User:HistoryofIran/Shirin

Shirin was a Christian wife of the Sasanian King of Kings (shahanshah) Khosrow II ((r. 590 – 628)).

Background
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. The 11th-century Persian epic Shahnameh ("The Book of Kings") of Ferdowsi (died 1019/1025), which was based on the Middle Persian text Khwaday-Namag ("Book of Lords"), states that Shirin was already married to Khosrow II by the time he fled to the Byzantine Empire. None of these reports are substantiated by earlier sources, which may indicate that they were later established legends. The early 7th-century Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta does not mention the names of the two women who fled with Khosrow II.

The oldest source that mentions Shirin is the Ecclesiastical History of the contemporary Syrian scholar Evagrius Scholasticus (died 594), in which he quotes the letter Khosrow II wrote to St. Sergius, a military saint whose cult rapidly increased beyond political and cultural borders from the 5th to the 7th-century. The letter was written after Khosrow II's victory over Bahram Chobin and his recapture of the throne in 591.

Scholarship initially identified Shirin with the woman depicted on the obverse coins of Khosrow II, but today the figure is identified with the Zoroastrian goddess Anahita.