Iranian Intermezzo

The term Iranian Intermezzo, or Persian Renaissance, represents a period in history which saw the rise of various native Iranian dynasties in the Iranian Plateau after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia and the fall of the Sasanian Empire. The period is noteworthy since it was an interlude between the decline of Abbāsid rule and power by Arabs and the "Sunni Revival" with the 11th-century emergence of the Seljuq Turks. The Iranian revival consisted of Iranian support based on Iranian territory and most significantly a revived Iranian national spirit and culture in an Islamic form, although there were some Iranian Zoroastrian movements rejecting Islam altogether as a religion (e.g. Mardavij). It also focused on reviving the Persian language, the most significant Persian-language literature from this period being Shahnameh by Ferdowsi. The Iranian dynasties and entities which comprise the Iranian Intermezzo are the Tahirids, Saffarids, Sajids, Samanids, Ziyarids, Buyids, Sallarids, Rawadids, Marwanids, Shaddadids, Kakuyids, Annazids and Hasanwayhids.

According to the historian Alison Vacca, the Iranian Intermezzo "in fact includes a number of other Iranian, mostly Kurdish, minor dynasties in the former caliphal provinces of Armenia, Albania, and Azerbaijan". The historian Clifford Edmund Bosworth states in the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam that Minorsky considers the Rawadids to be flourishing during the period of the Iranian intermezzo.