Yazdegerd III (617-651) was the Shahanshah of the Sassanid Empire from 16 June 632 to 651, succeeding Azarmidokht. He was the last emperor of the Sassanids before the Rashidun Caliphate's conquest of Persia.
Biography[]
Yazdegerd at the age of 18
Yazdegerd was born in 617, and he was the son of Shahriyar and the grandson of Khosrau II. In 632, Rostam Farrokhzad and Piruz Khosrow installed him as the new Shahanshah of the Sassanid Empire after anarchy from 628 to 632 in which his aunts Azarmidokht and Purandokht bickered over ruling the country. Just one year after he became shahanshah, the Rashidun Caliphate invaded Persia to avenge Khosrau's insulting of Muhammad years before. His daughter Shahrbanu married Hussein ibn Ali, but he was not to make peace with the Muslims; the Arabs defeated him in the 636 Battle of al-Qadisiyyah and the 642 Battle of Nahavand, forcing him to flee to the eastern parts of the empire. In 651, he was robbed and killed by a miller (who was unaware of his identity) in Merv while running from the Arabs, ending the Sassanid Empire; it was also rumored that the Governor of Merv himself had murdered Yazdegerd. His son Peroz III fled to China, and the exiled Sassanids would make one last attempt to reconquer their empire at Kamarja in 729 AD, being defeated by the Umayyad Caliphate.