Conflict and Cooperation explores the consequences of the meeting of two important religious communities - Zoroastrians and Muslims. This book examines patterns of communal behavior during the seventh to thirteenth centuries A.D. and suggests how both groups were radically transformed, ultimately reshaping Iranian society. The spread of Islam, the success of Muslim institutions, and the gradual decline of Zoroastrianism are viewed in the light of politics, literature, religion, and socioeconomics. Although Zoroastrians and Muslims lived within a shared region and jointly contributed significantly to Iranian culture, they have been studied together only marginally in the past. This absorbing, informative book offers powerful new insights into the tensions and transitions of a medieval society and has important implications for current societies facing conflicts of religion and ethnicity.