Arabic sources maintain that the Arab conquest in the seventh century wrested Armīniya directly from the Persians. Their discussion of the history of the province centers on Persian rulers such as Anūširwān and Kawāt, without significant recognition of the Greek or Armenian leadership in or before the seventh century. In fact, references to Sasanian-era Armenia are commonplace in ‘Abbāsid-era histories and geographies. In addition, Arabs adopted several Sasanian policies, such as the treatment of Christians and neck-sealing, and adapted them to fit the circumstances of eighth- and ninth-century Armīniya. It is abundantly clear that the region’s Sasanian legacy was pivotal in formulating an Arab conceptualization and governance of the caliphal North. Furthermore, Armenian literature demonstrates a sustained comparison between Persian and Arab rule, indicating that Armenians framed their perceptions of caliphal control within the memory of Sasanian governance. This paper explores the significance of Sasanian legacy in the caliphal North, focusing specifically on the social order in Armīniya. In particular, it examines issues of local authority, as well as the relationship between the center and the Arab and Armenian ruling élites in Armīniya. Looking at both Arabic and Armenian sources, it argues that the main positions of authority changed little in the shift from Sasanian to caliphal rule; this includes comparing the Persian marzpan with the Arab ostikan and considering changes in the ranks of Armenian nobles (naxarark‘) and the position of Prince of Armenia (išxan Hayoc‘) before and after the Arab conquests. The paper also briefly discusses the relationship between the governors and the center (be it Ctesiphon, Damascus or Baghdad), especially on the question of managing the fiercely independent Armenian houses. In general, it argues that Umayyad and early ‘Abbāsid leaders largely perpetuated the state of affairs that existed in Armīniya under Sasanian rule, introducing changes strategically based on specific needs of the Arab population at the time.

In 346/957, Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad b. ‛Abd al-Razzāq Ṭūsī commissioned his vizier Abū Manṣūr Ma‛mārī to compile a Shāhnāma in prose, approximately twenty years before Firdawsī began his history of pre-Islamic Persia in verse. In the preface, Ma‛mārī included a genealogy of his patron and of himself, both of which led back to the Kanārang (“Lord of the Eastern March”) under the Sāsānian Shāhanshāh Khusraw II. Through this lineage, Abū Manṣūr Ṭūsī claims the rights to rule both Ṭūs, which had been given to the Kanārang by Khusraw II, and Nīshāpūr, which the Arab governor ‛Abd Allāh b. ‛Āmir b. Kurayz gave to the Kanārang when he and his son negotiated the surrender of the city’s quhandiz. Why did Abū Manṣūr Ṭūsī need to reassert these rights and why did he choose to do so through a history of pre-Islamic Persia? Abū Manṣūr Ṭūsī’s position had become tenuous in Khurāsān after the Sāmānid Nūḥ b. Naṣr began replacing governors with hereditary claims to the land with Turkish military commanders. Ṭūsī twice fled Khurāsān to join the Būyids in opposition to these moves by the Sāmānids. In 349/961, he lost his titles once and for all to Alptigīn, the founder of the Ghaznavids. The story of Abū Manṣūr and his Shāhnāma highlights a transformation in the eastern frontiers of the Islamic world in the fourth/tenth century, one that many would assume had come centuries earlier with the Arab conquests, the breakdown of the Sāsānian social order and its replacement with a foreign ruling class. Despite the changes that were brought by the Arab conquests, the social and political order of Khurāsān and Transoxania appears to have retained much of its Sāsānian form with local dynasties whose authority was derived from the pre-Islamic past holding on to power. This paper will examine the means by which local elites like Abū Manṣūr Ṭūsī used the pre-Islamic past to justify their authority and how the increasing power of the Turkish military elite finally broke these patterns centuries after the collapse of the Sāsānian Empire.

The study of Islamic rule in the former Sasanian lands has often concentrated on either the conquests or the circumstances for religious conversion. For those interested in the details of the formation and integration of Islamic power, scholars like Fred Donner or Hugh Kennedy have provided a comprehensive analysis of the wars of conquest based on textual sources. Scholars have also focused on the method and rate of conversion, e.g. Richard Bulliet, or the socio-religious consequences of conversion and its local responses, as most recently with Patricia Crone’s work or the fresh contribution by Sarah Bowen Savant. Less attention, however, is paid to small, fringe groups who managed to stay outside the political control of the nascent Islamic power. Their preservation of political independence, even for a short while, also meant a refusal to convert, and even a strong opposition to it. Among these independent local powers, the dynasties of the Sasanian province of Padishkhwargar – the south Caspian provinces of Tabaristan, Deylaman, and Gilan – present the most glaring examples. Early Bāvandids, and more importantly the Dabūyids, are characterized by a series of successful attempts at controlling the area, and to even exert power over the Alborz range in Qazvin and Ray. The present paper, then, will address the history of these polities and their role in diffusing Sasanian socio-cultural and political values to the Islamic polities that come to replace them. Specifically, attention will be paid to the continuity in the use of Middle Persian language – the language of the Sasanian administration but not the regional language – and traditions of kingship, agnatic relationship, religious continuity, and preservation of material culture. The paper will take advantage not only of written historical sources, but also material from archaeology, numismatics, as well as the newly discovered Pahlavi Archive of Tabaristan. It is believed that understanding the early Islamic history of Padishkhwargar will be central in presenting a full picture of the rise of subsequent Daylamite amd Tabari dynasties such as the Zayarids and the Buyids and their continued effect on mediaeval Islamic Iran.