The Baduspanids or Badusbanids (Persian: بادوسپانیان, romanized: Bâduspâniân), were a local Iranian dynasty of Tabaristan which ruled over Ruyan/Rustamdar. The dynasty was established in 665, and with 933 years of rule as the longest dynasty in Iran, it ended in 1598 when the Safavids invaded and conquered their domains.[1][2]
The last Dabuyid ruler Khurshid managed to safeguard his realm against the Umayyad Caliphate, but after its replacement by the Abbasid Caliphate, he was finally defeated in 760.[6] Tabaristan was subsequently made a regular province of the caliphate, ruled from Amul by an Arab governor, although the local dynasties of the Bavandids, Qarinvandids, the Zarmihrids and Baduspanids, formerly subject to the Dabuyids, continued to control the mountainous interior as tributary vassals of the Abbasid government.[7][8][9] These rulers were largely if not completely autonomous.[9] Due to the regional prominence of the Baduspanids, Ruyan became known as Rustamdar in the Mongol era, a deformed form of their regnal title, ustandar, which they had used since the rule of Shahriyar III ibn Jamshid (r. 937–949).[2][10]
The Baduspanids were briefly deposed from power by the Mar'ashis, who ruled Rustamdar from 1381 till 1390, when they decided to install Baduspanid prince Sa'd al-Dawla Tus on the throne in Rustamdar to challenge the Afrasiyabid prince Iskandar-i Shaykhi who accompanied the Turco-Mongol ruler Timur (r. 1370–1405), who intended to conquer Mazandaran. However, Tus secretly corresponded with Iskandar-i Shaykhi, and eventually joined the forces of Timur in 1392. The following year (1393), Timur dislodged the Mar'ashis and conquered Mazandaran.[11] In 1399/1400, he deprived the Baduspanids of most of their holdings by sending his troops to administer most of Rustamdar. The holdings of the new Baduspanid ruler Kayumarth I were now restricted to that of the castle of Nur.[1][12] However, in 1405, he restored his rule in Rustamdar.[1] He died in 1453. After his death, a dynastic struggle followed, which resulted in his kingdom being split up by his sons Iskandar IV and Ka'us II, in Kojur and Nur respectively.[1] The Baduspanid dynasty was never to be united again, with the two branches ruling separately until they were eventually deposed in 1590s by the Safavid monarch of Iran, Abbas the Great (r. 1588–1629).[12][1]
Bosworth, C. E. (1984). "Āl-e Afrāsīāb". Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, Vol. I, Fasc. 7. New York. pp. 742–743.((cite encyclopedia)): CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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