78
c. 398–443/c. 1008–51 independent rulers; thereafter, feudatories of the Seljuqs until the mid-sixth/mid-twelfth century
Jibāl and Kurdistan
|
⊘ before 398/before 1008 |
Muḥammad b. Rustam Dushmanziyār, Abū Ja‘far ‘Alā’ al-Dawla, in Isfahan |
|
⊘ 433–43/1041–51 |
Farāmurz b. Muḥammad,‘Abū Manṣūr Ẓahīr al-Dīn Shams al-Mulk, in Isfahan, d. after 455/1063 |
|
433-c. 440/1041-c. 1048 |
Garshāsplb.Muḥammad, Abū Kālījār ‘Alā’ al-Dawla, in Hamadan and Nihāwand, d. 443/1051 |
|
? – 488/? – 1095 |
‘Alī b. Farāmurz,‘Abū Manṣūr Mu’ayyid al-Dawla or ‘Alā’ al-Dawla, in Yazd |
|
488-?536/1095-? 1141 |
Garshāsp II,‘Abū Kālījār ‘Alā’ al-Dawla ‘Aḍud al-Dīn |
|
Succession of the Atabegs of Yazd |
The Kākūyids were one of the petty Kurdish and Daylamī dynasties of the Zagros region which arose when the grip of the Būyids (see above, no. 75) was becoming relaxed, only to lose their independence and be reduced to vassalage by the rising power in Persia of the Seljuqs. Dushmanziyār had been in the service of the Būyids of Rayy, and his son Muḥammad (known as Ibn Kākūya in the sources, explained as being from a Daylamī dialect word for ‘maternal uncle’, since Muḥammad was the maternal uncle of the Būyid Amīr Majd al-Dawla) was by 398/1008 governor of Isfahan. Soon he expanded to Hamadan and into Kurdistan, building up a principality which was of some political significance for a while and forming a court circle which included the philosopher Ibn Slnā (Avicenna), who functioned as his vizier. Ghaznawid expansion into Jibāl after 420/1029 forced him temporarily to submit, but when the Ghaznawids found it difficult to retain these distant conquests he resumed his independence and even occupied Rayy for a while.
The invasions of the Turkmen Oghuz and their flocks changed the political and economic situation of northern Persia and forced the Kākūyids, like other Daylamī and Kurdish powers, on to the defensive. Farāmurz b. Muḥammad was obliged to yield Isfahan to Ṭoghrïl, who after 443/1051 made it the Seljuq capital but awarded Abarqūh and Yazd in compensation for the Kākūyids. His brother Garshāsp I fled from Kurdistan to the Būyids in Fars. With their little niche in central Persia, the later Kākūyids adapted themselves comfortably to the Great Seljuq régime, being frequently linked by marriage to the ruling sultans. After Garshāsp II, the history of the family becomes obscure, but Garshāsp’s daughter was to be linked through marriage to the line of Turkish Atabegs which succeeded in Yazd and lasted until the thirteenth century and the time of the II Khānids (see below, no. 133)
Justi, 445; Lane-Poole, 145; Zambaur, 216–17; Album, 36.
EI2 ‘Kākūyids’ (CE. Bosworth).
G. C. Miles, ‘The coinage of the Kākwayhid dynasty,’ Iraq, 5 (1938), 89–104.
idem, ‘Notes on Kākwayhid coins, ANS, Museum Notes, 9 (1960), 231–6.
C. E. Bosworth, ‘Dailamīs in central Iran: the Kākūyids of Jibāl and Yazd,’ Iran, JBIPS, 8 (1970), 73–95.