The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, led to the end of the Sasanian Empire of Persia in 651 and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Iran (Persia).

Quotes

• “On reaching Dawar, [Ibn Samurah] surrounded the enemy in the mountain of Zur, where there was a famous Hindu temple.... As he entered victoriously into the sacred precincts of the temple, also called Zur or Zun, he noticed an idol of gold with two rubies for eyes. The zealous Muslim at once cut off the hands of the idol with one stroke and plucked the eyes out of their sockets but then returned everything to the priest, remarking that he 'only wanted to demonstrate how powerless was his idol to do either good or evil'.
  • About Ibn Samurah at Seistan. Abdur Rahman, The Last Two Dynasties of the Shahis, Delhi Reprint, 1988

• “…Their idol of Zur was of gold, and its eyes were two rubies. The zealous Musalmans cut off its hands and plucked out its eyes, and then remarked to the Marzaban how powerless was his idol to do either good or evil…”
  • About Ibn Samurah at Seistan. Futuhu’l-Buldan by al-Biladhuri. in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, Vol. II, pp. 413-14.

• Who routed infidel armies and destroyed them with bloody slaughter?
  Who put out and made cold the sacred flame in Iran?
  • From a poem by Muhammad Iqbal: Shikwa.

• Submit to Islam and be safe. Or agree to the payment of the Jizya (tax), and you and your people will be under our protection, else you will have only yourself to blame for the consequences, for I bring the men who desire death as ardently as you desire life.
  • Khalid ibn al-Walid , This letter was written by Khalid, from his head-quarters in Babylonia, to the Persian monarch Emperor Yazdegerd III before invading it. (History of the World, Volume IV [Book XII. The Mohammedan Ascendency], page 463, by John Clark Ridpath, LL.D. 1910.)

External links