ʿABBĀS AḤVAL, leader with ʿAmr al-Azraq (Masʿūdī: al-Afvah) of an Arab invasion of the lower Euphrates region in which the Savād of Iraq was ravaged, about A.D. 589, toward the end of the reign of Hormozd IV. This event is represented by some ancient historians as part of a coalition of the enemies of Iran. The Arab invasion was probably made from Baḥrayn (see Baḷʿamī). Baḷʿamī states that it was bought off by subsidies of provisions and money through the agency of Hawḏa b. ʿAlī, ruler of al-Yamāma, whose pro-Persian policy ended disastrously later. Masʿūdī mentions that the expedition consisted of Arabs of Qaḥṭān (South Arabians) and Maʿadd (North Arabians). It is likely that the Arab invasion of Iraq in this year was connected with the contemporary situation in the Yemen (see Abnāʾ), then occupied by Persia.
Bibliography:
Ṭabarī, I/2, p. 991; idem (Cairo2), II, p. 174.
Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, pp. 269-70.
Baḷʿamī, Chronique II, pp. 249-52.
Masʿūdī, Morūǰ II, p. 212; ibid., ed. Pellat, I, p. 237.
(D. M. Dunlop)
Originally Published: December 15, 1982
Last Updated: July 13, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 1, p. 79
D. M. Dunlop, “'Abbas Ahval,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/1, p. 79, available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abbas-ahval (accessed on 10 January 2014).
