Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire ─ The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran

Decline and Fall of the Sasanians has already been praised as one of the most intellectually exciting books about ancient Persia to have been published for years. It proposes a convincing contemporary answer to an ages-old mystery and conundrum: why, in the seventh century CE, did the seemingly powerful and secure Sasanian empire of Persia succumb so quickly and disastrously to the all-conquering Arab armies of Islam? Offering an impressive and exhuastively-documented appraisal of the Sasanians' nemesis at the hands of the Arab forces which scythed through their enemies, sweeping all before them, the author suggests a bold solution to the enigma. On the face of it, the collapse of the Sasanians-given their strength and imperial power in the earlier part of the seventh century-looks startling and inexplicable. But Professor Pourshariati explains their fall in terms of an earlier deep-seated corrosion and decline, and as a result of their own internal weaknesses. The decentralised dynastic system of the Sasanian empire, whose backbone was a Sasanian-Parthian alliance, contained the seeds of its own destruction. This confederacy, whose powerbase relied on patronage and preferment, soon became soft and corrupt, and its degeneration sealed the fate of a doomed dynasty.

Parvaneh Pourshariati is Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Ohio State University. She is the author of many scholarly articles on ancient Iran, and this is her first book