Zoroastrians make a comeback in northern Iraq

#104 · 🔥 186 · 💬 105 · 2 years ago · www.reuters.com · jelliclesfarm · 📷
3 Min Read.DOHUK, Iraq - Carefully tucking his Farvahar pendant under his shirt, Aram Mehdi reminds himself of the core Zoroastrian principles it represents: good words, good thoughts and good deeds. His social network started falling apart when he decided to distance himself from Islam and follow the teachings of Zoroaster, who founded Zoroastrianism some 3,500 years ago in ancient Iran.Spreading as far as India, it was the official religion of three Persian dynasties until the 7th Century CE. It rapidly declined with the rise of Islam and all but disappeared in Iraq.But in the country's Kurdish region, Zoroastrianism witnessed an unexpected revival after the extremist Islamic State group occupied vast swathes of northern Iraq, imposing a brutal doctrine of Islam and persecuting religious minorities. "I began to ask myself, is theirs the true Islam, or the Islam that my parents taught me?" Mehdi said. Most of them were Kurds converting from Islam, but Arabs and Christians joined the movement as well, she said. Although the regional Kurdish government officially recognised Zoroastrianism in 2015, converts from Islam remain registered as Muslims at the central Iraqi government, something Taieb does not expect to change any time soon. Dohuk's Zoroastrians still have some way to go to gain universal acceptance - some local sheikhs have labelled Zoroastrians as infidels on social media. With nowhere to practise their rites, Dohuk's Zoroastrians hope to grow in numbers and open a temple elsewhere.
Zoroastrians make a comeback in northern Iraq



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