Sasani İmparatorluğu

The Sasanian Empire is an Iranian dynastic state that ruled over Iran and its surroundings from the first quarter of the 3rd century AD to the mid-7th century, using Pahlavi (Middle Persian) as its official language. It is one of the main political frameworks in which Kurdish history unfolded during the pre-Islamic period, and it determined the fate of local peoples in borderlands and mountainous regions for centuries.

Establishment and Sources

The establishment of the state begins with Ardashir I putting an end to the Parthians and founding the Sasanian dynasty; the work of Agathangelos, the first Armenian History written in Armenian, opens precisely with this founding phase (Vol 1, p. 73). Moses Khorenatsi also refers to the conflicts between Ardashir I, the founder of the dynasty, and the Parthians, and recounts that Ardashir pursued a Parthian dignitary who rebelled against him from Korduk all the way to Azerbaijan, indicating the dynasty's early influence extending to the geography inhabited by Kurds (Vol 1, p. 77). Middle Persian or Pahlavi sources surviving from the Sasanian period are quite limited; among these, a few inscriptions and treatises from the early period of the dynasty are important (Vol 1, p. 21).

Foremost among these inscriptions is the ŠKZ inscription, commissioned by Shapur I (240-271/2), son of the founder Ardashir I and his successor to the throne, on the Ka'be-i Zardusht building at Naqsh-e Rustam. This text, likely inscribed in 263 AD, describes the victories and their outcomes in the wars against Rome at Misikhe (244), Barbalissos (252), and Edessa-Karrhae (260); Shapur I inflicted a major defeat on Rome in each of these three-stage campaigns (Vol 1, p. 67). The inscriptions of Kerdir, a clergyman of the same period, offer a classification of which lands were part of Iran and which were non-Iranian geographies (Erān ud anērān). According to this classification, the Kurdish country was likely part of the Persian kingdom along with Adiabene, and the Kurds were subjects of the Sasanian state (Vol 1, p. 68).

Struggle with Rome

The centuries-long struggle of the Sasanians with Rome deeply affected the Kurdish geography. Ammianus Marcellinus, referring to this struggle in the fourth century, mentions local communities such as the people of Zap (Vol 1, p. 19). After the defeat of the Sasanian king Narseh by the Romans, some border regions remained under Roman administration until the campaigns of Shapur II; and with the peace treaty between Emperor Jovian and Shapur II in 363, the regions of Zabdicena, Carduena, Rhemena, and Zelena, along with 15 fortresses, were returned to the Persians (Vol 1, p. 37). In this constantly changing geography, groups fighting against Rome as allies of the Persians also took part; for example, the duties of the Deylamites, far from the Tigris, in the Persian army were mentioned (Vol 1, p. 38). The work of Theophylact Simocatta provides important data on the situation of the local population subjected to violence in the battleground of the two empires (Vol 1, p. 40).

Khosrow I, who marked the late period of the dynasty, after ascending the Sasanian throne, stayed in the village of Thamanon, suitable for summer residence, on a high hill in Kardukhia, as recounted by Agathias (Vol 1, p. 38). The Sasanian-Roman wars during the reigns of Sasanian kings Kawad I and his son Khosrow I were recounted by Procopius with vivid descriptions and valuable information about the geography east of the Euphrates (Vol 1, p. 39). The religious policies of the state were also reflected in the sources: the persecutions against Christians during the reign of Shapur II resulted in the martyrdom of many prominent clergymen, and Mar Qardagh also suffered from these persecutions (Vol 1, p. 58).

Collapse and Traces

The development of Armenian historiography parallel to the Sasanian period makes Armenian sources important for early Kurdish history (Vol 1, p. 22). The author of the Khuzistan Chronicle, regarding the late period of the state, began his work with events from the reign of Sasanian Shah Hormizd IV and concluded it with the dissolution of the Sasanian Empire (Vol 1, p. 59). During this dissolution process, the Kurds also had direct contact with the throne: Bahram Chobin (Bahram VI), a member of the Kurdish Mihran family, who sat on the Sasanian throne for a few months in 590, is mentioned in Al-Akhbar al-Tiwal along with a girl named Kurdiyya and a brother named Kurdi (Vol 1, p. 91).

The end of the Empire came with the Islamic conquests. During the caliphate of Umar (634-644), the conquest campaign was completed with the taking of Iraq and Iran from the Sasanian Empire, and the Sasanian Empire was brought to an end with the Battle of Nihavand in 642; one of the peoples fought by the Muslim Arabs during their campaign in Iraq were the Kurds (Vol 1, p. 87). The traces of the dynasty continued to live on in place names: Kermanshah, the center of Iran's Kurdistan province, was founded during the Sasanian era (Vol 4, p. 113), while Shahr-i Zor, the center of ancient Kurdistan, was referred to as Shahr-i Firuz in relation to Qubad bin Firuz from the Sasanian dynasty (Vol 4, p. 133).