Yazdegerd III is killed near Merv: the end of the Sasanian Empire
Driven from Iraq and western Iran by the Arab victories at al-Qadisiyyah and Nahavand, the last Sasanian king of kings, Yazdegerd III, retreated east to Merv in Khorasan. There the marzban Mahoe, resenting his demands, turned against him together with the Hephthalite ruler of Badghis; the fugitive king was killed at a mill in 651 or 652, and four centuries of Sasanian rule came to an end.
- Date
- between 651 and 652exact date unknown: an interval is given
- Place
- Near Merv, where the king was killed at a millapproximate locationtoday: Ancient Merv near Mary, Turkmenistan · Central and Northern Asia
- Participants
- Yazdegerd III, Sasanian Empire, Rashidun Caliphate
- Threads
- Central Asia and the steppe (6th–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Death of Yazdegerd III; Yazdgerd III; Yazdajird; Mahoe Suri; Mahuy; Nezak Tarkhan; Marv; Fall of the Sasanian Empire; Смерть Йездегерда III; Йездигерд III; Махуйе; Махой Сури; Незак-тархан; Падение Сасанидов
After the fall of Ctesiphon and the defeat at Nahavand in 642, Yazdegerd moved from province to province, trying to raise new armies: to Isfahan, then to Istakhr in Pars, which the Basran governor Abdallah ibn Amir had conquered by 650, then to Kerman and Sistan. Short of money and still behaving as an all-powerful monarch, he fell out with each governor who received him and made for Merv, the great city of Khorasan on the Murghab, where he hoped for an alliance with the Turks. His envoys had also asked the Tang court for help.
At Merv the marzban Mahoe (Mahuy) Suri resented the king’s demands for money and allied himself with Nezak Tarkhan, the Hephthalite ruler of Badghis, who helped him scatter Yazdegerd’s followers. The king fled and hid in a mill near the city, where he was killed — by the miller for his jewels, according to some accounts, or by a man sent by Mahoe, according to others. Al-Tabari recorded several conflicting versions; Michael Morony dates the struggle for Khorasan to the year 31 of the Hijra (August 651 – August 652), and most modern accounts give 651. By tradition, the Christian bishop of Merv had the king buried in a tomb in a garden, in memory of his Christian grandmother Shirin.
Yazdegerd’s death is taken as the end of the Sasanian Empire. Mahoe made peace with Ibn Amir in return for a heavy tribute, and within a year or two the Arabs had carried their frontier to the Oxus; Khorasan became their base for the later conquest of Transoxiana. Yazdegerd’s son Peroz sought help from the Tang, who in 661 gave him the title of governor of a “Persian area command”, and he died in China. Zoroastrians long counted years by the era of Yazdegerd, from his accession in 632.
Connections
Part of
- Arab conquest of Persia and the fall of the Sasanian Empire633 – between 651 and 652 · Middle East and Egyptthe flight and death of the last king of kings ended the Sasanian Empire and organised resistance to the Arabs
Related events
- The Turks and Sasanians destroy the Hephthalite Empire (Battle of Gol-Zarriun)between 557 and 567 · Central and Northern AsiaNezak Tarkhan ruled one of the Hephthalite principalities that had survived the war of the 560s
- The Western Turkic Khaganate: the “ten arrows” from the Altai to the Oxus603 – between 657 and 658 · Central and Northern AsiaYazdegerd went to Merv hoping for an alliance with the Turks
Same participants
- Siege of Dongola and the Baqt treatybetween 651 and 652 · Africavia Rashidun Caliphate
- First Fitna and the rise of the UmayyadsJune 656 – 661 · Middle East and Egyptvia Rashidun Caliphate
Same place
- Shapur II’s war with the Chionitesc. 350 – 358 · Central and Northern Asia
Adjacent events in the thread
- Songtsen Gampo builds the Tibetan Empirebetween 618 and 629 – between 649 and 650 · Central and Northern Asia
- Qutlugh (Ilterish) restores the Turkic Khaganate682 · Central and Northern Asia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Samo’s realmbetween 623 and 626 – between 658 and 659
Eastern Europe
- Rise of the Khazar Khaganatebetween 630 and 650 – c. 670
- The Pereshchepina treasure: a steppe ruler’s burial or treasure, perhaps Kubrat’sbetween 642 and 700
- Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv: the legendary founding of Kyivbetween 500 and 700
- Early Slavic cultures: Prague-Korchak, Penkovka and Kolochinc. 450 – c. 700
Middle East and Egypt
- Uthman’s standard codex of the Qur’anc. 650
- Arab conquest of Persia and the fall of the Sasanian Empire633 – between 651 and 652
Africa
- Siege of Dongola and the Baqt treatybetween 651 and 652
- Arab conquest of the Maghreb647–709
South Asia
- The Pallava monuments of Mamallapurambetween 600 and 630 – between 700 and 728
Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Óc Eo, the port of Funanbetween 1 and 100 – between 601 and 700
North America
- Basketmaker III: pottery, beans and the bow on the Colorado Plateauc. 500 – c. 750
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
- Plum Bayou Mounds: a planned ceremonial centre in the Arkansas valleyc. 650 – c. 1050
Latin America
- Kʼinich Janaab Pakal rules Palenquebetween 24 July and 26 July 615 – between 26 August and 28 August 683
- The burning of Teotihuacan’s ceremonial centrebetween 550 and 650
- Wari culture and the Middle Horizon state in the Central Andesc. 600 – c. 1000
- Nazca culture and the Nazca Linesbetween 200 and 100 BC – between 500 and 800