Muhammad by Juan Cole

Author:Juan Cole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2018-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

EVENTS IN THE Hejaz likely mirrored geopolitical struggles. The end of formal hostilities with Iran did not relieve the Romans of anxieties about the possibility of renewed Sasanian aggression. Constantinople sought Arab federates, and indeed its need for such allies was one of the strategic lessons of the world war. Emperor Herakleios did what he could to set a cat among the pigeons, whispering in the ear of General Shahr Varaz that Constantinople would back him were he to seek the Iranian throne. As he finally retreated entirely from the Near East early in 630, the Iranian general, enraged that the notables at court in Ctesiphon had not consulted him about installing little Ardashir III, went into rebellion.

In April 630 the Iranian general gathered an army of thousands in Mesopotamia and, with the covert help of allies at court, besieged the capital. Shahr Varaz of the House of Mehran, a descendant of the Arsacid ruling family of the old Parthian Empire, took control of Ctesiphon and deposed the child king, crowning himself emperor. Provincial aristocrats often had Arsacid ancestry, and this division in the Iranian elite had weakened it. Instability and intrigue roiled the capital, where most notables found this act of rank insubordination by a non-Sasanian to be unacceptable. In early June 630, Shahr Varaz, conqueror of Jerusalem and the former master of Syria and Egypt, fell victim to assassination.

The court had run out of sons of Khosrow II to ensconce in power, and a faction turned to his elder daughter Poran, who acceded to the throne as the first Iranian empress in the midsummer of 630. She seems to have had trouble persuading her male nobles to obey her commands and was forced to make further territorial concessions to Herakleios. One of her coins shows her wearing her crown on which is perched two feathered wings, the symbol of Verathragna, the angel of victory. On the other side of the coin stand a Zoroastrian fire altar and two attendants. Another of her coins bears the inscription “Your world brings new glory.” After only a few months, she appears to have been shunted aside by her sister Azarmig Dokht, who became the paramount queen and ruled into 632. Perhaps exiled to the eastern provinces, Poran continued to mint coins for three years before she is heard of no more.9

This period of extreme instability at the Sasanian center can only have left policy toward Arabia in disarray. We should not assume, however, that the empresses and the generals and great notables around them lacked interest in finding ways to shore up Iranian power in the West. A picture book of the Sasanians depicts a rather martial Empress Azarmig Dokht seated on her throne in an embroidered cherry-red tunic and deep-blue sequined pants, holding a battle ax in her right hand and supporting herself with the sword in her left hand. She established a castle at Asadabad in northwestern Iran, near the border with Rome, and continued to try to spread and support Zoroastrianism, founding a fire temple at Abkhaz.

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