Continued from the previous article "The process of conversion to Islam in Persia, there is no Iran in the world, and the Arab world is like a long night through the ages (I)".
Since the main topic of our article is about the relationship between Iran (Persia) and the Arab world, why did I introduce the cultural and religious exchanges between ancient Persia and China in the first part?
There is naturally a rational logic here, and it is not something that is casually said. Because in the field of history, the competition for the right to speak is relatively fierce. Now there is a Western pseudo-historiography theory, and there are many pros and cons of it. In order to extract foreign historical materials, we have to face the following question: which Western historical materials can be used with confidence?
A more conservative approach is that only the history of countries that have had a direct connection with Chinese history has fewer problems with the citation of historical materials. For example, those historical materials that we did not have direct contact with in ancient times were completely discounted through Western historical books, and were not quoted unless necessary.
The first part addresses the question of the existence of the ancient Persian state and the ancient Persians.
Second, the rise of the Arab Empire, under the scimitar of the full moon, the Persian nobles must convert to Islam. After the fall of the Arab Empire, the Mongol massacres eliminated the caliphate and promoted the widespread Islamization of the Persians.
In 224 AD, a new imperial dynasty was established in the ancient Persian lands, the Sassanid Empire. At its largest, the new Persian Empire included present-day Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the Caucasus, southwestern Central Asia, parts of Turkey, parts of the Arabian Peninsula coast, the Persian Gulf, southwestern Pakistan, and parts of India. Of course, the cultural subject of this empire was still Persian culture, and its cultural successor was mainly present-day Iran.
In 610, Islam emerged in the Sassanid ruled region. How Islam arose is not what we are discussing today, I will only talk about the results.
Relief of the Apadan Steps in Persepolis – Picture 20 of the Northern Steps: 4 Arabs conquered by the Persian Empire pay tribute to the imperial court with long robes and dromedary camels
Islam began to unite the Arabs on the southern frontier of Mesopotamia, to which the Sassanid Empire belonged, turning them into organized armies, and this was the rise of the Arabs. The main reason why the Arabs chose to rise here is that it was a place where the Sassanid Empire fought against the Eastern Roman Empire for many years, and the rule was weak, and neither empire had time to control the people here.
In 628, Khosrau II of the Sassanid Empire, who had fought for more than twenty years, was physically and mentally exhausted and had to return to his capital, Ctesiphon (32 km southeast of present-day Baghdad, Iraq). At this time, the Arab envoys arrived, and the Arabs sent four envoys to visit the Sassanid Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Egypt.
The messenger brought a letter with the seal that reads "Muhammad, Messenger of Allah". The letter invited Khosrau II and other monarchs and governors of the provinces to be invited to join his subjects in the immediate conversion to Islam. Enraged, Khosrau II tore up the letter and ordered the governor of Yemen to detain this "reckless and presumptuous man", the Islamic prophet Muhammad, in chains and shackles to Ctesiphon.
If the Sassanids had been able to kill Muhammad as they had done with Mani, the history of Islam and Arabia would have been rewritten. Unfortunately, Khosrau II had no chance, and five days later he was deposed, and his son Cheroë was forced to behead him.
Over the next four years, the Sassanid dynasty had a total of 13 monarchs. The Sassanids also returned to the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius the "True Cross" of Christ that Khosrau II had seized from Jerusalem, ending the war between the two countries that had lasted for more than 700 years.
In 632, the last Sassanid emperor and grandson of Khosrau II, Isiqi III, ascended the throne at the age of 15. In the same year, Muhammad died, and his companion Abu Bakr became the first caliph of the Arab Empire, launching a two-sided attack on both the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire, capturing Damascus. After the death of Abu Bakr, 'Umar succeeded him and began a targeted attack on the Sassanids.
Determined to fight back, Isichi III gathered his forces and defeated the Arabs at the Battle of Kufa Bridge in 634 using Indian war elephants, causing a temporary setback to Arab expansion.
In 635, the Arab armies and the Sassanid army faced off for four months in Qadisiyah, a day's drive from Ctesiphon, in present-day Iraq. The Arabs sent messengers to Ichiqi III, who asked why Umar's forces had come to plunder his treasures.
The Arab emissaries explained to him the origins of Islam and the Prophet's message of peace, and praised the Prophet's blessings to the Arab community. He also invited all Persians to convert to Islam because it was the only religion that could guide them to the path of good. If refused, the Persians had only two options: to accept the lowly status of "zimi" and pay the corresponding taxes in order to obtain protection, otherwise war awaited them.
When he heard this, he was furious and ordered a bag of earth and straw to be poured on the head of the Arab envoy, inflicting the greatest humiliation on him in Persian culture and ordering the Arab envoy to be expelled.
Four days of fierce fighting ensued between the two armies. On the third day, Kaka ibn Amr, the leader of the Arab reinforcements from Damascus, killed General Baman of Bolas in a single battle. A violent sandstorm came at the Persian army, and they were so confused that they couldn't open their eyes. In the ensuing melee, the commander of the Persian army, Rostam, stumbled and was beheaded by the Arab cavalry. The latter put his head on a spear and swore to Allah that he had just slashed the Persian commander. The sandstorm and the death of Rostam led to the eventual collapse of the Sassanid Empire.
The Persian army confronted the enemy
The war was an unprecedented battle in Arab history, and since then the power of Persia and Arabia has been reversed.
Eschime III hurriedly sent Firuzan as commander of the army to defend Babylon and Ctesiphon. The Arab army in hot pursuit fought with the Persian army under the city of Babylon, and the Arabs won again, and Babylon fell into the hands of the Arabs. This victory caused some Persians to lose their fighting spirit, and the Persians who assisted and supported the Arabs abandoned the state religion Zoroastrianism and converted to Islam, while others who did not convert to Islam became lowly "zimi".
Two years later, Caliph Umar decided to attack the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, when the Arabs were on the west bank of the Tigris and the Persians were on the east. Originally, the Persian army could wait for the Arabs to cross the river, but the frightened Persian court officials were the main fleeers, and Isichi III had to order the abandonment of Ctesiphon and evacuate with 4,000 retinues, including the Janissaries, his three wives, and a large number of cooks, musicians, and servants.
When the Arabs invaded Ctesiphon in 637, all the men in the city were slaughtered, women and children were taken prisoner, and a fifth of them were sold in the slave markets of Medina according to Islamic law, and the rest went to Umar's soldiers. Historians estimate that about 300,000 people were taken from Persia, of whom 60,000 were sent to Medina for sale. As for the looting of treasures and wealth, there is no need to elaborate.
Iji III eventually fled to Rey, south of Tehran. In 642, in Nahavand in present-day Hamadan province, the Arabs besieged the city, and the Persian army resisted stubbornly with strong fortresses. So the Arabs pretended that Caliph 'Umar was dead, and in the midst of overwhelming wailing, they pretended to pull out the camp. Firuzan, the commander of the Persian garrison, rushed out of the gates of Nahavand and led his cavalry to attack the invading army.
As a result, the Arabs suddenly turned around and met the attack, and Firuzan was killed in the melee. Arab historians have written this battle down in the annals of history and called it "a victory within a victory." The war represented the Persian Empire's transition from prosperity to decline and defeat.
Ironically, Caliph Umar, who pretended to be dead, soon did die, having been assassinated by a Persian from the city of Nahavand, Pirouz. This man, known to later generations as "Piruz Nahavand", took advantage of the chaos to flee to the city of Kashan in the middle of the country, where he died. His mausoleum, which bears the title of "Father of Courage", remains a pilgrimage destination in Iran today.
According to the Islamic law of "punishment of revenge", only the murderer can be punished, but the son of the caliph slaughtered a large number of Persians in Medina instead of the Shari'a.
After that, the Arab Empire gradually ruled the original territory of Persia. Wherever the Arabs went, they imposed heavy taxes on non-Muslims who did not believe in Islam, and treated those who converted to Islam as Muslims like themselves.
However, this was not the beginning of the mass Islamization of the Persians. This was because the Arab rulers, who ostensibly welcomed the conversion of the people of the occupied territories to Islam, in fact allowed only a small number of nobles from the upper echelons of the region to convert to Islam, thus strengthening the power of Arab rule in the region. The conversion of ordinary people to Islam was not welcomed by the Arab rulers, because if there were Muslims everywhere, the Arab rulers would have no place to collect heavy taxes.
I found an example of how the Arabs invaded the formerly Persian-controlled areas of Central Asia and Islamized the population. Caliph Umar II had announced reforms: newly converted Muslims, like Arab Muslims, would not pay either land or poll taxes, and would not continue to occupy land. But this caused the displeasure of the Arab governors of Khorasan, because in this way the local tax revenue was significantly reduced. The governor decreed that only newly converted Muslims who had undergone circumcision and were familiar with the Qur'an were exempt from paying the poll tax. This made caliphate reform a dead letter.
The Central Asian aristocracy, on the other hand, declared itself Muslim and refused to pay taxes, which was inconsistent with the policy of the Arab governors, and the two sides clashed with each other, which eventually led to a large-scale revolt against Arab rule by the Central Asian people because they could not freely convert to Islam and had to pay heavy taxes.
Then the Arab rulers relented, and some local nobles were recognized as Muslims, while others were not recognized even if they claimed to be converts to Muslims. When the Arab Empire reached its maximum, imperial rule began to weaken, and revolts began to rise everywhere.
In other words, during the period of Arab rule, the process of Islamization in various parts of Persia was not rapid, and only a small number of local nobles were recognized by Arab rulers as Muslims recognized by Sharia law, while the general population still could not become legal Muslims, even if they had followed the Muslim way of life.
It should be noted that the Arab Empire entered Central Asia (in a narrow sense, excluding Xinjiang) earlier than the Tang Dynasty, and therefore the Islamization of Central Asia earlier. The view that it was the defeat of the Tang Dynasty in the Battle of Talas that prevented the Islamization of Central Asia is biased.
The full Islamization of Persia and Central Asia was also due to the Mongol conquest of the West.
There are several reasons for this. In order to collect heavy taxes from non-Muslims, the Arab empire refused to convert the vast number of grassroots people in the occupied areas to Islam and enjoy equal treatment of Muslims, and as a result, it lost the basis of support of the people everywhere. By the time the Mongols marched westward, the Arab Empire had become relatively corrupt and declining, and was quickly crushed by the Mongols.
Most importantly, the Mongol expedition to the west killed the caliphate of the Arab Empire and extinguished the caliphate in the Islamic missionary system. The propagation of Islam is decentralized to grassroots church organizations. Because of this, different Islamic sects in various places vied with each other to recruit local people into the religion in order to expand their influence, which was an important reason for the complete Islamization of Persia and Central Asia.
Yesterday, I clicked on the comment posted the day before yesterday, and netizens 167565706953 commented, "Islam is → Persians, Turks, and Mongols to make it blossom and bear fruit," which is not wrong at all. The Mongols eliminated the caliphate and ensured that Islam could blossom everywhere. The Turks converted to Islam and established the Ottoman Empire.
Some people will ask the question in depth, why did the Persians not restore their religious traditions after the fall of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism?
The reason is simple: Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism are very primitive in their teachings, and they are relatively poor in the completeness of their teachings, and they cannot explain the original problems of some religions. In addition, Islam has linked religious organizations to economic institutions from the outset, which has helped Muslim groups to support each other in difficult circumstances. When the Persians established the new Tahir and Samanid dynasties, the rulers could no longer use the traditional religion but used the more mature Islam to unite the Persian nation.
The conversion of the Persians to Islam was a painful and tortuous process. As for why the Persians chose to follow the Shia minority, I will not go into it today.
3. The end of the third emperor and the return of the Persian prince Belus to the Tang Dynasty.
We have talked about the capture of the capital of the Persian Empire by the Arabs, but we have not yet talked about the end of the Second Persian Empire, the Sassanid Empire.
Ichiqi III fled first to Isfahan in the middle of the empire, and then to the valley near Shiraz. In 643, Persia suffered another defeat at the Battle of Wajjad Luther. Ichijo III fled to Khorasan, and the governors of many provinces were reluctant to take him in. The king of Mazandaran, a Persian vassal state, asked him to settle in Tabaristan and plan for the restoration of the country. But Iji III refused, and he was ready to turn to the Chinese emperor for help.
In 638 and 639, Yi Si Tong III sent envoys to Chang'an twice, asking the Tang Dynasty to send troops to rescue him. However, Tang Taizong did not send troops on the grounds that the road was too far. In fact, this may be a pretext, at that time, the Sassanid Dynasty was corrupt and decaying, and Yi Si Tong III was at the end of his rope, and it is estimated that Li Shimin concluded that Yi Si Tong III was not capable of recovering the country according to the reason of the rise and succession of Chinese dynasties, so he simply did not participate.
In 647 and 648, Yi Si Tong III sent envoys to Chang'an twice to ask for help, but Tang Taizong still did not send troops.
In 652, Isiqi III fled to the city of Mulu near the Amu Darya River in Central Asia. Unexpectedly, the local nobleman and his vassal, Mahu Ya Suli, betrayed him, and he had to hide alone in a mill at night.
The ruins of Mulu City
However, because Izuki III was dressed too luxuriously, he was recognized and killed, and his body was thrown into the river, where he was later found and identified. The Nestorian bishop of Mulu City, Arie, buried him, and the Sassanid Empire of the Persian Empire was completely destroyed.
Legend has it that there is a tall cedar outside the mill. As a result, the "cedar of the wooden deer" became the symbol of the last vein of the thousand-year-old Persian Empire.
Eschime III's son, Belus, continued his escape east along the Silk Road to Tocharo, where he was protected by a local tribal chieftain. Belus wanted to make a comeback, and in 654 he sent an envoy to the Tang Dynasty for help, but the Tang emperor was already Tang Gaozong, who still refused to send troops because the distance was too far.
Soon, the Arab army came to Khorasan and adopted the tactics of looting and retreating to Khorasan in Central Asia controlled by the Tang Dynasty. Belus, with the help of Tocharo, once fought back to Khorasan, but was beaten back by the Arabs.
In 661, Belus sent an envoy to the Tang Dynasty again to ask for help, and Tang Gaozong sent a special envoy Wang Ming into the Western Regions, set up the Persian Governor's Palace, placed the prefecture and county, and established Belus as the governor, and in 662 Tang canonized Belus as the king of Persia.
Belus held out in Tocharian for another ten years, and finally fled to Chang'an in early 675 under constant pressure from the Arab army. Tang Gaozong awarded Belus the right mighty general, and built a fire worship temple for him in Chang'an. In 677, Belus died in Chang'an, and his son Nineshi inherited the title of "King of Persia".
Nirvana always dreamed of returning to the country. In 679, Tang Gaozong sent Pei Xingjian to lead troops to escort Ninishi back to China. Pei Xingjian escorted the Nini division to Anxi Shaye, at this time, the Arab army had a great advantage in Central Asia, and Pei Xingjian knew the difficulty and returned.
The Nignishi traveled west alone into Tocharo, gathering thousands of followers, but it did not come to fruition. After living in Tocharian for more than 20 years, Arab armies gradually conquered much of Central Asia and the Indus Valley. Ni Nishi returned to Chang'an in 707, when the Tang emperor was Tang Zhongzong, who awarded him Zuo Weiwu as a general. Ni Nishi died in Chang'an, the year of death is unknown.
Pushan, the son of Nigha, was stranded in Central Asia. According to the records of "Shufu Yuangui", during the Kaiyuan and Tianbao years of Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, Pushang and his descendants continued to send envoys to the court in the name of "King of Persia".
Pushan, the remnant of the Persian Empire, and his descendants lived in Central Asia. In the ninth century, these Persians rose again from the Amu Darya valley in Central Asia to establish local dynasties, gradually freeing themselves from Arab rule.
At this point in the story, it seems that the Tang Dynasty had a better relationship with Persia than with Arabia. In fact, the relationship between Arabia and the Tang Dynasty also changed again, and the Battle of Talas can be seen as a mutual understanding of the two empires of the East and the West. Although the Tang army was defeated by the rebellion of the subject state of Qarluq, the Arab Empire gave preferential treatment to the Tang captives, and the art of papermaking was transmitted to the Arab world and then to Europe with the Tang captives.
The Arab Empire, known as the Great Eclipse by the Tang Dynasty, soon sent envoys to make peace with the Tang Dynasty, and the two sides began friendly exchanges and trade activities, and the relationship between the two countries became increasingly close.
After the capture of Du Huan, a minor official of the Tang Dynasty, he was respected and often accompanied Arab officials on various missions. Du Huan traveled in the Arab world for 11 years, traveled more than 80,000 miles, traveled to the Red Sea coast of present-day Egypt, North Sudan, South Sudan and Ethiopia, and finally returned to Guangzhou from the port of Massawa in Ethiopia through the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and the Strait of Malacca.
The Book of Travels is the earliest ancient book in China that records the teachings of Islam and the production techniques of Chinese craftsmen in the Great Food, and also records the history, geography, products, customs and customs of several countries in Asia and Africa. This book is the first time that the Chinese have documented the country of Ethiopia in the name of a neighboring country in Morocco.
To correct a mistake in the previous section, Mani died of illness in a Persian prison, then was skinned, filled with grass, and hung on the city wall for public display.
To be continued.