Why Arabs failed to arabize Iranians?

[Böri]

This is the map of the Arab League countries. The countries which are Arabic in identity.




And this is the map of the countries which have a nominally Muslim majority population.





Now do not forget that Turkey was created in the 11th century while Arabs started to expand during the 7th century AD.

And when we look at the maps, we see that Arabs while spreading Islam they have arabized everyone converted to Islam from Iraq until Morocco. Including the huge nation of Egypt, where even the non-Muslim Coptes translated their bible into Arabic and arabized themselves.

We see that in regions which they militarily invaded the Arabs, though succeeding in converting Persians, they failed to arabize them. Persians are the only main people which Arabs thus invaded but failed to assimilate ethnically.

If Persians and Iranic south central Asians arabized, today everyone until Siberia's border would probably be Erab. Turks would thus be Arabs too. And the people Turks interacted with would be arabized too (Albanians, Bosniaks etc).

[Böri]

Arab conquest of Iran:

[Loki]

Good question. I think because Iranian identity was too strong and well-established, and ancient and dominant in the area for a long time. However, they DID manage to Arabize them in another way -- through Islamization. They destroyed the Iranian religion and much of their culture. Just not their ethnic identity.

[Papastratosels26]

String identity.

[Böri]

Persians had strong empires like Achaemenids, Parthians, Sassanids. Probably it was like a shock to see that crumbling with Arab invasion and they still considered themselves ahead of Arabs and didn't accept ethnic assimilation; unlike Levantines, Egyptians, Nafris etc. Persian resistance to Arabization is an important historical event in the history. Just imagine Arabs arabizing everywhere until the Bukhara!

Persians and other other sattelite Iranics such as Sogdians had difficult decades in during early 8th century, but once the Umayyad were out, the Abbasid Arabs were more compromising and even allowed them to use old Sassanian titles like Shah as the Arabs went to decentralization and enabled Farsis to create federal regions within the Abbasid Caliphate realm.

Around 750 AD, Persians were saved from assimilation risk.

[Bosniensis]

Good question. I think because Iranian identity was too strong and well-established, and ancient and dominant in the area for a long time. However, they DID manage to Arabize them in another way -- through Islamization. They destroyed the Iranian religion and much of their culture. Just not their ethnic identity.

Arabs did not destroy Iranian religion, Romans did in 7th century.

After Romans destroyed Persians, Arabs invaded both Roman Empire and Persian lands and captured it (cause both were devastated from wars).

Roman Empire lost Syria, Part of Persia, Egypt etc..

People converted to Islam but they incorporated some Zoroastrian beliefs in their version of Islam.

[Böri]

Arabs did not destroy Iranian religion, Romans did in 7th century.

After Romans destroyed Persians, Arabs invaded both Roman Empire and Persian lands and captured it (cause both were devastated from wars).

Roman Empire lost Syria, Part of Persia, Egypt etc..

People converted to Islam but they incorporated some Zoroastrian beliefs in their version of Islam.

Arabs killed Zoroatrian priests and clerical class and violence was used.
In the Sogdian cities such Bukhara, Samarkand the Sogdians left the Islam around 710s and said they will return to Zoroastrianism.
Umayyad general Qutaiba Bin Moslem was sent to the region, the cities were overrun by Arabs and locals were forced not to return to Zoroastrianism.

The Sogdian middle class even called upon Turks living more north, Turks sent armies to help them resist. Some victories were won by Sulu khagan however in the end that failed.

Bedouin wildness wasn't like Turks who appeared centuries later in Balkans, treating people kindly and not caring for people's faith... ending in attracting Serbs like you to Islam...

[Vojnik]

Because Persians/Iranians were not easily pushed around. But in saying that, they have been influenced by Arabic culture alot, because of the spread of Islam, which is undeniably an Arab dominated religion, founded in Arabia, with a type of Arabic linguistic supremacy.

Turks are similar in this regard.

[Dandelion]

It's sad how they managed to Islamise it through bullying tactics in the Middle Ages, like by felling one tree planted by Zoroaster, using their Tower of Silence as a minaret or mistreating dogs (sacred animal to Zoroastrians).

Also the book burning of their literature is unforgivable.

[Kamal900]

Your obsession with Arabs is indeed both pathetic and disturbing. The Persian culture was indeed too strong to be arabized, and the Abbasids had adopted Persian culture for their own. You Turks on the other hand were converted to Islam by Persian and Arab Sufi missionaries at that time, and before that, you were slave soldiers under the Ummuyads. No. The Sogdians were heavily Persianized and becoming the modern day Tajiks and those that left were hidden in the mountains and becoming the modern day Yaghnobis where their language is descended from Sogdian. Zoroastrians left for India after the Mongol invasion of Iran which had discimated the number of the population of Iran from millions to a mere 500,000. Of course, the Iranic peoples of central asia were assimilated to the Turkic populations which goats like yourselves have nothing to do with. Iranians are middle easterners be it culturally and genetically, and you owe these people a lot. In other words, you people don't belong here or anywhere else in Europe. Turkey had been meddling with the affairs of Syria and Iraq, and really, it's karma that your kind are experiencing wave after wave of migrants from these places.