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Immortals (Greek: Ἀθάνατοι Athánatoi), or Persian Immortals, was the name given by the Greek historian Herodotus to a 10,000-strong unit of elite heavy infantry in the Achaemenid army. They served in a dual capacity, operating as an imperial guard and contributing to the ranks of the standing army .
The Persian army was divided into regiments of a thousand each, called hazarabam. Ten hazarabams formed a haivarabam, or division. The best known haivarabam were the Immortals, the King's personal guard division. The smallest unit was the ten-man dathaba. Ten dathabas formed the hundred man sataba.
Outside Baghdad, the 'ayyarun were closely allied with the middle class, and helped maintain the current order. The Saffarids (861–1003) of eastern Iran were in fact an 'ayyarun dynasty. They are thought by some historians to have contributed to the weakening of Baghdad, clearing the way for the horrific destruction of the city by the Mongols .
Kaveh Farrokh calls the unit Zhayedan, writing in his Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War that they were used often against the Arabs in the 7th century (such as in the Battle of the Bridge and the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah). According to Christensen (1944), the commander of the "Immortals" bore the title of varthraghnīghān khvadhāy. [1]
A unit of 500 warriors was called a wašt, commanded by an officer with the rank of wašt-sālār. [8] Drafš was a large detachment (possibly numbering 1000 soldiers) under the command of an officer with the rank of drafš-sālār. [8] Units of 5,000 warriors were called gund, and they were commanded by a commander in the rank of gund-sālār. [8]
The word comes from the Old Persian word asabāra (from asa- and bar, a frequently used Achaemenid military technical term). [citation needed] The various other renderings of the word are the following: Parthian asbār (spelt spbr or SWSYN), Middle Persian aswār (spelt ʼswbʼl or SWSYA), Classical Persian suwār (سوار), uswār/iswār (اسوار), Modern Persian savār (سوار).
The Immortal Guard of Imperial Iran (Persian: یگان جاویدان شاهنشاهی ایران, romanized: gārd-e jāvidān-e šāhanšāhi-e irān), also known as Imperial Guard (Persian: یگان شاهنشاهی, romanized: gārd-e šāhanšāhi), was both the personal guard force of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, and an elite combat branch of the Imperial Iranian Army.
The qurchis were theoretically enlisted from the Qizilbash tribes and were paid by money taken from the royal treasury. Though recruited mainly from among the Qizilbash, it was an independent and distinct corps from the Qizilbash army units. [36] During the early Safavid period, the qurchis were all from the same tribe, but that later changed.