Shirin

Shirin (; died 628) was a Christian wife of the Sasanian King of Kings (shahanshah) Khosrow II. In the revolution after the death of Khosrow's father Hormizd IV, the General Bahram Chobin took power over the Persian empire. Shirin fled with Khosrow to Syria, where they lived under the protection of Byzantine emperor Maurice. In 591, Khosrow returned to Persia to take control of the empire and Shirin was made queen. She used her new influence to support the Christian minority in Iran, but the political situation demanded that she do so discreetly. Initially she belonged to the Church of the East, the so-called Nestorians, but later she joined the miaphysite church of Antioch, now known as the Syriac Orthodox Church. After conquering Jerusalem in 614, amidst the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, the Persians captured the True Cross of Jesus and brought it to their capital Ctesiphon, where Shirin took the cross in her palace. Long after her death Shirin became an important heroine of Persian literature, as a model of a faithful lover and wife. She appears in the Shahnameh and the romance Khosrow and Shirin by Nizami Ganjavi (1141−1209), and is referred to in very many other works. Her elaborated story in literature bears little or no resemblance to the fairly few known historical facts of her life, although her Christianity and difficulties after the assassination of her husband remain part of the story, as well as Khosrow's exile before he regained his throne. After their first accidental meeting, when Khosrow was initially unaware of her identity, their courtship takes a number of twists and turns, with the pair often apart, that occupy most of the story. After Khosrow's son kills him, the son demands that Shirin marry him, which she avoids by committing suicide. Origin The background of Shirin is uncertain. According to the 7th-century Armenian historian Sebeos (died after 661), she was a native of Khuzistan in southwestern Iran. However, two Syriac chronicles state that she was "Aramean" i.e., from the region of Beth Aramaye. The Persian historian Mirkhvand (died 1498), writing much later, states that she used to be a servant in a Persian house which Khosrow II used to regularly visit during his teens.