ARAB CONQUEST
[637-652 A.D.]
The battle of Kadisiya practically decided the fate of the provinces on the Tigris. There were a few other fights, some of them in the vast territory of ancient Babylon, but the Arabs soon afterwards reached Seleucia, took it after a protracted siege, crossed the rapid stream of the Tigris, and quickly forced their way into Ctesiphon. The young king Yezdegerd had already fled to Holwan (on the border between Babylonia and Media). On their way thither, at Jalula, the Arabs won another victory over the Persians under Khorrezadh, Rustem’s brother, and Yezdegerd fled further into the interior. Meanwhile other Arabs had conquered the delta of the stream and thence advanced into Susiana. A very able resolute commander might still have saved the actual land of Iran for the Persians. Omar, who was very cautious in spite of his energy, was apprehensive lest the Arabs should extend their forces too far, and at first would not give orders for an advance into the highlands. At length he did so. A great Persian army had been collected at Nehavend, a little to the south of the ancient highway from Babylon to Ecbatana. Here a great battle was fought (in 640, 641, or 642), in which the Arabs—first under the command of Nohman and, after he had fallen, under Hudhaifa the Meccan—won a brilliant victory.
With good reason the Moslems called the triumph of Nehavend the “victory of victories.” It completely shattered the empire of Persia. The Arabs had a long contest before them, until they had really conquered all the provinces of the vast monarchy, but it consisted of isolated struggles in which there could be no doubt of the ultimate issue, as their enemies had lost all cohesion. Many towns and districts had to be subjugated again and again, because they were constantly rebelling. The most obstinate resistance appears to have been offered in Persia proper, especially about Istakhr, the cradle of the empire of the Sassanidæ and the centre of its religion. Many of the great provincial nobles and some of the lesser entered into friendly agreement with the Arabs. They one and all met them on the footing of independent sovereigns.
King Yezdegerd meanwhile led a wretched life. He could not summon up courage to set his life on the stake for his crown and empire. He fled from one satrap to another. He seems to have stayed longest at Istakhr, the home of his race. The outward pomp of royalty was left him, coins were still struck in his name, but as soon as he became a troublesome guest he was sent away. At length he took refuge in the extreme northeast, and there he was miserably murdered, in the neighbourhood of Merv. The circumstances of his death, which took place in 651 or 652, are not exactly known, but it seems tolerably certain that Mahoe, satrap of Merv, had a hand in it. [For the traditional account see page 154, this volume.]
The similarity of the circumstances under which the Achæmenid and Sassanid empires perished forces itself upon our notice, a similarity which, though apparently fortuitous, indicates a great correspondence in character. As the battle on the Granicus first fully showed the formidable nature of the enemy, as Issus cost the king his western provinces and Gaugamela rent the empire asunder without thereby making the victor master of all its several provinces, so it came to pass nearly one thousand years later, with the battles of Buwaib, Kadisiya, and Nehavend. And as the fugitive Darius was slain, in the northeast, not by enemies but by treacherous nobles, so it was with Yezdegerd, who was no more a hero than he. The Persian nobility did not exhibit so gross a lack of patriotism and loyalty in the case of the Arabs as in that of Alexander; the vivid consciousness of religious differences and the ruder manners of the Arabs made adherence to them more difficult; but there was no lack of traitors of high rank nor of renegades among the greater and lesser nobles. The complete subjugation of the Persian monarchy took the Arabs much longer than it had taken the great Macedonian, but on the other hand its effects were much more lasting; Hellenism touched the mere surface of Persia, but Iran has been thoroughly permeated by Arab religion and Arab characteristics.
[652-750 A.D.]
A fragment of the Sassanid empire continued to exist for some time longer. The hereditary crown-generals (Shahpat, Ispehbedh) of Khorasan, of the house of Karen, withdrew into the mountain country of Tabaristan (Mazanderan) and there reigned for more than one hundred years, though they occasionally found themselves under the necessity of paying tribute to the caliph. They remained faithful to the religion of Zoroaster. The era which they struck upon their coins begins, in all probability, with the death of Yezdegerd, and they thus seemed to have looked upon themselves as the direct succession of the last Sassanid king.b
FOOTNOTES
[30] [Or according to Von Gutschmid, 227; see chapter I.]
Bronze Hinge from Antique Chest
CHAPTER III. EARLY HISTORY OF THE ARABS
[ca. 2500 B.C.-622 A.D.]
The Arabian peninsula is Africa reduced in size and of more moderate proportions, but without a river-valley like that of the Nile. The heart of the country is a tableland, sparely watered under a burning sun, and forming a depression in the midst of sandy deserts, rocky plains, peaks, and naked cliffs. Thus, despite its great extent of over a million square miles, Arabia presents, especially in the interior, but few stretches of land suitable for cultivation. It is in the south, where the plateau slopes down to the Indian Ocean in a series of declivities, that fertile valleys lie; and on the mountain terraces, where cool winds from the ocean temper the tropic heat, the richest fruits abound. This district of Arabia is the land of frankincense, of sugar-cane, and coffee tree, of pomegranates, figs, dates, of maize, and wheat.
Herodotus,b who like all other historians of antiquity applies the name Arabia to regions lying even beyond Sinai and the Syrian deserts, gives us but meagre information concerning the inhabitants of this vast land. “The Arabs,” he says, “wear long garments, carry at their right side great bows with double strings, and ride on swift camels. They worship two gods, Dionysus whom they call Urotal, and Urania whom they call Alilat, the latter also being called by the Babylonians Mylitta. Compacts are made in the following manner; a third person cuts each of the parties to the agreement in the hand near the thumb, and with the blood thus obtained smears seven stones that lie on the ground between, at the same time calling on Urotal and Alilat. Compacts thus sealed are held sacred by the Arabs, and are kept with a fidelity rarely found in other nations.” Artemidorusc of Ephesus calls Arabia rich in animals of all sorts; lions, panthers, wolves, wild asses, and camels; and the inhabitants, according to him, were wandering herdsmen who travelled about and did their fighting on the backs of camels, and lived on the camels’ milk and flesh. He withholds from us the names of these tribes on account of their obscurity and unmusical sound. Diodorusd also tells us that parts of Arabia on the Syrian side were inhabited by tribes who lived by trading and agriculture; but the tracts adjoining were for the most part barren and without water, and the Nachabæans who occupied them led the life of bandits, plundering their neighbours far and wide; no other tribe had succeeded in conquering them. In the interior and in the west of Arabia were sand plains of immense extent, across which it was only possible to travel by taking, as on the sea, the Great Bear as a guide.