Note 12 — Chapter VI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS IN EUROPE UNDER THE TURKS.

That this widespread conversion was not due to force or violence is evidenced by the toleration extended to those who still clung to their ancient faith. Even to the present day there are some small communities of fire-worshippers to be found in certain districts of Persia, and though these have in later years often had to suffer persecution,12 their ancestors in the early centuries of the Hijrah enjoyed a remarkable degree of toleration, their fire-temples were respected, and we even read of a Muhammadan general (in the reign of al-Muʻtaṣim, A.D. 833–842), who ordered an imām and a muʼad͟hd͟hin to be flogged because they had destroyed a fire-temple in Sug͟hd and built a mosque in its place.13 In the tenth century, three centuries after the conquest of the country, fire-temples were to be found in ʻIrāq, Fārs, Kirmān, Sijistān, K͟hurāsān, Jibāl, Ād͟harbayjān and Arrān, i.e. in almost every province of Persia.14 In Fārs itself there were hardly any cities or districts in which fire-temples and Magians were not to be found.15 Al-Shahrastānī also (writing as late as the twelfth century), makes mention of a fire-temple at Isfīniyā, in the neighbourhood of Bag͟hdād itself.16