Defending the Fire: Adurfarnbag, Mardan-Farrukh, and the Zoroastrian Theological Resistance
What this is Three centuries after the Arab conquest of Sasanian Persia, a small body of Zoroastrian intellectuals undertook one of the most remarkable projects in religious history: the defense of their religion in writing, against the religion that had destroyed their state. They did this from inside the Caliphate, under conditions of legal disability, demographic collapse, and ongoing pressure to convert. They wrote in Pahlavi (Middle Persian), a language that was already becoming archaic, for a community that was shrinking.
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What this is Three centuries after the Arab conquest of Sasanian Persia, a small body of Zoroastrian intellectuals undertook one of the most remarkable projects in religious history: the defense of their religion in writing, against the religion that had destroyed their state. They did this from inside the Caliphate, under conditions of legal disability, demographic collapse, and ongoing pressure to convert. They wrote in Pahlavi (Middle Persian), a language that was already becoming archaic, for a community that was shrinking. They knew the audience for their work would be small and would shrink further. They wrote anyway.
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Avesta · Denkard