It would forever remain a mystery how the long-standing royal dynasty of Nawaar-Ashru fell so far out of Am-Ishatu’s favor as to suffer two terrible famines in the lifetime of a single Shahr. Regardless, the unrighteous king was now overthrown, and it was finally time to restore the country and reaffirm its covenant with the Bringer of Fire. The matter of proper succession to the old throne was contentious among the priesthood of Muyeshyanamat, the faction that engineered this revolution… except among its head priest Hamaan and his inner circle.

Quite unlike many of history’s successful revolutionaries--rather like dogs who’ve caught their own tails--Hamaan and his compatriots knew well the mindsets and ways of their followers. Ever since that fateful conversation with the now-deposed Shahr, Hamaan already knew how he would take advantage of his culture’s collective psychology and seize power for himself, all without being of any royal stock (and indeed, not being of purely Hashas blood). The last time a popular religious leader upset the current political order, he maintained the traditional institutions of Shahr and balequ [gentry], sponsoring a new Shahr rather than taking up rulership of the country himself. This was where Hamaan thought the First Prophet’s ambition had faltered.

Hamaan was fully intent on following through with claims that the rebellion he led would install truly righteous leadership over the country, but he also knew that the Hashas and their ancestors had always valued having a single strong ruler; “one god, one king, country” was overwhelmingly the prevailing mindset. Logically, then, it would not do to have the country headed by a council of religious representatives, nor directly by the leadership of Mawerhaadii, for the state religion was surprisingly decentralized in nature--a consequence of the fact that it was seen only as a new revelation to the old religion, with its cults for various incarnations of Adad, rather than a replacement for this system. Hamaan fixed this problem, quite simply, by reining in these disparate religious establishments under one Enutshinu¹ --none other than Hamaan himself. Given his popular support throughout the country and his successful submission of the Shahr’s loyalist armies, who would stop him?

Still, Enutshinu Hamaan was interested in building an institution of leadership that would outlast him, and yet he was actively overturning the hereditary system that had been the norm in the country for perhaps two millennia. He decreed that the governing body immediately below him would be a council consisting of the head priests of the leading temple in each city; once it was time for the Enutshinu to pass on his title, this council would select the next leader from the country’s priesthood by at least a two-thirds’ vote. No longer would the piety of the country’s head, the only man in the world who ranked below Am-Ishatu himself, be in question; surely this assembly of the country’s leading holy men could not make their selection in error. As this was understood to be an error-free and divinely guided process, each Enutshinu would hold his office for life or he was by some disability unable to continue leading the country.

Establishing this new system of succession, instituting Mudiinu (religious law) as the law of the land, and forcefully redirecting a significant portion of the Hashas’ wealth and power from the landed gentry to the temples and their priests, Enutshinu Hamaan, at his inauguration (really a formality to affirm what was already fact without the possibility of contest), proudly announced the birth of Ershutisharu: The Righteous Country.

¹ This title should be understood as “highest priest” for all practical purposes, but in actuality it translates to “second priest.” This use of the suffix shinu [second] in prestigious titles has its origins in the Ashad mythos and the worldview that developed from this.