Iran in History

In attempting to attain some perspective on Iran in history, I begin, as I think one must, with the Arab-Islamic conquests in the seventh century—that series of epoch-making events following the advent of Islam, the mission of the Prophet Muhammad and the carrying of his message to vast areas east and west from Arabia, and the incorporation of many lands, from the Atlantic and the Pyrenees to the borders of India and China and beyond, into the new Arab-Islamic empire. 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. What I would like first to bring to your attention is a significant and indeed remarkable difference between what happened in Iran and what happened in all the other countries of the Middle East and North Africa that were conquered by the Arabs and incorporated in the Islamic caliphate in the seventh and eighth centuries. These other countries of ancient civilization, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, were Islamized and Arabized in a remarkably short time. Their old religions were either abandoned entirely or dwindled into small minorities; their old languages almost disappeared. Some survived in scriptures and liturgies, some were still spoken in a few remote villages, but in most places, among most people, the previous languages were forgotten, the identities expressed in those languages were replaced, and the ancient civilizations of Iraq, Syria, and Egypt gave way to what we nowadays call the Arab world. Iran was indeed Islamized, but it was not Arabized. Persians remained Persians. And after an interval of silence, Iran reemerged as