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Abu Bakr defeated the Byzantine army at Damascus in 635 and then began his conquest of Iran. In 637 the Arab forces occupied the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon (which they renamed Madain), and in 641-42 they defeated the Sassanid army at Nahavand. After that, Iran lay open to the invaders. The Islamic conquest was aided by the material and social bankruptcy of the Sassanids; the native populations had little to lose by cooperating with the conquering power. Moreover, the Muslims offered relative religious tolerance and fair treatment to populations that accepted Islamic rule without resistance. It was not until around 650, however, that resistance in Iran was quelled. Conversion to Islam, which offered certain advantages, was fairly rapid among the urban population but slower among the peasantry and the dihqans [farmers]. The majority of Iranians did not become Muslim until the ninth century. Although the conquerors, especially the Umayyads (the Muslim rulers who succeeded Mohammad from 661-750), tended to stress the primacy of Arabs among Muslims, the Iranians were gradually integrated into the new community. The Muslim conquerors adopted the Sassanid coinage system and many Sassanid administrative practices, including the office of vizier, or minister, and the divan, a bureau or register for controlling state revenue and expenditure that became a characteristic of administration throughout Muslim lands. Later caliphs adopted Iranian court ceremonial practices and the trappings of Sassanid monarchy. Men of Iranian origin served as administrators after the conquest, and Iranians contributed significantly to all branches of Islamic learning, including philology, literature, history, geography, jurisprudence, philosophy, medicine, and the sciences. The Arabs were in control, however. The new state religion, Islam, imposed its own system of beliefs, laws, and social mores. In regions that submitted peacefully to Muslim rule, landowners kept their land. But crown land, land abandoned by fleeing owners, and land taken by conquest passed into the hands of the new state. This included the rich lands of the Sawad, a rich, alluvial plain in central and southern Iraq. Arabic became the official language of the court in 696, although Persian continued to be widely used as the spoken language. The shuubiyya literary controversy of the ninth through the eleventh centuries, in which Arabs and Iranians each lauded their own and denigrated the other's cultural traits, suggests the survival of a certain sense of distinct Iranian identity. In the ninth century, the emergence of more purely Iranian ruling dynasties witnessed the revival of the Persian language, enriched by Arabic loanwords and using the Arabic script, and of Persian literature. Another legacy of the Arab conquest was Shia Islam, which, although it has come to be identified closely with Iran, was not initially an Iranian religious movement. It originated with the Arab Muslims. In the great schism of Islam, one group among the community of believers maintained that leadership of the community following the death of prophet Mohammad rightfully belonged to Mohammad's son-in-law, Ali, and to his descendants. This group came to be known as the Shiat Ali, the partisans of Ali, or the Shias. Another group, supporters of Muawiya (a rival contender for the caliphate following the murder of Uthman), challenged Ali's election to the caliphate in 656. After Ali was assassinated while praying in a mosque at Kufa in 661, Muawiya was declared caliph by the majority of the Islamic community. He became the first caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, which had its capital at Damascus. Ali's youngest son, Hossain, refused to pay the homage commanded by Muawiya's son and successor Yazid I and fled to Mecca, where he was asked to lead the Shias--mostly those living in present-day Iraq--in a revolt. At Karbala, in Iraq, Hossain's band of 200 men and women followers, unwilling to surrender, were finally cut down by about 4,000 Umayyad troops. The Umayyad leader received Hossain's head, and Hossain's death in 680 on the tenth of Moharram continues to be observed as a day of mourning for all Shias.
I believe this passage as a whole discusses the political and cultural transitions that occurred in Iran following the Arab conquest, highlighting the influence of Islamic rule on the region. However, within this historical context, the role of women and the broader implications of gender dynamics are largely absent. This absence itself speaks volumes about the gender politics of the time, where historical narratives were primarily centered on male figures, both as heroes and rulers. The roles of women during the Arab conquest and subsequent rule, while not explicitly mentioned, can be inferred as secondary to the male-dominated political and military spheres. The HERO construct in this context is undeniably male, with figures like Abu Bakr, Ali, and Toghril Beg depicted as the key actors in the historical narrative. This reflects a patriarchal structure where leadership, heroism, and historical significance are exclusively associated with men, reinforcing gender definitions that align heroism with masculinity. Also, the passage’s focus on male figures as the primary agents of change underscores a cultural bias that equates heroism with male attributes such as military prowess, leadership, and political acumen. The exclusion of women from this narrative suggests a cultural definition of heroism that marginalizes female contributions and reaffirms traditional gender roles where men are the active participants in history, and women are relegated to passive roles (if mentioned at all). Within the broader historical context, comparisons can be drawn between the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods in Iran. In pre-Islamic Iran, under the Sassanid rule, women of the royal family, such as Buran, played significant roles in governance. In contrast, the Islamic conquest, as depicted in this passage, emphasizes the erasure of such female agency in favor of male-dominated leadership. This shift indicates a narrowing of the definition of heroism, increasingly centered on male figures and Islamic leaders. When compared to other historical or literary works such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi, where women like Rudaba and Gordafarid play crucial roles, this passage starkly contrasts in its exclusion of female figures. The Shahnameh, while still largely patriarchal, offers a more nuanced portrayal of gender roles, allowing women to exhibit qualities associated with heroism. This comparison highlights the variability in gender representation and the construction of the HERO across different cultural and historical narratives. Lastly, the language used in this passage is straightforward and historical, aiming to convey facts rather than explore gender dynamics. The choice of words and the focus on male figures reflect a patriarchal bias, where the language reinforces the association of heroism with masculinity. The lack of mention of women or gendered language suggests an underlying assumption that historical significance is inherently male, thus perpetuating a gendered narrative that excludes female perspectives. Undoubtedly, the passage reflects the patriarchal mindset of both the time it describes and possibly the time it was written or translated. The emphasis on male leaders and the exclusion of female figures indicate a deliberate or unconscious marginalization of women’s roles in history. As such, this marginalization could be a product of the cultural and political contexts in which the text was produced, where patriarchal values dictated the narratives that were preserved and transmitted. CC BY Aarushi Attray (contact)
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