that is about 125 years before the advent of Islam...

that is about 125 years before the advent of Islam, a revolutionary religious fervour governed under which the deprived masses tore up the former bonds of class life and formalities and adopted to an extreme extent the ideas of communal sharing of everything including women and abolition of family and marriage and proprietorship, with the result that chaos and disorder reigned everywhere, since such ideas both from the viewpoint of religion and social rights and internal politics were not acceptable to the people of that time, even though Qubad supported Mazdak to diminish the deep influence of the ecclesiastical organisation.

However, the clergy's influence succeeded in rousing people to revolt. On the other hand Mazdak's ideas, too, about family and wealth sharing were so extremist that they shook the foundations of the existing system since they were contrary to human nature. Therefore they could not endure for long, and when Anushirvan assumed power in the year 531 A.D. Mazdak was executed.

His followers were scattered or destroyed, and once more the Zoroastrian faith and its priests gained dominance over the situation.[^46] P) Conditions Prevailing in Iran at the Time of the Rise of Islam At the time of advent of Islam the government of Iran had become strangely weak, and after Khosrow Parviz within a few years he was succeeded by several male and female rulers until Yazdgerd the 3rd assumed power.[^47] In brief, to the east of the region of the birth of Islam there existed a vast realm with an ancient civilisation spread over twelve centuries.

In Iran the central government had existed a long time and several religions appearing during this period which had exerted profound influence and found many followers had not survived for long. Neither Zoroastrianism, nor the religions of Manichaeus nor Mazdak could stand against Islam.

In that environment there was a kind of readiness and thirst for destroying the existing order both socially and spiritually, and thus Islam entered Iran in an environment that was all set to accept the new faith. Those who attribute the rapid spread of Islam to the use of the sword are not sufficiently familiar with the history of that period.

The fact of the matter is as the historians write: In most cases before the soldiers of Islam reached the cities which they had conquered, the populace would throw open the gates for them from within and welcomed them.