Editing Zoroastrianism (section)

==== 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>