Right, but not in senior command ranks. Even during the Iran-Iraq war the Zoroastrians were only permitted to carry guns under Shi'ite supervision, and were disarmed out of battle.
After & since the Arab-Islam invasion of Iran, in the the 7th century AD, Zoroastrian-Iranians have only been able to hold top military ranks during the Shah (Pahlavi) era.
The “upper classes” by the way were among the first to convert (to Islam).
Correct. Most converted to save their properties, livelihood & avoid maiming & genocide committed against them, firstly, by moslem-Arabs & then by Iranians converts to Islam.
I’d have to disagree with this source, as I knew an Iranian girl, whose family is Zoroastrian, whose father was an Iran-Iraq war hero, and commander of an artillery brigade.
Her life was saved after she became gravely ill, and was refused treatment in a Shiite hospital. Her father, who was on maneuvers in the area, found out and ordered his unit to the outskirts of the city, which attracted a lot of attention.
He then showed up at the hospital to demand her treatment, which was refused. So he got a group of administrators and doctors together and told them that if his daughter died, his unit would destroy the hospital with them inside it.
And, she remarked, he meant it. As expected, the Shiites backed down, and after three days of treatment, she recovered. But at that point it was decided that it was time for their entire family to emigrate.
The bottom line was that while the top command of Zoroastrians had been purged and replaced, there were still many subordinate commanders too valuable or too respected by their units to replace.
I might also add that the statement that the Zoroastrian upper classes in Iran quickly converted to Islam, is also flawed, at least in part, because Zoroastrians have practices that tend to accumulate productive wealth, but while Muslims can become wealthy, they tend to squander it on ostentation and it rarely survives generations, except among the wiser few.