Arab invasion of Persia in the 7th century brought the next wave of devastation to the Persians. But this time the barbaric invaders meant to cover the entire world history under the sands of Islam.
Persian history books written during the reign of Sasanian Empire was banished and burned; Mazdean books were destroyed; fingers and tongues of the Persian poets and writers were cut off and Persian language was forbidden. What was left of the ancient palaces of the Achaemenids was quarried for stones and building materials to build houses for the invaders.
Nearly 3 centuries later, the incomparable Ferdowsî revived the Persian language and all the Persian history that was still remembered in 55,000 double verses in Shâh Nâmeh, the Book of Kings, divided into 3 sections of mythical, legendary and historical periods.
While the memory of the Sasanian Emperors had survived the bloody swords of Arabs, the memories of the Great Kuru and the Persian Achaemenids, already over 13 centuries old, had by then faded into myth and legend. The ruins at Pârsâ [Persepolis] had become known as the seat of the mythical King Jamid, as Takht-e-Jamshid, and the Tomb of the Great Kuru was known as the Tomb of the mother of Sulaiman, King Solomon of the Old Hebrew Bible. The rock-cut tombs of the Great Dâriu and his descendants were now Naghsh-e Rustam, after Rustam, the legendary hero of Shâh Nâmeh. The Tomb of the Great Kuru was turned into a mosque in the 13th century.
Sadly, it was not until the 19th century when the true memory of the Great Kuru and the Achaemenids was restored to the Persians during the Qajar [Ghajar] Dynasty.
Almost all who passed through the famed ruins of Pârsâ carved their own names into the legacy of Achaemenids, not knowing the wealth and wonder that had been destroyed by the their own hands of ignorance and greed.