Distinction and Survival: Zoroastrians, Religious Nationalism, and Cultural Ownership in Shi'i Iran

Abstract

This article argues that the notion of Iranian culture employed in the public discourse of Zoroastrians allows them to tackle the dilemma of Shi'i-dominated Iranianness without provoking Shi'i authorities. The piece offers an analysis of ethnographic data, including detailed speech acts documented in Zoroastrians' ritual spaces and cultural exhibitions. It explores the Zoroastrian configuration of an Iranian culture that summons and encodes pre-Islamic tropes and modern nationalist sentiments by constantly maneuvering around national, religious, and ethnic categories. This configuration's underpinning assumptions, narratives, and texts have powerful platforms in Iranian nationalist imagination. I propose that this arrangement attempts to carve out a space for Zoroastrians' distinct identity by connecting the history of the Muslim Arab invasion of Persia to the Shi'i hegemonic norms of Iranian culture today. It further invokes Zoroaster's indigeneity and teachings as the foundation of authentic Iranianness to establish Zoroastrians' survival as a cultural system.