The development of an Iran that doesn't fully become Muslim?

[Mitchell Hundred]

If the invasion of Persia had played out more like that of the Indian subcontinent where the muslim invaders were successful in their conquering of the lands but the majority of the population still retained their native religions?

So we have an Iran/Persia with a continued Zoroastrian majority with a significant Muslim minority.

 

[Tyg]

If the invasion of Persia had played out more like that of the Indian subcontinent where the muslim invaders were successful in their conquering of the lands but the majority of the population still retained their native religions?

So we have an Iran/Persia with a continued Zoroastrian majority with a significant Muslim minority.

That seems like it could be an unstable situation over the long term without significant concessions by the Muslim ruling class. It'd be more than a religious issue as well: Persia remaining largely non-Muslim would serve to highlight and strengthen the differences between Arabs and Persians, and potentially limit the cultural exchange of OTL. The Muslim rulers in India had the Persian example and its cultural influence to guide them, the new Arab rulers of Persia would not have that historical experience. Worse, Persia is bound to be more restive than Christian Egypt or the Levant ITTL. The latter two were alienated from the primary Christian power, and their communities could gain autonomy and stability under Muslim rule, while the Persians would be losing control over their core territory and ruling privileges without assimilating to their conquerors.

The whole situation seems like it could be a ticking time bomb--failure at religious conversion of Persia and areas of Persian influence in Central Asia could mean the Turks sweep into the Middle East utterly disunited by religion, or taking up something other than Islam at least initially. For Persia, the Turks could mean renewed self-rule independent of Arab-Muslim empire as willing or unwilling tributaries to whatever Turkic horse-empire manages to rise. It could be a terribly chaotic mess if that Turkic horde ends up splitting over religious differences, with some converting to various flavors of Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Buddhism; and this situation might allow for syncretic sects or unique faiths to arise later on.

 

[Dfront21]

If the invasion of Persia had played out more like that of the Indian subcontinent where the muslim invaders were successful in their conquering of the lands but the majority of the population still retained their native religions?

So we have an Iran/Persia with a continued Zoroastrian majority with a significant Muslim minority.

This was the case for several centuries. Islam was first accepted by the elite classes, then urban areas and finally the countryside. Even up to very recently large parts of the Iranian plateau practiced synchronistic forms of Islam. Groups like the Alevis and Ahle Haqq are remnants of these heterodox groups. The founding dynasty of the modern Iranian state, the Safavids, originally belonged to a heterodox group, the Qizilbash, who mixed Islam with native Iranic and Turkic paganism. Some Sunni groups still consider the Iranian practice of Islam to be blasphemous and often accuse Iranian Shiasm of incorporating parts of Zoroastrianism.