By 550 B.C., Cyrus the Great had built the largest empire the ancient world had ever seen — stretching from Eastern Europe to Asia. Isaiah records that the Lord anointed Cyrus, King of Persia, to release the Jewish people from Babylonian captivity and to fund the rebuilding of the Temple. That is the Persia the modern world has completely forgotten.
The ancient Persians were Zoroastrians, not Muslims. Islam did not arrive until Arab armies conquered the land in the 7th century A.D. The Persians absorbed Islam, but they were never fully Arabic in their customs or culture. They kept their language, their literature, their distinct identity — and they eventually embraced Shia Islam over the Sunni tradition, a distinction that would define centuries of conflict to come.
.jpg%2F500px-Donald_Trump_(53953173435).jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=1eb09485c9f1cd57919082677e15526c735bd86eb8152493e737ff4709ce030d)
