Al-asāwira
The Asawira () were a military unit of the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphate. The unit consisted of Iranian noblemen who were originally part of the ''aswaran'' unit of the Sasanian army. It was disbanded in 703 by al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. Etymology The word is the Arabic broken plural form of the Middle Persian word ''aswār'' ("horseman"), which in turn is from the Old Persian word ''asabāra''. The Parthian form is ''asbār''. Background During the Arab invasion of Iran, the Sasanian king Yazdegerd III (r. 632–651) sent 1,000 cavalrymen under Siyah al-Uswari to defend Khuzestan. These 1,000 men were of ethnic Iranians from Isfahan and region between Isfahan and Khuzestan, and served in the ''aswaran'' unit. During the siege of Shushtar (641–642), they defected to the Arabs, and settled in Basra, where they received salary. Furthermore, they also converted to Islam and allied themselves with the Banu Tamim of southern Iraq. However, the story about them converting to Islam is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rashidun Caliphate
The Rashidun Caliphate () is a title given for the reigns of first caliphs (lit. "successors") — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali collectively — believed to Political aspects of Islam, represent the perfect Islam and governance who led the Muslim community and polity from the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (in 632 AD), to the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate (in 661 AD). The reign of these four caliphs is considered in Sunni Islam to have been "rightly-guided", meaning that it sunnah, constitutes a model to be followed and emulated from a religious point of view. This term is not used by Shia Muslims, who reject the rule of the first three caliphs as illegitimate. Following Muhammad's death in June 632, Muslim leaders debated who Succession to Muhammad, should succeed him. Unlike later caliphs, Rashidun were often chosen by some form of a small group of high-ranking companions of the Prophet in () or appointed by their predecessor. Muhammad's close companion A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Siege Of Shushtar
The siege of Shushtar was fought from 641 to 642 between the Sasanian Empire and the invading Arab Muslims of the Rashidun Caliphate. Shushtar was an ancient strong stronghold in Khuzestan, and was attacked by the Arabs under their commander Abu Musa Ashaari. Although the city managed to resist the Arabs, the Sasanians later faced desertion, which resulted in the Arabs capturing the city and capturing its commander, Hormuzan. Background In 633, the Rashidun Arabs invaded the territories of the Byzantine and Sasanian Empire. By 637, the Arabs owned the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon, all of Iraq, and large parts of Syria. One year later, they invaded the rich Sasanian province Khuzestan, which was part of the domains of the Iranian aristocrat Hormuzan, who had, following the fall of Ctesiphon, retreated to Hormizd-Ardashir, which he used as his base in his raids in Meshan against the Arabs. The Sasanian king Yazdegerd III (r. 632–651) supported him in these raids and believed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ibn Al-Faqih
Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadani () (fl. 902) was a 10th-century Persian historian and geographer, famous for his ''Mukhtasar Kitab al-Buldan'' ("Concise Book of Lands") written in Arabic. In the 1870s the Dutch orientalist Michael Jan de Goeje edited a selection of geography works of Arab geographers in an eight-volume series titled ''Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum'' published by Lugduni-Batavae (Leiden) Brill publishers Brill Academic Publishers () is a Dutch international academic publisher of books, academic journals, and Bibliographic database, databases founded in 1683, making it one of the oldest publishing houses in the Netherlands. Founded in the South .... Al-Hamadhānī's ''Mukhtasar Kitab al-Buldan'' was published in volume 5 of this series. In 1967 second editions were printed by Dar Sadir (Beirut) and E.J. Brill (Lugduni Batavorum). See also * Manuscript 5229. References * Iranian explorers 10th-century Iranian geographers ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; , ) "Antioch on Daphne"; or "Antioch the Great"; ; ; ; ; ; ; . was a Hellenistic Greek city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC. One of the most important Greek cities of the Hellenistic period, it served as the capital of the Seleucid Empire and later as regional capital to both the Roman and Byzantine Empire. During the Crusades, Antioch served as the capital of the Principality of Antioch, one of four Crusader states that were founded in the Levant. Its inhabitants were known as ''Antiochenes''. The remains of the ancient city of Antioch are mostly buried beneath alluvial deposits from the Orontes River. The modern city of Antakya, in Hatay Province of Turkey, lies in its place. Antioch was founded near the end of the fourth century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, as one of the tetrapoleis of Seleucis of Syria. Seleucus encouraged Greeks from all over the Mediterranean to settle in the city. The ci ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Muawiyah I
Mu'awiya I (–April 680) was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the four Rashidun ('rightly-guided') caliphs. Unlike his predecessors, who had been close, early companions of Muhammad, Mu'awiya was a relatively late follower of Muhammad. Mu'awiya and his father Abu Sufyan had opposed Muhammad, their distant Qurayshite kinsman and later Mu'awiya's brother-in-law, until Muhammad captured Mecca in 630. Afterward, Mu'awiya became one of Muhammad's scribes. He was appointed by Caliph Abu Bakr () as a deputy commander in the conquest of Syria. He moved up the ranks through Umar's caliphate () until becoming governor of Syria during the reign of his Umayyad kinsman, Caliph Uthman (). He allied with the province's powerful Banu Kalb tribe, developed the defenses of its coastal cities, and directed the war effort against ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Caliph
A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim world (''ummah''). Historically, the caliphates were polities based on Islam which developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires. During the medieval period, three major caliphates succeeded each other: the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), and the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1517). In the fourth major caliphate, the Ottoman Caliphate, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire claimed caliphal authority from 1517 until the Ottoman caliphate was Abolition of the Caliphate, formally abolished as part of the Atatürk's reforms, 1924 secularisation of Turkey. An attempt to preserve the title was tried, with the Sharifian Caliphate, but this caliphate fell quickly after its conquest by the Sultanate o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Greater Khorasan
KhorasanDabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 (; , ) is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West Asia, West and Central Asia that encompasses western and northern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, the eastern halves of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, and portions of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The extent of the region referred to as ''Khorasan'' varied over time. In its stricter historical sense, it comprised the present territories of Khorasan Province, northeastern Iran, parts of Afghanistan and southern parts of Central Asia, extending as far as the Amu Darya (Oxus) river. However, the name has often been used in a loose sense to include a wider region that included most of Transoxiana (encompassing Bukhara and Samarqand in present-day Uzbekistan), extended westward to the Caspian Sea, Caspian coast and to the Dasht-e Kavir southward to Sistan, and eastward to t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kerman Province
Kerman province () is the largest of the 31 provinces of Iran. Its capital is the city of Kerman. The province is in the southeast of Iran. In 2014 it was placed in Region 5. Mentioned in ancient times as the Achaemenid satrapy of Carmania, Kerman province has an area of , encompassing nearly 11% of the land area of Iran.http://www.sci.org.ir/content/userfiles/_sci_en/sci_en/sel/year85/f1/CS_01_4.HTM History According to a text from the 8th century commontly attributed to the Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi, present-day Kerman province was situated in the southern quarter of the Sasanian Empire. The main city of the region from the Sasanian era to the 10th century was Sirjan. Early Muslim geographers considered the area as part of the hot climatic zone and the mountainous interior as home of predatory people including the Kufečs (or Kofejān). Hamdallah Mustawfi stated that predatory beasts roamed the area which by then had undergone forestation. In the 13th c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Muslim Conquest Of Pars
The Arab conquest of Pars took place from 638/9 to 650/1, and ended with subjugation of the Sasanian province of Pars, also known as Fars or Persis, to the Rashidun Caliphate under Umar. The Arab invasion of Sasanian Pars took place in two phases. An initial Bahraini naval expedition in 638 ended in failure. After a change in Bahrain's governor, that unsuccessful campaign was followed with a second campaign conducted in 643 by a combined force of Arab tribesmen from Bahrain and Oman under the leadership of Uthman ibn Abi al-As al-Thaqafi that ultimately overran the province. The Sasanian emperor Yazdegerd III, who had travelled to Pars to command the defense against the Arabs, was forced to flee to Kirman. This ended Sasanian control or the territory, though its population would later rebel several times against Arab rule. History Initial expedition and Sasanian counter-attack The Arab conquest of Pars began in 638/9, when the Rashidun governor of Bahrain at the time, al ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the world's oldest organized faiths, its adherents exalt an uncreated, benevolent, and all-wise deity known as Ahura Mazda (), who is hailed as the supreme being of the universe. Opposed to Ahura Mazda is Angra Mainyu (), who is personified as a destructive spirit and the adversary of all things that are good. As such, the Zoroastrian religion combines a dualistic cosmology of good and evil with an eschatological outlook predicting the ultimate triumph of Ahura Mazda over evil. Opinions vary among scholars as to whether Zoroastrianism is monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, or a combination of all three. Zoroastrianism shaped Iranian culture and history, while scholars differ on whether it significantly influenced ancient Western ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the Iraq–Kuwait border, southeast, Jordan to Iraq–Jordan border, the southwest, and Syria to Iraq–Syria border, the west. The country covers an area of and has Demographics of Iraq, a population of over 46 million, making it the List of countries by area, 58th largest country by area and the List of countries by population, 31st most populous in the world. Baghdad, home to over 8 million people, is the capital city and the List of largest cities of Iraq, largest in the country. Starting in the 6th millennium BC, the fertile plains between Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers, referred to as Mesopotamia, fostered the rise of early cities, civilisations, and empires including Sumer, Akkadian Empire, Akkad, and Assyria. Known ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |