Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Parvin Davari ¹
• Esmaeil Sangari ²
• Hamidreza Pashazanous ³

¹ Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History and Iranology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.

² Associate Professor, Department of History and Iranology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.

³ Assistant Professor, Department of History and Iranology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.

Abstract

Sasanid Empire fell in 651 AD, with the invasion of the Arabs, however, the literary and archaeological evidence left by them shows that their jurisprudential-legal heritage remained in Iranshahr for centuries.  Preserving the continuity of the generation and wealth in Zoroastrian religion is of great importance, and the continuity of the era could be maintained through a male child. Without a son, a person could solve this deficiency through some means: an adopted son, or surrogate marriages were arranged in that man's name. The children from these marriages also belong to the deceased. Stūrīh was one of the types of surrogate marriage and was organized to provide a successor and an heir. Stūrīh has two aspects, financial and religious, and the woman's motivation for taking up Stūrīh was mostly its financial aspect. This research aims to study the issue of Stūrīh based on the 11th and 28th post-Sasanian documents of Tabaristān and show women's financial matters in Stūrīh. Thus, these documents introduce us the process of accepting financial issues in the periods after the fall of the Sasanids in areas still influenced by the legal culture of the Sasanid period. The method of the research is  descriptive-analytical, based on a case study of Tabarestān, post-Sasanian documents and library study. Studies in these documents show that jurisprudential laws in Zoroastrian society benefited a certain coherence and order. Zoroastrian society had not severed its connection with the past, and the same laws remained in force and were implemented in the post-Sasanian society

Keywords

• Sassanian
• Sassanian womens
• Zoroastrian law
• stūrīh
• Tabarestān post-Sasanian documents

Main Subjects

• History