69
Late second century to fifth century/late eighth century to eleventh century
Daylam, with their centre in the Rūdbār-Shāh Rūd valleys
|
175/791 |
the ‘King of Daylam’ (? Justān I), sheltering ‘Alids |
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189/805 |
Marzubān b. Justan I, recognised the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd at Rayy |
|
? |
Justān II b. Marzubān, d. c. 251/c. 865 |
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c. 251–c.292/ |
|
|
c. 865–c. 905 |
Wahsūdān b. Justān II |
|
c. 292/c. 905 |
Justān III b. Wahsūdān, killed c. 304/c. 916 |
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307/919 |
‘Alī b. Wahsūdān, in ‘Abbāsid service at Iṣfahān and Rayy from c. 300/c. 913 onwards |
|
? |
Khusraw Fīrūz b. Wahsūdān, ruler in Rūdbār, killed after 307/919 |
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? |
Mahdī b. Khusraw Fīrūz, in Rūdbār |
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? |
Justān IV, d. 328/940, ? father of Manādhār |
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336/947 |
Manādhar b. Justān IV, ruling in Rūdbār, ? died between 358/969 and 361/972 |
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⊘361–3/972–4 |
Khusraw Shāh b. Manādhar, ruling in Rūdbār, ? died between 392/1002 and 396/1006 |
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Disappearance of the dynasty in the course of the fifth/eleventh century |
The Justānids appear as ‘Kings of Daylam’ towards the end of the eighth century, wih their centre in the Rūdbār of Alamūt, running into the valley of the Shāh Rūd, to become notorious two centuries or so later as the main centre of the Nizārī Ismā‘īlīs in Persia (see below, no. 101); but they may well have been ruling in Daylam before this. They appear in Islamic history as part of an upsurge of the hitherto submerged indigenous peoples of north-western Persia – Daylamīs, Kurds, etc. The ‘Daylamī intermezzo’, of which the Justānids and several other dynasties, culminating in the Būyids (see below, no. 75), formed part, spanned the history of western and central Persia between the disintegration of the Abbāsid caliphate’s unity and their Arab governors in western Persia and the constituting of the Great Seljuq empire (see below, no. 91, 1) across the Middle East.
After Marzubān b. Justān (I) became a Muslim in 189/805, the fortunes of the ancient family of Justānids then became connected with the Zaydī Alids of the Daylam region, and they seem to have adopted Shī‘ism. In the tenth century, they tended to be eclipsed by the vigorous and expanding sister Daylamī dynasty of the Musāfirids or Sallārids of Ṭārum (see below, no. 71, 2), with whom the Justānids had close marriage ties, although they preserved their seat at Rūdbār in the highlands of Daylam as allies of the Būyids. In the eleventh century, the Justānids are sporadically mentioned as recognising the suzerainty of the Ghaznavids and then of the incoming Seljuqs, but thereafter they fade from history.
Justi, 440; Zambaur, 192 (both of them fragmentary and defective).
EI2 ‘Daylam’ (V. Minorsky).
R. Vasmer, ‘Zur Chronologie der Ǧastāniden und Sallāriden’, Islamica, 3 (1927), 165–70, 177–9, 482–5, with a genealogical table at p. 184 correcting Zambaur.
Sayyid Aḥmad Kasravī, Shahriyārān-i gum-nām, Tehran 1307/1928, I, 22–34, with a genealogical table at p. 111.
W. Madelung, in The Cambridge History of Iran, IV, 208–9, 223–4.