Current Events > So why did Islam overtake and practically replace Zoroastrianism?

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

It seems way more chill than Islam, tbqh. It predates all other monotheistic religions. It also has Freddie Mercury as a member. :O
---

Because Muhammad was a warlord and Islam took over territory via warfare and forced conversion.
---

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Because Muhammad was a warlord and Islam took over territory via warfare and forced conversion.

this. Islam converted by force. whether people wanted to change to Islam or not didn't matter. they did it. or they died

Because incest
---

Also if what you guys are saying about Islam was true there wouldnt be such thing as the jizya tax
---

Because the Zoroastrians lost
---

Zikten posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Because Muhammad was a warlord and Islam took over territory via warfare and forced conversion.

this. Islam converted by force. whether people wanted to change to Islam or not didn't matter. they did it. or they died

but itll never happen again though :^)
---

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Because Muhammad was a warlord and Islam took over territory via warfare and forced conversion.

---

zoroastrianism is crazy. Some singer (I forgot who) was that, so when he died his body went through the zoroastrian ritual... which is literally leaving his body to rot in open air and have the birds and whatnot do whatever they want to it in some sort of special location.

It's gruesome and crazy and gory.

fenderbender321 posted...

Isn't forcing people to convert with violence a violation of Islamic (and almost all other religions') beliefs and principles?

It was done by the founder of Islam so no
---

Ulyanyx posted...

Zikten posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Because Muhammad was a warlord and Islam took over territory via warfare and forced conversion.

this. Islam converted by force. whether people wanted to change to Islam or not didn't matter. they did it. or they died

but itll never happen again though :^)

it's still happening
---

Violently expansive religion overtakes religion that requires you to be born into it. Really makes you think.
---

fenderbender321 posted...

Isn't forcing people to convert with violence a violation of Islamic (and almost all other religions') beliefs and principles?

Depends on the nature of the other religion. Some are supposed to just be quarantined and die out slowly others are supposed to be forcibly converted.
---

fenderbender321 posted...

Isn't forcing people to convert with violence a violation of Islamic (and almost all other religions') beliefs and principles?

Yes.

Forced conversions don't happen until much later with Wahabism (a very strict interpretation of Islam that ISIS prescribes).
---

Religions don't take over by playing nice and spreading the good word. They take over by force.
---

Lots of the Zoroastrian texts were burned/raided when Alexander the Great conquered Persia. That was about a thousand years before Islam. And as a religion the Persians never had success spreading it into conquered lands anyway even when they had regional power.
---

Ryetoast posted...

fenderbender321 posted...

Isn't forcing people to convert with violence a violation of Islamic (and almost all other religions') beliefs and principles?

Yes.

Forced conversions don't happen until much later with Wahabism (a very strict interpretation of Islam that ISIS prescribes).

Eh, yes technically but if your government is Islamic for hundreds of centuries and taxes Jews and Christians just to practice their faith plus being constantly singled out as different by the vast majority of the populace, its pretty tempting to convert.
---

masticatingman posted...

Ryetoast posted...

fenderbender321 posted...

Isn't forcing people to convert with violence a violation of Islamic (and almost all other religions') beliefs and principles?

Yes.

Forced conversions don't happen until much later with Wahabism (a very strict interpretation of Islam that ISIS prescribes).

Eh, yes technically but if your government is Islamic for hundreds of centuries and taxes Jews and Christians just to practice their faith plus being constantly singled out as different by the vast majority of the populace, its pretty tempting to convert.

Oh yes it was beneficial to be Islam.

And there is a difference between "tolerance" and "acceptance", but to say there weren't long periods of tolerance is rather unsettling.

Yet the same objectors of Islam would somehow find a way to defend The Crusades.
---

BJ-blazkowics posted...

zoroastrianism is crazy. Some singer (I forgot who) was that, so when he died his body went through the zoroastrian ritual... which is literally leaving his body to rot in open air and have the birds and whatnot do whatever they want to it in some sort of special location.

It's gruesome and crazy and gory.

no stranger than putting the body in the ground

Zikten posted...

BJ-blazkowics posted...

zoroastrianism is crazy. Some singer (I forgot who) was that, so when he died his body went through the zoroastrian ritual... which is literally leaving his body to rot in open air and have the birds and whatnot do whatever they want to it in some sort of special location.

It's gruesome and crazy and gory.

no stranger than putting the body in the ground

uh no it's quite a bit stranger
---

Pillowpantz posted...

It seems way more chill than Islam, tbqh

That would be why they lost to Islam since it was founded by a warlord.
---

Because the Sassanid Persian state was left in a badly-weakened state by the last Romano-Sassanid War(a titanic, decades-long struggle that bled both powers white). The Eastern Roman Empire had "won", and its Emperor(Heraclius) was a hero, so he had the political capital to straight-up abandon the Levant when he realized he couldn't defend it from the invading Arabs(Egypt was lost in fighting, in part due to poor military decisions by the Roman governor).
The Sassanid Shahanshah had no such political capital, and was thus forced to bet the house on holding onto everything. The Arabs crushed the Sassanids in battle after battle, and they basically ran out of soldiers and were overrun, so Zoroastrianism lost its state sponsor, which was really important, because its priesthood was largely hereditary and heavily integrated into the Persian state.

After that, you mostly have simple attrition. The Muslim Arabic rulers would become increasingly Persified, but Islam remained their religion. Zoroastrians were tolerated, but your career options were limited if you weren't a Muslim(couldn't join the army or government), so if you wanted to be influential, you converted. This resulted in the remaining Zoroastrian nobility becoming increasingly marginalized to more remote areas. When they rebelled and were crushed, the Muslim elite(unsurprisingly) seized upon it as an excuse for some persecution and land-seizures(a tactic used extensively by Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and virtually every other religion you can think of as well)
Of course, getting out of the Jizya(a poll tax on dhimmi i.e. non-Muslims who were tolerated) was also a factor(ironically, it tended to encourage Muslim rulers not to go too wild with religious persecution, because non-Muslims were a reliable source of cash for their coffers!)
Plus, Islam was straight-up a much more flavorful and egalitarian religion than Sassanid Zoroastrianism.
All these factors combined to put it into terminal decline, but it was still the majority religion of Persia for centuries after the Arabic conquest.

An unrelated but fascinating tidbit is that part of the Sassanid royal family fled all the way to China and got Tang-backing for an expedition to liberate Persia. Most of the mercenaries they hired ended up defecting and they had to go back to China, where they were appointed to government posts and eventually Sinified.

BJ-blazkowics posted...

zoroastrianism is crazy. Some singer (I forgot who) was that, so when he died his body went through the zoroastrian ritual... which is literally leaving his body to rot in open air and have the birds and whatnot do whatever they want to it in some sort of special location.

It's gruesome and crazy and gory.

Not really. Its a back to nature thing. We are nourished by the earth, so we nourish the earth as we die. Circle of Life and all that jazz. Haven't you ever watched nature documentaries?

We put people in coffins partly as a ritual and partly to keep diseases from spreading.
---

Pillowpantz posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

It seems way more chill than Islam, tbqh. It predates all other monotheistic religions. It also has Freddie Mercury as a member. :O

Because Islam unfortunately still operates by Dark Ages logic. Convert or die. That's why religions rose and fell.
---

Lil_Bit83 posted...

Pillowpantz posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

It seems way more chill than Islam, tbqh. It predates all other monotheistic religions. It also has Freddie Mercury as a member. :O

Because Islam unfortunately still operates by Dark Ages logic. Convert or die.

Meanwhile modern peaceful religions such as Christianity starve out enemies by imposing crippling sanctions, then when they're bored of that, they bomb the shit out of them and send their military in to shoot them up, steal their resources, and rape the locals. Then they set up military bases there so that the pillaging and raping can continue. Such a religion of peace. God told George W Bush to do things like this!
---

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Zikten posted...

BJ-blazkowics posted...

zoroastrianism is crazy. Some singer (I forgot who) was that, so when he died his body went through the zoroastrian ritual... which is literally leaving his body to rot in open air and have the birds and whatnot do whatever they want to it in some sort of special location.

It's gruesome and crazy and gory.

no stranger than putting the body in the ground

uh no it's quite a bit stranger

Only stranger in that it isn't typical. Burying bodies is wildly impractical.
---

1337toothbrush posted...

Lil_Bit83 posted...

Pillowpantz posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

It seems way more chill than Islam, tbqh. It predates all other monotheistic religions. It also has Freddie Mercury as a member. :O

Because Islam unfortunately still operates by Dark Ages logic. Convert or die.

Meanwhile modern peaceful religions such as Christianity starve out enemies by imposing crippling sanctions, then when they're bored of that, they bomb the shit out of them and send their military in to shoot them up, steal their resources, and rape the locals. Then they set up military bases there so that the pillaging and raping can continue. Such a religion of peace. God told George W Bush to do things like this!

None of that has anything to do with Christianity.
---

1337toothbrush posted...

Lil_Bit83 posted...

Pillowpantz posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

It seems way more chill than Islam, tbqh. It predates all other monotheistic religions. It also has Freddie Mercury as a member. :O

Because Islam unfortunately still operates by Dark Ages logic. Convert or die.

Meanwhile modern peaceful religions such as Christianity starve out enemies by imposing crippling sanctions, then when they're bored of that, they bomb the shit out of them and send their military in to shoot them up, steal their resources, and rape the locals. Then they set up military bases there so that the pillaging and raping can continue. Such a religion of peace. God told George W Bush to do things like this!

All religions have been guilty of being psychotic, pushy, murderous assholes at some point in history. Its unfortunate that people feel the need to pull this kinda shit.
---

1337toothbrush posted...

Lil_Bit83 posted...

Pillowpantz posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

It seems way more chill than Islam, tbqh. It predates all other monotheistic religions. It also has Freddie Mercury as a member. :O

Because Islam unfortunately still operates by Dark Ages logic. Convert or die.

Meanwhile modern peaceful religions such as Christianity starve out enemies by imposing crippling sanctions, then when they're bored of that, they bomb the shit out of them and send their military in to shoot them up, steal their resources, and rape the locals. Then they set up military bases there so that the pillaging and raping can continue. Such a religion of peace. God told George W Bush to do things like this!

Your logic is faulty. The US doesnt do all of that in the name of Christianity...we do it in spite of it.
---

Zoroastrian imagery is still very prevalent. I've been seeing it in my household since I was a little kid (Iranian), and I only recently found out thanks to ISIS being in the news so much that Kurds have the same thing going on.
---

FLUFFYGERM posted...

uh no it's quite a bit stranger

it's natural.

we put our dead in the dead to rot and turn into soil

they let their dead feed the animals

same idea, different method

Ryetoast posted...

fenderbender321 posted...

Isn't forcing people to convert with violence a violation of Islamic (and almost all other religions') beliefs and principles?

Yes.

Forced conversions don't happen until much later with Wahabism (a very strict interpretation of Islam that ISIS prescribes).

---

FLUFFYGERM posted...

1337toothbrush posted...

Lil_Bit83 posted...

Pillowpantz posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

It seems way more chill than Islam, tbqh. It predates all other monotheistic religions. It also has Freddie Mercury as a member. :O

Because Islam unfortunately still operates by Dark Ages logic. Convert or die.

Meanwhile modern peaceful religions such as Christianity starve out enemies by imposing crippling sanctions, then when they're bored of that, they bomb the shit out of them and send their military in to shoot them up, steal their resources, and rape the locals. Then they set up military bases there so that the pillaging and raping can continue. Such a religion of peace. God told George W Bush to do things like this!

None of that has anything to do with Christianity.

scorpion41 posted...

Your logic is faulty. The US doesnt do all of that in the name of Christianity...we do it in spite of it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-military-weapons-inscribed-secret-jesus-bible-codes/story?id=9575794

http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/end-times/on-the-road-to-armageddon.aspx

But sure, keep talking about, "No True Scotsman" if it makes you feel better. A Muslim claiming God told him to do something terrible is instant undeniable proof that Islam is the scourge of humanity, but the Christian president of the USA claiming God told him to do something terrible is "in spite of Christianity".
---

BJ-blazkowics posted...

zoroastrianism is crazy. Some singer (I forgot who) was that, so when he died his body went through the zoroastrian ritual... which is literally leaving his body to rot in open air and have the birds and whatnot do whatever they want to it in some sort of special location.

It's gruesome and crazy and gory.

Sounds metal as fuck. Like going to Valhalla via birds.
---

Pow Pow Punishment posted...

Zoroastrian imagery is still very prevalent. I've been seeing it in my household since I was a little kid (Iranian), and I only recently found out thanks to ISIS being in the news so much that Kurds have the same thing going on.

I'm not surprised: like other widespread religions, Islam undoubtedly appropriated symbols and holidays from the religions it "defeated".
Zoroastrianism also held on in some areas of northwestern India and Afghanistan as well, IIRC. In fact, the area around modern Mumbai is believed to have the largest concentration of practicing Zoroastrians in the world today.

Zikten posted...

BJ-blazkowics posted...

zoroastrianism is crazy. Some singer (I forgot who) was that, so when he died his body went through the zoroastrian ritual... which is literally leaving his body to rot in open air and have the birds and whatnot do whatever they want to it in some sort of special location.

It's gruesome and crazy and gory.

no stranger than putting the body in the ground

lol

As has been mentioned, the monotheistic religions spread primarily through ruthless imperialism, especially early on. The one's we have today are simply the most appealing ones that also had a fantastic K/O stat.

Like others mentioned: forced conversion.

Those who tried to keep their religion fled to places like Gujarat, India. That's how you get Freddie Mercury who is a Parsis (i.e Persian) Indian, born in Zanzibar.
---

ElatedVenusaur posted...

An unrelated but fascinating tidbit is that part of the Sassanid royal family fled all the way to China and got Tang-backing for an expedition to liberate Persia. Most of the mercenaries they hired ended up defecting and they had to go back to China, where they were appointed to government posts and eventually Sinified.

Wow great post, have any more info about this tidbit or a source for me to read?
---

josifrees posted...

ElatedVenusaur posted...

An unrelated but fascinating tidbit is that part of the Sassanid royal family fled all the way to China and got Tang-backing for an expedition to liberate Persia. Most of the mercenaries they hired ended up defecting and they had to go back to China, where they were appointed to government posts and eventually Sinified.

Wow great post, have any more info about this tidbit or a source for me to read?

I can't verify Venusaur's post, but An Lushan, a relatively well known Chinese military general was of Iranian (Sogdian to be more specific) and Turkic origin during this time period.
Edit 2: some of his post is corroborated by this Wiki entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranians_in_China#Persians
---

josifrees posted...

ElatedVenusaur posted...

An unrelated but fascinating tidbit is that part of the Sassanid royal family fled all the way to China and got Tang-backing for an expedition to liberate Persia. Most of the mercenaries they hired ended up defecting and they had to go back to China, where they were appointed to government posts and eventually Sinified.

Wow great post, have any more info about this tidbit or a source for me to read?

I believe I read that in "The War of the Three Gods: Romans, Persians, and the Rise of Islam".
Which is the only reason I know anything about this topic. "The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam" sheds some more light on what was going on in the area pre-Islam.

Pow Pow Punishment posted...

Zoroastrian imagery is still very prevalent. I've been seeing it in my household since I was a little kid (Iranian), and I only recently found out thanks to ISIS being in the news so much that Kurds have the same thing going on.

Yeah I think the Kurds like to say they descend from the Medes, though honestly I think the Medes were absorbed by the Persians by the 3rd century CE.
---