Dabuyid dynasty

The Dabuyid dynasty was a Zoroastrian Iranian dynasty that ruled Tabaristan and parts of western Khorasan from about 642 until the Abbasid conquest in 760. Later tradition made the family a cadet branch of the Sasanians, descended from Jamasp, brother of Kavadh I, and the last Sasanian king Yazdegerd III granted its ancestor the titles Ruler of Gilan and King of Patashwargar. After the Arab conquest of Persia, the Dabuyids kept their mountainous homeland through treaties that restricted Arab entry, and they preserved Zoroastrian religion and Sasanian-style coinage long after the rest of Iran had submitted. Farrukhan the Great, who came to power in the 670s, defeated a major Arab invasion under Yazid ibn al-Muhallab in 716-717 and extended his authority toward Nishapur. His descendants ruled from Sari and other centres, and Khurshid, the last ispahbadh, tried to throw off caliphal suzerainty. In 759 the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur sent an army under the pretext of crossing Tabaristan, seized the country by surprise and forced Khurshid to flee to Gilan, where he was killed. The dynasty's fall brought Tabaristan more firmly into the Islamic world.