1. Introduction
Political, ethnic and religious circumstances have resulted in a confusing abundance of self- and external designations for the Zoroastrians of Iran and their language. Zoroastrians traditionally refer to themselves as Wēh-dēn “(follower) of the good religion” or Mazdayasn. During the Islamic period, in addition to the Persian form of Wēh-dēn, namely Behdīn, the term Zartošti meaning “a follower of Zarathushtra” or “Zoroastrian” also gained popularity. These terms refer to the Zoroastrians of both Iran and India.
The term Pārsī is commonly used for the descendants of the Zoroastrians who left Iran and settled in India, as well as for those who later migrated from India to other countries around the globe. This term can also exceptionally refer to the Zoroastrians of Iran, as seen, for instance, in the work of Houtum-Schindler (Reference Houtum-Schindler1882). Another term is Irānī, used by Zoroastrians on the Indian subcontinent to designate those who emigrated from Iran to India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and are culturally, linguistically and socially distinct from the Pārsīs.
The Zoroastrians of Iran have preserved their own language which is distinctively different from the dominant New Persian language. Most of them refer to their language as Darī although some Zoroastrians call it Gavrūnī. The use of the latter term by some community members has raised serious discussions and conflicts in recent years within the community because of its negative connotations. To solve this problem, the Council of Iranian Zoroastrian Priests engaged in a variety of activities and called to abandon the term Gavrūnī, recommending only to use the term Darī. Footnote 1
In the academic literature, scholars use a range of different designations. They include Zoroastrian Darī, Behdīnī, Gūyeš or Lahğe-ye Zartoštīyān and Gūyeš-e Behdīnān, the last three meaning “dialect of the Zoroastrians”. Terms such as Yazdī and Kermānī for the Zoroastrian dialect of the cities of Yazd and Kerman have also occasionally been employed. In addition, in the past, scholars also used the term Gavrī (also Gavrūnī, Gabrī), but this designation has become obsolete due to its pejorative undertones. However, in recent years some scholars (Ivanov and Dodykhudoeva Reference Ivanov and Leyli Dodykhudoeva2010; Zykov Reference Zykov2015; Bernard Reference Bernard2019, Reference Bernard2020) have revived the terms Gavrī, Gavrūnī and Gabrī. In view of the debate that has taken place within the community of the Zoroastrians of Iran, and the decision and recommendation of the Council of Iranian Zoroastrian Mubeds, the question arises whether the terms Gavrī etc. are suitable at all to be used in academic discourse.
In order to answer this question, the terminology for the Zoroastrians of Iran and of their language will be investigated below. Following this introduction, Section 2 surveys various external designations, of which those with negative value have been amply used by Iranian Muslims throughout history to discriminate against and deride Zoroastrians. A major aim of this section is to trace the development of the meaning and value of Gabr and Gabrī in a historical and cultural context. Section 3 reviews internal/self-designation terms used by the Zoroastrians of Iran themselves, along with their function and appearance in Zoroastrian sources. In Section 4, the terms denoting the language of Zoroastrians are discussed. I first review the history of the use of each term in the scholarly tradition and then present the opinions of various scholars from both emic (in-group) and etic (out-group) perspectives. The arguments recently put forward by scholars in favour of the Gabrī are critically examined and rejected, and it is concluded that the term Gabrī is both unsuitable and unhelpful to denote the language of the Zoroastrians of Iran. The case is made that the term Zoroastrian Darī is the more appropriate designation to be used in scholarly research and publications on the language of the Zoroastrians of Iran. Finally, concluding remarks are presented in Section 5.
2. Pejorative external designations
2.1. Historical background
As is well known, following the Arab conquest of Iran in the seventh century ce, Zoroastrians gradually lost their status as the dominant majority of the land. Under Umar, the second Muslim Caliph (reigned 632–34),Footnote 2 they were awarded the status of “People of the Book” or dhimmis. The status of dhimmi was assigned to non-Muslims, first to the Jews and Christians and at a later date to the Zoroastrians and other groups (Gordon Reference Gordon2005: 28). Discrimination and persecution against Zoroastrians increased during the reign of the late Umayyad Caliphs in the eighth century. Non-Muslims were not allowed to work for the government or hold officer positions in the military. Like other dhimmis, Zoroastrians were obliged to pay the ğizya (or jizya) tax.
Discrimination, persecution and a strong stream of conversions to Islam pushed Zoroastrians to migrate. Between the seventh and tenth centuries,Footnote 3 a number of them emigrated to India and established the Pārsī community in search of a safer life and to preserve their religious identity. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, prejudicial encounters between the majority and minorities became more overt. The Safavids (1502–1736) launched a programme of conversion to Shi'ite Islam (Kestenberg Amighi Reference Kestenberg Amighi2014), resulting in a large loss of Zoroastrian population. Muslim discrimination against Zoroastrians is documented by various reports of European visitors (Firby Reference Firby1988).
The ascension of the Qajars (1794–1925) continued this discrimination, at least until the first half of the nineteenth century. Various sources from this period offer considerable evidence of the mistreatment of Zoroastrians by Muslims. They include letters written by Zoroastrian institutions and sent to India, and reports by Western travellers and Parsees who came to Iran from India to help their fellow believers in the homeland (Kestenberg Amighi Reference Kestenberg Amighi2014).
In 1882, Houtum-Schindler, who was appointed to Persia as an employee by the Indo-European Telegraph Service, reported on the social status of Zoroastrians in Yazd and Kerman.Footnote 4 According to him, the Zoroastrians were not as well off as the Jews, another minority group, and were despised to a greater degree and treated worse:
For example, the Muslims do not allow a Parsee to ride. A Parsee,Footnote 5 a geber, as he is called, who is tired from working in the fields, climbs upon his donkey used for farming to ride home, [and if] he meets Muslims, surely [he will be] attacked with stones until he descends. The Parsee should wear dress of a certain cut and put on a certain colour; the colour is yellowish-brown; the Parsee who appears in new and clean clothing on the streets of Yazd is immediately thrown [rocks] at and soiled. They are also not allowed to wear socks, as the Parsees themselves have told me. Their headgear must also have a specific colour and model. In the past, the poll tax of Parsees in Iran was taken by the Persian government officials on the spot; now the tax is calculated for all Parsees in Persia to be about 920 Toman (7,360 Mark), paid for by their fellow believers in India, causing the Parsees to lose a lot because they have been charged three times or more by greedy officials; the tax collection also gave rise to much torture and extortion on the spot.
(Houtum-Schindler Reference Houtum-Schindler1882: 57)A.V. Williams Jackson, who lived in Iran from 1903 to 1904, reports that Zoroastrians were
subject to certain restrictions and exactions to which no Mohammedan would be liable. They are not allowed, for instance, to sell food in the bazaars, inasmuch as that would be an abomination in the eyes of Muslims, who regard them as unbelievers and therefore unclean.
(Jackson Reference Jackson1906: 374)Discrimination of Zoroastrians was expressed not only through actions but also in language. Discriminatory language has frequently been used against Zoroastrians and other ethnic or religious minorities on different levels such as word level (e.g. titles, names, designations and swear words); at the sentence and text level (e.g. historically negative phrases, stereotypes and jokes); and at the level of social interaction.Footnote 6
Zoroastrians were also labelled as nağes (impure). They were thus deemed unfit to live alongside Muslims and were forced to leave the cities and move to particular quarters, mostly called Gabrābād, Gabrestān or Gabrmaḥalle, far from those of the majority. Owing to their status as nağes, they were excluded from society, education and work and were obliged to adhere to strict rules imposed on them but not on the majority. For example, they were not allowed to leave their homes on rainy days because water was considered to be a carrier of their impurity.
In addition to adjectives such as nağes and kāfir, a whole range of pejorative designations were used against Zoroastrians. In the present context, I will only consider those used most frequently and found in a range of different sources.
2.2. Pejorative designations
A large array of pejorative designations has been used throughout history to discriminate against Zoroastrians. These include Mağūs, related to Magi, Ātaš-parast “fire-worshipper” and Gabr. The word Gabr (also known as Gavr in the language of the Zoroastrians) is widely manifested in early New Persian literature from the tenth and eleventh centuries ce and in early modern writings of European travellers on the history, religion and culture of Iran. What all these uses have in common is that they belong to outsiders writing about the Zoroastrians and that they understand the term Gabr as meaning “infidel” in general and “Zoroastrian” in particular. The adjective Gabrī accordingly refers to the religion of Zoroastrians or their language. Considerable evidence shows that the term Gabr serves as a synonym for Kāfir, with the meaning of “unbeliever”. It can also refer to the followers of any religion other than Islam. It has also been used in non-Iranian cultures, mostly by a majority population, to denote various minority groups.
In today's Iran, designations such as Gabr, Mağūs and Ātaš-parast are no longer acceptable in public discourse because they are understood to be derogatory terms. The term also fell into abeyance in the scholarly academic literature in European languages until, in recent years, a few scholars from outside of Iran have used the term Gabrī/Gavrūnī to denote the language of the Zoroastrians (Ivanov and Dodykhudoeva Reference Ivanov and Leyli Dodykhudoeva2010; Zykov Reference Zykov2015; Bernard Reference Bernard2019, Reference Bernard2020). This use has been criticized severely by Zoroastrian and Iranian scholars in Iran (Mazdāpūr Reference Mazdāpūr1995: 7) and abroad, and by a number of Western scholars. Two main arguments have been put forward by the scholars to justify the use of this term: first, the etymology of the term Gabr according to which the word Gabr is derived from the Pahlavi heterogram GBRʿ and has no pejorative character (see Section 2.3.1); and second, they emphasize the fact that a group of Zoroastrians still use the terms Gavr and Gavrī/Gavrūnī to refer to themselves and their language. The two arguments are discussed in detail below.
2.3. The terms Gabr/Gavr
2.3.1. Etymology
Several etymologies have been proposed for the term Gabr, none of which seem to be fairly convincing. One of the most widely quoted and most favourably received views, particularly by Iranian scholars, is that Gabr derives from the Arabic word kāfar (also kafir, kāfir) meaning “infidel”, “rejector” (Sanasarian Reference Sanasarian2000: 27; Akhtar Reference Akhtar1990: 90, 97, 232), as well as “denier”. The form Gabr is thought to be a mispronunciation or a corrupted form of the Arabic word kafir and was used by Iranians in the early Islamic Period. This view is supported by various scholars, such as Pūrdāvūd (Sorūšīyān Reference Sorūšīyān1978: 5), Bausani (Reference Bausani and Bearman1991) and Maškūr (Reference Maškūr1998: 108). Bausani (Reference Bausani and Bearman1991) argues that Iranian probably exchanged the Arabic k for a Persian g. Mokhtarian (Reference Mokhtarian2015: 96–7) finds “this proposition historically reasonable, since the tenth century ce, when Gabr appears, was a time when Arabic was already flourishing as a religious, administrative and literary language and began to penetrate into New Persian lexicography”. However, there is little support for Bausani's assumption of a substitution of Arabic k- with Persian g- because, as convincingly argued by Asatrian, the word kāfir has been widely used in parallel with Gabr from a very early period of Modern Persian, and the Iranians never struggled to pronounce the word kāfir (Asatrian Reference Asatrian2002: 31).
Another suggestion has been presented in the Borhān-e Qāṭeʿ, a Persian dictionary compiled in India in the seventeenth century. It notes that Gabr is used in the sense of moġ Footnote 7 and signifies a “fire-worshipper”.Footnote 8 This explanation was later cited by Steingass (Reference Steingass1892: 1278, 1340) and Wilson (Reference Wilson1843: 195). However, it can be considered highly implausible both formally and semantically.
Mokhtarian offers a new explanation for the etymology of Gabr. He mentions the possible etymological connection between Semitic ḤBR “to tie” and New Persian Gabr; however, in his detailed explanation, he rejected this theory and argued that ḤBR designates a Zoroastrian priest only in the Bavli, and in no other Aramaic texts:Footnote 9
The third explanation for the term gabr argues, dubiously in my view, that the Semitic root ḤBR was borrowed into New Persian, perhaps through the intermediary of Middle Persian. But in evaluating this analysis, one must consider its implications—namely, given the fact that ḤBR designates a Zoroastrian priest only in the Bavli, and in no other Aramaic texts of Sasanian Persia, this proposition seems to imply that the Persian authors knew the rabbinic use. This conclusion, however, attributes to the Persian writers too great an awareness of the Bavli's rhetoric. Even though there exists evidence for Iranian words entering Arabic through the intermediary of Aramaic, there are few Aramaic loanwords attested in Middle Persian or New Persian texts. In the end, these claims of Irano-Semitic linguistic interchanges, which are debated, are susceptible to scholars’ tendencies toward harmonization and co-option.
To come back full circle to the Talmud: one should not dismiss the Soncino translator's error in utilizing the derogatory term “Gueber” as merely a problem of translation or identification. That mistranslation, which was influenced by the linguistic confusion surrounding the incorrect etymological connection between Semitic ḤBR and New Persian gabr, represents a larger interpretive problem in modern scholarship on the Talmud in its Persian setting. The mistranslation “Gueber” (or “Parsees”) misconstrues the rabbis’ original meaning into a derogatory modern appellation—an error that distances us from the original subtleties of the rabbis’ usage of the carefully chosen metonym in a late antique context.
(Mokhtarian Reference Mokhtarian2015: 97)The most popular suggestion is that Gabr is the Aramaic loan word gabrā “man”. This theory has been mentioned by various Iranists, such as Vahman and Asatrian (Reference Vahman and Asatrian2002: 15), Paraskiewicz (Reference Paraskiewicz, Németh, Podolak and Urban2017) and Shaki (Reference Shaki2000). In his Encyclopædia Iranica entry, Shaki refers to the second volume of Vsemirnaya Istoriya Footnote 10 and mentions that Gabr, a New Persian term derivation, was used in the Sasanian period to denote free peasants in the Mesopotamia region (Shaki Reference Shaki2000).
In my opinion, it seems implausible that the Aramaic gabrā, spelt GBR', which serves as an ideogram in written Middle Persian, would be read as Gabr. It is known that scribes of Middle Persian texts wrote numerous words in Aramaic but read them in Pahlavi. Thus, Aramaic gabrā, spelt GBR', could only be read as mard in Middle Persian. An additional problem with this theory is that the Aramaic word GBR' by itself does not have any connection with the Zoroastrians. Another major problem is the alleged semantic development of “man” into “infidel”, a problem that has not been addressed by those who favour the derivation of Gabr from the Aramaic heterogram.
Having introduced the basic conceptions, definitions and the debate on the etymology of Gabr, it is worth looking at the development of this term in other Iranian and non-Iranian languages. In Balochi, gaur means “infidel”, while in Kurdish, the corresponding loanwords gehir and gavir mean “Armenian” and “Russian”, respectively (Hastings Reference Hastings1955: 147). The Sorani Kurdish term equivalent to the Persian gabr is gewr/gewir [ga͡ ur]/[ga͡ uər] and means “infidel”. However, similar variants have other meanings and etymologies and should not be confused with gewr. These Sorani variants are: gewre [ga͡ ura] “big, great”, substantiated as “lord, gentleman” and, especially in the military, as a salutation to an officer of higher rank (e.g. gewr-em “my lord”); the monophonicized form gora [go:ra] “big, great” in Sorani (Ardalani); goran [go:ra:n] “Kurdish tribe”, derived from the plural form of “Gora”; guran [gura:n] “Kurdish tribe” in Kalhuri; and goranî [go:ra:ni:] “song” in Sorani, related to a name for Yārsān followers and to “music”, which is what the Yārsān Goran are known for.Footnote 11
The term giaour, a probable Turkish adoption of the Persian form, is used by Turks to denote non-Muslims, particularly Christians. The Encyclopædia Britannica (1911, vol. 11) provides the following entry:
GIAOUR (a Turkish adaptation of the Pers. gâwr or gōr, “an infidel”), a word used by the Turks to describe all who are not Mahommedans, with especial reference to Christians. The word, first employed as a term of contempt and reproach, has become so general that in most cases no insult is intended in its use; similarly, in parts of China, the term “foreign devil” has become void of offence. A strict analogy to giaour is found in the Arabic kaffir, or unbeliever, which is so commonly in use as to have become the proper name of peoples and countries.
The Sorani Kurdish form gewr/gewir [ga͡ ur]/[ga͡ uər] “infidel” and the meaning of giaour in Turkish confirm the negative potential characterizing value of these terms. In addition to the above-mentioned evidences, a wide range of other sources can give us significant information about the usage of the term Gabr and its value in the historical and cultural contexts of Iran. But in order to contain the size of this study, I will only consider Perso-Arabic historical sources, literary sources in Modern Persian and reports of European travellers.
2.3.2. Gabr in historical and literary works
The earliest evidence of the use of the term Gabr to denote “Zoroastrians” appears to be in Tārīḫ-e Balʿamī, which is a translation of al-Ṭabari's History of the Prophets and Kings into Persian written around 963 ce:
Va dīgar gūyand gabrān va baste koštīyān ke īzad andar ğahān naḫostīn čīz mardī āfarīd va gāvī, va ān mard gīyūmars̲ ḫānand. (Sheʿār and Ṭabāṭabāʿī Reference Sheʿār and Ṭabāṭabāʿī1994: 35)
“And the Zoroastrians, [and those who] wear Koštī, say that the first thing that God created in the world was a man and a cow, and that man is called Gīyūmars̲.”
Among Iranian poets, it seems that at least two poets, Ferdowsi and Daqiqi, were aware of the negative value of the term Gabr. Their strong respect for the Zoroastrian faith may have led them to avoid this term and replace it with other designations such as Zartoštī “Zoroastrian”, Behdīn, dīn-e behī “good religion”, dīn-e zartošt, kīš-e zartošt “Zarathustra's religion”.
We know that Ferdowsi utilized a passage on the advent of Zoroastrianism from the work of Daqiqi, a poet from the tenth and eleventh centuries. Daqiqi's Goštāspnāme, the thousand verses preserved in the Iranian national epic, the Shahnameh, begin with the rule of Goštāsp. According to these verses, Zoroaster appeared at the time of Goštāsp, whom he attracted to his religion, along with his brother Zarēr and his father Lohrāsp (Khaleghi-Motlagh Reference Khaleghi-Motlagh2015). Daqiqi's religious beliefs are disputed among scholars. Certain allusions in his verses have led scholars such as Shahbazi and Nöldeke to favour the hypothesis of a Zoroastrian origin (Williams, Stewart and Hinze Reference Williams, Stewart and Hinze2016: 253). Regardless of his religion, his poetry expresses a strong veneration for Zoroastrianism. In one verse, he mentions Zoroastrianism as one of the four topics most important to him:
Daqīqī čār ḫeṣlat bargozīde be gītī az hame nīkī va zeštī
Lab-e yāqūt rang o nāle-ye čang mey-e ḫoš rang o dīn-e zardohoštī
“Daqiqi has chosen four qualities of all good and evil things in the world: Ruby-colored lips and the sound of the lute; old red wine and the Zoroastrian religion.”Footnote 12
This could be a reason why Daqiqi did not employ the term of Gabr anywhere in his verses. It should be noticed that the term Gabr is attested in the eleventh-century Shahnameh.Footnote 13 However, the verses concluding with Gabr with the meaning “infidel” are, most probably, abyāt-e afzūde (“additional verses”) that were added by the later scribes to the Shahnameh:Footnote 14
Beparīd sīmorġ o bar šod be abr hamī ḥalqe zad bar sar-e mard-e qabr
“Simorq jumped and flew to the clouds and over the head of the infidel man.”
The term gabrakī (gabr- + diminutive particle -ak + adjective suffix -ī), which is a diminutive noun with a diminishing and derogatory function and the meaning of “infidel”, is attested in two passages of the Shahnameh. It is found once in the story of Shapur II's war with the Roman emperor, where the latter, a Christian, calls Shapur an “infidel” or “Zoroastrian”:
Ke dīn-e masīḥā nadārad dorost rah-e gabrakī varzad o zand o ost
“that he does not find the religion of Christianity correct, he follows Zoroastrianism and Zand and Avesta.”
It is also attested in the following verse from the story of Goštāsb with Arğāsb in only a few of the Shahnameh manuscripts.Footnote 15 This verse again appears to be one of the abyāt-e afzūde “additional verses”. In the majority of manuscripts, rah-e bandegī is used instead of rah-e gabrakī.
Hame pīš-e ātaš bekoštand-ešān rah-e gabrakī bar neveštand-ešān
Ze ḫūn-šān bemord ātaš-e zardohošt nadānam ke ān hīrbad rā ke košt
“all [priests] were killed in the presence of fire, they were forced to accept the status of ‘infidels’.Footnote 16 From their blood, the fire of Zarathustra passed away, I do not know who killed that priest.”
In contrast to Ferdowsi and Daqiqi, within a similar timeframe, a poet like Abū Saʿīd Abū'l-Ḫayr (967–1049) used the term Gabr with the meaning of “infidel”, often together with other pejorative terms, such as kāfir “unbeliever, infidel” and bot-parast “idolater”:
Bāz ā bāz ā, har ānče hastī bāz ā gar kāfir o gabr o bot-parastī bāz ā
“Repent!Footnote 17 Repent! whatever you are, repent! If you are an infidel, unbeliever or idolater, repent!”
In another passage, he opposes the term gabr to mosalmān “Muslim”:
Man gabr bodam konūn mosalmān gaštam bad ʿahd bodam konūn be farmān gaštam
“I was [an] infidel, I became [a] Muslim now, I was disobedient, I became obedient now.”
In the poetry of ʿOnṣorī, a poet of the royal court of Mahmud of Ghazni (tenth to eleventh century), Gabr is again used as a synonym of kāfir “infidel”, as “one with no faith”.
To mard-e dīnī īn rasm, rasm-e gabrān ast ravā nadārī bar dīn-e gabrakān raftan
“You are the man of religion [but] this way is [the] way of infidels, it is not appropriate to go upon the path of infidels.”
In his poems praising Maḥmūd and his war in India's Rām Valley, ʿOnṣorī chose the term Gabr to refer to Hindus.Footnote 18 This is also found in a later work, Zobd-al-Tavārīḫ. In one passage, the word gabr is used with gomrāh “heterodox” and mofsed “corrupt”:
Dar mīyān-e īšān gabrān va gomrāhān va mofsedān-e besyār būdand. (Abrū Reference Abrū2001: 857)
“there were infidels, heterodox and corrupt among them.”
In various other passages of Zobd-al-Tavārīḫ, the diminutive form gabr-ak-ān is used.
The term Gabr is widely manifested in Molavi's poems and refers to “infidels”. In some instances, it specifically denotes “Zoroastrians”, then occurring very frequently together with the term ğohūd, a pejorative designation for “Jews”:
Yek setāre dar Moḥammad roḫ nemūd tā fanā šod gohar-e gabr o ğohūd
“A star [of divine illumination] appeared in Muhammad, so that the substance of [the beliefs of] Zoroastrian and Jew passed away.”Footnote 19
In addition to Gabr and ğohūd, he uses the word tarsā, an insulting term that came to be applied to Christians in Iran.
In the works of other poets, such as Saʿdī, Neẓāmī and ʿAṭṭār, the term Gabr refers either to “infidels” or specifically to “Zoroastrians”. Saʿdī says:
Agar ṣad sāl gabr ātaš forūzad agar yek-dam dar ū oftad besūzad
“Though the Gabr may serve fire a hundred years, yet, the moment he falls into it, he will be burned.”Footnote 20
Fetādand gabrān-e pāzand-ḫān čo sag dar man az bahr-e ān ostoḫān
“These Pāzand-reading Zoroastrians attacked me, in the same way as dogs rush upon a bone.”Footnote 21
The following example is from ʿAṭṭār:
Āmade na az sar-e daʿvī va lāf gerd-e ātaš-gāh-e gabrī dar ṭavāf
“He came, not because of fights or boasting, he circumambulates the Zoroastrian fire temple.”Footnote 22
The evidence from the study of the term Gabr in Iranian historical and literary sources suggests that this term expresses a negative connotation, a lack of respect and a low opinion toward Zoroastrians. The question that arises here pertains to the use of this term in Western scholarly tradition. The main question that should be addressed is whether the scholars have been aware of the pejorative character of this term. Let us discuss this issue in detail.
Until the seventeenth century, the Zoroastrians were not mentioned in the reports of European visitors. The observations of European travellers who visited Iran (mostly) between 1600 and 1722 and produced dozens of travelogues provide us with valuable information about the etic and emic perspectives of the Zoroastrian society.Footnote 23 The term Gavrī appears to have first entered the Western scholarly tradition through these travelogues including the travel reports of the European travellers such as Don García de Silva Figueroa, Pietro Della Valle and Thomas Herbert, all of whom visited Iran at the time of the Safavid dynasty. During the reign of Šāh ʿAbbās I, they met a group of Zoroastrians living in Gabr-Maḥalle, near the city of Isfahan. This group originally came from Yazd and Kerman and was forced by Šāh ʿAbbās I to settle in Isfahan. The Spanish diplomat Figueroa used the term gaores (Figueroa Reference Figueroa1667: 176, 178, 180, 193) to designate people from this group and maintained that the word meant “infidel” or “unbelief ” in both Turkish and Persian (Figueroa Reference Figueroa1667: 193). The Italian author, composer and musicologist Pietro Della Valle used the term gauri with the same meaning to refer to Zoroastrians (Reference Firby1843: 497, 890). Thomas Herbert also stated that Gower meant “disbelieving” and was employed by Muslims for both Christians and Zoroastrians. By 1634, the first edition of Figueroa's and Herbert's reports had been published but Pietro Della Valle's volume was not published until 1658 (Firby Reference Firby1988: 32–3). These reports were used by Thomas Hyde and may have provided the terms gabr/gavr or gabrī/gavrī found in his book, Historia religionis veterum Persarum, eorumque magorum, originally published in 1700,Footnote 24 and later in Anquetil-Duperron's Zend Avesta, published in Reference Anquetil-Duperron1771.
These accounts are an important component of our knowledge about internal and external designation terms for Zoroastrians. Nonetheless, some travellers, such as Teixeira and Figueroa, received their information from Muslims; there is no evidence that they ever had direct discussions with Zoroastrians. Therefore, some of their views reflect the stereotypes commonly used by Muslims. For example, both accepted the idea that the Zoroastrians were sun and fire worshippers (Firby Reference Firby1988: 26) and it is imaginable that they also followed Muslims in the use of the designations. Pietro Della Valle appears to be one of the first travellers to meet Zoroastrians and make inquiries to them directly (Firby Reference Firby1988: 26). In contrast to the majority of travellers, who followed Muslims in the use of the common terms and stereotypes in their reports, Pietro Della Valle provides us with some internal perspectives of the community. He mentions that Gauri are the ancient idolaters of Persia and that they keep an eternal fire and venerate it. He also writes that Zoroastrians pray three times a day and believe that the sun, moon and stars are angels and that they call themselves Behdīn (Della Valle Reference Della Valle1843: 497, 499, 890).
Thomas Herbert, who arrived in Iran in January 1628 (Firby Reference Firby1988: 29), maintains that Gower meant “disbelieving” and was used by Muslims to refer to Zoroastrians as well as Christians (Herbert Reference Herbert1677: 167–8). Jackson, who visited Iran in 1903–04, almost three centuries after Della Valle and Herbert, provides almost the same information regarding self-designation and external terms:
I found that, although there were some six of them doing business in the bazaar, only three resided regularly in Isfahan; the rest were Gabars from Yezd. I have designated them as Gabars, after the native fashion, but this term is derogatory, being equivalent to “unbelievers”, and is never employed by the Zoroastrians themselves. They designate themselves as Zardushtīān, “Zoroastrians”, sometimes as Bah-Dīnān, “those of the Good Religion”, or again Fārsīs, i.e. “Parsis”, from Fars, or Pars, the old province of Persia Proper. As for the name “Fire-Worshipper” (Ātash-Parast), the Zoroastrians in Persia as well as in India object to that title. They claim that they regard fire as a symbol or manifestation of Ormazd, as an emblem of purity and power, and not as a divinity…
(Jackson Reference Jackson1906: 274)The results obtained from the preliminary analysis of the observations of European travellers, which are attested in their travelogues, present the fact that the majority of them were aware that the term Gabr is derogatory, being equivalent to “unbelievers”, and was not employed by the Zoroastrians themselves in history.
None of the etymologies, discussed above, which have been proposed for the term Gabr is convincing. Nor does the alleged link between Gabr and the Pahlavi heterogram GBRʿ justify the use of the term Gabr as a designation for the Zoroastrians and their language. The rich evidence across many historical and literary works and dozens of travelogues produced by European travellers clearly shows the pejorative character of the terms Gabr and Gabrī. The study of the external designations indicates that the terms Ātaš-parast (“fire-worshipper”) and Mağūs, similar to Gabr and Gabrī, carry pejorative and derogatory implications and are often used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard of Zoroastrians. The term Gabr is therefore unsuitable to serve as a neutral term to denote the Zoroastrians of Iran.
The second argument adduced by some scholars for using the terms Gabr and Gabrī in scholarly writings is based on the fact that some Zoroastrians still use Gavr and Gavrūnī to designate themselves and their language and that Gavrūn still means “man” in the language of Zoroastrians. To discuss this argument, it is necessary to look at the internal/self-designation terms used by Zoroastrians themselves in a social and historical dimension.
3. Internal designation/self-designation
Self-designations are used by Zoroastrians to describe, to evaluate, characterize and categorize themselves. This topic throws up many questions: What terms would Zoroastrians have used when they addressed one another? What would they have called each other? What do their self-designations say about their self-understanding and identity? These questions bring me to look at a range of self-designation terms and variety of nominal labels used to designate and address the Zoroastrians.
Three main sources are useful for the study of the self-designation terms used by Zoroastrians: the Revāyats, Pahlavi texts and Avestan manuscripts. During the ninth and tenth centuries, priests began to write down important texts based on Sasanian-era materials, first in Middle Persian and subsequently in Modern Persian, to preserve the Zoroastrian religion's beliefs, traditions and culture. In the following section I consider self-designations that are used the most frequently and which are also found in these three sources.
3.1. The term Weh-dēn
Owing to their status as a religious minority, it is imaginable that the Zoroastrians identify themselves through their religion and their religious features. Therefore, almost all self-designation terms have a predominant religious characteristic. The most common word used as a term of address or self-designation is “weh-dēn” (Avestan vaŋuhī daēnā, Middle Persian weh dēn, New Persian beh dīn). The predominant sense is “the Good Religion”, although it is also used widely as a term for “Zoroastrians”.
ēk ēn kū ast kē weh-dēnān kū rōy hamē šōyed ašemwohū-ē hamē gōwišn, ān ašemwohū pēš az ān gōwišn, čē, ka andar rōy šustan gōwēd, pad āb o dahān madan, warōmand bawēd.
(Mazdāpūr Reference Mazdāpūr2011: 159)“when the Zoroastrian[s] would wash [their] faces, [they] may say an ašemwohū; they should say that ašemwohū before that, because, when they say ašemwohū during washing, it is doubtful whether the water reached the mouth.”
abēzag dād ud weh-dēn amā hēm, ud pōryōtkēš hēm, ud gumēzag dād, sēnīg wišgardīh Footnote 25 hēnd, ud wattar dād zandīk ud tarsāg ud ǰahūd ud abārīg ī az ēn šōn hēnd.
(Mazdāpūr Reference Mazdāpūr2011: 85)“Those of pure laws and Good Religion are we, and also of the first teachers of the Mazdyasn religion. Those of mixed laws, [who] are the followers of Sēn. Those of worse law [including] Manichaeans, Christians, Jews and the rest who are from this group.”
Numerous instances of the term Weh-dēn are found in the Pahlavi Revāyats, a collection of religious and legal inquiries and replies. The following example, from the Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay ī Farroxzādān, features the term Weh-dēn and its variation Hu-dēn to designate Zoroastrians.
Pursišn
mard-ē weh-dēn kē andar kārwān-srāy-ē, ke az was barišn mardōm andar hēnd, abar bām ǰud-dēn-ē be uzīd, hu-dēn widarag pad ān gyāg ī ān murdag, az ānōh burden hu-dēn čiyōn abāyēd kardan?
Passox: nasā ī ǰud-dēnān mard ud xānag ud gyāg rēman nē kunēd.
(Rezai Baghbidi Reference Rezai Baghbidi2005: 89–90)“Question: A Zoroastrian stays at a caravanserai, in which there are people with different behaviours, [and] a non-Zoroastrian dies on the roof [of that caravanserai], [and] the Zoroastrian has access to the place of that dead [person]. What should the Zoroastrian do to take the dead body away?
Answer: The dead body of a non-Zoroastrian does not contaminate the man, house and place.”
The term Behdīn/Weh-dēn, remains the most popular self-designation in the Revāyats. In this paper I will consider two documents. The first is a letter written by Šāpūr Ğāmāsb on the day of Xōr, during the month of Ābān, in the year 847 ay (1478 ce) and sent to Zoroastrians in India. It contains three terms denoting Zoroastrians, namely Behdīnān, Mazdyasnān Footnote 26 and Zartoštīyān. The second document is Kāmdin Šāpur's letter from 1559 ce, which includes a list of Behdīnān of Khorasan who were residing in Kerman. The list is accompanied by a statement that “[t]he congregation of the Behdīnān of the country of Khorasan, who live here, consists of 3,000 persons” (Dhabar Reference Dhabar1932: 620).
The scribes of the colophons of the Avestan manuscripts also apply the term Behdīn/Weh-dēn to designate Zoroastrians:
ze gostāḫī koǧā kardam to maʾẕūr bedār ey mard-e behdīn pāk-e dastūr
“If I was sometimes rude, excuse me, you, the man of the good religion and holy Dastūr!”
(Vīdēvdād 4010, first Persian colophon, p. 156v)yekī mard-e behdīn be-kermān dar ast ke bāšad hame sāl o mah dīn parast
“There is a Zoroastrian man in Kerman, he has been religious all years and months.”
(Vīdēvdād 4060, Persian colophon, p. 151r)In one of his poems, Sīyāvaxš Manūčihr, who was deported by Šāh Abbās I to Isfahān and lived in Gabr Maḥalle, mentions forced migrations during the reign of Shāh 'Abbās I in 995 ay:
be-kermān o dar yazd behdīn bodand ṭalab kard bā eṣfahān āmadand
“There were Zoroastrians in Kermān and Yazd, he commanded, and they came to Isfahān.”
Having looked at the usage of Weh-dēn as the most common term of address and self-designation for Zoroastrians in the Revāyats, Pahlavi texts, and colophons and marginal notes of the Avestan manuscripts, I will now consider other self-designations that Zoroastrians used to distinguish themselves from outsiders.
3.2. Other self-designations
In investigating the Zoroastrian sources with the question of insider language for self-designation in mind, I present a second self-designation, Mazdayasnān “followers of Mazdayasna”. Mazdayasnān is the plural form of Mazdayasn “Mazda-worshipper”, which combines Mazda with the Avestan word yasna. Different derivations of this term are attested in Parthian inscriptions (Mazdēzn), in the Middle Persian inscriptions (Mazdēsn), and in literary Pahlavi (Māzdēsn). This term continued to be employed after the Muslim conquest of Iran in the seventh century ce over the next five centuries. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this term has been revived by orthodox Zoroastrians (Choksy Reference Choksy2015).
The term Zartoštī “followers of Zarathustra” was used by both insiders and outsiders to designate Zoroastrians and became increasingly popular in the Islamic period. It is worth noticing that this term comes originally from Yasna 12.1 and Yašt 13.89 which begin with
Frauuarānē mazdaiiasnō zaraθuštriš vīdaēuuō ahura.ṱkaēšō
“I profess myself a worshipper of Mazdā, a Zoroastrian, rejecting the daēvas, following the Ahuric doctrine … .”
In Yasna 9.13 and Yasna 65.1 the words vīdaēuua-, ahura.ṱkaēša- are paired, which together with mazdaiiasna- and zaraθuštri- define a Zoroastrian (cf. Boyce Reference Boyce2012; Choksy Reference Choksy2015). From these evidences it seems that the use of Zartoštī as a self-designation goes back at least to the third century bce.
In Zoroastrian sources two further self-designations seem to have come to denote a Zoroastrian: Kustīgdārān “those, who wear Kusti” (e.g. Vīdēvdād 4010, line 27) and Pōryōtkēšān. The original meaning of the term Pōryōtkēšān “first teachers of Zoroastrianism” often refers to religious teachers rather than Zoroastrians. However, in rare cases, the meaning has been generalized to the latter and used as a self-designation term. These terms are less popular.
The original meaning of the term Pārsī “those from Pārs” is attested in Indian Zoroastrian texts after the seventeenth century. Until that time, such texts consistently use the designation term Wēh-dēn or Zartošti.
While in Iran the definition and designation of Zoroastrians was characterized by the religion, in the diaspora their identity is characterized by their homeland. Two terms Pārsī “from Persia” and Irāni “Iranian” for the designation of the Zoroastrians who left Iran and settled in India are generally applied by both insiders and outsiders.
3.3. The term Gabr/Gavr
As noted above, some scholars justify the use of Gabr in academic writing with reference to some “Zoroastrians calling themselves ‘Gavrs’” (Ivanov and Dodykhudoeva;Footnote 27 Bernard Reference Bernard2019: 372). It is often argued that in the spoken language of the Zoroastrians, the term Gavr has no pejorative connotation and is used to denote “man” and “Zoroastrian”, and Gavrī to denote the language. Here I will clarify arguments and circumstances for using these terms as self-designations.
First, and importantly, Gabr/Gavr is not used anywhere in sources written by the Zoroastrians themselves. Second, the term is used only by a group of Zoroastrians in the spoken language. Further work needs to be done to find the reasons for the use of Gabr as a self-designation despite its pejorative character by those Zoroastrians. In recent years, several attempts have been made by Zoroastrian institutions and media to raise public awareness of this subject. The Council of Iranian Zoroastrian Priests acknowledged the necessity of avoiding the use of pejorative designations such as Gavr and Gavrūnī. The Zoroastrian media have begun to discuss this topic and provide important insights regarding the appropriate designation terms. An article from Amordād News, a Zoroastrian news website, discusses the problems about the usage of the term Gabr/Gavr:
We are Zoroastrians, we are not Gabr:
We, Zoroastrians, are the followers of the pious religion and tradition of holy Zarathustra. Holy Zarathustra, the great prophet of Iran, rationalist and monotheistic, who truly knew Ahuramazda, the unique and unequalled God, and introduced Gathā, his holy book to all (people). Therefore, we are proud to be committed to it and to be the true followers of this ancient religion. It is appropriate that we always and everywhere call ourselves Zartoštī with pride and refrain from the use of inappropriate words made by enemies of this holy religion and deny using words such as (gabr, gāvrūn, gavr, gavrūn), because we don't deserve it. Even in our intimate chats with our relatives and friends, we should consider that, away from past habits, we should remember that we are Zartoštī, and the religion and tradition of Zarathustra is holy and honourable for us, and its base includes three principles (Good Thoughts, Good Words and Good Deeds). To this day, the scholars of Iran and of the world view it with respect, and they call us Zartoštī …
(Bondārī Reference Bondārī2018)This entry shows that a group of Zoroastrians believe that Gabr, Gāvrūn, Gavr and Gavrūn are insulting terms used by outsiders, particularly their enemies. It also notes that these words are still used with family and friends, a practice that the author maintains is a negative old habit and should be abandoned. It also mentions that scholars in Iran and the world call Zoroastrians “Zartoštī” with respect; although these terms are no longer in use in today's Iran, the author of this entry seems unaware of the fact that they have been used by some Western scholars in recent years. Such examples stand in stark contrast to recent attempts to reappropriate the word.
An important question arises here: Does the fact that a group of Zoroastrians still use these terms, allow us, as members of the outgroup, to use them? In history we find examples of reclaimed or reappropriated terms that were pejorative but have been used by insiders to designate themselves. Nevertheless, not all members of a given community support the idea that a pejorative designation can be reclaimed at all. Maybe a designation can be seen as acceptable when used by the insiders, the members of the community, but its use by outsiders can still be seen as derogatory and thus is controversial (Coles Reference Coles2016).
4. Language designation
The Zoroastrians of Iran speak a particular language, which is distinctively different from the dominant New Persian language, the official language of Iran. Traditionally this language belongs to the Central Plateau Dialect group of North-West Iranian languages, as opposed to South-West Iranian (e.g. Persian). Historical and linguistic evidence substantiates the idea that Zoroastrians in Yazd and Kerman preserved their former vernacular language, whereas the majority of the population replaced it with Persian in the New Iranian period (Gholami Reference Gholami2021).
Several terms are used for designation of this language. The term Gabrī and its variations as a language designation occur in the works of Browne and Mihrabān (Reference Browne and Mihrabān1897), Browne (Reference Browne1908) and those of David L.R. Lorimer (Reference Lorimer1916, Reference Lorimer1928), Vladimir Ivanov (Reference Ivanov1932a, Reference Ivanov1932b, Reference Ivanov1939), and have recently been revived by Ivanov and Dodykhudoeva (Reference Ivanov and Leyli Dodykhudoeva2010), Chams B. Bernard (2017),Footnote 28 (Reference Bernard2019), (Reference Bernard2020) and Anton Zykov (2020).Footnote 29 The designation term Behdīnī/Behdīnān is used by Windfuhr (Reference Windfuhr1989), Sorūšīyān (Reference Sorūšīyān1978), Fīrūzbaḫš (Reference Firūzbaḫš2000) and Mazdāpūr (Reference Mazdāpūr1995, Reference Mazdāpūr2006). The term Zoroastrian Darī/Darī appears in the writings of Rehatsek (1837), Justi (Reference Justi1881), Huart (Reference Huart1888), Vinogradova and Pirejko (Reference Vinogradova and Pirejko1989), Farudi and Toosarvandani (Reference Farudi and Toosarvandani2004), Molchanova (Reference Molchanova and Efimov2008), Stewart (Reference Stewart, Williams, Stewart and Hintze2016), Gholami and Farahmand (Reference Gholami and Farahmand2016), and Gholami (Reference Gholami2016, Reference Gholami2018, Reference Gholami2021). Finally, the general term Yazdī is used by Bailey (Reference Bailey1936) and Justi (Reference Justi1881), while Iranian scholar Kešāvarz (Reference Kešāvarz1993a, Reference Kešāvarz1993b) chooses Guyeš-e Zartoštīyān-e Yazd, and Šakibā prefers Lahğe-ye Zartoštīyān (Reference Šakibā1948). Among designation terms for the language of the Zoroastrians three terms are more popular. I will now focus on these designations.
4.1. The term Gabrī/Gavrī/Gavrūnī/Gāvrūnī
The word Gabr became the adjective Gabrī and the variations Gavrī/Gavrūnī/Gāvrūn have been used as a designation for the language of the Zoroastrians of Iran. No matter what its origins, we have seen (see Section 2.3) that Gabr and all its variations carry with it much of the hatred and disgust directed toward Zoroastrians. Historically, Gabr was a term of exclusion and a verbal reason for discrimination used to define, limit and ridicule Zoroastrians. No other designation names carry as much purposeful cruelty.
This term, as language designation, first entered Western scholarship through reports of European travellers. The first scholar to use the term was Thomas Hyde, Professor of Hebrew and Arabic languages at Oxford, whose History of the Religion of the Ancient Persians, Parthians, and Medes published in 1700 (Browne Reference Browne1908: 41, 43) drew extensively on travellers’ accounts. The term was later used by scholars such as Huart (Reference Huart1888), Lorimer (Reference Lorimer1916, Reference Lorimer1928) and Ivanov (Reference Ivanov1932a, Reference Ivanov1932b, Reference Ivanov1939).
The classical definition of Darī as an Eastern dialect of Persian influenced some scholars to favour the term Gavrī without, however, considering its derogatory undertones. Most of these scholars held the view that the term Gavrī was derogatory. For example, Justi (Reference Justi1881) maintained that the name Gebrī, already used by Anquetil, was suitable for being used by scholars but that it should not be heard by Zoroastrians themselves given its derogatory connotations. Ivanov, one of the scholars who also opted for the term Gavrī, was not aware of the pejorative character of the term and for this reason decided to use it. He explained the reason for his decision as follows:
Persian Zardushtis themselves resent the names of Gabr and Gabri, for the reason which I could not find, and call their language Darī. What connection this Darī has with the Darī of the Persian legendary six ancient forms of the language, is impossible to ascertain. My original intention was to stick to the term Darī, but I was advised by some friends to preserve the usual terminology in order not to introduce confusion.
(Ivanov Reference Ivanov1939: 31)The term Gabrī/Gavrī had become practically extinct and was rarely used after 1940. However, in the last ten years, some scholars have begun to employ the term once again.
4.2. The term Behdīnī/Behdīnānī
In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, scholars have employed a new term for the language of the Zoroastrians. These are the terms Behdīnī and Behdīnānī issued by Windfuhr (Reference Windfuhr1989) and by some Iranian scholars, in particular Sorūšīyān (Reference Sorūšīyān1978) and Firūzbaḫš (Reference Firūzbaḫš2000). Since the term Behdīn has historically been a positive value in the Zoroastrian tradition and always been used proudly by community members to designate themselves, the term Behdīnī is in principle an appropriate designation for the Zoroastrians’ language. However, the use of this term presents two problems. First, it is unfamiliar to most speakers of the language, particularly those of the older generation. Consequently, its usage is limited to academic and intellectual contexts. Second, linguists use the term also for another Iranian language, Behdīnī Kurdish (also spelt Badīnī),Footnote 30 which is spoken in Northern Iraq and considered to be a dialect of Kurmanji (Northern) Kurdish.
4.3. The terms Darī and Zoroastrian Darī
Several theories have been proposed for the term Darī as a language designation. As pointed out by Justi and Petermann, the term Darī denotes “the court language” (Justi Reference Justi1881: 328). Citing Ibn Moqaffa in Al-fehrest, Ibn Nadīm mentions that Darī is the language of cities and is spoken at the court of the king, hence its designation as the “court language”. This language was different from Persian; according to Ibn Nadīm, Persian was the language of priests and scholars as well as the language spoken in Fārs.
A medieval geographer, al-Muqaddasī (945/946–91), described the languages and dialects of the Khorasan province and Transoxiana and, among them, the language of Bukhara in his book Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm (The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions) (Al-Muqaddasī Reference Al-Muqaddasī1906). He points out that this language is called Darī; based on the fact that royal reports as well as stories are written in this language, he explains that the term originates from dar “door” – that is to say, the language was spoken at the court. Scholars such as Sorūšīyān (Reference Sorūšīyān1978: 2–3) refer to the definition of Darī by medieval authors like Ibn Nadīm, Ibn Moqaffa and al-Muqaddasī and criticize the use of this term to denote the language of Zoroastrians.
Among Western scholars, Justi is probably the best-known critic of the Darī term. Comparing the language of Zoroastrians to the Darī of Khorāsān (an Eastern dialect of Persian), he does not find any dialectal connection (Reference Justi1881: 330). For this reason, he prefers not to use the term. Huart (Reference Huart1888) also challenged the use of Darī, protesting against its use and arguing that the description of the Darī dialect given in the prolegomena of various Persian dictionaries does not agree at all with the so-called Darī spoken by the Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kerman (Huart Reference Huart1888: 424).
The main problem with these arguments is that the critics focused exclusively on the definition of Darī as an Eastern dialect of Persian in scholarly tradition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and failed to address the fact that the term Darī was still used by the Zoroastrian community to denote its language. The concept of Huart and other critics of the use of the term Darī was criticized by later scholars such as Browne:
Personally, I confess that I attach but little importance to the evidence of the Persian lexicographers in this matter, seeing that it is the rarest thing for an educated Persian to take any interest in local dialects, or even to recognise their philological importance; and I shall therefore continue provisionally to call the dialect in question by the name given to it by those who speak it.
(Browne Reference Browne1893: 424)Browne decided to use the term Darī for the language of the Zoroastrians of Yazd, Kerman and Rafsanjan in his book A Year Amongst the Persians, probably based on this criticism. In this book he highlights the fact that the language is called Darī by the Zoroastrians themselves. Surprisingly, in his later works, he used the term Gabrī.
Mazdāpūr, a distinguished Zoroastrian scholar, also maintains that the speakers themselves refer to their language as Darī and use this term to distinguish it from Persian (Mazdāpūr Reference Mazdāpūr1995: 6). Further evidence from the Revāyats validates Mazdāpūr's view. The term Darī as a self-designation for the language of Zoroastrians occurs in the Revāyat of Nariman Hošang. In the chapter regarding “Treatment of a woman after child-birth”, the authors indicate that they have indited some facts regarding nasā womenFootnote 31 in the Darī and Parsi language so that its decipherment would be easier.Footnote 32
Similarly, Mazdāpūr criticizes the use of Gavrūnī or Gāvrūnī because the related word Gabr/Gavr is insulting and derogatory (Mazdāpūr Reference Mazdāpūr1995: 7).
For the use of Darī as a designation term for the language of Zoroastrians, two main scenarios can be imagined. The first posits a relation between Zoroastrian Darī and Darī as an Eastern dialect of Persian. However, we know that there is no dialectal connection between these two languages from a grammatical and typological point of view. According to traditional classifications, the Zoroastrians’ language belongs to the central group of Iranian languages, a branch of North-West Iranian languages, while another entity termed Darī is a dialect of Persian and belongs to the group of South-West Iranian languages.Footnote 33 The only possible relationship is thus a geographical connection. Before the Mongol invasion of Iran in 1219–24 ce, Zoroastrian communities must have been present in different regions, especially Khorasan and Sistān. Various scholars, such as Clifford E. Bosworth (Reference Bosworth1977: 39) and Janet Kestenberg Amighi (Reference Kestenberg Amighi1990: 71), mentioned a connection between the Mongol and Timurid invasions and the decline and immigration of the Zoroastrians. In the late fourteenth century, the Khorasan area was affected particularly strongly by the attacks of Timur, pushing the Zoroastrians to move to Sistān (Sorūšiyān Reference Sorūšīyān1991: 17) and later to Kerman. In the Revāyats, two Zoroastrian documents contain evidence supporting the theory that the Zoroastrians in Kerman migrated from Khorasan. The first is Kāmdin Šāpur's letter from 1559 ce, already introduced in Section 3.1, which contains a list of Khorasan Behdīnān in Kerman (Dhabar Reference Dhabar1932: 620). The second document is a letter to India from Frēdōn, Marzbān's son, who states that his family – the Marzbān family, a famous Zoroastrian scribe family in Kerman – originally came from the Khorasan province (Unvala Reference Unvala1922: 153). An important question arises here as to whether a group of Zoroastrians brought the term Darī from Khorasan to their new home and continued to use it in reference to their new language. This theory rests on the possibility that the Zoroastrians adopted the local language of Yazd and Kerman upon arrival but chose the term Darī to denote it.
The second scenario is that Darī is only a general term and might have been used to distinguish the language of the Zoroastrians from Persian. This hypothesis eliminates the need to compare Zoroastrian Darī with Darī as an Eastern dialect of Persian and simply entails that this general term can theoretically be used for more languages. To distinguish this Darī from another Darī, the term “Zoroastrian” could easily have been used before Darī, as it already was by various scholars. We can therefore conclude that the term Zoroastrian Darī is the more appropriate term to denote the language of Zoroastrians. This term is generally applied by Zoroastrians themselves to designate their language and has also a natural characterizing value.
5. Concluding remarks
This overview of the self-designation and external designation terms for Zoroastrians and their language has focused in particular on problems with using the words Gabr and Gabrī. Unfortunately, in recent years, some scholars have resumed using the term Gabrī (also Gavrī and Gavrūnī) to denote the language of the Zoroastrians. The argument for using this designation is based, first, on a theory concerning the etymology of the word Gabr, and second, on the fact that a group of Zoroastrians still use Gavr/Gavrūn to designate themselves and Gavrī and its variations to designate their language.
I have examined the semantic development and potential characterizing value of these terms in their historical and cultural contexts. I have shown that regardless of the various theories on their etymology, these terms have been used as discriminatory instruments against Zoroastrians during particular periods in Iranian history. Considerable evidence from Perso-Arabic historical sources, literary sources in Modern Persian and reports of European travellers indicates that this term has been frequently used as a synonym for Kāfir, with the meaning of “infidel”. The results of this study show that Gabr and Gabrī carry pejorative and derogatory implications and are therefore neither appropriate nor useful for designating the community or its language.
A designation might be seen as acceptable when used by the insiders, the members of the community, but its use by outsiders can still be seen as derogatory and thus is controversial. The fact that the pejorative term Gavr has been adopted by at least some members of the Zoroastrian community, does not allow scholars to consider this designation to be acceptable, given its history and the general history of racial oppression and racial relations in Iran.
