived, however, as the country
Encouraged by the Russian Revolution of 1905 and influenced by quickly turned into a battlefield between British, German,
immigrant workers and merchants from Russian-controlled areas Russian, and Turkish forces. The landed elite hoped to find in
of Transcaucasia, the new Iranian intellectuals were, Germany a foil for the British and Russians, but change
paradoxically, to find common cause with Iran's merchants and eventually was to come from the north.
Shīʿite clergy.
Following the Russian Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the new
All aggrieved parties found an opportunity for social reform in Soviet government unilaterally canceled the tsarist concessions in
1905–06 when a series of demonstrations, held in protest over the Iran, anaction that created tremendous goodwill toward the new
government beating of several merchants, escalated into strikes Soviet Union and, after the Central Powers were defeated, left
that soon adjourned to a shrine near Tehrān, which the Britain the sole Great Power in Iran. In 1919 the Majles, after
demonstratorsclaimed as a bast (Persian: “sanctuary”). While much internal wrangling, refused a British offer of military and
under this traditional Iranian form of sanctuary, the government financial aid that effectivelywould have made Iran into a
was unable to arrest or otherwise molest the demonstrators, and a protectorate of Britain. The British were initially loath to
series of such sanctuary protests over subsequent months, withdraw from Iran but caved to international pressure and
combined with wide-scale general strikes of craftsmen and removed their advisers by 1921. In that same year British
merchants, forced the ailing shah to grant a constitution in 1906. diplomats lent their support to an Iranian officer of the Persian
The first National Consultative Assembly (the Majles) was opened Cossack Brigade, Reza Khan, who in the previous year had been
in October of that year. The new constitution provided a instrumental in putting down a rebellion led by Mīrzā Kūchak
framework for secular legislation, a new judicial code, and a free Khan, who had sought to form an independent Soviet-style
press. All these reduced the power of the royal court and religious republic in Iran's northern province of Gīlān. In collaboration
authorities and placed more authority in the hands of the Majles, with a political writer, Sayyid Ziya al-Din Tabatabaʾi, Reza Khan
which, in turn, took a strong stand against European intervention. staged a coup in 1921 and took control of all military forces in
Iran. Between 1921 and 1925 Reza Khan—first as war minister
Although the Majles was suppressed in 1908 under Moḥammad and later as prime minister under Aḥmad Shah—built an army
ʿAlī Shah (ruled 1907–09) by the officers of the Persian Cossack that was loyal solely to him. He also managed to forge political
Brigade—the shah's bodyguard and the most effective military order in a country that for years had known nothing but turmoil.
force in the country at the time—democracy was revived the Initially Reza Khan wished to declare himself president in the
following year under the second Majles, and Moḥammad ʿAlī fled style of Turkey's secular nationalist president, Mustafa Kemal
to Russia. Constitutionalists also executed the country's highest- Atatürk—a move fiercely opposed by the Shīʿite ʿulamāʾ—but
ranking cleric, Sheikh Faẓlullāh Nūrī, who had been found guilty instead he deposed the weak Aḥmad Shah in 1925 and had
by a reformist tribunal of plotting to overthrow the new order— himself crowned Reza Shah Pahlavi.
an indication that not all of Iran's religious elite were proponents
of reform. In addition, as part of the secular reforms introduced The Pahlavi dynasty (1925–79)
by the Majles, a variety of secular schools were established during
that time, including some for girls, causing significant tension Reza Shah
between sections of the clergy that had previously advocated
reform and their erstwhile intellectual allies. During the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, educational and judicial
reforms were effected that laid the basis of a modern state and
The end of the Majles, however, did not come as a result of reduced the influence of the religious classes. A wide range of
internal strife. In an attempt to come to grips with Iran's ongoing legal affairs that hadpreviously been the purview of Shīʿite
financial problems, the Majles in 1911 hired another foreign religious courts were now either administered by secular courts
financial adviser, this time an American, William Morgan Shuster, or overseen by state bureaucracies, and, as a result, the status of
who advocated bold moves to collect revenue throughout the women improved. The custom of women wearing veils was
country. This action angered both the Russians and British, who banned, the minimum age for marriage was raised, and strict
claimed limited sovereignty in the respective spheres of influence religious divorce laws (which invariably favoured the husband)
the two powers had carved out of Iran in 1907 (the Russians in were made more equitable. The number and availability of

40
secular schools increased for both boys and girls, and the wished to support such an action.
University of Tehrān was established in 1934, further eroding
what had once been a clerical monopoly on education. Within Iran, Mosaddeq's social democratic policies, as well as the
Nonetheless, Reza Shah was selective on what forms of growth of the communist Tūdeh Party, weakened the always-
modernization and secularization he would adopt. He banned tenuous support of his few allies among Iran's religious class,
trade unions and political parties and firmly muzzled the press. whose ability to generate public support was important to
Oil concessions were first granted in 1901, during the Qājār Mosaddeq's government. In August 1953, following a round of
period, and the first commercially exploitable petroleum deposits political skirmishing, Mosaddeq's quarrels with the shah came to
were found in 1908. Reza Shah renegotiated a number of these a head, and the Iranian monarch fled the country. Almost
concessions, despite the ire these agreements raised among the immediately, despite still-strong public support, the Mosaddeq
Iranian people. The concessions were to remain a violent point of government buckled during a coup funded by the CIA. Within a
contention in Iran for decades to come. week of his departure, Mohammad Reza Shah returned to Iran
and appointed a new prime minister.
Reza Shah's need to expand trade, his fear of Soviet control over
Iran's overland routes to Europe, and his apprehension at Nationalization under Mosaddeq had failed, and after 1954 a
renewed Soviet and continued British presence in Iran drove him Western multinational consortium led by British Petroleum
to expand trade with Nazi Germany in the 1930s. His refusal to accelerated Iranian oil development. The National Iranian Oil
abandon what he considered to be obligations to numerous Company (NIOC) embarked on a thorough expansion of its oil-
Germans in Iran served as a pretext for an Anglo-Soviet invasion production capacities. NIOC also formed a petrochemical
of his country in 1941. Intent on ensuring the safe passage of U.S. subsidiary and concluded agreements, mainly on the basis of
war matériel to the Soviet Union through Iran, the Allies forced equal shares, with several internationalcompanies for oil
Reza Shah to abdicate, placing his young son Mohammad Reza exploitation outside the area of the consortium's operations.
Shah Pahlavi on the throne.
Petroleum revenues were to fuel Iran's economy for the next
Wartime and nationalization of oil quarter of a century. There was no further talk of nationalization,
as the shah firmly squelched subsequent political dissent within
Mohammad Reza Shah succeeded to the throne in a country Iran. In 1957, with the aid of U.S. and Israeli intelligence services,
occupied by foreign powers, crippled by wartime inflation, and the shah's government formed a special branch to monitor
politically fragmented. Paradoxically, however, the war and domestic dissidents. The shah's secret police—the Organization of
occupation had brought a greater degree of economic activity, National Security and Information, Sāzmān-e Amniyyat va
freedom of the press, and political openness than had been Ettelaʿāt-e Keshvār, known by the acronym SAVAK—developed
possible under Reza Shah. Many political parties were formed in into an omnipresent force within Iranian society and became a
this period, including the pro-British National Will and the pro- symbol of the fear by which the Pahlavi regime was to dominate
Soviet Tūdeh (“Masses”) parties. These, along with a fledgling Iran.
trade union movement, challenged the power of the young shah,
who did not wield the absolute authority of his father. At the The White Revolution
same time, the abdication of Reza Shah had strengthened
conservative clerical factions, which had chafed under that The period 1960–63 marked a turning point in the development of
leader's program of secularization. the Iranian state. Industrial expansion was promoted by the
Pahlavi regime, while political parties that resisted the shah's
Following the war, a loose coalition of nationalists, clerics, and absolute consolidation of power were silenced and pushed to the
noncommunist left-wing parties, known as the National Front, margins. In 1961 the shah dissolved the 20th Majles and cleared
coalesced under Mohammad Mosaddeq, a career politician and the way for the land reform law of 1962. Under this program, the
lawyer who wished to reduce the powers of the monarchy and the landed minoritywas forced to give up ownership of vast tracts of
clergy in Iran. Most important, the National Front, angered by land for redistribution to small-scale cultivators. The former
years of foreign exploitation, wanted to regain control of Iran's landlords were compensated for their loss in the form of shares of
natural resources, and, when Mosaddeq became prime minister in state-owned Iranian industries. Cultivators and workers were also
1951, he immediately nationalized the country's oil industry. given a share in industrial and agricultural profits, and
Britain, the main benefactor of Iranian oil concessions, imposed an cooperatives began to replace the large landowners in rural areas
economic embargo on Iran and pressed the International Court of as sources of capital for irrigation, agrarian maintenance, and
Justice to consider the matter. The court, however, decided not to development.
intervene, thereby tacitly lending its support to Iran.
The land reforms were a mere prelude to the shah's “White
Despite this apparent success, Mosaddeq was under both Revolution,” a far more ambitious program of social, political,
domestic and international pressure. British leaders Winston and economic reform. Put to a plebiscite and ratified in 1963,
Churchill and Anthony Eden pushed for a joint U.S.-British coup these reforms eventually redistributed land to some 2.5 million
to oust Mosaddeq, and the election of President Dwight D. families, established literacy and health corps to benefit Iran's
Eisenhower in the United States in November 1952 bolstered rural areas, further reduced the autonomy of tribal groups, and
those inside the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who advanced social and legal reforms that furthered the

41
emancipation and enfranchisement of women. In subsequent
decades, per capita income for Iranians skyrocketed, and oil
revenue fueled an enormous increase in state funding for
industrial development projects.
Protest and failure
The new policies of the shah did not go unopposed, however;
many Shīʿite leaders criticized the White Revolution, holding that
liberalization laws concerning women were against Islamic
values. More important, the shah's reforms chipped away at the
traditional bases of clerical power. The development of secular
courts had already reduced clerical power over law and
jurisprudence, and the reforms' emphasis on secular education
further eroded the former monopoly of the ʿulamāʾ in that field.
(Paradoxically, the White Revolution's Literacy Corps was to be
the only reform implemented by the shah to survive the Islamic
revolution, because of its intense popularity.) Most pertinent to
clerical independence, land reforms initiated the breakup of huge
areas previously held under charitable trust (vaqf). These lands
were administered by members of the ʿulamāʾ and formed a
considerable portion of that class's revenue.
In 1963 a relatively obscure member of the ʿulamāʾ named
Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini—a professor of philosophy at the
Fayẕiyyeh Madrasah in Qom who was accorded the honorific
ayatollah—spoke out harshly against the White Revolution's
reforms. In response, thegovernment sacked the school, killing
several students, and arrested Khomeini. He was later exiled,
arriving in Turkey, Iraq, and, eventually, France. During his years
of exile, Khomeini stayed in intimate contact with his colleagues
in Iran and completed his religio-political doctrine of velāyat-e
faqīh (Persian: “governance of the jurist”), which provided the
theoretical underpinnings for a Shīʿite Islamic state run by the
clergy.
Land reform, however, was soon in trouble. The government was
unable to put in place a comprehensive support system and
infrastructure that replaced the role of the landowner, who had
previously provided tenants with all the basic necessities for
farming. The result was a high failure rate for new farms and a
subsequent flight of agricultural workers and farmers to the
country's major cities,particularly Tehrān, where a booming
construction industry promised employment. The extended
family, the traditional support system in Middle Eastern culture,
deteriorated as increasing numbers of young Iranians crowded
into the country's largest cities, far from home and in search of
work, only to be met by high prices, isolation, and poor living
conditions.
Foreign relations
Domestic reform and industrial development after 1961 were
accompanied by an independent national policy in foreign
relations, the principles of which were support for the United
Nations and peaceful coexistence with Iran's neighbours. The
latter of these principles stressed a positive approach in cementing too often took the form of subversive and violent activity by
mutually beneficial ties with other countries. Iran played a major groups such as the Mojāhedīn-e Khalq and Fedāʾīyān-e Khalq,
role with Turkey and Pakistan in the Central Treaty Organization organizations with both Marxist and religious tendencies. All
42
(CENTO) and Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD). It
also embarked on trade and cultural relations with France, West
Germany, Scandinavia, eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union.
Relations with the United States remained close, reflected by the
increasing predominance of Western culture in the country and
the growing number of American advisers, who were necessary
to administer the shah's ambitious economic reforms and, most
important, to aid in the development of Iran's military. The
Iranian army was the cornerstone of the country's foreign policy
and had become, thanks to American aid and expertise, the most
powerful, well-equipped force in the region and one of the largest
armed forces in the world.
The growth of social discontent
Petroleum revenues continued to fuel Iran's economy in the
1970s, and in 1973 Iran concluded a new 20-year oil agreement
with the consortium of Western firms led by British Petroleum.
This agreement gave direct control of Iranian oil fields to the
government under the auspices of the NIOC and initiated a
standard seller-buyer relationship between the NIOC and the oil
companies. The shah was acutely aware of the danger of
depending on a diminishing oil asset and pursued a policy of
economic diversification. Iran had begun automobile production
in the 1950s and by the early 1970s was exporting motor vehicles
to Egypt and Yugoslavia. The government exploited the country's
copper reserves, and in 1972 Iran's first steel mill began producing
structural steel. Iran also invested heavily overseas and continued
to press for barter agreements for the marketing of its petroleum
and natural gas.
This apparent success, however, veiled deep-seated problems.
World monetary instability and fluctuations in Western oil
consumption seriously threatened an economy that had been
rapidly expanding since the early 1950s and that was still directed
on a vast scale toward high-cost development programs and large
military expenditures. A decade of extraordinary economic
growth, heavy government spending, and a boom in oil prices led
to high rates of inflation, and—despite an elevated level of
employment, held artificially high by loans and credits—the
buying power of Iranians and their overall standard of living
stagnated. Prices skyrocketed as supply failed to keep up with
demand, and a 1975 government-sponsored war on high prices
resulted in arrests and fines of traders and manufacturers,
injuring confidence in the market. The agricultural sector, poorly
managed in the years since land reform, continued to decline in
productivity.
The shah's reforms also had failed completely to provide any
degree of political participation. The sole political outlet within
Iran was therubber-stamp Majles, dominated since the time of
Mosaddeq by two parties, both of which were subservient to and
sponsored by the shah. Traditional parties such as the National
Front had been marginalized, while others, such as the Tūdeh
Party, were outlawed and forced to operate covertly. Protest all
forms of social and political protest, either from the intellectual right—became subsumed under the cloak of Shīʿite Islam.
left or the religious right, were subject to censorship, surveillance,
or harassment by SAVAK, and illegal detention and torture were During his exile, Khomeini coordinated this upsurge of
common. opposition—first from Iraq and after 1978 from France—
demanding the shah's abdication. In January 1979, in what was
Many argued that since Iran's brief experiment with officially described as a “vacation,” he and his family fled Iran; he
parliamentary democracy and communist politics had failed, the died the following year in Cairo.
country had to goback to its indigenous culture. The 1953 coup
against Mosaddeq had particularly incensed the intellectuals. For The Regency Council established to run the country during the
the first time in more than half a century, the secular intellectuals, shah's absence proved unable to function, and Prime Minister
many of whom were fascinated by the populist appeal of Shahpur Bakhtiar, hastily appointed by the shah before his
Ayatollah Khomeini, abandoned their project of reducing the departure, was incapable of effecting compromise with either his
authority and power of the Shīʿite ʿulamāʾ and argued that, with former National Front colleagues or Khomeini. Crowds in excess
the help of the clerics, the shah could be overthrown. of a million demonstrated in Tehrān, proving the wide appeal of
Khomeini, who arrived in Iran amid wild rejoicing on February 1.
In this environment, members of the National Front, the Tūdeh Ten days later Bakhtiar went into hiding, eventually to find exile
Party, and their various splinter groups now joined the ʿulamāʾ in in France, where he was assassinated in 1991.
a broad opposition to the shah's regime. Khomeini had continued
to preach in exile about the evils of the Pahlavi regime, accusing Postrevolutionary chaos
the shah of irreligion and subservience to foreign powers.
Thousands of tapes and print copies of the ayatollah's speeches On April 1, following overwhelming support in a national
were smuggled back into Iran during the 1970s as an increasing referendum, Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic republic.
number of unemployed and working-poor Iranians—mostly new Elements within the clergy promptly moved to exclude their
immigrants from the countryside, who were disenchanted by the former left-wing, nationalist, and intellectual allies from any
cultural vacuum of modern urban Iran—turned to the ʿulamāʾ for positions of power in the new regime, and a return to
guidance. The shah's dependence on the United States, his close conservative social values was enforced. The family protection
ties with Israel—then engaged in extended hostilities with the act, which provided further guarantees and rights to women in
overwhelmingly Muslim Arabstates—and his regime's ill- marriage, was declared void, and mosque-based revolutionary
considered economic policies served to fuel the potency of bands known as komītehs (Persian: “committees”) patrolled the
dissident rhetoric with the masses. streets enforcing Islamic codes of dress and behaviour and
dispatching impromptu justice to perceived enemies of the
The Islamic republic revolution. Throughout most of 1979 the Revolutionary Guards—
then an informal religious militia formed by Khomeini to forestall
The Iranian Revolution, 1978–79 another CIA-backed coup as in the days of Mosaddeq—engaged
in similar activity, aimed at intimidating and repressing political
Outwardly, with a swiftly expanding economy and a rapidly groupsnot under control of the ruling Revolutionary Council and
modernizing infrastructure, everything was going well in Iran. its sister Islamic Republican Party, both clerical organizations
But in little more than a generation, Iran had changed from a loyal to Khomeini. The violence and brutality often exceeded that
traditional, conservative, and rural society to one that was of SAVAK under the shah.
industrial, modern, and urban. The sense that in both agriculture
and industry too much had been attempted too soon and that the The militias and the clerics they supported made every effort to
government, either through corruption or incompetence, had suppress Western cultural influence, and, facing persecution and
failed to deliver all that was promised was manifested in violence, many of the Western-educated elite fled the country.
demonstrations against the regime in 1978. This anti-Western sentiment eventually manifested itself in the
November 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy by a group of Iranian
In January 1978, incensed by what they considered to be protesters demanding the extradition of the shah, who at that
slanderous remarks made against Khomeini in a Tehrān time was undergoing medical treatment in the United States.
newspaper, thousands of young madrasah students took to the Through the embassy takeover, Khomeini's supporters could
streets. They were followed by thousands more Iranian youth— claim to be as “anti-imperialist” as the political left. This
mostly unemployed recent immigrants from the countryside— ultimately gave them the ability to suppress most of the regime's
who began protesting the regime's excesses. The shah, weakened left-wing and moderate opponents. The Assembly of Experts
by cancer and stunned by the sudden outpouring of hostility (Majles-e Khobregān), overwhelmingly dominated by clergy,
against him, vacillated, assuming the protests to be part of an ratified a new constitution the following month. Taking 66 U.S.
international conspiracy against him. Many people were killed by citizens hostage at their embassy proved to highlight the fractures
government forces in the ensuing chaos, serving onlyto fuel the that had begun to occur within the revolutionary regime itself.
violence in a Shīʿite country where martyrdom played a Moderates, such as provisional Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan
fundamental role in religious expression. Despite all government and the republic's first president, Abolhasan Bani-Sadr, who
efforts, a cycle of violence began in which each death fueled opposed holding the hostages, were steadily forced from power
further protest, and all protest—from the secular left and religious by conservatives within the government who questioned their

43
revolutionary zeal. that country recaptured virtually all of its lost territory, Khomeini
announced Iran's acceptance of a United Nations resolution that
The Iran-Iraq War required both sides to withdraw to their respective borders and
observe a cease-fire, which came into force in August.
The new constitution created a religious government based on
Khomeini's vision of velāyat-e faqīh and gave sweeping powers to Iran after Khomeini
the rahbar, or leader, the first of whom was Khomeini himself.
Despite the regime's political consolidation, several new threats The cease-fire redirected attention to long-standing factional
manifested themselves. The most significant of these was the conflicts over economic, social, and foreign policy objectives that
eight-year Iran-Iraq War. had arisen between several groups in Iran's government.
“Conservatives” favoured less government control of the
In September 1980 a long-standing border dispute served as a economy, while “leftists” sought greater economic socialization.
pretext for Iraqi President Ṣaddām Ḥussein to launch an invasion These two blocs, both committed to social and religious
of Iran's southwestern province of Khūzestān, one of the country's conservatism, were increasingly challenged by a “pragmatist” or
most important oil-producing regions and one populated by “reformist” bloc. The latter favoured steps to normalize relations
many ethnic Arabs. Iran's formidable armed forces had played an with the West, ease strict social restrictions, and open up the
important role in ensuring regional stability under the shah but country's political system as the only solution to their country's
had virtuallydissolved after the collapse of the monarch's regime. crushing economic and social problems, deeply exacerbated by
The weakened military proved to be unexpectedly resilient in the eight years of war.
face of the Iraqi assault, however, and, despite initial losses,
achieved remarkable defensive success. Change began in short order, when the Assembly of Experts
appointed President Ali Khamenei rahbar following the death of
The Iraqis also provided support to the Mojāhedīn-e Khalq, now Khomeini in June 1989. The following month elections were held
headquartered in Iraq. The Mojāhedīn launched a campaign of to select Khamenei's replacement as president. Running virtually
sporadic and highly demoralizing bombings throughout Iran that unopposed, Hojatoleslām Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker
killed many clerics and government leaders. In June 1981 a of the Majles since 1980, was elected by an overwhelming vote.
dissident Islamist faction (apparently unrelated to the Mojāhedīn) Rafsanjani, whose cabinet choices represented the various
bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republican Party, killing factions, immediately began the process of rebuilding the war-
a number of leading clerics. Government pressure intensified after torn economy. Considered a pragmatist and one of the most
the bombing, and Bani-Sadr (who had earlier gone into hiding to powerful men in Iran, Rafsanjani favoured a policy of economic
avoid arrest) and Massoud Rajavi, the head of the Mojāhedīn, fled liberalization, privatization of industry, and rapprochement with
the country. The new president, Mohammad Ali Rajaʾi, and Prime the West that would encourage much-needed foreign investment.
Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar died in another bombing in The new president's policies were opposedby both Khamenei and
August. These attacks led to an unrelenting campaign of the conservative parliament, and attempts by conservative
repression and executions by the Revolutionary Guards, often elements to stifle reforms by harassing and imprisoning political
based on trivial allegations, to root out subversion. Allegations of dissidents frequently resulted in demonstrations and violent
torture, poor prison conditions, arbitrary arrests, and the denial of protest, which were often brutally suppressed.
basic human rights proliferated, as did accusations that
condemned female prisoners were raped—purportedly forced In this new political atmosphere, advocates of women's rights
into temporary marriages (known as mutʿah) with their guards joined with filmmakers who continued to address the gender
before execution. inequities of the Islamic republic. New forms of communication,
including satellite dishes and the Internet, created for Iranians
By the summer of 1982, Iraq's initial territorial gains had been access to Western media and exile groups abroad, who in turn
recaptured by Iranian troops who were stiffened with helped broadcast dissident voices from within Iran. International
Revolutionary Guards. It also became apparent that young boys, campaigns for human rights, women's rights, and a nascent
often plucked from the streets, were leading human wave assaults democratic civil society in Iran began to take root.
on the front lines, thereby sacrificing their bodies to clear Continuing tension abroad
minefields for the troops that followed. These tactics eventually
enabled Iran to capture small amounts of Iraqi territory, but the President Rafsanjani pushed for restoring economic relations with
war soon lapsed into stalemate and attrition. In addition, its the West, but, despite its long conflict with Iraq, Iran chose not to
length caused anxiety among the Arab states and the international jointhe United Nations multinational force opposing the invasion
community because it posed a potential threat to the oil- of Kuwait. In autumn 1991 Iran moved toward reducing its
producing countries of the Persian Gulf. The civilian populations involvement in Lebanon, which facilitated the release of
of both Iran and Iraq suffered severely as military operations Westerners held hostage there by Lebanese Shīʿite extremists.
moved to bombing population centres and industrial targets, However, the Iranian government opposed the Israeli-Palestinian
particularly oil refineries. Attacks on oil tankers from both sides peace process and continued to support Islamic groups in
greatly curtailed shipping in the gulf. Lebanon and in areas under the control of the newly created
Palestinian Authority. Iran also allegedly gave financial support
Finally, in July 1988, after a series of Iraqi offensives during which to Islamic activists, both Sunnite and Shīʿite, in Algeria, The

44
Sudan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. especially strong support among womenand young adults.

Relations with western Europe and the United States fluctuated. The election of Khatami, and his appointment of a more moderate
The bounty placed by Iran's government on author Salman cabinet, unleashed a wave of euphoria among reformers. In less
Rushdie on charges of blasphemy, as well as the state-supported thana year some 900 new newspapers and journals received
assassinations of dozens of prominent Iranian dissidents in authorization to publish and added their voices to earlier
Europe, prevented Iran from normalizing relations with many reformist journals such as Zanān and Kiyān, which had been the
western European countries. In 1992 Sadeqh Sharafkandi, a strongest backers of Khatami. However, the limits of the reformist
prominent member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, president's authority became clear in the months after his election.
and three of his aides were gunned downed in Berlin. The case Iran's leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, continued to exercise
against those held responsible for the attack was tried in German sweeping executive powers, which he did not hesitate to use to
courts for four years, and in 1997 German authorities indirectly thwart Khatami's reforms. In June 1998 the parliament removed
implicated Iranian leaders, including both President Rafsanjani Khatami's liberal interior minister, Abdullah Nouri, in a vote of
and Ayatollah Khamenei in the killings. Germany cut off no confidence, and Tehrān's mayor, Gholamhussein Karbaschi,
diplomatic and trade relations with Iran, but other European was convicted of corruption and jailed by thepresident's
governments continued their economic ties, preventing Iran's conservative opponents, despite strong public opinion in his
complete isolation. favour. Reformist newspapers one by one were accused of
offending Islamic principles and shut down, and six prominent
Most Iranian dissident groups in exile gradually shed their intellectuals, including secular nationalist leader Dariyush
divergent views and agreed that they should work for a Farouhar and his wife Parvaneh Eskandari, were assassinated.
democratic political order in Iran. One remaining exception was Their murders were traced to agents of the Iranian intelligence
the National Liberation Army of Iran, a leftist Islamic group based services, whose representatives claimed that the assassins were
in Iraq that was set up by the Mojāhedīn-e Khalq. But change was acting without orders.
evident even in this organization; its officer corps had become
mostly female, including many educated Iranians from Europe In the February 1999 elections for roughly 200,000 seats on village,
and the United States. town, and city councils, reformers once again won
overwhelmingly,electing many women to office in rural areas.
Internal reform Vigorously debated was the antidemocratic nature of the office of
the rahbar, and calls forits removal from the constitution now
Inside Iran in the mid-1990s, Abdolkarim Soroush, a philosopher began to appear in the press. In July 1999 students protested the
with training in both secular and religious studies, attracted closing of the Salām newspaper and opposed further restrictions
thousands of followers to his lectures. Soroush advocated a type on the press; and police, backed by a vigilante group known as
of reformist Islam that went beyond most liberal Muslim thinkers Anṣār-e Ḥezbollāh, attacked a dormitory at Tehrān University.
of the20th century and argued that the search for reconciliation of Four students were reported killed, and hundreds more were
Islam and democracy was not a matter of simply finding injured or detained. On the dayafter the attack, 25,000 students
appropriate phrases in the Qurʾān that were in agreement with staged a sit-in at the university and demanded the resignation of
modern science, democracy, or human rights. Drawing on the Tehrān's police chief, whom they held responsible for the raid.
works of Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Popper, and Erich Within 48 hours demonstrations had erupted in at least 18 major
Fromm, Soroush called for a reexamination of all tenets of Islam, cities, including Gīlān, Mashhad, and Tabrīz in the north and
insisting on the need to maintain the religion's original spirit of Yazd, Eṣfahān, and Shīrāz in the south. The demonstrators
social justice and its emphasis on caring for other people. demanded that the murderers of the Farouhars and other
intellectuals be brought to swift justice. They also called for
The May 1997 election of Mohammad Khatami, a supporter of freedom of the press, an increase in personal liberty, an end to the
Soroush, as president was a surprise for conservatives who had vigilante attacks on universities, and the release of 13 Iranian Jews
backed Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, speaker of Iran's Majles. Shortly who had been arrested by the government on allegations they
before the elections, the Council of Guardians had placed Khatami were spying for Israel. This was the first major student
on the list of four acceptable candidates in order to give a greater demonstration since the 1979 revolution, and it lasted for five
semblance of democracy to the process. Khatami had been Iran's days. By mid-July the government had quelled the protests, and
minister of culture and Islamic guidance but was forced to resign hundreds more were arrested. In 2001 President Khatami was
in 1992 for having adopted a more moderate view on social and reelected by an overwhelming majority, although at the
cultural issues. The new president, who campaigned on a beginning of his second term there was less popular confidence in
platform of curbing censorship, fighting religious excess, and his ability to bring about swift and dramatic political change.
allowing for greater tolerance, was embraced by much of the
public, receiving more than two-thirds of the vote and enjoying

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