Khosrow and Shirin, Part 1

Once the rebellions were finished, the reign of Khosrow II (590 - 628) experienced a golden age in some respects. One facet of his reign was his tolerance of Christians, which may have had something to do with the persecutions in the times of his immediate ancestors, and also to do with one of his wives, Shirin.

Shirin was a Christian, a member of the Church of the East and later a member of the Syriac Orthodox Church. When Jerusalem was conquered in 614 by the Sassanians and the True Cross was captured, it was brought to Ctesiphon where Shirin took possession of it.

How Khosrow came to be married to a Christian is the subject of speculation, although many varying accounts were created over the years. One is that she was a servant in a Persian home he used to visit when he was young. A 12th-century Persian poet, Nizami Ganjavi, wrote a poem called "Khosrow and Shirin" in which he tells the beautiful (and extremely fictional) story of the two lovers.

Nizami paints Shirin as the flawlessly beautiful niece of an Armenian queen. A friend of Khosrow travels at his behest to find Shirin and show her a picture of Khosrow, with whom she falls in love. She decides to flee her home to go to Khosrow. Ironically, Khosrow at the time decided to flee his father's anger and go to Armenia to find Shirin.

Coincidentally, Khosrow (disguised as a peasant) sees a young woman bathing in a river. It is Shirin, who does not recognize him because of his disguise. He does not realize that she is the woman he seeks, so he continues. They miss each other several times in the story, until he flees to Armenia after his overthrow by Bahram Chobin. He finally meets Shirin, but leaves her in Armenia to travel to Constantinople to get help from the Byzantine Emperor Maurice against Bahram Chobin.

Maurice agrees to help, but on the condition that Khosrow marry his daughter Mariam, and to marry no one else so long as Mariam is alive. To further complicate things, a sculptor named Farhad falls in love with Shirin.

The romance of Khosrow and Shirin was known long before Nizami, but he turned it into a famous Iranian epic. Tomorrow we'll find out what happened to the lovers.