Editing Islam in Iran (section)

===Arab conquest of Iran===
{{main|Islamic conquest of Iran}}
{{Islam by country}}
[[Image:Map of expansion of Caliphate.svg|300px|thumb|Stages of Islamic conquest {{legend|#a1584e|Expansion under [[Muhammad]], 622-632}} {{legend|#ef9070|Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate, 632-661}} {{legend|#fad07d|Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661-750}}]]

Muslims conquered Iran in the time of [[Umar]] (637) and conquered it after several great battles. [[Yazdegerd III]] fled from one district to another [[Merv]] in 651.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://p2.www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=106324&fullArticle=true&tocId=9106324 | title=Iran | publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]}}</ref> By 674, Muslims had conquered [[Greater Khorasan]] (which included modern Iranian Khorasan province and modern [[Afghanistan]], [[Transoxania]]).

As [[Bernard Lewis]] has quoted<ref name="lewis">{{cite web|url=http://www.tau.ac.il/dayancenter/mel/lewis.html |title=Iran in history |first=Bernard |last=Lewis |publisher=[[Tel Aviv University]] |access-date=2007-04-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070429144545/http://www.tau.ac.il/dayancenter/mel/lewis.html |archive-date=2007-04-29 }}</ref> <blockquote>"These events have been variously seen in Iran: by some as a blessing, the advent of the true faith, the end of the age of ignorance and heathenism; by others as a humiliating national defeat, the conquest and subjugation of the country by foreign invaders. Both perceptions are of course valid, depending on one's angle of vision."</blockquote>

Under [[Umar]] and his immediate successors, the Arab conquerors attempted to maintain their political and cultural cohesion despite the attractions of the civilizations they had conquered. The Arabs were to settle in the garrison towns rather than on scattered estates.  The new non-Muslim subjects, or ''[[dhimmi]]'', were to pay a special tax, the ''[[jizya]]'' or poll tax, which was calculated per individual at varying rates for able bodied men of military age.<ref>{{cite book
|last=Kennedy |first= Hugh
| title = The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates
| publisher = Longman
| year = 2004
| page = 68
| author-link = Hugh N. Kennedy
}}</ref>

Iranians were among the very earliest converts to Islam, and their conversion in significant numbers began as soon as the Arab armies reached and overran the Persian plateau. Despite some resistance from elements of the Zoroastrian clergy and other ancient religions, the anti-Islamic policies of later conquerors like the Il-khanids, the impact of the Christian and secular West in modern times, and the attraction of new religious movements like Babism and the [[Baháʼí Faith]] (qq.v.), the vast majority of Iranians became and have remained Muslims. Today perhaps 98 percent of ethnic Iranians, including the population of Persia, are at least nominal Muslims. For such a fundamental, pervasive, and enduring cultural transformation, the phenomenon of Iranian conversions to Islam has received remarkably little scholarly attention.<ref>for an early and still worthwhile survey of the subject, see Arnold, pp.&nbsp;209–20; for significant recent advances, see Bulliet, 1979a; idem, 1979b</ref>

Recent research has established a general chronological framework for the process of conversion of Iranians to Islam. From a study of the probable dates of individual conversions based on genealogies in biographical dictionaries, Richard Bulliet has suggested that there was gradual and limited conversion of Persians down to the end of the Umayyad period (132/750), followed by a rapid increase in the number of conversions after the ʿAbbasid revolution, so that by the time when regional dynasties had been established in the east (ca. 338/950) 80 percent or more of Iranians had become Muslims. The data on which Bulliet's study was based limited the validity of this paradigm to generalizations about full, formal conversions in an urban environment. The situation in rural areas and individual regions may have been quite different, but the overall pattern is consistent with what can be deduced from traditional historical sources. Although in some areas, for example, Shiraz at the time of Moqaddasi's visit in about 375/985 (p.&nbsp;429), there may still have been strong non-Muslim elements, it is reasonable to suppose that the Persian milieu as a whole became predominantly Islamic within the period of time suggested by Bulliet's research.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/conversion-ii|title=CONVERSION ii. Of Iranians to Islam – Encyclopaedia Iranica|last=electricpulp.com|website=www.iranicaonline.org|access-date=7 April 2018}}</ref>

==== Islamization of Iran ====
{{See also|Islamization of Iran|Anarchy at Samarra}}

Following the [[Abbasid]] revolution of 749–51, in which Iranian converts played a major role, the Caliphate's center of gravity moved to Mesopotamia and underwent significant Iranian influences.<ref>{{cite book |first=Richard |last=Foltz |author-link=Richard Foltz |title=Religions of Iran: From Prehistory to the Present |publisher=Oneworld publications |location=London |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-78074-308-0 | pages=169–173}}</ref> Accordingly, the Muslim population of Iran rose from approx. 40% in the mid 9th century to close to 100% by the end of the 11th century.<ref name="Tobin"/> 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.<ref name="Arnold">The preaching of Islam: a history of the propagation of the Muslim faith By Sir [[Thomas Walker Arnold]], pg.170-180</ref> Moreover, [[dawah|Muslim missionaries]] did not encounter difficulty in explaining Islamic tenets to Zoroastrians, as there were many similarities between the faiths. According to [[Thomas Walker Arnold]], for the Persian, he would meet [[Ahura Mazda]] and [[Ahriman]] under the names of [[Allah]] and [[Iblis]].<ref name ="Arnold" /> [[Muslim]] leaders in their effort to win converts encouraged attendance at Muslim prayer, and allowed the [[Quran]] to be recited in Persian instead of Arabic so that it would be intelligible to all.<ref name ="Arnold" /> The first complete translation of the [[Qur'an]] into [[Persian language|Persian]] occurred during the reign of [[Samanid Empire|Samanids]] in the 9th century. [[Seyyed Hossein Nasr]] suggests that the rapid increase in conversion was aided by the Persian nationality of the rulers.<ref name="Tobin">Tobin 113-115</ref><ref>Nasr, Hossein, ''Islam and the Plight of Modern Man''</ref>

According to [[Bernard Lewis]]:
<blockquote>"Iran was indeed Islamized, but it was not Arabized. Persians remained Persians. And after an interval of silence, Iran reemerged as a separate, different and distinctive element within Islam, eventually adding a new element even to Islam itself. Culturally, politically, and most remarkable of all even religiously, the Iranian contribution to this new 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 India. The Ottoman Turks brought a form of Iranian civilization to the walls of Vienna..."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tau.ac.il/dayancenter/mel/lewis.html |title=New Document |access-date=2007-04-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070429144545/http://www.tau.ac.il/dayancenter/mel/lewis.html |archive-date=2007-04-29 }}</ref></blockquote>