Afshin ( Caliphate General ) Khaydār b . Kāvūs Afshīn known by his hereditary title as Afshin ( , Arabized Haydar b . Kavus ) was a senior general at the court of Abbasid caliphs and a son of the vassal prince of Oshrūsana . Name and family background . Afshin is a hereditary title of Oshrusana princes at the time of the Muslim conquest of Persia . The term is an Arabicized form of the Middle Persian Pishin and Avestan Pisinah , a proper name of uncertain etymology . Minorsky suggests that the title Afshin was of Sogdian origin . During the time when the first Arab invasion of Transoxiana ( including Oshrusana ) took place under Qutayba ibn Muslim ( 94 - 5 / 712 - 14 ) , Ushrusana was inhabited by an Iranian population , ruled by its own princes who bore the traditional title of Afshin . Afshin is generally considered an Iranian , and although two classical sources ( and some modern authors ) have called him a Turk , he came from an Iranian cultural region and was not usually considered Turkish . The confusion comes from the fact that the term “ Turk ” was used loosely by Arab writers of the time to denote the new troops of the caliph despite the inclusion among them some elements of Iranian origin , including Ferghana and Oshrusana . In real historical time line the Turks arrived in Persia some 280 year after the invasion of Iran by the Arabs . Early years . According to Yaqubi , during the reign of the third Abbasid caliph Al - Mahdi ( 775 - 85 ) , Afshin of Oshrusana was mentioned among several Iranian and Turkish rulers of Transoxania and the Central Asian steppes who submitted nominally to him . But it was not until Harun al - Rashid ' s reign in 794 - 95 that al - Fadl b . Yahya al - Barmaki led an expedition into Transoxania and received the submission of the ruling Akin known as Kharākana . This Karākana had never previously humbled himself before any other potentate . Further expeditions were nevertheless sent to Oshrusana by Al - Ma ' mun when he was governor in Marv and after he had become caliph . Kavus , son of the Afshin Karākana who had submitted to Fadl b . Yahya , withdrew his allegiance from the Arabs ; but shortly after Ma ' mun arrived in Baghdad from the east ( 817 - 18 or 819 - 20 ) , a power struggle and dissensions broke out among the reigning family of Oshrusana . According to most of the sources , al - Ma ' mun ' s heir , Al - Mu ' tasim not only made Afshin governor of Azarbaijan and seconded high - ranking officers to serve under him , but also ordered exceptionally large salaries , expense allowances , and rations for him . In 831 - 833 , he suppressed uprisings in Egypt from remote regions to Alexandria . On June 2 , 832 the news was proclaimed of his great success in taking Bima in Egypt . It surrendered to Afshin ' s extension of al - Ma ' mun ' s promise of safe conduct . Afshin and Babak . In 835 , Caliph al - Mu ' tasim appointed Afshin as a governor of Azerbaijan to fight against Babak Khorramdin , leader of anti - Islamic neo - Mazdakite Persian movement of the Khurramites . After a fierce resistance by Babak ' s army , Afshin eventually defeated it and captured Babak ' s castle of Bazz in August 837 . Ya ' qubi ( Tarikh II , 579 ) records Afshin freeing 7 , 600 Arab prisoners from this fortress , and he destroyed the castle . The Khurramite leader escaped to hiding under the protection of local Christian prince Sahl ibn - Sunbat who later turned him in to Afshin . In return to Afshin ' a achievements , caliph rewarded him governorship of Sind in addition to that of Armenia and Azerbaijan . Anatolian campaign . Afshin fought alongside Mo ` tasem during his campaign of 838 against the Byzantine Empire , which reached as far as Amorium , commanding the right wing in the onslaught against this fortress . As the two prongs entered Byzantine territory separated by a hundred and fifty miles , Byzantine emperor Theophilos decided to hit one of the portions of the Muslim army , before the entire invasion force joined together . It was Afshin the emperor attacked , on 21 July 838 . The ensuing battle was a decisive Muslim victory . Although the Byzantines initially held the upper hand , the effect of the Turkic horse - archers and an erroneous belief that Theophilos had been killed demoralized the Byzantine army , which broke and fled . The emperor and his surviving soldiers withdrew in disorder . They did not interfere as Afshin continued on to Ancyra , where he linked up with al - Mu ' tasim . From Ancyra , the full Muslim force advanced on the Byzantine stronghold of Amorium . A Muslim captive escaped from that city and disclosed the weakness of a section of its walls . The caliph concentrated his bombardment on this section . A breach was made there and Amorium was captured . Downfall . Afshin ' s star began to decline , apparently as a result of jealousies which he had already shown against Abu Dolat - and ` Abdallah b . Taher , governor of Khorasan and apparently regarded by Afshin as an upstart and a rival for power in Transoxania . He had begun intriguing with Maziar son of Qaren , an Iranian prince and Spahbed of Tabarestan in the Caspian region . Afšin allegedly encouraged Māzyār in secret , in the hope that ` Abdallāh b . Tāher would be deprived of his governorship and he Afšīn , would fall heir to it . Maziar rebellion was quashed in 839 and Afshin ' s position now became increasingly difficult , which caused Afshin to fall from favour . His situation was made worse by the finding of alleged correspondence between him and Maziar . Further , the Khurasanian governor , Abdallah ibn Tahir , alleged that he had intercepted some of Babak ' s wealth Afshin had obtained in that campaign and was seeking to transfer secretly to Afshin ' s lands in Oshrusana . When Mazyar arrived in Samarra , Afshin was arrested . Maziar participated in the interrogation of the former general , asserting that Afshin had conspired with him . Others present raised additional questions concerning the sincerity of Afshin ' s conversion to Islam from Zoroastrianism . Afshin had answers to all the allegations . He claimed that Zoroastrian artefacts and books in his possession were family heirlooms from before he had become Muslim . He explained that when he punished a pair of Muslim fanatics destroying idols in Ushrusanah he was exercising reasonable leadership aimed at maintaining the harmony of his religiously diverse territory . He told his detractors that the formulaic address his people used in writing to him in Persian as " Lord of lords " , was simply a tradition and did not invalidate his personal belief in one God . All such replies were unsuccessful . Al - Mu ' tasim had a special prison built for Afshin . It was known as " The Pearl " and was in the shape of a minaret . There he spent the final nine months of his life and there he died in May – June 841 .