Muslim conquest of Persia

The Islamic conquest of Iran (637-651 CE) destroyed the Sassanid Empire and led to the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Iran. Over the centuries, most Iranians (Persians) became Muslims. However, the achievements of the previous Iranian civilizations were not lost, but were to a great extent absorbed by the new Islamic polity.

Persia (Iran) before the conquest

Since the 1st century BCE, the border between the Roman (later Byzantine) and Parthian (later Sassanid) empires had been the Euphrates river. The border was constantly contested. Most battles, and thus most fortifications, were concentrated in the hilly regions of the north, as the vast Arabian or Syrian Desert separated the rival empires in the south. The only dangers expected from the south were occasional raids by nomadic Arab tribesmen. Both empires therefore allied themselves with small, semi-independent Arab principalities, which served as buffer states and protected Byzantium and Persia from Bedouin attacks. The Byzantine clients were the Ghassanids; the Persian clients were the Lakhmids. The Ghassanids and Lakhmids feuded constantly -- which kept them occupied, but did not greatly affect the Byzantines or Iranians.

In the 6th and 7th centuries CE, various factors destroyed the balance of power that had held for so many centuries.

Balance between Persia and Byzantium swings wildly

The Persian ruler Khusrau II defeated a dangerous rebellion within his own empire (the Mazdak rebellion). He afterwards turned his energies outwards, upon the traditional Byzantine enemies. For a few years, he succeeded gloriously. From 613 to 614, he extended the Persian borders as far west as the great Byzantine cities of Antioch, Damascus, and Jerusalem.

The Byzantines regrouped and pushed back. Khusrau was defeated at a great battle near Nineveh in 627, and the Byzantines took back all of Syria and penetrated far into the Persian provinces of Mesopotamia.

Assassination of Khusrau II and a succession of weak rulers

Khusrau was assassinated in 628 CE. There were numerous claimants to the throne; from 628 to 632 there were ten kings of Persia. The last, Yazdegerd III, was a grandson of Khusrau II and was said to be a mere child. However, no date of birth is known.

Revolt of the Arab client states

The Byzantine clients, the Arab Ghassanids, converted to the Monophysite form of Christianity, which was regarded as heretical by the established Byzantine Orthodox Church. The Byzantines attempted to suppress the heresy, alienating the Ghassanids and sparking rebellions on their desert frontiers.

The Lakhmids also revolted against the Persian king Khusrau II. After Khusrau's assassination, the Persian empire fractured and the Lakhmids were effectively independent.

Rise of the Islamic empire

By the time of Muhammad's death in 632 CE, most of what is now considered Arabia was united under the new religion of Islam. However, as Fred Donner argues in his 1981 book The Early Islamic Conquests, Arabic-speaking nomads or villagers roamed over or settled on the edge of the Syrian steppe as well. Any regime that aimed to unite all Arabs would have to conquer the Syrian steppe. Under Muhammad's successor Abu Bakr, the first caliph, the Muslims first re-established their control over Arabia (the Ridda Wars) and then launched campaigns against the remaining Arabs of Syria and Palestine.

However, this put the nascent Islamic empire on a collision course with the Byzantine and Sassanid empires, which had been disputing these very territories for centuries. The wars soon became a matter of conquest, rather than mere consolidation of the Arab tribes.

Islamic conquest of Persian Mesopotamia

The collapse of the Sassanid polity after the death of Khusrau II left the Persians in a weak position vis-a-vis Arab invaders. At first the Muslims merely attempted to consolidate their rule over the fringes of the desert and the Lakhmid Arabs. The border town of Hira fell to the Muslims in 633.

The Sassanids had reorganized under a new king, Yazdegerd III, and mounted a counterattack. They won a major victory at the Battle of the Bridge in October 634.

After a decisive Muslim victory against the Byzantines, in Syria at the Battle of Yarmuk in 636, the second caliph, Umar, was able to transfer forces to the east and resume the offensive against the Sassanians.

The Battle of al-Qādisiyyah

Main article: Battle of al-Qādisiyyah

Around the year 636 CE, Rostam Farrokhzād, advisor and general for Yazdgird III (r. 632 - 651 CE) led an army said to number 100 000 men across the Euphrates River to al-Qādisiyyah, near the present-day city of Hilla in Iraq. Some have criticised him for this decision to face the Arabs on their own ground — on the fringes of the desert — and surmised that the Persians could have held their own if they had stayed on the opposite bank of the Euphrates.

The Caliph `Umar dispatched 30 000 Arab cavalrymen under the command of Sa`d ibn Abī Waqqās aganst the Persian army. The Battle of al-Qādisiyyah followed, with the Persians prevailing at first, but on the third day of fighting, the Muslims gained the upper hand. The Persians attempted to flee. The Persian general Rostam Farrokhzād was caught and beheaded. According to some Muslim sources, the Persian losses were enormous, but the Arabs lost only 7500 men. The size of the forces and the disparity of the losses may be later exaggerations, but the fact that the Muslims won this battle is undisputed.

Following the Battle, the Arab Muslim armies pushed forward toward the Persian capital of Ctesiphon (also called Madā'in in Arabic), which was quickly evacuated by Yazdgird after a brief siege. After seizing and sacking the city, they continue their drive eastwards, following Yazdgird and his remaining troops. Within a short space of time, the Arab armies defeated a major Sāsānian counter-attack in the Battle of Jalūlā', as well as other engagements at Qasr-e Shirin, and Masabadhan. By the mid-7th Century, the Arabs controlled all of Mesopotamia, including the area that is now the Iranian province of Khuzestan.

Conquest of the Iranian plateau

It is said that the caliph Umar did not wish to send his troops through the Zagros mountains and onto the Iranian plateau. One tradition has it that he wished for a "wall of fire" to keep the Arabs and Persians apart. Later commentators explain this as a common-sense precaution against over-extension of his forces. The Arabs had only recently conquered large territories that still had to be garrisoned and administered.

Umar's generals and warriors pushed for further action. They argued that Yazdegerd could again become a threat if he were left undisturbed while raising more troops. The continued existence of the Persian government was an incitement to revolt in the conquered territories. Finally, those Arabs who felt slighted in the distribution of land and booty from the Mesopotamian conquests pushed for further raids.

Umar relented. Arab raiding parties passed over the Zagros mountains separating Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau, raiding, looting, and beating down all resistance.

Yazdegerd, the Sassanid king, continued to resist the invaders. By 641 he had raised a new force, which took a stand at Nihavand, some forty miles south of Hamadan in modern Iran. Sa'ad ibn-Abi-Waqqas and his cavalry attacked and again defeated the Persian forces.

Yazdegerd was unable to raise another army and became a hunted fugitive. He fled from one district to another until at last he was discovered and killed at Merv in 651.

Yazdegerd's heirs could not continue the resistance. His daughter, Shahr Banu, was married to the grandson of Muhammad, Husayn ibn Ali, and gave birth to the fourth Shi'a Imam, Ali Zayn al Abidin. His son Firouz fled to China.

The Islamic forces established a garrison town at Merv. By 674, they had conquered Afghanistan, Transoxania, and the portion of India then known as Sind on the west bank of the Indus river. For many centuries, this was the easternmost limit of Muslim rule.

Occupation

Under Umar and his immediate successors, the Arab conquerors attempted to maintain their political and cultural cohesion despite the attractions of the civilizations they had conquered. The Arabs were to settle in the garrison towns rather than on scattered estates. They were not to marry non-Arabs, or learn their language, or read their literature. The new non-Muslim subjects, or dhimmi, were to pay a special tax, the jizya, and be subject to various restrictions of occupation, worship, and dress (Bashear 1997, p. 117). Mass conversions were neither desired nor allowed, at least in the first few centuries of Arab rule. Later such restrictions disappeared.

Muhammad, the Islamic prophet, had made it clear that the "People of the Book", Jews and Christians, were to be tolerated so long as they submitted to Muslim rule. It was at first unclear as to whether or not the Sassanid state religion, Zoroastrianism, was entitled to the same tolerance. Some Arab commanders destroyed Zoroastrian shrines and prohibited Zoroastrian worship; others tolerated the native Iranian beliefs. After some dispute, Zoroastrians were accepted as People of the Book. Some authorities identified them as the mysterious Sabeans mentioned in the Qur'an and thus entitled to tolerance.

Before the conquest, the Persians had been mainly Zoroastrian. However, there were also large and thriving Christian and Jewish communities. Adherents of all three faiths were allowed to practice their faith under the restrictions imposed by the Arab conquerors. However, there was a slow but steady movement of the population toward Islam. The nobility and city-dwellers were the first to convert; Islam spread more slowly among the peasantry and the dihqans, or landed gentry. By the 9th century, the majority of Iranians had become Muslim. Most Iranian Muslims were Sunni Muslims. Though Iran is known today as a stronghold of the Shi'a Muslim faith, it did not become so until much later around the 15th century.

Arabization of the Persians and Persianization of the Arabs

The Arab conquerors and their new Persian subjects eventually had great influence on each other. However, how these influences are best described is a matter of disagreement.

Non-Persian scholars tend to view the Arab influence as primarily exercised in religion (the Islamic faith) and language (the adoption of much Arabic vocabulary into Persian, as well as the use of Arabic script for writing). Persians, with their long history of imperial government, are seen as providing the model for the new Islamic empire, as well as many of the bureaucrats and scholars who administered it. The caliphs adopted many Sassanid administrative practices, such as coinage, the office of vizier, or minister, and the divan, a bureaucracy for collecting taxes and giving state stipends. The caliphs adopted Sassanid court dress and ceremony, and kept their wives and concubines in purdah, as practiced by the pre-conquest Persian upper class. They also note that Persians contributed greatly to Arabic learning and literature. (See Academy of Gundishapur for one example.)

Many Persian/Iranian nationalist scholars view these mutual influences through a prism of Arab/Persian conflict. They argue that after the conquest, Persians fought a centuries-long battle to protect their language and culture from Arab domination and eventually succeeded in doing so. The various dynasties that governed what is now Iran (the Ummayad and Abbasid caliphates, the Tahirids, Daylamites, Samanids, and Ghaznawids) are judged as being pro-Persian or anti-Persian based on their support for Persian literature and writers.

Nationalist narratives also tend to stress the initial poverty of Arab culture and the great role of Persians in creating what Arabs now cherish as their intellectual heritage. Arabs are cast as uncultured barbarians, appropriating the achievements of more advanced races.

The Parsees

As conversion to Islam was made easier and more Iranians converted to Islam, Zoroastrians increasingly became a persecuted minority in Persia. A number of them migrated to India, where they were allowed greater freedom to observe their old customs and preserve the Zoroastrian faith. They still use the old Persian calendar, counting the years from the accession of Yazdegerd, on June 16, 632 CE. Old dynastic calendars measured time by the reigns of various rulers; according to the Parsees, the reign of Yazdegerd has not ended.

See also

• History of Iran
• Islamic conquests

References

• Bashear, Suliman -- Arabs and Others in Early Islam, Darwin Press, 1997
• Daniel, Elton -- The History of Iran, Greenwood Press, 2001
• Donner, Fred -- The Early Islamic Conquests, Princeton, 1981
• Sicker, Martin -- The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna, Praeger, 2000