Oadhya
Alilat Triumphant
The Prophetess Fadia would die in 654, and, according to Saihist tradition it was not a tragedy but a miracle - an ascension to oneness with the God. With her passing the religion changed fundamentally. Without the one "pure center of revelation", as she was sometimes known, there was no central unity, no organized hierarchy of who should claim the mantle of her holy authority. She was by no means a sole prophet - others, including her husband Abdulilat, claimed to receive messages from Alilat during certain states of ecstatic meditation.
The conquests of Nu'maan ibn Mundhir had politically united the northern Hejaz under Saihism, but he was a legalist, a tribal patriarch in a very different mould from the mercantile clans of al-Ta'if. The fanaticism of his followers and his victories attested to the utility of the religion. Rightly, he claimed to the Commander of the Believers (Amir al-Muminin). In the south, in the city of the goddess, the local priesthood claimed doctrinal authority, and was led by Abdulilat. He and Fadia had been childless, but his relations, the influential and powerful Banu Thaqif were eager to ensure their own position in whatever structure emerged out of the death of the Prophetess. Both of these factions realized that if their community was to survive, surrounded as they were by unbelievers, compromise would be necessary.
Nu'maan ibn Mundhir was, more than just a military leader or a religious figure, a reformer. Part of what made his message appealing is that he brought to the mysticism of the Suwar a set of empowering legal and societal reforms. In the example of the Prophetess Fadia and the female priesthood of Alilat, he sought to elevate the status of women, end female infanticide and rape, and allow women the right to divorce by the simple affirmation "I divorce you." That he enacted these reforms with often strict and brutal commandments was merely a sign of the times. He mandated charity among the believers, taking Fadia's message of the equality of all souls to heart. However, as a tribal leader he did not make a clear break with his culture in many respects - he defined masculine virtue as heroic bravery in warfare, femininity as meditative closeness to the divine, and he saw slaves captured in war as incapable of being part of the community of believers.
It would be Nu'maan who shaped the practical side of the religion most strongly. At the Council of al-Ta'if, better known as the Council of the Partisans, the organization of the new faith was solidified. Nu'maan ibn Mundhir received important concessions. His formulation of the Suwar as a holy book oHHwas declared divinely chosen (and thus official). His position as a sort of first among equals, or Amir, was solidified, and his son Khalid married the daughter of the Thaqif patriarch, Hasan ibn Muttalib. In return, he conceded that he was a purely secular leader - divinely inspired, perhaps, but secular nevertheless. "I am not a Prophet, but a humble servant of the God and the Absolute" he told the assembled. Thereafter, the assembled tribal leaders pledged their loyalty to Nu'maan and the Banu Ghatafan.
Beyond merely resolving this dispute of authority, another important decision was made. It was declared incumbent upon the faithful to share their revelation. Missionaries would have to be sent forth. Every Saihist had an obligation to share the revelations of Fadia.
These revelations, now codified, began to become a coherent set of six steps, each building upon each other in pursuit of the Absolute. To fail in these steps was to find oneself far from the gods in the next life. Unlike the Dharmic religions one was not incarnated again into this world but rather into another one, the specifics of which were uncertain. Those who came close to oneness with the would be reborn close to gods and thus live in sensual bliss, while those who failed would exist far from the bliss of the gods, or alternately fall into oblivion depending on the magnitude of their sins. The steps were:
Abstaining from falsehood, dishonor, theft, and violence. (except when necessary in defense of the faith)
Giving charity and comfort to all.
Prayer and veneration to the gods and foremost among them Alilat.
Understanding of the Suwar.
Meditation to understand the Absolute.
Attain oneness with the Absolute. (Paradise)
Even those who accomplished even a few of these steps would not be so far from the abode of the Gods. Those who accomplished all were held as figures of great holiness, and elevated by the community to the status of "saints" - a concept adopted relatively later, certainly after the life of Fadia. Figures such as Nu'maan would eventually receive this honor.
Even as the Saihists consolidated, the Hadhramut Kingdom to the south continued to unravel. The Malik, Qahtan ibn Amar (651-673) had little authority outside of Shabwa. Certain cities, such as the Christian community of Najran felt the need to express autonomy as Indian ideas and religions such as Buddhism and Jainism drew increasingly larger numbers of devotees. However, as they did so they became easy prey for the Saihists, who struck south with increasing impunity. Khalid ibn Nu'maan would conquer Najran in 668, and finally, in what was a crushing blow to the Hadhrami spice trade, Sana'a in 672. Shortly thereafter, Qahtan would be overthrown, replaced by his son Imru, who attempted to counteract the southwards spread of the now unified community of the believers.
The impetus for the Saihist attacks is unclear, but can possibly be traced to the Hadhrami slowly orienting their trade once more towards maritime activity. As their caravans became less profitable and less frequent, the Saihists were forced to go to war to gain plunder. Once they realized the weakness and decentralization of the Hadhramut they would capitalize on these raids.
The Hadhrami military at this point was significantly atrophied. It had never been exceptionally powerful - the mercantile kings of South Arabia relied on control over water supplies, tariffs, and the spice production to retain their dominance. They were not significantly militaristic, and this explains the appeal of nonviolent creeds such as Buddhism and Jainism among the South Arabians. Where the latter Eftal and Turks always had to reconcile their faith and the endemic warfare in which they participated, it was easier for the urban, "civilized" Hadhrami to do so. Saihism by contrast allowed far more justifications for war and plunder, and the people of Hejaz had always been more warlike, needing to defend themselves against the Bedouin of the interior.
As such, the eventual fall of the Hadhrami was not unsurprising. Khalid finally conquered them in 687, placing a believer, a member of the Thaqif named Mansur ibn Ali on the throne. However, over time this new dominion would be loose. So long as the Malik sent tribute and a portion of the trade north, he was allowed to handle his affairs as he chose. While the Malik did promote the Saihist faith, he did not persecute others for their own beliefs, seeing them as merely on alternative paths to righteousness. As such, the Hadhramut maintained their relative monopoly on trade in southern Arabia.
The Saihists spread north as well. The Christian tribes of the Tayy, under al-Harith ibn Yusuf, fought hard to avoid the same fate as their southern coreligionists of languishing under a "pagan" king. Fortunately, they were numerous and capable of mobilizing a large population and many federate allies to war. The Saihist penetration northwards was thus continually thwarted. While the Tayy were not urban, and indeed were rather poor, lacking any major trade routes, they nevertheless were able to style themselves as defenders of Christendom, and cultivate a rough alliance with the Heshanids, despite being Nestorian.
As such, the particular details of Saihism and the Suwar never reached the Eftal world or the Mediterranean in any great numbers. Sporadic missionaries found themselves rebuffed, but there was no mass transmission of ideas. Saihism remained a primarily Arab phenomenon, and even within the peninsula limited in scope to some degree.
Two Years of Anarchy and Betrayal - the end of the Mahadevist moment - rise of the new empire
After the battle, when the dead were burned or left for the birds of the air, Tengin Shah and his picked retainers crossed the sweeping scrubland plains south of Yazd to meet with the mercenary captains - especially the so-called Shah Sefandiyar. While Tengin might have felt some lingering caution and uncertainty about the results of the battle, he could not help but feel the elation of a clear victory. This was his triumph. These mercenaries would not take that credit from him.
When he arrived at the meeting-place, two mornings after the battle, he could not have been more baffled by the claims of the man who had named himself the leader the mercenaries - Sefandiyar of Komis, the man who would be Shah. Sefandiyar claimed to be the descendant of the first Shah Akhshunwar, the legendary conqueror of Iran himself. Tengin naturally was skeptical. The Persian chronicler Farrokh claims that he derisively replied that "every horse-thief from Edessa to Kabul" claimed ancestry from Akhshunwar. Sefandiyar, quick-witted, replied that Heshana himself began his career as a horse-thief, and ultimately became a great conqueror. He offered to work with Tengin - together they could carve out an empire for themselves before the Mahadevists had a chance to recover.
Tengin, unimpressed, turned and left. Why should he share the spoils of the Mahadevist Empire? Especially with a cabal of men who had proven themselves untrustworthy by their very actions in the previous battle? By the time he reached his own camp, Sefandiyar's army had broken camp and was riding north. Meanwhile, Husrava's column was trailing south, and Tengin had dispatched Shah Vinayaditya, the leader of the Kidarite, or Red Eftal, to pursue and harass the retreating army. An accomplished commander in his own right, and a masterful leader of horse, Vinayaditya would ultimately catch Husrava near Belabad. The abortive battle would see thousands of the "Green Banners" captured and Husrava himself, badly wounded and with a spreading infection, taken into the custody of the Shah.
Rather than allow any among them to become martyrs, Vinayaditya ordered the sickly Shahanshah paraded past a line of the captured Green Banner soldiers. When he reached the end of his parade, he was beaten savagely before being returned to a cage. Subsequently, each one of the captive Mahadevists was blinded except for one in a hundred, who was given the responsibility of leading his comrades. When the self-proclaimed Saosyant passed away of his infection three days later, the news was related to every soldier in the army and they were sent off back towards Susa with a bare minimum of provisions.
These actions broke the will of the Mahadevists. Cities began to surrender en masse, particularly in Pars, where a large proportion of the population were not believers in any case. The Zoroastrians loudly denounced Husrava as false, and the Mahadevists themselves begged for leniency and generally received it. With subsequent years, an anti-messianic faction within the Mahadevists would gain prominence, and they would be relegated to an influential but nevertheless fringe sect within the Middle East.
But for now, Vinayaditya had larger problems than religious factionalism. With the Mahadevists subdued, it was his forces that effectively controlled the core of their short-lived empire. Tengin Shah, racing to catch up, had already been bled badly in battle. Furthermore, he was suffering mass desertions: the Asvha had left to defend their own homelands, leaving him leading mostly his own Turkic troops, which were relatively few in number. When he finally met up with Vinayaditya roughly a week after Belabad, Vinayaditya organized a grand banquet to celebrate their victory. He cheerfully announced to Tengin that together, they had restored the Eftal Shahdom. He proposed a marriage between Tengin and his daughter, that might seal their alliance. Tengin, in good spirits and feeling triumphant in spite of his personal setbacks, agreed. That night, however, as Tengin's soldiers became drunk, a contingent of the Eftal who had remained sober fell on them and began a vicious, one-sided massacre.
Tengin himself fled, but most of his retainers were captured or killed, sacrificing their lives to allow him to escape Vinayaditya's royal tent. He stumbled, wounded, through the avenues of his camp. Because he was not in his distinctive armor but rather casually dressed, he escaped notice for some time. He witnessed the annihilation of his army and Vinayaditya's triumph and abandoning all hope, he took his own life.
Vinayaditya, however, had little time to enjoy the spoils of war. Sefandiyar was carving out a kingdom for himself around the ancient city of Ahmatan in the north. Furthermore, word had finally reached him that Syarzur was in open rebellion, led by Mihiraban Oadhya. If he had acted quickly, he might have nipped both threats in the bud, but after arriving in Susa, the Shah of the Red Eftal fell into a deep depression. He was wracked by guilt over his actions, and he did not ride against either of the pretenders. Mihiraban, having gained the loyalty of Syrazur and an alliance with Toramana of Syria, swept south. He captured Tesifon in the summer of 686, and from there grew only more bold. The subsequent year, Mihiraban would make a secret pact with Sulukichor, granting him and his men large tracts of Mahadevist-owned land in the south in exchange for his allegiance, and critically, his betrayal of Sefandiyar.
The new Syarzuri army, led by Mihiraban struck directly at Ahmatan, and when Sefandiyar met them, the betrayal happened just as planned. Sulukichor, just as at Yazd, fell back rather than engaging, allowing a contingent of Toramana's Syrian cavalry to flank Sefandiyar and put his army to rout. By the year's end, Ahmatan had been brought under the Syarzuri yoke. Perhaps wisely, Mihiraban made no further use of the Turkic mercenaries, preferring to keep them on as a garrison unit only - where Sulukichor could not betray him at a critical moment as he had done to both his former employers.
With this, Vinayaditya was finally spurred into action. He rode west to Kaskar, from where he planned to strike at Tesifon, retaking the ruined city which he could use as a base of operations from which to attack Syarzur and regain the initiative. However, Tormana was waiting for him with some ten thousand men. Vinayaditya lost his nerve and attempted to retreat, but realized that he would need to cross the rain-swollen Tigris, now with an enemy at his back. He ordered his forces to scatter, believing more of them would be preserved that way, but ultimately it merely allowed the Syrians to single out the royal companions and target them in isolation from the main body of his troops.
Vinayaditya's body was never recovered. It is believed he drowned in the Tigris, and while many of his troops escaped, the Red Eftal would flee back to Kerman, their ambitions thwarted. In 688, Mihiraban was crowned Shah in Susa, as sole ruler of a much diminished Eftal Empire.
Mihiraban was left with a problem no different from that faced by the Mahadevists, but unlike the Mahadevists he was able to utilize the literate Christian and Buddhist populations of his empire in governance. Monks were called upon to train the latest generation of Imperial bureaucrats, and for once a sense of order was restored. Relative peace prevailed from Constantinople to Tokharestan.
Rather than the old Satrapal system, Mihiraban divided the provinces into many smaller territories, typically centered around a single urban area or a cluster of towns. These were given as hereditary fiefs to various aristocrats who had served with him, typically from prominent Iranian Eftal clans. Known as Vayan,(Lords), each Vaya was responsible for raising troops in times of war, providing taxes to the central government, and maintaining order in his territories, being allowed in exchange a reasonable degree of autonomy in how they managed their fiefs. Above these local lords in rank was a higher layer of nobility - the Padivayan, whose dominions did not overlap with the Vaya, but were granted more important border territories, where they effectively served as Marquisates with an even greater degree of autonomy.
The next five years were ones of consolidation. The Mahadevist priesthood was lucky to escape at all the purges visited upon them - the faith was in many locations driven underground, with many of its practitioners beginning to give devotion to other Indian or Eftal gods so as to appear less sectarian. Those fringe sects which claimed that Husrava would be reborn were massacred. Others would subsequently claim to be Zoroastrian, a religion which itself would never quite recover from the trauma of the "false Saosyant" - but it would largely escape persecution and as such would simply slowly become a minority faith in the face of the prevalent synthesis of dharmic and Eftal beliefs.
In 694, Shah Khalinga would die. He had reached a great age and would remembered fondly by those who chronicled his reign. However, he left an unclear succession - having never had the heart to do away with his co-Shah, now a thirty-year old man named Freduna. His chosen heir, Khauwashta, had the support of the majority, being middle-aged and quite capable himself, but when Freduna refused to step down as Shah and retire to a spacious estate, tensions flared - Mihiraban chose to intervene. Knowing Freduna had few other options, and might well die if push came to shove against Khauwashta, the Shah offered Freduna his late father's satrapy (a position which would effectively make him the sole Satrap in the new Eftal Empire) and promised to deal with Khauwashta. As his options evaporated and his companions began to abandon him, Freduna took the deal.
The subsequent invasion would be rather hard-fought. Gilan had many strong fortresses and though Khauwashta could not bring a great army against Mihiraban, the war would take four years of on-and-off sieges and counter-sieges before finally Khauwashta himself accepted terms, being reduced to the rank of Padivaya.
While the Oadyan Empire certainly claimed to be inheritors of the Eftal legacy, in truth they should rightly be regarded as something distinct. Their court culture resembled more strongly the provincial culture of Syarzur than the high culture of the old Eftal Royals. The elite, and almost all of the new lords were to some degree Buddhist or pagans deeply influenced by Buddhist teachings - unlike the multitude of religions among their predecessors. All spoke the same Syarzuri dialect and most were at least distantly bound together by blood. A much greater portion of their population, especially within the low echelons of the military class, was Turkic and identified as such. Nomadism and pastoralism, particularly in the east, were much more pervasive.
The Oadyan furthermore moved the capital to Ahmatan [Hamadan, or Ecbatana] the old Sassanid summer residence, it was renovated and new temples and palaces were built to accommodate the royal clan. A smaller city than Susa (which remained to a large degree the administrative center) Ahmatan became a new Piandjikent. Centrally located in comparison, it reflected the fact that threats to the new Empire could come from essentially any direction - the roaming tribes of the East, the more settled Eftal states of the west, or the patchwork of Alan and Turkic warlords who ruled in Armenia.
The Prophetess Fadia would die in 654, and, according to Saihist tradition it was not a tragedy but a miracle - an ascension to oneness with the God. With her passing the religion changed fundamentally. Without the one "pure center of revelation", as she was sometimes known, there was no central unity, no organized hierarchy of who should claim the mantle of her holy authority. She was by no means a sole prophet - others, including her husband Abdulilat, claimed to receive messages from Alilat during certain states of ecstatic meditation.
The conquests of Nu'maan ibn Mundhir had politically united the northern Hejaz under Saihism, but he was a legalist, a tribal patriarch in a very different mould from the mercantile clans of al-Ta'if. The fanaticism of his followers and his victories attested to the utility of the religion. Rightly, he claimed to the Commander of the Believers (Amir al-Muminin). In the south, in the city of the goddess, the local priesthood claimed doctrinal authority, and was led by Abdulilat. He and Fadia had been childless, but his relations, the influential and powerful Banu Thaqif were eager to ensure their own position in whatever structure emerged out of the death of the Prophetess. Both of these factions realized that if their community was to survive, surrounded as they were by unbelievers, compromise would be necessary.
Nu'maan ibn Mundhir was, more than just a military leader or a religious figure, a reformer. Part of what made his message appealing is that he brought to the mysticism of the Suwar a set of empowering legal and societal reforms. In the example of the Prophetess Fadia and the female priesthood of Alilat, he sought to elevate the status of women, end female infanticide and rape, and allow women the right to divorce by the simple affirmation "I divorce you." That he enacted these reforms with often strict and brutal commandments was merely a sign of the times. He mandated charity among the believers, taking Fadia's message of the equality of all souls to heart. However, as a tribal leader he did not make a clear break with his culture in many respects - he defined masculine virtue as heroic bravery in warfare, femininity as meditative closeness to the divine, and he saw slaves captured in war as incapable of being part of the community of believers.
It would be Nu'maan who shaped the practical side of the religion most strongly. At the Council of al-Ta'if, better known as the Council of the Partisans, the organization of the new faith was solidified. Nu'maan ibn Mundhir received important concessions. His formulation of the Suwar as a holy book oHHwas declared divinely chosen (and thus official). His position as a sort of first among equals, or Amir, was solidified, and his son Khalid married the daughter of the Thaqif patriarch, Hasan ibn Muttalib. In return, he conceded that he was a purely secular leader - divinely inspired, perhaps, but secular nevertheless. "I am not a Prophet, but a humble servant of the God and the Absolute" he told the assembled. Thereafter, the assembled tribal leaders pledged their loyalty to Nu'maan and the Banu Ghatafan.
Beyond merely resolving this dispute of authority, another important decision was made. It was declared incumbent upon the faithful to share their revelation. Missionaries would have to be sent forth. Every Saihist had an obligation to share the revelations of Fadia.
These revelations, now codified, began to become a coherent set of six steps, each building upon each other in pursuit of the Absolute. To fail in these steps was to find oneself far from the gods in the next life. Unlike the Dharmic religions one was not incarnated again into this world but rather into another one, the specifics of which were uncertain. Those who came close to oneness with the would be reborn close to gods and thus live in sensual bliss, while those who failed would exist far from the bliss of the gods, or alternately fall into oblivion depending on the magnitude of their sins. The steps were:
Abstaining from falsehood, dishonor, theft, and violence. (except when necessary in defense of the faith)
Giving charity and comfort to all.
Prayer and veneration to the gods and foremost among them Alilat.
Understanding of the Suwar.
Meditation to understand the Absolute.
Attain oneness with the Absolute. (Paradise)
Even those who accomplished even a few of these steps would not be so far from the abode of the Gods. Those who accomplished all were held as figures of great holiness, and elevated by the community to the status of "saints" - a concept adopted relatively later, certainly after the life of Fadia. Figures such as Nu'maan would eventually receive this honor.
Even as the Saihists consolidated, the Hadhramut Kingdom to the south continued to unravel. The Malik, Qahtan ibn Amar (651-673) had little authority outside of Shabwa. Certain cities, such as the Christian community of Najran felt the need to express autonomy as Indian ideas and religions such as Buddhism and Jainism drew increasingly larger numbers of devotees. However, as they did so they became easy prey for the Saihists, who struck south with increasing impunity. Khalid ibn Nu'maan would conquer Najran in 668, and finally, in what was a crushing blow to the Hadhrami spice trade, Sana'a in 672. Shortly thereafter, Qahtan would be overthrown, replaced by his son Imru, who attempted to counteract the southwards spread of the now unified community of the believers.
The impetus for the Saihist attacks is unclear, but can possibly be traced to the Hadhrami slowly orienting their trade once more towards maritime activity. As their caravans became less profitable and less frequent, the Saihists were forced to go to war to gain plunder. Once they realized the weakness and decentralization of the Hadhramut they would capitalize on these raids.
The Hadhrami military at this point was significantly atrophied. It had never been exceptionally powerful - the mercantile kings of South Arabia relied on control over water supplies, tariffs, and the spice production to retain their dominance. They were not significantly militaristic, and this explains the appeal of nonviolent creeds such as Buddhism and Jainism among the South Arabians. Where the latter Eftal and Turks always had to reconcile their faith and the endemic warfare in which they participated, it was easier for the urban, "civilized" Hadhrami to do so. Saihism by contrast allowed far more justifications for war and plunder, and the people of Hejaz had always been more warlike, needing to defend themselves against the Bedouin of the interior.
As such, the eventual fall of the Hadhrami was not unsurprising. Khalid finally conquered them in 687, placing a believer, a member of the Thaqif named Mansur ibn Ali on the throne. However, over time this new dominion would be loose. So long as the Malik sent tribute and a portion of the trade north, he was allowed to handle his affairs as he chose. While the Malik did promote the Saihist faith, he did not persecute others for their own beliefs, seeing them as merely on alternative paths to righteousness. As such, the Hadhramut maintained their relative monopoly on trade in southern Arabia.
The Saihists spread north as well. The Christian tribes of the Tayy, under al-Harith ibn Yusuf, fought hard to avoid the same fate as their southern coreligionists of languishing under a "pagan" king. Fortunately, they were numerous and capable of mobilizing a large population and many federate allies to war. The Saihist penetration northwards was thus continually thwarted. While the Tayy were not urban, and indeed were rather poor, lacking any major trade routes, they nevertheless were able to style themselves as defenders of Christendom, and cultivate a rough alliance with the Heshanids, despite being Nestorian.
As such, the particular details of Saihism and the Suwar never reached the Eftal world or the Mediterranean in any great numbers. Sporadic missionaries found themselves rebuffed, but there was no mass transmission of ideas. Saihism remained a primarily Arab phenomenon, and even within the peninsula limited in scope to some degree.
Two Years of Anarchy and Betrayal - the end of the Mahadevist moment - rise of the new empire
After the battle, when the dead were burned or left for the birds of the air, Tengin Shah and his picked retainers crossed the sweeping scrubland plains south of Yazd to meet with the mercenary captains - especially the so-called Shah Sefandiyar. While Tengin might have felt some lingering caution and uncertainty about the results of the battle, he could not help but feel the elation of a clear victory. This was his triumph. These mercenaries would not take that credit from him.
When he arrived at the meeting-place, two mornings after the battle, he could not have been more baffled by the claims of the man who had named himself the leader the mercenaries - Sefandiyar of Komis, the man who would be Shah. Sefandiyar claimed to be the descendant of the first Shah Akhshunwar, the legendary conqueror of Iran himself. Tengin naturally was skeptical. The Persian chronicler Farrokh claims that he derisively replied that "every horse-thief from Edessa to Kabul" claimed ancestry from Akhshunwar. Sefandiyar, quick-witted, replied that Heshana himself began his career as a horse-thief, and ultimately became a great conqueror. He offered to work with Tengin - together they could carve out an empire for themselves before the Mahadevists had a chance to recover.
Tengin, unimpressed, turned and left. Why should he share the spoils of the Mahadevist Empire? Especially with a cabal of men who had proven themselves untrustworthy by their very actions in the previous battle? By the time he reached his own camp, Sefandiyar's army had broken camp and was riding north. Meanwhile, Husrava's column was trailing south, and Tengin had dispatched Shah Vinayaditya, the leader of the Kidarite, or Red Eftal, to pursue and harass the retreating army. An accomplished commander in his own right, and a masterful leader of horse, Vinayaditya would ultimately catch Husrava near Belabad. The abortive battle would see thousands of the "Green Banners" captured and Husrava himself, badly wounded and with a spreading infection, taken into the custody of the Shah.
Rather than allow any among them to become martyrs, Vinayaditya ordered the sickly Shahanshah paraded past a line of the captured Green Banner soldiers. When he reached the end of his parade, he was beaten savagely before being returned to a cage. Subsequently, each one of the captive Mahadevists was blinded except for one in a hundred, who was given the responsibility of leading his comrades. When the self-proclaimed Saosyant passed away of his infection three days later, the news was related to every soldier in the army and they were sent off back towards Susa with a bare minimum of provisions.
These actions broke the will of the Mahadevists. Cities began to surrender en masse, particularly in Pars, where a large proportion of the population were not believers in any case. The Zoroastrians loudly denounced Husrava as false, and the Mahadevists themselves begged for leniency and generally received it. With subsequent years, an anti-messianic faction within the Mahadevists would gain prominence, and they would be relegated to an influential but nevertheless fringe sect within the Middle East.
But for now, Vinayaditya had larger problems than religious factionalism. With the Mahadevists subdued, it was his forces that effectively controlled the core of their short-lived empire. Tengin Shah, racing to catch up, had already been bled badly in battle. Furthermore, he was suffering mass desertions: the Asvha had left to defend their own homelands, leaving him leading mostly his own Turkic troops, which were relatively few in number. When he finally met up with Vinayaditya roughly a week after Belabad, Vinayaditya organized a grand banquet to celebrate their victory. He cheerfully announced to Tengin that together, they had restored the Eftal Shahdom. He proposed a marriage between Tengin and his daughter, that might seal their alliance. Tengin, in good spirits and feeling triumphant in spite of his personal setbacks, agreed. That night, however, as Tengin's soldiers became drunk, a contingent of the Eftal who had remained sober fell on them and began a vicious, one-sided massacre.
Tengin himself fled, but most of his retainers were captured or killed, sacrificing their lives to allow him to escape Vinayaditya's royal tent. He stumbled, wounded, through the avenues of his camp. Because he was not in his distinctive armor but rather casually dressed, he escaped notice for some time. He witnessed the annihilation of his army and Vinayaditya's triumph and abandoning all hope, he took his own life.
Vinayaditya, however, had little time to enjoy the spoils of war. Sefandiyar was carving out a kingdom for himself around the ancient city of Ahmatan in the north. Furthermore, word had finally reached him that Syarzur was in open rebellion, led by Mihiraban Oadhya. If he had acted quickly, he might have nipped both threats in the bud, but after arriving in Susa, the Shah of the Red Eftal fell into a deep depression. He was wracked by guilt over his actions, and he did not ride against either of the pretenders. Mihiraban, having gained the loyalty of Syrazur and an alliance with Toramana of Syria, swept south. He captured Tesifon in the summer of 686, and from there grew only more bold. The subsequent year, Mihiraban would make a secret pact with Sulukichor, granting him and his men large tracts of Mahadevist-owned land in the south in exchange for his allegiance, and critically, his betrayal of Sefandiyar.
The new Syarzuri army, led by Mihiraban struck directly at Ahmatan, and when Sefandiyar met them, the betrayal happened just as planned. Sulukichor, just as at Yazd, fell back rather than engaging, allowing a contingent of Toramana's Syrian cavalry to flank Sefandiyar and put his army to rout. By the year's end, Ahmatan had been brought under the Syarzuri yoke. Perhaps wisely, Mihiraban made no further use of the Turkic mercenaries, preferring to keep them on as a garrison unit only - where Sulukichor could not betray him at a critical moment as he had done to both his former employers.
With this, Vinayaditya was finally spurred into action. He rode west to Kaskar, from where he planned to strike at Tesifon, retaking the ruined city which he could use as a base of operations from which to attack Syarzur and regain the initiative. However, Tormana was waiting for him with some ten thousand men. Vinayaditya lost his nerve and attempted to retreat, but realized that he would need to cross the rain-swollen Tigris, now with an enemy at his back. He ordered his forces to scatter, believing more of them would be preserved that way, but ultimately it merely allowed the Syrians to single out the royal companions and target them in isolation from the main body of his troops.
Vinayaditya's body was never recovered. It is believed he drowned in the Tigris, and while many of his troops escaped, the Red Eftal would flee back to Kerman, their ambitions thwarted. In 688, Mihiraban was crowned Shah in Susa, as sole ruler of a much diminished Eftal Empire.
Mihiraban was left with a problem no different from that faced by the Mahadevists, but unlike the Mahadevists he was able to utilize the literate Christian and Buddhist populations of his empire in governance. Monks were called upon to train the latest generation of Imperial bureaucrats, and for once a sense of order was restored. Relative peace prevailed from Constantinople to Tokharestan.
Rather than the old Satrapal system, Mihiraban divided the provinces into many smaller territories, typically centered around a single urban area or a cluster of towns. These were given as hereditary fiefs to various aristocrats who had served with him, typically from prominent Iranian Eftal clans. Known as Vayan,(Lords), each Vaya was responsible for raising troops in times of war, providing taxes to the central government, and maintaining order in his territories, being allowed in exchange a reasonable degree of autonomy in how they managed their fiefs. Above these local lords in rank was a higher layer of nobility - the Padivayan, whose dominions did not overlap with the Vaya, but were granted more important border territories, where they effectively served as Marquisates with an even greater degree of autonomy.
The next five years were ones of consolidation. The Mahadevist priesthood was lucky to escape at all the purges visited upon them - the faith was in many locations driven underground, with many of its practitioners beginning to give devotion to other Indian or Eftal gods so as to appear less sectarian. Those fringe sects which claimed that Husrava would be reborn were massacred. Others would subsequently claim to be Zoroastrian, a religion which itself would never quite recover from the trauma of the "false Saosyant" - but it would largely escape persecution and as such would simply slowly become a minority faith in the face of the prevalent synthesis of dharmic and Eftal beliefs.
In 694, Shah Khalinga would die. He had reached a great age and would remembered fondly by those who chronicled his reign. However, he left an unclear succession - having never had the heart to do away with his co-Shah, now a thirty-year old man named Freduna. His chosen heir, Khauwashta, had the support of the majority, being middle-aged and quite capable himself, but when Freduna refused to step down as Shah and retire to a spacious estate, tensions flared - Mihiraban chose to intervene. Knowing Freduna had few other options, and might well die if push came to shove against Khauwashta, the Shah offered Freduna his late father's satrapy (a position which would effectively make him the sole Satrap in the new Eftal Empire) and promised to deal with Khauwashta. As his options evaporated and his companions began to abandon him, Freduna took the deal.
The subsequent invasion would be rather hard-fought. Gilan had many strong fortresses and though Khauwashta could not bring a great army against Mihiraban, the war would take four years of on-and-off sieges and counter-sieges before finally Khauwashta himself accepted terms, being reduced to the rank of Padivaya.
While the Oadyan Empire certainly claimed to be inheritors of the Eftal legacy, in truth they should rightly be regarded as something distinct. Their court culture resembled more strongly the provincial culture of Syarzur than the high culture of the old Eftal Royals. The elite, and almost all of the new lords were to some degree Buddhist or pagans deeply influenced by Buddhist teachings - unlike the multitude of religions among their predecessors. All spoke the same Syarzuri dialect and most were at least distantly bound together by blood. A much greater portion of their population, especially within the low echelons of the military class, was Turkic and identified as such. Nomadism and pastoralism, particularly in the east, were much more pervasive.
The Oadyan furthermore moved the capital to Ahmatan [Hamadan, or Ecbatana] the old Sassanid summer residence, it was renovated and new temples and palaces were built to accommodate the royal clan. A smaller city than Susa (which remained to a large degree the administrative center) Ahmatan became a new Piandjikent. Centrally located in comparison, it reflected the fact that threats to the new Empire could come from essentially any direction - the roaming tribes of the East, the more settled Eftal states of the west, or the patchwork of Alan and Turkic warlords who ruled in Armenia.
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