Category:Zoroastrians

Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest extant religions. With possible roots dating back to the second millennium BCE, Zoroastrianism enters recorded history in the 5th-century BCE. Ascribed to the teachings of the Persian prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), it exalts a deity of wisdom, Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord), as its Supreme Being. Major features of Zoroastrianism, such as messianism, judgment after death, heaven and hell, and free will have, some believe, influenced other religious systems, including Second Temple Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and Islam.

Along with a Mithraic Median prototype and a Zurvanist Sassanid successor, it served as the state religion of the pre-Islamic Iranian empires for more than a millennium, from around 600 BCE to 650 CE. Zoroastrianism was suppressed from the 7th century onwards following the Muslim conquest of Persia during 633–654. Recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 190,000, with most living in India and in Iran; their number is declining.