It was the time when Iran was known as Persia and its people were the followers of Zoroastrianism, not Islam. Persia at the time was ruled by Sasanian Empire and had been a major world power. But by the 7th Century AD, there was an unprecedented political, social, economic, and military weakness in Persia, due to decades of warfare against the Byzantine Empire. The internal political situation quickly deteriorated after the execution of King Khosrow II in 628 AD. Subsequently, ten new claimants were enthroned within the next four years. With civil war erupting between different factions, the empire was no longer centralized.
The Arab muslims took the advantage of this weakness and attacked the Sassanid territory in 633 AD. The first Muslim Caliph Abu Bakr sent his commander Khalid ibn Walid to conquer Mesopotamia (Sassanid province of Asoristan; what is now Iraq). Later his successor Caliph Umar ordered full annexation of Persia in 642, which led to the complete conquest of the Sasanians around 651 AD. During this period, thousands of Persians were slaughtered.
Once defeated, Persia became Islamic state and Sharia law came into effect. Zoroastrians - the natives of Persia were subjected to numerous actrocities in the name of Jihad. They were given the status of Dhimmis after payment of Jizya tax. All pillars of Zoroastrianism were pulled down. Temples were destroyed, religious ceremonies were suspended, forceful conversions became the order of the day.
For example, a deeply venerated cypress tree in Khorasan (going by legend, planted by Zoroaster himself) was felled for the construction of a palace in Baghdad, 2000 miles away. Zoroastrian fire temples, with their four axial arch openings, were usually turned into mosques simply by setting a mihrab (prayer niche) on the place of the arch nearest to qibla (the direction of Mecca). Life of Zoroastrians in their homeland became miserable.
During this time, many Persians chose to preserve their religious identity by fleeing from Persia to India. The Qissa-i Sanjan is a tale of the journey of the Parsis to India from Iran, composed at least six centuries after their tentative date of arrival. According to Qissa-i-Sanjan - the first group of immigrants originated from Greater Khorasan.
The Persian immigrants were well received in India as per Indian traditions. The first wave of immigrants landed in Gujarat. They were granted permission to stay and complete religious freedom by the local ruler, Jadi Rana, with three condition - that they adopt the local language (Gujarati) and that their women adopt local dress (the sari) and that they should not carry weapons.
The refugees accepted the conditions and founded the settlement of Sanjan, which is said to have been named after the city of their origin (Sanjan, near Merv, modern Turkmenistan). The first Fire temple with the "Fire of Victory" (Atash Bahram) was built at Sanjan to shelter the holy fire rescued from Persia. The first group in Sanjan was followed by a second group from Greater Khorasan within five years of the first, and this time having religious implements with them (the alat). In addition to these Khorasanis or Kohistanis "mountain folk", another group is said to have come overland from Sari, Iran.
Over the years this community accultured to the new land. Gujarati became the native language of the community and the sari the garment of the women. However the Parsis preserved their separate cultural and religious identity. This small community of Persians in India came to be known as Parsis.
Towards the end of the 10th century, the Parsis began to settle in other parts of Gujarat. This gave rise to difficulties in defining the limits of priestly jurisdiction, which were resolved in 1290 AD by the establishment of five panthaks or districts - Sanjan, Nausari, Godareh-Ankleswar, Broach and Cambay. After Gujarat, they settled in large numbers in Bombay (now Mumbai in Maharashtra).
Parsi community in India continued to prosper. But those remained in muslim Iran still faced religious persecution. In 18th and 19th centuries, Zoroastrians were regarded as outcast and untouchable in Iran. Water or food once touched by a Zoroastrian would turn impure and couldn’t be consumed by a Muslim. They neither could wear new or white clothes, nor can ride a camel or a horse. Many foreign visitors to Iran of the time had commented on their pitiful situation. In the 1850s, Comte de Gobineau, the French Ambassador to Iran wrote: “Only 6000 of them are left and just a miracle may save them from extinction. These are the descendants of the people who one day ruled the world.”
Maneckji Limji Hataria, an emissary of the “Persian Zoroastrian Amelioration Fund” — an organization founded in Bombay — went to Iran in 1854. He founded the Council of Zoroastrians in Yazd, which succeeded in convincing a number of Iranian Zoroastrians to emigrate to India. These Zoroastrians who escaped to India during the reign of the Qajar dynasty in 19th century and later, came to be known as Iranis.
The Parsis have made considerable contributions to the history and development of India, all the more remarkable considering their small numbers. As the maxim "Parsi, thy name is charity" alludes to, their most prominent contribution is their philanthropy. Parsis such as Pherozeshah Mehta, Dadabhai Naoroji, and Bhikaiji Cama played a significant role in Indian Freedom Struggle. Physicist Homi J. Bhabha is regarded as the "Father of Atomic Energy in India" while J. R. D. Tata and Jamsetji Tata, regarded as the "Father of Indian Industry".
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