SSS 42. Yazdezerd III, Yazdezerd Sheheryar – The Last Sasanian Emperor (Part 5)- End

Māhuye-suri is killed

Māhuye-suri was ecstatic at the king’s death. He took his ornaments, clothes and seal from his soldiers. However, when he knew that he was given respect even in death, he was furious. He had his Dakhma broken, and the entire village was made desolate. He even killed the priests who had been kind to the late king.

Then Māhuye-suri lied to the king’s ministers that before dying the king had given him the crown and his seal because he trusted him and had asked him to occupy the throne of Iran if something happened to him. Thus with great guile and cunning, he convinced the ministers and occupied the throne. Though many ministers did not believe him, they had to obey.

Māhuye-suri gave top positions to lowly people, and removed the senior trusted people. He gifted land and wealth to his relatives. He made his elder son the governor of Balkh and Herat. Then he decided to challenge king Bizan of Samarkand, and sent his army to Samarkand.

When Bizan came to know that Māhuye-suri had occupied the Iranian throne and was intending to attack Samarkand, he too sent an army. After Māhuye-suri’s army crossed the Jaihun river, it met Bizan’s army under commander Barsām and was defeated at the city of Baykand. Māhuye-suri tried to escape, but was captured. His hands were tied, he was dragged behind a horse and taken to Bizan.

Bizan was very angry at Māhuye-suri for ending the life of the illustrious emperor of the Sasanian dynasty. He gave him a merciless death by cutting off his hands, legs, ears and nose, tying him to a horse and leaving him to die. He even ordered his three sons to be killed.

Bizan looked for a brother, relative or progeny of the last late Sasanian king to whom he could hand over the Iranian throne, but he could find none. Yazdezerd had already scattered his family and children all across his empire to ensure safety of his lineage. With this, the Shahnameh, having sixty thousand couplets, comes to an end.

Firdausi Toosi was seventy-one then and had laboured for thirty-five years of his life to complete the Shahnameh.

END OF THE SASANIAN DYNASTY