Product Code Database
Farrukhzad (; New Persian: فرخزاد) was an Iranian peoples aristocrat from the House of Ispahbudhan and the founder of the Bavand dynasty, ruling from 651 to 665. Originally a powerful servant of the Sasanian king Khosrow II (r. 590–628), he, along with several other powerful aristocrats made a conspiracy against the latter and ended his tyrannical rule. They thereafter put Khosrow's son Kavadh II (r. 628) on the throne, whose rule lasted only a few months, before he was killed by a plague, being succeeded by his son Ardashir III (r. 628–629), who was only after one year murdered by the rebellious former Sasanian army chief ( spahbed) Shahrbaraz, who usurped the throne.
These events greatly weakened the Sasanian Empire, but by 632, when Khosrow's grandson Yazdegerd III (r. 632–651) ascended the throne, order was somewhat restored. However, just as peace was about to come, the Sasanian Empire was invaded by Muslim Arabs, which resulted in the death of many Sasanian veterans, including Farrukhzad's brother Rostam Farrokhzad himself. Farrukhzad thereafter succeeded the latter as the spahbed and the leader of the Pahlav () faction, which had been formed by their father Farrukh Hormizd, who was murdered in 631.
However, Farrukhzad was unable to defeat the Arabs, from one place to another until in 650, when Farrukhzad mutinied against his king, who was shortly killed by one of his servants. Farrukhzad later became the ruler of Tabaristan in 651, and would rule the region until his murder in 665 by Valash, a Karenid aristocrat, who thereafter conquered his domains.
Khosrow, however, began suspecting Farrukhzad of treachery but kept it to himself, because he did not want to make the situation worse than it already was. At the same time, Farrukhzad was assembling more people who opposed Khosrow in order to stage a coup d'état. In 628, Farrukhzad freed Khosrow's eldest son Kavadh II from prison and along with several feudal families of the Sasanian Empire, captured Ctesiphon and imprisoned Khosrow. Sheroe was then crowned as the new king and became known by his dynastic name of "Kavadh II".
The feudal families which overthrew Khosrow included: Shahrbaraz, who represented the Mihran family; the House of Ispahbudhan represented by Farrukh Hormizd and his two sons Rostam Farrokhzad and Farrukhzad; the Sasanian Armenia faction represented by Varaztirots II Bagratuni; and finally the faction represented by Kanadbak. Kavadh II thereafter ordered his vizier ( wuzurg framadar) Piruz Khosrow to execute all his brothers and half-brothers, including Khosrow II's favorite son and heir Mardanshah. Three days later, Kavadh ordered Mihr Hormozd to execute his father. With the agreement of the nobles of the Sasanian Empire, Kavadh then made peace with the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. Furthermore, he also took all the properties of Farrukhzad and put him under arrest in Istakhr.
On 27 April 629, Ardashir was overthrown and killed by Shahrbaraz, who then usurped the throne. Forty days later, however, Farrukh Hormizd killed him and made Khosrow's daughter Boran the new monarch of the Sasanian Empire. Boran then appointed Farrukh Hormizd as the minister of the empire. She, was, however, quickly deposed by Shahrbaraz's son Shapur-i Shahrvaraz, who after a brief reign was replaced by Azarmidokht, the sister of Boran. Azarmidokht, under the advice of the Sasanian nobles, recalled Farrukhzad from his arrest and invited him to serve the Sasanians once again. Farrukhzad, however, declined the invitation and refused to serve under a woman. He then retired in a fire temple at Istakhr.
In 631, Farrukh Hormizd, in order to seize power, asked Azarmidokht to marry him. Not daring to refuse, Azarmidokht had him killed with the aid of the Mihranid aristocrat Siyavakhsh, who was the grandson of Bahram Chobin, the famous spahbed and briefly . She was however, shortly killed by Rostam Farrokhzad, who then restored Boran to the throne. Later in 632, Farrukhzad was once again invited to serve the Sasanians, this time by the newly crowned king Yazdegerd III, who was a puppet king of Farrukhzad's brother, Rostam Farrokhzad. Farrukhzad accepted and all his properties were restored to him.
While preparing to face the Arabs, he wrote a letter to Farrukhzad, which said that he should raise an army and go to Adurbadagan, while reminding him that Yazdegerd III was the only heritage left from the Sasanians. Rostam then set out from Ctesiphon in command of a large Sasanian force to confront the Arabs. The battle lasted three days, Rostam being defeated and killed during the last day.
After the death of his brother, Farrukhzad succeeded him as the spahbed of Khorasan and Adurbadagan, and as the new leader of the Ispahbudhan family and the Pahlav faction. He then raised an army at Adurbadagan, and went to Ctesiphon, where he was appointed as its commander by Yazdegerd III, who fled to Hulwan with his property, family and 1,000 servants. Farrukhzad, however, also fled to Hulwan after a small and disheartening clash with the Arabs. In 637, Ctesiphon was captured by the Arabs. Meanwhile, Farrukhzad, along with Yazdegerd III, the Mihranid officer Mihran Razi, Piruz Khosrow, and Hormuzan, left Hulwan for Adurbadagan, but while they were moving to the place, they were ambushed by an Arab army at Jalula, where they were defeated. Mihran Razi was killed during the battle, while Hormuzan had fled to Khuzestan and Piruz Khosrow to Nahavand. In 642, the Arabs captured Nahavand and Spahan, killing Piruz Khosrow including other Sasanian officers such as Shahrvaraz Jadhuyih and Mardanshah. During the same year (or in 643), Farrukhzad raised another army with his son Isfandyadh and the Dailamite general Muta. They were, however, defeated at Waj Rudh, a village in Hamadan. Meanwhile, Yazdegerd III fled to southern Iran and stayed there until 648. It is not known if Farrukhzad was with Yazdegerd III during his stay in southern Iran.
Farrukhzad then went to Tabaristan, but at his arrival, he heard about the death of Yazdegerd under the orders of Mahoe Suri, which made him shave his hair and live as a monk in a fire temple at Kusan. When the Arabs invaded Tabaristan, Farrukhzad was requested by the locals to become their king, which he gladly accepted and which marked the foundation of the Bavand dynasty. He then gathered an army, defeated the Arabs, and made a peace treaty with them. Farrukhzad would rule Tabaristan including some parts of Abarshahr peacefully in 14 years, until he was murdered around 665 by a Karenid nobleman named Valash, whose family was at war with Farrukhzad's family.
After Farrukhzad's death, his son Surkhab I fled to an Ispahbudhan/Bavand stronghold named Kula. Later in 673, Surkhab avenged his father by killing Valash, and then reconquered his fathers realm. He thereafter crowned himself as ispahbadh (ruler) of the Bavand dynasty at his capital in Perim.
|
|
