The Muslim conquest of Iran

Islam entered Iran during the time of the second Khalifah Sayyidina ‘Umar radiya Llahu ‘anhu. It speedily spread to all regions of Iran and several groups became Muslim. When the Arab Muslims increased their efforts on Iranian soil, Iran with all its towns and cities came under the domain of Islam and their people entered its fold.

When the remnants of the Sassanid monarchy saw that the Muslims, who not so long ago had been their vassals, had conquered their land and become its rulers and judiciary, they could not bear that ignominy and disgrace. Yet they knew it would be impossible to resist those mujahidin (warriors), that army of Iman, by force of arms. They thus started conspiring against Islam and the Muslims in various ways, spreading the poison of vice and mischief throughout Iran. Slogans which appealed to racial sentiments in the Iranian people were raised. The Arabs, they said, were once upon a time our vassals; their land was ruled by us. How is it that they have now reached this position? What right did they have?

There is no doubt that thoughts like these plagued the Sassanids and those after them. But they could not combat the light of Islam. There was no way for them to retrieve their lost glory except through deceiving, misleading and conspiring against the Muslims. The way by which they sought to do that was to portray the earliest Muslims—the Rightly Guided Khalifas, the Muhajirin and the Ansar radiya Llahu ‘anhum—as usurpers of the rights of the Ahlul Bayt and their enemies. They went about announcing their intentions of restoring the usurped rights of the Ahlul Bayt.

In the course of time, links were built up between this group and other enemies of Islam, like the Jews and the hypocrites; links that grew to such magnitude that it culminated in the assassination of the second Khalifah ‘Umar ibn al Khattab radiya Llahu ‘anhu. Their enmity and conspiracies against the Muslims persisted, until it came to pass that they incited the murder of the third Khalifah ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan radiya Llahu ‘anhu. At the center of this conspiracy was the Jew and hypocrite, ‘Abdullah ibn Saba’.

Thereafter there came into existence a group which called itself Shia and claimed to be the supporters and partisans of Sayyidina ‘Ali radiya Llahu ‘anhu and the Ahlul Bayt, though Allah knows that Sayyidina ‘Ali and the Ahlul Bayt were innocent of any association with them, as evidenced by the fact that during the lifetime of Sayyidina ‘Ali radiya Llahu ‘anhu, Ibn Saba’ made the claim of his (‘Ali’s) divinity, and Sayyidina ‘Ali radiya Llahu ‘anhu burned his followers to death.

All this is well known and documented in the branch of literature that deals with heresiography, as their spread of corruption, their opposition to Muslim rulers and their resistance to Muslims unity, throughout the ages and in all parts of the Muslim world. We might mention by way of example the Fatimids in Egypt, the Nusayris in Syria and the Barmakids in Iran.

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