ABŪ KĀLĪJĀR GARŠĀSP (I)

 

ABŪ KĀLĪJĀR GARŠĀSP (I), ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA, second son of the Kakuyid amir of Jebāl, ʿAlāʾ-al-dawla Moḥammad b. Došmanzīār, ruled in Hamadān and parts of what are now Kurdistan and Luristan, 433-37/1041-42 to 1045, d. 443/1051-52. When ʿAlāʾ-al-dawla died in 433/1041-42, Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp’s elder brother, Abū Manṣūr Farāmarz, succeeded in the Kakuyid capital of Isfahan as head of the family and supreme chief. Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp had already been governor of Hamadān and Nehāvand during his father’s lifetime, from some unspecified date, and probably with intervals of dispossession when the armies of the Ghaznavid sultan Masʿūd had appeared in 421/1030, 423/1032, and 426/1035. In 429/1037-38 Hamadān had been attacked by marauding bands of Oḡuz, the so-called ʿErāqī Turkmens, who had moved southwards from Azerbaijan; Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp had been forced to come to terms with them and to affirm the agreement by marrying the daughter of the Turkmen leader, Göktāš. This had not, however, prevented the Turkmens from returning the following year and subjecting Hamadān to a violent pillaging until they had been driven off by a joint Kakuyid and Kurdish army; Abū Kālīǰār himself had been forced to retire to Kangāvar.

When his elder brother succeeded in Isfahan, Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp became subordinate ruler in Hamadān, Nehāvand, and Borūǰerd, acknowledging Abū Manṣūr Farāmarz in the ḵoṭba. Unfortunately no coins of Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp seem to have survived from this period (or earlier). His territories continued to be the target for Turkmen pillagers, now under the command of the Saljuq leader Ebrāhīm Īnal, who had occupied Ray in 433/1041-42 and who operated virtually independently of Toḡrïl and Čaḡrī Beg and the main body of the Saljuq leadership. (He was to die as a rebel at Toḡrïl’s hands in 451/1059.) When Ebrāhīm Īnal appeared before Hamadān in 433/1041-42, Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp fled to a fortress near Šābūrḵᵛāšt or Ḵorramābād. The people of Hamadān escaped being looted by paying a substantial tribute to Ebrāhīm Īnal, and Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp only returned after the Oḡuz had departed.

When Toḡrïl came to Ray, he received the obedience of Abū Manṣūr Farāmarz in Isfahan and then marched on Hamadān also. Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp withdrew to the fortress of Kangāvar and did not return to Hamadān until 436/1044-45. He expelled the Saljuq governor who had been left there and transferred his allegiance to the Buyid amir of Fārs, Abū Kālīǰār ʿEmād-al-dīn. Toḡrïl, exasperated by this, resolved to finish with Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp. In 437/1045-46 he sent Ebrāhīm Īnal against Hamadān once more; the town now passed definitively into Saljuq hands, followed by Kangāvar two years later. Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp fled to the Buyid territories; from Fārs he made various forays against the Saljuqs, even endeavoring to form a coalition with Sultan Mawdūd b. Masʿūd of Ḡazna for the recovery of Khorasan. He died in Ḵūzestān in 443/1051-52, having been governor there for the Buyid ruler in Fārs, Fūlād Sotūn b. Abī Kālīǰār.

Bibliography:

Ebn al-Aṯīr, IX, pp. 339, 347-48, 359-60, 366, 381-82, 398.

C. E. Bosworth, “Dailamīs in Central Iran: the Kākūyids of Jibāl and Yazd,” Iran 8, 1970, pp. 81-83.

(C. E. Bosworth)

Originally Published: December 15, 1983

Last Updated: July 19, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 3, p. 328

Cite this entry:

C. E. Bosworth, “ABŪ KĀLĪJĀR GARŠĀSP (I),” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/3, p. 328; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abu-kalijar-garsasp-i-ala-al-dawla-second-son-of-the-kakuyid-amir-of-jebal-ala-al-dawla-mohammad-b (accessed on 30 January 2014).