Sassanid Empire Falls to Arab Conquest
642-651 CE · Late Antiquity
The Battle of Nahavand in 642 CE destroyed organized Sassanid military resistance when Rashidun forces under al-Nu'man ibn Muqarrin defeated a larger Persian army in the Zagros Mountains. The Sassanid commander abandoned a defensive position to pursue a feigned retreat, allowing Arab forces to trap and overwhelm the Persian army between mountain defiles. Yazdegerd III, the last Sassanid emperor, fled eastward for nine years before being killed by a miller in Merv in 651, ending a dynasty that had ruled Persia for over four centuries.
Key Figures
Yazdegerd IIIAl-Nu'man ibn Muqarrin
Locations
Nahavand
Topics
imperial collapseSassanid dynastyRashidun CaliphateMuslim conquest of PersiaBattle of NahavandZoroastrianism decline
Connected Events — 3 Connections
Persian intellectual traditions absorbed after the Sassanid fall later enriched the House of Wisdom in Baghdad House of Wisdom Founded in Baghdad
The Rashidun Caliphate formed after Muhammad's death launched the conquests that ended the Sassanid state Death of Muhammad and the Rashidun Succession Crisis
Arab conquest of the Sassanid Empire transmitted chatrang to the Islamic world where it became shatranj and spread across the caliphate Chess Reaches Sassanid Persia as Chatrang
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