He carried his arms to the Mediterranean, the Famine, the Su tl ej, and the Jaxartes. Trans-Oxiana, the Punjab, and great part of Arabia obeyed his mandates. Persia was divided into four great viceroyalties, and the excellence of the internal administration, iu which the king was aided by his celebrated minister Buzurg-Mihir, has earned for him the proud appellation of 'Just.' His sou Hormuz (579-90), after losing all the conquests of his father, forfeited his throne and life in a popular revolt. Khosru-Perwiz, son of Hormuz (590-628), attacked the Roman empire (602), and in 16 years restored the Persian empiro to the limits under Xerxes, by the conquest of Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt : but these successes were transient, and Khosru, after having been in turn driven from his palaces by the victories of Heraclius, was murdered by his own eon Shiruyeh, or Siroes. A period of con fusion followed till the accession of Yezdejerd III., in the same year (632) in which Persia was attacked by the Arabs, then commencing the career of Mohammedan conquest. The fate of the kingdom, weakened by internal dissensions, was decided by the battles of Weida (636) and of Nehavend (641), the last of which, though the king survived in the condition of a fugitive 30 years longer, subverted at once the Sassanian power and the independence of the country.
The Persians imbibed the religion. and literature of the Arabs; but the country for two centuries was only n province in the empire of the Kalifs. With the decay of tho power of the kalifs the spirit of independence revived, and the re-establishment of the kingdom may be dated from the foundation of the Soffarian dynasty by Yakub lhn Lai!, who about 868 threw off his allegiance to the kalif, and fixed at Shiraz the capital of a dominion including nearly all Persia. This dynasty lasted from 8f18 to 900; and was succeeded by the Tartar Samanides dynasty (900 to 936); and a native dynasty (936 to 1028). The Seljookian Turks, among whom were the distinguished kings Togrul-Beg and Alp-Arslan, ruled Persia from 1028 till 1194, when the Kharismiane held the reins of power for a short time. The famous mogul Gengis Khan established a new dynasty, which ruled Persia till 1381,in which year the Tartars under Tnmerlaneconquered the country, and established & rule which lasted, with few interruptions, till 1502.
Ismael Shah, the founder of the Sefi, Sooffee, or Seffavean dynasty, was remotely descended from the Kalif Ali, the cousin and eon-in-law of Mohammed. Ile was a Turkoman, but he belonged to a different religious sect from the Turks usually so called, and hence partly the national hostility which has subsisted between the Sheah and Sooni, or Persian and Turkish Mohammedaus. This dynasty lasted from 1502 till 1736; it included the distinguished name of Abbas the Great, under whom the Persian empire regained much of its former extent and splendour.
After totally expelling the Uzbeks from Khorassan, in the first part of his reign, he turned his arms against the Turks, over whom ho gained repented victories from 1603 to 1618, in which year a pence was concluded, restoring to Persia all her former possessions. In order
to promote manufactures, he invited Armenian artificers to settle at Jnlfa, and formed an allianco with the English, by whose aid he expelled the Portuguese from Ormuz ; he removed the capital from Kazwin to lapahan, and greatly improved the internal communications of the kingdom.
The Sea dynasty was put an end to by Nadir Shah iu 1736. This extraordinary man raised Persia, for a short time, to a higher degree of power than she had possessed since the rule of the Bassani= kings. He conquered Caudaliar and Afghanistan; and in invading India, iu 1739, took Delhi, and carried off a booty estimated at 32,000,000/., reducing the next year the Uzbeks of Khiva and Bokhara, long the enemies of Persia. A second war with the Porte (1743-6) terminated favourably to Persia; but the barbarities and avarice of Nadir exas perated his subjects, and he was murdered in his tent, 1747. His death was the signal for a scene of anarchy and confusion ; the Uzbek states threw off the yoke, and Afghanistan became an independent and powerful kingdom under Ahmed Dooranee, while the crown of Persia was contested by various competitors, and tho kingdom torn by civil war, till a chief named Kereem Khnn, of the Zend family, succeeded, in 1759, in possessing himself of supreme power, which ho held till his death, in 1779, under the title of Waked, or administrator ; he refused the iuslgnia of royalty. But fresh troubles broke out at his death—six chiefs, between 1779 and 1789, ascended or claimed the throne, while Russia took Georgia under her protection in 1783. The candidates for royalty were at length reduced to Lutf Ali lihnu Zeud and Aga-Mohammed Khan Kajar; the former, a bravo hut cruel prince, bore the title of king from 1789 to 1705, when lie was taken and put to death by his rival, who thus became sole monarch, and the founder of the Kajar or reigning dynasty. lie fixed his capital at Teheran. His first act was to attack the revolted Georgians, whom he overthrew in the field, and subjected their capital Tetlia to ruth less pillage and massacre; but his severity provoked his own attendants to assassinate him, and he was succeeded by his nephew, Shah Fatah Ali (1797-1834). This reign was marked by two disastrous wars with Russia, the first of which (1801-13) ended in the cession of most of the Caspian provinces by the peace of Goolistan; the second (1826.8), in the cession of Erivan and the country to the At-axes, by the treaty of Turkmanchai. He however reconquered Khoraasan from the Afghan. and Uzbeks, and broke the power of the chiefs of tribes by appointing his own numerous eons to nearly all the governments Ile was succeeded by Shah Mohammed, grandson of Fatah Ali by his eon Abbis Mirsa, who had been declared crown-prince, but died i before his father. Ilia reign was distinguished bT an unsuceeeetul expedition in 1S3S against Ilerat, the ruler of which however made his enbenission to the Shah in 1843.