who were the staunchest conservators of the ancient national tradition.

[Footnote 1: Istakhri, p. 164; _Ibn_ Hauqal, p. 221.]

[Footnote 2: _See_ Makdisi, pp. 421, 429.]

[Footnote 3: P. 130.]

[Footnote 4: P. 207.]

[Footnote 5: Istakhri, pp. 116-119; also p. 100. Ibn Hauqal, 187-190;
also p. 181.]

It is undoubted that the position of the Parsi community after the
Moslem conquest was comparatively comfortable. Still sometimes it was
darkened by excessive fanaticism and the intrigues of the followers of
other faiths. Although sometimes the Parsis could push themselves
forward to positions of officials and instructors and played an
important part in the history of the Khalifate, generally speaking, this
community was a close one leading a more or less exclusive life, a
circumstance enabling the conservation of national peculiarities and
attachment to antiquity. As time went on, however, the condition of
their existence necessarily became worse and the consequence was the
gradual emigration of a portion of the community from the motherland to
Western India.

In the entire Parsi literature we come across only one historical
composition which recounts this emigration. But the narrative is so
obscure that of the main occurrence in it there must have remained only
a general memory.[1] This book is called the "Kisseh-Sanjan" and was