The Indian Subcontinent has been One of the Most Prominent Areas of Persian cultural efflorescence. The Parsis, with their Iranian religious heritage, have played an important role in Indian thought and commerce that continues today. Iranian Islam has since medieval times had a powerful influence, competing with Muslim currents from Central Asia and the Arabian subcontinent. From the twelfth through the nineteenth centuries, Persian was the most important administrative language for Muslim states in the area. Enormous numbers of historical chronicles, books of poetry, and Sufi works were composed in Persian by both Muslims and Hindus in these centuries, some of them classics of world literature such as the Akbarnāma or the works of Bidel. It has even been argued that in the eighteenth century more Hindus may have read the Bhagavad Gita in Persian translation than in the original Sanskrit, given the very large class of Hindu Persian scribes and administrators and the relatively smaller numbers of Sanskrit scholars. India had an important cultural, commercial, and intellectual influence on Iran, as well, an influence now largely forgotten.