RELIGIOUS CO~MUNITIESand settled in Kufa and Basra became Muslims. A number of dahaqin
also became Muslims in the seventh century, and by the time of 'Umar
II (717-20) the Magians of Hira had converted to Islam.m Magians
sought to discourage such conversion by treating apostates as legally
dead and by disinheriting them. It is worth noting that this principle
was accepted by I:Ianafi legal scholars.124
Since the conquest removed most of the difficulties attached to apos-
tasy from Magianism, conversions to Christianity increased in the later
seventh century. Particularly in upper Iraq, aristocratic Magian Per-
sians sought alternative paths of advancement, avoided paying tribute,
and preserved their property by becoming monks and bishops in the
Nestorian Church. In this case, pre-Islamic tendencies were encouraged
by the conquest, and by the early eighth century Magians were left
only at a few out-of-the-way places along the northeast border of Iraq,
where the population began to be entirely Persian, and along the border
of Khuzistan in the southeast. The few surviving Magians continued
to be the objects of efforts at conversion by Christians. When a famous
family of Magians in the district of Sawa in Margha was converted
by the miracles of Cyprian of Beth Magoshe in the eighth century, the
most significant way Thomas of Margha could describe the social
consequences of their conversion was to say that they no longer mar-
ried their mothers, sisters, and daughters.^125
THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUMMagians gave an apocalyptic meaning to the events at the end of
the Sasanian period, which they interpreted as signs of the end of the
millennium of Zoroaster and the beginning of the millennium of Oshedar.
Late Sasanian calculations appear to have set the end of the tenth
millennium (the millennium of Zoroaster) in the reign of Yazdagerd I
(399-420) and then progressively postponed it until 457 and then
until the middle of the sixth century. Consequently, some Magians
believed that the events at the end of the millennium had already begun
to occur or were to begin soon, and they may have associated them
with the revolt of Bahram Chiibin and with the conquests of Khusraw
123 Abii Yiisuf, Khariij, p. 202; Dennett, Conversion, pp. 32-33.
124 De Menasce, "Problems," pp. 224-26; Khadduri, Islamic Law of Nations, pp.
226-27.
125 Thomas of Margha, Governors, I, 348-50; n, 606-9.