Yazdagird III at the Mill in Merv

The Rawdat al-safa is the work of the historian Mirkhwand (d.1498) who lived and worked in Herat, which at the time was part of Iran and served as the capital for the Timurids, the descendants of Timur (or Tamerlane). Under the rashidun, the first four orthodox caliphs, the boundaries of the Islamic state increased rapidly. In 642, the Arabs defeated the Sasanians at the Battle of Nihavand, in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, and although this marked the de facto end of the Sasanian empire, the actual end did not occur for several more years, when, in 650, Arab armies sacked Ctesiphon, the Sasanians’ great capital on the Tigris River in Iraq. This painting, one of thirteen in this copy of Mirkhwand's history, shows the last Sasanian ruler, Yazdagird III (r.632-51), who fled to the city of Merv in north-eastern Iran, and, according to tradition, was killed there in 651 while hiding in a mill.