Faith and Fanaticism in the early Iranshahr
The Khardi in the early eleventh century found themselves in an uncomfortable position. Most of their population believed, in one way or another, in the message of the Buddha. However, the problem was very much that none could agree on the proper manner in which to do so. Early persecutions of the Nowbahar movement eventually began to give way. The very persecutions which had been so effective at silencing the fanatical mobs of temple looters had given rise to a more insidious, intellectual movement.
Attacking temples of peaceful monks became increasingly unpalatable, especially for the Ifthal, who since the early days of their Empire had generally held religious sites to be inviolate. Even if that custom had begun somewhat cynically, it now very much kept the martial aristocracy of the Iranshahr from uniting behind Mitradharma. This was a dangerous position to be in – the Khardi were thin on the ground outside of their base of power in Mesopotamia, and technically Mitradharma was as much Ifthal as he was one of them. Ultimately, the Padishah was forced to end his persecutions of the Nowbahar.
Fortunately for Shah Mitradharma, few would remember the legacy of his persecutions. Like many conquering heroes, his legacy was one of martial achievements. It would be his children who would inherit the mess he left behind. Anushiruwan, Mitradharma’s son and heir would be remembered largely as a divisive figure. He believed strongly in the polytheist Khardi gods of his mother, and in general his faith was seen as provincial and limited. His advisors urged him to treat with the Nowbahar and visit a temple to Shiva or Ohrmazd, but his attempts to seem multicultural generally seemed insincere instead – a dangerous position for a man at the top of a vast, multiethnic empire. The manner in which the ancient Eftal kings had ruled seemed unlikely to work in the sectarian era they had left in their wake.
Anushiruwan was assassinated in 1014 by a member of an ecstatic sect called the Homihina, a notorious group of ecstatic deity-worshipping Iranian dancers and mystics who found the Shah’s attempts to reach out to the Nowbahar threatening.
The roots of the Homihina stretched back almost to the era the Oadhyan Eftal, but unlike most of their contemporaries they had not been prominent or political. Largely they were small groups of the urban middle-class who gathered in secret to dance and take certain psychoactive drugs. Even the rise of the Nowbahar had not impacted them significantly until 978, when the first anti-Homihina tract was published by a Nowbahar preacher who had once been a member of the cult. Suddenly the Homihina were feared and hated, and the group became militant in response.
The Homihina owed much to the early Mahadevists, and indeed revered Husrava Shah as a martyr whose attempt to restore the world did not make him the prophesized Saosyant but rather a herald who dreamed of bringing the Saosyant to life through pre-emptive struggle. The Khardi Shahs needed to be led to the proper path and used as a tool to create a true universal Empire which the Saosyant could rule over. However, in general their appeal was far more limited than the Mahadevists, since they grew out of a more prosperous era – and as such they remained a violent and isolated sect which by 1020 was pushed almost entirely underground. However, there was something universal in their appeal: since the era of the Eftal, the Iranian people had been subjects, and what was more their attempts to rise up had largely been destroyed by outsiders – Turks and nomads.
Artaxser, Anushiruwan’s son and heir, took power in 1014 after the assassination of his father, and unlike his father he sought to utilize the religious anger and fanaticism that had been a facet of Iranian cultural life ever since the fall of the Eftal Empire. He cast himself as a truly Iranian ruler, and did it in a synthesis of Buddhist and Iranian terms. He would be a Universal Ruler, a Chakravarti King whose reign would bring about true justice.
Despite the political and religious turmoil which had wracked the Aghatsaghids and the early Iranshahr, Mitradharma’s dynasty was militarily strong. Their Ifthal and Turkic mercenaries cared little what propaganda the Khardi used to motivate their own people, and were more than happy to go to war and gain plunder and land. The Khardi still had a vast population of young men who were more than happy to be settled as military garrisons if it meant the same plunder and land. The Nowbahar, meanwhile, were enthused at the prospect of a war against Christians, knowing that true enlightenment could only be spread if idolater states were destroyed, and Christians were the worst sorts of idolaters, because unlike polytheists they didn’t even acknowledge the Buddha.
For the first time in history, a sort of eastern equivalent of the Votivist sentiment existed. Historians have long argued if it was an organic development brought about by internal changes in the culture of ancient Iran, or a development inspired (like the Nowbahar themselves perhaps) by prolonged contact with the West. Either way, for the first time, the Iranshahr would wage a holy war of their own.
Egypt in the Tenth Century
Their target, ironically, was Egypt, a country with whom the Khardi had long enjoyed mutually beneficial relations. The latter Heshanid monarchs were primarily focused on Africa and Arabia, from which the sources of all their wealth flowed. Since the fall of the Padivayanate of Syria in 924, the new Kurdish rulers had largely maintained friendly relations with their neighbors to the southwest, and forbid the Syrian Eftal from raiding into Egypt.
The Heshanid state was becoming increasingly maritime in its focus. It had no illusions about taking Syria from the Eftal in any case, and indeed would have been harmed by damaging the overland trade routes between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean. Instead, it focused on gaining allies among the former Saihist regions of Arabia, sending missionaries who frequently came back with positive results. These allies provided a critical source of cavalry to a state which otherwise was generally becoming increasingly militarily weak. Reforms of the military had drifted away from the Roman-inspired model of the early Heshanids, which mixed disciplined, flexible infantry forces with well-trained Eftal cavalry. Increasingly, this had been replaced with a more affordable system of local levies which left the Heshanids ill-equipped to handle any existential threat, but were more than sufficient for border patrols. Combined with several disastrous military interventions in Arabia, the Heshanid Shahs soured on military affairs.
This changed during the reign of Timotheos Heshanos (943-958) who faced a full-scale Berber invasion of Cyrene led by a warlord named Misibsin in 954. After the near loss of the Libyan frontier, Timotheos created a series of new frontier governors with extraordinary power to maintain professional frontier armies. However, within a generation of Timotheos’ premature death, these frontier governors would largely be replaced by the corrupt lackeys of the latest Emperor Alexandros. Misibsin, defeated but undaunted, raised a new army and succeeded in wresting Cyrene out of Egyptian hands, naming himself Agillid, or King, of the region. However, Misibsin was crafty, and willing to show nominal submission to the Emperor in Heliopolis and pay a tax if it meant he could keep his new won territory.
In 1016, Egypt was as rich as it had ever been. Misibsin’s son, Igider, even represented a friendly trade connection to the Berbers of Africa, and had even nominally converted to Christianity, despite not enforcing the faith on his kinsmen or nobles. Trade flowed up the Red Sea and much of the wealth of the Savahila and India came with it in the form of tariffs.
However, it was also an easy target for a vast and rapidly expanding empire. Padishah Artaxser assembled an army of some sixty thousand men, perhaps a third of them mounted. When he mounted his invasion, he rolled over Egyptian Syria and Palestine rapidly, destroying isolated garrisons. He paused briefly in Emesa, taking time to dedicate a new temple to the solar aspect of Mitra, and proceeded southwards, besieging Askalon and then marching on Gaza. It fell to Kaiqalagh, a Turko-Ifthal mercenary general, to capture Jerusalem, almost as an afterthought of a well-orchestrated and devastating campaign.
It was only when Artaxser reached Gaza that he was met with resistance from the Heshanid Basileus Syavos Chrysostomos and an army largely composed of Arab mercenaries. While the Coptic Christians had no interest in Votive War, their campaign was designed around reconquering Jerusalem and driving out the Khardi. Syavos earned his epithet by giving an impassioned speech to the assembled army at Tamiathis, bringing many of his captains to tears with his exhortations to recapture the sacred city.
The battle was fought on the plains of Gaza, and almost immediately it seemed that the Khardi had the upper hand. Berxwedan, the Shah’s brother, commanded the left flank and the bulk of the cavalry, and outmatched the Arab mercenaries on the Egyptian right. The main body of the Khardi infantry were under the command of Rojkhat, a Khardi viceroy with years of experience on the steppe frontier, but he was a cavalry commander by trade, and struggled to push back the Egyptian infantry, who despite generally being of low quality were motivated by religious zeal every bit as much as their Iranian counterparts. The battle lasted the better part of the day, but in the end Berxwedan’s cavalry returned and crashed into the rear of the Egyptian army, scattering it.
This was a disaster from which the Heshanid dynasty could not recover. Heliopolis, their historic palace city, was on the East bank of the Nile, and the Khardi did not even have to cross the river to take it. Once it fell, organized resistance crumbled as well.
Despite the ease of their triumph, the Khardi faced a significant problem. Unlike Syavush centuries prior, they could in no way claim to be liberators. The Heshanids were considered by the common people a thoroughly native dynasty, sharing their religion, language, and culture despite their now distant origins on the Central Asian steppe. As Syavos Heshanid fled south to Makuria, the hearts of his people went with him. The Khardi were foreign invaders with a religious mandate backing their justification for war. They had little understanding of the region they had conquered, and much of Egypt remained unpacified.
It would be a long war yet.
[Alas, poor Heshanids. The great Kurdwank marches on... for now. Stay tuned.]
