Al-assuad

Al-Assuad became king of the Lahmid state after his father, king al-Munzir I , around 472/473 ^[1] . Al-Assuad was not the only son of al-Munzir I - apparently, for some time, the most likely successor to al-Munzir was al-Numan, who in 420 commanded the Lahmid troops during the campaign on Ktesifon . It is possible that by the time of al-Assuad's accession to the throne of al-Numan was no longer alive. At-Tabari , who relied on the information of Hisham ibn al-Kalbi , wrote: “... then after him reigned his son al-Asuad ibn al-Munzir, whose mother was the daughter of al-Numan from the [clan] Banu al-Haijuman. .. and he - the one who was held in custody by the Persians, twenty years ... ". The problem is that from the text of al-Tabari it is impossible to clearly understand to whom exactly the definition “he is the one who was held by the Persians” refers to al-Aswad or to the same passage of the same passage, Amr ibn Abi Rabi. If the report on the detention refers to al-Assuad, then the text again is not entirely clear when it was al-Assuad who was in the Persian prison - before his accession to the throne or after his reign ended ^[2] .

According to at-Tabari , al-Biruni , al-Isfahani , Ibn Saeed, Ibn Khabib and Ibn Khaldun , King al-Asuad occupied the throne of the Lahmid state for twenty years ^[1] . At-Tabari, based on the data of Hisham ibn al-Kalbi, argued that al-Aswad ruled for twenty years, of which ten years under the Shahanshah Peroz , four years under the Wallach , six years under Kawad I. Based on the testimonies of al-Tabari and al-Kalbi, the rule of al-Asuad began ten years before the death of the Shahanshah Peroz, that is, in 492 or 493 , and ended six years after the first accession to the throne of the Shahanshah Kawad, that is, about 493 ^[3] .

A little differently about the rule of al-Assuad, the medieval author Abu-al-Bak al-Hilly tells: “They said that he ruled for twenty years. His reign was at the time of Peroz, son of Ezdigerd , and Wallach, son of Peroz. However, then the latter punished him and imprisoned him, so that he remained in the prison of the Sassanid kings for twenty years. " From this message it is clearly seen that it was al-Assuad who was imprisoned by the Persians precisely after his twenty-year rule. Only twenty years of the subsequent conclusion of al-Aswad is doubtful. Apparently, al-Hilly interpreted the above passage from the text of al-Tabari in his own way, from which it is not entirely clear what the twenty-year period refers to - the time of the reign or the period of imprisonment. So, probably, al-Hilly had two twenty-year terms, relating both to the rule of al-Assuad and to his subsequent imprisonment in the Sassanid dungeon. It should be noted that Hisham ibn al-Kalbi, on whose information at-Tabari was based, referred specifically to the twenty-year term of al-Aswad's rule and not about any more. Another inconsistency is also noteworthy: according to al-Hilli, al-Asuada imprisoned the shahanshah Valash in prison, which does not fit in with the cited passage from the text of al-Tabari ^[4] .

No information has been preserved as to what al-Asuad caused the wrath of the shahanshah and what was happening in al- Khir at that moment. According to al-Hilli, the rule of al-Assuad was interrupted by the shahanshah, by whose order the king of Lahmid was thrown into prison. The historical context rather confirms the sequence of events in the interpretation of al-Hillie. Muslim historians agree that the successor of al-Asuad to the shahanshah was appointed not by his son al-Numan , but by his brother al-Munzir II , which was probably due to the disgrace of al-Asuad and the distrust of the shahanshah in relation to his son and legitimate heir ^{[5 ]} .

• Mishin D.E. History of the Lahmid state. - M .: OOO "Sadra", 2017. - 448 p. - ISBN 978-5-906859-27-3 .