Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest religions, "combining a cosmogonic dualism and eschatological monotheism in a manner unique... among the major religions of the world." It was founded by the Iranian Prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathustra) in the second millennium BCE as one of the oldest world religions. Zoroastrianism was the official religion of the Iranian empires until Islam superseded it in the seventh century AD. Ascribed to the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster, its Supreme Being is Ahura Mazda. Leading characteristics, such as messianism, heaven and hell, and free will influenced other religious systems, including Second Temple Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and Islam. For a thousand years, forms of Zoroastrianism (including a Mithraic Median prototype and Zurvanist Sassanid successor) was one of the world's most important faith traditions, serving as the state religion of the pre-Islamic Iranian empires from around 600 BCE to 650 CE. Zoroastrianism was suppressed from the 7th century onwards following the Muslim conquest of Persia. Recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 2.6 million, with most living in India and Iran. Besides the Zoroastrian diaspora, the older Mithraic faith Yazdanism is still practised amongst the Kurds.