Many of these kids are saying that Islam is “un-Iranian” and that everyone should return to the pre-Islam Iranian religion. The odd thing is that Christianity was never really big in Iran. Iran’s pre-Christian religion, Zoroastrianism, survived until it was largely replaced by Islam 1,400 years ago, after dominating the country for about 1,500 years. The government has been blocking Farsi language sites about Zoroastrianism, which have been growing in popularity over the last few years, apparently in response to the seemingly dreadful impact of Islam. Many Zoroastrianism customs survived the arrival of Islam, much to the chagrin of Moslem clerics. Efforts to stamp out these customs only makes them more popular. The only surviving Zoroastrians (about 150,000) are found mainly in India (about half of them), with small communities in Pakistan and other Central Asian nations. There are also thousands living in the West. There are believed to be over 10,000 still in Iran, where they maintain a very low profile. Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion (worship of only one God) that appeared about the same time as Judaism, in a period when monotheism was rare. The oldest major religion is Hinduism, which is polytheistic (with thousands of Gods).
