ADMINISTRATIONa permanent office, for relatives, generals, and nobles who held dif-
ferent titles and positions to perform the duties of a regent during the
absence, minority, or preoccupation of the king. At the very end of
the Sasanian period, after the death of Khusraw Parviz in 628, con-
ditions favored the concentration of power and influence in the hands
of a small number of officials at court who were responsible for the
rapid elevation and deposition of a succession of rulers, and who put
themselves in charge of the administration. A cavalry officer ran the
state for Shiroe (February-September 628), and a nobleman called
Khosrat Firiiz managed affairs for the child Ardashir III (September
628-April630) while the chief steward was in charge of raising him.153
The resemblance between the arrangements made for Ardashir III and
Goitein's description of the origin of the 'Abbasi waztrate in the tribal
custom of assigning a guardian to a young prince for his education
and for the conduct of government during his minority is perhaps a
natural result of circumstances arising from hereditary succession.154
In fact, similar situations in the Byzantine empire were handled in the
same way during this period.
Muslim governors were at first more important than Commanders
of the Faithful in the revival of Sasanian royal customs. This was
especially true of governors such as Ziyad and al-I:Iajjaj who not only
unified the administration of Iraq but, because of their responsibility
for the eastern provinces which were subordinated to Basra and Kufa,
ruled a region that nearly coincided with the former extent of the
Sasanian empire. The Persians of Fars compared Ziyad to Khusraw
Aniishirwan when he was their governor at the end of 'All's reign.^155
Ziyad's similarity to the Sasanians was heightened by the way he
divided his time between Basra and Kufa. The last Sasanian monarchs
normally maintained separate summer and winter residences, spending
the winter in Iraq (at Mada'in or Dastagird) and the summer in the
mountains of western Iran (often at Hulwan).1^56 The government of
153 Dlnawari, Akhbiir at-tiwiii p. 116; Tha'alibi, Ghurar, p. 732; Tabari, Ta'rtkh, I,
1046, 1061.
154 Goitein, "Origin of the Vizierate," pp. 179-80.
155 Tabari, Ta'rtkh, I, 3449.
156 Chabot, Synodicon, pp. 632-33; Dlnawari, Akhbiir at-tiwiii, pp. 80, 105;
G. Hoffmann, Ausziige aus syrischen Akten persischer Miirtyrer (Leipzig, 1880), p. 37;
Mas\idi, Muruj, II, 184; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," 11(2), 553; Tabari, Ta'rtkh, I,
1041; Tha'alibi, Ghurar, p. 641. According to Mas'iidi, many prominent Muslims
consciously imitated this Sasanian royal custom and he quotes the verse of Abii Dulaf
al-Qasim ibn 'isa al-'Ijli: "I am a man like Kisra; I spend the summer in al-Jibal and
the winter in Iraq."