2018 Volume 3 Issue 2 Supplementary
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SEPERATION IN THE ZOROASTRIAN SOCIETY OF IRAN DURING THE QAJAR PERIOD


Masoud DADBAKHSH1*, Hossein MOFTAKHRI2
Abstract

One of the major problems of the Zoroastrian community during the Qajar period was their tendency towards the ideas and teachings of the emerging Baha'i Faith. The educated and enlightened minority of Zoroastrian of Iran, and some Indian Parsees and supported by the British government, influenced by the lifestyle and teachings of Zoroastrians in India had big tendency to carry out extensive social and religious reforms in the Zoroastrian community of Iran. At the same time, the newly emerging Baha'i Faith succeeded in attracting a part of the Zoroastrian community of Iran, in particular the same intellectual minority, by promoting the reformist and partisan slogans. The current paper tries to investigate the causes of this incident and its consequences among the Zoroastrian community. It seems that the social and religious pressure created on the Zoroastrians by the traditional Iranian and Zoroastrian communities attracted the Zoroastrians to the secular and libertarian slogans of the Baha'i missionaries. Consequently, the support of the enlightened minority of Zoroastrian thought, and in particular the representatives of the Indian Parsees in Iran led to widespread conflicts among the Zoroastrian community of Iran, which gradually, with the constitutional revolution and the opening up of the social and political space of the country intensified the conflicts that in turn led to killing of some and escape of some others.


Issue 1 Volume 11 - 2026