ISLAM AND JIHAD 231to avoid paying thejizyaand land taxes. Coexistence between Muslims
and Zoroastrians was rarely peaceful, and conflict remained the prime
form of contact between these two groups from the initial Arab conquest
of Transoxiana until the late thirteenth century. A similar situation existed
in Khurasan, where violent military conflicts produced lasting enmity be-
tween Muslims and Zoroastrians. The early conquests of Zoroastrian Iran
were punctuated with the usual massacres. At Sarakh, only a hundred men
were granted amnesty, the women were enslaved, and the children taken
into captivity were brought up as Muslims. At Sus a hundred men were
pardoned, the rest killed. At Manadhir, all the men were put to the sword
and the women and children enslaved. At Istakhr, more than 40,000 Ira-
nians were slaughtered. The litany of Muslim terrorism and atrocities is
quite long.
Forced conversions were frequent, and the pressures for conversion
often led to conflict and riots as in Shiraz inA.D. 979. To escape perse-
cution and forced conversion, many Zoroastrians emigrated to India where
to this day they form a much respected minority and are known as Parsis.
Conditions for the Zoroastrians in Iran became even worse from the sev-
enteenth century onwards. In the eighteenth century, their numbers de-
clined disastrously due to the combined effects of massacre, forced
conversion and emigration. By the nineteenth century their existence was
one of total insecurity and poverty. Houses were frequently looted, and
the Zoroastrians had to wear distinctive clothing and were forbidden to
build new houses or repair old ones.
Little can be gained from a recitation of each of the long litany of
massacres, but one more needs to be discussed. Surely the greatest and
most recent such act of mass Muslim terrorism was perpetrated by the
Turks against the Armenians. This was not simply a single outburst of
xenophobia or political concern that erupted in World War I about a dis-
contented minority behind the lines that might become a fifth column
supporting the Russian invaders of Turkey. The history of Muslim per-
secution of the Armenians stretches back to the initial conquest of the
Transcaucasus by the Turks. In Armenia, during the seventh century, the
entire population of Euchaita was wiped out. Armenian chronicles recount
how the Arabs repeated the process in Assyria, decimating that population
and forcing many to convert to Islam. They then moved into the region
southwest of Lake Van and in the district known as Daron repeated the
process.
However, the massacres of 1894, 1895, and 1896 are of particular note.
It is true that the Armenians looked to Russia for protection at this time
and the Russians were unable or unwilling to intervene in the massacre