The Letter to Khusrau, and Badhan's Conversion

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

❧A CRUEL EMPEROR, A TORN LETTER

Khusrau (Kisrā) Abrawīz, his title later softened in South Asian usage into "Parvez", was the last great Sassanid Emperor, ruling 590–628 CE, remembered by Muslim and non-Muslim historians alike as brilliant in conquest yet cruel and self-indulgent, keeping a harem said to number some three thousand. The Prophet ﷺ sent his letter through ʿAbdullāh ibn Ḥudhāfah to the ruler of Bahrain, for onward delivery to the Emperor, calling him, like the others, to bear witness that none is worthy of worship but Allah and that Muḥammad ﷺ is His messenger, closing with the warning that refusal would place upon him the sins of all the Zoroastrians (al-Majūs) he ruled. Khusrau mocked the message and tore the letter apart before his court. When word reached Medina, the Prophet ﷺ responded: as he tore my letter, so will Allah tear his kingdom to pieces.

❧THE SPIES WHO BECAME BELIEVERS

Furious and arrogant, Khusrau ordered Bādhān, his trusted governor over coastal Yemen, to send spies to Medina, and if possible, to seize the Prophet ﷺ and bring him back. Bādhān dispatched two emissaries, Bābawayh and Khurkhusrah, carrying a letter as mere pretext. Terrified at the prospect of being caught, they were told by the Prophet ﷺ to return the next day; when they came back, he declared, without opening their letter: go tell your master that my Lord has killed his lord, and that his son has taken his place.

The two returned to Bādhān in shock, only to learn the news had already broken, Khusrau had fled his own capital of Ctesiphon, and his son Yazdgerd had staged a coup, ultimately starving his own father to death over five days. Western sources date this to 28 February 628 CE, matching the sīrah's account of Jumādā al-Ūlā, 7 AH, a precision the shaykh holds up as evidence against claims that such hadith details were fabricated after the fact.

❧THE CONVERSION OF THE COAST

When his emissaries returned with the news confirmed exactly as foretold, Bādhān recognized a true prophet and embraced Islam, as did Bābawayh and Khurkhusrah and large populations of the Yemeni coast toward what is now Oman, later solidified when the Prophet ﷺ sent ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ to the region. A subsequent letter from the Prophet ﷺ laid out the rules of jizyah for the region's Zoroastrians who did not convert.

❧THE END OF AN EMPIRE

Within less than a decade, after nearly overrunning Rome itself just years before, the Sassanid Empire collapsed entirely, and Ctesiphon, becoming Isfahan, along with all of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Khurasan, passed into Muslim hands, exactly as the Prophet ﷺ had foretold.