BĪSOTŪN, ABŪ MANṢŪR

 

BĪSOTŪN, ẒAHĪR-AL-DAWLA ABŪ MANṢŪR b. Vošmgīr, the Ziyarid amir in Ṭabarestān and Gorgān (r. 357-67/967-78, not 356-66 as in Zambaur, pp. 210-11). The date of his father Vošmgīr’s (q.v.) death in a hunting accident is given by Ebn Meskawayh, Tajāreb II, p. 233, tr., V, p. 247, as 1 Moḥarram 357/7 December 967, and his own death at Astarābād by Gardīzī, ed. Nazim, p. 46, as falling in Rajab, 367/February-March, 978 (but according to Ebn al-Aṯīr in 366/976-77). Bīsotūn was active as a military com­mander during his father Vošmgīr’s lifetime, but the chronicles record only two defeats of his, one in 348/959-60 during fighting with ʿAlī b. Kāma, nephew of the Buyid amir in northern Persia Rokn-al-Dawla (q.v.), and a second one in 355/966 when he was worsted in Deylam by the Zaydī ascetic and missionary Abū ʿAbd-Allāh, called Ebn al-Dāʿī. When Vošmgīr died on 11 Moḥarram 357/7 December 967 Bīsotūn, as elder brother, claimed the succession against his younger brother Qābūs, the latter backed by the Samanids; when Bīsotūn heard that the Samanid governor in Nīšāpūr, Abu’l-Ḥasan Moḥammad b. Ebrāhīm Sīmjūrī, inten­ded to mulct him in order to pay the Samanid army of Khorasan he sought the help of Rokn-al-Dawla and established himself in Āmol with Buyid support (cf. Gardīzī, p. 45, and Barthold, Turkestan3, p. 251). He received legitimation for his rule over Gorgān, Ṭabare­stān, Čālūs, and Rūyān, together with the honorific Ẓahīr-al-Dawla, from the ʿAbbasid caliph al-Moṭīʿ and further strengthened his position by marrying a daugh­ter of the Buyid ʿAżod-al-Dawla Fanā-Ḵosrow.

Much of his subsequent reign was spent in fending off Samanid claims to sovereignty over the Caspian provinces. When he died he left an infant son, but this time Qābūs b. Vošmgīr (q.v.) was able, after a brief succession struggle, to assume the rule and begin a reign of some thirty-five years.

 

Bibliography:

Margoliouth and Amedroz, Eclipse II, pp. 176, 216, 233; tr., V, pp. 191, 229, 247.

Gardīzī, Zayn al-aḵbār, ed. Nazim, pp. 45-46, ed. Ḥabībī, p. 163.

Ebn Esfandīār, p. 225 (confused and inaccurate).

Ebn al-Aṯīr (Beirut), VIII, pp. 527, 574, 578, 687-88.

F. Justi, Namenbuch, p. 69.

Barthold, Turkestan3, p. 251.

Cl. Huart, “Les Ziyarides,” Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 42, 1922, pp. 403-04.

E. D. Ross, “On Three Muhammadan Dynasties in Northern Persia in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” Asia Major 2, 1925, pp. 209-11.

Zambaur, pp. 210-11 (indicating the existence of coins minted by Bīsotūn). Mafizullah Kabir, “History of the Ziyarids of Tabaristan and Gurgan (927-8-1090-1 A.D.)”, Journal of the Asia­tic Society of Pakistan 5, 1960, pp. 1-20.

W. Made­lung, in Camb. Hist. Iran IV, p. 214.

(C. Edmund Bosworth)

Originally Published: December 15, 1989

Last Updated: December 15, 1989

This article is available in print.
Vol. IV, Fasc. 3, pp. 305-306