Bouzarjomehr Parkhideh: The father of Taher Bin Abdullah, the governor of Khorasan, was a Zoroastrian. In order to preserve his property in Khorasan and his post for his son, Taher, he converted into Islam and initiated many important services for Ma’Mun, the son of Haroon Al Rashid.
During his governorship, in order to prove his loyalty to the Caliph, Taher ordered each Zoroastrian living in his domain (which was great Khorasan in those days) to bring for him religious scripts and books weighing 1 man (6 kgs) and whoever doesn’t bring will be executed. The scripts and books in those days were handwritten and everyone could not afford having them. Whoever did possess them submitted whatever they had to the agents of Taher, the governor of Khorasan, and all those were burned in fire, and the owners who had submitted them were saved from death. But those who did not possess religious scripts and so did not submit them to the agents were executed. A large number of Zoroastrians, comprising thousands (the exact number is not available) lost their lives.
Derived from the book “History of Zoroastrians after Sassanians”, written by Rashid Shahmardan
