Islamization of Iran

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The Islamization of Iran began with the Muslim conquest of Iran, when the Rashidun Caliphate annexed the Sasanian Empire. It was a long process by which Islam, though initially rejected, eventually spread among the Persians and the other Iranian peoples. Although Arabization was a common element of the early Muslim conquests, it did not have as significant of an impact in Iran as it did elsewhere, as the Iranian populace persisted in maintaining many of their pre-Islamic traditions, such as their language and culture, albeit with adaptations to conform to the nascent religion. A distinctly Iranian Muslim identity emerged in this context and later sidelined the Arabs in what is known as the Iranian Intermezzo.^[1]

Iranian society was deeply transformed by the spread of Islam, which greatly influenced the nation's cultural, scientific, and political structure; the blossoming of Persian literature, philosophy, medicine, and art became major elements of Islam in Iran. Integrating a heritage of thousands of years of civilization and being at the "crossroads of the major cultural highways"^[2] in the Near East contributed to the Iranians emerging at the forefront of the Islamic Golden Age under the Abbasid Caliphate.

Between the 7th century and the 16th century, Sunni Islam was dominant among the Iranians, but this changed with the Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam, which marked another historic societal shift for the nation. Consequently, Shia Islam remains dominant in modern-day Iran, where it is the official religion, as well as in Iraq and Azerbaijan.

After the

Patrick Clawson states that "The Iranians chafed under Umayyad rule. The Umayyads rose from traditional Arab aristocracy. They tended to marry other Arabs, creating an ethnic stratification that discriminated against Iranians. Even as Arabs adopted traditional Iranian bureaucracy, Arab tribalism disadvantaged Iranians."^[5]

The Arab conquerors, according to many historians, formed "a ruling aristocracy with special rights and privileges, which they emphatically did not propose to share with the mawali".

During the Abbasid period, an enfranchisement was experienced by the mawali and a shift was made in political conception from that of a primarily Arab empire to one of a Muslim empire,^[10] and around 930, a requirement was enacted that required all bureaucrats of the empire be Muslim.^[4] Both periods were also marked by significant migrations of Arab tribes outwards from the Arabian Peninsula into the newly conquered territories.^[10]

Before the Muslim conquest of Iran, the Persian people were predominantly Zoroastrian. The historian al-Masudi, a Baghdad-born Arab, who wrote a comprehensive treatise on history and geography in about 956, records that after the conquest:

Zoroastrianism, for the time being, continued to exist in many parts of Iran. Not only in countries that came relatively late under Muslim sway (e.g Tabaristan) but also in those regions which early had become provinces of the Muslim empire. In almost all the Iranian provinces, according to Al Masudi, fire temples were to be found – the Madjus he says, venerate many fire temples in Iraq, Fars, Kirman, Sistan, Khurasan, Tabaristan, al Djibal, Azerbaijan and Arran.

This general statement of al-Masudi is fully supported by the medieval geographers who make mention of fire temples in most of the Iranian towns.^[11]

Also, Islam was readily accepted by Zoroastrians who were employed in industrial and artisan positions because, according to Zoroastrian dogma, such occupations that involved defiling fire made them impure.

The "conversion curve" by Richard Bulliet highlights a relatively low conversion rate of non-Arab subjects during the Arab-centric Umayyad period, estimated at 10%. In contrast, during the more politically multicultural Abbasid period, the Muslim population increased significantly, from approximately 40% in the mid-9th century to nearly 80% by the end of the 11th century.^[10]

The emergence of Iranian Muslim dynasties had a great effect on the changing religion, per Seyyed Hossein Nasr.^[14] These dynasties have adopted some Persian cultural values and adapted them with Islam.

Although Persians adopted the religion of their conquerors, over the centuries they worked to protect and revive their distinctive language and culture, a process known as Persianization. Arabs and Turks participated in this attempt.^{[15][16][17][18]}

In the 9th and 10th centuries, non-Arab subjects of the

According to Bernard Lewis:

"

Islamic civilization is of immense importance. The work of Iranians can be seen in every field of cultural endeavor, including Arabic poetry, to which poets of Iranian origin composing their poems in Arabic made a very significant contribution. In a sense, Iranian Islam is a second advent of Islam itself, a new Islam sometimes referred to as Islam-i Ajam. It was this Persian Islam, rather than the original Arab Islam, that was brought to new areas and new peoples: to the Turks, first in Central Asia and then in the Middle East in the country which came to be called Turkey, and of course to India. The Ottoman Turks brought a form of Iranian civilization to the walls of Vienna."^[1]

The Persians had a great influence on their Arab conquerors. The caliphs adopted many administrative practices of the Sasanian Empire, such as coinage, the office of vizier, or minister, and the divan, a bureaucracy for collecting taxes and giving state stipends. Indeed, Persians themselves largely became the administrators. It is well established that the Abbasid caliphs modeled their administration on that of the Sasanians.^[21] The caliphs adopted Sasanian court dress and ceremony. In terms of architecture Islamic architecture borrowed heavily from Persian architecture. Sasanian architecture had a distinctive influence over Islamic architecture.

Iranians, since the beginning had interest and sincere efforts in compiling the study of Arabic

Persian language, because of its strong support from later Abbasid rulers condoning the language became one of the universal Islamic languages, next to Arabic.

The most important scholars of almost all of the Islamic sects and schools of thought were Persian or live in Iran including most notable and reliable

In 1377, the

"It is a remarkable fact that, with few exceptions, most Muslim scholars ... in the intellectual sciences have been non-Arabs, thus the founders of grammar were

Sibawaih and after him, al-Farsi and Az-Zajjaj. All of them were of Persian descent they invented rules of (Arabic) grammar. Great jurists were Persians. Only the Persians engaged in the task of preserving knowledge and writing systematic scholarly works. Thus the truth of the statement of the prophet (Muhammad

) becomes apparent, 'If learning were suspended in the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it "... The intellectual sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them...as was the case with all crafts. ... This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries, Iraq, Khorasan, and Transoxiana (modern Central Asia), retained their sedentary culture."

One Abbasid Caliph is even quoted as saying:

"The Persians ruled for a thousand years and did not need us Arabs even for a day. We have been ruling them for one or two centuries and cannot do without them for an hour."^[23]