Zoroaster Zoroastrianism was founded by Zoroaster in ancient Persia (modern day Iran). The precise date of the founding of the religion is uncertain and estimates vary wildly from 2000 BCE to "200 years before
Alexander". Zoroaster was born – in either Northeast Iran or Southwest Afghanistan – into a culture with a
polytheistic religion, which featured excessive
animal sacrifice and the excessive ritual use of intoxicants. His life was influenced profoundly by the attempts of his people to find peace and stability in the face of constant threats of raiding and conflict. Zoroaster's birth and early life are little documented but speculated upon heavily in later texts. What is known is recorded in the
Gathas, forming the core of the Avesta, which contain hymns thought to have been composed by Zoroaster himself. Born into the
Spitama clan, he refers to himself as a poet-priest and
prophet. He had a wife, three sons, and three daughters, the numbers of which are gathered from a variety of texts. Zoroaster rejected many of the gods of the
Bronze Age Iranians and their oppressive
class structure, in which the Kavis and Karapans (princes and priests) controlled the ordinary populace. He also opposed cruel animal sacrifices and the excessive use of the possibly
hallucinogenic Haoma plant (conjectured to have been a species of
ephedra or
Peganum harmala), but did not condemn either practice outright, providing moderation was observed.
Legendary accounts According to later Zoroastrian tradition, when Zoroaster was 30 years old, he went into the Daiti river to draw water for a
Haoma ceremony; when he emerged, he received a vision of
Vohu Manah. After this, Vohu Manah took him to the other six Amesha Spentas, where he received the completion of his vision. This vision radically transformed his view of the world, and he tried to teach this view to others. Zoroaster believed in one supreme creator deity and acknowledged this creator's emanations (
Amesha Spenta) and other divinities which he called Ahuras (
Yazata). Some of the deities of the old religion, the
Daevas (etymologically similar to the
Sanskrit Devas), appeared to delight in war and strife and were condemned as evil workers of Angra Mainyu by Zoroaster. Zoroaster's ideas were not taken up quickly; he originally only had one convert: his cousin Maidhyoimanha.
Cypress of Kashmar The Cypress of Kashmar is a mythical cypress tree of legendary beauty and gargantuan dimensions. It is said to have sprung from a branch brought by
Zoroaster from Paradise and to have stood in today's
Kashmar in northeastern Iran and to have been planted by Zoroaster in honor of the conversion of
King Vishtaspa to Zoroastrianism. According to the Iranian physicist and historian
Zakariya al-Qazwini King Vishtaspa had been a patron of Zoroaster who planted the tree himself. In his ''
ʿAjā'ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā'ib al-mawjūdāt'', he further describes how the
Abbasid caliph
Al-Mutawakkil in 247 AH (861 CE) caused the mighty cypress to be felled, and then transported it across Iran, to be used for beams in his new palace at
Samarra. Before, he wanted the tree to be reconstructed before his eyes. This was done in spite of protests by the Iranians, who offered a very great sum of money to save the tree. Al-Mutawakkil never saw the cypress, because he was murdered by a
Turkish soldier (possibly in the employ of his son) on the night when it arrived on the banks of the Tigris.
Fire Temple of Kashmar Kashmar Fire Temple was the first Zoroastrian fire temple built by
Vishtaspa at the request of Zoroaster in Kashmar. In a part of
Ferdowsi's
Shahnameh, the story of finding Zarathustra and accepting Vishtaspa's religion is regulated that after accepting Zoroastrian religion, Vishtaspa sends priests all over the universe And Azar enters the fire temples (domes) and the first of them is
Adur Burzen-Mihr who founded in Kashmar and planted a cypress tree in front of the fire temple and made it a symbol of accepting the Bahi religion And he sent priests all over the world, and commanded all the famous men and women to come to that place of worship. According to the
Paikuli inscription, during the
Sasanian Empire, Kashmar was part of
Greater Khorasan, and the Sasanians worked hard to revive the ancient religion. It still remains a few kilometers above the ancient city of Kashmar in the
castle complex of Atashgah.
Early history The roots of Zoroastrianism are thought to lie in a common prehistoric
Indo-Iranian religious system dating back to the early 2nd millennium BCE. The prophet Zoroaster himself, though traditionally dated to the 6th century BCE, is thought by many modern historians to have been a reformer of the polytheistic Iranian religion who lived much earlier during the second half of the second millennium BCE. Zoroastrian tradition names
Airyanem Vaejah as the home of Zarathustra and the birthplace of the religion. No consensus exists as to the localization of Airyanem Vaejah, but the region of
Khwarezm has been considered by modern scholars as a candidate. Zoroastrianism as a religion was not firmly established until centuries later during the
Young Avestan period. At this time, the Zoroastrian community was concentrated in the eastern portion of
Greater Iran. Although no consensus exists on the chronology of the Avestan period, the lack of any discernable
Persian and
Median influence in the
Avesta makes a time frame in the first half of the first millennium BCE likely.
Classical antiquity head of a Zoroastrian priest wearing a distinctive
Bactrian-style headdress,
Takhti-Sangin,
Tajikistan,
Greco-Bactrian kingdom, 3rd–2nd century BCE. at
Pasargadae,
Iran Zoroastrianism enters recorded history in the mid-5th century BCE.
Herodotus'
The Histories (completed ) includes a description of
Greater Iranian society with what may be recognizably Zoroastrian features, including exposure of the dead.
The Histories is a primary source of information on the early period of the
Achaemenid era (648–330 BCE), in particular with respect to the role of the
Magi. According to Herodotus, the Magi were the sixth tribe of the
Medes (until the unification of the Persian empire under
Cyrus the Great, all Iranians were referred to as "Mede" or "Mada" by the peoples of the Ancient World) and wielded considerable influence at the courts of the Median emperors. Following the unification of the Median and Persian empires in 550 BCE, Cyrus the Great and later his son
Cambyses II curtailed the powers of the Magi after they had attempted to sow dissent following their loss of influence. In 522 BCE, the Magi revolted and set up a rival claimant to the throne. The usurper, pretending to be Cyrus' younger son
Smerdis, took power shortly thereafter. Owing to the
despotic rule of Cambyses and his long absence in Egypt, "the whole people, Persians, Medes and all the other nations" acknowledged the usurper, especially as he granted a remission of taxes for three years. According to later Zoroastrian legend (
Denkard and the
Book of Arda Viraf), many sacred texts were lost when
Alexander the Great's troops invaded
Persepolis and subsequently destroyed the royal library there.
Diodorus Siculus's
Bibliotheca historica, which was completed , appears to substantiate this Zoroastrian legend. According to one archaeological examination, the ruins of the palace of
Xerxes I bear traces of having been burned. Whether a vast collection of (semi-)religious texts "written on parchment in gold ink", as suggested by the
Denkard, actually existed remains a matter of speculation. Alexander's conquests largely displaced Zoroastrianism with
Hellenistic beliefs, As late as the
Parthian period,
a form of Zoroastrianism was without a doubt the dominant religion in the
Armenian lands. The
Sassanids aggressively promoted the
Zurvanite form of Zoroastrianism, often building fire temples in captured territories to promote the religion. During the period of their centuries-long
suzerainty over the
Caucasus, the Sassanids made attempts to promote Zoroastrianism there with considerable successes. Due to its ties to the Christian
Roman Empire, Persia's archrival since Parthian times, the Sassanids were suspicious of
Roman Christianity, and after the reign of
Constantine the Great, sometimes persecuted it. In 451 CE, the Sassanid authority clashed with their
Armenian subjects in the
Battle of Avarayr, making them officially break with the Roman Church. But the Sassanids tolerated or even sometimes favored the Christianity of the
Church of the East. The acceptance of Christianity in Georgia (
Caucasian Iberia) saw the Zoroastrian religion there slowly but surely decline, but as late the 5th century CE, it was still widely practised as something like a second established religion. The
Sasanians enforced a caste system in line with Zoroastrian doctrine. These were: •
Asronan (priests) •
Arteshtaran (warriors) •
Wastaryoshan (commoners) •
Hutukhshan (artisans)
Decline in the Middle Ages where
Hamza ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib Burns Zarthust's Chest and Shatters the Urn with his Ashes Over the course of 22 years during the 7th century, most of the Sasanian Empire was
conquered by the emerging Muslim caliphate. Although the administration of the state was rapidly Islamicized and subsumed under the
Umayyad Caliphate, in the beginning "there was little serious pressure" exerted on newly subjected people to adopt Islam. Because of their sheer numbers, the conquered Zoroastrians had to be treated as
dhimmis (despite doubts of the validity of this identification that persisted down the centuries), In the main, once the conquest was over and "local terms were agreed on", the Arab governors protected the local populations in exchange for tribute. Under
Abbasid rule, Muslim Iranians (who by then were in the majority) in many instances showed severe disregard for and mistreated local Zoroastrians. For example, in the 9th century, a deeply venerated
cypress tree in
Khorasan (which Parthian-era legend supposed had been planted by Zoroaster himself) was felled for the construction of a palace in Baghdad, away. In the 10th century, on the day that a
Tower of Silence had been completed at much trouble and expense, a Muslim official contrived to get up onto it, and to call the
adhan (the Muslim call to prayer) from its walls. This was turned into a pretext to annex the building. Ultimately, Muslim scholars like
Al-Biruni found few records left of the belief of for instance the
Khawarizmians because figures like
Qutayba ibn Muslim "extinguished and ruined in every possible way all those who knew how to write and read the Khawarizmi writing, who knew the history of the country and who studied their sciences." As a result, "these things are involved in so much obscurity that it is impossible to obtain an accurate knowledge of the history of the country since the time of Islam..."
Conversion Though subject to a new leadership and harassment, the Zoroastrians were able to continue their former ways, although there was a slow but steady social and economic pressure to convert, with the nobility and city-dwellers being the first to do so, while Islam was accepted more slowly among the peasantry and landed gentry. "Power and worldly-advantage" now lay with followers of Islam, and although the "official policy was one of aloof contempt, there were individual Muslims eager to
proselytize and ready to use all sorts of means to do so." was said to have borne Husayn
a son, the historical fourth
Shi'a imam, who insisted that the caliphate rightly belonged to him and his descendants, and that the
Umayyads had wrongfully wrested it from him. The alleged descent from the Sassanid house counterbalanced the
Arab nationalism of the Umayyads, and the Iranian national association with a Zoroastrian past was disarmed. Thus, according to scholar
Mary Boyce, "it was no longer the Zoroastrians alone who stood for patriotism and loyalty to the past."
Survival of
Baku, Despite economic and social incentives to convert, Zoroastrianism remained strong in some regions, particularly in those furthest away from the Caliphate capital at Baghdad. In
Bukhara (present-day
Uzbekistan), resistance to Islam required the 9th-century Arab commander
Qutaiba to convert his province four times. The first three times the citizens reverted to their old religion. Finally, the governor made their religion "difficult for them in every way", turned the local fire temple into a mosque, and encouraged the local population to attend Friday prayers by paying each attendee two
dirhams. Crucial to the present-day survival of Zoroastrianism was a migration from the northeastern Iranian town of
"Sanjan in south-western Khorasan", to
Gujarat, in western India. The descendants of that group are today known as the
Parsis—"as the
Gujaratis, from long tradition, called anyone from Iran" to the Lonavala Agiary, India The struggle between Zoroastrianism and Islam declined in the 10th and 11th centuries. Local Iranian dynasties, "all vigorously Muslim,"
Modern in Western India in
Tehran, 2011 Zoroastrianism has survived into the modern period, particularly in India, where the Parsis are thought to have been present since about the 9th century. Today Zoroastrianism can be divided in two main schools of thought: reformists and traditionalists. Traditionalists are mostly
Parsis and accept, beside the Gathas and Avesta, also the
Middle Persian literature and like the reformists mostly developed in their modern form from 19th century developments. They generally do not allow
conversion to the faith and, therefore, for someone to be a Zoroastrian they must be born of Zoroastrian parents. Some traditionalists recognize the children of mixed marriages as Zoroastrians, though usually only if the father is a born Zoroastrian. Not all Zoroastrians identify with either school. Notable examples gaining traction include Neo-Zoroastrians/Revivalists, which are usually reinterpretations of Zoroastrianism appealing towards Western concerns, and centering the idea of Zoroastrianism as a living religion. These advocate the revival and maintenance of old rituals and prayers while supporting ethical and social progressive reforms. Both of these latter schools tend to center the Gathas without outright rejecting other texts except the
Vendidad. From the 19th century onward, the Parsis gained a reputation for their education and widespread influence in all aspects of society. They played an instrumental role in the economic development of the region over many decades; several of the best-known business conglomerates of India are run by Parsi-Zoroastrians, including the
Tata,
Godrej,
Wadia families, and others. For a variety of social and political factors, the Zoroastrians of the Indian subcontinent, namely the Parsis and Iranis, have not engaged in conversion since at least the 18th century. Zoroastrian high priests have historically opined there is no reason to not allow conversion, which is also supported by the
Revayats and other scripture, though later priests have condemned these judgements. Within Iran, many of the beleaguered Zoroastrians have been also historically opposed or not practically concerned with the matter of conversion. Currently though, The Council of Tehran Mobeds (the highest ecclesiastical authority within Iran) endorses conversion but conversion from Islam to Zoroastrianism is illegal under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. At the request of the government of
Tajikistan,
UNESCO declared 2003 a year to celebrate the "3,000th anniversary of Zoroastrian culture", with special events throughout the world. In 2011, the Tehran Mobeds Anjuman announced that for the first time in the history of modern Iran and of the modern Zoroastrian communities worldwide, women had been ordained in Iran and North America as mobedyars, meaning women assistant
mobeds (Zoroastrian clergy). The women hold official certificates and can perform the lower-rung religious functions and can initiate people into the religion. However, further studies are needed to confirm this, as numbers have also been rising in some areas, such as Iran. == Demographics ==