THE NATURE OF CONTINUITYSasanian period extended into the Islamic period with the building of
new monasteries and the continuing conversion of Magians and pa-
gans. The survival of Nestorian institutions allowed' the survival of
the factions within the church: the monks and clergymen who favored
ecclesiastical autonomy, and the landed Persian aristocrats and cour-
tiers who favored the kind of toleration and official status for their
church in which they could exercise patronage. This conflict, which
centered on the election or appointment of the catholicos, was already
in full operation in the late Sasanian period and survived the conquest
partly because the two factions were institutionalized by coenobitic
monasticism and the medical school at Nasibin. Monophysites, even
among pastoral Arabs, also survived the conquest in Iraq with their
schools and their ecclesiastical organization. Consequently the conflict
between Nestorians and Monophysites simply continued into the Is-
lamic period. Lastly, there were still pagans in late Sasanian Iraq, and,
although they were rapidly declining in numbers through conversion
to Christianity, some pagans survived the conquest because they were
included with everyone else under the terms of tribute. As a result,
pagan religious traditions survived in magic, astrology, and folklore
and in gnostic sects such as the Mandaeans. In particular, the ancient
Mesopotamian deities and their function in astrology, demonology,
the theory and practice of therapeutic magic, and fatalism survived.
CHANNELS OF TRANSMISSION
The survival of these people and their way of life was crucial for
the formation of early Islamic society and institutions in Iraq. They
provided indispensable channels of transmission to Muslim Arab im-
migrants. In some important cases, such direct survivals from the
Sasanian period as the dahiiq"in, the Asiiwira, the presence of uncon-
verted Jews and Magians at Hira, the use of Sasanian-style coins, and
the employment of the Persian language for the bureau of the land
tax only lasted for about sixty years after the conquest, until about
- This kind of cultural lag, or institutional inertia, provided one
of the necessary conditions for successful continuity through trans-
mission by allowing time for it. From this point of view it is possible
to identify some of the more important means whereby pre-Islamic
practices were introduced among Muslims. Iraqi captives, both Arab
and Persian, brought local practices into Muslim households. Some
of the captives who were carried off to the Hijaz, or their children,