Abu Mansur al-Faḍl ibn Ahmad al-Mustazhir better known by his regnal name Al-Mustarshid Billah was the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad from 1118 to 1135. He was son of his predecessor, caliph al-Mustazhir. He succeeded his father in the year 1118 as the Abbasid caliph.
The Barmakids, also spelled Barmecides, were an influential Iranian family from Balkh, where they were originally hereditary Buddhist leaders, and subsequently came to great political power under the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad. Khalid, the son of Barmak became the chief minister (vizier) of Al Saffah, the first Caliph of the Abbasid dynasty. His son Yahya aided Harun al-Rashid in capturing the throne and rose to power as the most powerful man in the Caliphate.
Hasan, better known by his laqab as Rukn al-Dawla, was the first Buyid amir of northern and central Iran. He was the son of Buya.
The Shaddadids were a Kurdish Sunni Muslim dynasty. who ruled in various parts of Armenia and Arran from 951 to 1199 AD. They were established in Dvin. Through their long tenure in Armenia, they often intermarried with the Bagratuni royal family of Armenia.
Abu l-Abbas al-Fadl ibn Sahl ibn Zadhanfarukh al-Sarakhsi, titled Dhu 'l-Ri'āsatayn, was a famous Persian vizier of the Abbasid era in Khurasan, who served under Caliph al-Ma'mun. He played a crucial role in the civil war between al-Ma'mun and his brother al-Amin, and was the vizier of the Abbasid Caliphate until 817.
Qatran Tabrizi was a Persian writer, who is considered to have been one of the leading poets in 11th-century Iran. A native of the northwestern region of Azarbaijan, he spent all of his life there as well as in the neighbouring region of Transcaucasia, mainly serving as a court poet under the local dynasties of the Rawadids and Shaddadids.
Dvin was a large commercial city and the capital of early medieval Armenia. It was situated north of the previous ancient capital of Armenia, the city of Artaxata, along the banks of the Metsamor River, 35 km to the south of modern Yerevan. The site of the ancient city is currently not much more than a large hill located between modern Hnaberd and Verin Dvin, Armenia. Excavations at Dvin since 1937 have produced an abundance of materials, which have shed light on the Armenian culture of the 5th to the 13th centuries.
Abu'l-Aswar or Abu'l-Asvar Shavur ibn Fadl ibn Muhammad ibn Shaddad was a member of the Shaddadid dynasty. Between 1049 and 1067 he was the eighth Shaddadid ruler of Arran from Ganja. Prior to that, he ruled the city of Dvin from 1022 as an autonomous lord. A capable warrior, and a wise and cunning ruler, Abu'l-Aswar was engaged in several conflicts with most of his neighbours. During his rule over Dvin, he was mostly involved in the affairs of the Armenian principalities. He collaborated with the Byzantine Empire in its conquest of the last remnants of Bagratid Armenia in 1045, but when the Byzantines later turned on him, he survived three successive offensives that sought to take Ganja. In 1049, a revolt in Ganja overthrew his infant great-great-nephew, Anushirvan. The rebels invited him to take up the family's emirate, and he moved from Dvin to Ganja. Under his rule, the Shaddadid dynasty reached its zenith. He undertook successful campaigns into Georgia and Shirvan, although the limits of Shaddadid power were exposed by his failure to take over the Emirate of Tiflis and by devastating raids by the Alans. At the same time, his reign witnessed the rapid rise of the Seljuk Empire and the extension of its control over the Transcaucasian principalities. Abu'l-Aswar became a Seljuk vassal in 1054/5. Although he gained control over the former Armenian capital of Ani through Seljuk patronage in 1065, this association also paved the way for the dynasty's decline after his death in November 1067.
Ashot ibn Abu'l-Aswar Shavur ibn Fadl was a Shaddadid prince, the second son of Abu'l-Aswar Shavur ibn Fadl. During the captivity of his older brother Fadl ibn Shavur by the Georgians in 1068, he ruled in his stead as emir of Arran for eight months, even minting coins in his own name and that of his overlord, the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan.
Fadlun ibn Fadl, or Fadl III was the last ruler of the Shaddadids of Arran from Ganja. He ruled from 1073 to 1075, until the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah removed him from power, giving him Astarabad. The realm was then absorbed by the Great Seljuqs, placing Sav-Tegin as governor of Ganja.
Abu 'l-Fadl Muhammad ibn Abi Abdallah al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Katib, commonly known after his father as Ibn al-'Amid was a Persian statesman who served as the vizier of the Buyid ruler Rukn al-Dawla for thirty years, from 940 until his death in 970. His son, Abu'l-Fath Ali ibn Muhammad, also called Ibn al-'Amid, succeeded him in his office.
Fakhr al-Din Fariburz ibn Sallar, better simply known as Fariburz I (فریبرز), was the sixteenth Shah of Shirvan, ruling from 1063 to 1096. His reign saw many major political balance changes in Caucasus, including expansion by the Seljuqs. He was considered a ruler with great diplomatic skills, and his kingdom extended from Mughan to Kumuk and Alania.
Afridun the Martyr was the eighteenth Shah of Shirvan. He was appointed governor of Derbent several times during his father Fariburz I's reign. "Afridun" is the arabicized form of the New Persian name Fereydun, an Iranian mythical hero.
The Fourth Fitna or Great Abbasid Civil War resulted from the conflict between the brothers al-Amin and al-Ma'mun over the succession to the throne of the Abbasid Caliphate. Their father, Caliph Harun al-Rashid, had named al-Amin as the first successor, but had also named al-Ma'mun as the second, with Khurasan granted to him as an appanage. Later a third son, al-Qasim, had been designated as third successor. After Harun died in 809, al-Amin succeeded him in Baghdad. Encouraged by the Baghdad court, al-Amin began trying to subvert the autonomous status of Khurasan, and al-Qasim was quickly sidelined. In response, al-Ma'mun sought the support of the provincial élites of Khurasan and made moves to assert his own autonomy. As the rift between the two brothers and their respective camps widened, al-Amin declared his own son Musa as his heir and assembled a large army. In 811, al-Amin's troops marched against Khurasan, but al-Ma'mun's general Tahir ibn Husayn defeated them in the Battle of Ray, and then invaded Iraq and besieged Baghdad itself. The city fell after a year, al-Amin was executed, and al-Ma'mun became Caliph.
Amīr Sūrī was the king of the Ghurid dynasty from the 9th-century to the 10th-century. According to some legends, He was a descendant of the Ghurid king Amir Banji, whose rule was legitimized by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid. Amir Suri is known to have fought the Saffarid ruler Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar, who managed to conquer much of Khurasan except Ghur. Amir Suri was later succeeded by his son Muhammad ibn Suri. Although Amir Suri bore an Arabic title and his son had an Islamic name, they followed Paganism and were considered pagans by the surrounding Muslim people, and it was only during the reign of Muhammad's son Abu Ali ibn Muhammad that the Ghurid dynasty became an Islamic dynasty.
The Kasranids were a branch of the Shirvanshahs, who ruled the Shirvan region for 387 years. The word "Kasra" was derived from legendary king Kai Khosrow of Iran, reflecting a shift in naming tradition from Arabic to Persian and it was part of an effort to break with their Arabic roots by claiming to be successors of the Sasanians and the Kayanian dynasty.
Fadl ibn Shavur ibn Manuchihr was Shaddadid emir of Ani from c. 1125 to 1130. Fadl was the son of deposed emir Abu'l-Aswar Shavur. Fadl retook Ani from the Georgians, but promised to observe the rights of its Christian population. Fadl extended his rule to Dvin and Ganja, but failed to maintain these cities. He was murdered by his courtiers following the fall of Dvin to the Turkish emir Qurti c. 1130. His brothers, Mahmud ibn Shavur and Khushchikr, ruled briefly in quick succession until the emirate was taken over by Fadl's nephew, Fakr al-Din Shaddad b. Mahmud.
Abu'l-Qāsim al-Ḥasan ibn Faraj ibn Ḥawshab ibn Zādān al-Najjār al-Kūfī, better known simply as Ibn Ḥawshab, or by his honorific of Manṣūr al-Yaman, was a senior Isma'ili missionary from the environs of Kufa. In cooperation with Ali ibn al-Fadl al-Jayshani, he established the Isma'ili creed in Yemen and conquered much of that country in the 890s and 900s in the name of the Isma'ili imam, Abdallah al-Mahdi, who at the time was still in hiding. After al-Mahdi proclaimed himself publicly in Ifriqiya in 909 and established the Fatimid Caliphate, Ibn al-Fadl turned against him and forced Ibn Hawshab to a subordinate position. Ibn Hawshab's life is known from an autobiography he wrote, while later Isma'ili tradition ascribes two theological treatises to him.
ʿAlī ibn al-Faḍl al-Jayshānī was a senior Isma'ili missionary from Yemen. In cooperation with Ibn Hawshab, he established the Isma'ili creed in his home country and conquered much of it in the 890s and 900s in the name of the hidden Isma'ili imam, Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah. After the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya in 909, and the public proclamation of al-Mahdi Billah as caliph, Ibn al-Fadl denounced al-Mahdi as false, and instead declared himself to be the awaited messiah. His erstwhile colleague, Ibn Hawshab, refused to follow him, so Ibn al-Fadl turned against him and forced him to capitulate. Ibn al-Fadl's dominion collapsed swiftly after his death in October 915. In January 917, his stronghold of Mudhaykhira was seized by the Yu'firids, his children captured, and his two sons executed.