Afshin (Caliphate General)

Khaydār b. Kāvūs Afshīn known by his hereditary title as Afshin (, Arabized Haydar b. Kavus) was a senior general at the court of Abbasid caliphs and a son of the vassal prince of Oshrūsana.

Name and family background
Afshin is a hereditary title of Oshrusana princes at the time of the Muslim conquest of Persia. The term is an Arabicized form of the Middle Persian Pishin and Avestan Pisinah, a proper name of uncertain etymology. Minorsky suggests that the title Afshin was of Sogdian origin.

During the time when the first Arab invasion of Transoxiana (including Oshrusana) took place under Qutayba ibn Muslim (94-5/712-14), Ushrusana was inhabited by an Iranian population, ruled by its own princes who bore the traditional title of Afshin.

Afshin is generally considered an Iranian,   and although two classical sources (and some modern authors) have called him a Turk, he came from an Iranian cultural region  and was not usually considered Turkish. The confusion comes from the fact that the term “Turk” was used loosely by Arab writers of the time to denote the new troops of the caliph despite the inclusion among them some elements of Iranian origin, including Ferghana and Oshrusana. In real historical time line the Turks arrived in Persia some 280 year after the invasion of Iran by the Arabs.

Early years
According to Yaqubi, during the reign of the third Abbasid caliph Al-Mahdi (775-85), Afshin of Oshrusana was mentioned among several Iranian and Turkish rulers of Transoxania and the Central Asian steppes who submitted nominally to him. But it was not until Harun al-Rashid's reign in 794-95 that al-Fadl b. Yahya al-Barmaki led an expedition into Transoxania and received the submission of the ruling Akin known as Kharākana. This Karākana had never previously humbled himself before any other potentate. Further expeditions were nevertheless sent to Oshrusana by Al-Ma'mun when he was governor in Marv and after he had become caliph. Kavus, son of the Afshin Karākana who had submitted to Fadl b. Yahya, withdrew his allegiance from the Arabs; but shortly after Ma'mun arrived in Baghdad from the east (817-18 or 819-20), a power struggle and dissensions broke out among the reigning family of Oshrusana.

According to most of the sources, al-Ma'mun's heir, Al-Mu'tasim not only made Afshin governor of Azarbaijan and seconded high-ranking officers to serve under him, but also ordered exceptionally large salaries, expense allowances, and rations for him. In 831-833, he suppressed uprisings in Egypt from remote regions to Alexandria. On June 2, 832 the news was proclaimed of his great success in taking Bima in Egypt. It surrendered to Afshin's extension of al-Ma'mun's promise of safe conduct.

Afshin and Babak


In 835, Caliph al-Mu'tasim appointed Afshin as a governor of Azerbaijan to fight against Babak Khorramdin, leader of anti-Islamic neo-Mazdakite Persian movement of the Khurramites.

After a fierce resistance by Babak's army, Afshin eventually defeated it and captured Babak's castle of Bazz in August 837. Ya'qubi (Tarikh II, 579) records Afshin freeing 7,600 Arab prisoners from this fortress, and he destroyed the castle. The Khurramite leader escaped to hiding under the protection of local Christian prince Sahl ibn-Sunbat who later turned him in to Afshin. In return to Afshin'a achievements, caliph rewarded him governorship of Sind in addition to that of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Anatolian campaign
Afshin fought alongside Mo`tasem during his campaign of 838 against the Byzantine Empire, which reached as far as Amorium, commanding the right wing in the onslaught against this fortress.

As the two prongs entered Byzantine territory separated by a hundred and fifty miles, Byzantine emperor Theophilos decided to hit one of the portions of the Muslim army, before the entire invasion force joined together. It was Afshin the emperor attacked, on 21 July 838. The ensuing battle was a decisive Muslim victory. Although the Byzantines initially held the upper hand, the effect of the Turkic horse-archers and an erroneous belief that Theophilos had been killed demoralized the Byzantine army, which broke and fled. The emperor and his surviving soldiers withdrew in disorder. They did not interfere as Afshin continued on to Ancyra, where he linked up with al-Mu'tasim.

From Ancyra, the full Muslim force advanced on the Byzantine stronghold of Amorium. A Muslim captive escaped from that city and disclosed the weakness of a section of its walls. The caliph concentrated his bombardment on this section. A breach was made there and Amorium was captured.

Downfall
Afshin's star began to decline, apparently as a result of jealousies which he had already shown against Abu Dolat- and `Abdallah b. Taher, governor of Khorasan and apparently regarded by Afshin as an upstart and a rival for power in Transoxania. He had begun intriguing with Maziar son of Qaren, an Iranian prince and Spahbed of Tabarestan in the Caspian region. Afšin allegedly encouraged Māzyār in secret, in the hope that `Abdallāh b. Tāher would be deprived of his governorship and he Afšīn, would fall heir to it. Maziar rebellion was quashed in 839 and Afshin's position now became increasingly difficult, which caused Afshin to fall from favour. His situation was made worse by the finding of alleged correspondence between him and Maziar. Further, the Khurasanian governor, Abdallah ibn Tahir, alleged that he had intercepted some of Babak's wealth Afshin had obtained in that campaign and was seeking to transfer secretly to Afshin's lands in Oshrusana. When Mazyar arrived in Samarra, Afshin was arrested.

Maziar participated in the interrogation of the former general, asserting that Afshin had conspired with him. Others present raised additional questions concerning the sincerity of Afshin's conversion to Islam from Zoroastrianism. Afshin had answers to all the allegations. He claimed that Zoroastrian artefacts and books in his possession were family heirlooms from before he had become Muslim. He explained that when he punished a pair of Muslim fanatics destroying idols in Ushrusanah he was exercising reasonable leadership aimed at maintaining the harmony of his religiously diverse territory. He told his detractors that the formulaic address his people used in writing to him in Persian as "Lord of lords", was simply a tradition and did not invalidate his personal belief in one God.

All such replies were unsuccessful. Al-Mu'tasim had a special prison built for Afshin. It was known as "The Pearl" and was in the shape of a minaret. There he spent the final nine months of his life and there he died in May–June 841.