Iran in World History

Book of Righteous Viraz
, hell is 
full of unfaithful women suffering unspeakable tortures which are 
described in vivid detail. According to the Zoroastrian creation myth 
as taught by Sasanian priests, Ahura Mazda would have preferred 
not to entrust childbearing to women: “if I had secured a garment 
wherefrom I could make man, I would never have created thee, 
whose antagonist is the race of vicious persons.”
5
The Sasanian reli-
gious texts may reflect a degree of wishful thinking on the part of the 
priests, but given their power and influence in Sasanian society, one 
may imagine that women’s lives were affected by such misogynistic 
attitudes.
The association of religion with rival factions at court was a recur-
ring feature throughout the Sasanian period. Kerdir’s priestly group 
continued their ascendancy under Bahram’s son and successor, Bahram 
II, who reigned from 274 to 293. On his death, however, they faced a 
setback with the accession of Narseh (reigned 293–302), who sought to 
restore the ruling family’s religious authority as custodians of the cult 
of Anahita. A rock relief at Naghsh-e Rostam near Persepolis depicts 
Narseh receiving the diadem of kingship from this important god-
dess. Narseh also ended his two predecessors’ policies of persecuting 
Christians and Jews.
Sasanian dealings with Christians, and to a lesser extent Jews, 
were complicated by several often conflicting considerations. Prior to 
the Roman emperor Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in 313, 
Christians fleeing the Roman Empire could find refuge in the Iranian 
lands, where they often flourished. As the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) 
form of Christianity gradually achieved official status, Christians fol-
lowing other sects continued to migrate to Iran. On the other hand, 

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some of Iran’s largest Christian communities were mostly captured 
Romans, who could be seen as potential fifth columnists.
But as Christians and Jews were so numerous, especially in the 
Mesopotamian provinces, their support was vital to the stability of the 
empire. As Hormizd IV acknowledged in the late sixth century: “Just 
as our royal throne cannot stand on its two front legs without the two 
back ones, our kingdom cannot stand or endure firmly if we cause the 
Christians and the adherents of other faiths, who differ in belief from 
ourselves, to become hostile to us.”
6
Due to this ambivalence toward the various communities under 
their rule, successive Sasanian emperors wavered in their reli-
gious policies. Certain rulers sought the support of the Mazdaean 
priesthood by persecuting other religious communities, while oth-
ers attempted to diminish the priests’ power by giving favorable 
treatment to non-Zoroastrians. A number of Sasanian monarchs 
cemented their ties to these communities by marrying the daugh-
ters of Christian or Jewish religious leaders. In any case, in con-
trast to the Roman world, the Sasanians never actually outlawed 
any religion.

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By the latter part of the fifth century, the Sasanian Empire was at a 
low ebb both politically and financially. The landowning nobility and 
the priesthood held most of the power and wealth, whereas the largely 
rural peasant population had suffered greatly from a series of famines. 
Conditions were ripe for social upheaval, and this came about as a mas-
sive reform movement led by a religious figure named Mazdak.
Mazdak, who came from a line of dissenters within Zoroastrianism, 
preached a form of proto-communism which asserted that human 
unhappiness was the result of the inequitable distribution of goods, 
in particular, property and women. (The wealthy of the time were 
hoarding grain to increase prices and kept massive numbers of wives 
and concubines.) He therefore called for the opening of both grain silos 
and harems to the general public.
Mazdak won the support of the Sasanian emperor Kavad I (reigned 
488–496 and 498–531), to the horror and outrage of the priests and 
nobles, who protested that “If women and wealth are to be held in com-
mon, how will a son know his father, or a father his son? If men are to 
be equal in the world, social distinctions will be unclear.”
7
In response 
to this unprecedented challenge to their unique privileges, Iran’s elites 
conspired to have Kavad overthrown, finally deposing him in 496 in 
favor of his brother. Kavad escaped to Central Asia and took refuge 
with the nomadic Hephthalites (White Huns, who were probably an 
eastern Saka group), who helped to him regain his throne two years 
later. In order to repay the Hephthalites, he attacked their enemies, the 
Romans, to the west, taking parts of eastern Anatolia and forcing the 
Byzantines to pay subsidies in exchange for an armistice.
Kavad’s death three decades later was followed by another succes-
sion dispute, with one faction supporting his social reform policies and 
the other favoring the interests of the priests and aristocrats. The latter 
group were ultimately successful, installing their favored son Khosrow 
I on the throne in 531 and having Mazdak executed along with thou-
sands of his followers.
Khosrow I, known as Anushirvan (the Immortal Soul), has gone 
down in legend as the greatest of the Sasanian emperors. Ironically, to 
a large extent his success may have stemmed from his willingness to 
confirm and systematize some of the economic reforms put into place 
by his father. He made the tax system on farmers rational by tying it 
to their fluctuating annual production rather than allowing the unlim-
ited extortions that had previously prevailed. Moreover, he took over 
direct control of tax revenues, bypassing the prominent landowning 
families and adding greatly to his own imperial coffers. Making use 

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of his newly available financial resources, Khosrow invested heavily in 
the improvement of roads and urban structures. He further reduced 
corruption and interference from among the elite class by giving more 
power to local landowners, called 
dehgan
s, whom he found easier to 
control.
Khosrow also increased salaries for the military, enabling him to 
reorganize and strengthen his army. This enhanced military capac-
ity emboldened him to invade Byzantine territory in 540, breaking 
a treaty of “eternal peace” he had signed with the Roman emperor 
Justinian a mere eight years earlier. He had been encouraged in this 
venture by overtures from the Germanic Goths, who had overrun the 
western Roman Empire during the previous century and now flanked 
Byzantium on the opposite side from the Persians.
Apart from his military campaigns and massive building projects, 
Khosrow is known for his patronage of learning and the arts. During 
his youth he studied philosophy under several Christian teachers. As 
emperor he expanded the academy at Gondeshapur in Khuzestan; this 
had started out a Nestorian Christian seminary, but under Khosrow’s 
patronage it became the greatest institution of higher learning of 
its time.
After the Byzantine emperor Justinian closed the neo-Platonist 
academy at Athens in 529, a number of Greek academics took refuge 
in the Sasanian lands, praising Khosrow as the very incarnation of 
Plato’s Philosopher King. Some found employment at Gondeshapur, 
where the curriculum included philosophy, astronomy, physics, lit-
erature, and medicine. Education at Gondeshapur drew on Greek, 
Indian, Persian, and Mesopotamian scholarly traditions, and in some 
ways it laid the foundation for modern universities. After the Arab 
conquests in the seventh century, the school retained its prestige, and 
many sons of the Muslim nouveaux riches received their education 
from Christian, Jewish, or pagan professors.
Khosrow cultivated relations with India, from where the game 
of chess was imported to Iran during his reign. His prime minister, 
Bozorgmehr, who became the legendary model of the wise advisor, 
wrote a treatise on the game, and in exchange invented backgammon 
which was then sent to India. Bozorgmehr is associated with the rise 
of “wisdom literature,” or “mirrors for princes,” which became highly 
popular in the Islamic period.
An example of this literary genre is the book of animal fables 
known as