فهرست مطالب میترا میربخش

An overall study on the extended periods of Iranian history indicates that the subject of ancestry is one of the significant political and social concerns which was closely related to legitimacy. For more than four centuries, the Sassanids ruled over a large territory of Iran and established an empire that was concerned with matters of purity of blood and originality of lineage. This matter was imperative both regarding paternal and maternal lineages. In order to maintain the purity of blood and ancestry, they recommended incestuous marriages. It seems that in the Sassanid dynasty, kings adopted Iranian and Aneran wives, who are mentioned both in written sources and historical monuments related to the Sassanid era, such as the inscription of the Kaaba of Zoroaster. The dispute in this study is how this approach affects the status of women and their lineage in the Sassanid period. Hence, the goal of this research is to investigate the racial origin and lineage of Iranian women based on written and illustrated historical sources. The method of this research is analytical-descriptive and based on library data. The findings of this study show that during this period, the wives of Sassanid kings were selected more compared to the noble Parthian families, and it can be stated that in the Sassanid dynasty, at least at its commencement, the family title of these women, truly or as propaganda was used to legitimize the kingdom. In addition to these cases, examples of incestuous marriages are mentioned.

1. Examining the lineage of women in the Sassanid court based on written and illustrated historical sources. 2. Investigating the role of marriage in authority relations in the Sassanid period.

Research questions: 

1. What effect did the issue of women's lineage have on political relations in the Sassanid period? 2. Can evidence of intermarriage be found in written and illustrated historical sources?

By rising of the Sassanids, this empire attempted to create gradually a central government dominated by the integrity of religion and government, hence, despite of existence of an emerging religion such as Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism dominated in this government. Considering the attitude towards religious minorities during the Sassanid Empire, although there was some laxity during the reign of emperors such as Shapour the First, oppression and rigor was reported in certain periods of this dynasty which to some extent were provoked by Zoroastrian priests. On the other hand, based on the evidence from written historical references, despite of stressing on Zoroastrianism, the Sassanid emperors had some Jewish and Christian women in their seraglio. In the present study, it was assumed that most of these women were involved in the power. The main question was that who were these non-Zoroastrian women of the Sassanid court and did they play any role in the government’s policies towards the religious minorities of their age? To do this research, the descriptive-analytical method was used. The findings indicated that the presence of powerful non-Zoroastrian queens or the ones supporting religions other than Zoroastrianism on power top led to the improvement of the religious minorities’ situations in the Sassanid community. It seemed that these queens played an important role in improvement of the situation of their coreligionists or the followers of the religions they supported through imposing on emperors and dignitaries of the state.