Primary Sources: New Persian

For centuries after the Arab conquest of Iran, Book Pahlavi maintained its status as scholastic language of the Zoroastrian clergy. Though New Persian linguistic elements can be found in late Pahlavi literature, New Persian itself did not become a common vehicle for literary expression in the Islamicate world until the 10th century. Perhaps due to a conservative attachment to Pahlavi, reluctance to adopt an idiom associated with Muslims, or distance from centers of Persian literary patronage, Zoroastrian authors began to write in the New Persian language at a relatively late date. The establishment of the Gujarat sultanate in the 15th century brought western India and the Zoroastrians settled there into the world of cosmopolitan Persianate literary culture, and the adoption of Persian by the Parsis was reinforced with the beginnings of the Persian Revāyat correspondence in 1478 CE.