Editing Zoroastrianism (section)

=== Decline in the Middle Ages ===
{{See also|Persecution of Zoroastrians}}
[[File:Hamza Burns Zarthust’s Chest and Shatters the Urn with his Ashes.jpg|thumb|A scene from the [[Hamzanama]] where [[Hamza ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib]] Burns Zarthust's Chest and Shatters the Urn with his Ashes]]
Over the course of 16 years during the 7th century, most of the Sasanian Empire was [[Muslim conquest of Persia|conquered by the emerging Muslim caliphate]].{{sfn|Hourani|1947|p=87}} Although the administration of the state was rapidly Islamicized and subsumed under the [[Umayyad Caliphate]], in the beginning {{qi|there was little serious pressure}} exerted on newly subjected people to adopt Islam.<ref>{{harvnb|Boyce|1979|p=150}}.</ref> Because of their sheer numbers, the conquered Zoroastrians had to be treated as ''[[dhimmi]]s'' (despite doubts of the validity of this identification that persisted down the centuries),<ref name="Boyce 1979"/> which made them eligible for protection. Islamic jurists took the stance that only Muslims could be perfectly moral, but {{qi|unbelievers might as well be left to their iniquities, so long as these did not vex their overlords.}}<ref name="Boyce 1979">{{harvnb|Boyce|1979|p=146}}.</ref> In the main, once the conquest was over and {{qi|local terms were agreed on}}, the Arab governors protected the local populations in exchange for tribute.<ref name="Boyce 1979"/>

The Arabs adopted the Sasanian tax-system, both the land-tax levied on landowners and the [[poll-tax]] levied on individuals,<ref name="Boyce 1979"/> called ''[[jizya]]'',<!-- Boyce 1979:146 --> a tax levied on non-Muslims (i.e., the ''dhimmis''). In time, this poll-tax came to be used as a means to humble the non-Muslims, and a number of laws and restrictions evolved to emphasize their inferior status. Under the early orthodox [[caliphs]], as long as the non-Muslims paid their taxes and adhered to the ''dhimmi'' laws, administrators were enjoined to leave non-Muslims {{qi|in their religion and their land}}.<ref>([[Abu Bakr]], qtd. in {{harvnb|Boyce|1979|p=146}}).</ref>

Under [[Abbasid]] rule, Muslim Iranians (who by then were in the majority) in many instances showed severe disregard for and mistreated local Zoroastrians. For example, in the 9th century, a deeply venerated [[cypress tree]] in [[Greater Khorasan|Khorasan]] (which Parthian-era legend supposed had been planted by Zoroaster himself) was felled for the construction of a palace in Baghdad, {{convert|2000|mi|km}} away. In the 10th century, on the day that a [[Tower of Silence]] had been completed at much trouble and expense, a Muslim official contrived to get up onto it, and to call the ''[[adhan]]'' (the Muslim call to prayer) from its walls. This was turned into a pretext to annex the building.<ref>{{harvnb|Boyce|1979|p=158}}.</ref>

Ultimately, Muslim scholars like [[Al-Biruni]] found few records left of the belief of for instance the [[Khwarazmian dynasty|Khawarizmians]] because figures like [[Qutayba ibn Muslim]] {{qi|extinguished and ruined in every possible way all those who knew how to write and read the Khawarizmi writing, who knew the history of the country and who studied their sciences.}} As a result, {{qi|these things are involved in so much obscurity that it is impossible to obtain an accurate knowledge of the history of the country since the time of Islam...}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lib.iium.edu.my/mom2/cm/content/view/view.jsp?key=CkX1cftLSG76ALezab2WfMEBoHrJ63pJ20091104105517625|title=Kamar Oniah Kamaruzzaman, Al-Biruni: Father of Comparative Religion|website=Lib.iium.edu.my|access-date=9 June 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150713061658/http://lib.iium.edu.my/mom2/cm/content/view/view.jsp?key=CkX1cftLSG76ALezab2WfMEBoHrJ63pJ20091104105517625|archive-date=13 July 2015}}</ref>

==== Conversion ====
Though subject to a new leadership and harassment, the Zoroastrians were able to continue their former ways, although there was a slow but steady social and economic pressure to convert,<ref>{{harvnb|Bulliet|1979|pp=37, 138}}.</ref><ref name="Boyce 1979-2">{{harvnb|Boyce|1979|pp=147}}.</ref> with the nobility and city-dwellers being the first to do so, while Islam was accepted more slowly among the peasantry and landed gentry.<ref>{{harvnb|Bulliet|1979|p=59}}.</ref> {{qi|Power and worldly-advantage}} now lay with followers of Islam, and although the {{qi|official policy was one of aloof contempt, there were individual Muslims eager to [[proselytize]] and ready to use all sorts of means to do so.}}<ref name="Boyce 1979-2"/>

In time, a tradition evolved by which Islam was made to appear as a partly Iranian religion. One example of this was a legend that [[Husayn ibn Ali|Husayn]], son of the fourth caliph [[Ali]] and grandson of Islam's prophet [[Muhammad]], had married a captive Sassanid princess named [[Shahrbanu]]. This "wholly fictitious figure"<ref name="Boyce 1979-3">{{harvnb|Boyce|1979|p=151}}.</ref> was said to have borne Husayn [[Ali ibn Husayn Zayn al-Abidin|a son]], the historical fourth [[Shi'a]] [[Imamah (Shi'a doctrine)|imam]], who insisted that the caliphate rightly belonged to him and his descendants, and that the [[Umayyad]]s had wrongfully wrested it from him. The alleged descent from the Sassanid house counterbalanced the [[Arab nationalism]] of the Umayyads, and the Iranian national association with a Zoroastrian past was disarmed. Thus, according to scholar [[Mary Boyce]], {{qi|it was no longer the Zoroastrians alone who stood for patriotism and loyalty to the past.}}<ref name="Boyce 1979-3"/> The "damning indictment" that becoming Muslim was [[Aniran|un-Iranian]] only remained an idiom in Zoroastrian texts.<ref name="Boyce 1979-3"/>

With Iranian support, the [[Abbasids]] overthrew the Umayyads in 750, and in the subsequent caliphate government—that nominally lasted until 1258—Muslim Iranians received marked favor in the new government, both in Iran and at the capital in [[Baghdad]]. This mitigated the antagonism between Arabs and Iranians but sharpened the distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims. The Abbasids zealously persecuted heretics, and although this was directed mainly at Muslim [[sectarians]], it also created a harsher climate for non-Muslims.<ref>{{harvnb|Boyce|1979|p=152}}.</ref>

==== Survival ====
[[File:USSHER(1865) p012 BAKU, FIRE TEMPLE (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=1.05|The [[Ateshgah of Baku|fire temple]] of [[Baku]], {{c.|1860}}]]
Despite economic and social incentives to convert, Zoroastrianism remained strong in some regions, particularly in those furthest away from the Caliphate capital at Baghdad. In [[Bukhara]] (present-day [[Uzbekistan]]), resistance to Islam required the 9th-century Arab commander [[Qutayba ibn Muslim|Qutaiba]] to convert his province four times. The first three times the citizens reverted to their old religion. Finally, the governor made their religion {{qi|difficult for them in every way}}, turned the local fire temple into a mosque, and encouraged the local population to attend Friday prayers by paying each attendee two [[dirhams]].<ref name="Boyce 1979-2"/> The cities where Arab governors resided were particularly vulnerable to such pressures,<!--147--> and in these cases the Zoroastrians were left with no choice but to either conform or migrate to regions that had a more amicable administration.<ref name="Boyce 1979-2"/>

The 9th century came to define<!--e.g., Bailey's ''Zoroastrian problems in the ninth-century books''--> the great number of Zoroastrian texts that were composed or re-written during the 8th to 10th centuries (excluding copying and lesser amendments, which continued for some time thereafter). All of these works are in the [[Middle Persian]] dialect of that period (free of Arabic words) and written in the difficult [[Pahlavi script]] (hence the adoption of the term "Pahlavi" as the name of the variant of the language, and of the genre, of those Zoroastrian books). If read aloud, these books would still have been intelligible to the [[laity]]. Many of these texts are responses to the tribulations of the time, and all of them include exhortations to stand fast in their religious beliefs.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

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In [[Greater Khorasan|Khorasan]] in northeastern Iran, a 10th-century Iranian nobleman brought together four Zoroastrian priests to transcribe a Sassanid-era Middle Persian work titled ''Book of the Lord'' (''Khwaday Namag'') from Pahlavi script into Arabic script. This transcription, which remained in Middle Persian prose (an Arabic version, by [[Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa|al-Muqaffa]], also exists), was completed in 957 and subsequently became the basis<!-- so Boyce 159 --> for [[Firdausi]]'s ''[[Shahnameh|Book of Kings]]''. It became enormously popular among both Zoroastrians and Muslims, and also served to propagate the Sassanid justification for overthrowing the Arsacids.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

Among migrations were those to cities in (or on the margins of) the [[Dasht-e Kavir|great salt deserts]], in particular to [[Yazd]] and [[Kerman]], which remain centers of Iranian Zoroastrianism to this day. Yazd became the seat of the Iranian high priests during [[Ilkhanate|Mongol Ilkhanate]] rule, when the {{qi|best hope for survival [for a non-Muslim] was to be inconspicuous.}}<ref>{{harvnb|Boyce|1979|p=163}}.</ref> Crucial to the present-day survival of Zoroastrianism was a migration from the northeastern Iranian town of [[Sanjan (Khorasan)|"Sanjan in south<!-- hyphen-->-<!--per literal quote-->western Khorasan"]],<ref name="Boyce 1979-4">{{harvnb|Boyce|1979|p=157}}.</ref> to [[Gujarat]], in western India. The descendants of that group are today known as the ''[[Parsi]]s''—"as the [[Gujaratis]], from long tradition, called anyone from Iran"<ref name="Boyce 1979-4"/>—who today represent the larger of the two groups of Zoroastrians in India.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/What-sets-Zoroastrian-Iranis-apart/articleshow/572604.cms | title=What sets Zoroastrian Iranis apart | publisher=Times of India | work=21 March 2004 | accessdate=12 October 2021 | author=Shastri, Padmaja | date=21 March 2004 | archive-date=19 April 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200419124238/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/What-sets-Zoroastrian-Iranis-apart/articleshow/572604.cms | url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Special Container Carrying The Holy Fire from Aden at Lonavala.jpg|thumb|left|upright|A special container carrying the holy fire from [[Aden]] to the Lonavala Agiary, India]]
The struggle between Zoroastrianism and Islam declined in the 10th and 11th centuries. Local Iranian dynasties, "all vigorously Muslim,"<ref name="Boyce 1979-4"/> had emerged as largely independent [[vassals]] of the Caliphs. In the 16th century, in one of the early letters between Iranian Zoroastrians and their co-religionists in India, the priests of [[Yazd]] lamented that "no period [in human history], not even [[Hellenistic period|that of Alexander]], had been more grievous or troublesome for the faithful than 'this millennium of the [[Aeshma|demon of<!--caps cause hypostasis-->Wrath<!-- and because this is a literal quotation-->]]'."<ref>{{harvnb|Boyce|1979|p=175}}.</ref>