Echoes of Empire: Persian Kingship in the Medieval Islamic World (Parnian)

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What if the so-called medieval “Dark Ages” weren’t dark at all? In this episode of The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast, Dr. Natasha Parnian revisits the centuries after the fall of the Sasanian Empire to uncover the surprising afterlife of Persian kingship. Far from vanishing under Arab rule, ideas of sacred monarchy, justice, and divine glory were translated, adapted, and woven into Islamic political thought. Through figures like Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and evolving genealogies linking caliphs to Sasanian royalty, this episode reveals how Persian imperial memory became a powerful language of legitimacy in the medieval Islamic world.

Natasha Parnian is an early career researcher and sessional teaching academic in the School of Humanities, Discipline of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University.  Her research focuses on the cultural and political dimensions of Persian kingship and identity formation in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, with a particular interest in imperial ideologies and their reception across frontiers. She has published on themes of crisis, identity, and power in the late antique world, including the articles, “A World in Crisis: Reconstructing Identity in Late Antique Armenia” in Hermathena 2025 and “From Cyrus to Hossein: The Politics of the Ancient Past in Modern Iran” in The Oxford Middle East Review 2023.

Sources:

• Arabic

  • Ahd Ardashir (unknown)

  • Ibn Muqaffa: Al-Adab al-Kabir , Kalila wa Dimna, Khwadaynamag, Letter of Tansar

  • Yaqubi, Ta'rikh ibn

• Persian

  • Ferdowsi, Shahnameh

For further reading:

• Aigle, D. 2023. “The Conception of Power in Islam: Persian Mirrors of Princes and Sunni Theories (Eleventh–Fourteenth Centuries)” in Perret, N. and Péquignot, S. A Critical Companion to the “Mirrors of Princes” Literature, Leiden: Brill. 136–159.

• Askari, N. 2016. The Medieval Reception of the Shāhnāma as a Mirror for Princes. Leiden: Brill.

• Darling, L. 2013. “Mirrors for Princes in Europe and the Middle East: A Case of Historiographical Incommensurability”. in Classen, A. (eds) East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. 223–242.

• Daryaee, T. 2006. “The Construction of the Past in Late Antique Persia”. Historia Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 55.4: 493–503.

• Hoyland, G. R. 2018. “The History of the Kings of the Persians” in Three Arabic Chronicles: The Transmission of the Iranian Past from Late Antiquity to Early Islam, tr. Texts for Historians 69. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

• Latham, J. Derek. 1990. “Ibn al-Muqaffa and Early Arabic Prose,” in Ashtiany, J. Johnstone, T.M, Latham, J.D, Serjeant, R.B, Rex-Smith, G. (eds) The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Abbasid Belle-Lettres, 48–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Meisami, J. S. 1999. Persian Historiography: To the End of the Twelfth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

• Zakeri, M. 2007. “Translation from Middle Persian (Pahlavi) into Arabic to the Early Abbasid Period (Persisch-arabische Übersetzungen im frühen Abbasidenreich)”, in Kittel, H. Frank, A. Greiner, N. (eds). Übersetzung: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Übersetzungsforschung, New York: De Gruyter. 1199–1206.

Episode transcript (Note: For a time-dynamic transcript, access the episode through a free podcast platform such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify):

Natasha Parnian: When people hear the phrase, "the Dark Ages," they often imagine a world defined by collapse, empires falling, knowledge fading, and cultures losing touch with their past. In the history of Iran and the broader Middle East, this label is frequently applied to the centuries following the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century when the Arab conquest reshaped the region's political landscape.

According to this narrative, the Arab conquests of the Iranian plateau marked a sharp civilizational break. Persian culture is set to have vanished, replaced by an Arab Islamic empire that erased earlier forms of political authority. But this episode challenges that idea. Today we'll explore how the concept of Persian kingship and Persian culture more broadly endured long after the Persian kings themselves had disappeared from the throne.

Hello and welcome. I'm Dr. Natasha Parnian, an early career researcher at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. My work focuses on late antiquity and the extent to which Persian political ideals survived the medieval and later periods. At the heart of today's episode is a deceptively simple question.

What use were Persian kings in a medieval Islamic world? Now, the Arab conquest of the seventh century was undoubtedly a decisive moment, but as I said earlier, Iran's pre-Islamic past did not just disappear. Instead, it continued to circulate through literature, administrative practice, and political thought.

The new rulers of the Islamic world from the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad to Persian dynasties in the East, like the Samanids inherited societies shaped by long established ideas of Persian rule. In this context, Persian kingship offered a powerful language for explaining and legitimizing authority even within a new Islamic political order.

To see how these ideas survived and adapted, we need to return to a moment of profound uncertainty. So let's begin in 632 CE. The Persian Empire known as the Sasanians had fallen to the Arabs and the new Islamic Empire was confronting a fundamental problem. Who should rule and on what basis? After the death of the Prophet Mohammed, political legitimacy became deeply contested.

Succession under the first four Rashad Kifs was not hereditary, leaving unresolved questions about authority, continuity, and governance. In response, early Islamic rulers began to look beyond Arabia for political models. The administrative and historical traditions of the sasanians, they encountered a language of kingship, grounded in continuity order and inherited authority concepts that helped address challenges the early caliphs were still struggling to define and comprehend. So what did this look like in practice and who were the people doing this intellectual work? One such figure was Ibn Muqaffa. Now he was a Persian translator and philosopher who wrote in Arabic.

In the midst of the political upheaval of the early, mid eighth Century Ibn Muqaffa looked back to Persian traditions to give shape to Islamic rule. He found in Sasanian Chronicles a ready-made language of administration and kingship that could be adapted for the new Arab rulers. We should remember that Ibn Muqaffa was not an Arab and he was not born Muslim. He came from a Zoroastrian-- so this is the religion of pre-Islamic Iran-- and he came from a Devon family; so this means he was from the land owning class. And he also worked as a bureaucrat, which meant that he was deeply familiar with Iran's pre-Islamic political traditions. He translated an array of middle Persian texts. These include the Khwaday-Namag, Kalila wa-Dimna, al-Adab al-Kabir, the Ahd Ardashir, and the letter of Tansa. These were well known middle Persian works that were all concerned with Persian kingship, good governance and statecraft. Essentially, they were sort of textbooks about how to govern.

A striking example appears in the Ardashir. Although the original middle Persian of this text is lost, it survives to us in several Arabic translations, most notably that of Ibn Muqaffa. So in it, Ardashir, the founder of the Sasanian Empire, declares that kingship and religion are inseparable. He says: "know that kingship and religion are twins. Neither can endure without the other. Religion is the foundation, and kingship is its protector." And this idea would've been, especially significant for Ibn Muqaffa because he was writing in a moment of profound transition, when the early Islamic state was negotiating the political role of its new religion.

Now another text that he translated the letter of Tansar highlights explicitly the value of learning from the past. Now historians sort of call this text a sasanian propaganda instrument, and this is because it portrays Ardashir as restoring Zoroastrianism back to Iran after a rough Arsacid Parthian period. So the Arsacid Parthian period was the dynasty that preceded the Sasanian-- so the guys before them essentially. Written or at least attributed to the Zoroastrian priest Tansar, under Ardashir I, it very clearly ties religion to the Iranian state. In the story, Tansar, heir to the Parthian Kingdom, defers his succession to Ardashir.

When questioned by Gushnasp, the king of Tabaristan, he defends the Sasanian dynasty, their right to rule and their strict social hierarchy, stating that, the only way a society should change is through the Monarch's approval. And he warns that corruption follows when people abandon their religion, their reason, and their state.

Ibn Muqaffa adapts these ideas in _the letter of Tansa _in his own _rísahla, _addressing the caliph directly_. He stresses_ that justice, morality, and knowledge are essential for political order, and he quotes Aashir and other Sasanian monarchs explicitly. Now Ibn Muqaffa faced a tension between Sasanian society, which was deeply hierarchical, and Islamic doctrine, which emphasized equality and the dismantling of these hierarchies. So to resolve this, he presents kingship as inseparable from religion, thereby preserving a hierarchical social order. Basically, Ibn Muqaffa's translations responded to political crises asserting that the legitimacy of rulers depends on their divine and their religious authority. So again, he's claiming two strands of authority religion and divine authority.

The glory of the king, known as the middle Persian or sasanian concept of hura relies on ruling justly, just as the caliphs authority depends on obedience to the Caliphat or the state. In short, Ibn Muqaffa offers an ancient blueprint that sort of came from this _letter of Tansa_, for political legitimacy, blending imperial tradition with Islamic governance.

Another way that Arab elites linked themselves to Persian influence was through the construction of genealogies that aligned them with the Sasanians. In this process, the figure of Yazdeger III's daughter, so the last Sasanian king or shahanshasha, became crucial to the legitimacy of the caliphs. Now I'll spare you the full range of arguments made by medieval writers and we'll just examine one of the earliest sources to address this issue. Now, this comes from Ali Yakubi. He reports that the mother of Ali ibn al-Hussein, hereafter Ali, was the daughter of the last Sasanian shahanshasha, Yazdegerd III, named Shah Bannu. Now Shah Bannu is a Sasanian or Middle Persian title, meaning princess.

By the late 11th century Ibn Fanduq also offers a similar story, but offers a much more elaborate genealogy. He traces the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed's family. And likewise, he asserts that the mother of Ali, Ravi in the Shia tradition, was the Sasanian Princess Shah Banu. Ibn Fanduq writes: "among God's servants there are two elect the Arabs and among the non Arabs, the Persians."

So why is this actually important? Because the Arabs can very easily remove the role of the mother in determining nobility. Let's pause for a minute to think about when have, you know, ancient or medieval writers ever really recorded anything about mothers?

Hardly ever. Right. Also in this context, the Sasanians were before the true religion. So they existed in a period where people were seen as infidels. As Ibn Fanduq is highlighting, the Sasanians are among God's servants, so IE they're pretty powerful people. So by reiterating and not completely obliterating the memory of Ali's Sasanian mother, the story demonstrates just how attractive the Sasanian past was as a source of legitimacy, not just for Muslim Shia lineages in this period, but for the caliphal project more broadly; rather than viewing the fall of the Sasanians as an absolute rupture in regional power, the early caliphs treated Sasanian history as a foundation upon which Islamic power could be built.

So far, we've discussed how the Arabs engaged with the Persian past. But let's now move to the Persian dynasties in this period. Now, a quick geography refresher here. While the Abbasid Khalis retained sovereignty over their empire, much of Iran and the Eastern Islamic world increasingly fell under the control of rulers who governed in the Khalif's name, but actually ruled independently.

Now, they often challenged and contested abbasid rule. All were Persianate, meaning they were either of Persian origin and they promoted Persian language, cult culture and administrative traditions among Persianate rulers. Memories of pre-Islamic Persian kingship were central: Sasanian titles, court culture and historical memory allowed these dynasties to present themselves as rightful Persian kings within a continuous Persian tradition.

Let's start with the Bavandids. Now they ruled from 665 to 1349. This is an unusually long grain. Now, they were originally vassals of the Sasanian kings. They retained power after the Arab conquest, and they ruled Tabaristan in northern Iran. Now Northern Iran is a remote mountainous region and it shielded them from invasion by the Arabs.

So this is essentially why they continue to rule, and this is why they promoted Persian culture, likely because they were shielded from invasion. And this is happening while much of the Iranian plateau was undergoing dramatic change. Now the Bavandids trace the lineage to Kawus, son of the Sasanian King Kavadh I, A claim that's recorded in the history of Tabaristan by Ibn Iskandiar. Now, despite the Sasanian pedigree, they never adopted the Grand Sasanian title, shahanshasha or King of Kings. Instead, their inscriptions reveal a very careful balance of identities. At the tombs of Miller Hanh. Abu Jaffa Muhammad uses the Arabic Islamic title, Al Amir, Al say, signaling Abbasid Recognition-- so this is an Islamic title that he's claiming. But in a bilingual Arabic and middle Persian inscription, he also uses the Sasanian military title _Spa Bad_, which means Army Chief. So this dual language and this dual title emphasizes both khalifal legitimacy, so legitimacy with the Arab, caliphs, as well as legitimacy through a deep rooted Sasanian heritage.

Other bilingual inscriptions show this similar phenomenon. At the Lae Tower. The Prince Sha is called Al Al.

Using the Persian word Kia here for Prince. Now in this inscription, he's using an Arabic phrase with a Persian title. The continued use of middle Persian in these monumental inscriptions was rather unusual because Arabic was the official language of administration, and so it suggests a deliberate choice to me. Whilst Arabic was uniformly used, persian remained familiar to much of the local population, allowing the Bavandids to assert legitimacy to their regional audiences.

When we move into the reign of the Buyids, ruling from 934 to around 1062, and the later Samanids ruling, at a similar time, so in 819 to around 999. We see more deliberate and bold declarations of Sasanian kingship.

These rulers openly claim the Sasanian title shahanshasha, which means King of Kings, presenting themselves as King of Kings in a very direct revival of Persian imperial authority. In the Buyid Empire, the title of shahanshasha. Makes its first appearance on a silver medal minted in Ray in 962. On this medal the Buyid shahanshasha, Azad al-Dawla or Fanna Kosrow-- I'll get to why he has two names soon-- is depicted as a Persian king wearing a crown with a middle Persian inscription that reads "may the glory of the King of Kings increase." On another coin dated at the same time, so 961 to 962. He's titled "The Just Amir." Both of these phrases were uncommon titles in the Islamic period. This is because names and images were not used on Islamic coins. The Islamic dinar or the coin carried the profession of faith and adhered to aniconism, which means that it avoided figural imagery. Therefore, the use of the word just he clearly alludes to the traditional tenets associated with Persian kingship. It was not an Islamic title sustaining inscriptions of Ardashir. Shah Pur and Le repeatedly tell us that they were just rulers. This sort of connotation of just was the epitome of Persian kingship.

Now, why did Azad al-Dawla have two names? So his Arabic title al-Dawla, was part of the broader Abasid political vocabulary. It roughly translates to "of the state" or " of the dynasty." And it was widely used by elite statesmen operating within the Arab Kal system on its own, this name firmly places him within a Islamic political order. But he also went by a second name, a Persian one Fanna Kosrow, and that choice was anything but incidental.

Kosrow evokes one of the most powerful figures in Persian memory: Kosrow II, also known as Kosrow _parvez, _which means Kosrow the victorious. He_ _was remembered as the most legendary of Sasanian shahanshas ,celebrated not only in the Persian tradition, but also in lots of Arabic literature. For example, the historian Al Tabari described Kosrow II as the ideal and just monarch a model ruler whose reputation transcended religious and cultural boundaries.

So what makes this especially striking is that earlier generations of this dynasty rulers, typically bore only Islamic names, so figures like Ali al-Dawla, Hassan Rukn al-Dawla, but Rukn al-Dawla broke with this pattern when he gave his sons two explicitly Persian names. So one son is named Fanna Kosrow and the other is named Kosrow Piruz.

And this was a deliberate choice. By reviving pre-Islamic Sasanian royal names alongside Islamic titles, the Buyids were doing more than just following convention. They were reaching beyond Islamic legitimacy alone, anchoring their authority in the memory of Iran's most revered kings. In a way, they were performing their Islamic legitimacy saying, yes, we are blessed by the kifs and we have their right to rule.

But they were also saying that we are the heirs to an ancient long line of sasanian kings. And I think they were doing this quite proudly. Now Azad al-Dawla's inscription at Persepolis reflect this proud, conscious attempt to connect his dynasty with the ancient Persian past. Now, Persepolis was the ancient capital of the previous Persian Empire, so of the Achaemenids. now two of his Arabic inscriptions at the Palace of Darius briefly summarize his return from the conquest of Esfahan and the defeat of the army at Horazan. Basically, this inscription is reiterating all the amazing military things he's done. Now, another short inscription is placed next to the inscription of Shapur II.

Therefore, we have two inscriptions next to two monumental Persian kings. The first is next to the Palace of Darius, so from the Achaemenid Empire. And the second is from UR two from the Sasanian Empire. Now the third Buyid inscription is dated to 1001 CE of Baha al-Dawla. It explicitly mentions his title in both Persian and the Arabic equivalent. So he gives two titles, shahanshasha, and malik al-maluk, which is literally a translation of shahanshasha, or King of Kings.

Whilst it's unlikely that the Buyids ever remembered the Aechemenids, persepolis had by now been transformed into a site of ceremonial Persian importance. And this is outlined by many inscriptions, from the Salucid through to the Sasanians. So I think by placing these inscriptions at ceremonial capitals that were firmly associated with this glorious Persian past, and next to two of the greatest persian Kings, the Buyids were powerfully aligning their kingship with their pre-Islamic past.

Now, let's move to the Samanids. They're often celebrated as patrons of a so-called Persian literary renaissance, largely because of their promotion and extensive use of Persian as a literary language. Following the approach of Julie Scott Masami, we can see this period, I think less as a renaissance and more of a continuation.

Persian had never really disappeared. As we've already seen with earlier dynasties, persian titles remained firmly embedded in the memory and practice of the ruling elite. What the Samanid did was build on that foundation, particularly by advancing new Persian as a literary and as a bureaucratic language.

And this choice was deeply pragmatic. Persian was the language through which rulers could articulate and promote Persian kingship across the Persian world. It offered a powerful way to legitimize authority, not simply as Islamic rulers, but as Persian kings. Whilst Arabic remained the dominant language of Abasid elite culture, Persian carried centuries old narratives of rulership that were already familiar and meaningful to local populations.

We can see this especially clearly in the titles used by various Samanid rulers, such as, Nuh ibn Nasr and his son Mansur. This was a period marked by religious uncertainty and shifting affiliations within Islam. Nasr himself returned to Sunni Islam after earlier Ismaili leanings, and in this context claiming sources of legitimacy beyond religion was likely, particularly important.

Now, Mansur issued a bilingual medallion. On one side in Middle Persian and the other side is in Arabic. On the Persian side, the inscription reads "ghuara abasu shahansha," which means "increased in royal glory, king of kings." On the reverse, we find the Islamic declaration of faith: "there is no God, but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God."

However, Mansour breaks from convention by adding an additional phrase, "the victorious King Mansour son of Nuh." Now that Persian phrase, _huara abasu shahansha_ is especially revealing. It had last been used by Khosrow II-- remember that amazing king I mentioned earlier. He essentially revived Avastin religious ideology in his coinage. Now, Avastin was an ancient Iranian religious language of Zoroastrianism. So by adopting this title, Mansur was invoking the ancient concept of Hura: divinely granted royal glory-- an idea that was inseparable from Sasanian kingship.

This was not a generic claim to power. It was appointed reference to a pre-Islamic imperial tradition. What Mansur achieved here was a careful fusion of two dominant languages of authority. On one side Islamic legitimacy, and on the other Sasanian royal heritage. While the Abbasid caliphs could claim authority primarily through religion, Mansur could claim both positioning himself as heir to Iran's ancient kings, as well as a legitimate Muslim ruler.

In a changing political world, that dual claim was a very powerful one. Now, remember earlier I mentioned that the Samanids are remembered for their revival of Persian, and this is because their kings or their shas were huge on commissioning new Persian texts. Now new Persian was the language spoken from the eight to ninth centuries, essentially when the Samanids were ruling.

And this is the period where Ferdowsi's seminal _Shanameh_ or Book of Kings was written. So this text was written around 977 to 1010 ce. Now, if you've never heard of this monumental text, it's basically one of the longest epic poems telling the mythical and to some extent, historical past of Iran, from the creation of the world until the Islamic conquest in the seventh century.

It's regarded as a literary masterpiece and it has significant implications in the preservation of Persian language. Its writer Ferdowsi, was part of the _dehqan_, so remember the land owning class. These were a group of people who rose to administrative prominence under the Samanids. Due to the education and literacy afforded to this class, they remained a major repository of information about Iran's past.

They were particularly interested to reassert the place of Persian kingship in wider society, likely because it also secured their own right to wealth and land power, power that they probably had during the Sasanians.

Now the _Shanameh_ can in many ways be read as a mirror of princes. So this genre was already popular in the Medieval West, but it was also popular, in, this period, particularly in Arab literature.

Ferdowsi's _Shanameh_ should also be read as a mirror of princes because it engages with this idea of statecraft, particularly this notion of royal glory. Many kings of the _Shanameh_ dominate Ferdowsi's engagement with royal glory, particularly to communicate the role of the monarch in maintaining a country's prosperity and to demonstrate royal models for rulers.

For example, a range of topics that are covered by Ardashir, the first Sasanian ruler. This section Ardashir, has various , _ayins_, so that is Royal Customs and Practices, and his is particularly extensive. It includes his policies on the army, the scribal class, local governors, warfare, the reception of foreign dignitaries, and, even the building of cities now in the section devoted to the army, Ardashir orders that all families educate their sons in the art of battle, including riding the use of the mace and the bow and arrow. When these men are sent to war, Ardashir assigns a priest to every thousand soldiers to oversee them and to report on their conduct.

Those who distinguish themselves are rewarded with robes of honor, elevating them among the ranks of the wise. Now, Ardashir's expectations of local governors are equally revealing. He urges each governor to uphold justice or _däd--_ to avoid greed and wrongdoing. He seeks counsel not only from the old and experienced, but also from the young men who were knowledgeable, patient, and eager to learn... what emerges essentially, is a list of excellent traits of the king and a sustained portrait of an ideal king in an ideal political order. After laying out each, _ayin_, so each section on Ardashir's deeds, Ferdowsi directly addresses his readers with a reminder:

" listen to the words of the wise O king. Make the world prosperous in the same manner."

The message is clear. Kingship, to Ferdowsi, is not about invention or innovation, but about imitation, about consciously modeling oneself on an established moral ideal.

We should also look closely at how Iran itself is imagined in the Shanameh. Ferdowsi's is Iran is not the same as the clearly bounded geographical entity of the Sasanian world. Under the Sasanians, Iranshar, or the land of the Persians, was primarily part of a western Persian empire.

In the Shanameh, however, Iran has shifted decisively eastward. now corresponds to the heartland of the Samanid realm, stretching across Nishapur, Khorasan, Balkh, Bukhara, and Samarkand. These are all cities within the Samanid Empire. Strikingly the capital of Iran is never named, and many of the poems great epics unfold outside the historical Iranshar or Land of the Persians, as defined by the Sasanians.

Now this geographical shift reflects a deeper idea. Iranian kingship was always bound to the location of imperial power. As centers of authority moved, so did the imagined boundaries of Iran itself. The _Shanameh's_ reimagining of Iran mirrors the changes of the Samanid era, often described , as I mentioned, as a Persian renaissance when political and cultural power was reasserted in Eastern Iran. In this sense, Iran remains a deliberately fluid concept, one that expanded and contracted with the rise and fall of empires. And as Michael Axworthy memorably puts it, existed as much as an empire of the mind as a physical territory.

This flexible understanding of Iran helps explain how Persian kingship could be claimed and legitimized across ethnic and political boundaries. By presenting in epic form both the legitimacy of Iranian rule and the renowned and the renewed prominence of the _devans_ within society, the _Shanameh_ powerfully reinforces Persian political culture. Ferdowsi dedicates his work to his patron, Mahmud of Ghazni-- now he was a ruler of the Ghaznavid Empire.

At first glance, this dedication was quite puzzling. Why would Ferdowsi offer a fiercely pro Persian epic, often critical of Arab-Turkic rule, and in parts quite critical of Shia rule, to Mahmud, a ruler of Turkic origin that descended from the Samanid slave soldier class?

The answer lies in the universality of Persian kingship. Mahmud ruled in Persian. He upheld Persian courtly traditions and had unified much of Iran appearing to preside over this revival of Persian political culture. And he was hardly the first, non Persian ruler to do this. Now, Alexander the Great and his successes famously adopted Persian, aristocratic customs, even while presenting themselves as Hellenistic Kings.

Funny story. In the Persian tradition, Alexander was fully absorbed into Persian history. In the _Shanameh_, Ferdowsi goes so far as to construct a genealogy that makes Alexander the half brother of the Achaemenid King, Darius, transforming a foreign conquest into an internal struggle over succession. Ferdowsi does not attempt anything similar for Mahmud because linking him genealogically to the Sasanians would have been nearly impossible, but it's clear that he accepted the legitimacy of a ruler who performed Persian kingship correctly.

In earlier sections, he gives us all the amazing things that Ardashir does, and how to do them. So here, it doesn't really matter if Mahmud is not ethnically Persian. What matters is that he's ruling as a Persian king. Ultimately, what mattered was not whether or not a king was ethnically Persian, but whether he upheld this centuries old model of kingship as the foundation of imperial legitimacy.

With this idea of Persian kingship as a universal and overriding institution in mind, we can now turn to the _Shanameh's_ most famous and tragic episode: the story of Rostam and Sohrab. This tale powerfully illustrates the endurance and the cost of the Persian imperial imagination.

In the tragedy Rostam, a hero, his failure to recognize his own son in battle is explained by Ferdowsi as the product of cruel chance and blind fate. I think that this failure can also be read symbolically. Sohrab fights on behalf of Turan, Iran's eternal rival. When Rostam kills him, the episode becomes more than a personal tragedy. It is a stark reminder that anyone who stands against the institution of Persian kingship, even unknowingly, as his own son Sohrab does, will be destroyed. At the very opening of the story. Ferdowsi pauses to ask a series of unsettling questions about justice and death.

If a fierce wind rises and casts an unripe fruit to the ground, do we call this oppression or justice, accident, or design? If death is just what then is injustice? What are these cries and shouts for justice?

The series of questions above prompt the reader to reflect on Sohrab's death. By alluding to Rostam, when a fierce wind blows and knocks down an unripe fruit, Sohrab, Ferdowsi questions whether removing the fruit is virtuous. The murder of Sohrab should be read in the context of Imperial Persian kingship because at the end of this tale, Iran and its Persian king, Kay Kavus, had successfully dominated Turan. So Rostam the hero has defeated Sohrab, who was fighting on behalf of Iran and Kay Kavus. The center, Persian kingship itself emerges, reinforced and unchallenged. Ferdowsi does not allow us to celebrate Imperial victory here, I don't think, but reminds his readers of the human price of preserving or sacrificing the larger Imperial order of Iran. He reminds us that the endurance of Iran is inseparable from Persian kingship.

So what use were the Persian kings in the medieval world? The afterlife of the Persian kings was anything but passive. The memory of Persian kingship became a political resource. On one hand, the Arab elites under the Abasids engage deeply with Persian texts, translating them, circulating them, mining them for models of governance, and even claiming legitimacy from them. Persian kingship became a language of rule.

And on the other hand, the newly emerging Persian dynasties went further. They didn't just engage with this past, they claimed it. By asserting descent from the Sasanians, Persian dynasties anchored their memory in a model of authority, far older than the caliphate itself. In doing so, they turned memory into competition, deploying Persian kingship as a rival source of legitimacy that surpassed the authority of the caliphs. Persian kingship did not vanish with the fall of the Sasanian empire. It endured by being adapted, translated, and put to work across the medieval Middle East.

I would urge us to stop calling or stop thinking about the fall of the Sasanian Empire as a dark age because the Sasanian past or the Persian past was not forgotten. It was likely just overlooked.

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