Zoroastrianism in the Islamic Period

Sources for study of Zoroastrianism under

Muslim rule
• 1. Perso-Arabic geographical and historical narratives, 7th – 11th cents.
e.g. Muslim geographer Ibn Khordādbe (Masālek va Mamālek), local histories e.g.
Tārīkh-e Sīstān, general histories e.g. al-Ṭabarī (9th-10th cent CE Persian historian).

• 2. Europeans travellers’ reports during 17th – 18th cents. when the Safavid Empire
(1501-1722) was a major world power.
e.g. Pietro della Valle’s Fameux voyages (1661-1663)

• 3. Middle Persian and Classical Persian Zoroastrian texts, the former till the 11th
cents.
e.g. Persian Rivāyat of Hormazyar Framarz and others. These end just before the
Qajar period (1785-1925).
 Periodisation from conquest to Safavids
(1722)
• 1. Period of the conquest (7th cent.) – overthrow of the Sasanian
Empire by Muslims.
• 2. Age of conversion, 8th – 10th cents.
• 3. ‘Dark Ages’; Zoroastrian immigration to India - 10th – 16th cents.
• 4. Establishment of Safavid state (1501).

(per Vevaina, 2015).

 1. Period of Conquest
• Context: 2 great superpowers, viz. the Christian Byzantines and
Zoroastrian Sasanians pitted against one another.
• Battle of Antioch (613 CE): Byzantine army led by Heraclius was
defeated by Persian Sasanian army.
• Muḥammad’s revelation (became known as the Sūra ar-Rūm, see
Qur’ān, Sūra XXX) which predicted the defeat of Khosrow II (590-628)
and the victory of Heraclius.
• Arab Muslims went on to conquer both the Christian Byzantines and
Zoroastrian Sasanians
Map of Persia and Surrounding Regions on Eve of Arab-Muslim Invasion
• In 634, during reign of Yazdegird III (632-651), Arab Muslims launched first raids into
Sasanian Iran.
• Led by general Khalid ibn Walid, Arab Muslims first invaded Mesopotamia (Iraq) which was
the political and economic center of Sasanian state.
• In 642, Caliph Umar ordered a full invasion of the Sasanian empire.
• 651 Yazdegird was killed and Iran conquered from eastern to western boundaries.
• Arab Muslims went further into Central Asia where they defeated the Turks and met the
Chinese in battle.
• Zoroastrians’ response was mixed: some areas agreed to pay a poll tax (Arab. djizya) in
return for freedom of worship and safety (see handout); others converted to keep their
status; yet others decided to fight and were killed/captured and sold into slavery.
• Those who converted include the Persian governor of Yemen and his troops (by 632); 637,
following the battle of Qadisiya, the Red regiment of the defeated Sasanian army joined the
Arab forces and converted to Islam.
• In the early period of the conquest, voluntary conversion was usually for political or
economic reasons, rather than religious ones.
• Forced conversions to Islam are though, documented (see handout, History of Bukhara)
 Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates
• Rashidun caliphate established immediately after Muḥammad’s
death in 632.
• Four Rashidun caliphs who succeeded Muḥammad were chosen
through shura process. The fourth caliph, Ali, was from the same clan
as Muḥammad and is considered by Shia Muslims as the first rightful
caliph after the prophet.
• Second caliphate, the Umayyads (661-750 CE), was ruled by Banu
Umayya. They continued the Arab conquests, including the Caucasus,
Transoxiana, Sind, the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula.
 Afghanistan
Iraq Iran
Algeria
Libya

Saudi Arabia

Yemen
 The Age of Conversion
• Period of the Abbasid Revolutions (750) brought many Iranians into a new
Islamic polity.
• Zoroastrian converts now integrated into Muslim societies as equals.
Where initially, conversion was discouraged for economic and social
reasons, Zoroastrians now encouraged to espouse Islam.
• Arab: Non-Arab replaced by Muslim:Non-Muslim.
• Abbasids supported the Shī’ī cause and their new Islamic polity borrowed
many elements from the Iranian and Zoroastrian traditions.
• Abbasid caliphs began to mimic many pre-Islamic traditions, e.g.
celebration of Nowrūz.
• By 9th cent., the rate of conversion had reached its peak.
Abbasid caliphate at peak c. 850
• During the Abbasid Caliphate a large number of Zoroastrian Middle Persian (Pahlavi) texts
were redacted.
• Why?
• Arguably felt need to defend dwindling religion by embarking on a campaign to write
down received knowledge to direct the community in regards to their beliefs, lore and
traditions.
 Zoroastrian ‘Dark Ages’ 11th – 16th cents.
• Centuries following the coming of the Seljuk Turks in 11th cent. was a turbulent
time in the history of Iran.
• Wars, famine, massacres followed the conquests and rule of Iran by the Mongols
(1219-1256) and the Il-Khanids (1256-1335) and the Timurids (1370-1507).
• Sources shed little light on Zoroastrians before 15th cent.
• In part, likely because of their marginal status and loss of numbers, in part too
because many had decided to migrate to where they had commercial contacts,
e.g. India. Cf. the Qeṣṣe-ye Sanjān (see handout)
• For those remaining, an intellectual tradition was kept alive with letters going
back and forth between Zoroastrians in Iran and their coreligionists in India (see
handout).
• Between 15th and 18th cents. the Parsi community sought the legal and religious
guidance from the ‘ecclesiastical’ seat in Torkābād.
 Safavid Dynasty (1501-1722/36)
• Coming of founding Shah Ismā’īl brought important political, economic and
religious changes to iran.
• Shah Ismā’īl said to have been devoted to ‘Alī, the first Shī’a imam.
• Declared that those who did not believe in ‘Alī were unbelievers, this
included not only the Sunnī population, but of course Zoroastrians,
Christians, Jews, Buddhists. Thus, there were campaigns to convert the
population.
• Fire temples were turned into mosques or masjeds and funerary towers
(dakhme) were desecrated or demolished.
• Fire altars were thus hidden in inconspicuous side chambers of fire temples
to protect the flames from being desecrated. Story by Jean Baptiste
Tavernier (17th cent.) of the governor of Kerman spitting into a sacred fire.
• Shāh ’Abbās (1587-1629) was invited to visit Kermān by the local Zoroastrians who complained
that they were being persecuted by Muslims.
• His attention to the Zoroastrians in Yazd and Kermān is memorialised every year with soup and
sweet cake and they call this alms-giving event “Shāh ‘Abbās Alms’ (Kheyrāt-e Shāh ‘Abbāsī).
• By the late 17th/early 18th centuries, Zoroastrians were going through another tumultuous period.
• The last of the Safavid rulers came under the spell of militant Shī’ī clerics such as Moḥammad
Ḥosseyn Khātūnābādī.
• This resulted in a decree in 1699 that forced conversion upon all to Shī’a Islam.
• While Christians sought the aid of European powers, the Zoroastrians at the time had no support
from any foreign powers.
• In Kermān the ‘olamā’ (Muslim jurists) issued a fatwa that the Zoroastrians must be moved outside
the city so they didn’t mix with Muslims.
• Still to this day the neighbourhood in Kerman where they were forcefully relocated to is still called
the Maḥalle-ye Gabrān ‘ Zoroastrian neighbourhood’.
• Mahmoud Afghān put an end to Safavid power, invading Kermān in 1719.
• Three years later, when the Afghans came with 40,000 soldiers, they received the support of the
Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kermān who attacked Iranian Muslims in Kerman.
• Zoroastrians’ collaboration with Afghans led to them being punished by forced conversion to Islam
or execution by Nāder Shah (1736-47), widely regarded as a cruel and capricious tyrant who was
assassinated by his own troops in 1747.

• The following Zand dynasty (1750-94), which made pretensions to ancient Iranian tradition,
ultimately persecuted the minority Zoroastrian community further by branding them as traitors.

• In Qajar times (1785-1925), heavy djizya taxes levied on each local community and if payment
wasn’t made on time, the notables of the community were beaten. Meanwhile, forced conversion
continued to be enforced periodically.

• Result was that a majority of Zoroastrians continued to withdraw to rural settings.

• In 19th century, Zoroastrians continued to be oppressed. Rev. Napier Malcolm (1870-1921) noted
that, in 1865, Zoroastrians were required to identify themselves publicly through yellow or similar
coloured clothing, could not use umbrellas for shade from the sun or eyeglasses for better vision,
were not permitted to ride animals in the presence of Muslims, and were required to live in low-
roofed dwellings with poor ventilation.
 Religious Issues (Zoroastrian Perspective)
• 1. Conversion to Islam:

• Position of converts with respect to Zoroastrian doctrine, law, order?

• Post-conquest literature clear: “An adult who abandons the good religion is
death-deserving” (Dadestan ī Dēnīg 40,2).
• [NB. No evidence that converts to Islam were actually executed]
• Allows for repentance and return to the religion:
• “[if a person becomes] penitent within one year, the acts and good deeds done
before that action return; those which he did after the penance will also be his;
[but] those which he did after removal of the sacred girdle and before penitence
will not be his” (Rivayat of Adurfanbay and Farnbaysrosh, 43,2).
• Cf. Islamic law which, in the case of reverts, were either forced to profess their
Islam anew or face the death penalty.
• Little evidence of active Zoroastrian proselytization during Islamic period (unsurprisingly),
the literature does mention the possibility of a non-Zoroastrian seeking admission to the
faith.
• Conversion only permissible if it did not harm the Zoroastrian community (cf. Persian
Rivayats, 1.282 lines 1-2).

• Legal issues,

• e.g. property law and inheritance in the case of a convert to Islam. Here, attempts to
appropriate the property would have resulted in retribution by the Muslim authorities. Thus
it was said “In our era, this [i.e. seizure of possessions] is difficult to practice” (Rivayat ī
Emed ī Ashawahishtan, 4.6)

• Adoption: Zoroastrian law required that every married man who did not have a child of his
own adopt someone who would be his legal heir. Jurists ruled that both pious Zoroastrian
adults and children were suitable for adoption, but not Muslims (Dadestan ī Dēnīg, 56.2-4).
This law was intended to prevent loss of the community’s wealth through inheritance and
remained unchanged through the entire period of Muslim rule.
Purity:

Intermarriage and sex with Muslims was regarded as a heinous act because it resulted in the
loss of an individual’s ritual purity. This increased if the liaison resulted in children.

Similarly, the use of public facilities and bath-houses frequented by Muslims was also
proscribed.

Food prepared by Muslims was considered impure and its consumption prohibited. Only out of
necessity could a non-Zoroastrian be permitted to slaughter animals in a Zoroastrian settlement
because the slaughter did not follow Zoroastrian rites (Persian Rivayats 1.261 lines 16-18)

With increased trade however, rules governing intercommunal contact were relaxe somewhat.
E.g. sale of cattle to Muslims was considered sinful unless such sales were the main source of
income for a Zoroastrian.
 Quiṣṣe-ye Sanjan
• (see handout for excerpts)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnZgPISMA4o