Arab conquest of Persia Until the Arab invasion and subsequent Muslim conquest, in the mid-7th century
Persia (modern-day
Iran) was a politically independent state, spanning from
Mesopotamia to the
Hindu Kush and dominated by a Zoroastrian majority. Zoroastrianism was the official state religion of four pre-Islamic Persian empires, the last being the
Sassanian empire that passed a decree solidifying this in 224 CE. The Arab invasion abruptly brought to an end the religious domination of Zoroastrianism in Persia and instituted Islam as the official religion of the state. Yemen's Zoroastrians who had the
jizya imposed on them after being conquered by Muhammad are mentioned by the Islamic historian
al-Baladhuri. After the
Muslim conquest of Persia, Zoroastrians were given
dhimmi status and subjected to persecutions; discrimination and harassment began in the form of regular physical violence. Those paying Jizya were subjected to insults and humiliation by the tax collectors. Zoroastrians who were captured as slaves in wars were given their freedom if they converted to Islam. Urban areas where Arab governors made their quarters were most vulnerable to such religious persecution, great fire temples were turned into mosques, and the citizens were forced to conform or flee. Many libraries were burnt and much cultural heritage was lost. Gradually there were increased number of laws regulating Zoroastrian behavior, limiting their ability to participate in society, and making their life difficult in the hope that they would convert to Islam. Once a Zoroastrian family converted to Islam, the children had to go to a
madrasa to learn Arabic along with the teachings of the Quran, and these children lost their Zoroastrian identity. A Persian scholar commented, "Why so many had to die or suffer? Because one side was determined to impose his religion upon the other who could not understand." In the mid-7th century CE, Persia succumbed to the invading Arabs.
Rashidun Caliphate Under the first four (the '
Rashidun') caliphs, Persia remained predominantly Zoroastrian. Zoroastrians were given the status of '
People of the Book' or by the Arabs, although some practices contrary to Islam were prohibited. Many libraries were burnt and much cultural heritage was lost.
Umayyad Caliphate The Rashidun were followed by the
Umayyads, who ruled from
Syria. The persecution increased in the 8th century. The tax was imposed upon Zoroastrians, and the official language of Persia became Arabic instead of the local Persian. In 741, the Umayyads officially decreed that non-Muslims be excluded from governmental positions. The Iranian Muslims at this time started a new tradition, which made Islam appear as a partly Iranian religion. They pointed out that an Iranian,
Salman the Persian, had a great influence on the prophet Muhammad. They also pointed out the legend that
Husayn, the son of
Ali the fourth caliph, had married a Sassanian princess named
Shahrbanu (), whose son,
Ali al-Sajjad, later became the fourth
Shi'a Imam. The Iranian Muslims thus believed that the Shia imams descended from Sasanian royalty. These two beliefs made it easier for Zoroastrians to convert. An instance of religious oppression is recorded when an Arab governor appointed a commissioner to supervise the destruction of shrines throughout Iran, regardless of treaty obligations. The Umayyad caliph
Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik was quoted saying, "milk the Persians and once their milk dries, suck their blood". The Umayyad general
Yazid ibn al-Muhallad was appointed the head of a great army to lead the
Mazandaran expedition. On the way to Mazandaran, the general ordered captives to be hanged at the two sides of the road so that the victorious Arab army could pass through. The attack on
Tabarestan (present-day Mazandaran) failed, but he established his control in
Gorgan. The extent of his brutality represented itself by running watermills by people's blood for three days and he fed his army with the bread made from that very bloody flour. they did offer protection and relative religious tolerance to the Zoroastrians who accepted their authority.
Fred Donner says that Zoroastrians in the northern parts of Iran were hardly penetrated by the "believers", winning virtually complete autonomy in-return for tribute-tax ()). Donner goes on to say that "Zoroastrians continued to exist in large numbers in northern and western Iran and elsewhere for centuries after the rise of Islam, and indeed, much of the canon of Zoroastrian religious texts was elaborated and written down during the Islamic period". Also during Abbasid rule, the status of Zoroastrians in Persian lands was reduced from —people who were protected by the state and generally considered '
People of the Book'—to '
kafirs' (non-believers). As a result, Zoroastrians were not granted the same rights and status as
Jews and
Christians. Because of their harshness towards unbelievers, and due to their lavish patronage of Persian Muslims, the Abbasids proved to be deadly foes of Zoroastrianism. According to Dawlatshah,
Abdullah ibn Tahir al-Khurasani, an Arabicized Persian, and governor of Khorasan for the Abbasid caliphs, banned publication in Persian and by his order all Zoroastrians were forced to bring their religious books to be thrown in the fire. As a result, many literary works written in Pahlavi script disappeared. It was reported that there were still a significant strength of strongholds of the Zoroastrian communities in places such as
Kerman,
Qom,
Sistan, Fars and more that were surviving under the Abbasid regime. This is not only attested by European explorers of later times, but also the Muslim historians who were present.
Samanid dynasty The
Samanids were of Zoroastrian theocratic nobility who voluntarily converted to
Sunni Islam. During their reign, approximately 300 years after the Arab conquest, fire temples were still found in almost every province of
Persia including
Khorasan,
Kirman,
Sijistan According to the legend, at the beginning of the 10th century a small group of Zoroastrians living around the town of Nyshapour and
Fort of Sanjan in the province of
(greater) Khorasan, decided that Iran was no longer safe for Zoroastrians and their religion. The refugees accepted the conditions and founded the settlement of
Sanjan (Gujarat), which is said to have been named after the city of their origin (
Sanjan, near
Merv, in present-day
Turkmenistan). Iranian Zoroastrians are known to have been trading with India for centuries before the dates calculated for arrival of Parsis per
Qissa-i Sanjan. Ruksana Nanji and Homi Dhalla while discussing archaeological evidence for 'The Landing of Zoroastrians at Sanjan', conclude that the most likely date for the migration at the start of the middle phase of their chronology, namely the early-to-mid-eighth century. Nevertheless, they express their general skepticism about the Qissa-i Sanjan account. Scholar Andre Wink has theorized that Zoroastrian immigrants to India, both before and after the Muslim conquest of Iran, were primarily merchants, since evidence suggests it was only some time after their arrival that religious experts and priests were sent for to join them. He argues that the competition over trade routes with Muslims may also have contributed to their immigration. One of the dates that can be fixed with certainty is the arrival of Parsees in
Navsari when a
mobed named Kamdin Zarthost arrived there in 1142 CE to perform religious ceremonies for Zoroastrians settled there. Traditionally, the Parsee settlers had named it Navsari after
Sari in Iran. However this was considered wrong by the
Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency who noted that the town was already shown in
Ptolemy's map. Apart from two accounts of confrontation in the Qissa, Parsi lore presents a smooth integration into the local culture of first their Hindu, and then Muslim neighbors. The community still exists in western India, and it currently contains the largest concentration of Zoroastrians in the world. "Parsi legends regarding their ancestors' migration to India depict a beleaguered band of religious refugees escaping the harsh rule of fanatical Muslim invaders in order to preserve their ancient faith." The epic poem
Qissa-i-Sanjan (Story of Sanjan) is an account of the early years of Zoroastrian settlers on the Indian subcontinent. It is only in recent times that Parsis have become aware of the extent of the oppression that their ancestors in Iran had to endure. Safavid kings sought to compel them to accept Shia Islam, Sunnis too were forced to convert to Shia or were persecuted, imprisoned, exiled, or killed. Zoroastrians were also branded as impure, in addition to being infidels. As earlier in the century, so this period also witnessed sporadic campaigns for the conversion of Armenians and Zoroastrians, focusing blame for economic and other ills on these and other minorities whose involvement in the
spice export, for example, was well known. In the early 16th century the great Safavid king,
Shah Abbas I settled a number of Zoroastrians in a suburb of his new capital, Isfahan. The suburb of Isfahan where the Zoroastrians lived was called Gabr-Mahal, Gabristan or Gabrabad, derived from the word Gabr. Europeans who visited his court left accounts of the 'Gabars' or 'Gabrs' (an insulting term used for Zoroastrians by the Muslims), agree on the poverty and simplicity of their lives. Fearing desecration by Muslims, Zoroastrians hid the sacred fires, and conversed in a newly invented dialect called Dari. Later Safavid kings were not as tolerant as Shah Abbas.
Muhammad Baqir Majlisi persuaded
Sultan Husayn (1688–1728 CE) to decree the forcible conversion of Zoroastrians; those who refused were killed. The accounts in
Mino Khirad, written during the Safavid period, demonstrate that the Zoroastrians were subjected to harassment by the Shi'ite majority, their places of worship were under a constant threat of being destroyed. By 1707, when
Le Bruyn visited
Isfahan, the Zoroastrians were no longer able practice their religion freely. He notes that the most deprived Zoroastrians had been brought to Isfahan, and had been forced to become Muslim three years earlier. In 1821,
Ker Porter visiting Isfahan notes that there were hardly any Zoroastrians left in Isfahan and Gabrabad was in ruins.
Qajar dynasty A Zoroastrian astrologer named Mulla Gushtasp predicted the fall of the
Zand dynasty to the Qajar army in Kerman. Because of Gushtasp's forecast, the Zoroastrians of Kerman were spared by the conquering army of
Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar. Despite the aforementioned favorable incident, the Zoroastrians during the
Qajar dynasty remained in agony and their population continued to decline. Even during the rule of Agha Mohammad Khan, the founder of the dynasty, many Zoroastrians were killed and some were taken as captives to
Azerbaijan. Zoroastrians regard the Qajar period as one of their worst. Many foreign visitors to Iran of the time had commented on their pitiful situation. According to
Edward Browne, the wall of Zoroastrian houses had to be lower than that of the Muslims and prohibited from marking their houses with distinctive signs. Zoroastrians were forbidden from erecting new houses and repairing old ones. They were forbidden from taking up lucrative occupations. Zoroastrians were often attacked and beaten by Muslims in the streets. carrying watches or rings, were all forbidden to Zoroastrians. During the rainy days they were not allowed carry umbrellas On top of all the misery the Zoroastrians had to pay a heavy religious tax known as Jizya. Arab tax collectors would mock Zoroastrians for wearing
Kushti and would rip it off, hanging the cord around the necks of the beleaguered faithful. Due to corruption of the tax officials, at times twice and even three times the official figure would be collected, because every intermediary had to receive his share. If the families could not afford paying the Jizya, their children were beaten and even tortured and their religious books were thrown in fire. That is how the term "the bookless" came about. Under the woeful conditions, some had to convert and there were those who declared themselves Muslims, picked up Islamic names, but in secret continued Zoroastrian practices. Today the latter group among the Zoroastrians is known as Jaddid. In response to persecution and segregation policies, the Zoroastrians community became closed, introverted, and static. Due to the extent of oppression, and destitution, many Zoroastrians ventured to the hazardous journey to India. Those who could not afford the voyage aboard the ships, risked their lives by crossing the hostile desert on donkeys or even on foot. when it was removed by pressure on the
Qajar government from the Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Fund.
The Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe (ZTFE), also attempted to alleviate the conditions of their Iranian brethren. Both Dadabhai Naoroji and
Mancherjee Bhownagree, as presidents of the ZTFE and Members of Parliament addressed the
House of Commons of the United Kingdom on the issue of the persecution of
Zoroastrians in Iran. On the six occasions, Shah
Naser al-Din Shah Qajar visited London; Parsi delegations from the ZTFE were present to advocate for their Iranian co-religionists suffering the intense persecution of the
Qajar dynasty.
Islamic Republic of Iran The 1979
Islamic revolution was equally traumatic for the remaining Zoroastrians, and their numbers reduced drastically. Immediately after the revolution, during
Bazargan's premiership, Muslim revolutionaries "walked into the main
Zoroastrian fire temple in Tehran and removed the portrait of the Prophet
Zoroaster and replaced it with one of [Ayatollah]
Khomeini". However, just like the
Armenian,
Assyrian and
Persian Jewish communities, Zoroastrians are officially recognized and on the grounds of the 1906 Constitution allocated one seat in the
Iranian Parliament, formerly held by
Esfandiar Ekhtiari Kassnavieh and currently held by
Behshid Barkhodar. Out-marriage and low birth rates affect the growth of Iran's Zoroastrian population which, according to Iran's 2012 census results, stood at 25,271, though this represented an increase of 27.5% on the 2006 population. In 2013,
Sepanta Niknam was elected to the city council of
Yazd and became the first Zoroastrian councillor in Iran. ==Persecution by Christians==