Like most of the Middle East, Persia became part of the empire conquered by the Muslims (MUZ-limz) from Arabia during the a. d. 600s. The Persians took on the Arabs' religion, Islam (IZ-lahm), which sent Zoroastrianism into decline, but unlike Mesopotamia and other regions, Persia did not adopt the Arabic language. Also, its people remained ethnically (ETH-nik-lee) distinct from the Arabs.
In the A. D. 1000s, Persia came under the rulership of the Turks, and in the 1300s it fell to the Mongol (MAHNG-gul) conquerors from the east. The Safavid (SAH-fuh-vid) dynasty restored Persian rule in 1502; meanwhile, the Shiite (SHEE-ite) form of Islam had established itself as the dominant faith in the country. From the 1700s onward, Persia was ruled by a variety of local dynasties, but the real power lay in the hands of Western nations, particularly Britain, as well as Russia.
Britain and Russia continued to struggle for control over Iran and Afghanistan, where their contest was called “the Great Game,” in the 1800s and early 1900s. The discovery of oil in Iran during the early twentieth century led to an intensified struggle and helped bring about the rise of the Pahlavi (pah-LAH-vee) dynasty in 1925. The Pahlavi dynasty played the British and the Russians, along with the Germans—who also took an interest in the region—off against one another, and helped establish Iran as a modern nation.
Map of the Muslim world in the Middle Ages.
XNR Productions. Gale Research.
World History
