Jamsheed Choksy

• Indiana University Bloomington

This article explores what is known and not known about Yazd and its nearby settlements from antiquity through the ninth/fifteenth century. The article begins with deliberation on the location of the city in pre-Islamic and Islamic times. The investigation expands to include examination of the urban center, its polity and faith-based communities, t...

The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism. By Patricia Crone. Pp. xviii + 566, 6 maps. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xvii + 566. $109.99 (cloth), $29.99 (paperback), $24 (ebook).

Yet, among the earliest surviving religious sites from the Achaemenid empire is the outdoor open-air fire precinct at Paārsarga or Pasargadae, the royal capital of Kuūru š or Cyrus II. After Arab Muslims conquered Iran in the 7th century, Zoroastrianism began to decline demographically and institutionally. Most urban Zoroastrians adopted Islam betw...

This article reinvestigates the history and historiography of early contacts between Iranians and Ceylonese (now called Sri Lankans), mainly from the fifth century BCE to fifth century CE with some extensions into later times. Why and where those connections occurred and how they shaped each groups understanding of and influence on each other are s...

This chapter introduces the reader to an important theme in Zoroastrianism’s sacred texts, as well as to the major elements in the broader historical and theological contexts essential to the interpretation of that theme. Coming to the fore are teachings of Zarathustra’s principal spiritual descendants, the Magi, concerning the contest of cosmic fo...

This article reassesses orthographic and linguistic issues relating to Iranian usages of the word xiiaona-in Avestan and later forms. It is suggested the word could have been picked up by the Avestan people and rendered into their language to serve as a discriminatory designation for a nearby group of enemies among the various Proto-Iranian folk.

A little over three decades ago, during the reign of the last Pahlavi monarch Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, non-Muslim religious minorities in Iran experienced life within a relatively tolerant society. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran's native Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, Mandaeans, and Baha'is have experienced increasing discrimination...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: A brilliant social historian has taken on a highly interesting issue from medieval times and produced a fascinating study with complex theoretical frameworks, carefully appraised datasets, and majestic sweeps of insights relevant to both the past and the present. Add to that mix Richa...

Constructs, permutations, functions, and bases of friends and friendships in society and sociopolitical hierarchies are analyzed within the context of religiosity in Iran and Iranian regions of Central Asia.

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Sogdian Traders: A History. By de la VaissièreÉtienne. Translated by WardJames. Leiden: Brill, 2005. xiv, 410 pp. $199.00 (cloth). - Volume 67 Issue 1 - Jamsheed K. Choksy

This article reexamines and reassesses some of the pertinent materials, contexts, and historical documents relating to ritual fires, altars, and temples in ancient Iran. It attempts to clarify designations and functions in terms of chronology, identification, and usage.

A historical perspective is combined with more recent developments to understand the position of Zoroastrians among minority communities in premodern and modem Iran. When that community's political, economic, demographic, social, and religious experiences are investigated and its members' responses to those situations are determined, development of...

scripture has ritual uses aimed at giving religion meaning in daily life. in zoroastrianism, the niya¯yiinvocations of praisets, have played fundamental roles in connecting doctrine and theology to praxis and conviction whereby faith and rites have been transmitted and augmented across many generations. this article discusses some of the contents a...

Issues of hagiography and monotheism were central to the historical development of Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity (and subsequently Islam). Overlapping geo graphical locales and cultural heritages, especially during the rule of ancient Iranian dynasties and within Iranian territory, seem to have facilitated and reinforced common solutions...

The earliest period of Islamic thought has emerged as a major focus of contemporary scholarship during the past few decades, with a variety of techniques—ranging from historical documentation and historiographical analysis to narrative reconstruction and source criticism—being applied to comprehend more accurately the ideas and events that fueled t...

The Encyclopaedia Iranica is Truly a Monumental Undertaking, Containing thousands of carefully selected items of information covering most aspects of Iranian civilization past and present. As the first seven volumes demonstrate, it is an indispensable reference work that belongs in the libraries of all universities and in the homes of everyone inte...

It has been suggested that all historical sources are subjective from their inception and that authors' styles, commitments and views determine the bases of historical writings. Claude Lévi-Strauss has ventured so far as to claim: “Besides, historical fact has no objective reality. It only exists as a result of a retrospective construction undertak...

The Arab conquest of the Sasanian empire (633-651 A.D.) provided the Iranian peoples with their first extensive contact with Islam. Prior to this, encounters between Zoroastrians and Muslims had generally been restricted to the lower reaches of the Mesopotamian plain. More importantly, this conquest installed Islam as the religion of the new rulers...