AHC: Have eastern europe, siberia and pakistan to be zoroastrian.
- Thread starter Gukpard
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I'm going to be honest, I don't think that this is realistically possible.
Zoroastrianism wasn't really great at prosletysing, and the Arab invasions super neutered it.
If you are a king in the lands you mention, why would you pick a failing religion condemned by the local power (ERE) that isolates you politically and would require huge investment to spread it amongst a population which largely knows little about it.
By no means am I saying that Christianity has to be the religion of these territories, or that Zoroastrianism couldn't spread to those countries (there is quite good potential for a Zoroastrian diaspora in Europe if the Sassanid court was able to seek exile in Europe as an ERE puppet instead of going east as OTL), but it can't reasonably be picked up. Zoroastrianism was so tied up with Iranian culture that it just fell apart and became a super minority religion once it no longer had state support.
Zoroastrianism wasn't really great at prosletysing, and the Arab invasions super neutered it.
If you are a king in the lands you mention, why would you pick a failing religion condemned by the local power (ERE) that isolates you politically and would require huge investment to spread it amongst a population which largely knows little about it.
By no means am I saying that Christianity has to be the religion of these territories, or that Zoroastrianism couldn't spread to those countries (there is quite good potential for a Zoroastrian diaspora in Europe if the Sassanid court was able to seek exile in Europe as an ERE puppet instead of going east as OTL), but it can't reasonably be picked up. Zoroastrianism was so tied up with Iranian culture that it just fell apart and became a super minority religion once it no longer had state support.
It didn’t. It took the “Two Centuries of Shame”, in which there were many rebellions by Persians against the Arabs, for Iran to convert.
But the thing to note is that, even in the Sassanid Empire, only the land east of the Zagros, which became the cultural centre under the Sassanids, was Zoroastrian. Mesopotamia was predominantly Christian.
It didn't what? It did become a minority religion after it lost state support. Yes the two centuries of shame occurred, but that's not that impressive regarding the timespan of religions (especially one as ancient as Zoroastrianism) or that impressive regarding a religions ability to survive. Considering how entrenched it was, I would still describe its attempts at reasserting itself as really poor.
Another reason why the OP's post is unfortunately unrealistic.
I’m just saying, the religion didn’t simply fall apart after Arab conquest, which many people seem to think happened. It took a lot of time and effort on the part of the Arabs.
Ah ok. Well that wasn't so much what I was trying to get across as much as the fact that its rivals (Christianity, Manichaeism, Islam and Buddhism) were strong enough to survive without a state and be significant players for far longer in areas where they were under foreign religious rule.
I think maybe a Hellenized version of Zorasterianism could have been developed in Pontus or some other Anatolian based state, and this reformulated version, being based on the synergistic idea that every reasonably virtuous pagan community is really worshiping Ahura Mazda via various more or less real manifestations, could spread farther via an imperial cult and them perhaps gain some ground via sheer voluntary conversion.
Can't the Arabs be defeated by the zoroastrians, but advance far into the byzantine empire before being crushed and thus leave the byzzies weakned for centuries and allowing the byzantine empire to overcome it eventually?
The best hope for Zoroastrianism (or at least a version of it) would be a successful Greek campaign under the Achaemenids, followed by further campaigns into eastern Europe and central asia by either another Persian state or Zoroastrian breakaway state. Even then, you're not looking at great odds as proselytizing within the Persian Empire (any Persian empire really) was very weak, and the religion itself doesn't emphasize it as all.
Oooor, perhaps a reformation of zoroastrianism? It's certainly not an impossibility, as it was attempted by people such as mazdak. Don't get me wrong, eastern europe and siberia are a huuuge stretch, but I see no reason why zoroastrianism couldn't spread if it was reformed.
The problem with Zoroastrianism is that it shares many of the same concepts with Islam, but lacks some of the important strengths.
The universe is in a state of struggle between good and evil. Each of us has to make choices, with good obviously being the preferred option. Speaking the truth is central. These concepts are key in both Zoroastrianism and Islam.
The difference is that Islam was more community focused and much less elitist. For example, only priests were allowed in temples whereas in Islam anyone can pray anywhere any time. Anybody could become Muslim, especially after the Abbasid revolution in 750 which abolished the requirement to find an existing Muslim to sponsor you. (It was originally necessary to join one of the recognised Arab tribes).
Furthermore, it was relatively easy for Zoroastrians and Christians to convert to Islam as they already share many of the same core beliefs. For example Ahura Mazda (force of good) becomes Allah, while Ahriman (force of evil) becomes Satan the devil. And the focus on "good thoughts, good words, good actions" in Zoroastrianism is easily translated into Islam too, which expresses the same values repeatedly accompanied by many examples and stories of kind acts, forgiveness, charity and so on.
Many of these factors listed above are found in Christianity too, making it easy for Zoroastrians to convert to Christianity as well.
Zoroastrianism had become obsolete, which is why it died out. Aspects of it such as the choice between good and evil and the emphasis on speaking the truth survive in Islam (and to some extent Christianity) to this day.
The universe is in a state of struggle between good and evil. Each of us has to make choices, with good obviously being the preferred option. Speaking the truth is central. These concepts are key in both Zoroastrianism and Islam.
The difference is that Islam was more community focused and much less elitist. For example, only priests were allowed in temples whereas in Islam anyone can pray anywhere any time. Anybody could become Muslim, especially after the Abbasid revolution in 750 which abolished the requirement to find an existing Muslim to sponsor you. (It was originally necessary to join one of the recognised Arab tribes).
Furthermore, it was relatively easy for Zoroastrians and Christians to convert to Islam as they already share many of the same core beliefs. For example Ahura Mazda (force of good) becomes Allah, while Ahriman (force of evil) becomes Satan the devil. And the focus on "good thoughts, good words, good actions" in Zoroastrianism is easily translated into Islam too, which expresses the same values repeatedly accompanied by many examples and stories of kind acts, forgiveness, charity and so on.
Many of these factors listed above are found in Christianity too, making it easy for Zoroastrians to convert to Christianity as well.
Zoroastrianism had become obsolete, which is why it died out. Aspects of it such as the choice between good and evil and the emphasis on speaking the truth survive in Islam (and to some extent Christianity) to this day.
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Best option (IMO), is when the Caliphate invades, or after the fact, Zoroastrians go a bit Parthian, or Steppe. Recenter themselves around Khwarezm and use that as the heart of a nomadic Empire.
If they can adopt a combination of steppe warfare, and the ability to undermine their enemies logistics, they could do the Khwarezmid of OTL proud and then also focus on steppe expansion (as much for security as anything else). Then you could have a strong Zoroastrian steppe culture.
That can then bleed through to Eastern Europe and Siberia, and then, at some point, they can 'return home' reconquer Persia, and then also hit the Indus Timur-Style.
The key is getting the Zoroastrians to pull a Genghis from Khwarezm before Genghis does.
If they can adopt a combination of steppe warfare, and the ability to undermine their enemies logistics, they could do the Khwarezmid of OTL proud and then also focus on steppe expansion (as much for security as anything else). Then you could have a strong Zoroastrian steppe culture.
That can then bleed through to Eastern Europe and Siberia, and then, at some point, they can 'return home' reconquer Persia, and then also hit the Indus Timur-Style.
The key is getting the Zoroastrians to pull a Genghis from Khwarezm before Genghis does.
That still doesn't give a good reason for Zoroastrianism to spread to the locations in the op.
There were significant Zoroastrian reform movements otl. Such a significant reform is already a bit late however. I keep harping on about it, but a more successful Zoroastrianism needs to spread enough that the countries in the OP would have economic benefit to convert.
We have a Zoroastrian inspired religion which did this, Manichaeism. However, having reform movements which could be compared to Manichaeism generally resulted in the conservative and state married religion of Zoroastrianism to lash out and brutally persecute it.
I hatched the notion of an expansive, "universal" sect or family of them derived from Zoroastrianism in the specific context of a couple iterations of a TL featuring the rise of the state of Pontus under Mithradates into an empire replicating the territorial ambitions of the first great Persian dynasty--that is, reaching from the farther hinterlands of Iran to Hellas and south to incorporate Egypt. I wanted to see what might develop around the Black Sea but the TLs never continued that long.
Anyway, Mithradates and his successors based their imperial legitimacy in part on posing as champions of the Hellenes versus the Romans, while at the same time keeping another foot firmly planted on Iranian forms of legitimacy. It seemed to me in this specific context, a synergistic sect might arise, either as a state cult or a movement seeking state sanction, that among other things extended the concept whereby the unitary spirit of orderly good (Ahura Mazda) could manifest flexibly as the pantheons of other religious traditions than the Persian ones--basically an attempt to integrate the Olympian and Mazdic pantheon, but if this cult or rather school of cults were to spread successfully, it might be open to substituting in Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, or even non-Indo-European pantheons.
The ideology of Mazdic reverence, according to Wikipedia anyway, is a bit different from Abrahamic religions, in that while in the latter tradition the universal and good God creates the cosmos perfect but then sin somehow disorders it, the nature of conflict between good and evil in the famously polar Zoroasterian view as less a matter of malicious evil attempting to subvert a fundamentally good cosmos, but rather that the process of time and history we experience is the process of the primal chaos being sorted out by the working of Ahura Mazda to winnow out what is deficient, inharmonious and otherwise false, unreliable or wicked. The Golden Age logically does not lie in the past but in a reformed future then.
In fact, where Zoroasterian creeds did dominate as opposed to surviving grudgingly on the margins, it does seem to have been conservative in effect, elevating priests in service to the state, and glorifying traditional life patterns and authority as agents of the improving order imposed by the gradual struggle to eliminate chaos and bring organized harmony. However, I think if the "seeds" as it were of the core ideology could be spread far and wide, say by a Pontic or other Zoroasterian power favoring a broader and frank synergy with local pantheons, a more evangelical tradition with legs might mutate out of this root stock to become more populist and millenarian. My perception is the OTL western traditional "Classical" age of Hellenistic cultural hegemony and eventual Roman political supremacy was an age of "Seekers" in the religious sense; the dominant cultures inherited an older pantheonic tradition that it was difficult for the more sophisticated elites to continue to take literally; philosophers made trouble conceptually as did the general widespread net cast of travel, trade and long-distance imperialism. In this context Greek and even more so Roman citizens were looking high and low for more inspiring and satisfactory faiths more in harmony with the new age and its modern discontents. OTL the Christian cult gained traction and eventually reached a point where it became more useful to the state to incorporate than fight it, which in turn redefined and imposed orthodoxy, birthing Christendom in its medieval form, while meanwhile Islam arose as yet another synergy of Jewish thought with more universal discontents.
A Mazdic synergism might preempt this though. For one thing the fate of the Judean kingdom obviously is intertwined with the rise of Abrahamic religion--in fact New Temple Judaism probably was essentially a synergy of pre-Babylonian conquest Hebrew traditional religion with Mazdic thinking. But it remained inherently a cult of a limited, defined tribe of people. It could be that if an earlier synergy of Hellenistic and Zoroasterian philosophy puts down grassroots in more populist forms, that the spread of Christianity might be preempted, and an Arab prophet might produce a somewhat different sort of Islam.
It might then be possible for a meta-Mazdic formula or framework to spread all over Europe and lay the groundwork for a bunch of faiths all sharing the basic concept of the universe as a work in progress.
Anyway, Mithradates and his successors based their imperial legitimacy in part on posing as champions of the Hellenes versus the Romans, while at the same time keeping another foot firmly planted on Iranian forms of legitimacy. It seemed to me in this specific context, a synergistic sect might arise, either as a state cult or a movement seeking state sanction, that among other things extended the concept whereby the unitary spirit of orderly good (Ahura Mazda) could manifest flexibly as the pantheons of other religious traditions than the Persian ones--basically an attempt to integrate the Olympian and Mazdic pantheon, but if this cult or rather school of cults were to spread successfully, it might be open to substituting in Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, or even non-Indo-European pantheons.
The ideology of Mazdic reverence, according to Wikipedia anyway, is a bit different from Abrahamic religions, in that while in the latter tradition the universal and good God creates the cosmos perfect but then sin somehow disorders it, the nature of conflict between good and evil in the famously polar Zoroasterian view as less a matter of malicious evil attempting to subvert a fundamentally good cosmos, but rather that the process of time and history we experience is the process of the primal chaos being sorted out by the working of Ahura Mazda to winnow out what is deficient, inharmonious and otherwise false, unreliable or wicked. The Golden Age logically does not lie in the past but in a reformed future then.
In fact, where Zoroasterian creeds did dominate as opposed to surviving grudgingly on the margins, it does seem to have been conservative in effect, elevating priests in service to the state, and glorifying traditional life patterns and authority as agents of the improving order imposed by the gradual struggle to eliminate chaos and bring organized harmony. However, I think if the "seeds" as it were of the core ideology could be spread far and wide, say by a Pontic or other Zoroasterian power favoring a broader and frank synergy with local pantheons, a more evangelical tradition with legs might mutate out of this root stock to become more populist and millenarian. My perception is the OTL western traditional "Classical" age of Hellenistic cultural hegemony and eventual Roman political supremacy was an age of "Seekers" in the religious sense; the dominant cultures inherited an older pantheonic tradition that it was difficult for the more sophisticated elites to continue to take literally; philosophers made trouble conceptually as did the general widespread net cast of travel, trade and long-distance imperialism. In this context Greek and even more so Roman citizens were looking high and low for more inspiring and satisfactory faiths more in harmony with the new age and its modern discontents. OTL the Christian cult gained traction and eventually reached a point where it became more useful to the state to incorporate than fight it, which in turn redefined and imposed orthodoxy, birthing Christendom in its medieval form, while meanwhile Islam arose as yet another synergy of Jewish thought with more universal discontents.
A Mazdic synergism might preempt this though. For one thing the fate of the Judean kingdom obviously is intertwined with the rise of Abrahamic religion--in fact New Temple Judaism probably was essentially a synergy of pre-Babylonian conquest Hebrew traditional religion with Mazdic thinking. But it remained inherently a cult of a limited, defined tribe of people. It could be that if an earlier synergy of Hellenistic and Zoroasterian philosophy puts down grassroots in more populist forms, that the spread of Christianity might be preempted, and an Arab prophet might produce a somewhat different sort of Islam.
It might then be possible for a meta-Mazdic formula or framework to spread all over Europe and lay the groundwork for a bunch of faiths all sharing the basic concept of the universe as a work in progress.
@Shevek23 I imagine Zoroastrianism would syncretise quite happily with Mesopotamian and Egyptian religions, as both very much emphasised the conflict between order and chaos. Greek beliefs might be a bit harder, as there was a degree of celebration of chaos in the cults of gods like Dionysius and Pan, who were very popular. But then, from memory, Zoroastrianism doesn't regard other religions as being inherrantly false, but rather as different paths to god, though I don't know if this is simply an artifact of its origin as an ethnic religion or a response to Islamic domination.
The problem with this concept is that they are not that much alike. Zoroastrianism was for one dualist and also a religion based upon a massive amount of traditions, rural culture, state power and the lineage of the people. It's rapid fall to Islam is quite odd, I personally do not know why this occurred as it did and I doubt there is a concise answer for why Iran fell to Islam so profoundly, whereas the traditional faiths of Hindustan continually resisted. Out of all the lands that dar al-Islam conquered, Iran is one for the most easily Islamized and most rapidly done so. By the time of al-Tabari, already Islam was profoundly dominant and Zoroastrians were barely mentioned, with great shaykh already arising in Iran by the Abbasid period. To compare, let me mention areas conquered by dar al-Islam and briefly mention its conversion.
Arabia: Rapidly brought to Islam of some form, however, quickly they veered from Islam as held by the Caliphate. In the earliest days of the Caliphate, during the reign of Uthman ibn Affan, scholars already point to a syncretic nature of some peoples. Such as the Khawarij who killed Uthman ibn Affan or the origins of the primordial Shi'i movement which would come to be a completely separate religion in most ways. By the time of the Abbasid hegemony, various conglomerates of Shi'i maintained pagan traditions and or morphed with older religions, such as Manichaeism or general traditional faiths of the peoples. In 810-885, Arabs on the east coast were in a constant state of rebellion, claiming the ways of the Imamiyyah and later other ideals that came not form the Islam pronounced by the ulema or the khilafah. Not to mention, into modern times, there were Arabs in the Nejd who still practiced a form of Arab originated Kharijism or paganism as reported from the books of the time that reported the worship of trees, rocks and what have you by the inhabitants of the Nejd.
Iraq: Never truly completed in a satisfactory way. Ghulatti Shi'i were predominant in southern Iraq fro centuries, with the centers of the Shi'i Imamiyyah centered within Iraqi ctiies of Najaf-Karabala-Kufa, that was reported to be the land in which arose the Shi'i. Further, the northern sections of Iraq for the majority of the Islamic period, remained Christian and in many areas, Yazidi or traditional faiths. There is also the case of the Mandaens in Southern Iraq who despite their small size, kept greater retention than Zoroastrians within Iraq. Manichaens had terrible repression under the Abbasid period, perhaps due to their visibility, which other groups were experts at. When I say visibility, the key was either having an extremely strong tradition that made a religion resistant to rapid Islamic dawah (missionary activities) or to have a formula for concealment that allowed your group to sustain itself despite the flood of Islam.
-Jews, strong tradition and often had valued skills for the Abbasid state. Their status in urban areas also gave itself to blending with local populaces.
-Christians, strong tradition, culture that accepted martyrs without surrender, very literate in urban areas and thus useful, large amounts of taxable land and income.
-Manichaens, leaders were often literate so useful, however, they were very visible due to their ornate religious texts, sophisticated religious hierarchy (that led to poorly learned followers who were often willing to convert to avoid persecution), Manichaens also had little means to mix with the Muslim as they did in China due to a lack of similarity regarding Muhammad and the lack of images within Islam.
-Mandaens, extremely strong tradition and culture around strict adherence, secrecy and communal duty. The Mandaens also by their secrecy were so mysterious, that the Muslim likely never fully realized their actual ideas, that equated to an even more syncretic religion than many of those found in Iraq. Unlike the Manichaens, their strict communal mentality made ostracism for leaving the community and honor killings common place for converts or out of faith marriage, the followers of Mani conversely were nearly without culture and most examples in Islamic literature we have of them were that of scholars and libertine men in Baghdad.
-Yazidi, shadowy and mysterious traditional faith conglomerations in the north who were fiercely rural and communal. Such is extremely adverse to conversion.
-etc, etc ,etc,,,
However after mentioning those, the various forms of Shi'i were perhaps the most perfect form of resisting religious change from the state mandated religion of the Islamic world. The concepts of secrecy (fiqh al-Hiyal) and the infamous taqiyyah made it extremely difficult for the ruling authorities to know the Shi'i even existed in a region until they rebelled or made some other movement which alarmed the authorities. The taqqiyyah also when at the person to person level gives no room for the missionary to even begin to persuade the Shi'i of the day, for the one within taqiyyah will simply agree to what you say and send you on your way, whilst he denied everything you said as he was given the ideals from a young age to resist the followers of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ayesha and was versed in cursing them constantly. The taqiyyah also when spread outward, allows an entire village to portray themselves as what the authorities wish whilst maintaining their practices behind closed doors, this type of concealment is nearly impossible to completely change across a region. Then as soon as the authorities had left the Shi'i alone, suddenly a revolt erupts. Various Zoroastrian revolts numbered as a whole, less than 10, compared to the Shi'i, this is negligible, who rebelled against various Islamic states countless numbers, so much so, that I would have to consult many books just to enumerate the number of revolts. Then after all this, movements of relatively small Shi'i adherents were able to conquer vast lands formerly held by the mandated Islam and convert these lands to the Shi'i form and then wage wholescale war against the Sunni. Examples of this are profound, the Fatimid, Safavid and the various Shi'i tribal states of the Yemeni interior.
In similar fashion to the Shi'i, was that of the Khawarij, who practiced the related form of Hiyal, known as Kitman or offensive secrecy. Kitman itself forwarded itself to the spreading forth into Islamic realms and gaining positions in a region and then turning the society at large into chaos and into revolts, usually involving mass prison breaks, slave revolts, ethnic minorities and simple chaos. Kharijism itself was forwarded to those on the fringes of society and anyone who held hatred against the Khilafah, thus, it was extremely flexible to the times and could be packaged as anything , as long as the goal was the revolt. Khawarij further held the strict views on sin, but did not apply these to their revolutionary who were often criminals, bandits, outlaws and other ruffians whom the thought of religion was surely secondary to loot.
There is also of course the Mu'Tazilah who proliferated through the courts of Baghdad and Samarra. They could easily blend with other Muslim, however, despite essentially taking control over the Abbasid state, their Mihna greatly diminished the power the cliques could enforce and their beliefs were never held by the society at large.
Anyway, back to mentioning regions conversion to Islam.
Iberia: In opposition to Iraq, this area was rapidly converted to Islam if I am not mistaken. The entire southern section of Iberia was Muslim prior to the Reconquista. This is similar to Iran in terms of the rapid conversion, I am not sure as to why this occurred, same for Iran.
This went longer than I wished, but I simply wanted to make the point that Iran converted to Islam relatively easily than other lands and the reasoning for this, is not clear to me.
Spoken like a true Christian fanatic with no knowledge of the creed or it's history and nuances.