Confrontation and Interaction between Zoroastrians and Muslims in Early Islamic Centuries: A Critical Study of Choksy's Conflict and Cooperation Confrontation and Interaction between Zoroastrians and Muslims in Early Islamic Centuries: A Critical Study of Choksy's Conflict and Cooperation Confrontationand Interaction between Zoroastrians and Muslims in Early Islamic Centuries: A Critical Study of Choksy's Conflict and Cooperation

J. K. Choksy evaluated the relationship between Zoroastrians and Muslims in Conflict and Cooperation; Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society. In this paper, we tried to critically review Choksy's book and clarify its position in Islamic and Iranian studies. It seems that his work suffers from major weaknesses in terms of historical insight and methodology because he is primarily a scholar of religions, not a historian. However, his work is admirable for using Zoroastrian resources, its evaluating end of time literature and overviewing the mutual influences of Zoroastrian and Islamic texts from each other in writing the life conducts of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Zoroaster. Nevertheless, Choksy's sympathy for Zoroastrians, low proficiency in Arabic, weakness of historical methodology and recognition of resources as well as of his sometimes false historical views and analyses are of the most important shortcomings of Conflict and Cooperation.