Wikimedia CommonsCulture
Persian / Zoroastrian
Location
Yazd Province, Iran
Key Figures
Ahura Mazda, Zarathustra (Zoroaster), Angra Mainyu
Images via Wikimedia Commons
The Myth
The story as told by the culture
In Zoroastrianism, fire is the most visible symbol of Asha (truth, righteousness, cosmic order) — the fundamental principle that Ahura Mazda (the Wise Lord, the supreme god) created to oppose Druj (the Lie, chaos, evil). Fire is not worshipped as a god but revered as the purest creation of Ahura Mazda, the element that cannot be corrupted. Zoroastrian temples are called fire temples (atashkadeh) because they house sacred fires that must never be extinguished.
The Atash Behram ('Fire of Victory') in Yazd is the highest grade of Zoroastrian sacred fire, created by combining 16 different types of fire — including fire from a lightning strike, a king's hearth, a baker's oven, a goldsmith's furnace, and a cremation pyre. The fire in Yazd's Atash Behram is said to have been burning continuously since 470 CE — over 1,550 years — having been moved multiple times to protect it from destruction.
Zoroastrian theology holds that at the end of time (Frashokereti), Ahura Mazda will triumph definitively over Angra Mainyu, the dead will be resurrected, and the world will be purified by a river of molten metal — a cosmic fire that will burn away all evil and leave only truth. This eschatology profoundly influenced Jewish, Christian, and Islamic concepts of final judgment.
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Myth types
The Place
The physical location today
Yazd is a desert city of approximately 530,000 people in central Iran, set between the Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut deserts at an elevation of about 1,200 meters. The old city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2017, is a remarkable labyrinth of mud-brick houses, narrow lanes (kuche), badgirs (wind towers for natural ventilation), and qanats (underground water channels).
The Atash Behram fire temple is in the center of the city, recognizable by the Faravahar symbol (a winged disc representing the divine grace) above the entrance. The Towers of Silence (Dakhma) on the hills outside the city are former Zoroastrian funerary sites where the dead were exposed to vultures to avoid polluting earth, fire, or water. This practice ceased in the 1970s.
Visit information
Access
Open — the Atash Behram is open to visitors (non-Zoroastrians may not enter the inner sanctum); Towers of Silence are publicly accessible
Nearest city
Yazd, Iran (within city); Isfahan (190 mi); Tehran (400 mi)
Notes
The fire temple interior is viewable through glass. The old city is best explored on foot. The Towers of Silence are a moderate walk from the city and provide panoramic desert views. Yazd's traditional cuisine includes distinctive sweets (baghlava, qottab) found nowhere else.
The History
What archaeology and scholarship tell us
Yazd has been a center of Zoroastrianism since the Sasanian period (224-651 CE). After the Arab Muslim conquest of Iran in the 7th century, Zoroastrians in Yazd maintained their faith under varying degrees of tolerance and persecution. Yazd's geographic isolation in the central desert helped protect its Zoroastrian community when communities elsewhere converted or dispersed.
Today, Iran's Zoroastrian population is estimated at 25,000-50,000, with the largest communities in Yazd and Tehran. India's Parsi community (approximately 60,000) descends from Zoroastrian refugees who fled Iran after the Arab conquest. The religion that once had hundreds of millions of adherents across the Persian Empire now numbers perhaps 150,000 worldwide — but the fire still burns.
Sources
Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (1979). Routledge. The standard scholarly introduction to Zoroastrianism including the theology of sacred fire
Tier 2Boyce, Mary. A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism (1977). Oxford University Press. Ethnography of living Zoroastrian practice in the Yazd region based on fieldwork
Tier 1Nearby Sites
Continuous — fire said to have been lit 470 CE; Zoroastrian tradition from c. 1500 BCE
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