By memory (can be imprecise):
Persia I think was completely conquered many times. Greeks, Arabs, Il-Khanid Mongols, Amir Timur... There would always some part remain where Iranian culture would preservere more, and some that were probably semi-independent, but the problem also is what do we understand by Iran, meaning what kind of boundaries do we accept as Iranian.
Iran de facto did not exist as a country for a very, very long time until Shah Ismail conquered most of it and established his Shia state.
Concerning things that happened to Persia in the mean time. Amir Timur organized massive deportations of all craftsmen to Bukhara and Samarkand, his capital. His favorite winter headquarters was Karabagh.
His favorite policy to resisting cities was to surround them, check the documents of exiting people, allowing craftsmen, sayed (i.e. "descendants" of Mohammed) and other "needed" people to proceed with deportation to Bukhara, then split the city into sectors, making each unit responsible for certain sector and requiring it to bring certain number of heads (calculated according to old maps and accounts on pre-war population). Then the heads would be deposited into huge piramids.
Not really much survived after these policies.
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