or example Ibn Rustah (B.G.A. VII, p. 217, 6-9).]

As regards the political influence of the Persians on the tribes of
Arabia a vast deal has been related in the pre-Moslem epoch. As is
well-known, thanks mainly to the Persian influence, there was a small
Arab kingdom of the Lekhmides in the South-Western portion of the
Sasanian empire[1]. It played its part, most beneficial for Persia,
holding back on the one hand Roman-Byzantine onrush from the West, and
on the other restraining the perpetual attempts at irruption into
Persian territory by Arab nomadic tribes. Not long before the appearance
of Islam, Sasanian influence was extended to the Arabs and the South as
well as Yemen passed into the sovereignty of the Persians. Khusro and
his Court appeared to the Arab an unattainable ideal of grandeur and
luxury.

[Footnote 1: _Die Dynastie der Lekhmiden in al-Hira, Ein Versuch zur
arabisch-persischen Geschichte zur Zeit der Sasaniden Berlin_, 1899.]

The rapid conquest of Persia by the Arab warriors proved a complete
catastrophe to the Sasanian empire. But Persian culture was not to be
extirpated by the success of Arab arms. Persia was overwhelmed only
externally and the Arabs were compelled to preserve a considerable deal
of the past. Having lost the position of rulers, the Persian priesthood
preserved intact its control of the indigenous populace in the eyes of
the latter as well as of the foreign Government. The same remark holds
good of the class of landed proprietors.[1] Iranian tradition continued
to live In and with them. Not only what was preserved but all that was
destroyed for long left vestiges in the memory of the conquerors.

[Footnote 1: Regarding the part played by this class in the times of the
Khalifs, see A. Von Kramer _Culturgeschiche des orients unter den
Chalifen_ II. pp, 150, 62.]

Many years after the Arab conquest the ruins that covered Persia excited
the admiration of the Arabs. Their geographers of the ninth and tenth
centuries considered it their duty to enumerate the principal buildings
of the Sasanians reminding the reader that here Khusro built in his time
in bye-gone days a castle, there a mountain fastness, again at a third
place, a bridge.[1] Regarding various ancient structures which had
survived the Sasanian times, we refer, _inter alia_, to Istakhri, (ibid
I), pp. 124; Ibn Hauqal (ibid II) 195; Ibn Khordadbeh (ibid VI) p. 43,
(text); Ibn Rusteh (ibid VII), 153, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167,