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CAmir brought an army into Fars and after a bloody encounter managed to regain Istakhr, only to learn of a second outbreak there while he was marching on Darabjird and Firuzabad. Bypassing Fimzabad, where it appears Yazdgard was at the time, he returned to Istakhr, which withstood a long siege and put up a courageous resistance. He pounded the walls with stones from catapults, and the narratives have it that the conduits ran with the blood of the slaughtered. It is said that the remnants of Sasanian chivalry were decimated in this protracted struggle, in 28-9/648-9, and the hyperbolical estimates of the slain reach figures of between forty and a hundred thousand.

Wahab to reduce Hamadan, and the population of Ray were once again induced to pay the kharaj and jizya; but the peace which, with the aid of the internal differences between the notables of Ray, was imposed in 2 5 22 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 THE PURSUIT OF YAZDGARD upon the refractory populace was not lasting. Rebellion was endemic and the Arabs were repeatedly compelled to mount armies to suppress them, until finally during the time of 'Uthman and under the governorship, at Kufa, of Abu Musa Ash'arl, the city was reduced and peace imposed by Qurzat b.

Many of these, such as the Sa'ib family who settled in Qum, were subject to persecution in Iraq from the Umayyad officials, so that by removing themselves to distant areas they found freedom from oppression. In spite of having been defeated, the Iranians did not accept the penetration of these different kinds of immigrants with enthusiasm; on their entrance to Mada'in they referred to the Arabs as devils; in Slstan they were regarded as adherents of Ahriman. In many places their entrance was contested and when the Arabs assembled in Qum for their prayers, the people came and shouted insults at them, sometimes throwing stones and refuse into their dwellings.