The Sarbadars (from Persian: سربدار sarbadār, "head on gallows"; also known as Sarbedaran سربداران) were a mixture of religious dervishes and secular rulers that came to rule over part of western Khurasan in the midst of the disintegration of the Mongol Ilkhanate in the mid-14th century (established in 1337). Centered in their capital of Sabzavar, they continued their reign until Khwaja 'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad submitted to Timur in 1381, and were one of the few groups that managed to mostly avoid Timur's famous brutality.
Religion
The Sarbadar state was marked by divisions in religious belief during its existence. Its rulers were Shi'i, though often Sunnis claimed leadership among the people with the support of Ilkhanid rulers. The leadership of the Shi'is stemmed chiefly from the charisma of Sheikh Khalifa; a scholar from Mazandaran, the shaikh had arrived in Khurasan some years before the founding of the Sarbadar state and was subsequently murdered by Sunnis. His successor, Hasan Juri, established the former's practices in the Sarbadar state. The followers of these practices were known as "Sabzavaris" after the city. The Sabzavaris, however, were divided; among their number were moderate Shi'is who were often at odds with the dervishes, adherents of a mystic ideology. The capital city of Sabzavar likely had a large Shi'ite community, but as the Sarbadars conquered the neighboring territory, they acquired cities with Sunni populations.
Government
The Sarbadars are unique among the major contenders in post-Ilkhanid Persia in that none of their leaders ruled as legitimate sovereigns. None of them had a legitimate claim to the Ilkhanid throne, or were related to a Mongol or any other royal house, and none of them had previously held a high post within the Ilkhanate. While they on occasion recognized claimants to the Ilkhanid throne as their overlord, they did so purely as a matter of convenience, and in all other aspects they had no ties to the Ilkhanate. This fact had a strong influence regarding the nature of the Sarbadar political state.
The Sarbadars had a form of government which would, in modern times, probably be identified as an oligarchy or a republic. Unlike their neighbors, the Sarbadars had no dynastic lines; power usually went to the most ambitious. This view is not universally held, however. Some point to the fact that one of the Sarbadar rulers, Vajih al-Din Mas'ud, produced a son who also eventually reigned, named Lutf Allah. While seven other rulers separated the reign of Mas'ud and that of his son, those seven rulers are sometimes considered regents for Lutf Allah, until he was old enough to grab power for himself. Nevertheless, the seven are generally considered the heads of state in their own right.
A ruler would hold power for as long as he could; the fact that several of them met violent deaths was a sign of the instability that plagued the state for most of its existence. The founder of the Sabadar state, 'Abd al-Razzaq, used the title of amir during his reign. While many of the Sarbadar leaders were secular, the dervishes also had their turns in power, and on occasion they ruled the state in co-dominion with each other; such partnerships, however, tended to fall apart quickly. Because the two sides held radically different views on how the Sarbadar government should be run, there were often drastic changes in policy as one side would supplant the other as the most powerful.
History
Foundation
The Sarbadar state came into existence around early 1337. At that time, much of Khurasan was under the control of the Ilkhanid claimant Togha Temur and his amirs. One of his subjects, 'Ala' al-Din Muhammad, had jurisdiction over the city of Sabzavar. His oppressive taxation of the area caused an 'Abd al-Razzaq, a member of the feudal ruling class, to murder a government official in Bashtin, a district of the city. The official was a nephew of 'Ala' al-Din, and 'Abd al-Razzaq raised the standard of revolt. The rebels at first settled in the mountains, where they defeated militias sent against them and raided caravans and herds of cattle, and then in the summer of 1337 took possession of Sabzavar. Togha Temur was most likely campaigning in the west at this time, against the Jalayirids, making him unable to deal with the revolt. 'Abd al-Razzaq took the title of amir and had coins made in his name, but he was stabbed to death by his brother Vajih al-Din Mas'ud during an argument in 1338. Mas'ud, taking command of the Sarbadars, made peace with Togha Temur, promising to recognize him as sovereign and to pay taxes to him. The khan agreed, in the hope that it would put a stop to the Sarbadar raids on his supply trains.
In the meantime, Shaikh Kalifa's follower Hasan Juri had been preaching in towns all across Khurasan, with great success. His accomplishments attracted the suspicion of the government authorities, and in May 1336 he fled to eastern Iraq. When he returned some years later, Togha Temur's lieutenant and commander of the Ja'un-i Qurban Arghun Shah had him arrested in 1339 or 1340. He was eventually released, perhaps due to the insistence of Mas'ud, who soon after decided to take advantage of Hasan Juri's popularity. He joined Hasan's order as a novice, and had him proclaimed as joint ruler. Hasan Juri proclaimed that the Twelfth Imam would soon return. While the sharing of power began well, differences quickly emerged between the two. Mas'ud believed in accepting the nominal suzerainty of Togha Temur, while Hasan Juri was intent on establishing a Shi'i state. The two rulers each gained bases of support; the former had his family and the gentry, while the latter had the dervishes, the aristocracy, and the trade guilds. Both also had their own armed forces; Mas'ud had 12,000 armed peasants and a bodyguard of 700 Turkish slave troops, while Hasan Juri had an army composed of artisans and merchants.
In 1340 Mas'ud moved against the Ja'un-i Qurban under Arghun Shah; the latter was forced to abandon Nishapur and retreat to Tus. The Sarbadars continued to mint coins in Togha Temur's name, in the hope that he would ignore this move as he was campaigning in the west again at this time. The khan, however, moved against them; his forces were destroyed, and while fleeing to Mazandaran several important figures such as 'Ala' al-Din (formerly in charge of Sabzavar), 'Abd-Allah, and Togha's own brother 'Ali Ke'un were killed. The Sarbadars gained control of Jajarm, Damghan and Simnan, along with Togha's capital of Gurgan. Mas'ud and Hasan Juri, however, soon came into disagreement over several issues. Mas'ud, following the defeat of Togha Temur, gained a new suzerain in the form of Hasan Kucek of the Chobanids, as well as the latter's puppet khan Sulaiman. Mas'ud considered the move necessary; with the conquest of Simnan, the Chobanids were now neighbors. Since the Chobanids were Sunnis, however, this doubtless did not go over well with Mas'ud's co-ruler.
With the defeat of the Ja'un-i Qurban and Togha Temur, the Sarbadars still had one more force to contend with in Khurasan: the Kartids of Herat. Their leader Mu'izz al-Din Husain also recognized Togha Temur's overlordship, and when the Sarbadars threw off the khan's nominal rule, they became enemies. The Sarbadars decided to destroy the Kartids with an offensive campaign. The armies of the two forces met at the Battle of Zava on July 18, 1342. The battle started out well for the Sarbadars, but then Hasan Juri was taken and killed. His supporters, assuming (perhaps correctly) that his death had been the result of an assassin of Mas'ud, promptly retreated, turning the tide of the battle. The Kartids therefore survived. Following the return home, Mas'ud attempted to rule without the support of the dervishes, but his power was decreased. He attempted to end the threat of Togha Temur, who had in the meantime made his camp in the Amul region and was preventing the Sarbadars from staying in contact with the Chobanids. Mas'ud undertook a campaign against him in 1344 which got off to a good start, but ended in disaster. On the route from Sari to Amul, the Sarbadar army was trapped in a pincer movement, and Mas'ud was taken prisoner and executed. Most of the Sarbadar conquests were lost as a result of the two losses; only the region around Sabzavar, as well as maybe Juvain and Nishapur remained in their hands. Togha Temur returned to Gurgan and once again gained the allegiance of the Sarbadars.
1344–1361
Mas'ud's first three successors ruled for a period totaling only three years. Both of the first two men had served as his military commanders; Mas'ud's brother Shams al-Din came next, only to fall as well. These internal conflicts were countered by good news on the external front; namely, the death of Arghun Shah in 1343, and the rise of his successor Muhammad Beg, who abandoned the alliance of the Ja'un-i Qurban with Togha Temur in favor of one with the Sarbadars. Shams al-Din was replaced in turn by the dervish Shams al-Din 'Ali in 1347, marking the loss of power by Mas'ud's adherents. Shams al-Din 'Ali was an effective administrator, reorganizing the state finances, carrying out tax reforms, and paying officials in cash. As a religious man, he attempted to stamp out prostitution, drugs and alcohol, and lived a simple life. His military was effective; although he failed to take Tus, he was able to destroy a rebellion in Damghan in the west. He was, however, prevented from turning the Sarbadar state to the Shi'i creed by Mas'ud's supporters, who kept the government Sunni. In the meantime, he gained enemies among the opponents of the dervishes, as well as the corrupt officials of the state that hated his reforms. One of these officials named Haidar Qassab, who was possibly a member of the artisan guild, murdered him around 1352.
Shams al-Din 'Ali's successor was a member of the Sabzavari aristocracy named Yahya Karavi. Yahya was forced to deal with Togha Temur, who in spite of the loss of the allegiance of the Ja'un-i Qurban and, in 1349, the Kartids, still was a danger of the Sarbadars. His army of 50,000 dwarfed the Sarbadar army, which numbered only around 22,000. Yahya neutralized the khan by recognizing him as suzerain, striking coins in his name and paying taxes to him. He also promised to visit Togha Temur once a year. He was probably making one of these visits when he arrived in November or December 1353 at the khan's camp of Sultan-Duvin near Astarabad. Yahya and a group of his followers entered the camp and were allowed into Togha Temur's tent. There, they murdered the khan and his courtiers, then put to death the Mongol troops and killed the nomads' herds. With the death of Togha Temur, the last serious contender for the Ilkhanid throne was gone. The Sarbadar lands then expanded to the borders reached by Mas'ud, and then gained even more: the area around Ray, the city of Tus, and Astarabad and Shasman. Yahya, however, was murdered around 1356, possibly at the hands of Mas'ud's adherents. Mas'ud's son Lutf Allah was possibly involved in the murder.
Haidar Qassib, the murderer of Shams al-Din 'Ali, now took advantage of the situation. Arriving from Astarabad, ostensibly to hunt down Yahya's killers, he installed Yahya's nephew Zahir al-Din Karavi to rule. Soon afterwards, however, he removed him from power and ruled in his own name. Unfortunately for him, he was unpopular with nearly everyone even before he came to power. As a former member of Shams al-Din 'Ali's party, the supporters of Mas'ud disliked him, and his murder of Shams al-Din 'Ali alienated him from the dervishes. Nasr Allah, Lutf Allah's tutor, allied with Yahya's murderers and rose in revolt in Isfara'in, the second city of the Sarbadars. Haidar moved to put the rebellion down, but before he could he was stabbed to death by an assassin hired by a Hasan Damghani. Lutf Allah now gained control of the state, but he soon came into conflict with Hasan Damghani as well. He was defeated, and in the process Mas'ud's adherents were mostly eliminated.