Yazdegerd III (RomanizedYazdgerd,Yazdgird) was the lastSasanianKing of Kings from 632 to 651. His father wasShahriyar and his grandfather wasKhosrow II.

Yazdegerd III 𐭩𐭦𐭣𐭪𐭥𐭲𐭩
King of Kings of Iranians and non-Iranians
Drachma of Yazdegerd III, minted in 651.
Shahanshah of theSasanian Empire
Reign	16 June 632 – 651
Coronation	Istakhr
Predecessor	Boran
Successor	Office abolished
Born	624 Istakhr
Died	651 (aged 27) Marw
Issue	Peroz III Bahram VII Shahrbanu (alleged) Izdundad
House	House of Sasan
Father	Shahriyar
Religion	Zoroastrianism

Ascending the throne at the age of eight, the young shah lacked authority and reigned asfigurehead, whilst real power was in the hands of the army commanders, courtiers, and powerful members of the aristocracy, who engaged in internecine warfare. The Sasanian Empire was weakened severely by these internal conflicts, resulting in invasions by theGöktürks from the east, andKhazars from the west.^[1] Yazdegerd was unable to contain theRashidun conquest of Iran, and spent most of his reign fleeing from one province to another in the vain hope of raising an army. Yazdegerd met his end at the hands of a miller nearMarw in 651, bringing an end to the last pre-Islamic Iranian empire after more than 400 years of rule.^[1]

The name of Yazdegerd is a combination of theOld Iranianyazad yazata- "divine being" and-karta "made", and thus stands for "God-made", comparable to IranianBagkart andGreekTheoktistos.^[2] The name of Yazdegerd is known in other languages as follows:PahlaviYazdekert;New PersianYazd(e)gerd;SyriacYazdegerd,Izdegerd, andYazdeger;ArmenianYazkert;TalmudicIzdeger andAzger;ArabicYazdeijerd; GreekIsdigerdes.^[2]

Yazdegerd was the son of princeShahriyar and the grandson of the last prominent shah of Iran,Khosrow II (r. 590–628), who was in 628 overthrown and executed by his own sonKavad II, who proceeded to have all his brothers and half-brothers executed, including Shahriyar.^[3] This dealt a heavy blow to the empire, which it would never recover from. Furthermore, the fall of Khosrow II also culminated in acivil war lasting four years, with the most powerful members of the nobility gaining full autonomy and starting to create their own government. The hostilities between the Persian (Parsig) andParthian (Pahlav) noble-families were also resumed, which split up the wealth of the nation.^[4] A few months later, adevastating plague swept through the western Sasanian provinces, killing half of its population including Kavad II.^[4]

He was succeeded by his eight-year-old sonArdashir III,who was killed two years later by the distinguished Sasanian generalShahrbaraz, who was in turn murdered forty days later in a coup by thePahlav leaderFarrukh Hormizd, who installed the daughter of Khosrow II,Boran, on the throne.^{[5][page needed]} She was deposed a year later, and a succession of rulers followed one another, until Boran was sovereign once more in 631, only to be killed the following year, seemingly by theParsig leaderPiruz Khosrow.^[6] The most powerful magnates in the empire,Rostam Farrokhzad^[a] and Piruz Khosrow, now threatened by their own men, eventually agreed to work together, and installed Yazdegerd III on the throne, thus putting an end to the civil war.^[7] He was crowned in theAnahid fire-temple inIstakhr, where he had been hiding during the civil war. The temple was the very place where the first Sasanian shahArdashir I (r. 224–242) had crowned himself, indicating that the reason behind Yazdegerd's coronation at the same place was due to hopes for a rejuvenation of the empire.[8] He was almost the last living member of theHouse of Sasan.^[9] Most scholars agree that Yazdegerd was eight years old at his coronation.^[4][3][10]

Yazdegerd, however, did not have the authority required to bring stability to his extensive empire, which was swiftly falling apart due to ceaseless internal conflicts between the army commanders, courtiers, and powerful members of the aristocracy, who were fighting amongst themselves and wiping each other out. Many of the governors of the empire had proclaimed independence and carved out their own kingdom.^[3] The governors of the provinces ofMazun andYemen had already asserted their independence during the civil war of 628–632, thus resulting in the disintegration of Sasanian rule in theArabian Peninsula,which was uniting under the banner of Islam.^[11] TheIranologistKhodadad Rezakhani argues that the Sasanians had most likely lost much of their possessions after Khosrow II's execution in 628.^[12]

The empire was starting to look more like the Parthian feudal system before the fall of theArsacid Empire.^[13] Yazdegerd, although being acknowledged as the rightful monarch by both theParsig andPahlav factions, does not seem to have held sway over all of his empire. Indeed, during the first years of his rule coins were only minted inPars,Sakastan, andKhuzestan, approximately corresponding to the regions of the southwest (Xwarwarān) and southeast (Nēmrōz), where theParsig was based.^[14] ThePahlav, who were mainly based in the northern portion of the empire, refused to mint coins of him.^[14] Even in the south Yazdegerd's rule was not seemingly secure; a Sasanian claimant to the throne,Khosrow IV, minted coins atSusa inKhuzestan around this time, which he would do till 636.^[15] According to Rezakhani, Yazdegerd seemingly did not controlMesopotamia, including the capital ofCtesiphon. He argues that the conspiring aristocrats and the population of Ctesiphon, "do not appear to have been too successful or eager in bringing Yazdgerd to the capital."^[12]

The empire was also at the same time invaded on all fronts; by theGöktürks in the east, and byKhazars in the west, who raidedArmenia andAdurbadagan.^[1] The Sasanian army had been heavily weakened due to thewar with the Byzantines and internal conflict.^[16] The circumstances were so chaotic, and the condition of the nation so alarming, that "the Persians openly spoke of the imminent downfall of their empire, and saw its portents in natural calamities."^[4]

In May 633, the Muslims defeated a Sasanian force underAzadbeh near the important strategic Sasanian city ofHira, which was shortly afterwards occupied. After the fall of Hira, Yazdegerd began to pay greater attention to the Muslims;Rostam Farrokhzad sent an army under the Persian military officerBahman Jadhuyih and theArmenian military officerJalinus against the Muslims. Rostam is known to have told Bahman secretly that: "if Jalinus returns to the like of his defeat, then cut off his head."^[17] The Sasanian army managed to defeat the Muslims at theBattle of the Bridge.

In 636, Yazdegerd III orderedRostam Farrokhzad to subdue the invading Arabs and then told him: "Today you are the [most prominent] man among the Iranians. You see that the people of Iran have not faced a situation like this since the family ofArdashir I assumed power."^[17] Envoys then came to Yazdegerd III asking him to consider the dismissal of Rostam in order to replace him with someone around whom the people would rally.^[18]

Yazdegerd III asked Rostam for an assessment of the Arab forces since they had camped at Qadisiyyah.^[19]Rostam Farrokhzad stated that the Arabs were "a pack of wolves, falling upon unsuspecting shepherds and annihilating them."^[19] Yazdegerd III responds to Rostam by saying

It is not like that. The Arabs and the Persians are comparable to an eagle who looked upon a mountain where birds take shelter at night and stay in their nests at the foot of it. When morning came, the birds looked around and saw that he was watching them. Whenever a bird became separated from the rest, the eagle snatched him. The worst thing that could happen to them would be that all would escape save one.^[20]

However, the Sasanian army suffered a crushing defeat at theBattle of al-Qadisiyyah, withRostam,Bahman, Jalinus and two Armenian princes named Grigor II Novirak andMushegh III Mamikonian being killed during the battle. The Arabs then marched towards the Sasanian capital ofCtesiphon without meeting any resistance. Yazdegerd took his treasury, and along with 1,000 of his servants fled toHulwan inMedia, leaving Rostam Farrokhzad's brotherFarrukhzad in charge of Ctesiphon. Farrukhzad, however, did not attempt any resistance and also went to Hulwan. The Arabs subsequently reached Ctesiphon,besieged the western parts of the city, and soon occupied all of it.^[21][22] The Iranian defeat at the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah has often been described as a turning point in the Arab invasion of Iran. However, in reality, it was far from it. The battle served as a wake-up call for the Iranian armies, who became conscious that persistent factionalism could result in their inevitable destruction.^[23] Al-Tabari emphasizes this, stating that after the fall of Ctesiphon "the people... were about to go their separate ways, they started to incite one another: 'If you disperse now, you will never get together again; this is a spot that sends us in different directions'."^[24]

In April 637, the Arabs defeated another Sasanian army at theBattle of Jalula. After this defeat, Yazdegerd fled deeper intoMedia.^[25] He subsequently raised a new army and sent it toNahavand to retakeCtesiphon and prevent any further Muslim advances.^[11] The army that Yazdegerd sent seemed such a serious threat that it ledUmar to combine the Arab forces ofKufa andBasra underAl-Nu'man ibn Muqrin and send them against the Sasanians with reinforcements fromSyria andOman. The battle is said to have lasted several days. It resulted in major losses on both sides, including the death ofal-Nu'man ibn Muqrin and the Iranian generalsMardanshah andPiruz Khosrow. TheBattle of Nahavand in 642 was the second military disaster for the Sasanians after the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah.^[11]

After the Sasanian disaster, Yazdegerd fled toIsfahan, and raised a small army under a certain military officer named Siyah, who had lost his property to the Arabs. However, Siyah and the rest of the army mutinied against Yazdegerd, and agreed to help the Arabs in return for places to live.^[27] Meanwhile, Yazdegerd had arrived inEstakhr, where he tried organizing a base for resistance in the province ofPars. However, in 650,Abdullah ibn Aamir, the governor ofBasra, invaded Pars and put an end to the Persian resistance. Estakhr was made into ruins after the battle and a force of 40,000 defenders including many Persian nobles were killed. After the Arab conquest of Pars, Yazdegerd fled toKirman while being pursued by an Arab force.^[11] Yazdegerd managed to flee from the Arab force in a snowstorm at Bimand.

After arriving at Kirman, Yazdegerd became unfriendly with themarzban (general of a frontier province, "margrave") of Kirman, and then left Kirman forSakastan. Another Basran army later arrived which defeated and killed themarzban of Kirman in a bloody fight. When Yazdegerd arrived atSakastan he lost the support of the governor of Sakastan by demanding tax from him.^[11] Yazdegerd then headed forMerv to join the leader of theTurks. However, when he arrived inKhorasan the inhabitants did not agree with Yazdegerd's decision to continue waging war and told him that it was better if he made peace with the Arabs; Yazdegerd, however, refused. Sakastan was later taken by the Arab forces after a bloody fight around 650–652.^[11] Yazdegerd was also supported by thePrincipality of Chaghaniyan, which sent him troops to aid him against the Arabs. When Yazdegerd arrived inMarw (in what is today'sTurkmenistan) he demanded tax from themarzban of Marw, losing also his support and making him ally withNezak Tarkan, theHephthalite ruler ofBadghis, who helped him defeat Yazdegerd and his followers.

After Yazdegerd III started to suffer from the onslaught of the Muslim Arabs, he soon sent an envoy to theChinese court in 639 "for offering tribute”.^[28] As he continued to suffer defeats from the Arabs, he again sent envoys to China, in 647 and 648, in order to “seek assistance from the Chinese court with the hope to form a new army".^[28] Some form of help would only arrive in 661, afterPeroz III, the son of Yazdegerd, again sent envoys in 654 and 661. The Chinese established a "Persian military commandery" (波斯都督府) in the city ofZābol (疾陵城Jilingcheng) inTokharistan, and Peroz was appointed as Military Commander (都督Dudu).^[28] Only in 679 would a Chinese army accompanyNarsieh, the exiled son of Peroz, in order to restore him to the Sasanian throne, but the army stopped in Tokharistan and instead repelled the invasion ofWestern Turkic KhanAshina Duzhi, leaving Narsieh to fight against the Muslim Arabs for the next twenty years.^[28]

After his defeat, Yazdegerd sought refuge at a miller near Marw, who, however, murdered him in 651. According to Kia, the miller had reportedly killed Yazdegerd in order to obtain his jewelry,^[29] whilstThe Cambridge History of Iran states that the miller was sent byMahoe Suri.^[30]

Mahoe sends the miller to cut off his head on pain of losing his own, and having none of his race left alive. His chiefs hear this and cry out against him, and amowbed of the name of Radui tells him that to kill a king or prophet will bring evil upon him and his son, and is supported in what he says by a holy man of the name of Hormuzd Kharad Shehran, and Mehronush. The miller most unwillingly goes in and stabs him with a dagger in the middle. Mahoe's horsemen all go and see him and take off his clothing and ornaments, leaving him on the ground. All the nobles curse Mahoe and wish him the same fate.

— Ferdowsi narrating the fate of the Yazdegerd in hisShahnameh (The Book of Kings)^[31]

Regardless, the death of Yazdegerd marked the end of the Sasanian Empire, and made it less difficult for the Arabs to conquer the rest of Iran. All of Khorasan was soon conquered by the Arabs, who would use it as a base toattack Transoxiana.^[29] The death of Yazdegerd thus marked the end of the last pre-Islamic Iranian empire after more than 400 years of rule. An empire–which had a generation earlier briefly conqueredEgypt andAsia Minor, evenreaching as a far as Constantinople, fell to a force of lightly equipped Arabs that were used to skirmishes and desert warfare. The heavy Sasanian cavalry was too sluggish and systematized to contain them; employing light-armed Arab or East Iranian mercenaries from Khorasan and Transoxiana would have been much more successful.^[32]

Yazdegerd was according to tradition buried byChristian monks in a tall tomb that was situated in a garden decorated with silk and musk. His funeral and the construction of a mausoleum for his body nearMerv was organized by theNestorian bishop Elijah - in memory of the fact that the Shahanshah's grandmother Shirin was a Christian.Mahoe, for his part in the murder of the Sassanian king, had his arms, legs, ears and nose cut off by theTurks, who eventually left him die under the scorching summer sun. The corpse of Mahoe was then burned at the stake, along with the bodies of his three sons.^[33]

The monks cursed Mahoe and made a hymn to Yazdegerd, mourning the fall of a "combative" king and the "house ofArdashir I".^[34] Whether this event was factual or not, it emphasizes that the Christians of the empire remained loyal to the Zoroastrian Sasanians, even possibly more than the Iranian nobles who had deserted Yazdegerd.^[34] Indeed, there were close links between the late Sasanian rulers and Christians, whose conditions had greatly improved compared to that of the early Sasanian era. Yazdegerd's wife was according to folklore a Christian, whilst his son and heir,Peroz III was seemingly an adherent of Christianity, and even had a church built inTang China, where he had taken refuge.^[35] Yazdegerd became remembered in history as a martyred prince; many rulers and officers would later claim being a descendant of him in Islamic Iran.^[4]

Yazdegerd was well educated and cultured, but his arrogance, pride and inability to compare his demands with the real situation led to him constantly falling out with his governors and his influence diminishing as he, pursued by Arabs, moved from one city to another. At each new place, he behaved as if he was still the all-powerful monarch of the kingdom, and not an outcast running away from enemies, which, combined with his military failures, turned many of his most loyal subjects away from him.^[36]

TheZoroastrian religious calendar, which is still in use today, uses theregnal year of Yazdegerd III as its base year,^[37] and itscalendar era (year numbering system) is accompanied by a Y.Z. suffix.^[11]

Magians took Yazdegerd III's death as the end of the millennium ofZoroaster and the beginning of the millennium ofOshedar.^[11]

• Death of Yazdgerd (film)
• Death of Yazdgerd (play)

• al-Tabari (1993).The Challenge to the Empires. Translated by Khalid Yahya Blankinship. State University of New York Press. p. 222.ISBN 0-7914-0852-3.
• al-Tabari (1992).The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine. Translated by Yohanan Friedmann. Albany: State University of New York Press.ISBN 0-7914-0734-9.
• Compareti, Matteo (2009). "Chinese-Iranian relations xv. The last Sasanians in China".Encyclopaedia Iranica.
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• Morony, M. (1986). "ʿARAB ii. Arab conquest of Iran".Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. II, Fasc. 2. pp. 203–210.
• Kia, Mehrdad (2016).The Persian Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO.ISBN 978-1610693912.
• Payne, Richard E. (2015).A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity. Univ of California Press. pp. 1–320.ISBN 978-0520961531.
• Pourshariati, Parvaneh (2008).Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran. London and New York: I.B. Tauris.ISBN 978-1-84511-645-3.
• Rezakhani, Khodadad (2019)."The End of Sasanian Rule: The Center and Periphery of Ērānšahr in the Seventh Century".Studi Sulla Persia Sasanide e Suoi Rapporti Con la Civilta Attigue. Princeton University:229–255.
• Shahbazi, A. Shapur (1986). "Army i. Pre-Islamic Iran".Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. II, Fasc. 5. London et al.: New York. pp. 489–499.
• Shahbazi, A. Shapur (2003). "YAZDEGERD I".Encyclopaedia Iranica.
• Shahbazi, A. Shapur (2005)."Sasanian dynasty".Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition. Retrieved4 January 2014.
• Zarrinkub, Abd al-Husain (1975). "The Arab conquest of Iran and its aftermath".The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 4: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–57.ISBN 978-0-521-20093-6.

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