Daily Medieval

I mentioned yesterday a sculptor named Farhad who was punished by Khosrow II for becoming a rival for the love of Shirin. He was given the ...

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...

The woman whose name keeps showing up in the last few posts was the wife of three powerful men in 6th-century Iran, one of whom was her brot...

An uncle willing to kill your father might not be the best person in whom to put your faith. Vistahm and his brother Vinduyih killed Iranian...

So Khosrow II had regained his throne and the usurper Bahram Chobin had fled and been killed. Order was restored in the Iranian Empire. Kho...

After Hormizd IV was strangled with his own turban by his own followers in 590, his son, now Iranian Emperor Khosrow II, faced the threat o...

So Hormizd IV was dealing with a civil war when a successful military leader decided he was destined to lead the Iranian Empire. Hormizd as...

Iranian Emperor Khosrow I maintained a level of religious tolerance (except for Mazdakism ), during his reign (531 - 579). His son was als...

During the reign of the Sassanian dynasty's Emperor Kavad I (r. 488–531), Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion. An Iranian priest n...

Although the youngest of four sons and not truly expected to ever become king, Khosrow I (531 - 579) received an extensive education in his...

The Emperor of Iran, Khosrow I (531 - 579) was not just a leader who wanted to go to war with the Byzantines. He wanted to advance his peop...

A 7th-century Sanskrit biography of the Indian emperor Harshavardhana written by his court poet Banabhatta contains the first literary menti...

I thought we should learn about the man who was causing such trouble for Justinian I and the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Khosrow was t...

While the Byzantine Empire under Justinian I and the Sassanids under Khosrow I might have decided to stop fighting on their southern borders...

When Justinian I became emperor (527 - 565), he inherited from his uncle the war with the Sassanid Empire to the east. This Iranian Empire ...

MS. Marsh 144, fol. 135v, Bodleian The contributions of the Muslim world to astronomy are many, and I have only briefly touched on some ...

Syrian Astrolabe Yesterday I mentioned that Omar Khayyam spent some of his time working on calendar reform. This was not the same calen...