The Zaydi Alavids of Tabaristan

The Alavids (or Alids) of Tabaristan were descendants of the Prophet’s cousin Ali who ruled the Caspian province of Tabaristan, today’s Mazandaran, from 864 to 928, with a gap of Samanid occupation between 900 and 914. Their state was the first lasting Shi’a government on Iranian soil, of the Zaydi branch, and their missionaries converted the mountain peoples of Daylam and Gilan to Islam, preparing the ground for the Daylamite dynasties that soon dominated Iran.

A refuge between mountain and sea

Tabaristan is a narrow strip of rice fields, marsh and thick forest between the Caspian Sea and the Alborz mountains. Armies coming from the plateau had to cross high passes and then fight in wet woodland where cavalry was nearly useless. Local princes had held out here long after the Arab conquest, as described on Iranian resistance in Tabaristan, and the lowlands were only brought under the caliph’s governors in the 760s. West of Tabaristan, in the highlands of Daylam and the coastal plain of Gilan, many people were still not Muslims in the ninth century.

The rising of 864

By the 860s Tabaristan was governed for the Tahirids of Khorasan, whose story is on the Tahirids. According to the local historian Ibn Isfandiyar, the trigger for revolt was a grant of land: the caliph gave crown estates in the western districts to the Tahirid Muhammad ibn Abd Allah, and his agent began seizing the forests and pastures that villagers used in common. The people of Ruyan and Kalar rose, made a pact with the Daylamites, and invited an Alid living in Rey, Hasan ibn Zayd, to lead them.

Hasan took the capital, Amol, in 864 and adopted the title al-Da’i ila’l-Haqq, “the one who summons to the truth”. Twice, in 869 and 874, invaders drove him into the mountains of Daylam; the second time it was Ya’qub the Saffarid, whose army was crippled by rain and forest. Each time Hasan came back. He ruled until his death in 884 and imposed Shi’a practice, including the Shi’a call to prayer, on a population that was largely Sunni.

Muhammad ibn Zayd and the Samanid conquest

His brother Muhammad ibn Zayd (884–900) was a more conciliatory ruler, known for sending money to Alid families in Iraq and for patronising the shrines of the imams. In 900, when the Saffarid Amr ibn Layth fell to the Samanids, Muhammad tried to seize Khorasan. A Samanid army met him near Gorgan; he was mortally wounded and Tabaristan passed to the Samanids. The Alid family and its followers withdrew to Daylam.

Al-Utrush, the missionary of Daylam

The most remarkable figure in the dynasty came from a different branch. Hasan ibn Ali, called al-Utrush, “the deaf”, was a descendant of Ali’s son Husayn and a scholar. For more than a decade he lived among the Daylamites and the Gilites, teaching Islam in its Zaydi form, and large numbers of them converted under his influence. Medieval authors treat this as the moment when Daylam became Muslim.

In 914 al-Utrush led an army out of the mountains, defeated the Samanid forces and retook Amol, ruling as al-Nasir li’l-Haqq. He died in 917, and his tomb in Amol remained a place of visitation. His legal and theological writings founded a school of Caspian Zaydism, the Nasiriyya, which survived for centuries in Gilan.

Feuds and the end, 917–928

After al-Utrush the state was torn between his sons, known as the Nasirids, and his general and chosen heir, Hasan ibn Qasim, called al-Da’i al-Saghir. Power changed hands several times between 917 and 927. Both sides relied on Daylamite commanders such as Makan ibn Kaki and Asfar ibn Shiruya, who soon had their own ambitions. In 928 Hasan ibn Qasim was killed in battle against Asfar, then acting for the Samanids, and the Alid state in Tabaristan came to an end.

1. 864 Hasan ibn Zayd takes Amol
2. 874 Ya’qub the Saffarid invades and withdraws
3. 884 Muhammad ibn Zayd succeeds
4. 900 Muhammad killed near Gorgan; Samanid occupation
5. 914 Al-Utrush retakes Tabaristan
6. 917 Death of al-Utrush; succession disputes
7. 928 Hasan ibn Qasim killed; end of the Alid state

Legacy: the Daylamite century

The Alavids mattered most for what came after them. The Daylamite soldiers who fought in their wars learned the trade of war on the plains, and some of them founded dynasties: Mardavij ibn Ziyar, founder of the Ziyarids, and the three sons of Buya, founders of the Buyid dynasty, all began their careers in this world of Alid and Daylamite feuds. The fighters themselves are the subject of the Daylamites. Small Zaydi principalities lasted in Daylam and Gilan into the sixteenth century.

The Alavid state was Zaydi, not Twelver: the Zaydis accepted as imam any descendant of Ali and Fatima who rose openly to claim leadership, rather than a fixed line of hidden imams. The longer history of Shi’ism in Iran, which became mostly Twelver centuries later, is traced on Shi’a Islam in Iranian history. For the region today, see the site’s guide to the north of Iran (Shomal).