ANŪŠERVĀN B. MANŪČEHR B. QĀBŪS, ruler of the Daylamī dynasty of the Ziyarids in Ṭabarestān and Gorgān during the early 5th/11th century. He was the grandson of the celebrated amir and prose stylist, Šams-al-Maʿālī Qābūs b. Vošmgīr, and his father, Manūčehr, was the son-in-law of Maḥmūd of Ḡazna. Toward the end of Manūčehr’s reign, the Ziyarid emirate was drawn into the Ghaznavid orbit with the 420/1029 takeover of Ray and Jebāl from the Buyid Maǰd-al-dawla Rostam and from various local Kurdish and Daylamī powers. Manūčehr died in 420/1029 or 421/1030, and Maḥmūd then confirmed the youthful Anūšervān in his territories in return for tribute, though he had some doubts, according to Bayhaqī, about his capacity for strong rule in a region increasingly under pressure from Turkmen attacks from the direction of the Dehestān steppes. Shortly afterward, according to Bayhaqī, there was an internal upheaval in the Ziyarid emirate; Anūšervān was effectively set aside by his father’s uncle BūÂṟ Kālīǰār but possibly retained the throne as nominal ruler. Anūšervān held on for several years, and Ebn al-Aṯīr records that in 433/1041-42 the Saljuq Toḡrel Beg took over Ṭabarestān and Gorgān; he apparently left Anūšervān as nominal ruler there, Bū Kālīǰār having dropped out of mention. Anūšervān’s death is variously placed in 435/1043-44 (Yāqūt, Odabāʾ VI, p. 145) and in 441/1049-50 (Ebn Esfandīār, abridged tr. E. G. Browne, Leiden, 1905, pp. 235-36). The latter says that his cousin Kay Kāʾūs b. Eskandar, author of the Qābūs-nāma, succeeded him in the mountainous inland regions. No coins of Anūšervān are known.
Bibliography:
See also Bayhaqī, index.
Ebn al-Aṯīr, IX, pp. 262, 284, 340.
C. Huart, “Les Ziyarides,” Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 42, 1922, pp. 357-436.
C. E. Bosworth, “On the Chronology of the Ziyārids in Gurgān and Ṭabaristān,” Der Islam 40, 1964, pp. 25-34.
Idem, The Islamic Dynasties, Edinburgh, 1967, pp. 92-93.
Zimbaur, pp. 210-11.
(C. E. Bosworth)
Originally Published: December 15, 1986
Last Updated: August 5, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. II, Fasc. 2, pp. 139-140
