Sassanids vs Arabs

Hello Asawar

What Albert Hourani wrote is  totally false and relying on a sensational journalist (Zaidan) for your history is wrong too. Mawali weren't second class citizens, they had full rights since they were muslims. The guy thinks that the post-Islamic Mawali system is the same as the pre-Islamic one which is totally false. Many Mawali went to become governors. military commanders and high state officials. A huge minority of them were also scholars and judges and here are some names from different periods for your knowledge:

Dinar ibn Dinar, mawla (plr Mawali) and military commander for the Ummayyad clan.

Musa ibn Nusair and his family: The conqueror of North Africa and co-conqueror of Iberia, he was first a military commander, then a politician then commander again as well as military governor on all the lands west of Tunisia. His sons and family were also prominant politicians and military commanders. He was a Mawla for the Ummayyds

Hello Asawar

I think I gave ample evidence that what these guys said, particularly Zaidan, was wrong. Mawali were never treated as second class citizen's with no rights and had to pay jizyah like none muslims, it was the masses of ordinary people from conquered lands who were converts but were not included into the system of wala that the grossly exaggerated "second class" citizenship. Also, the shu'ubiyyah movement that came in the early abbasid era and was supported by them contributed to this false sense of victimization for the none Arab muslims and mawali. Remember, most of the historians of the later periods were none Arabs and reading the erroneous accounts of the Ummayyads highlights this fact.

"I both agree and disagree with you on your first point. Yes the Sassanids were a divided empire with powerful regional nobles and people who only fight to seek wealth, but I disagree with you on the issue that this was their doom. This was the Sassanid system. It worked perfectly for hundreds of years and it survived many incidents where the existance of the empire was threatened an it survived. With the Arab invasion it was to be too much for them and the natural course of history came over them. 600+ years later the same thing will happen to the Arab empires with the Mongols and so on. The Asawirah joined because as one of them said after Qadisyyah and this is not an exact quote "they (Sassanids) are dying and we want to survive". Daylamites too joined the system when it was profitable and rebelled when they thought it was profitable like all wild and semi-nomadic tribal peoples of the world (including bedouin Arabs)."

Believe it or not the long-time-believed-via-muslim-sources of Sassanid sudden fall mainly  due to their inner problems, and corrupt government, corrupt religion is not professionally acceptable todays. As for years with addition of chinese annals and sources to Sassanian studies, comparative study of Sassanid military potence through Byzantine sources. And the fact that it was mainly due to Arab Muslim military might and intelligence, and their celestial mission, is now seem ridiculous in professional matters. Yet historical accounts testify the Arabic might and talent in military expeditions and governing an empire by destruction of the other people's culture, and plundering of they resources.

"This was the Sassanid system. It worked perfectly for hundreds of years and it survived many incidents where the existance of the empire was threatened an it survived"

Yes it did but it exhasuted mainly  to external pressures from east and west especially upon it's end. And at last it was seen that all the military brilliance of the Sassanids faded away when great quantities of it's enemies actually wounded it. Arabs for example took a part of their kingdom first -which about ten years ago was captured and it's resistence potentials totally annihilated (the region of Khwarwarn, Iranak or like arabs say Iraq)- their capital Ctesiphon (whose early capture by the Arabs due to it's bad geographical poistion, gave the Arab enough gold to finance for many years many expeditions) was then times just nominally theirs and Arabs actually didn't do much endeavour to take it.

The fall of Sassanids was marked by the various simultaneous blows from Byzantine-Turkic-Khazar alliance, which at that time really aimed to erase the Sassanids once for ever and thus free a vital part of the silk road to Byzantine empire. after that time Sassanids just lingered cause their traditional dignity didn't allowed them to believe that it was over, and actually they were waiting for another blow especially from Byzantine, or Turkic Khaghanate. but actually the two of them were -after striking that successful blow- involved in another series of wars with their neighbour, one of which resulted in the fall of Turkic Khaghante at the hand of the Chinese. 

"With the Arab invasion it was to be too much for them and the natural course of history came over them"

You may go on insisting of this, good luck. vereything happened so far in history was the Natural course of history..hehe The Sassanids actually weren't natural enemy of the Arabs as they helped them many times (see the events of invasion of Arabia by the people of Ethiopia empire) but it should be taken into consideration that Arab invasions of Iran started almost as early as the Sassanids established their kingdom. Actually the opportunist Arabs always took advantage of a single weak point in Iranian world. By the time of the Shapur II the Arab invasion was almost successful and they penetrated into Sassanian heartland (Parsa) pillaging. But by the intervention of a might ruler Shapur II with Sassanian strong army they repelled and punished  Arabs badly (ridiculuous that Arabs after their conquest of Iran did many evil deeds in Parsa region itself, stating taking revenge of those times) See the way they think of the other people guys!

"I said Daylamites paid tribute till they felt some weakness then they rebelled, then armies came an after a couple of years engagements and siege to their mountains peace and so on.."

And I said with reference of some sources NO, you dindt notice that the Jaziya and tributes you said before about Deylam was actually tributes the cityu of Rayy or Dastbi had to pay. And you obviouslywere wrong considering Rayy and Qazvin Daylamite cities. And Urwah ibn Zaid took no tribute from them as the accounts just tell of his victory over the joint army of the Deylamites and Persians in Vajrud after battle of Nahvand.

"The Daylamite "resistance" in the Islamic era was like their "resistance" during the Sassanid era, out of opportunism nothing more nothing less."

That's what I said in my previous post!

"Finally about the failure of resistance of the Spahbods and other provincial nobles"

At first I should make it clear that Deylmaties had no title Spahbod. and their failure was about the fact that many of them in charge of the regions or cities prefered to pay the tribute as they couldn't raise an army who could match the quantity of the Arab armies.

"well it was a direct result of the failure of the Sassanid system after Qadisyyah and particularly after Nihanwand which is why it was called "Fath Al-Futuh" or roughly "the conquest of conquests". After its collapse every noble was to himself which made it easier for the Arabs to finish the conquest."

Yes I agree, as many eastern governors were sometimes actually under control of the Turkics. But you are wrong it was not  the failure of the Sassanid system after Qadisyyah and particularly after Nihanwand as it was the DIRECT result of the final destruction of iranian armies after the universal war of the byzantine-turkics and then the Arab invasiosn against them.

As for battle of Nahavand I say that it's a very good subject to study for the interested. 

- Clear defensive stance of Iranians (which shows the strong probabilty of iranians being more less tha Arabs in conrary to the most islamic sources given numbers) 

- The indication of the raw recruits from almost city of Iran in islamic sources (which shows indirectly the military shortage of the Iranians in terms of good soldiers)

- The clear mythicized scenes of the battle which actually turned into stories later times

- The indication of the fact by Islamic soucres, that Arabs somehow know that once Iranians are out of their defenisve positions, they could win the day.

By the way I noticed you said somewhere Deylamites changed sides. It is in some narration that Deylamite soldiers in service of Sassanids changed sides in battle of Qadesiya NOT the Deylamites as whole!

"Second, the Sassanids were weak, but were not a spent force"

If they weren't a spent or weakened force by extrenal factors, they would have certainly acted differently facing Arabs. some scholars facing this fact suggested that Sassanid armies during a long time battle with Roman armies, adapted the tactics and warfare, which were aimed to work out confronting the Romans; I don't deny this reason, but I do insist these are all minor causes to what really happened, in brief, lack of troops for defending Iran.

If one reads history of the Sassanian from beginning to end, will observe that this was not the first attpemted Arabic invasion in Iran. As there are accounts that during the Turco-persian wars, Iranians used a rather rational policy and made peace with Byzantines, piad off the invading Arabs and proceeded to face the Turks on the northeastern frontiers. the point is before and after Islam Arabs always tried to launch an Invasion of Iran for sake of plunder. though the fact the Islamic government united Arabian tribes to a greater extent. Yet the stories that Arabs never dared or even dreamed of attacking the land of Kasra is fictional story.

 "The Byzantine wars ended for ever before the Arabs ever even united in the Peninsula (in 628). The Turko-Persian war ended a year later. Seeing that the Turks chose the long way around the Caspian to Attack the Sassanids in the Caucasus I think this is evidence that they were too weak for a direct frontal attack in the Khorasan-Mazandran area"

In 628 emperor Herakelios after siegeing Ctesipon, signed a favorable treaty on his terms with the new king Kavad II son of the former slain king Xosro II. But even after Byzantine departure there's no account of the full departure of the Turkics and Khazars from Iranian lands in north. But yes why did Heraklios signed the treaty in haste and left his allies? it is could be to many causes; Herakelios was afraid of the byzantine frontiers and even was not quite confident of his allies ( Maybe Yabghu-Khan the Turk khan upon the serious defeat of the Sassanids mostly have his own plans for Iran in the future.). The other reason is the same which acted dramat in the turning point of the war from Sassanids to the Alliance, that was "Shahrvaraz" - one of the commanders of the Sassanian armies in victories over Byzantines in Asia minor - who as result of conflicts commited by Xosrau II revolted and did not attend to the rest of the Sassanian wars against the alliance, continuing seprataely with his notable amount of elite troops in Calcedonia. According to Tabari Shahrvaraz upon his enemity with the king until his death was still present on the Roman soil and we should say his presence was one of the reasons of the Herakelios departure to confront him, as again according to Tabari, Shahrvaraz and his men suffered defeat and the Romans pursued and killed them.

But the scene is not over yet, As soon Yabghu khan had to haste to secure his eastern frontiers and left his son "Buri-Shad" in his place. and again in 628 - the year of most of the changes happened against Sasanids as near as their- after return Yabghu Khan attacked gergia and captured and plundered city of Tiblisi. This time we see the Turkic invasion of Aran or Agvanak more inside the Sassanian lands in the book "Tarikh i Aghvanak". Later in 630 they attacked Armenia. in the clashes between Sassanid sent forces of 10.000 men the truks mangaed to eliminate almost all of the Iranian army. But the sources doesn't give account of no Turkish penetartion deep into Khurasan during the wars of the Alliances mostly in the west. ( As the Sassanids surely had already drawn most of their troops from the east to the west) 

So it's not about chosing a long way through Cacausus mountains to be weak! this could have the following reasons:

-They wanted to joing the Byzantines in the siege of Tiblisi.

- Many of the allies of the Turkics were Khazar and Dulu, as for which this way was better.

- No account that the Turks at the same time didn't took advantage of the east.

"However if they did attack during theIslamic conquests there please correct me because I not well versed in that place's history during that period except from what I read about the conquests. Arab invasions started first in 635 and became at full speed in 636"

Now if you note that in 630 there was a serious defeat of the Sassanids at the hand of the Turks in Armenia, it is far from reason that their penetrations and frontier attacks did not last after the year 630 maybe just not documented. And guess what dear reader the Arab invasions already started .In fact there was during the time of Xosro II himself (start of the Byzntine-Turkic Persian wars) a battle fought between a division of Iranian armies and Arabs, in which the division were annihilated ut they didn't take it into account. ( Unfortunately I dont remember the source but i will put it as soon as i remember)

"As for Persians helping Arabs, well it wan't out of charity, it was in their interests, Arab petty kingdoms of Yemen gave them Arabia Felix for free, even a stupid guy knows that this opportunity won't come again. The Petty kingdoms of Yemen were in long struggle with the Northern Arab tribes, Banu Tamim, Bakr Wail, Taghlub etc. and had no problem with the Sassnids who were close and had the might to end the joint Judeo-Ethiopean control on Yemen."

Reading islamic history books like Tabari's or Dinouri's you will notice that in fact Arabs pleaded firstly the romans after their refusal pleaded many times Sassanians until they said yes and dispatched troops to reconquer Yemen. no more saying!

"Finally about my note on the Daylams, well as I said before, these were free people, like Bedouins, Berbers other nomadic, semi-nomadic and clan based peoples of the world. They cherished their freedom and only money could insure their loyalty. The Daylams who fought for the Sassanids fought for money not Persian nationalism or freedom from the Arabs (in the political sense). They actually couldn't care less who governed the Iranian plateau. They just wanted money. The defeated Sassanid and their noble allies couldn't afford money but the Arabs could so they joined them. Pure legitimate opportunism."

I did emphasized that they werent quite subjects to the Sassanids. But fortunately according to accounts like Al-Baladhuri it is obvious that doesn't mean they were ready to accept invaders in Iranian soil, as they shortly after the battle of Nahvand. joined the remainder of Sassanids, people of rayy to fight the Arabs. thus not feeling like to be subjects to the Sassanids they clearly appreciated freedom of Iran. And they did care who goverened Iranian plateau as they were historically related to the Medes tribes.  please don't try to impy such theories.

As for opportunism I think they had right to use it. As that was their home and Arabs were simply blood-thursty Invaders. Invasion and defense there's a huge difference between these two.

"well unfortunatly the rules of war during that period in Human history said that allies who betray treaties are killed, it was done by the Romans, Byzantines, Sassanids, Arabs, Mongols, English, French etc. So though brutal as it was, it was the law then and everyone accepted it"

Oh nice topic "it was done by the others"!, but let me ask you this question: "if it was done by the others, were they preaching a faith claiming to be the last or did they claim that they (romans, Sassanids,.....) had a celestial mission for the mankind during human history so on and still insisting on it???? 

let's compare this two events with difference of about ten years:

actual capturing of Ctesiphon by Byzantines, much less pillaging (Byzantines)

capturing of Ctesiphon by Arab Muslims claiming to be the saviours, total pillage with no mercy (Arab Muslims)

The long recorded tradition of beheading the prisoners of war to disheart the enemy by Arabs.

"By this time Arabs came and wanted Iraq (which comes either Uruk or Sumerian root for lowlands) as well as Khuzestan, the Arabs came to stay. They never had any plans to go beyond the mountains. Arabs have been recorded as being living there for nearly a mellenium and they wanted to clear it from the Persians. What happened is that things changed (Omar famously said "I wish a mountain of fire was between Persia and the Arabs"). When Omar knew that Persians were preparing for a comeback he authorized the Nehavand expedition and a complete conquest for the land."

Yes, I have heard that some say the Prophet himself promised Syria, Iraq, Iran and Eygpt to his followers. On the other hand Arabs invasions was always accompanied with pillage and some sort of opportunist migration. ( By the time of early Sassanids there are accounts of the presence of some Arab tribes settled under protectorate of Shahanshah in Kerman province, the very tribes which earlier came for plundering the lands of south Iran).

The interesting is that the saying related to Omar ibn Khattab caliming he wanted only a firewall of some sort could be only a myth. Arabs though not very keen on living in the lands of Iran ( cause the climate of the most of Iran is not so generous), but on pillaging its cities. 

Iraq itself wasn't a homeland to Arabs since a millienium but the another semitic people like Babylonian, Akkadian, Assyrian, etc. Arabs presence always marked by migrations from Arabia since ancient times until some 200 years ago in which Arab tribes still were migrating into Khuzestan province and south Iraq.

"As for massacres and murder of POWs, it did happen but it was rare. Only few incidents were ever recorded and in any given case POWs could only be killed on the expressed orders of the Caliph and many were not. Instead they bought their freedom."

Heh, wrong it did happen even without the very order of the Caliph. First I should point out again that if everyone on those times did such slaughters ( which I doubt the other did with harshness of the Arabs), those others than Arabs weren't claiming to be the saviours of the people of the world and have still insisted on the holiness of the conquests, cherish the commanders of the conquest like they live, even to day we live now!

Some example of the slaughters without permission; Abu Musa Al-Ashaari ordered at the siege of Shushtar that Arabs bring forth the Iranian prisoners of the former wars and behead them to intimidate the defenders. (Dinavari, Akhbar Al-Toval).

"As for pillaging, well fortunately we have a census ordered by Omar (see Kitab Al-Kharaj by Abu Yusuf) for those paying Jizyah and living in the Sawad of Iraq and Khuzestan. Those were found to be more than 600k able bodied working men. Multiplying by 4 (assuming there were 4 people who didn't pay jizyah for every one who pays it and this is about the standard) we find that Iraq alone from today's Baghdad to the Gulf coast and having the river Karkhah as the boundry between Iraq and Khuzestan had 2.4 million"

Well we see again that Arabs thought or think that Jiziya is a natural thing and duty of  anyone. it's booty after pillaging! the statistics are given variously in most of the islamic sources as well.

"Iraq at the turn of the last century didn't have that much. And from all this land only a small size was taken and most of those lands were imperial holdings or holdings of the previous Arab rulers, the rest were left for the people with a fixed tax of 10% of the total value of the produce of the land. The local nobility or Duhqans continued to exercise power almost unchallanged all over the conquered lands so hardly any large scale pillaging occured, except for the city of Ctesephon which was natural"

Pillagin of the city of Ctesiphon was natural. yeah Arabs needed resources of the capital of the others to be able to fund their further expeditions to spread the faith which of course were costly (so it's natural even today that they sack any place).

Wrong again! see guys! the Dehgans were allowed as long as the Arabs needed them. As you can see after a century they disappear to great extent, e.g. the richest in Parsa province ( the very heartland of Persians) were therefore a Arab chieftain who become like other landlords.

Wrong again as pillaging occured to great extent especially for the case of Iranians, for which Arabs held a great envy for centuries, exampls of which, detailed I will give in the next post.