Zoroaster: The Prophet of the Wise Lord and His Kurdish Revival
- Dala Sarkis
- 12 hours ago
- 9 min read
Introduction
Zoroaster, known in his own tongue as Zarathustra, is one of the most influential figures in the history of religion: the ancient Iranic prophet who proclaimed a single supreme God, the Wise Lord Ahura Mazda, and taught that all of existence is caught in a great struggle between good and evil. The faith he founded, Zoroastrianism, became the religion of the mightiest empires of ancient Persia and shaped the spiritual world of all the Iranic peoples.
His teaching is strikingly modern in its moral clarity. Against the lie and the darkness stands the truth, called Asha; before every human being lies the free choice between good and evil; and the whole of life is summed up in three words: good thoughts, good words, good deeds. Many scholars believe that his ideas of heaven and hell, judgment, and a final triumph of good went on to influence Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
For the Kurds, an Iranic people whose ancestors followed pre-Islamic faiths before the coming of Islam, Zoroaster holds a special and much-debated place. He is claimed by some as a native son of the Kurdish lands, and in recent years, especially after the horrors visited on Kurdistan by the so-called Islamic State, a remarkable revival of Zoroastrianism has taken root among the Kurds as a faith of their own heritage and identity.
Contents
Who Was Zoroaster?
Zoroaster (Zarathustra; in Kurdish, Zerdest) was an ancient Iranic prophet and religious reformer, traditionally regarded as the founder of Zoroastrianism. Living somewhere in the Iranian world in the second millennium BCE, he taught the worship of one supreme God, Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, and the great struggle between good and evil, truth and the lie. His hymns, the Gathas, form the oldest and most sacred part of the Zoroastrian scripture, the Avesta, and his faith became the religion of three great Persian empires.
Key Takeaways
Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, is the ancient Iranic prophet who founded Zoroastrianism.
He proclaimed one supreme God, Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord and source of all good.
He taught a great struggle between good and evil and the free choice between them.
His ethic is summed up as good thoughts, good words, good deeds.
His faith was the religion of three Persian empires before the rise of Islam.
Today a notable revival of Zoroastrianism is taking place among the Kurds.
Quick Facts
Name: Zoroaster (Greek); Zarathustra (Avestan); Zartosht (Persian); Zerdest (Kurdish)
Role: Ancient Iranic prophet and reformer; founder of Zoroastrianism
Date: Uncertain; most scholars place him in the second millennium BCE
Birthplace: Disputed; most likely somewhere in the wider Iranian world
Supreme God: Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, source of all goodness
Adversary: Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), the destructive spirit
Core principle: Asha, truth and cosmic order; the choice between good and evil
Scripture: The Avesta, whose oldest part, the Gathas, are his own hymns
Ethic: Good thoughts, good words, good deeds
Attestation: Faith of three Persian empires; today revived by some Kurds
The Prophet and His Revelation
Little can be said with certainty about the life of Zoroaster, for he lived in a world before written history, most likely in the second millennium BCE, and the few details that survive are wrapped in later legend. Tradition holds that he was born into a priestly family and grew troubled by the religion of his time, with its many gods and its bloody sacrifices, seeking instead a deeper truth.
The turning point, the story tells, came when Zoroaster was about thirty years old. Drawing water at a river one dawn, he beheld a shining being who led him into the presence of Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, and there received the first of a series of revelations. Charged to preach the worship of the one God and the way of truth, Zoroaster met at first with rejection and hostility, until at last he won the protection of a king, Vishtaspa, under whom the new faith took root and began to spread.
One God and the Great Struggle
At the heart of Zoroaster's message stands Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord: the one supreme God, wholly good, the creator of all that is and the source of all light, truth and life. In proclaiming a single highest God in a world of many deities, Zoroaster took a great step toward monotheism, and the worship of Ahura Mazda became the centre of the faith that bears the prophet's stamp.
Yet the world, as Zoroaster saw it, is not at peace. Ranged against the good creation is the destructive spirit, Angra Mainyu, later called Ahriman, the power of the lie, the darkness and the chaos. All of existence is the battleground of this cosmic struggle between good and evil, truth and falsehood, order and disorder, captured in the great principle of Asha, the truth and right order of things, against the druj, the lie. Around Ahura Mazda stand the Amesha Spentas, the Bounteous Immortals, the radiant aspects of the divine through which the Wise Lord acts in the world.
Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds
What makes Zoroaster's teaching so striking is the place it gives to the human being. Every person, he taught, stands free to choose between good and evil, and on that choice hangs the fate of the soul and the outcome of the cosmic struggle. The whole of the moral life is gathered into a threefold rule that is still the watchword of Zoroastrians today: good thoughts, good words, good deeds. To think, speak and act in accord with truth is to fight on the side of Ahura Mazda.
Purity is central to this fight, and so the faith holds the elements, above all fire and water, in deep reverence. Fire, kept ever-burning in the temples, is honoured as the symbol and medium of truth and divine presence, which is why Zoroastrians are sometimes wrongly called fire-worshippers: they do not worship the flame, but reverence it as a sign of Ahura Mazda. The tradition looks, too, to a final reckoning, a judgment of souls and a renewal of the world in which good triumphs at the last, ideas that many believe helped shape the later faiths of the Middle East.
The Gathas and the Avesta
The teachings of Zoroaster are preserved in the Avesta, the Zoroastrian scripture, whose oldest and holiest portion, the Gathas, are believed to be the prophet's own hymns, composed in an archaic and beautiful tongue. In his own preaching Zoroaster set Ahura Mazda above all, but in the later tradition the ancient gods returned, honoured now as yazatas, divine beings who serve the Wise Lord, among them Mithra, lord of the covenant and the sun, and Anahita, the great lady of the waters.
From these beginnings grew one of the great religions of the world. Zoroastrianism became the state faith of three mighty Persian empires, the Achaemenid, the Parthian and the Sasanian, enduring for more than a thousand years until the Arab-Muslim conquest of the seventh century, after which it slowly declined. Today its followers number only a few hundred thousand, most of them in Iran and among the Parsis of India, keepers of a faith older than almost any other still practised.
Zoroaster, the Kurds and the Sacred Fire
Before the coming of Islam, the Iranic peoples of the Zagros, the ancestors of the Kurds among them, followed the old faiths of ancient Iran, Zoroastrianism and others, such as the religion of Tawuse Melek kept by the Yazidis. Much of this heritage lingers in Kurdish culture: in the fires of Newroz, in the reverence for light and the sun, and in the deep value placed on truth and on good and upright conduct.
In recent years this ancient connection has flared into new life. After the brutality of the so-called Islamic State and long disillusionment with political Islam, a striking number of Kurds, especially the young, have turned to Zoroastrianism, which they call Zerdest or Zardashti, as the faith of their ancestors and a banner of Kurdish identity. The Kurdistan Regional Government granted the religion official recognition in 2015, new fire-temples and centres have opened in cities such as Sulaimani and Dohuk, and ceremonies unseen for centuries have been revived.
The numbers are uncertain and much disputed, with local reports ranging from a few thousand to many times that, and converts still face stigma and discrimination, often remaining registered as Muslims with the wider state. But as a movement of cultural and spiritual renewal, the Kurdish return to Zoroaster is real and remarkable, a people reaching back across more than a thousand years to reclaim a faith they feel as their own.
Symbolism
Zoroaster stands in history as one of the first to teach that the universe is, at its heart, a moral order: that there is a single good God, that good and evil are truly opposed, and that each human being must choose a side. In place of fate and the appeasement of many gods, he set conscience and free will, making the ordinary choices of thought, word and deed into the very stuff of the cosmic struggle.
For the Kurds and the wider Iranic world, Zoroaster is also a symbol of an ancient and dignified heritage. He represents a native wisdom older than the empires and the conquests, a tradition of light against darkness and truth against the lie that speaks to the deepest currents of Kurdish culture. Whether as historical prophet or as emblem of identity, he remains a figure of enduring power.
Debates and Misconceptions
When and where did Zoroaster live? No one knows for certain. Later tradition placed him around the sixth century BCE, but the archaic language of his own hymns has led most scholars to date him far earlier, to the second millennium BCE. His birthplace is equally uncertain; many place it in the eastern Iranian world, though other traditions look to the northwest, nearer the Kurdish lands. Not a single person or place named in his hymns can be securely identified from any other source.
Was Zoroaster a Kurd? Some Kurdish nationalists claim him as a native son and trace the Kurds to the ancient Medes, even pushing his date back many thousands of years. Honesty requires caution here: the Kurds are indeed an Iranic people who share in the ancient Iranian heritage, and Zoroaster belongs to that wider world, but there is no solid evidence that he was specifically Kurdish or born in Kurdistan, and the most extreme claims are not supported by scholarship. He is best understood as a prophet of the shared Iranic past in which the Kurds have a real part.
Is Zoroastrianism monotheist or dualist? It is, in a sense, both, which is why scholars have long debated it. Zoroaster proclaimed one supreme God, Ahura Mazda, the source of all good, which is the heart of its monotheism; but he also set against the good a powerful destructive spirit, which gives the faith its famous dualism. The usual view is that Zoroastrianism is a monotheism with a strong ethical dualism: one good God, and a real but ultimately doomed power of evil.
Related Topics
Mithra: the ancient god of the covenant, honoured in Zoroaster's faith as a yazata
Anahita: the great goddess of the waters, likewise honoured as a yazata
Newroz: the spring festival deeply tied to Iranic and Zoroastrian heritage
Tawuse Melek: the Peacock Angel of the Yazidis, another pre-Islamic Kurdish faith
The Shahnameh: the epic in which King Vishtaspa, Zoroaster's protector, appears
Ahura Mazda: the Wise Lord, the supreme God of Zoroaster's teaching
The Gathas: the prophet's own hymns, the oldest part of the Avesta
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Zoroaster?
Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, was an ancient Iranic prophet, the founder of Zoroastrianism. He taught the worship of one supreme God, Ahura Mazda, and the struggle between good and evil, and his hymns form the oldest part of the Zoroastrian scripture.
When did Zoroaster live?
His date is uncertain. Later tradition placed him around the sixth century BCE, but most scholars now believe he lived much earlier, in the second millennium BCE, based on the archaic language of his hymns.
What did Zoroaster teach?
That there is one supreme God, Ahura Mazda, the source of all good; that good and evil are locked in a great struggle; that each person must freely choose between them; and that the good life is one of good thoughts, good words and good deeds.
Are Zoroastrians fire-worshippers?
No. Zoroastrians reverence fire as the symbol and medium of truth and the divine presence, keeping it burning in their temples, but they worship Ahura Mazda, not the flame itself. Calling them fire-worshippers is a longstanding misunderstanding.
Was Zoroaster Kurdish?
There is no solid evidence that he was specifically Kurdish, and his birthplace is disputed. But the Kurds are an Iranic people who share in the ancient Iranian heritage to which Zoroaster belongs, and many Kurds feel a deep connection to him.
Why are some Kurds becoming Zoroastrians today?
Especially since 2015, and after the violence of the so-called Islamic State, many Kurds have turned to Zoroastrianism as the faith of their ancestors and a part of Kurdish identity. The Kurdistan Regional Government officially recognised the religion in that year.
References and Further Reading
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