Persecution of Zoroastrians

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The persecution of Zoroastrians is a significant aspect of the later part of the community's history. It is speculated that religious strife existed between Zoroastrians and early Christians, particularly within the context of the Roman–Persian Wars, though the extent of this phenomenon remains unclear. While it was a widespread religion in West Asia for over a millennium, Zoroastrianism began to decline drastically in the aftermath of the Muslim conquest of Persia. The conquest of the Sasanian Empire by the Rashidun Caliphate marked a monumental shift for the former's Zoroastrian-majority society, which was eventually subsumed by the ensuing process of Islamization. During this period, discrimination and harassment against Zoroastrians typically took place in the form of forced conversions and sparse violence. Early Muslims who arrived in the region are recorded to have destroyed Zoroastrian temples or repurposed them as mosques. Zoroastrian practices gradually became circumscribed under...

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