The Sasanian kings make Zoroastrianism the religion of state: a ranked priesthood, fire temples in every district, and an orthodoxy defined in the Pahlavi books. The empire's four centuries are the faith's classical age, and its fall in 651 opens the long minority centuries.
Tagged: Iranian Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism
The Event
- Date
- 224-651 (exact)
- Also called
- Sasanian Persia
- Era
- Sasanian Age; Standard periodization of Zoroastrian history
- Location
- Ctesiphon, Persia; today Iraq and Iran
- Traditions
- Zoroastrianism
- Streams
- Iranian Zoroastrian
Connections
Primary Sources
- The tradition's own record of the event.
Secondary Sources
- Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. London: Routledge, 1979.
- Choksy, Jamsheed K. Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, entries on the Avesta, the Sasanians, and the Parsi calendar disputes.
- Hinnells, John R. The Zoroastrian Diaspora: Religion and Migration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
- Rose, Jenny. Zoroastrianism: An Introduction. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011.
Provenance: HIST-1006; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-28.
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