Panjagan

The name panjagān (Middle Persian for "five-fold") is reconstructed from its Arabized forms recorded by the Islamic authors al-Tabari ( banjakān, fanjaqān), al-Jahiz, and al-Maqdisi ( fanrajān). The word banjakiyya (, "a volley of five arrows") mentioned by al-Jawaliqi is also related. ==History==

Al-Tabari records the use of panjagān by the Sasanian army during the Yemeni campaign of Wahriz against the Aksumites of Ethiopia, noting that the latter had not encountered it before. The author makes another allusion when describing the assault by the Persian asāwira (descendants of the Sasanian aswārān heavy cavalry) that killed Mas'ud ibn Amr, the governor of Basra, in 684 AD during the Second Islamic Civil War. As the advance of the 400-strong asāwira cavalry was halted by spearmen at the gates, the Persian commander Māh-Afrīdūn ordered his men to shoot with "fanjaqān", thus they hit them with "2,000 arrows in one burst", forcing the spearmen to retreat (2,000 equals 400 multiplied by five). ==Analysis==

A. Siddiqi has translated the word as five-pointed/five-barbed arrow, but C. E. Bosworth consider this interpretation unlikely. Furthermore, a device capable of shooting five arrows simultaneously has been described in the work of ''Ā'īn-Nāmah''. Thus, it may have been developed for the wars against the Göktürks and the Hephthalites, who were known for their agile cavalrymen. ==See also==