Auch Gedanken fallen manchmal unreif vom Baum.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Books about Zoroastrianism
I recently took part in a Five Books interview on books about Zoroastrianism. Five Books is an impressively productive platform, covering a remarkable range of topics, genres, and disciplines. Reading its interviews can quickly become addictive. The website’s mission is both simple and effective: We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject…
Technical vocabulary in Zoroastrian exegesis
The Institute of Iranian Studies invites you to the International Conference 5–6 June “The Sources of the Polemical Treatise Škand Gumānīg Wizār” Škand Gumānīg Wizār (The Doubt-Breaking Explanation) is the only surviving Zoroastrian polemical treatise. It was written in Middle Persian in the 9th or 10th century AD, under the Abbasid dynasty, in Iran. While the original…
Young Zarathushti Leaders
I had the pleasure of attending the third World Zoroastrian Youth Leaders Forum to speak about the legends of the life of Zardušt to a group of young Zoroastrians, but I ended up gaining far more than I gave. Set in the most beautiful and serene of locations, this was a transformative experience for me (I…
Mansour Shaki (1919–2000)
Mansour Shaki, a wide-ranging scholar of Middle Persian, died 26 years ago on this day. Born in 1919, he shifted from the sciences to linguistics in 1954 after a period of ill health. In 1963, he published his study The Zurvanits and the Dahrits: The first materialistic schools of philosophy in Iran, marking the start of…
This is a bitter Norouz!
Today we celebrate renewal. We welcome a new season, we hope for joy, we reaffirm friendships, we eat together, we celebrate love and life. This year, as we face war and destruction, we also reflect on the bombs that fall, the bullets that fly, and the lives that are senselessly lost. We hear the last sighs…
Whose is Zoroastrianism?
As scholars studying Zoroastrianism, we must ask this question more often: What is the subject of our academic gaze, and whose is the subject of our study? We must ask, not to confront, but to challenge ourselves and our enquiries. We must ask and debate, lest our tools become blunt and rusty. Brought up in a…