Huntsville gazette., 1886-12-04
: THE FIRE-WORSHIPERS
The Strange Doctrines and Gus
toms Of Zoroaster's People.
To His Intelligent Followers Fire is But a
symbol of Gods Nature-The yul-
ture Test-A New Years
Festival

Many readers OF the Companion are
familiar with the fervid lines of Moore's
splendid poem called the "Fire-Wo or
Slippers The farewell scene between
Hated and Kinda is one of the most af-
fecting passages in the early poetry of
this century. 1t has been so widely read
and has produced so deep an impress
sion that there are many whose idea of
the prevalent religion OF Persia is de-
rived from perusal of that poem; and
often has the question been asked me
whether there is any other religion
practiced in that country besides that
of the worship of fire.
The facts are that out of popula-
ton of nine millions, that empire now
numbers scarcely twenty-five thousand
worshipers of fire. With the excep-
,tion of less than seventy-fve thousand
Armenians, Jews and HISTORIANS, the
remainder of the Persian people are
Mohammedans. It was soon after the
rise Of Mahomet that his fanatical
=. hosts assailed the frontiers of Persia.
Yezdegird ILL.,, who proved to be the
last of his line, was at that time sover-
eign of Iran. His army was defeated
in the decisive battle of Kadesich, he
himself was slain two years later, and
the-Persians were forced to accept Ma
hommedanism or the sword.
Those who refused to abandon the
old faith of Zoroaster for that of Ma
homet were prosecuted, and mostly
slain or driven from the country.
Those who fled from Persia sought
refuge in India, where they form, in
our time, an intelligent and iourishing
community, known by the name OF
Parsees, or Persians. 1t is amid these
struggles of an ancient race against
the domination of a new religion and
dynasty that Moore has laid the scene
of his ssFire-W orshipers. - Notwith-
standing these long prosecutions, which
have continued over one thousand
years, and only now are beginning to
relax and permit the Fire-W Worshipers
of Persia to live there unmolested, yet
small, steadfast band has always re-
manned in that land, preserving the
faith of their. fathers and their rites and
ceremonials unchanged.
In Persia they are called Guebres.
This is simply corruption of the Ara
bic term Kaffir, which means hereto,
an rmbeliever. In time it has become
word of contumely and scorn. Al
though so few in numbers, yet the
Guebres are most interesting COM
: munity, and in them we see the old
Persian stock of the days of Cyrus and
Xerxes unmixed with any other race;
while the religion they practice is that
which was introduced into Persia or
perfected by the famous Zoroaster, OF
Zerduseht. who lived at least twenty
five centuries ago.
Zoroaster was born in the northern
province called both then and now
sAzerbaiian; this name means the re-
: gion of fire, and it may have been so
called because the religion whose dis
tinctive doctrine is the worship of fire
had its origin there. 1t is only just to
state that intelligent Guebres repudiate
mistake to call them Fire-W orshipers.
They say that fire is to them not an OBJ
ject Of worship, but only symbol OF
the benefcent Oromasd, or good God,
s.swho is clear and radiant and pure.
{ like the glow Of the rising sun or the
9 flames of fire, and that it is through
the. symbol that they adore the good
Spirit.
This may be true of the more inteili-
gent followers of the doctrines OF Zorro
aster, but there is no doubt that the
ignorant classes believe that light and
fire are real emanations of God, and
worship them as such. Fire is held by
them so sacred that they will never
smoke tobacco, and for that reason 1t
is not by them considered courteous to
use the weed in the presence of host
or guest who is Guebre. In every
household of the Guebres fire kindled
from the sacred fame at the new year
is kept burning the entire year. That
is the purpose they follow, but "heth-