Sometimes called the official religion of ancient Persia, Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest surviving religions, with teachings older than Buddhism, older than Judaism, and far older than Christianity or Islam. Zoroastrianism is thought to have arisen “in the late second millennium B.C.E.
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster.
Zoroastrians are the oldest remaining religious community on the Iranian Plateau. Prior to the Muslim conquest of Iran, Zoroastrianism was the primary religion of Sassanid Iran.
Prior to Zarathustra, the ancient Persians worshipped the deities of the old Irano-Aryan religion, a counterpart to the Indo-Aryan religion that would come to be known as Hinduism.
Its founder, Zarathushtra, wrote down hymns that predate written Sanskrit literature, which makes it possible to claim that Zoroastrianism is older than Hinduism, formally codified.
Wearing eyeglasses, long cloak, trousers, hat, boots, socks, winding their turbans tightly and neatly, carrying watches or rings, were all forbidden to Zoroastrians.
The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, many practitioners refer to their religion as Sanātana Dharma (Sanskrit: सनातन धर्म, lit.
Zoroaster is not mentioned in the Qurʾan, but the Qurʾan affirms that each nation has been sent a prophet of its own (16:36) in its own language (14:4). This provided a model through which Zoroaster could be seen as a prophet.
By 650 BCE, the Zoroastrian faith, a monotheistic religion founded on the ideas of the philosopher Zoroaster, had become the official religion of ancient Persia.
Parsis at a glance:
They were escaping religious persecution. Zoroastrian is one of the world's oldest religions. Zoroastrians believe in one God, called Ahura Mazda.
The Islamization of Iran occurred as a result of the Muslim conquest of Persia in 633–654 AD. It was a long process by which Islam, though initially rejected, eventually spread among the population on the Iranian Plateau.
Iranian Revolution, also called Islamic Revolution, Persian Enqelāb-e Eslāmī, popular uprising in Iran in 1978–79 that resulted in the toppling of the monarchy on February 11, 1979, and led to the establishment of an Islamic republic.
The Parsi trace their ancestry to the ancestors of the Zoroastrians of modern Iran, who are followers of the Prophet Zoroaster or Zarathushtra [3].
Following the imposition of the jizyah, many Zoroastrians chose to convert to Islam. The rate of conversions accelerated after the Abbasid caliphs moved their capital to Baghdad, leaving the administration of Persia to governors who destroyed ateshkadehs (fire temples) or converted them into mosques.
Until the 16th century, Persia was mostly Sunni. At the turn of that century, the Safavid dynasty conquered much of what is now Iran and made Shiism the official religion. The conversion was accompanied by a massive crackdown on Sunnis, so that over time much of the population became Shia.
Ahura Mazdā, (Avestan: “Wise Lord”) also spelled Ormizd or Ormazd, supreme god in ancient Iranian religion, especially Zoroastrianism, the religious system of the Iranian prophet Zarathustra (c. 6th century bce; Greek name Zoroaster).
In the years between 1012/1604 and 1026/1617 the Safavid Shah ʿAbbās I (996-1038/1588-1629) forcibly transported thousands of Christian Armenians from their homeland and resettled them in different parts of Persia, mainly around Isfahan.
Zoroastrianism now has an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 worshipers worldwide, and is practiced today as a minority religion in parts of Iran and India.
After the Sassanids were conquered by the Umayyads, most people converted to Islam which led to the decline of Zoroastrianism (once the state religion of the Persian Empire). There are people today in Iran who are still Zoroastrians though.
Of course, Jesus was a Jew. He was born of a Jewish mother, in Galilee, a Jewish part of the world. All of his friends, associates, colleagues, disciples, all of them were Jews. He regularly worshipped in Jewish communal worship, what we call synagogues.
God is the father of humanity and the father of each religion.
Christianity developed out of Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE. It is founded on the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and those who follow it are called Christians. Islam developed in the 7th century CE.
Marriage with one's mother, sister, or daughter is just one such custom that undoubtedly strikes most of us as barbaric, but the Zoroastrian literature of Late Antiquity is unequivocally clear: incest is best; that is, it was seen as the best form of marriage that a Zoroastrian could and should contract.