The Life And Death Of Yazdegerd III

Yazdegerd III or Yazdgerd III (Middle Persian: Yazdākird, meaning "made by God"; New Persian: یزدگرد), was the thirty-eighth and last king of the Sasanian Empire of Iran. His father was Shahriyar and his grandfather was Khosrau II (590–628). Yazdegerd III ascended the throne on 16 June 632 when he was 8 years old after a series of internal conflicts. Yazdegerd III was son of the Shahriyar and an unnamed woman from Baduraya.[4] Shahriyar was the son of Khosrau II, and was killed in 628 by his brother Kavadh II who sought to secure the throne from any rebellion. After the death of Kavadh, a civil war began in Iran, which was fought between two factions, the Pahlav (Parthian) faction headed by the nephew of Vistahm, Farrukh Hormizd, and the Parsig (Persian) faction headed by the former Sasanian minister Piruz Khosrow. During the civil war, Yazdegerd III was hiding in Estakhr. However, on 16 June 632, Farrukh Hormizd's son and successor Rostam Farrokhzad and Piruz Khosrow agreed to collaborate with each others, and chose Yazdegerd as the new Sasanian king, and had him crowned as king in the Zoroastrian temple of Anahita in Estakhr when he was merely 8 years old. Yazdegerd III was almost the last living member of the House of Sasan. One year later after his ascension, the Muslim Arabs invaded Iran. Reign Early clash with the Muslim Arabs Yazdegerd later negotiated with fourteen Arab negotiators, and asked them about the reasons for their aggressive behavior towards his Empire. One of the fourteen Arabs shortly replied, "Allah commanded us, by the mouth of His Prophet, to extend the dominion of Islam over all nations." On May, the Muslims defeated a Sasanian force under the Azadbeh near the important strategic Sasanian city of Hira, 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 officer Bahman Jadhuyih and the Armenian military officer Jalinus against the Muslims. Rostam is known to have secretly to have told Bahman that: "if Jalinus returns to the like of his defeat, then cut off his head." The Sasanian army managed to defeat the Muslims at the Battle of the Bridge. In 636, Yazdegerd III ordered Rostam 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 of Ardashir I assumed power." 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. Yazdegerd III asked Rostam for an assessment of the Arab forces since they had camped at Qadisiyyah. Rostam Farrokhzad stated that the Arabs were "a pack of wolves, falling upon unsuspecting shepherds and annihilating them." 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. ” Last stand However, the Sasanian army suffered a heavy defeat at the battle of al-Qādisiyyah, and Rostam Farrokhzad, Bahman, Jalinus, Shahriyar bin Kanara (who was the son of the kanarang Kanadbak), and two Armenian princes named Grigor II Novirak and Musel III Mamikonian, were killed during the battle. The Arabs then marched towards the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon without any resistance. Yazdegerd, however, took his treasury and along with 1,000 of his servants fled to Hulwan in Media, and left Rostam Farrokhzad's brother Farrukhzad in charge of the city, who, however, did not put any resistance and also went to Hulwan. The Arabs then reached Ctesiphon, besieged the western parts of the city, and soon occupied all of it. In April 637, the Arabs defeated another Sasanian army at the Battle of Jalula. After this defeat, Yazdegerd fled deeper into Media. He then raised a new army and sent it to Nahavand to retake Iraq and prevent any further Muslim advances. The army that Yazdegerd sent seemed a threat so big that it led Umar to combine the Arab forces of Kufa and Basra under Al-Nu'man ibn Muqrin and send them against the Sasanians with reinforcements from Syria and Oman. The battle is said to have lasted several days, it resulted in major losses on both sides, including the death of Al-Nu'man ibn Muqrin and the Persian general Mardanshah and Piruz Khosrow. The battle of Nahāvand in 642 was the second military disaster for the Sasanians after the battle of al-Qādisiyyah.