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TheKitāb al-muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīnby Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad Ibn al-Malāḥimī al-Khwārazmī (d. 536/1141) belongs to the Muʿtazilī theological works that present valuable insight into the intricate history of religions and their contacts. Recently, scholars have identified other manuscripts of this book which comprise passages absent in previously known manuscripts. The enlarged edition of 2012 now comprises the complete chapter on Zoroastrianism, of which only a short part was extant in the first edition. This article translates the whole chapter on Zoroastrianism, along with the vocalized Arabic original text, to make it more accessible to historians of Iranian religions. This translation is then followed by a discussion of the implications of this piece for the history of Zoroastrianism after Islam. After discussing the inner-textual structure of the text the inter-textual relations of this text are examined, along with al-Shahristānī's account on Zoroastrianism. Through this comparison, it is shown that the major part of both texts most probably originates from theRadd ʿalā l-Majūs(Refutation of Zoroastrians) by Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq. In this way, the article shows that both al-Shahristānī's and Ibn al-Malāḥimī's texts are relevant for the history of Zoroastrianism in ninth-century Baghdad.

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- A Note on Persian and Arabic Transliteration and Translation -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter I: Women in the Sasanian Zoroastrianism -- Chapter II: Zoroastrian Dadestan: From Sasanian Era to Islam -- Chapter III: Purification -- Chapter IV: Islam and Menstruation -- Chapter V: Sexual Relations in Zoroastrianism and Islam -- Epilogue -- Bibliography -- Glossary

"Patricia Crone's latest book is about the Iranian response to the Muslim penetration of the Iranian countryside, the revolts subsequently triggered there, and the religious communities that these revolts revealed. The book also describes a complex of religious ideas that, however varied in space and unstable over time, has demonstrated a remarkable persistence in Iran across a period of two millennia. The central thesis is that this complex of ideas has been endemic to the mountain population of Iran and occasionally become epidemic with major consequences for the country, most strikingly in the revolts examined here, and in the rise of the Safavids who imposed Shi'ism on Iran. This learned and engaging book by one of the most influential scholars of early Islamic history casts entirely new light on the nature of religion in pre-Islamic Iran, and on the persistence of Iranian religious beliefs both outside and inside Islam after the Arab conquest"--

This paper argues that the designation of heterodoxy for the socio-religious movements of late antique Iran such as Mazdakism is a misnomer. It suggests that the designation of Mazdakism and similar movements as heterodoxies is in fact the product of an early Islamic assessment of post-Sasanian Zoroastrian attempts to create a Zoroastrian orthodoxy which did not exist under Sasanian rule. Pressured by the Abrahamic religions surrounding them, the followers of Weh Dēn in this period felt the need to demarcate and clarify their beliefs, and to make their own beliefs comprehensible to their neighbors and rulers. What was then left out of this attempt was labeled a deviation, and heterodoxy, whose fundamental disagreement with Zoroastrian orthodoxy was then reflected back in time.

This paper explores the Middle Persian term agdēn, which is often problematically translated as "infidel." By tracing this term of otherness through Middle Persian texts such as legal cases in The Book of a Thousand Judgments and polemics in the Dēnkard Book III, this article argues that the concept of the infidel frequently appears in discussions about slavery, intermarriage, and conversion to and from Zoroastrianism. Middle Persian legal and theological texts regarding infidels deal with cases in which Zoroastrian interactions with non-Zoroastrians impinge upon Zoroastrian boundaries of identity. Moreover, the term agdēn often refers to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, thereby offering insight into the ties between Zoroastrian self-identity and other groups which the Persian priests encountered. In the end, this paper demonstrates the need for further intensive studies into Middle Persian technical terms of otherness as they lie at the heart of questions of Zoroastrian self-definition and attitudes towards others.