# The Decline of Zoroastrianism

An episode of [Human History ASMR](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6793196842), 6 Oct 2026, 51 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75560585/the_decline_of_zoroastrianism_human_voiced_no_ads.mp3

Journey into the long and complex history of Zoroastrianism and explore how one of the ancient world's most influential religious traditions gradually declined from its position of prominence in Iran. This episode examines the political, religious, social, and cultural forces that reshaped Zoroastrian communities over many centuries. Begin with the rise of Zoroastrianism under the great Iranian empires, when Zoroastrian religious traditions became deeply connected with royal authority, institutions, temples, and Iranian cultural identity. Discover how the religion developed during the Achaemenid, Parthian, and especially Sasanian periods, when Zoroastrianism occupied a central position within the Sasanian state. The story then turns to the dramatic changes brought by the Arab-Muslim conquest of Iran in the seventh century. Explore the collapse of the Sasanian Empire, the transformation of political institutions, and the gradual emergence of Islam as the dominant religion. Examine how Zoroastrians adapted to the new social and political environment rather than experiencing a single, immediate disappearance. Discover the complex realities faced by Zoroastrian communities under successive Islamic dynasties. Explore taxation, legal status, conversion, intermarriage, changing economic opportunities, migration, and the gradual transformation of local communities. At the same time, examine how Zoroastrians preserved their religious traditions through rituals, sacred texts, priestly institutions, family life, and communal networks. The episode also follows the migration of some Zoroastrians from Iran to the Indian subcontinent, where communities later known as the Parsis established new centers of Zoroastrian life. Explore how these communities preserved ancient traditions while adapting to new political, economic, and cultural environments. Rather than presenting the decline of Zoroastrianism as a single catastrophic event, this journey examines a process that unfolded over centuries. Political upheaval, demographic change, religious conversion, economic pressures, cultural transformation, and internal developments all played different roles in shaping the religion's changing position. Drawing on Zoroastrian texts, Islamic historical sources, archaeological evidence, inscriptions, legal records, and modern scholarship, this episode separates historical evidence from later narratives and examines the complicated reasons why Zoroastrianism declined from a major imperial religion while continuing to survive into the modern era. Narrated with a calm, human voice, this immersive journey is perfect for history enthusiasts, ancient and medieval history lovers, religious history fans, documentary listeners, philosophy audiences, relaxation, or listening before sleep. Discover the rise, transformation, decline, survival, and enduring legacy of one of the world's oldest religious traditions.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Zoroastrianism, one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions, it once
[0:07] Speaker 1: flourished as the state creed of mighty empires. For over
[0:11] Speaker 1: a millennium, it was central to the identity of Persia
[0:15] Speaker 1: and its neighbors. By the 7th century CE, the fire
[0:19] Speaker 1: altars blazed from Mesopotamia to the Oxus, tended by robed magi,
[0:25] Speaker 1: upholding the dualistic teachings of Ahura Mazda. against the evil
[0:30] Speaker 1: spirit of Ahriman. Yet, within a few generations, this great
[0:37] Speaker 1: faith would see its political power broken and its followers dispersed.
[0:43] Speaker 1: So what caused the dramatic fall of such an entrenched religion? Today,
[0:49] Speaker 1: we're going to go through the last days of Zoroastrianism's
[0:53] Speaker 1: prominence and the aftermath. We're going to be looking at Persia, Iran, India,
[1:00] Speaker 1: Central Asia, and even all the way to China. We'll
[1:05] Speaker 1: draw on first-hand accounts from chroniclers who witnessed the tide
[1:08] Speaker 1: of conquest, and travellers who encountered the last ashes of
[1:14] Speaker 1: the sacred fires, and we'll piece together a pivotal chapter
[1:19] Speaker 1: in religious history. But first, let me welcome you to
[1:23] Speaker 1: the channel. Hello to those who had watched Part 1
[1:27] Speaker 1: and Part 2 I've enjoyed doing all of these narrations.
[1:32] Speaker 1: It's certainly been quite a pleasure to talk about. Links
[1:37] Speaker 1: to part one and part two will be in the description.
[1:40] Speaker 1: And if you are watching this as a compilation, well,
[1:44] Speaker 1: thank you for making it this far. With that being said,
[1:48] Speaker 1: do the whole like and subscribe thing. Thank you for
[1:51] Speaker 1: checking out the merch shop and the Patreon. And we
[1:55] Speaker 1: may begin. So as a brief refresher without retreading old ground,
[2:03] Speaker 1: let's just have a quick reminder about Zoroastrianism at its zenith.
[2:08] Speaker 1: To understand the fall, you must recall how things were.
[2:12] Speaker 1: So from the 3rd to the 7th century CE, under
[2:17] Speaker 1: the Sasanian Empire, Zoroastrianism reigned as the imperial religion across
[2:23] Speaker 1: Iran and its sphere. The Sasanian kings called themselves Mazator-worshipping majesty,
[2:31] Speaker 1: and closely allied with the Zoroastrian priesthood. Holy fires burned
[2:36] Speaker 1: in grand temples, supported by the state, and one such temple,
[2:41] Speaker 1: the Adur-Gushnasp, reportedly blazed for centuries, a symbol of Persia's
[2:48] Speaker 1: eternal glory. Thy priest, Kartir, a prominent third-century cleric, left
[2:55] Speaker 1: inscriptions boasting of expanding the good religion's influence and suppressing
[3:00] Speaker 1: rival creeds. By the early 600s, Zoroastrianism was deeply entrenched,
[3:07] Speaker 1: not only in Persia proper, but also in Central Asia, Sogdia, Bactria,
[3:14] Speaker 1: and even in communities along the Silk Road. The faith's
[3:18] Speaker 1: presence extended into Armenia and the Caucasus, and a Zoroastrian diaspora,
[3:24] Speaker 1: had reached as far as Arabia, and perhaps India through traders.
[3:31] Speaker 1: Yet this prominence masked vulnerabilities. The Sasanian Empire was in
[3:38] Speaker 1: a state of complete exhaustion after decades of war with Byzantium,
[3:42] Speaker 1: that being the Western Roman Empire, and internally things weren't
[3:47] Speaker 1: much better. Some subjects resented the strict religious hierarchy. In
[3:54] Speaker 1: the mid-seventh century, the new political force, the Arab armies
[3:59] Speaker 1: of Islam, burst onto the scene. And as we shall see,
[4:05] Speaker 1: the confrontation between Zoroastrian Persia and the nascent Islam would
[4:11] Speaker 1: prove to be a turning point. But it is crucial
[4:15] Speaker 1: to note that not all Zoroastrianism simply vanished overnight with
[4:21] Speaker 1: a single battle. nor has it vanished completely from the world.
[4:25] Speaker 1: There's plenty of them still left. But the decline was
[4:30] Speaker 1: a gradual process, with several stages and regional variations. And
[4:36] Speaker 1: with that in mind, and being somewhat refreshed on the situation,
[4:42] Speaker 1: let us now begin the decline of Zoroastrianism. The Final
[4:51] Speaker 1: War The Last Stand of Sasanian Persia In the year 636,
[5:00] Speaker 1: on the dusty plains in Mesopotamia of Al-Qadisiyah, the Persian
[5:06] Speaker 1: and Arab forces clashed in a battle that many chroniclers
[5:09] Speaker 1: mark as the beginning of the end. According to Muslim
[5:13] Speaker 1: historian Al-Tabari, ill omens abounded for the Persians. The legendary
[5:20] Speaker 1: banner of Persia The Derafsh-e-Kavian was said to be captured,
[5:27] Speaker 1: and the elephant corpse panicked. The Persian general Rustam fell,
[5:33] Speaker 1: and the road to the imperial capital lay completely open.
[5:39] Speaker 1: A few years later, in 642, the decisive battle of
[5:43] Speaker 1: Nahavand in Media sealed Persia's fate. Arab and Sasanian armies
[5:49] Speaker 1: met in what Persians later remembered as as a catastrophe.
[5:53] Speaker 1: The summary describes Nahavandas, a major turning point in Iranian history.
[6:01] Speaker 1: The Sasanian army was lured out of a fortified position
[6:05] Speaker 1: and massacred in a mountain defile. Later Islamic sources dubbed
[6:11] Speaker 1: the victory Fath al-Futuh, the victory of victories, because never
[6:18] Speaker 1: again would the Zoroastrian Persians field an imperial army capable
[6:23] Speaker 1: of resisting the Muslim caliphate? After Nahaband, the young Sasanian emperor,
[6:31] Speaker 1: Yazdegerd III, became a fugitive, desperately trying to salvage what
[6:36] Speaker 1: was left of his empire. As Arab columns advanced, Yazdegerd
[6:42] Speaker 1: fled east, from province to province, from Kirman to Isfahan.
[6:48] Speaker 1: to Sistan, and onward to Merv in Central Asia. One
[6:54] Speaker 1: Zoroastrian tradition holds that priests carried the embers of sacred
[6:58] Speaker 1: fires alongside the fleeing courtiers, determined to keep the flame
[7:02] Speaker 1: of faith alive, even in flight. Yazdegard sought aid from
[7:10] Speaker 1: distant allies. He appealed to the Turkic Khans and the
[7:14] Speaker 1: Chinese court of the Tang dynasty. Chinese chroniclers do record
[7:19] Speaker 1: envoys from the last Persian shah seeking refuge, but tangible
[7:24] Speaker 1: help never arrived in time. In 651 CE, according to
[7:32] Speaker 1: multiple Islamic chronicles, Yazdegerd met a prosaic and tragic end.
[7:39] Speaker 1: He was murdered at a mill in Merv, betrayed by
[7:43] Speaker 1: a local miller for the king's purse and clothes. Altabari
[7:49] Speaker 1: relates that the accursed miller presented the slain monarch's signet
[7:53] Speaker 1: ring to Arab authorities, only to be executed himself for regicide.
[7:59] Speaker 1: A grim irony to the tale. With Yazdegerd's death, the 2,500-year-old
[8:07] Speaker 1: tradition of Iranian kingship was extinguished, and with it, the
[8:13] Speaker 1: Zoroastrian temple lost its patronage. As one modern historian succinctly
[8:21] Speaker 1: puts it, with the death of Yazdegerd III, the Zoroastrian faith,
[8:28] Speaker 1: which had been the state of religion for more than
[8:29] Speaker 1: a thousand years, was deposed. Islam took its place as
[8:36] Speaker 1: the national religion of Persia. And that, the first step
[8:43] Speaker 1: down into the basement of history, The fall of the
[8:48] Speaker 1: Sasanian Empire marks the symbolic fall of Zoroastrianism, at least
[8:54] Speaker 1: as a political force. But of course, the story is
[8:58] Speaker 1: not over yet. The Early Islamic Era in Iran In
[9:07] Speaker 1: the immediate aftermath after conquest, Zoroastrianism did not just disappear, Rather,
[9:14] Speaker 1: it entered a new phase under Muslim rule. The Arab conquerors,
[9:20] Speaker 1: coming from the different religious background, had to decide what
[9:25] Speaker 1: they were going to do with the fire worshippers, whom
[9:29] Speaker 1: they called al-Majus. There was no explicit mention of Zoroastrians
[9:35] Speaker 1: in the Quran's list of peoples of the book. They
[9:39] Speaker 1: weren't Jews. They weren't Christians. What were they going to
[9:43] Speaker 1: do with them? Practical governments compelled a solution. Islamic tradition
[9:52] Speaker 1: holds that the Prophet Muhammad himself had a precedent for this.
[9:56] Speaker 1: He reportedly accepted jizya, that is a tribute tax. from
[10:00] Speaker 1: the Zoroastrians of Hayyar, which is Bahrain, during his lifetime.
[10:06] Speaker 1: Following that model, the second caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, eventually
[10:11] Speaker 1: granted Zoroastrians protection status, it is dhima, allowing them to
[10:16] Speaker 1: continue their religion in exchange for paying the tax. and
[10:20] Speaker 1: acknowledging Muslim authority. Early Muslim historians, like al-Baladuri, even mentioned
[10:28] Speaker 1: Persian Zoroastrians in Yemen and elsewhere submitting and paying the tax,
[10:33] Speaker 1: rather than being forced to convert. However, this formal tolerance
[10:39] Speaker 1: on the surface came with a few strings attached. As
[10:44] Speaker 1: a teamies, Zoroastrians were subject to social and legal restrictions
[10:49] Speaker 1: and disabilities. Contemporary accounts and later chronicles describe a pattern
[10:55] Speaker 1: of increasing pressure. A 9th century Zoroastrian chronicle bitterly notes
[11:01] Speaker 1: that after the Arab conquest, the empire of Iran was
[11:06] Speaker 1: given over to the Davers of Wrath, a reference to
[11:10] Speaker 1: the demons, and the adherents of Mazda were scattered. Muslim
[11:16] Speaker 1: sources acknowledge episodes of persecution and resistance themselves. For example,
[11:23] Speaker 1: when the city of Istakar, near Persepolis, rebelled against Arab
[11:28] Speaker 1: rule around 650, it faced a retribution that was ruthless.
[11:34] Speaker 1: Arab forces massacred thousands of its inhabitants and destroyed the
[11:40] Speaker 1: fire temples. One local tradition cited Islamic era historians recounts
[11:46] Speaker 1: how in Estaka the defeated Persians were slaughtered until the
[11:50] Speaker 1: plain was covered with the dead. In Gurgan, by the Caspian,
[11:57] Speaker 1: an Arab general, al-Mulhalab, is said to have literally carried
[12:01] Speaker 1: out a gory vow. He had so many Persian captives
[12:06] Speaker 1: decapitated that their blood ran a watermill for an entire day.
[12:11] Speaker 1: While numbers are likely exaggerated, Some sources speak of a
[12:17] Speaker 1: hundred thousand slain at a single battle. Such accounts, even
[12:22] Speaker 1: if propagandistic, reflect the trauma collective memory of conquest. But
[12:28] Speaker 1: more common than mass violence was the slow grind of
[12:33] Speaker 1: the wheels of conversion, either by incentive or attrition. We
[12:39] Speaker 1: hear in the history of Bukhara that in newly conquered cities,
[12:43] Speaker 1: Arab governors offered gold to any Zoroastrian who was willing
[12:48] Speaker 1: to embrace Islam. Many Persians superficially converted to obtain economic
[12:54] Speaker 1: benefits or avoid the jizya and other indignities. One Persian
[13:01] Speaker 1: scholar later remarked of this wave of conversions. Many converted
[13:08] Speaker 1: to escape the systematic abuse. Others accepted Islam. because their
[13:14] Speaker 1: employment in industrial work involved defiling fire, which their old
[13:20] Speaker 1: faith forbade. Indeed, traditional Zoroastrian purity laws made certain occupations, smithing,
[13:29] Speaker 1: for instance, which risks polluting fire, somewhat religiously problematic. So
[13:36] Speaker 1: converting to Islam could ironically free one to pursue a
[13:40] Speaker 1: livelihood without guilt, Over generations, these pragmatic conversions only accumulated.
[13:50] Speaker 1: By the late 8th century, the once dominant faith was
[13:53] Speaker 1: visibly shrinking in major urban centres. Zoroastrians were often relegated
[13:59] Speaker 1: to quarters outside the main city or to rural enclaves.
[14:04] Speaker 1: A Muslim geographer, writing in the 9th century, observed that
[14:08] Speaker 1: Zoroastrians had largely evacuated from their cities and retreated to
[14:13] Speaker 1: villages or specific towns, being deemed Najis, ritually impure, by
[14:20] Speaker 1: their Muslim neighbours. Zoroastrians began to dress distinctively to avoid harassment.
[14:28] Speaker 1: Some sources mention sumptuary laws requiring them to wear coloured
[14:32] Speaker 1: patches or belted garments. Their fire temples, lacking state support,
[14:39] Speaker 1: were often abandoned, or repurposed by the invaders. Many fire
[14:45] Speaker 1: shrines simply decayed. Others were outright converted. Archaeological and written
[14:50] Speaker 1: evidence shows that in places like Bukhara and Istakar, fire
[14:55] Speaker 1: temple ruins became the foundations of newly built mosques. Often
[15:01] Speaker 1: a mihrab niche was plastered onto the wall, where the
[15:06] Speaker 1: sacred fire had once burned, orienting the structure toward Mecca.
[15:11] Speaker 1: and thus transforming it into a mosque. One such example
[15:15] Speaker 1: is the Magoki Atari Mosque in Bukhara, which archaeological studies
[15:19] Speaker 1: suggest was constructed on top of an earlier Zoroastrian temple.
[15:24] Speaker 1: The very name, Magoki, implies an underground, perhaps hidden, fire
[15:30] Speaker 1: shrine that predated the mosque. But it would be wrong
[15:36] Speaker 1: to think that the Zoroastrians went swiftly or quietly into
[15:40] Speaker 1: Pockets of resistance and resilience persisted for centuries within the
[15:44] Speaker 1: Islamic realm, in the province of Fars, the old Persian homeland.
[15:51] Speaker 1: Bagram and other nobles briefly tried to rally around local
[15:55] Speaker 1: Zoroastrian princelings in the 650s, though these attempts were short-lived.
[16:02] Speaker 1: The rugged region of Tabaristan and the Caspian coast remained
[16:07] Speaker 1: independent under a Zoroastrian princely line the Dabriids well into
[16:12] Speaker 1: the 8th century, defiantly outside the Caliph's control. Even after
[16:19] Speaker 1: Tabaristan's eventual subjugation in 760, elements of the old religion
[16:24] Speaker 1: persisted in secret for a time. Throughout the 8th and
[16:29] Speaker 1: 9th centuries, a series of Persian revolt movements had distinctly
[16:34] Speaker 1: Zoroastrian or syncretic overtones. For instance, the rebellion of Sunbad
[16:41] Speaker 1: in 755, who claimed to avenge a Persian hero, or
[16:45] Speaker 1: the uprising of Babak Khurramdin in Azerbaijan, 816-837, whose followers,
[16:52] Speaker 1: the Khuramis, practiced a blend of the Persian and heterodox
[16:57] Speaker 1: Islamic beliefs. While these revolts were crushed by the opposite caliphate,
[17:05] Speaker 1: they demonstrate that the memory of the old faith could
[17:08] Speaker 1: still inspire resistance among the Persians, long after the fall.
[17:16] Speaker 1: By the 10th century, Islam was firmly dominant in Iran,
[17:22] Speaker 1: but the Zoroastrians were still there in pockets. In fact,
[17:25] Speaker 1: medieval Islamic writers give us surprising evidence of the faith's continuance,
[17:30] Speaker 1: albeit it had a diminished footprint. The eminent 10th century
[17:34] Speaker 1: Arab historian, al-Masudi, writing around 956 CE from Baghdad, noted
[17:41] Speaker 1: that Zoroastrianism, for the time being, continued to exist in
[17:46] Speaker 1: many parts of Iran. He goes on to list regions
[17:50] Speaker 1: in almost all the Iranian provinces. The Maghins venerate many
[17:54] Speaker 1: fire temples in Iraq, Fars, Kirman, Sistan, Kurdistan, Tabaristan, Al-Jabal, Azerbaijan,
[18:02] Speaker 1: and Aran. al-Masudi even adds the traces of the faith
[18:07] Speaker 1: were present beyond Iran, in places like Sindh and the
[18:11] Speaker 1: Indian subcontinent. This account is corroborated by medieval geographers. The
[18:16] Speaker 1: 10th century writer Istakri found the desert city of Yaz
[18:21] Speaker 1: was still largely Zoroastrian, and Al-Maktisi, around 985, noted that
[18:29] Speaker 1: Kirman province had many Magians. One Abbasid-era anecdote relates the
[18:37] Speaker 1: Caliph al-Mustasim, meaning 833-42, who learned of an overzealous local
[18:43] Speaker 1: Muslim leader who destroyed a Zoroastrian fire temple. The Caliph
[18:49] Speaker 1: allegedly punished that official, and even allowed the Maghins to
[18:53] Speaker 1: rebuild their shrine. Now, why would this happen? Well, it
[18:58] Speaker 1: suggests that at times central authorities preferred to keep the
[19:03] Speaker 1: Zoroastrians paying taxes, rather than provoke them into a rebellion
[19:08] Speaker 1: by extreme persecution. Makes sense. Still, the overall trend was
[19:15] Speaker 1: one of decline. The old Zoroastrian clergy, having lost their
[19:20] Speaker 1: fire temples and endowments, dwindled in number. Many priests likely converted,
[19:27] Speaker 1: or left for friendlier lands. The sanctity of fire itself
[19:30] Speaker 1: was sometimes hard to maintain in hostile surroundings. Zoroastrian texts
[19:36] Speaker 1: from the early Islamic times, like the Dengar or Rivayats,
[19:40] Speaker 1: lament the loss of knowledge and the scattering of the
[19:43] Speaker 1: holy texts. A tradition in the Dengad compares the state
[19:48] Speaker 1: of the Zoroastrian religion after the Arab conquest to a
[19:52] Speaker 1: throne without its legs, tottering and unstable. Some devout communities, however,
[20:00] Speaker 1: resolved to preserve what they could, however they could. We
[20:05] Speaker 1: hear of family clans in Fars and Gurman that kept
[20:08] Speaker 1: the fires burning in secret. The village of Qam in Fars,
[20:12] Speaker 1: for example, maintained a hidden sanctuary of fire for generations.
[20:19] Speaker 1: In the Persian heartland, two regions emerged as bastions of
[20:23] Speaker 1: the embattled faith, Yazd and Kerman. Isolated in the central
[20:30] Speaker 1: deserts and mountains, these areas were relatively tolerant, or at
[20:34] Speaker 1: least removed from the full force of the Caliph's cultural pressures.
[20:39] Speaker 1: By the eleventh and twelfth centuries, travellers described Yazd as
[20:44] Speaker 1: a haven for Zoroastrians. The Venetian traveller Marco Polo, passing
[20:49] Speaker 1: through Persia in 1272, called Yazd a good and noble city,
[20:55] Speaker 1: and noted that Zoroastrians, as he called them fire-worshippers, were
[20:59] Speaker 1: still present there, keeping the old ways well and truly alive.
[21:05] Speaker 1: He recounted an especially vivid anecdote, near the village of Saba.
[21:11] Speaker 1: Locals told him three ancient tombs housed the bodies of
[21:14] Speaker 1: the three magi, the wise men from the east of
[21:19] Speaker 1: Christian nativity lore. Skeptical, Paulo pressed for more information, and
[21:26] Speaker 1: after a three days' journey away, he found a place
[21:29] Speaker 1: called Kala Ataperistan, meaning Castle of the Fire Worshippers, and
[21:36] Speaker 1: the name is rightly applied, he writes, for the people
[21:39] Speaker 1: there do worship fire. This primary account by Polo, essentially
[21:45] Speaker 1: a foreigner stumbling upon a surviving Zoroastrian community, is a
[21:50] Speaker 1: poignant illustration of how fragmented and localized Zoroastrianism had become
[21:55] Speaker 1: by the 13th century. These remnant communities were pockets of
[22:00] Speaker 1: the old faith in a vastly changed world. Indeed, by
[22:07] Speaker 1: the late medieval period, Zoroastrians in Iran were small minorities,
[22:12] Speaker 1: often impoverished and frequently marginalized. During the Mongol and Timurid invasions,
[22:20] Speaker 1: that's the 13th-14th centuries roundabout, they suffered alongside the other Persians.
[22:26] Speaker 1: Some local Muslim rulers, like the Safavids in the 16th century,
[22:30] Speaker 1: later imposed strict Shia Islamic norms that further pressured non-Muslims.
[22:36] Speaker 1: There are recorded instances in Safavid times of Zoroastrians being
[22:40] Speaker 1: forced to wear a distinctive badge, to shout out disclaimers
[22:44] Speaker 1: when walking in the rain, that is so a Muslim
[22:47] Speaker 1: would not inadvertently touch the same wet ground and be polluted,
[22:52] Speaker 1: example of extreme social stigma, reminiscent of the untouchables of India,
[22:57] Speaker 1: this kind of thing. By the 18th and 19th centuries,
[23:02] Speaker 1: observers describe Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kerman as a downtrodden lot,
[23:09] Speaker 1: heavily taxed, forced to live in segregated neighbourhoods, periodically facing
[23:14] Speaker 1: forcible conversion. Yet remarkably they endured. A Persian Zoroastrian proverb
[23:21] Speaker 1: from those dark times says, Our state is like the
[23:26] Speaker 1: cypress tree, evergreen, but ever bending under the storm. It
[23:33] Speaker 1: captures the resilience of a community determined to keep the
[23:37] Speaker 1: flame of Vohumanna, good mind, alive at all costs. While
[23:45] Speaker 1: Iran was the heartland, Zoroastrianism's decline played out in other
[23:50] Speaker 1: regions too, and often in quite unique ways, particularly in
[23:56] Speaker 1: Central Asian regions such as Transoxania, modern-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
[24:03] Speaker 1: and also Khorasan. Zoroastrianism had coexisted with Buddhism and the
[24:09] Speaker 1: local pagan cults before Islam had came along. The Sogdian
[24:13] Speaker 1: cities like Samarkand and Bukhara had fire temples and a
[24:17] Speaker 1: class of priests, and they too met the challenges of
[24:20] Speaker 1: the Islamic expansion. The Arab general Qutayba ibn Muslim conquered
[24:27] Speaker 1: Bukhara and Samarkand in the early 8th century. Initially, the
[24:32] Speaker 1: new rulers faced resistance and slow conversions. The history of
[24:37] Speaker 1: Bukhara by Narshaki provides a fascinating glimpse of this transitional period.
[24:43] Speaker 1: According to that work, when Qutaba first took Bukhara, he
[24:48] Speaker 1: ordered that half of every household's property be given to
[24:52] Speaker 1: the Arab settlers. The wealthy locals complied by moving out
[24:56] Speaker 1: of the city and building new villas outside the walls.
[25:01] Speaker 1: Some of these sustains were specifically known as the village
[25:05] Speaker 1: of the Magians, suburban enclaves where Zoroastrians continued to live
[25:11] Speaker 1: and worship. Narashaki writes that in those Magian villas there
[25:16] Speaker 1: were many fire temples of the Magians in this district
[25:20] Speaker 1: with fine and pleasant gardens. So this suggests that even
[25:25] Speaker 1: after the Arab conquest of Bukhara around 709 CE, the
[25:29] Speaker 1: Zoroastrian gentry maintained their religion on the outskirts for some time.
[25:35] Speaker 1: Over the 8th and 9th centuries, though, these communities gradually dwindled.
[25:40] Speaker 1: Natshaki later notes that by the mid-10th century, those once
[25:44] Speaker 1: valuable Magian estates had fallen into ruin, and nobody wanted
[25:49] Speaker 1: to buy them, because of oppression and lack of clemency
[25:53] Speaker 1: towards the Magians. An even earlier perspective on Central Asia,
[25:59] Speaker 1: comes from the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang, who travelled throughout
[26:04] Speaker 1: the region in the 630s, just before Islam's arrival. Xuanzang
[26:09] Speaker 1: found that in places like Samarkand, Buddhism was in decline,
[26:13] Speaker 1: and people mostly followed what he as a Buddhist termed
[26:17] Speaker 1: the Way of Demons, likely referring to Zoroastrian or local
[26:23] Speaker 1: pre-Islamic practices. One incident recorded in his biography tells of
[26:28] Speaker 1: Xuanzang intervening to save the lives of two Buddhist monks
[26:31] Speaker 1: in Samarkand, who had run afoul of the local religion.
[26:35] Speaker 1: He could not bear to see them mutilated, and he
[26:39] Speaker 1: convinced the king to spare them. The monks' intended punishment,
[26:44] Speaker 1: mutilation for offending local custom, hints at the intolerance of
[26:49] Speaker 1: the Sogdian fire-worshippers toward the Buddhist icons, implying Zoroastrian zeal
[26:54] Speaker 1: at the time. Thus, on the eve of Islam, Zoroastrianism
[26:59] Speaker 1: in Central Asia was robust enough to persecute its rivals. Ironically,
[27:05] Speaker 1: soon after, those same fire temples would be extinguished or
[27:09] Speaker 1: converted under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, as Islam became dominant.
[27:17] Speaker 1: By the 9th and 10th centuries, Central Asia's Zoroastrians had
[27:22] Speaker 1: mostly either been converted to Islam, or had simply left
[27:27] Speaker 1: a number likely fled eastward to China, where a Sogdian
[27:31] Speaker 1: diaspora had established itself in Tang Dynasty cities. Chinese historical
[27:36] Speaker 1: records indicate that by the 8th century, there were active
[27:40] Speaker 1: Zoroastrian or Xianjiao temples in Chang'an and Luoyang, Chang'an being
[27:46] Speaker 1: the old name for Xi'an, which is still a quite
[27:50] Speaker 1: nice city in China to this day. They were primarily
[27:53] Speaker 1: serving Persian and Sogdian merchant communities. The cosmopolitan Tang dynasty
[27:59] Speaker 1: generally tolerated foreign religions, referring to Zoroastrianism as one of
[28:05] Speaker 1: the Persian religions. However, in 845, the Tang emperor Wu
[28:11] Speaker 1: Zong instigated a notorious persecution of foreign faiths, mostly directed
[28:17] Speaker 1: at Buddhism. Yes, Buddhism is a foreign faith to China.
[28:22] Speaker 1: It comes from India. Imperial edicts that year also targeted
[28:27] Speaker 1: Zoroastrians and Christians. One edict concerning the Zoroastrians was quite blunt, declaring,
[28:36] Speaker 1: As for the Syrian or Persian Zoroastrian forms of worship,
[28:40] Speaker 1: since Buddhism has already been cast out, these heresies alone
[28:45] Speaker 1: must not be allowed to survive. People belonging to these
[28:49] Speaker 1: are compelled to return to the world, i.e. secular life.
[28:54] Speaker 1: As for foreigners practising these rites, Let them be returned
[28:57] Speaker 1: to their own countries. The edict ordered Zoroastrian priests in
[29:03] Speaker 1: China to discard their sacred robes and cease their ceremonies.
[29:09] Speaker 1: Temples were closed. In Chang'an, the sites of two prominent
[29:12] Speaker 1: fire altars were confiscated by the state. After 845, Zoroastrianism
[29:18] Speaker 1: in China virtually vanished. The remaining Persian families either assimilated
[29:25] Speaker 1: or eventually left. It is likely that from the mid-ninth
[29:29] Speaker 1: century onward, Central Asia and East Asia harboured no organised
[29:34] Speaker 1: Zoroastrian communities, aside from a few pockets that might have
[29:39] Speaker 1: quietly persisted for a generation or two. An ancient faith
[29:44] Speaker 1: that had once spanned continents was now largely confined to
[29:47] Speaker 1: a few isolated enclaves in Iran, and a budding expatriate
[29:52] Speaker 1: community in India, which we will turn to next. Of course,
[29:59] Speaker 1: one of the most consequential outcomes of the fall of
[30:03] Speaker 1: Zoroastrianism in Iran was the migration of Persian Zoroasts to India,
[30:09] Speaker 1: where they would be known as the Parsis, meaning, of course, Persians.
[30:15] Speaker 1: According to their own traditional epic, the story of Sanjan,
[30:19] Speaker 1: composed in 1599 by a priest relaying much older oral history,
[30:23] Speaker 1: a group of Zoroastrian refugees fled Iran by sea, sometime
[30:28] Speaker 1: during the 8th and 10th centuries, to escape religious persecution.
[30:34] Speaker 1: The saga is rich in symbolic narrative. It recounts how
[30:37] Speaker 1: these exiles, led by a dastur, or priest, carrying the
[30:42] Speaker 1: sacred fire, Atash Bahram, landed on the shores of Gujarat
[30:47] Speaker 1: in western India. The local Hindu ruler, often named as Jadirana,
[30:53] Speaker 1: was initially suspicious of the newcomers, As the Kisar relates,
[30:58] Speaker 1: the king sent the Zoroastrians a brimming bowl of milk,
[31:02] Speaker 1: a wordless message that his land was full and had
[31:05] Speaker 1: no room for others. In response, the Zoroastrian priest gently
[31:11] Speaker 1: stirred a spoonful of sugar into the milk, which dissolved
[31:15] Speaker 1: without overflowing, thus sweetening it. This clever demonstration conveyed, we
[31:21] Speaker 1: will blend into your society, just like sugar in milk,
[31:25] Speaker 1: enriching it. without displacing anyone. It's pretty good, huh? Impressed
[31:32] Speaker 1: by this gesture, the king granted them asylum, but he
[31:36] Speaker 1: set conditions that the Persians adopt the local dress and language,
[31:41] Speaker 1: that they lay down their arms, and that they only
[31:44] Speaker 1: marry within their community, conditions to which the Zoroastrians agreed,
[31:49] Speaker 1: swearing to abide by local laws while keeping their faith intact.
[31:55] Speaker 1: Sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn't it? And I
[31:57] Speaker 1: love that milk and sugar analogy. And so began the
[32:02] Speaker 1: Parsi presence in India. They established a settlement at Sanjan,
[32:07] Speaker 1: named after the city in Iran they reportedly came from,
[32:11] Speaker 1: and true to their promise, gradually adopted the regional language,
[32:15] Speaker 1: that being Gujarati, and many of the local customs. Yet, internally...
[32:22] Speaker 1: they preserved their Zoroastrian religion with fervor. The Kisa-i-Sanjan details
[32:30] Speaker 1: how they enthroned the sacred fire, called Iranshar, in a
[32:36] Speaker 1: new fire temple at Sanjan, kindling it with embers bored
[32:40] Speaker 1: from their homeland's fire. This fire, tended by priests, became
[32:46] Speaker 1: the living link to the lost world of Sasanian glory.
[32:51] Speaker 1: Over time, The Parsis spread to other towns, Nausari, Uduada, Bombay, Mumbai,
[32:58] Speaker 1: but they remained a close-knit community, cherishing the Avesta scriptures
[33:03] Speaker 1: and the memory of Iranshah. Notably, while Zoroastrianism was waning
[33:10] Speaker 1: in Iran, in India it found not only refuge, but
[33:14] Speaker 1: a chance for revival. Though direct contemporary records from the
[33:19] Speaker 1: earliest days of the Parsi Migrations are pretty scarce. Apart
[33:24] Speaker 1: from the later Kisa and some oral tradition, there are
[33:27] Speaker 1: references from travellers that corroborate their early presence. In the
[33:32] Speaker 1: 11th century, the Arab traveller al-Biruni mentioned the land of
[33:37] Speaker 1: Hind having people of the Magian religion, likely an allusion
[33:41] Speaker 1: to the pastures in western India. Much later, in 1322,
[33:46] Speaker 1: a Christian monk, Jordanus, encountered fire worshippers, on the island
[33:52] Speaker 1: of Thane near Mumbai, which were probably Parsis too. These
[33:57] Speaker 1: instances indicate that by the late Middle Ages, India had
[34:02] Speaker 1: become the chief sanctuary of the Zoroastrians. Indeed, today the
[34:08] Speaker 1: largest Zoroastrian population in the world is in India, thanks
[34:12] Speaker 1: to these early refugees and their descendants. But one fascinating
[34:18] Speaker 1: aspect of the Indo-Persian-Zoroastrian connection is that the scattered Zoroastrians
[34:24] Speaker 1: did not entirely lose contact with each other. From the
[34:29] Speaker 1: 15th century onwards, there are letters, known as rivayats, exchanged
[34:34] Speaker 1: between the Parsis of India and the dwindling Zoroastrians of
[34:39] Speaker 1: Yazd and Karman in Iran. In these correspondences, the Parsis
[34:44] Speaker 1: often ask their Iranians co-religionists, per advice on ritual practices
[34:50] Speaker 1: and calendrical calculation, implicitly acknowledging Iran as the original source
[34:55] Speaker 1: of authority. The Iranians or Awastrians flattered and heartened that
[35:01] Speaker 1: their faith lived on abroad, responded with detailed answers, and
[35:06] Speaker 1: occasionally even dispatched priests or texts to India. And these
[35:12] Speaker 1: letters point a poignant picture. The once major religion, surviving
[35:16] Speaker 1: in two marginal refuges, separated by the Arabian Sea, each
[35:22] Speaker 1: encouraging each other to hold fast to the Mazdean religion,
[35:27] Speaker 1: Din-e Mazdeyasna. One could say that the aftermath of the
[35:36] Speaker 1: fall of Zoroastrianism was a diaspora that ensured the faith
[35:40] Speaker 1: itself did not completely perish. Stripped of their empire, and power.
[35:47] Speaker 1: The Zoroastrians reinvented themselves as a minority religion of traders
[35:51] Speaker 1: and migrants in India, and as tenacious underground traditions in Iran.
[35:59] Speaker 1: The passes went on to prosper under subsequent Indian dynasties
[36:02] Speaker 1: and later British colonial rule. By the 19th century, they
[36:07] Speaker 1: were an affluent, educated community, producing notable figures in industry
[36:13] Speaker 1: and philanthropy. thus arguably sweetening their homelands, milk with that
[36:21] Speaker 1: legend promised. Meanwhile, the impoverished Zoroastrians in Iran received aid
[36:28] Speaker 1: from their Indian cousins, and gradually they improved their lot
[36:33] Speaker 1: in the 19th to 20th centuries, especially after the Islamic
[36:38] Speaker 1: restrictions began to ease off a little bit. And so
[36:46] Speaker 1: we arrive at the conclusion, the fall, if we can
[36:51] Speaker 1: call it that, of Zoroastrianism from imperial dominance to near obscurity.
[36:57] Speaker 1: It's quite a complex historical phenomenon. As we have seen,
[37:01] Speaker 1: it was not a simple case of one religion supplanting
[37:05] Speaker 1: another overnight. It involved complicated conquest, social transformation, and the
[37:12] Speaker 1: agency of Zoroastrians themselves choosing whether to resist, convert, flee.
[37:21] Speaker 1: Primary sources vividly illustrate this progression. Early Arab historians like
[37:26] Speaker 1: Tabari and Baladuri recount the clashes and negotiations that determined
[37:30] Speaker 1: the fate of the fire worshippers. Treaties where fire temples
[37:35] Speaker 1: were spared or destroyed. Debates over whether Magians counted as
[37:41] Speaker 1: people of the book or just pagans. and instances of
[37:46] Speaker 1: both clemency and cruelty. Zoroastrian sources, though few, expressed the
[37:54] Speaker 1: anguish of a people who saw their sacred fires quenched
[37:58] Speaker 1: and their scriptures endangered. The Zandi-Wachman-Yasin, a Pahlavi apocalyptic text,
[38:06] Speaker 1: likely compiled after the conquest, prophesies in thinly-veiled terms the
[38:11] Speaker 1: coming of a devastating foreign rule, The sovereignty will come
[38:16] Speaker 1: to those of the wrong faith. The fire temples will
[38:20] Speaker 1: be ruined, and the righteous will be scattered. Such passages,
[38:26] Speaker 1: albeit couched in symbolic language, they mirror the real experiences
[38:31] Speaker 1: that we have traced today. Geographically, we went all over
[38:37] Speaker 1: the place, didn't we? We went beyond Persia, to India,
[38:42] Speaker 1: Central Asia, showing that the end of the Zoroastrian dominance
[38:47] Speaker 1: in Iran was not the end of the Zoroastrians. In
[38:52] Speaker 1: Central Asia, the religion flickered out in similar pressures, as
[38:57] Speaker 1: the Tang Chinese Edict of 845 shows for the far
[39:01] Speaker 1: east of the Iranian world diaspora. In India, conversely, Zoroastrianism
[39:08] Speaker 1: found a new life, demonstrating a remarkable adaptability. separated from
[39:15] Speaker 1: the Sasanian state and the social hierarchy, the priests and nobles.
[39:21] Speaker 1: Ordinary Zoroastrians managed to transplant their faith to foreign soil,
[39:27] Speaker 1: giving it a life through oral tradition and communal effort.
[39:31] Speaker 1: From a critical perspective, we should avoid painting the fall
[39:35] Speaker 1: of Zoroastrianism as an oversimplistic decline and fall terms with
[39:41] Speaker 1: excessive romantic bias. Some earlier nationalist histories in Iran portrayed
[39:47] Speaker 1: it as a titanic clash of good Persia versus evil Arabia.
[39:54] Speaker 1: But the reality is a little bit more nuanced than that.
[39:58] Speaker 1: While there were atrocities, forced conversions in some instances, there
[40:03] Speaker 1: were also periods of coexistence and cultural exchange. Persian language
[40:08] Speaker 1: and culture ultimately survived the Islamic conquest. Iran never became
[40:13] Speaker 1: Arabized like some other regions did. And arguably, elements of
[40:19] Speaker 1: Zoroastrian ethical philosophy, filtered into the emerging Islamic Persian literature.
[40:26] Speaker 1: Festivals like No Roots, the Persian New Year with Zoroastrian roots,
[40:31] Speaker 1: continued to be celebrated by Iranians of all faiths, a
[40:35] Speaker 1: testament to how deeply ingrained the old tradition really was,
[40:40] Speaker 1: surviving even in the change of official religion. In Central Asia, too,
[40:46] Speaker 1: you'll find many pre-Islamic customs persisting under new guises. And so,
[40:51] Speaker 1: in recounting the final chapter of the days of Zoroastrianism's prominence,
[40:56] Speaker 1: we've relied on many eyewitness and contemporary accounts, the mournful
[41:01] Speaker 1: reflections of Masudi, the practical observations of Narsaki, the travel
[41:07] Speaker 1: diaries of Marco Polo, and the community lore of the Kisa-e-Sanjan,
[41:12] Speaker 1: among others. These sources— animate the historical analysis, allows us
[41:19] Speaker 1: to paint a picture that scenes of a Zoroastrian dastur
[41:23] Speaker 1: bargaining with an Indian raja, or a weary group of
[41:26] Speaker 1: magi tending a flame in a hidden mountain shrine while
[41:30] Speaker 1: a new faith's minarets rise in the town below. The
[41:34] Speaker 1: fall of Zoroastrianism was a centuries-long saga, a story of decline,
[41:42] Speaker 1: but also one of survival against the odds. By around
[41:46] Speaker 1: the year 1000, Zoroastrianism had effectively fallen from its highest state.
[41:52] Speaker 1: Yet its aftermath is a story of cultural and resistance,
[41:57] Speaker 1: illuminating how faith communities respond to existential challenges. Today, though
[42:04] Speaker 1: small in number, Zoroastrians continue to practice their religion in Iran, India,
[42:11] Speaker 1: and in diaspora communities all over the world. proudly maintaining
[42:15] Speaker 1: the rituals and tenets that once guided kings and empires.
[42:21] Speaker 1: In a sense, this fall of Zoroastrianism as a state
[42:25] Speaker 1: religion allowed it to rise in a new form, a global,
[42:30] Speaker 1: diasporic faith, cherished for its historical significance and philosophical depth.
[42:37] Speaker 1: The enduring flame in fire temples of Yazd and Mumbai
[42:40] Speaker 1: and the very celebration of spring with the Nordruts across
[42:43] Speaker 1: Central and South Asia, are the living legacies of our
[42:47] Speaker 1: journey throughout Zoroastrian history. And so, in conclusion, the fall
[42:53] Speaker 1: was a transformative epic that reshaped the religious map of Eurasia.
[43:00] Speaker 1: By focusing on first-hand narratives today, we've gained intimate insights
[43:05] Speaker 1: on how the people at the time perceived these upheavals,
[43:08] Speaker 1: whether as conquerors enforcing a new world order, or those
[43:12] Speaker 1: faithful souls witnessing the end of their world, striving to
[43:16] Speaker 1: kindle a new future somewhere else. And as any good
[43:21] Speaker 1: lecture must conclude, the story of the fall is not
[43:25] Speaker 1: merely about an ancient religion's decline, but it's about the
[43:28] Speaker 1: endurance of human belief, an identity in the face of
[43:32] Speaker 1: overwhelming change. And so as the flame of Ahura Mazda,
[43:36] Speaker 1: though dimmed, was never fully extinguished. It survived in its
[43:41] Speaker 1: glowing embers, carried by devoted hands across the sea in generations.
[43:46] Speaker 1: Who knows? Perhaps one of the listeners will be the
[43:50] Speaker 1: one to light it again into a raging fire. And
[43:57] Speaker 1: with that we reach the end of our talk for today.
[44:01] Speaker 1: I hope that you have enjoyed it. We certainly learned
[44:07] Speaker 1: a lot, didn't we? I'm going to thank my top
[44:11] Speaker 1: dear patrons. Dark, Kimberly, Christine, Sally, Ember, Cameron, Legitmus, Gary, Charlene,
[44:20] Speaker 1: Linda Reese, Katiana, Nicholas, Ulf, Ednair, Alexander, Charles, Christine, Dr. Neuronerd, Erin, Jaden, Jim, Jeffrey, Jessica, Madeline, Melissa,
[44:33] Speaker 1: Where am I? I scrolled too far down. Ah, there
[44:35] Speaker 1: we go. Orthodox Review. Scott. Stark Factory. Shell. Wendy. Josie. Sarah. Videoman. Ryan. Thor. Cameron. Stefan. Kevin. HMS. HH.
[44:49] Speaker 1: Crystal and Towdry. Thank you very much. And I will
[44:57] Speaker 1: see you in the next video. As always, thank you
[45:02] Speaker 1: so much for listening. I do appreciate it. And I
[45:05] Speaker 1: will see you, I don't know, tomorrow. Oh, I already
[45:08] Speaker 1: said that. I must be tired. Good night, everyone. Lots
[45:12] Speaker 1: of love to you all.

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