The Christian reception of the Xwadāy-nāmag: Hormizd IV, Khusrau II and their successors

This article considers the Islamic-era sources that report the history of the last Sasanian kings. It focuses on scenes that seem to indicate Christian influence and asks what this tells us about Christian transmission of the Middle Persian royal histories and about the position of Christians in the empire more broadly. In particular, it discusses three scenes from al-T_. abar¯ı: his presentation of Hormizd IV as a 'pluralist' monarch; the changing attitudes of Christians to Khusrau II and the presentation of Khusrau's short-lived successors.