Kakūyids

Musharrif al-Dawla, Buyid Amir of Iraq, had undertaken a campaign against the Kakuyids, who, after establishing a state in Isfahan that was independent of the Buyids, have steadily expanded, culminating with their seizure of Hulwan from the 'Annazids.

Musharrif al-Dawla had forced them to withdraw from that city, but the Kakuyids maintain their hold elsewhere, and peace is declared between the two sides.

The truce is cemented with a marriage alliance.

Musharrif al-Dawla has failed to solve the internal problems of his state, despite his success at keeping his neighbors in check.

These problems are largely intact when he dies in mid-1025.

Ibn Sīnā', or Avicenna, a Persian philosopher, physician, and alchemist who has spent his life as scholar-in-residence at many Islamic courts, has passed the last ten or twelve years in the service of Muhammad ibn Rustam Dushmanziyar, whom he has accompanied as physician and general literary and scientific adviser, even in his numerous campaigns.

During these years he had begun to study literary matters and philology, instigated, it is asserted, by criticisms on his style.

A severe colic, which had seized him on the march of the army against Hamadan, had been checked by remedies so violent that Ibn Sina could scarcely stand.

On a similar occasion the disease had returned; with difficulty he had reached Hamadan, where, finding the disease gaining ground, he had refused to keep up the regimen imposed, and resigned himself to his fate.

His friends have advised him to slow down and take life moderately; he has refused.

On his deathbed remorse seizes him; he bestows his goods on the poor, restores unjust gains, frees his slaves, and reads through the Qur'an every three days until his death.

He dies in June 1037, in his fifty-eighth year, in the month of Ramadan and is buried in Hamadan.

The Ghaznavid ruler Mahmud had deposed ithe Buyid emir Majd al-Dawla had in 1029.

Mas'ud I, the son of the Ghaznavid sultan, who wishes to liberate the Abbasids from Buyid control, had proceeded further into western Iran, where he had defeated various rulers, including Muhammad, who had fled to Ahvaz to seek help from the Buyids, but he had quickly made peace with the Ghaznavids and returned as their vassal, having accepted to pay an annual tribute of two hundred thousand dinars.

The Ghaznavids, however, are not able to control those of their conquests that are distant from Ghazni, without trouble.

Muhammad had managed to briefly take Ray from the Ghaznavids in 1030.

In 1035, Mas'ud I again defeats Muhammad, who fled to once again fled to the Buyids in Ahvaz, whence he later flees to northwestern Iran to begin recruiting a powerful force of Turkmens in order to gain his lost regions.

Muhammad, along with his forces, once again occupies Rey in 1037 and 1038.

Muhammad had begun constructing massive defensive walls around Isfahan, which later saves it from the Turkmen nomads who sack and plunder some places in west and central Iran in 1038/39, …

…including the city of Hamadan.

Muhammad dies in September 1041 while campaigning in Kurdistan against the Annazids.

His eldest son Faramurz succeeds him in Isfahan, while …

…his younger son Garshasp I gains Hamadan.

However, they have a difficult task in protecting these regions from the expansionist Seljuqs, who have become neighbors with the Kakuyids.

Tughril, the co-leader of the Seljuqs, makes Rey the capital of his kingdom after his defeat of the Ghaznavids.

Abu Harb, the third son of Muhammad, had rebelled against his older brother and called upon help from the Buyids of Fars.

Faramurz had defeated him, however.

Relations with Faramurz and Tughril are highly important.

It seems that Faramurz was present with the Seljuqs at the battle of Dandanaqan against the Ghaznavids.

When Faramurz ascended to the Kakuyid throne, Tughril had secured his allegiance by sending a tribute of payment to Faramurz.

However, neither Faramurz nor his brother Garshasp I are willing to turn to the side of Seljuqs.

In 1045, the Dailamites and Kurds of Jibal make a stand together to resist the advance of the Turkmens from Khorasan.