Zoroastrianism in Iran from the Arab conquests to the mid-nineteenth century

This chapter calls for a reassessment of how the history of Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrians under Islamic rule is written. It investigates some recurring scholarly tropes and interpretative frameworks that have long shaped understandings of this period. Key arguments include the need to move beyond portrayals of late Sasanian Zoroastrianism as a rigid, elite-dominated tradition in decline on the eve of the Islamic conquests; to recognise the participation of Zoroastrians in the broader social and intellectual life of the early Islamic world, as reflected in Middle Persian literature; and to reconsider dominant isolationist narratives that depict the Iranian community from the eleventh to the mid-nineteenth centuries as culturally stagnant and disconnected.