Abbas Zarei Mehrvarz; Nooreddin Nemati
Volume 1, Issue 1 , December 2011, , Pages 43-56
Abstract
At early period of Ghobad’s reign, Sassanid King (486-531AD), an important movement occurred, headed by Mazdak, for several social, economic and political reasons so that the ...
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At early period of Ghobad’s reign, Sassanid King (486-531AD), an important movement occurred, headed by Mazdak, for several social, economic and political reasons so that the king supported it in order to weaken the position of great figures and clergymen as well. Naturally, important people opposed the given movement and dethroned Ghobad King from power and he managed to resume his reign again only by the support of Hephthalites. Several years later, re-aliance of authorities and clergymen with Khosro- Ghobad third son- led to coup, Ghobad’s dismissal and killing of Mazdak and his adherents (531AD). As a result, some reforms were done to stabilize resumption of power and reputation to authorities and clergymen. After suppression of this movement, based on Khosro Anooshirvan, new king, an official narrative was recorded in KHODAY-NAMEH book (literally God’s scripture) as book of Sassanid official history by a negative perspective toward movement of Mazdak. At the same time, other several narratives were prevalent among people in written or perhaps orally. Some of these narrations were translated from Pahlavi to Arabic after fall of Sassanid (635AD) where they became very well-known during Islamic early centuries. The main narratives from Tale of Mazdak were included in some of historic, literary and political books. The authors in this essay are trying as possible to examine the probable political reasons for prevalence of these narratives in Sassanid periods and Islamic early centuries by adaptation of strong and weak points, legendary and real parts and their manipulations within books like Tabari History book, Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Syasat- Nameh of Nezam-Al-Molk, Fars- Nameh by Ibn- Balkhi, Fostat-Al-Edalat Fi-Qavaed-Al-Saltanat book by Mohammad Ibn Mahmoud Khatib.
