One of the world's oldest living religions, taught by the Iranian prophet Zarathustra at a date scholars cannot fix. It worships Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, and frames existence as a moral struggle between truth and the lie, in which each person must choose. Closely tied to Iranian kingship and above all to the Sasanian Empire before the Arab-Muslim conquest reduced it to a minority, it survives among the Parsis of India and Iranian Zoroastrians, and scholars debate its disputed influence on Jewish, Christian, and Islamic ideas of heaven, hell, and a final judgment.
A common label calls them fire-worshippers, and it has clung to them for centuries. The believers reject it flatly. They do not pray to the flame any more than other people pray to a candle. The fire is a symbol of purity and of a god who is light and truth. It is kept burning so the worshipper can face something clean while turning the mind toward a creator who cannot be seen. The gap between what outsiders saw and what the faithful meant runs through the whole history of this religion.