regarding the great _Iran Shahar_. Not only legends of the heroic
figures of the Iranian epic--Rustam and Isfandiar--but religious views
and persuasions of the Persians found a place and were spread among the
Arab clans. Thus we know that "fire-worshippers" were settled among the
Arab tribe of the Temim.[1]

[Footnote 1: _See_ for example Ibn Rustah (B.G.A. VII, p. 217, 6-9).]

As regards the political influence of the Persians on the tribes of
Arabia a vast deal has been related in the pre-Moslem epoch. As is
well-known, thanks mainly to the Persian influence, there was a small
Arab kingdom of the Lekhmides in the South-Western portion of the
Sasanian empire[1]. It played its part, most beneficial for Persia,
holding back on the one hand Roman-Byzantine onrush from the West, and
on the other restraining the perpetual attempts at irruption into
Persian territory by Arab nomadic tribes. Not long before the appearance
of Islam, Sasanian influence was extended to the Arabs and the South as
well as Yemen passed into the sovereignty of the Persians. Khusro and
his Court appeared to the Arab an unattainable ideal of grandeur and
luxury.

[Footnote 1: _Die Dynastie der Lekhmiden in al-Hira, Ein Versuch zur
arabisch-persischen Geschichte zur Zeit der Sasaniden Berlin_, 1899.]

The rapid conquest of Persia by the Arab warriors proved a complete
catastrophe to the Sasanian empire. But Persian culture was not to be
extirpated by the success of Arab arms. Persia was overwhelmed only
externally and the Arabs were compelled to preserve a considerable deal
of the past. Having lost the position of rulers, the Persian priesthood
preserved intact its control of the indigenous populace in the eyes of