Zoroastrianism

Meaning

Proper Noun

• Mazdaism, the surviving form of the indigenous (pre-Islamic) Iranian ethnic religion.
• The historical (pre-Islamic) indigenous beliefs and practices of the Iranian peoples.

Origin

• From Zoroastrian + --ism, influenced by Greek, Latin, Arabic and Syriac reports of Zoroaster as the “lawgiver” of the Iranian peoples, as reviewed in Thomas Hyde's Veterum Persarum et Parthorum et Medorum Religionis Historia, 1700.