The gradual transformation of Middle Persian/Pahlavi language and script into Dari language and Arabic alphabet in the Islamic era and its impact on Iranian historiography in the said period

In this article, using the method of document-textual analysis, we discuss the gradual transformation of the Middle Persian/Pahlavi into Dari written with Arabic alphabet and its impact on Iranian historiography in the Islamic era. Studies show that even before the Arab invasion of Iran, Dari had increasingly replaced Pahlavi as the spoken language (at least in the Sassanid court), and despite the use of Pahlavi in Zoroastrian texts, not everyone was able to wholly comprehend it. After the Arab invasion, presumably by the flight of the King Yazdegerd III and his court to the eastern regions of Iran, Dari made its way to those parts. After some Iranians converted to Islam and became familiar with Arabic, its alphabet became used to write texts in Persian. Furthermore, by the translation of Pahlavi texts into Arabic and then Persian, the tradition of Iranian historiography, in turn, left its mark on Islamic historiography.