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Contemporary political events have generated a strong interest in minorities in the Middle East. Although today the region is mostly identified with Islam, it has been home to many other great cultures, and the civilization of the Islamic world is itself indebted to the various peoples that the Arabs subdued in the 7th and 8th centuries. Far from fading away after the Arab conquest, the inhabitants of the Iranian plateau and of Mesopotamia were central players in the lives of their regions. However, the magnitude of their contribution to the emergence of the early Islamic world has hitherto been neglected. In this fascinating and groundbreaking study, Khanbaghi offers a comprehensive discussion of those groups that resisted assimilation to the new Islamic order yet continued to participate actively in the socio-political life of their homeland.