Opinion | Why Iran Needs To Rediscover Zoroastrianism

Dr G Shreekumar Menon

The religion of your ancestors needs to be respected and honoured. Conversion to a different faith does not and should not mean renouncing one’s ancestral faith

Iranians today are literally living inside Panchagni (Sanskrit: पञ्चाग्नि), which translates to “five fires" and refers to a severe Hindu ascetic penance involving four fires surrounding a seeker with the sun as the fifth. Iran finds itself in a Panchagni, battered and bombarded from all directions by missiles and drones. Soon it will be another Gaza, and if nukes are used, it will be “Agni-nakshatram"—a term derived from Sanskrit where “Agni" means “fire" and “Nakshatram" means “star," literally meaning “fiery star."

The United States conducted a test launch of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on 3 March 2026. The missile, often referred to as a “doomsday missile," was unarmed and struck a test target near the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Air Force Command revealed that the missile, carrying two re-entry vehicles, travelled several thousand miles before reaching its planned impact zone near the Marshall Islands in the west-central Pacific Ocean. Even if a crude nuke is deployed by Iran, the consequences for the region can be devastating. The solution for Iran is not in making it into another Gaza or by threatening the use of nukes.

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Iran’s recent history is an oscillation between obscurantist ideology and liberal Westernisation. Before the Islamic revolution, Iran had been ruled by the Shah monarchy, and it was called “Iran," not the “Islamic Republic of Iran." Although freedom was restricted, people enjoyed many amenities and led comfortable lives. The Shah had adopted a Western-oriented secular modernisation, which meant that Western clothing and norms were ingrained into large segments of the Iranian population.

Part of the process of Westernising Iran gave relief to the population from mindless religious fundamentalism. The Shah went about doing this by banning veils in public and enabling women to dress freely. Under the obscurantist Islamic rule now, women bear the brunt of oppression, starting from clothing to education.

The number of executions has also skyrocketed under the present Islamic regime. Currently, Iran is second only to China in the number of executions it carries out—executing hundreds every year, mainly for “murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, kidnapping, rape, child molestation, sodomy, espionage, terrorism, apostasy, ‘enmity against God’ and ‘corruption on earth’!"

During the last days of the Shah, on 7 October 1962, a controversial bill that laid the groundwork for the Islamic Movement in Iran started the era of fundamentalism. The “State and Provincial Associations Bill" concerned the formation of provincial and city councils, and contained clauses that provoked strong reactions among hardcore Islamists. According to the bill, the condition of being Muslim and swearing by the Qur’an was removed, and the term “heavenly book" was used instead of the Qur’an during the swearing-in ceremony.

Imam Khomeini, a religious authority and a fundamentalist, objected to the bill, warning that Israel was involved and that the Shah wanted to hand over the country’s affairs to Israel and bring the Baha’is to power. This was the nation’s first conflict with the Shah.

A year later, the Capitulation Law was passed by the Shah in favour of the Americans. This law prevented Americans from being punished in Iran; they were immune to any wrongdoing, and the Iranian courts had no right to prosecute them. After Imam Khomeini objected to this law, the Shah attacked the seminary in Qom, killing a large number of scholars, arresting Imam Khomeini, and deporting him to Iraq. Imam Khomeini was in exile for 15 years. The Islamic Revolution reached its peak in 1979, the Shah had to flee, and Imam Khomeini returned to the country. The Iranian nation brought the obscurantist Imam Khomeini to power. It was the Iranian people themselves who decided to reject the dictatorship of the Shah and elected the fundamentalist Islamic system. The Shah ruled Iran with absolute authority for twenty-six years, feigning some kind of democratic cover story for global consumption. But Khomeini’s rule tightened fundamentalism to drastic levels and routed the nation on the path of decadence. The Islamic Republic of Iran has had only two supreme leaders: Khomeini, who held the position from 1979 until his death in 1989, and Ali Khamenei, who held the position from Khomeini’s death until his assassination in 2026. Iran became the epicentre of Shiite Islam, which is the official state religion. Ninety to 95% of the population identify accordingly.

For over three decades, Khamenei subjected Iranians to severe authoritarianism and repression, culminating in his ordering security forces to shoot and kill several hundred protestors in January 2026. The January unrest followed similar waves in 2017-18, 2019-20, and 2022-23. Khamenei refused to listen to the logical demands of demonstrators for political, economic, and social change.

Ultimately, Iran’s story thus far has been a transition from one despot to another. The future ruler of Iran will soon be decided by the Trump-Netanyahu duo. However, shuffling despots will not bring any dramatic changes in the lives of the Iranian people, nor ease regional and global tensions. What is needed for Iran is the restoration of their ancient past and heritage, to travel back in time as far as 3,500 years ago to rediscover Zoroastrianism, founded by the prophet Zoroaster (also known as Zarathustra) in ancient Persia.

Zoroastrianism is one of the world’s oldest continuously practised monotheistic faiths, originating in ancient Persia (modern-day Iran) between 1800-1600 B.C.E. This faith teaches the importance of ethical living: good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. Fire carries deep symbolic meaning in this tradition, as fire represents purity, divine light, and wisdom. In everyday prayer, Zoroastrians often face a source of light or flame—whether a temple fire, a household lamp, or even the sun—to focus their intentions.

Once the state religion of the Persian empire, it was decimated after the 7th-century Islamic conquest. Zoroastrianism was the state religion of Iran from 550 B.C.E. to about 651 C.E., when the region was conquered by Arab forces. That is a period of 1,100 years, with only an 80-year interlude when the region was ruled by the Greeks. Today, there are only about 100,000+ followers globally, with the largest community (Parsis) in India and others dispersed across the globe.

At a spiritual level, Zoroastrianism is a religion that teaches one to always be in balance—nothing in excess and nothing in deficiency—that is, to hit the Golden Mean, which is what the Greek philosophers picked up on.

The Islamic conquest of Iran occurred primarily between 633 and 651 C.E. and saw the Rashidun Caliphate overthrow the Sassanid Persian Empire, initiating the decline of Zoroastrianism and the rise of Islam. Between the 7th century and the 16th century, Sunni Islam was dominant among Iranians, but this changed with the Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam, which marked a major societal shift for the nation. Shia Islam remains dominant in present-day Iran, where it is the official religion, as well as in Iraq and Azerbaijan.

Iran has been on a cultural and religious decline since the Islamic invasion, as the two religions are diametrically opposite. While Islam tends to regiment everything down to minutiae, insisting on unquestioning submissiveness, discouraging scientific inquiry, and suppressing individuality, Zoroastrianism encourages philosophical striving, truth-seeking, questioning, and the attainment of higher human ideals.

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu need to understand that thrusting a new despot on Iran, who might temporarily toe their line, is not a solution for world peace. To counteract Islamic fundamentalism, there is a need to set the tone for the revival of Zoroastrianism and its liberal values. Even hardcore Islamist Saudi Arabia is currently undergoing a significant cultural shift under Vision 2030, which includes restoring and promoting pre-Islamic heritage sites to promote a more moderate form of Islam. This move represents a major change from ultra-conservative Wahhabism, which regarded pre-Islamic objects as idols to be destroyed.

Wahhabism, the ultra-conservative branch of Islam that emerged in Saudi Arabia 250 years ago, regards the veneration of objects—especially those predating the Prophet Muhammad’s life in the seventh century—as tantamount to idolatry and has advocated their outright destruction. Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, head of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH), correctly puts it: “I believe you cannot understand Islam as a great religion if you are dismissing completely what happened before Islam." It is this attitude that is needed globally.

The religion of your ancestors needs to be respected and honoured. Conversion to a different faith does not and should not mean renouncing one’s ancestral faith. No family, community, or nation can afford to relegate the faith followed by their ancestors. Much of the ills plaguing many countries, like religious fundamentalism, terrorism, and obscurantism, are due to absolute ignorance about their ancestral religion and culture. The need is to use government machinery, educational and cultural ministries, and departments to keep alive the ancestral faith, its principles, values, and traditions.

India also has to learn from the Saudi Prince’s initiative regarding the need to keep alive ancestral faith. Issues like Ayodhya, Mathura, Varanasi, Thiruparankundram, Sabarimala, Baba Budangiri, and social issues like love Jihad, food Jihad, dress Jihad, and ongoing covert and overt conversions happening all over the country will be a thing of the past if people are imparted knowledge about their ancestral faith. They must understand that conversion does not mean renouncing one’s ancestral faith and replacing it with foreign godmen and an entirely different belief system. As correctly said by Nimish Dayalu in Caveman’s Secret Sauce: Finding Answers to the World’s Oldest Questions: “Killing a belief could be worse than killing a human being. When you kill a human, you take their life, but when you take their faith, they are left without hope, without meaning." This is the real challenge for Trump and Netanyahu: not installing an obedient despot, but transforming Iranians into accepting their ancestral faith as part and parcel of the changed dynamics.

The writer is Former Director General, Multi-Disciplinary School of Economic Intelligence, and National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes & Narcotics. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views

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