International Society of Iranian Studies

Review
Reviewed Work(s): Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian—Parthian
Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran by Parvaneh Pourshariati
Review by: Khodadad Rezakhani
Source: Iranian Studies, Vol. 44, No. 3, Beyond the Iranian Frame: From Visual
Representation to Socio-Political Drama (MAY 2011), pp. 415-419
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of International Society of Iranian Studies
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 Reviews 415

in Iran has in fact been domestic, i.e. authoritarianism. The idea of "imperialism as the
primary contradiction" or "the real enemy" that should be the primary target of
national struggle was theorized by the traditional (old) Left (religious or non-reli
gious). They relegated the quest for democracy to the back seat, going so far as to
unite with reactionary and despotic forces. In a similar vain, Azimi argues that "In
the course of a century-long struggle for democratic governance in Iran, imperialism,
whether British, Russian, or later American, found its interests best served by sustain
ing authoritarian regimes" (p. 445). But, as the evidence in Azimi's own book suggests,
Western governments were not consistent in their policies toward Iran and have not
always supported authoritarianism in Iran. To cite a few examples: the constitution
alists sought refuge in the British Embassy during the Constitutional Movement; the
British demanded constitutional rule and the return of lands confiscated by Reza Shah
at the time of Mohammad Reza Shah's accession to the throne; President Kenned
"imposed" the liberal Ali Amini and his reform agenda on the Shah; and President
Carter emphasized human rights and political reform.

Kazem Alamdari
California State University, North ridge
© 2011, Kazem Alamdari
DOI 10.1080/00210862.2011.556393

Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy

and the Arab Conquest of Iran, Parvaneh Pourshariati, London: I. B. Tauris,
2008, reprinted 2009, ISBN 13-978-1845116453, xiv+ 535pp.

Parvaneh Pourshariati's lofty volume might be the most formidable single contri
bution to Sasanian historiography in recent years or even decades. Not satisfied
with presenting an outline of Sasanian history, or even an attempt at organizing
the notoriously varied and confusing sources for its historiography, Pourshariati has
undertaken the task of theorizing the history of Late Antique Iran in its entirety.
Therein rests the force of the volume, and also its predicament. Due to the sheer
size of the tome, we cannot comment on all aspects, or even sections, of the work,
but hopefully a critical review of some of the main points will serve to highlight
the implications of the work for greater Sasanian, or indeed late antique, historiogra
phy
In two sections on "Political History" and "Religious Current," each including
several chapters, and within a lengthy introduction and "preliminaries," all amounting
to 465 pages and 2,619 (continuously numbered) footnotes, Pourshariati jovially sets
out to alter our view of Sasanian history, particularly of the events that led to its
demise in the early to mid-seventh century CE. Drawing on a wide range of
sources, from "Classical" Arabic to selected Armenian, Syriac and Byzantine histories,
occasionally including some numismatic or sigillographic evidence, the author

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416 Reviews

manages to amass a large amount of information on many aspects of Late Sasanian and
Early Islamic history of Iran. In using sources, however, Pourshariati distinguishes
herself by drawing heavily on the evidence of the Shahnameh, the magnificent verse
epic by Ferdowsi, to corroborate her theories, most significantly her views on the
prosopography of the late Sasanian elite.
The issue of whether or not to use the Shahnameh as a historical source might be
one of the oldest problems in Iranian historiography at large, with scholars weighing in
on either side of the issue for many decades. Pourshariati, in general, appears to be fol
lowing the point of view of the late Zeev Rubin who advocated the use of the epic as a
source for Sasanian history in several articles. However, Pourshariati's most astonish
ing data set comes from what she calls the Xwaday-namag Tradition, a similarly
prominent issue in Iranian and Islamic historiography.
Based on the suggestion of the existence of an wr-text, or even a whole genre, of
original Middle Persian "royal history," the Xwaday-namag is thought to have been
either directly translated or systematically adopted into the Islamic historical texts.
While any historian of Sasanian Iran, and almost all scholars of Islamic historiography,
agree with this assumption, the problem of actually locating and framing the contents
of this royal history has baffled historians and scholars of this period. Using positivist
and didactic methods, relying on manuscript transmission principles, digging up the
account of bibliographers such as Ibn-Nadim, and using comparative approaches to
isolate the difference in historical transmission, many scholars have tried to recon
struct the scope and contents of the Xwaday-namag(s). These efforts, at best, have
arrived at conclusions which propose several threads of narrative transmission from
Middle Persian to Arabic and New Persian. The simple fact, however, remains that
no single version of the Xwaday-namag, or its various redactions, is available to us. Sig
nificantly, the most important part of the tradition that has reached us in its original,
Middle Persian, form is the romance called Kdrndmag-i Ardasir i Pdbagdn (the Deeds
of Ardashir Son of Pabag), which, being concerned with the life of the founder of the
dynasty, is less commonly used by Pourshariati.
The basic proposition of Pourshariati's book is that our perception of the nature of
the Sasanian Empire as a central and centralizing system, as theorized by historians
such as Arthur Christensen, needs to be challenged. Pourshariati's central argument
is that the Sasanian administration owes much to its Arsacid Parthian predecessor,
a sensible suggestion that already seems to be gaining prominence in scholarly
circles. But Pourshariati takes this proposition to new heights by suggesting the pres
ence of a Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy, created at the dawn of the Sasanian rule,
which in fact had kept the empire together during the first three centuries of its exist
ence. Pourshariati then goes on to argue that the collapse of this "confederacy" was
indeed the most important cause for the waning of Sasanian power and its eventual
fall to the invading Muslim armies. In this way, the author aims to find an internal
reason for the astonishing defeat of the Sasanians by the Muslims, the central identity
issue in the whole of modern Iranian historiography. Pourshariati then extends her
story further to include the socio-religious movements of Iran in the first centuries
of Islam, implying that these were the continuation of the same changes in

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 Reviews 417

political and social relations that caused the break-up of the Sasanian-Parthian
Confederacy.
The suggestion that the early Islamic social movements are related to those of the
late Sasanian period is a sensible conclusion, as pointed out before by many other scho
lars. Pourshariati again takes this observation to new heights by inserting the issue of
religion and creating a religious dichotomy in the late Sasanian elite classes, one that
apparently spilled over to the socio-religious movements of early Islam. This argument,
like Pourshariati's other interpretations of late Sasanian history, comes from a basic
framing of the question based on the Islamic source narratives, and an unfortunate
infatuation with finding signs of various religious movements of late antiquity, includ
ing Mithraism, in the scanty and highly polished sources available for the religious
beliefs of Sasanian society, particularly its elite. It is interesting, however, that in a
section of the book appropriately named "the Parsig-Pahlav religious dichotomy,"
the author also presents a re-interpretation of the Sasanian fire temples in order to
identify the existence of such a dichotomy, a particular fallacy since the existence of
one of the two religions in question has never been actually demonstrated in the Sasa
nian realm.
After getting over the preliminaries, the volume opens up to an exhaustive evalu
ation of Parthian history, including the Arsacid rule and the periodic rise of various
Parthian elite families during the Sasanian period. The preliminaries include a
section on agnatic relationships, which without being so expressed, seems to be at
the root of Pourshariati's use of the term "confederacy" to describe the relationship
of the various Parthian aristocratic clans with each other and with the Sasanians.
As pointed out, this notion could be problematic, since as even the author describes
it herself, there is no evidence for the existence of a proper alliance, a confederation,
within the Sasanian aristocracy. In fact, they are often found fighting and undermin
ing each other, on the few occasions where we have a clear reference made to them.
The book starts with a survey of Arsacid history, concentrating exclusively on the
founding decades of Arsacid power in the third and second centuries BCE. But one
might have expected the focus to have been on the last century of their existence
and their eventual replacement by the Sasanians in 224 CE. Instead, Pourshariati
engages the usual debates about the foundation of Arsacid rule and leaves it inconclu
sively, without contributing in a significant manner to the issue of the transition
period between the Arsacid and Sasanian rule. The rest of the chapter details the
relationship of individual Sasanian kings with respective Parthian clans, starting
with Yazdgerd I (399-421) and running to the end of the Sasanian period.
Much of the arguments of this section actually rely on anachronistic observations
based on the later sigillographic sources, which are then projected onto the earlier
sources and events. By mentioning the apparent insistence of the issuers of sixth
and seventh century administrative seals on identifying themselves as Persian
(.Pdrsig) or Parthian (Pahlav), Pourshariati presents her idea of the existence of well
demarcated ethno-linguistic agnatic groups within the Sasanian aristocracy. She
then sets out to find evidence for this prior to the late sixth century. Any evidence
of a Parthian aristocrat in Roman-Byzantine, Syriac, Armenian or even later

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418 Reviews

Perso-Arabic sources is used to present a picture of the "relationship" between the clan
of that particular member of the elite with the Sasanian king who happens to have
ruled at the time. This goes to fantastic heights, at times even using the name of a pro
totypical character in the romance of Ardashir (the aforementioned Kdrndmag),
namely a certain Mehrak, to ascertain his religion (Mehr = Mithra, thus "Mithraism,"
resulting in a "Parthian" identity) and to assign him to either side of the confederative
relationship of interest.
Taking new leaps in presenting a grand narrative, Pourshariati goes on to draw a
wholly new narrative of Islamic fotuh (conquests) and to recalculate the date of its
occurrence. Concentrating on the Sasanian-Byzantine war of 602-28, with the oft
repeated moniker of the "Last Great War of Late Antiquity," the author takes us
through a fascinating and dizzying journey in the Islamic and non-Islamic narratives
of the war, including the take of Theophylact Simocatta (referred to as Simocatta, to
amusing effect, by Pourshariati). The basic proposition of Pourshariati in this section
is to suggest that the Byzantine re-conquest of the territories lost to Khosrow II
(traditionally dated to 624-28) must be considered within the period of the
Muslim conquest of the Near East. Pourshariati simply suggests that the Muslim
conquests happened at the same time as those of the Byzantines, putting the
Sasanians figuratively between a rock and a hard place. The method by which this
recalculation of the re-conquest dates is achieved is quite fantastic in itself. It is
closely related to the same method employed by Ali Hasouri in his Akharin Sdh,
although with opposite conclusions. Pourshariati's motivation for tackling the issue
in the first place is even more fascinating. Approaching the matter from a concern
over the collapse of the Sasanian-Parthian (Parsig-Pahlav?) confederacy, Pourshariati
suggests that it was the final withdrawal of support by the Parthian aristocratic clans
that left the Sasanians vulnerable in the face of both the Byzantine and Muslim
threats. This was supposedly done in the period when the military excesses of
Khosrow II and the failing Sasanian imperial system were creating a significant
amount of discontent among the elite and ordinary classes of Sasanian society. In
this sense, the Parthian elite contributed to the fall of Khosrow II and took matters
into their own hands, a development that Pourshariati confirms by pointing out
the number of supposed Parthian aristocrats who either contributed to the collapse
of the Sasanians or indeed crowned themselves as kings following the chaos caused
by the removal and execution of Khosrow II.
Considering the sheer amount of sources used and quoted, often through cross
referenced and occasionally spurious footnotes, there is a certain lax attitude
towards the handling of the sources, particularly those with which the author is less
familiar. It is quite evident that Pourshariati principally relies on Arabic sources, by
necessity treating the period from a later point of view. At times, the reliance of
the author on reinterpretations of non-Arabic sources, such as the so-called "Chron
icle of Khuzistan," is glaringly and unfortunately misleading. For example, when
quoting Chase Robinson's 2004 article on the Conquest of Khuzistan, Pourshariati
quickly adopts Robinson's hypothetical statement on the date of August 636 CE as
the terminus ante quern for the end of Abu Musa Ash'ari's campaigns in Khuzistan,

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 Reviews 419

and considers it a confirmation of her new dating scheme. This ignores Robinson's
further arguments and his conclusion that

In sum, nothing in the "appendix" can yield a precise date for the conquest of the
south. Of course this can also be restated in more positive terms: nothing in the
"appendix" can throw serious doubt on a reconstruction that is based on a
reading of the Islamic tradition, and that dates the fall of Khuzistan after that of
al-Mada'in, perhaps in AH 22 or 23 [thus 643-44 CE],

A lack of attention to detail is evident from the very beginning of the book, where
statements written in the twentieth century are attributed to ancient authors such as
Sebeos.
The book, as it stands, is a treasure trove of ideas, daring presentations of grand
narratives, and thought-provoking consideration of little noted sources and state
ments. For those who might look for a comprehensive survey of the events of the
late sixth to late seventh century Near East, the work of Pourshariati provides a treas
ury of information and facts. For scholars in search of new ideas and theories, the work
provides an unending source of inspiration. After all, doing something thought
provoking and controversial, even problematically, is better than doing nothing at
all. At least, future responses and corrections to the work will help further the scholar
ship in the field, which is desired by all. Indeed, it will invite and attract responses for
many years to come. Useful comparative charts of the Muslim conquests, an
interesting genealogical table, and an exhaustive bibliography make this not only a
book of ideas and theories, but also a useful point of reference for students and
scholars of Sasanian and late antiquity alike.

Khodadad Rezakhani
London School of Economics
© 2011, Khodadad Rezakhani
DOI 10.1080/00210862.2011.556396

Iran's Intellectual Revolution, Mehran Kamrava, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-89799-0, xi + 267pp.

For those wondering how Iran's reform movement manages to survive, this is the book
to read. Mehran Kamrava presents us with what is being written, printed, read and
discussed in today's Iran, and it is both fascinating to learn about and something to
pin one's hopes on. His hypothesis is that a silent revolution is happening in Iran
today, and he proves this by introducing us to the discourses in which themes like
human rights, democracy and power structures in general are being negotiated.
Kamrava presents a hypothesis first proposed by Iranian intellectual Ramin
Jahanbegloo. This widely accepted hypothesis postulates that, historically speaking,

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