How an Indian Religious Minority Shaped Modern Iran
JUNE 13, 2021
TODAY, IRAN’S ZOROASTRIAN minority comprises a tiny proportion of the country’s overall population, considerably less than half a percent. The Zoroastrian community of India where they are known as “Parsis” is even tinier. But around a century ago, they became an object of fascination for a series of influential Iranian intellectuals, both Zoroastrian and Muslim, who repositioned their country’s pre-Islamic religion at the center of a new national identity. Coupled with the glories of the ancient Achaemenid Empire, this veneration for the Zoroastrian past won increasing state support during the half-century heyday of the Pahlavi monarchy before being pushed back into the margins of official culture by the Islamic Revolution of 1979.