Any good chance of Zorastrinaism becoming a major world religion?

SpamBotSam

Banned
If Islam was never created, do you think Zorastrianism (which mainly existed in Iran but also in other areas-and still exists to this day in isolated areas like India), would have become a member of the "Big 3" monotheistic faiths alongside Judaism and Christianity?
 

birdboy2000

Banned
There isn't a "Big 3" without Islam. Judaism is vastly outstripped by both in number of followers, but gets included because it's clearly ancestral to the two, and in a world without Islam people are calling it a precursor to Christianity that maintains a following, not a major Abrahamic religion.

That said, there are a lot of ways it could go, but being the state and popular religion in Persia (along with some other places influenced by Persian culture) made it major in its time, and it will be major so long as that condition holds. But there are a lot of centuries to go from the late Sassanid period to the present and more than a few religions practiced then, among them many with state support, have dramatically diminished or died out, while others expanded equally dramatically.
 

SinghKing

Banned
If Islam was never created, do you think Zorastrianism (which mainly existed in Iran but also in other areas-and still exists to this day in isolated areas like India), would have become a member of the "Big 3" monotheistic faiths alongside Judaism and Christianity?

:confused: How is Judaism one of the "Big 3"? Sikhism's a monotheistic faith as well, and more people practice Sikhism than those who practice Judaism...
 
If Islam was never created, do you think Zorastrianism (which mainly existed in Iran but also in other areas-and still exists to this day in isolated areas like India), would have become a member of the "Big 3" monotheistic faiths alongside Judaism and Christianity?

Well no arab conquest means that there is no reason that Zoroastrianism can't survive (it had been ticking along nicely for millenia), and given that the Sassanids were far more interested in proselytising than the Achaemenids then there is a good chance the religion could spread.

It would be interesting to see if it could supplant Christianity in a similar way to Islam. Or if the traditional Roman antipathy towards things Persian might work against it.
 
If Islam was never created, do you think Zorastrianism (which mainly existed in Iran but also in other areas-and still exists to this day in isolated areas like India), would have become a member of the "Big 3" monotheistic faiths alongside Judaism and Christianity?

Zoroastrianism didn't have the missionary impulse that Christianity and Islam did. I wouldn't call pre-Islamic Zoroastrianism "monotheistic" in the same way either. Mithra, Anahita, Verethragna, and company are called "yazatas", meaning "worthy of worship". They were often equated with the Greek gods during the Seleucid and Parthian eras within Persian territory proper, indicating that they were seen as something more than the angelic interpretation that arose due to pressure to seem like a "People of the Book" religion to Muslim caliphates. All my reading on the topic suggests to me that ancient Zoroastrianism was polytheistic.

("Magians", aka Zoroastrians, are mentioned in the Qu'ran, but its stance on them seems unclear to me other than 22:17, where they will be judged by Allah along with Jews, Christians, and "Sabians" according to Muslim eschatology.)

During the Sassanid era, you could argue that Zurvanism was the main branch promoted by the state. One of Shapur II's daughters was named Zurvandukht after the god of time above Ahura Mazda in the Zurvanist sect, for one anecdotal example.

The problem with studying Zoroastrianism is that they either didn't write down their records until the Islamic period, or they had exceptionally bad luck in losing them. Zoroaster himself is rarely mentioned, and his date of birth has been placed anywhere from the 1500s BC to the 550s BC, depending on whom you ask. (I think the religion started around the earlier dates, due to the Avestan language's close resemblance to the Rig-Vedic language)

If you want to know more about Zoroastrianism, check out these authors:

Ehsan Yarshater (general reference works about Persian history)
Mary Boyce (books about Zoroastrianism)
Amelie Kuhrt (more so for Achaemenid period in general)
William Malandra (a book about Zoroastrianism)


A Zoroastrian site that can give some introduction to Zoroastrian topics and scriptures is Avesta.org

(I wrote a thesis years about Zoroastrian history up until the Parsi exodus to India, in case you're wondering why a guy calling himself "Herman Gigglethorpe" is talking about this topic. . .)

EDIT: I should mention that Zoroastrianism declined only after the Muslim conquest of Persia, and even then it took a few centuries. Muslim rulers complained about having to bribe Persians to go to Friday prayers! A timeline without Islam means a lot more Zoroastrians.
 
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The problem with studying Zoroastrianism is that they either didn't write down their records until the Islamic period, or they had exceptionally bad luck in losing them. Zoroaster himself is rarely mentioned, and his date of birth has been placed anywhere from the 1500s BC to the 550s BC, depending on whom you ask. (I think the religion started around the earlier dates, due to the Avestan language's close resemblance to the Rig-Vedic language)

I was under the impression that a great wealth of knowledge was burned by Alexander during his conquest (which might explain some of the gaps). Presumably the Arab invasion was accompanied by a fair amount of fire too.

Thanks for the suggestions for reading by the way, I looked into Zoroastrianism while writing about ethnic groups in Ptolemaic Egypt. I meant to continue researching but have been side tracked.
 
I was under the impression that a great wealth of knowledge was burned by Alexander during his conquest (which might explain some of the gaps). Presumably the Arab invasion was accompanied by a fair amount of fire too.

Thanks for the suggestions for reading by the way, I looked into Zoroastrianism while writing about ethnic groups in Ptolemaic Egypt. I meant to continue researching but have been side tracked.

Funny you should mention Alexander. The Zoroastrians loathed him, and blamed him for destroying an Avesta written in gold according to the Pahlavi text "The Book of Arda Viraf", which is a journey to the afterlife written well before Dante Aligheri did it. The problem with that story is that the writer says "Alexander the Roman", which is both incorrect and anachronistic. (Who in Persia would have heard of the Romans in the 4th century BC?)
 
Funny you should mention Alexander. The Zoroastrians loathed him, and blamed him for destroying an Avesta written in gold according to the Pahlavi text "The Book of Arda Viraf", which is a journey to the afterlife written well before Dante Aligheri did it. The problem with that story is that the writer says "Alexander the Roman", which is both incorrect and anachronistic. (Who in Persia would have heard of the Romans in the 4th century BC?)
I suppose the Persians of the time associated Greeks with Romans, the same way the Greeks themselves did.
 
Funny you should mention Alexander. The Zoroastrians loathed him, and blamed him for destroying an Avesta written in gold according to the Pahlavi text "The Book of Arda Viraf", which is a journey to the afterlife written well before Dante Aligheri did it. The problem with that story is that the writer says "Alexander the Roman", which is both incorrect and anachronistic. (Who in Persia would have heard of the Romans in the 4th century BC?)

Well the revulsion towards Alexander makes a fair amount of sense, he destroyed their Empire after all. Then had the temerity to make himself their ruler. (Not fun to go from ruler to ruled)

I recall reading of places where, to this day, legend has it that Alexander had horns... (Probably due to his depiction on some coins).. So he left a rather lasting negative impression in a number of places. (Though Empire building rarely makes friends.)

Even if the stories of his pyromania were exaggerated, it is the kind of thing you would blame on a foreign conqueror. It doesn't, however, seem completely unlikely that, in the confusion of such a traumatic regime change, a number of fires may have occurred. How intentional they would have been is debatable.

As for Alexander the Roman, that is a bit odd, but that must have been written long after the event. Perhaps when Roman had become synonymous with Greek (Byzantine?) Just an idea off the top of my head. Will have a look into it later (on phone)
 
In history class, I was taught Judaism is one of the major 3 monotheistic faiths.

Which is a convenient fiction more than anything else. Judaism gets on the list because it's large and culturally relevant in the US, despite it worldwide actually being a very small religion.
 
Which is a convenient fiction more than anything else. Judaism gets on the list because it's large and culturally relevant in the US, despite it worldwide actually being a very small religion.
Now that I think of it, the three Abrahamic faiths are the largest religions in the United States.
 
Assuming that the world just naturally splits into 3 is a bad premise for your question. But allowing for disunited Arabs and a strong Persian state from Babylon to Baktria, Zoroastrianism can be a notable religion. Certainly within the vocabularies of foreigners, sort of how people have a basic understanding that Shinto is a Japanese religion, but have next to no knowledge beyond that. I 'm guessing something like that but with just a tad bit more common background knowledge (chief deities that sort of thing). How widespread it can be is beyond me, religions can always be aggressively spread by the state, or it can naturally become more missionary. Beyond that evolution, placing it as the shared helm of world religions might be too much to ask.
 
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