Factions' heroes

[Esis]

I made this thread to know about heroes in history.
if you have information about the heroes in Middle East please post it here.

Babak Khorramdin:
Babak Khorram-Din ( بابک خرمدین ; 795, according to some other sources 798— January 838) was one of the main Azeries revolutionary leaders of the Iranian Khorram-Dinan ("Those of the joyous religion"), which was a local freedom movement fighting the Abbasid Caliphate. Khorramdin appears to be a compound analogous to dorustdin (orthodox) and Behdin "Good Religion" (Zoroastrianism), and are considered an offshoot of neo-Mazdakism. Babak's Iranianizing rebellion, from its base in Azarbaijan in northwestern Iran,called for a return of the political glories of the Iranian past. The Khorramdin rebellion of Babak spread to the Western and Central parts of Iran and lasted more than twenty years before it was defeated. Babak's uprising showed the continuing strength in Azerbaijan of ancestral Iranian local feelings.
Babak was born into a iranian family in Azerbaijan close to the city of Artavilla (modern Ardabil). According to Wāqed ben Amr Tamimi, the oldest biographer on Babak, Babak's father was a Persian from Mada'īn (formerly known as Ctesiphon, capital of Sassanian Persian Empire, 35 km south of modern Baghdad in Iraq) who left for the Azarbaijan frontier zone and settled in the village of Balalabad in the Maymadh district. According to Fasih, his mother - a native Persian of Azarbāijān - was known as Mahru (meaning Moon-Face/Belle in Persian)
After his father's death in his early teens, Babak was given the responsibility of his 2 brothers and mother during a traditional Zoroastrian ceremony in a fire-temple. By the age of 18, Babak had established himself in the city of Tabriz and was engaged in the arms trade and industry. Later on, this engagement gave him the opportunity to travel to some regions and become familiar with regions like the Caucasia, the Middle East, and the Byzantine Empire.
In 755, Abu Muslim of Khorassan, a famous and popular Persian nationalist, was murdered. Although he had helped the Abbasids to defeat the former Caliphs, the omavid dynasty, the ruling Caliph had given the order to kill him, probably because of his increasing popularity among Iranians and Non-Muslims.Many Iranians, who had expected more freedom and more rights from the new rulers, could not believe that their hero was killed by the ruling Caliph whom they had considered a friend of Iran and Iranians.
This incident led to many revolts, mostly by angry Zoroastrians. This, in turn, forced the Caliphs to use more violence against the Iranian population in order to keep the eastern provinces under control. The constant revolts did not come to an end in the following decades, and the Iranian population of the Caliphate was constantly being oppressed.
Babak joined the Khurramiyyah (Khorram-Dinan). The story of joining the Khorrami movement is being told in Waqed's account, in summary, as follows:
Two rich men named Javidan b. Shahrak (or Shahrak) and Abu 'Emran were then living in the highland around the mountain of Badd and contending for the leadership of the highland's Khorrami inhabitants. Javidan, when stuck in the snow on his way back from Zanjan to Badd, had to seek shelter at Balalabad and happened to go into the house of Babak's mother. Being poor, she could only light a fire for him, while Babak looked after the guest's servants and horses and brought water for them. Javidan then sent Babak to buy food, wine, and fodder. When Babak came back and spoke to Javidan, he impressed Javidan with his shrewdness despite his lack of fluency of speech. Javidan therefore asked the woman for permission to take her son away to manage his farms and properties, and offered to send her fifty dirhams a month from Babak's salary. The woman accepted and let Babak go.
Under the direction of his mentor Javidan Shahrak, a leader of one of the sects of the Khorramdin, Babak's knowledge of history, geography, and the latest battle tactics strengthened his position as a favorite candidate for commander during the early wars against the Arab occupiers.
Babak was a highly spiritual person who respected his Zoroastrian heritage. He made every possible effort to bring Iranians together and also with leaders such as Maziar to form a united front against the Arab Caliph. According to the medieval historian, Ibn Esfandyar, who composed the book Tarikh-e Tabaristan "History of Tabaristan", Maziar said:
I (Maziyar), Afshin Kheydar son of Kavus, and Babak had made an oath and allegiance that we re-take the government back from the Arabs and transfer the government and the country back to the family of Kasraviyan (Sassanids)"
However, one of the most dramatic periods in the history of Iran was set under Babak's leadership between 816-837. During these most crucial years, they not only fought against the Caliphate, but also for the preservation of Persian language and culture.
After the death of Javidan, Babak married Javidan's wife and became the Khorramis' leader, sometime in the year 816-17 during al-Ma'mun's reign. Babak incited his followers to rise in rebellion against the caliphal regime. The reports state that Babak called Persians to arms, seized castles and strong points, thereby barring roads to his enemies. Gradually a large multitude joined him.
According to Vladimir Minorsky, around the 9th-10th century:
"The original sedentary population of Azarbayjan consisted of a mass of peasants and at the time of the Arab conquest was compromised under the semi-contemptuous term of Uluj ("non-Arab") - somewhat similar to the raya (ri’aya) of the Ottoman empire. The only arms of this peaceful rustic population were slings, see Tabari, II, 1379-89. They spoke a number of dialects (Adhari (Azari), Talishi) of which even now there remains some islets surviving amidst the Turkish speaking population. It was this basic population on which Babak leaned in his revolt against the caliphate.
There had long been groups of Khorramis scattered in Isfahan, Azarbaijan, Ray, Hamadan, Armenia, Gorgan, and elsewhere in Iran, and there had been some earlier Khorrami revolts, e.g., in Gorgan jointly with Red Banner (Sorkh-'alaman) Batenis in the caliph Al-Mahdi's reign in 778-79, when 'Amr b. 'Ala', the governor of Tabarestān, was ordered to repulse them, and at Isfahan, Ray, Hamadan, and elsewhere in Harun al-Rashid's realm, when 'Abd-Allah b. Malek and Abu Dolaf 'Ejli put them down on caliph's behalf - but none had the scale and duration of Babak's revolt, which pinned down caliphal armies for twenty years. After Babak's emergence, the Khorrami movement was centered in Azarbaijan and reinforced with volunteers from elsewhere, probably including descendants of Abu Moslem's supporters and other Iranian enemies of the 'Abbasid caliphate. The figures given for the strength of Babak's Khorramdinan army, such as 100,000 men (Abu'l-Ma'ali), 200,000 (Mas'udi), or innumerable (Baghdadi) are doubtless highly exaggerated but at least indicate that it was large. At that time of Babak, there were Khorramis scattered in many regions of Iran, besides Azerbaijan, reportedly in Tabarestan, Khorasan, Balkh, Isfahan, Kashan, Qom, Ray, Karaj, Hamadan, Lorestan, Khuzestan as well as in Basra, and Armenia
Tabari records that Babak claimed he possessed Javadan's spirit and that Babak became active in 816-817. In 819-820 Yahya ibn Mu'adh fought against Babak, but could not defeat him. Two years later Babak vanquished the forces of Isa ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Khalid. In 824-825 the caliphal general Ahmad ibn al Junayd was sent against Babak. Babak defeated and captured him.
In 827-828 Muhammad ibn Humayd Tusi was dispatched to fight Babak. He won a victory and sent some captured enemy, but not Babak, to al-Ma'mun. However, about two years later, on June 9, 829, Babak won a decisive victory over this general at Hashtadsar. Muhammad ibn Humayd lost his life. Many of his soldiers were killed. The survivors fled in disarray.
In 835-836 the caliph al-Mu'tasim sent his outstanding general Afshin against Babak. Afshin rebuilt fortresses. He employed a relay system to protect supply caravans. Babak tried to capture the money being sent to pay Afshin's army, but was himself surprised, lost many men and barely escaped. He did succeed in capturing some supplies and inflicting some hardship on his enemies. Amongst Babak's commander, various names have been mentioned including Azin, Rostam, Tarkhan, Mua’wiyah and Abdullah.
The next year Babak routed the forces of Afshin's subordinate, Bugha al-Kabir. In 837-838 al-Mu'tasim reinforced Afshin and provided him clear military instructions. Patiently following these enabled Afshin to capture Babak's stronghold of Badhdh. Babak escaped. Al-Mu'tasim sent a safety guarantee for Babak to Afshin. This was taken to Babak who was very displeased. He said:
"Better to live for just a single day as a ruler than to live for forty years as an abject slave."
He made his way to the Armenian leader Sahl Smbatean (Sahl ibn Sunbat in Arab sources), Prince of Khachen. Sahl Smbatian, however, handed Babak over to Afshin, for big amount of reward. Al-Mu'tasim commanded his general to bring Babak to him. Afshin informed Babak of this and told him since Babak might never return, this was the time to take a last look around. At Babak's request, Afshin allowed his prisoner to go to Badhdh. There Babak walked through his ruined stronghold one night until dawn.
Eventually, Babak, his wife, and his warriors were forced to leave (Ghaleye Babak) after 23 years of constant campaigns. He was eventually betrayed by Afshin and was handed over to the Abbasid Caliph. During Babak's execution, the Caliph's henchmen first cut off his legs and hands in order to convey the most devastating message to his followers. The legend says that Babak bravely rinsed his face with the drained blood pouring out of his cuts, thus depriving the Caliph and the rest of the Abbasid army from seeing his pale face, a result of the heavy loss of blood.
(Babak's Fort)

[Mahmood]

Are you OK ?!
Babak lived in 798 — 838 then you say he is a hero in BC ?

[Esis]

i didn't say hero in BC.
you right but he was hero in azerbijan and standed against the abbasids.

[Mahmood]

Yes , He was a Persian hero against Arabs ...

[Esis]

Jalal ad-Din Khwarezmshahi:
Jalal ad-Din (or Jelal ad-Din) Mingburnu, also known as Mengubirti or Manguberdi (Turkish: Mengü verdi; Godgiven) or Minkburny in the east (Persian: جلال الدین منگبرنی) was the last ruler of the Khwarezmid Empire. Following the defeat of his father, Ala ad-Din Muhammad II by Genghis Khan in 1220, Jelal ad-Din Manguberdi came to power but he rejected the title shah that his father had assumed and called himself simply sultan. Due to the Mongol invasion and sacking of Samarkand, he was forced to flee to India with an escort of only five thousand men. At the river Indus however, the Mongols caught up with him and killed his forces and thousands of refugees at the Battle of Indus. He escaped and sought asylum in the Sultanate of Delhi. Iltumish however denied this to him in deference to the relationship with the Abassid caliphs.
Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu spent three years in exile in India before returning to Persia. He gathered an army and re-established a kingdom. He never consolidated his power however, and he spent the rest of his days struggling against Mongols, pretenders to the throne and the Seljuk Turks of Rum. He lost his power over Persia in a battle against the Mongols in the Alborz Mountains and fled to the Caucasus, to capture Azerbaijan in 1225, setting up their capital at Tabriz. In 1226 he attacked Georgia and sacked Tbilisi, destroying all the churches.
Jalal had a brief victory over the Seljuks and captured the town Akhlat from Ayyubids. However, he was later defeated by Sultan Kayqubad I at Erzincan on the Upper Euphrates at the Battle of Yassıçemen (Yassi Chemen) in 1230, from where he escaped to Diyarbakir while the Mongols captured Azerbaijan in the ensuing confusion. He was murdered in 1231 in Diyarbakir by a Kurdish assassin hired by the Seljuks or possibly by Kurdish highwaymen.

[Mahmood]

I love him ...
He defend from Iran against Mongols ...
And another :

Maziar (Persian: مازیار ) was an Iranian aristocrat of the House of Karen and feudal ruler of the mountainous region of Tabaristan (present-day Mazandaran, Iran). For his resistance to the Arabs, Maziar is considered one of the national heroes of Greater Iran.
Maziar, a devout Zoroastrian, revolted against the Arab Muslim occupation of Iranian lands in the 9th century CE.His revolt begin in 839 AD in era of Al-Mu'tasim. Along with Babak Khorramdin, he repulsed many Arab armies sent against him.
According to the medieval historian Ibn Esfandyar in his Tarikh-e-Tabaristan, Maziar is said to have proclaimed: "Afshin Kheydar, son of Kavus and Babak, and I had made an oath and allegiance that we take the country back from the Arabs and transfer the government and the country back to the family of Kasraviyan"[1]
Maziar was eventually betrayed by his brother Kuhyar and captured by Arab forces. He was imprisoned in Baghdad awaiting execution when he drank poison and ended his life in order to avoid humiliation at the hands of the Caliph's executioners.
Maziar or Mah-Izad-Yar means "protected by the yazata of the moon".

[Esis]

WOW...Nice job. +rep

[Esis]

Saladdin (Salah ad-Din Ayyubi):
The most famous of the Muslim military heroes was Saladin. In the late 12th century he succeeded in uniting various parts of the Middle East and Mesopotamia and in overtaking the Christian armies of the early crusades through a combination of shrewd diplomacy and decisive attacks.
Saladin was born in Takrit, Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq) to a Kurdish family. As a youth, his pursuits tended more toward the religious and scholarly than toward the military, but this changed when he joined the staff of his uncle, a military commander. By age 31 Saladin became commander of the Syrian troops and vizier of Egypt
In the following years, Saladin used his considerable talents to bring the Muslim territories of Syria, Egypt, northern Mesopotamia, and Palestine under his control. Then, in 1187, he launched a holy war against the armies of the European crusaders, who had conquered Jerusalem 88 years before. In contrast to the European conquest of Jerusalem, Saladin's capture of the city was far more civilized and less bloody.
By 1189 the crusaders occupied only three cities in the entire Middle East. Saladin's conquest sparked the Third Crusade, which was led by the famed military leader Richard I (the Lion-Hearted). The clash between these two great powers ended in a draw, but a treaty was drawn up that allowed Christians to visit holy sites in the area. Saladin died a peaceful death in Damascus in 1193.
Muslim sultan of Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, and the most famous of Muslim heroes. In wars against the Christian crusaders, he achieved final success with the disciplined capture of Jerusalem (Oct. 2, 1187), ending its 88-year occupation by the Franks. The great Christian counterattack of the Third Crusade was then stalemated by his military genius.
Saladin was born into a prominent Kurdish family. On the night of his birth, his father, Najm ad-Din Ayyub, gathered his family and moved to Aleppo, there entering the service of 'Imad ad-Din Zangi ibn Aq Sonqur, the powerful Turkish governor in northern Syria. Growing up in Ba'lbek and Damascus, Saladin was apparently an undistinguished youth, with a greater taste for religious studies than military training.
His formal career began when he joined the staff of his uncle Asad ad-Din Shirkuh, an important military commander under the emir Nureddin, who was the son and successor of Zangi. During three military expeditions led by Shirkuh into Egypt to prevent its falling to the Latin-Christian (Frankish) rulers of the states established by the First Crusade, a complex, three-way struggle developed between Amalric I, the Latin king of Jerusalem; Shawar, the powerful vizier of the Egyptian Fatimid caliph; and Shirkuh. After Shirkuh's death and after ordering Shawar's assassination, Saladin, in 1169 at the age of 31, was appointed both commander of the Syrian troops in Egypt and vizier of the Fatimid caliphate there. His relatively quick rise to power must be attributed not only to the clannish nepotism of his Kurdish family but also to his own emerging talents. As vizier of Egypt, he received the title king (malik), although he was generally known as the sultan.
Saladin's position was further enhanced when, in 1171, he abolished the weak and unpopular Shi'ite Fatimid caliphate, proclaimed a return to Sunni Islam in Egypt, and became that country's sole ruler. Although he remained for a time theoretically a vassal of Nureddin, that relationship ended with the Syrian emir's death in 1174. Using his rich agricultural possessions in Egypt as a financial base, Saladin soon moved into Syria with a small but strictly disciplined army to claim the regency on behalf of the young son of his former suzerain. Soon, however, he abandoned this claim, and from 1174 until 1186 he zealously pursued a goal of uniting, under his own standard, all the Muslim territories of Syria, northern Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt. This he accomplished by skillful diplomacy backed when necessary by the swift and resolute use of military force. Gradually, his reputation grew as a generous and virtuous but firm ruler, devoid of pretense, licentiousness, and cruelty. In contrast to the bitter dissension and intense rivalry that had up to then hampered the Muslims in their resistance to the crusaders, Saladin's singleness of purpose induced them to rearm both physically and spiritually.
Saladin's every act was inspired by an intense and unwavering devotion to the idea of jihad, or holy war--the Muslim equivalent of the Christian crusade. It was an essential part of his policy to encourage the growth and spread of Muslim religious institutions. He courted its scholars and preachers, founded colleges and mosques for their use, and commissioned them to write edifying works, especially on the jihad itself. Through moral regeneration, which was a genuine part of his own way of life, he tried to re-create in his own realm some of the same zeal and enthusiasm that had proved so valuable to the first generations of Muslims when, five centuries before, they had conquered half the known world.
Saladin also succeeded in turning the military balance of power in his favour--more by uniting and disciplining a great number of unruly forces than by employing new or improved military techniques. When at last, in 1187, he was able to throw his full strength into the struggle with the Latin crusader kingdoms, his armies were their equals. On July 4, 1187, aided by his own military good sense and by a phenomenal lack of it on the part of his enemy, Saladin trapped and destroyed in one blow an exhausted and thirst-crazed army of crusaders at Hattin, near Tiberias in northern Palestine. So great were the losses in the ranks of the crusaders in this one battle that the Muslims were quickly able to overrun nearly the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem. Acre, Toron, Beirut, Sidon, Nazareth, Caesarea, Nabulus, Jaffa (Yafo), and Ascalon (Ashqelon) fell within three months. But Saladin's crowning achievement and the most disastrous blow to the whole crusading movement came on Oct. 2, 1187, when Jerusalem, holy to both Muslim and Christian alike, surrendered to Saladin's army after 88 years in the hands of the Franks. In stark contrast to the city's conquest by the Christians, when blood flowed freely during the barbaric slaughter of its inhabitants, the Muslim reconquest was marked by the civilized and courteous behaviour of Saladin and his troops.
His sudden success, which in 1189 saw the crusaders reduced to the occupation of only three cities, was, however, marred by his failure to capture Tyre, an almost impregnable coastal fortress to which the scattered Christian survivors of the recent battles flocked. It was to be the rallying point of the Latin counterattack. Most probably, Saladin did not anticipate the European reaction to his capture of Jerusalem, an event that deeply shocked the West and to which it responded with a new call for a crusade. In addition to many great nobles and famous knights, this crusade, the third, brought the kings of three countries into the struggle. The magnitude of the Christian effort and the lasting impression it made on contemporaries gave the name of Saladin, as their gallant and chivalrous enemy, an added lustre that his military victories alone could never confer on him.
The Crusade itself was long and exhausting, and, despite the obvious, though at times impulsive, military genius of Richard I the Lion-Heart, it achieved almost nothing. Therein lies the greatest--but often unrecognized--achievement of Saladin. With tired and unwilling feudal levies, committed to fight only a limited season each year, his indomitable will enabled him to fight the greatest champions of Christendom to a draw. The crusaders retained little more than a precarious foothold on the Levantine coast, and when King Richard left the Middle East in October 1192, the battle was over. Saladin withdrew to his capital at Damascus.
Soon, the long campaigning seasons and the endless hours in the saddle caught up with him, and he died. While his relatives were already scrambling for pieces of the empire, his friends found that the most powerful and most generous ruler in the Muslim world had not left enough money to pay for his grave. Saladin's family continued to rule over Egypt and neighbouring lands as the Ayyubid dynasty, which succumbed to the Mamluks in 1250.

[Mahmood]

Good my friend !
Hassan Sabbah :

, Arabic: حسن الصباح‎ Hassan aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ, Hasan ibn Sabbah, Hassan Ben Sabbah. 1050s-1124) was a Persian Nizārī Ismā'īlī missionary who converted a community in the late 11th century in the heart of the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran. The place was called Alamut and was attributed to an ancient king of Daylam. He founded a group whose members are sometimes referred to as the Hashshashin or Assassins.Hassan is thought to have written an autobiography, which does not survive but seems to underlie the first part of an anonymous Isma'ili biography entitled Sargudhasht-i Sayyidnā. The latter is known only from quotations made by later Persian authors.[1] Hassan also wrote a Persian treatise on the doctrine of ta'līm, i.e. the teachings of the imam. The text is no longer extant, but fragments are cited or paraphrased by al-Shahrastānī and several Persian historians. The possibly autobiographical information found in Sargudhasht-i Sayyidnā is the main source for Hassan's background and early life. According to this, Hassan-i Sabbāh was born in the city of Qom (modern Iran) in Persia in the 1050s to a family of Twelver Shī‘ah.[1] His father was an Arab claiming Yemeni descent, who left the Sawād of Kufa hej(modern Iraq) to settle in the (predominantly Shi'a) town of Qom.[1]
Early in his life, his family moved to Rey, Iran.[1] Rayy (Modern Tehran)was a city that had seen a lot of radical thought since the 9th century and it had seen Hamdan Qarmaṭ as one of its voices. It had also seen a lot of missionary work by various sects, each as impassioned as the next.[citation needed]
It was in this centre of religious matrices that Hassan developed a keen interest in metaphysical matters and adhered to the Twelver code of instruction. From 7 to 17,[2] he studied at home, and mastered perfectly palmistry, languages, philosophy, astronomy and mathematics (especially geometry).[3]
Rayy was also home to the activities of Ismā‘īlī missionaries in the Jibal. At the time, Isma'ilism was a growing movement in Persia and other lands east of Egypt.[4] The Persian Isma'ilis supported the da'wa ("mission") directed by the Fatimid caliphate of Cairo and recognised the authority of the Imam-Caliph al-Mustanṣir (d. 1094), though since some time, Isfahan rather than Cairo may have functioned as their principal headquarters.[4] The Ismā'īlī mission worked on three layers: the lowest was the foot soldier or fidā'ī, followed by the rafīk or "comrade", and finally the Dā‘ī or "missionary". It has been suggested that its popularity in Persia owed something to dissatisfaction with their Seljuk rulers, who had recently removed local rulers.[1]
In Rayy, young Hassan came in touch with Amira Darrab, a comrade, who introduced him to Ismā'īlī doctrine. Hassan was initially unimpressed. As he met Darrab, participating in many passionate debates that discussed the merits of Ismā‘īl over Mūsā, Hassan's respect grew. Impressed with the conviction of Darrab, Hassan decided to delve deeper into Ismā'īlī doctrines and beliefs. Hassan began to see merit in switching to Ismā‘īlī.
At the age of 17, Hassan converted and swore allegiance to the Fatimid Caliph in Cairo. Hassan's studies did not end with his crossing over. He further studied under two other dā‘iyyayn, and as he proceeded on his path, he was looked upon with eyes of respect.
Hassan's austere and devoted commitment to the da'wa brought him in audience with the chief missionary of the region: ‘Abdu l-Malik ibn Attash. Ibn Attash, suitably impressed with the young seventeen year old Hassan, made him Deputy Missionary and advised him to go to Cairo to further his studies.
However, Hassan did not go to Cairo. Some historians have postulated that Hassan, following his conversion, was playing host to some members of the Fatimid caliphate, and this was leaked to the anti-Fatimid and anti-Shī‘a Nizam al-Mulk. This prompted his abandoning Rayy and heading to Cairo in 1076.
Hassan took about 2 years to reach Cairo. Along the way he toured many other regions that did not fall in the general direction of Egypt. Isfahan was the first city that he visited. He was hosted by one of the Missionaries of his youth, a man who had taught the youthful Hassan in Rayy. His name was Resi Abufasl and he further instructed Hassan.
From here he went to Azerbaijan, hundreds of miles to the north, and from there to Turkey. Here he attracted the ire of priests following a heated discussion, and Hassan was thrown out of the town he was in.
He then turned south and traveled through Iraq, reached Damascus in Syria. He left for Egypt from Palestine. Records exist, some in the fragmentary remains of his autobiography, and from another biography written by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani in 1310, to date his arrival in Egypt at 30 August 1078.
It is unclear how long Hassan stayed in Egypt: about 3 years is the usually accepted amount of time. He continued his studies here, and became a full missionary.
Whilst he was in Cairo, studying and preaching, he upset the highly excitable Chief of the Army, Badr al-Jamalī. It is also said by later sources that the Ismaili Imam-Caliph al-Mustanṣir informed Hassan that his elder son Nizar would be the next Imam. Hassan was briefly imprisoned by Badr al-Jamali. The collapse of a minaret of the jail was taken to be an omen in the favor of Hassan and he was promptly released and deported. The ship that he was traveling on was wrecked. He was rescued and taken to Syria. Traveling via Aleppo and Baghdad, he terminated his journey at Isfahan in 1081.
Hassan’s life now was totally devoted to the mission. Hassan toured extensively throughout Iran. To the north of Iran, and touching the south shore of the Caspian Sea, are the mountains of Alborz. These mountains were home to a people who had traditionally resisted all attempts at subjugation; this place was also of Shī‘a leaning. Within these mountains, in the region of Daylam, Hassan chose to pursue his missionary activities. Hassan became the Chief Missionary of that area and sent his personally trained missionaries into the rest of the region.
The news of this Ismā'īlī's activities reached Nizam al-Mulk, who dispatched his soldiers with the orders for Hassan's capture. Hassan evaded them, and went deeper into the mountains.


His search for a base from where to guide his mission ended when he found the castle of Alamut in the Rudbar area in 1088. It was a fort that stood guard to a valley that was about fifty kilometers long and five kilometers wide. The fort had been built about the year 865; legend has it that it was built by a king who saw his eagle fly up to and perch upon a rock, of which the king, Wah Sudan ibn Marzuban, understood the importance. Likening the perching of the eagle to a lesson given by it, he called the fort Aluh Amut: the "Eagles Teaching".
Hassan’s takeover of the fort was one of silent surrender in the face of defeated odds. To effect this takeover Hassan employed an ingenious strategy: it took the better part of two years to effect. First Hassan sent his Daʻiyyīn and Rafīks to win the villages in the valley over. Next, key people were converted and in 1090 Hassan took over the fort. It is said that Hassan offered 3000 gold dinars to the fort owner for the amount of land that would fit a buffalo’s hide. The term having been agreed upon, Hassan cut the hide in to strips and link the strips around the perimeter of the fort. The owner was defeated. (This story bears striking resemblance to Virgil's account of Dido's founding of Carthage.) Hassan gave him a draft on the name of a wealthy landlord and told him to take the money from him. Legend further has it that when the landlord saw the draft with Hassan’s signature, he immediately paid the amount to the fort owner, astonishing him.
With Alamut as his, Hassan devoted himself so faithfully to study, that it is said that in all the years that he was there – almost 35, he never left his quarters, except the two times when he went up to the roof. He was studying, translating, praying, fasting, and directing the activities of the Daʻwa: the propagation of the Nizarī doctrine was headquartered at Alamut. He knew the Qur'ān by heart, could quote extensively from the texts of most Muslim sects, and apart from philosophy, he was well versed in mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, medicine, architecture, and the major science fields of his time.[5] Hassan was one who found solace in austerity and frugality. A pious life was one of prayer and devotion. Hassan was a charismatic revolutionary; it was said that by the sheer gravity of his conviction he could pierce the hardest and most orthodox of hearts and win them over to his side.
From this point on his community and its branches spread throughout Iran and Syria and came to be called Hashshashin or Assassins, an Islamic mystery cult.
Hassan was extremely strict and disciplined. The event of the Great Resurrection (al-qiyāmat al-kubrā) occurred under the later Ismaili Imam Hasan ala-dhikrihi as-salaam in 1164.
Most of his life sketch and early Hashashinis obtained through the historical accounts written in the Islamic world and a few accounts were also written on the orders of Halagu Khan, who before destroying everything, gave order to his Chief Minister to write a complete history of the Assassins (based on the records in the Alamut library) and this is where most of the historical data about the order comes from.[6] They either stem from Sunni polemicists who were motivated to discredit the Nizari Isma'ili on political and religious grounds, or Crusaders returning to Europe. Marco Polo also claimed to have visited Alamut, although the timeframe he gives makes his assertion dubious at best.[6][7][8]
His support and involvement with the series of killings of famous scholars, Imams and other noble personalities has given him title of one of the very first terrorist organization in the world. Some of the famous killings and events in those medieval centuries by Hashashin included the following;[8]

1. 1092: The famous Seljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk is murdered by an Assassin in Baghdad. He becomes their first victim.
2. 1094: Al-Mustansir dies, and Hassan does not recognize the new caliph, al-Mustali. He and his followers transferred their allegiance to his brother Nizar. The followers of Hassan soon even came at odds with the caliph in Baghdad too.
3. 1113: Following the death of Aleppo's ruler, Ridwan, the Assassins are driven out of the city by the troops of Ibn al-Khashab.
4. 1110's: The Assassins in Syria changes their strategy, and start undercover work and builds cells in all cities around the region.
5. 1123: Ibn al-Khashab is killed by an Assassin killer.
6. 1124: Hassan dies in Alamut, but the organization lives on stronger than ever. — The leading qadi Abu Saad al-Harawi is killed by an Assassin killer.

It is believed that almost thousands of scholars were killed by Hashashin in that era. After the death of Hassan, some notable events included the following;

1. 1126 November 26: Emir Porsuki of Aleppo and Mosul is killed by an Assassin killer.
2. 12th century: The Assassins extend their activities into Syria, where they could get much support from the local Shi'i minority as the Seljuq sultanate had captured this territory.
3. The Assassins captures a group of castles in the Nusayriyya Mountains (modern Syria). The most important of these castles were the Masyaf, from which the "The Old Man of Mountain", Rashideddin Sinan ruled practically independent from the main leaders of the Assassins.
4. 1173: The Assassins of Syria enter negociations with the king of Jerusalem, with the aim of converting to Christianity. But as the Assassins by now were numerous and often worked as peasants, they payed high taxes to local Christian landlords, that Christian peasants were exempted from. Their conversion was opposed by them, and this year the Assassin negociatiors were murdered by Christian knights. After this, there was no more talk of conversion.
5. 1175: Rashideddin's men make two attempts on the life of Saladin, the leader of the Ayyubids. The second time, the Assassin came so close that wounds were infliceted upon Saladin.
6. 1256: Alamut fortress falls to the Mongols under the leadership of Hülegü. Before this happened, several other fortresses had been captured, and finally Alamut was weak and with little support.
7. 1257: The Mongol warlord Hülegü attacks and destroys the fortress at Alamut. The Assassin library is fully razed, hence destroying a crucial source of information about the Assassins.
8. Around 1265: The Assassin strongholds in Syria fall to the Mumluk sultan Baybars 1.[9]

According to polemical accounts which would evolve into legend[clarification needed]; a future assassin was subjected to rites very similar to those of other mystery cults in which the subject was made to believe that he was in imminent danger of death. But the twist of the assassins was that they drugged the person to simulate a "dying" to later have them awaken in a garden flowing with wine and served a sumptuous feast by virgins. The supplicant was then convinced he was in Heaven and that Sabbah was a representative of the divinity and that all of his orders should be followed, even to death. This legend derives from Marco Polo, who visited Alamut just after it fell to the Mongols in the thirteenth century.[6][10]
Other accounts of the indoctrination attest that the future assassins were brought to Alamut at a young age and, while they matured, inhabited the aforementioned paradisaical gardens and were kept drugged with hashish; as in the previous version, Hassan occupied this garden as a divine emissary. At a certain point (when their initiation could be said to have begun) the drug was withdrawn from them, and they were removed from the gardens and flung into a dungeon. There they were informed that, if they wished to return to the paradise they had so recently enjoyed it would be at Sabbah's discretion, and that they must therefore follow his directions exactly, up to and including murder and self-sacrifice.[10]
It is said that Sabbah's last words as he lay dying, were "Nothing is true, everything is permissible."[6]

[Zippy]

Genghis Khan (Goddamn Mongorians, broke down my schity wall...)

Created largest land empire in the history of ever, and bedded so many women that many people today in the middle and far east have some of his blood in them.

[Tadzreuli]

it's good idea to add ,,faction heroes,, in to the mod, but I'm interested - for what period it's needed ?

[Esis]

I agree and it's good suggestion...in the BC ages there were many heroes in the factions.
I think hero is a person (man or woman) who stand against the brutal in own nation or stand against the foreign force.

[megalitho]

For me a hero is a person that uses his talents and abilities to change things for his people, espacially if this person has the ability to attack but tries to avoid brutality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederi..._Roman_Emperor

Uhh... a german emperor in BC? I have edited a brief excerpt and highlighted (for the lazy/busy readers) interesting parts...


WIKI-EXCERPT:

Frederick II (26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250), called "Stupor mundi", the "wonder of the world" was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages...He was said to speak six languages: Latin, Sicilian, German, French, Greek and Arabic. By contemporary standards, Frederick was an uncommonly avid patron of science and the arts.

In the Kingdom of Sicily, he built on the reform of the laws begun at the Assizes of Ariano in 1140 by his grandfather Roger II. His initiative in this direction was visible as early as the Assizes of Capua (1220) but came to fruition in his promulgation of the Constitutions of Melfi (1231, also known as Liber Augustalis), a collection of laws for his realm that was remarkable for its time and was a source of inspiration for a long time after. It made the Kingdom of Sicily an absolutist monarchy; it also set a precedent for the primacy of written law. With relatively small modifications, the Liber Augustalis remained the basis of Sicilian law until 1819.

At the time he was elected King of the Romans, Frederick promised to go on crusade.

A further example of how much Frederick differed from his contemporaries was the conduct of his Crusade in the Holy Land. Outside Jerusalem, with the power to take it, he parlayed five months with the Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt al-Kamil about the surrender of the city. The Sultan summoned him into Jerusalem and entertained him in the most lavish fashion. When the muezzin, out of consideration for Frederick, failed to make the morning call to prayer, the emperor declared: "I stayed overnight in Jerusalem, in order to overhear the prayer call of the Muslims and their worthy God". The Saracens had a good opinion of him, so it was no surprise that after five months Jerusalem was handed over to him, taking advantage of the war difficulties of al-Kamil. The fact that this was regarded in the Arab as in the Christian world as high treason did not matter to him. When certain members of the Knights Templar wrote al-Kamil a letter and offered to destroy Frederick if he lent them aid, al-Kamil handed the letter over to Frederick. As the Patriarch of Jerusalem refused to crown him king, he set the crown on his own head.

Rather than exterminate the Saracens of Sicily, he allowed them to settle on the mainland and build mosques. Not least, he enlisted them in his Christian army and even into his personal bodyguards. As Muslim soldiers, they had the advantage of immunity from papal excommunication. For these reasons, as well as his supposed Epicureanism, Frederick II is listed as a representative member of the sixth region of Dante's Inferno, The Heretics who are burned in tombs.


Besides his great tolerance (which, however, did not apply to Christian heretics), Frederick had an unlimited thirst for knowledge and learning. Frederick employed Jews from Sicily, who have immigrated there from the holy land, at his court to translate Greek and Arabic works.


A Damascene chronicler, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, left a physical description of Frederick based on the testimony of those who had seen the emperor in person in Jerusalem: "The Emperor was covered with red hair, was bald and myopic. Had he been a slave, he would not have fetched 200 dirhams at market.[]" Frederick's eyes were described variously as blue, or "green like those of a serpent"


Frederick II was considered one of the foremost European Christian monarchs of the Middle Ages. This reputation was present even in Frederick's era, even though many of his contemporaries, because of his lifelong interest in Islam, saw in him "the Hammer of Christianity", or at the very least a dissenter from Christendom.


His contemporaries called Frederick stupor mundi, the "wonder" — or, more precisely, the "astonishment" — "of the world"; the majority of his contemporaries, subscribing to medieval religious orthodoxy, under which the doctrines promulgated by the Church were supposed to be uniform and universal, were, indeed astonished — and sometimes repelled — by the pronounced individuality of the Hohenstaufen emperor, his temperamental stubbornness, and his unorthodox, nearly unquenchable thirst for knowledge.


To the dislike of some of his contemporaries, Frederick simply did not believe things that could not be explained by reason. He forbade trials by ordeal in the firm conviction that in a duel the stronger would always win, whether or not he was guilty. Many of his laws continue to influence modern attitudes, such as his prohibition on physicians acting as their own pharmacists. This was a blow to the charlatanism under which physicians diagnosed dubious maladies in order to sell useless, even dangerous "cures".


Frederick II is the author of the first treatise on the subject of falconry, De Arte Venandi cum Avibus ("The Art of Hunting with Birds").


Wiki = off...




He was very appreciated by his people and became a legendary person after his death. But most of the fame and the myth around his person were transfered to his grandfather Barbarossa, because Frederick II was excommunicated by the roman Church. Nethertheless I think that Frederick II is one of the most interesting persons of his time.

[Mahmood]

Yes
This is good idea

[Tadzreuli]

David Soslan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Soslan

David Soslan (Georgian: დავით სოსლანი; also Soslan David, often only David; Modern Ossetic: Сослан-Дауыт) (died 1207) was an Alan prince and a King Consort of Georgia as the second husband of Queen Regnant Tamar who married him c. 1189. He is chiefly known for his military exploits during Georgia’s wars against its Muslim neighbors.

Origins

David Soslan was a member of the royal house which ruled Alania (Ovseti or Oseti of the Georgian sources; hence, the modern designation of Ossetia), an Orthodox Christian kingdom in the North Caucasus, and frequently intermarried with the Bagrationi Dynasty of Georgia. A relatively later chronicler, writing during the reign of George IV Lasha (son of Tamar and David Soslan; 1212–1223), ascribes David Soslan, though vaguely, the Bagrationi ancestry. A version of David’s Bagratid origin found further development in the works of the 18th-century Georgian scholar Prince Vakhushti Bagrationi. He considered David Soslan a descendant of George I of Georgia (1014–1027) and his Alan wife Alde who were the parents of Demetrius (Demetre), an unfortunate pretender to the Georgian crown whose son, David, was forced by Bagrat IV of Georgia to flee to Alania. According to Vakhushti, David and his descendants - Aton and Jadaron - married into the Alan ruling family and became "kings of the Osi [i.e., Alans]". This Jadaron is said to have been David Soslan's father. While this account is considered credible by some scholars of Georgia, the issue of David's dynastic origin still remains controversial.
A passage from the 13th-century anonymous Georgian Histories and Eulogies of Sovereigns relates that David was under the patronage of Tamar’s paternal aunt Rusudan and came of "the descendants [ძენი; literally, "sons"] of Ephraim, which are Osi, handsome and strong in battle." The Georgian scholar Korneli Kekelidze suggested that David Soslan’s family – the "Ephraimids" – might have claimed descent from the biblical Ephraim, and compared this family legend to that of the Bagratids who considered themselves descendants of David, the second king of the Israelites.
In 1946, the North Ossetian archaeologist Evgeniya Pchelina announced that, during the digs at the Nuzal chapel in the Ardon Gorge, North Ossetian ASSR, she discovered the tomb allegedly belonging to David Soslan whom she identified with the certain Soslan mentioned in the Georgian asomtavruli inscription in the chapel, and suggested that David Soslan might have been a member of the Tsarazon family (Ossetic: Цæразонтæ), a heroic clan from Nuzal known to the Ossetic oral folk tradition. The hypothesis has not been accepted by most Georgian scholars, but enjoys much currency among the Ossetian historians.


Consort of Georgia

Tamar married David Soslan at the Didube Palace near Tbilisi between 1187 and 1189 after she divorced her first husband, the Rus' prince Yuri Bogolyubsky. As the Armenian chronicler Mkhitar Gosh reports in his Ishatarakan ("Memorabilia"), Tamar "married a man from the Alan kingdom, her relative on the mother’s side, whose name was Soslan, named David upon his ascension to the [Georgian] throne".
In contrast to Yuri who was a candidate of the powerful nobles party, David was Tamar's personal choice. David, a capable military commander, became Tamar's major supporter and was instrumental in defeating the rebellious nobles rallied behind Yuri. Tamar and David had two children. In 1191, the queen gave birth to a son, George – the future king George IV (Lasha) – an event which was widely celebrated in the kingdom. The daughter, Rusudan, was born c. 1193 and would succeed her brother as a sovereign of Georgia.
David Soslan's status of consort, as well as his presence in art, on charters, and on coins, was strictly dictated by the necessity of male aspects of kingship, but he remained a subordinate ruler who shared throne with Tamar but had no independent authority, his power being derived from his reigning spouse.
David energetically supported Tamar's expansionist policy and was responsible for Georgia's military successes in a series of conflicts of those years. All medieval Georgian sources are unequivocal in praising his handsomeness, military talents, valor, and devoutness to Tamar. In the 1190s, David Soslan led the Georgian raids against Barda, Erzurum, Geghark'unik', Beylaqan and Ganja. His victories over the Ildegizids of Azerbaijan at Shamkor (1195) and the Seljuqids of Rüm at Basian (1202) secured the Georgian positions in the eastern and western Caucasian marches, respectively. He died shortly thereafter, c. 1207.

[Tadzreuli]

Shalva of Akhaltsikhe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalva_of_Akhaltsikhe

Shalva Toreli-Akhaltiskheli (Georgian: შალვა თორელი-ახალციხელი) (died 1227) was a Georgian military commander and courtier, of the noble house of Toreli-Akhaltsikheli.
Shalva was one of the most notable military commanders during a series of expansionist wars waged by the Kingdom of Georgia under Queen Tamar (r. 1184–1213). He consecutively held top posts of Lord High Treasurer and Lord High Mandator at Tamar’s court. Together with his brother Ivane, Shalva was in command of vanguard traditionally composed of the Meschian troops from south Georgia. In the battle of Shamkor against the Ildenizid atabeg of Azerbaijan in 1195, he captured a war banner sent by the Caliph to the Muslim army which was then donated to the revered icon of Our Lady of Khakhuli. In 1206/1207, Shalva, together with Sargis Tmogveli, took hold of the city of Kars from the Seljuqs and was appointed as the governor of the Kars county.
When the Khwarazmid shah Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu surged into the Caucasus in 1225, Shalva and his brother Ivane were again placed in charge of the vanguard of the Georgian army commanded by atabeg Ivane Mkhargrdzeli. There was some enmity between Ivane and the two Akhaltsikheli brothers. This was possibly the reason why Mkhargrdzeli did not allow his army to fight in the battle of Garni. The two brothers did battle and were routed. Shalva was wounded and captured and his brother Ivane was killed while retreating to the mountains. Having spent some time in honorary captivity, Shalva was put to death for not apostatizing to Islam at Jalal ad-Din's order. Subsequently, he was canonized by the Georgian Orthodox Church which commemorates him on June 17/June 30 (O.S.).[1]
Shalva is traditionally believed to be praised in a patriotic Georgian folk ballad Shavlego, which was particularly popular during the national mobilization against the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

[Ardashir 7]

Caliph Al Nasir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nasir

An-Nasir li-Din Allah (1158 – 1225) (Arabic: الناصر لدين الله‎) was the 34th Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad from 1180 until his death. His laqab literally means The Victor for the Religion of God. He attempted to restore the Caliphate to its ancient dominant role and achieved a surprising amount of success, despite the fact that the caliphate had long been militarily subordinated to other dynasties. He not only held Baghdad (the capital of the Abbasid empire), but extended his dominion into Mesopotamia and Persia.
Besides his occasional conquests, he consistently held Iraq from Tikrit to the Gulf without interruption. His long reign of forty-seven years is chiefly marked by ambitious and corrupt dealings with the Tartar chiefs, and by his hazardous invocation of the Mongols, which so soon brought his own dynasty to an end. But in his day, there was comparative peace at Baghdad; learning flourished; while refuges for the poor, and other works of public interest, were encouraged.
Al-Nasir's reign is unusual for the rise of the futuwwa groups in his reign, connected to Baghdad's long-standing ayyarun. These urban social groups had long existed in Baghdad and elsewhere, and they were often involved in urban conflicts, especially sectarian riots. Al-Nasir made them into an instrument of his government, reorganizing them along Sufi lines and ideology.
In the early years of his caliphate, his goal was to crush the Seljuq power and replace it with his own. He incited rebellion against the Seljuq Sultan of Persia, Toghrul III. The Khwarizm Shah, Ala ad-Din Tekish, at his instigation, attacked the Seljuq forces, and defeated them in 1194; Toghrul was killed and his head exposed in the caliph's palace. Tekish, recognized now as supreme ruler of the East, bestowed on the Caliph certain provinces of Persia that had been held by the Seljuqs.
Al-Nasir sent his vizier to Tekish with some gifts, but the vizier irritated Tekish, who attacked the Caliph's troops and routed them. Thereafter hostile relations prevailed for many years. The Caliph assassinated a governor of Tekish by using an Ismaili emissary. Tekish responded by having the body of al-Nasir's vizier, who died on a campaign against him, exhumed, and the head stuck up at Khwarizm. Irritated at this and other hostile acts, the Caliph retaliated by treating with indignity the pilgrims who came from the East under Khwarizm's flag. But beyond such poor revenge, he was powerless for any open enmity.
Tekish's son, Muhammad II (1200-1220), annoyed at the actions of the Caliph, set up a Shi'a caliph to paralyse al-Nasir's spiritual power. Following up this act, he turned his army on Baghdad. In response, some medieval historians write that al-Nasir appealed to Genghis Khan, the rising Mongol chief, to check Muhammad's progress. This point is controversial, but it is likely that the caliph had some contacts to the non-Muslims Mongols.
The caliph soon found Genghis Khan to be quite threatening. The steppes of Central Asia were set in motion by Genghiz Khan, and his hordes put to flight the Khwarizm Shah, who died an exile in an island of the Caspian. Meanwhile Saladin, when hard pressed by the Crusaders, appealed for help to al-Nasir, who contented himself with sending a store of naphtha, with men to use it against the invaders in the field.

[Mahmood]

Abu Muslim Abd Rahman ibn Muslim Khorasani or al-Khurasani (Persian: ابو مسلم خراسانى, Arabic: أبو مسلم عبد الرحمن بن مسلم الخراساني‎, c. 700 - 755) was an Abbasid general of Persian origin, who led the first major and organized liberal movement against the Umayyad dynasty.
His original name was Behzadan, prior to his father Vandad Hurmoz's conversion to Islam, who adopted the name of 'Moslem' for himself. His birthplace remains obscure, though the oldest historical reference, the 11th century Al-Mahasin al-Isfahan written by Mafzal Ibn-Sa'd Maforukhi Esfahani, claims he was born in the town of Fereidan in the central Iranian province of Isfahan.[2] It is also claimed he was born in the village of Sanjerd or Makhowan near the city of Merv in what is now Turkmenistan.
Abu Muslim was a major supporter of the Abbasid cause, having met with their Imam Ibrahim ibn Muhammad in Mecca, and was later a personal friend of Abu al-'Abbas Al-Saffah, the future Caliph. He observed the revolt in Kufa in 736 tacitly. With the death of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik in 743, the Islamic world was launched into civil war. Abu Muslim was sent to Khorasan by the Abbasids initially as a propagandist and then to revolt on their behalf. He took Merv in December 747 (or January 748), defeating the Umayyad governor Nasr ibn Sayyar, as well as Shayban al-Khariji, a Kharijite aspirant to the caliphate. He became the de facto Abbasid governor of Khorasan, and gained fame as a general in the late 740s in defeating the peasant rebellion of Bihafarid, the leader of a syncretic Persian sect that were Mazdaism. Abu Muslim received support in suppressing the rebellion both from purist Muslims and Zoroastrians. In 750, Abu Muslim became leader of the Abbasid army and defeated the Umayyads at Battle of the Zab. Abu Muslim stormed Damascus, the capital of the Umayyad caliphate, later that year.
His heroic role in the revolution and military skill, along with his conciliatory politics toward Shia, Sunnis, Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians, made him extremely popular among the people. Although it appears that Abu al-'Abbas trusted him in general, he was wary of his power, limiting his entourage to 500 men upon his arrival to Iraq on his way to Hajj in 754. Abu al-'Abbas's brother, al-Mansur (r. 754-775), advised al-Saffah on more than one occasion to have Abu Muslim killed, fearing his rising influence and popularity. It seems that this dislike was mutual, with Abu Muslim aspiring to more power and looking down in disdain on al-Mansur, feeling al-Mansur owed Abu Muslim for his position. When the new caliph's uncle, Abdullah ibn Ali rebelled, Abu Muslim was requested by al-Mansur to crush this rebellion, which he did, and Abdullah was given to his nephew as a prisoner. Abdullah was ultimately executed.
Relations deteriorated quickly when al-Mansur sent an agent to inventory the spoils of war, and then appointed Abu Muslim governor of Syria and Egypt, outside his powerbase. After an increasingly acrimonious correspondence between Abu Muslim and al-Mansur, Abu Muslim feared he was going to be killed if he appeared in the presence of the Caliph. He later changed his mind and decided to appear in his presence due to a combination of perceived disobedience, al-Mansur's promise to keep him as governor of Khorasan, and the assurances of some of his close aides, some of whom were bribed by al-Mansur. He went to Iraq to meet with al-Mansur's in Madain in 755. al-Mansur proceeded to enumerate his grievances against Abu Muslim, who kept reminding the Caliph of his efforts to enthrone him. al-Mansur then signaled five of his guards behind a portico to kill him. Abu Muslim's mutilated body was thrown in the river Tigris, and his commanders were bribed to acquiesce to the murder.
His murder was not well-received by the Persians, particularly not by the residents of Khorasan, and there was resentment among the population over the brutal methods used by al-Mansur. He became a legendary figure for many in Persia, and several Persian heretics started revolts claiming he had not died and would return; the latter included his own propagandist Ishaq al-Turk, the Zoroastrian cleric Sunpadh in Nishapur, the Abu Muslimiyya subsect of the Kaysanites Shia, and al-Muqanna in Khorasan. Even Babak claimed descent from him.

[Esis]

The Sarbadars:
The Sarbadars (from sarbadar, "head on gallows"; also known as Sarbedaran) were a mixture of religious dervishes and secular rulers that came to rule over part of western Khurasan in the midst of the disintegration of the Mongol Ilkhanate in the mid-14th century. Centered in their capital of Sabzavar, they continued their reign until Khwaja 'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad submitted to Timur in 1381, and were one of the few groups that managed to mostly avoid Timur's famous brutality. In modern Iranian history the term "Sarbedars" was used by the Union of Iranian Communists (Sarbedaran) during their armed uprising in January of 1982 in Amol against the Iranian regime.
The Sarbadar state was marked by divisions in religious belief during its existence. Its rulers were Shi'i, though often Sunnis claimed leadership among the people with the support of Ilkhanid rulers. The leadership of the Shi'is stemmed chiefly from the charisma of Shaykh Khalifa; a scholar from Mazandaran, the shaykh had arrived in Khurasan some years before the founding of the Sarbadar state and was subsequently murdered by Sunnis. His successor, Hasan Juri, established the former's practices in the Sarbadar state. The followers of these practices were known as "Sabzavaris" after the city. The Sabzavaris, however, were divided; among their number were moderate Shi'is who were often at odds with the dervishes, adherents of a mystic sect within Shi'i Islam. The capital city of Sabzavar undoubtedly had a strong Shi'i presence, but as the Sarbadars conquered the neighboring territory, they acquired cities with significant Sunni populations.
The Sarbadars are unique among the major contenders in post-Ilkhanid Persia in that none of their leaders ruled as legitimate sovereigns. None of them had a legitimate claim to the Ilkhanid throne, or were related to a Mongol or any other royal house, and none of them had previously held a high post within the Ilkhanate. While they on occasion recognized claimants to the Ilkhanid throne as their overlord, they did so purely as a matter of convenience, and in all other aspects they had no ties to the Ilkhanate. This fact had a strong influence regarding the nature of the Sarbadar political state.
The Sarbadars had a form of government which would, in modern times, probably be identified as an oligarchy or a republic. Unlike their neighbors, the Sarbadars had no dynastic lines; power usually went to the most ambitious. This view is not universally held, however. Some point to the fact that one of the Sarbadar rulers, Vajih al-Din 'Mas'ud, produced a son who also eventually reigned, named Lutf Allah. While seven other rulers separated the reign of Mas'ud and that of his son, those seven rulers are sometimes considered regents for Lutf Allah, until he was old enough to grab power for himself. Nevertheless, the seven are generally considered the heads of state in their own right.
A ruler would hold power for as long as he could; the fact that several of them met violent deaths was a sign of the instability that plagued the state for most of its existence. The founder of the Sabadar state, 'Abd al-Razzaq, used the title of amir during his reign. While many of the Sarbadar leaders were secular, the dervishes also had their turns in power, and on occasion they ruled the state in condominium with each other; such partnerships, however, tended to fall apart quickly. Because the two sides held radically different views on how the Sarbadar government should be run, there were often drastic changes in policy as one side would supplant the other as the most powerful.
The Sarbadar state came into existence around early 1337. At that time, much of Khurasan was under the control of the Ilkhanid claimant Togha Temur and his amirs. One of his subjects, 'Ala' al-Din Muhammad, had jurisdiction over the city of Sabzavar. His oppressive taxation of the area caused an 'Abd al-Razzaq, a member of the feudal ruling class, to murder a government official in Bashtin, a district of the city. The official was a nephew of 'Ala' al-Din, and 'Abd al-Razzaq raised the standard of revolt. The rebels at first settled in the mountains, where they defeated militias sent against them and raided caravans and herds of cattle, and then in the summer of 1337 took possession of Sabzavar. Togha Temur was most likely campaigning in the west at this time, against the Jalayirids, making him unable to deal with the revolt. 'Abd al-Razzaq took the title of amir and had coins made in his name, but he was stabbed to death by his brother Vajih al-Din 'Mas'ud during an argument in 1338. Mas'ud, taking command of the Sarbadars, made peace with Togha Temur, promising to recognize him as sovereign and to pay taxes to him. The khan agreed, in the hope that it would put a stop to the Sarbadar raids on his supply trains.
In the meantime, Shaikh Kalifa's follower Hasan Juri had been preaching in towns all across Khurasan, with great success. His accomplishments attracted the suspicion of the government authorities, and in May 1336 he fled to eastern Iraq. When he returned some years later, Togha Temur's lieutenant and commander of the Ja'un-i Qurban Arghun Shah had him arrested in 1339 or 1340. He was eventually released, perhaps due to the insistence of Mas'ud, who soon after decided to take advantage of Hasan Juri's popularity. He joined Hasan's order as a novice, and had him proclaimed as joint ruler. Hasan Juri proclaimed that the Twelfth Imam would soon return. While the sharing of power began well, differences quickly emerged between the two. Mas'ud believed in accepting the nominal suzerainty of Togha Temur, while Hasan Juri was intent on establishing a Shi'i state. The two rulers each gained bases of support; the former had his family and the gentry, while the latter had the dervishes, the aristocracy, and the trade guilds. Both also had their own armed forces; Mas'ud had 12,000 armed peasants and a bodyguard of 700 Turkish slave troops, while Hasan Juri had an army composed of artisans and merchants.
In 1340 Mas'ud moved against the Ja'un-i Qurban under Arghun Shah; the latter was forced to abandon Nishapur and retreat to Tus. The Sarbadars continued to mint coins in Togha Temur's name, in the hope that he would ignore this move as he was campaigning in the west again at this time. The khan, however, moved against them; his forces were destroyed, and while fleeing to Mazandaran several important figures such as 'Ala' al-Din (formerly in charge of Sabzavar), 'Adb-Allah, and Togha's own brother 'Ali Ke'un were killed. The Sarbadars gained control of Jajarm, Damghan and Simnan, along with Togha's capital of Gurgan. Mas'ud and Hasan Juri, however, soon came into disagreement over several issues. Mas'ud, following the defeat of Togha Temur, gained a new suzerain in the form of Hasan Kucek of the Chobanids, as well as the latter's puppet khan Sulaiman. Mas'ud considered the move necessary; with the conquest of Simnan, the Chobanids were now neighbors. Since the Chobanids were Sunnis, however, this doubtless did not go over well with Mas'ud's co-ruler.
With the defeat of the Ja'un-i Qurban and Togha Temur, the Sarbadars still had one more force to contend with in Khurasan: the Kartids of Herat. Their leader Mu'izz al-Din Husain also recognized Togha Temur's overlordship, and when the Sarbadars threw off the khan's nominal rule, they became enemies. The Sarbadars decided to destroy the Kartids with an offensive campaign. The armies of the two forces met at Zava on July 18, 1342. The battle started out well for the Sarbadars, but then Hasan Juri was taken and killed. His supporters, assuming (perhaps correctly) that his death had been the result of an assassin of Mas'ud, promptly retreated, turning the tide of the battle. The Kartids therefore survived. Following the return home, Mas'ud attempted to rule without the support of the dervishes, but his power was decreased. He attempted to end the threat of Togha Temur, who had in the meantime made his camp in the Amul region and was preventing the Sarbadars from staying in contact with the Chobanids. Mas'ud undertook a campaign against him in 1344 which got off to a good start, but ended in disaster. On the route from Sari to Amul, the Sarbadar army was trapped in a pincer movement, and Mas'ud was taken prisoner and executed. Most of the Sarbadar conquests were lost as a result of the two losses; only the region around Sabzavar, as well as maybe Juvain and Nishapur remained in their hands. Togha Temur returned to Gurgan and once again gained the allegiance of the Sarbadars.
Mas'ud's first three successors ruled for a period totaling only three years. Both of the first two men had served as his military commanders; Mas'ud's brother Shams al-Din came next, only to fall as well. These internal conflicts were countered by good news on the external front; namely, the death of Arghun Shah in 1343, and the rise of his successor Muhammad Beg, who abandoned the alliance of the Ja'un-i Qurban with Togha Temur in favor of one with the Sarbadars. Shams al-Din was replaced in turn by the dervish Shams al-Din 'Ali in 1347, marking the loss of power by Mas'ud's adherents. Shams al-Din 'Ali was an effective administrator, reorganizing the state finances, carrying out tax reforms, and paying officials in cash. As a religious man, he attempted to stamp out prostitution, drugs and alcohol, and lived a simple life. His military was effective; although he failed to take Tus, he was able to destroy a rebellion in Damghan in the west. He was, however, prevented from turning the Sarbadar state to the Shi'i creed by Mas'ud's supporters, who kept the government Sunni. In the meantime, he gained enemies among the opponents of the dervishes, as well as the corrupt officials of the state that hated his reforms. One of these officials named Haidar Qassab, who was possibly a member of the artisan guild, murdered him around 1352.
Shams al-Din 'Ali's successor was a member of the Sabzavari aristocracy named Yahya Karavi. Yahya was forced to deal with Togha Temur, who in spite of the loss of the allegiance of the Ja'un-i Qurban and, in 1349, the Kartids, still was a danger of the Sarbadars. His army of 50,000 dwarfed the Sarbadar army, which numbered only around 22,000. Yahya neutralized the khan by recognizing him as suzerain, striking coins in his name and paying taxes to him. He also promised to visit Togha Temur once a year. He was probably making one of these visits when he arrived in November or December of 1353 at the khan's camp of Sultan-Duvin near Astarabad. Yahya and a group of his followers entered the camp and were allowed into Togha Temur's tent. There, they murdered the khan and his courtiers, then put to death the Mongol troops and killed the nomads' herds. With the death of Togha Temur, the last serious contender for the Ilkhanid throne was gone. The Sarbadar lands then expanded to the borders reached by Mas'ud, and then gained even more: the area around Ray, the city of Tus, and Astarabad and Shasman. Yahya, however, was murdered around 1356, possibly at the hands of Mas'ud's adherents. Mas'ud's son Lutf Allah was possibly involved in the murder.
Haidar Qassib, the murderer of Shams al-Din 'Ali, now took advantage of the situation. Arriving from Astarabad, ostensibly to hunt down Yahya's killers, he installed Yahya's nephew Zahir al-Din Karavi to rule. Soon afterwards, however, he removed him from power and ruled in his own name. Unfortunately for him, he was unpopular with nearly everyone even before he came to power. As a former member of Shams al-Din 'Ali's party, the supporters of Mas'ud disliked him, and his murder of Shams al-Din 'Ali alienated him from the dervishes. Nasr Allah, Lutf Allah's tutor, allied with Yahya's murderers and rose in revolt in Isfara'in, the second city of the Sarbadars. Haidar moved to put the rebellion down, but before he could he was stabbed to death by an assassin hired by a Hasan Damghani. Lutf Allah now gained control of the state, but he soon came into conflict with Hasan Damghani as well. He was defeated, and in the process Mas'ud's adherents were mostly eliminated.
Hasan Damghani was now forced to deal with Amir Vali, who was a son of the former governor of Astarabad before its conquest by the Sarbadars. Amir Vali had taken advantage of Haidar Qassib's move out of Astarabad to return to the city. Amir Vali then claimed to be acting in the name of Luqman, the son of Togha Temur, although he never handed power over to him. Hasan sent two expeditions against him, both of which ended in failure; he himself led a third force, but met no more success, allowing Amir Vali to be in a position to gain more Sarbadar territory. Meanwhile, in the east a radical Shi'i named Darvish 'Aziz revolted and established a theocratic state in Mashhad in the name of the Twelfth Imam. Darvish 'Aziz gained more territory with his conquest of Tus. Hasan recognized that the entire Sarbadar state was in jeopardy: the Sabzavari dervishes might declare their support for the theocratic state at any time. He moved against Darvish 'Aziz, defeated him and destroyed the Mahdist state; Darvish 'Aziz went to Isfahan in exile. Soon afterward, however, an 'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad rose in revolt in Damghan and gained the support of Hasan's enemies. He recalled Darvish 'Aziz from exile and joined his order. While Hasan was besieging the castle of Shaqqan, near Jajarm, 'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad captured Sabzavar around 1361. In the process, he captured the possessions and families of many of Hasan's followers. When he demanded Hasan's head, they therefore complied.
'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad enjoyed, by far, the longest reign out of all the Sarbadar rulers. The partnership with Darvish 'Aziz lasted for ten months; while 'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad, who was Shi'i, helped raised Shi'ism to the state religion, he opposed several of Darvish 'Aziz's theocratic ideas. Tensions were high when a campaign was begun against the Kartids of Herat. Even before they had met any resistance, the Sarbadar army erupted in violence. While on the march, 'Ali's men picked a quarrel with the dervishes; Darvish 'Aziz and many of his followers were killed trying to escape. 'Ali returned and attempted to destroy the power of the dervishes completely. He moved against their organization and forced them out of Sabzavar, and even destroyed the graves of Shaikh Khalifa and Hasan Juri. The dervishes, however, fled, being granted refuge by the Kartids, the Ja'un-i Qurban, and the Muzaffarids of Shiraz. Meanwhile, the Ja'un-i Qurban regained Tus, though the two sides seemed to have no further conflict. Amir Vali gained control of Simnan and Bistam, though Astarabad was temporarily reconquered by the Sarbadars (1365/6-1368/9. Administratively, 'Ali increased the quality of the coinage, and instituted tax reforms.
In 1370 Mu'izz al-Din Husain of the Kartids died, to be succeeded by his sons Ghiyas al-Din Pir 'Ali and Malik Muhammad. Pir 'Ali, a grandson of Togha Temur by his mother Sultan Khatun, considered the Sarbadars his enemy, and used the emigrant Sabzavaris in his realm to stir up discontent against Ali-yi Mu'ayyad. The latter responded by supporting Malik Muhammad, who ruled a small part of the Kartid lands from Sarakhs. Pir 'Ali then moved against his stepbrother, but Ali-yi Mu'ayyad stopped him by a flanking attack after overcoming one of Pir 'Ali's castles near the border, whose commanders were Sabzavaris. Pir 'Ali was forced to come to terms with his stepbrother. The fighting with the Sabadars, however, continued, and 'Ali was forced to throw his forces to defend Nishapur, leaving the western part of his lands exposed. At the same time, he made a hostile enemy out of Shah Shuja of the Muzaffarids. A revolt in 1373 in Kirman against Shah Shuja led by Pahlavan Asad received military support from 'Ali, but the rebellion was defeated in December 1374. The dervishes in Shiraz, meanwhile, found a leader in Rukn al-Din, a former member of Darvish 'Aziz's order. Shah Shuja gave them money and arms, and they conquered Sabzavar around 1376, forcing 'Ali to flee to Amir Vali. At about the same time, Nishapur was conquered by the Kartids of Pir 'Ali.
The new government in Sabzavar established a Shi'i rule based on the teachings of Hasan Juri. Not long afterward, however, Amir Vali arrived before the city. His group included Ali-yi Mu'ayyad, as well as the Muzaffarid Shah Mansur. 'Ali was reinstated as Sarbadar ruler once the city was captured, but many of his reforms had been abandoned. The partnership with Amir Vali furthermore did not last, and in 1381 the latter was besieging Sabzavar again. 'Ali, believing he had little other choice, asked for the assistance of Timur the Lame. He submitted to the conqueror in Nishapur, and Timur responded by ravaging Amir Vali's lands in Gurgan and Mazandaran. In Radkan, as he was returning from the victorious campaign, he confirmed 'Ali as governor of Sabzavar.
'Ali remained loyal to Timur, dying in 1386 after being wounded during Timur's campaign in Lesser Luristan. As a reward for this loyalty, Timur never occupied Sabzavar with his own troops, and allowed 'Ali to retain his local administration. After 'Ali's death, the Sarbadar territories were split amongst his relatives, who mostly remained loyal to Timur as well and took part in his campaigns. Muluk Sabzavari did become involved with the revolt of Hajji Beg of the Ja'un-i Qurban (which had been forcibly submitted to Timur's rule around 1381) in Tus in 1389, and afterwards sought refuge with the Muzaffarid Shah Mansur in Isfahan, but was eventually pardoned by Timur and given the governorship of Basra near the end of 1393. That same year, following the conquest of Baghdad by Timur, the governorship of that city was given to 'Ali's nephew Khwaja Mas'ud Sabzavari, who had a force of 3,000 Sarbadars. Despite this, he was forced to retreat in 1394 when Sultan Ahmad of the Jalayirids marched to recapture the city, and he retreated to Shushtar. Following the death of Timur, the Sarbadars slowly fell out of prominence.
Historically, the Sarbadars have been considered a robber-state; they have been accused of being a group of religious fanatics who terrorized their neighbors, with little regard for legitimate rule. Considering the conduct of nearly all of the Persian states during this time period, this assessment seems needlessly harsh. Other historians have considered the Sarbadars to be an example of class struggle; the downtrodden rising up against oppressive taxation by their masters, and establishing a republic in the middle of several feudal states. This, however, is not entirely accurate either. 'Abd al-Razzaq was a member of the ruling class, which was taxed the heaviest at the time. It could however be said that it was definitely a struggle of a people with a certain belief system against an oppressive ruler desiring to establish what could be easily be labelled a republic. Religious orders were common in this period of Persian history, as the order of the Ilkhanate fell apart, to be replaced by a period of anarchy and incessant warfare. Aside from the Safavid dynasty of Persia in the 16th century, the Sarbadars were probably the most successful example of such orders, although they rarely managed to achieve the state that they so desired.
The Sarbadars had an indirect on northern Iran, where several Shi'i attempts to gain power locally were launched:
Mazandaran: During Shams al-Din 'Ali's reign, a supporter of Hasan Juri named 'Izz al-Din, with a group of fellow adherents, returned to his homeland in Mazandaran. They were apparently unable to accept the moderate tone taken by the Sabadars in Sabzavar. 'Izz al-Din died en route, leaving his son Sayyid Qivan al-Din (also known as Mir-I Buzurg) to lead the group. They arrived in Amul and set up a state together with Kiya Afrasiyab, a son of a Hasan Chulabi, who had destroyed the local Bavandid dynasty in 1349. Like the Sarbadars, conflict soon erupted in this state between the secular rulers and the dervishes; the latter eventually won. Destroyed in 1392 by Timur, it emerged once more after his death, but only for a brief time.
Gilan: In Gilan, in northwestern Persia, a group of Shi'i shaikhs received help from the Mazandarani dervishes, and gained control of the region under Shaikh Amir Kiya. Due to the region's relative obscurity, the state survived until 1592, when it was absorbed by the Safavid Persians.
Samarkand: A group of "sarbadars" (it is not known whether they actually called themselves that) was instrumental of the defeat of the khan of Moghulistan (the Eastern Chagatai Khanate), Ilyas Khoja, during his invasion of the Western Chagatai Khanate in 1365. The sarbadars of Samarkand closed the gates of the city and refused to open them for the invader. They withstood the subsequent siege and organized ambushes on the enemy until an epidemic began striking down the Moghul horses, forcing them to retreat. Shortly afterwards, an early ally of Timur, Husayn, forced his way into Samarkand and put most of the sarbadar leaders to death. Despite being a nomad, Timur decided to court the assistance of the sedentary sarbadars following the breakdown of the alliance with Husayn, and they were an important factor in his rise to power in the Chagatai horde.


Rulers:
Abd al-Razzaq ibn Fazlullah (1332-1338)
Wajih ad-Din Masud ibn Fazlullah (1338-1343)
Muhammad Ay Temur (1343-1346)
Kaba Isfendiyar (1346-1347)
Lutf Allah (1347-1348 d.1361)
Khwaja Tadj ad-Din Ali (1348-1353)
Yahya ibn Karawi (1353-1358)
Zahir ad-Din (1358-1359)
Haidar al-Qassab (1359-1360)
Lutf Allah (restored) (1360-1361)
Hasan al-Damghani (1361-1364)
Khwaja 'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad ibn Masud (1364-1376 d.1386)
Rukn ad-Din (1376-1379)
Khwaja 'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad ibn Masud (restored) (1379-1386)

[the persian Immortal]

among so many heros I think that ariobarzanes was the greatest hero after Cyrus the great.
Ariobarzanes (fl. 368 BC – 330 BC) was a Persian satrap of Persis and military commander. He is best known for commanding the Persian army at the Battle of the Persian Gate against Alexander of Macedonia in the winter of 330 BC.
Though the exact birth date of Ariobarzanes is unknown, it is speculated that he was born around 368 BC. Ariobarzanes was made satrap of Persis (the southern province of Fars in present-day Iran) in 335 BC by Darius III Codomannus. For many researchers it is surprising that Darius III had appointed a satrap for Persepolis and Persis because previously, this office did not exist. Ariobarzanes commanded part of the Persian Army fighting against the Macedonians at Gaugamela in 331 BC.
Following the Persian defeat at Gaugamela, Darius realized he could not defend his capital Persepolis and travelled east to rebuild his armies, leaving Ariobarzanes in command. Meanwhile Alexander split his army and led his 14,000 strong force towards the Persian capital via the Persian Gates. There Ariobarzanes successfully ambushed Alexander's army, inflicting heavy casualties. The Persian success at the Battle of the Persian Gate was short lived though; after being held off for several days, Alexander outflanked and destroyed the defenders. Ariobarzanes himself was killed either during the battle or during the retreat to Persepolis.
Some sources indicate that the Persian were betrayed by a captured tribal chief who showed the Macedonians an alternate path that allowed them to outflank Ariobarzanes.