Zoroastrianism

Minority Status and Migrations

When Arab Muslims conquered the Middle East in the seventh century, Zoroastrianism initially remained the dominant faith numerically, although no longer politically, in Iran and western central Asia. To facilitate peaceful governance, medieval Muslim rulers and scholars drew upon hadith (pious traditions attributed to the prophet Muhammad) and to Rashidun caliphs like ‘Umar I and ‘Ali b. Abi Talib in order to peacefully incorporate Zoroastrians into the ahl ‘l-dhimma (religiously protected minority communities) recognized by Islam as following monotheism. Although not all Muslims recognized Zoroastrians as a dhimmi community, the Umayyad (661–750) and ‘Abbasid (750–1258) caliphates did. Yet, despite their protected status, most Zoroastrians in Iran and western central Asia converted to Islam over the next 600 years to escape the stigma of minority status and avoid fiscal penalties for remaining non-Muslim. At that time many Zoroastrian atesh kades (fire temples) and herbedestans (seminaries) were transformed into Muslim masjids (mosques) and madrasas (theological colleges). Others were abandoned for lack of congregations, fell into ruin, and eventually were demolished. Yet the chahar taq (four-arch style) of Zoroastrians fire precincts, with its gombad (domed roof), continued in Muslim religious architecture as the domes of mosques.

Simultaneously, the Zoroastrian notion of an afterlife for each human soul, subsequent to a judgment, in a paradisiacal heaven or abysmal hell was assimilated into Islam—just as it had previously been adopted by Judaism and Christianity. Likewise, the concept of an apocalypse followed by an eschaton and final salvation entered Sunnism and Shi'ism. Zoroastrian notions of ritual purity and pollution influenced Islam too. All of these ideas had entered Judaism even earlier, during late antiquity, through contact between Zoroastrians and Jews living and working in the ancient Iranian empires.

To avoid conversion to Islam during the Middle Ages, some Zoroastrians started emigrating from Iran. Many of them relocated by land and sea to the Indian subcontinent, where they formed the Parsi or Persian community that flourishes to the present. Parsis were compelled to pay the jizya (poll tax) in exchange for religious freedom to the Delhi Sultanate once those Muslim rulers had conquered much of India in 1297. Dhimmi status with jizya payments continued under the Moguls until the year 1578 when, after being impressed by theological discussions with a learned magus or Zoroastrian priest, [Page 1839]the Mogul emperor Akbar abolished the jizya from Zoroastrians in India. During the centuries Parsis lived in India, pressure from Hindus compelled them to make religious accommodations, however. Ritual sacrifice of bulls and cows was abandoned by Zoroastrians—because of Hindu reverence for these animals—as part of their cultural hybridization into Indian society.

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