Asfār b. Shīrawayh - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Jarrar, Maher
Leiden
Brill
(1,416 words)
Asfār b. Shīrawayh (Shīrūya; d. c.319/931) was a soldier of fortune from the Daylam region (for his lineage, see Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, 241, and Madelung, Abū Isḥāq al-Ṣābī, 25, n. 52, but see also al-Masʿūdī, 5:26, and Bosworth, Asfār b. Šīrūya, EIr ). Like other frontiersmen of the region, he played an ambitious role during the turbulent events following the death of the Zaydī Imām al-Nāṣir lil-Ḥaqq al-Uṭrūsh in Ṭabaristān in 304/917. Many factors and varied interests, local and regional, affected the