The Great Tragedy of Yazdgerd

I was too young to grasp the meaning of the occasion.  Three day of mourning overshadowed everything. The three day followed the journey of Imam Hussain and his followers until they were cut off from the river, and died in a battle, thirsty and worn out. An uneven battle where thousands descended on them. Ashura happened every where. In mosques, streets, town squares and everyone was invited. Everyone was welcomed to mourn the death of the Imams. Ashura changed the whole atmosphere when mourning seemed to be more binding than celebration. Tears more potent than laughter. Revenge more  motivating than forgiveness. And hatred more powerful than love.

At home we didn’t talk about Ashura and the suffering of Imam Hussain and his followers much. But we talked about Shahrbanu (Lady of the City). She was married to Imam Hussain, the leader of the 72, grandson of the prophet.  When they lined up all the enslaved women after the Persian Empire was defeated by the Arabs, Shahrbanu the daughter of the Yazdgerd III, the last Persian Emperor, became Hussain’s. She was not among the 72, for she died shortly after her son was born. But her son, the forth Shiite Imam was among the 72, perhaps one of the only few  who survived for he was too sick and young to fight as the story goes. So it was Shahrbanu that gave her royal blood to the prophet lineage and thus all the Shiite Imams had Royal Persian blood in them. Shahrbanu ignited many conversations in my family whenever Ashura arrived. But Yazdgerd hardly was mentioned, like he didn’t exist.

Yazdgerd was a strategist. He was not looking for martyrdom or victimization.  He neither accepted defeat nor pitied himself. He didn’t want to come back with a few hundreds thinking he could reconquer his territory. That’s why he waited for so long making sure any come back would have a good chance of success if the battle was fought on equal terms.

In later years as I went back to read about Yazdgerd, my sympathy sided with him rather than Hussain. Yazdgerd’s story is of Shakespearian depth and biblical proportion.  He was the one who lost everything. His dynasty was in power for over 400 years. He must have fled with some of his elite generals when he lost the last crucial battle. But he didn’t give up. He hoped to regroup and come back. His forefathers had fought many invaders and defeated them. He must have felt a great shame for being the only king in his lineage to have been defeated so terribly. And not only that but was taken over completely by another race, culture and religion. 

He failed to rally enough support as he went from one province to another. Despite all the defeats and set backs from the various chieftains in his  disintegrating empire he wanted to give it another try, and die in the battle if he had to. All the provinces he visited fell to the Arabs shortly after he left them. There was no way back for him. And the greatest lesson in his tragedy perhaps was the fact that regardless what we believe in, how noble or pure, we can still  end up on the wrong side of history, doesn’t matter how much we try.  And no one is too precious.  Yazdgerd was a sane man. He was calculating. He was a tactician. He wasn’t a coward. He must have had an incredible amount of will power and energy. He even sent his son to Tang Dynasty.  The plan of bringing the Chinese into the picture to fight the Arabs, as  ingenious as it was, never really materialised.  His battles with Arabs took 19 years. It started when he was 9 years old. A year after he was crowned as king.

I can’t think of any other king or a human being for that matter who tried so hard to win back what he had lost.

One night as he slept underneath the naked sky by a mill, still in his dusty and faded royal outfit  he was murdered by someone who couldn’t resist his ornaments that still after seven years of wandering kept some their attraction. His body was found by a Christian priest the next day who miraculously identified him and gave him a descent burial. With him any hope of come back and reclaiming his empire was gone. The whole dynasty and with it a unique nation and culture collapsed.

The fact that he died alone tells us that everyone around him had deserted him. God knows what else was going on in his tireless mind as he laid there next to his horse, exhausted, dejected, abandoned, betrayed and defeated.  What else could have he done? Maybe a truce with the conquers? That would have been more shameful for him than anything.  Anyone that he knew and loved was either killed or taken slaves by the invaders. How could he surrender to them. Perhaps blending into the landscape. Taking off his royal robes and living like an ordinary man for the rest of his life. But he was no ordinary man. He couldn’t have lived any other way except as a king with a responsibility of running an empire, administrating the world as his God given right. He could have gone to China and take refuge there as many of the Persian nobles did. There was not much left for him to do. He had tried everything but to no avail. But at the same time he had really come to the end of his tether. Perhaps his wish, hidden from himself even, was to die for there was nothing else he could have done.

He must have thought over the 7 years of wandering and being pursued by his enemies how precarious the world was. And why the God whom he believed in allowed this to happen. His very name meant, made by God. Now who was he destroyed by? And why? What was his crime? He was the worshiper of Ahura the creator of all good things. He had done nothing wrong to the invaders to provoke such violent and destructive attack. Years back he even tried to negotiate with the Arabs asked them why they were so belligerent toward his empire.

Where did he go wrong? Yazdgerd didn’t take too many wrong steps. He tried everything. He faced his enemies head on. He was endowed with incredible amount of energy, will power and intelligence. But it wasn’t meant to be. He came to a tragic end not out of his own volition.

Although Iranians maybe ashamed of him  but he was nevertheless a giant that collapsed under the weight of history that moved against him in every possible way. And no ordinary human being would have survived as long as he did in order to turn back the cruel tide of history that gradaully swallowed him and his empire.