WORLD RELIGIONS

Detailed explanation-1: -The Parsis, whose name means “Persians, ‘’ are descended from Persian Zoroastrians who emigrated to India to avoid religious persecution by Muslims. They live chiefly in Mumbai and in a few towns and villages mostly to the north of Mumbai, but also at Karachi (Pakistan) and Bengaluru (Karnataka, India).

Detailed explanation-2: -Zoroastrianism was the state religion of three Persian dynasties, until the Muslim conquest of Persia in the seventh century A.D. Zoroastrian refugees, called Parsis, escaped Muslim persecution in Iran by emigrating to India.

Detailed explanation-3: -For, most people use the terms ‘Parsi’ and ‘Zoroastrian’ inter-changeably. The fact is that all Parsis are Zoroastrian, but not all Zorastrians are Parsis. Some of them are just Irani Zoroastrians, sometimes simply called Iranis.

Detailed explanation-4: -In the 7th century, the Zoroastrian Sassanian dynasty was threatened by Islamic conquest and a small group of Zoroastrians fled to Gujarat in present-day India, where they were called ‘Parsi’ (literally meaning ‘people from Paras or Fars’, the local term for Persia) [3, 4, 6, 13].

Detailed explanation-5: -Zoroastrians believe in one God, called Ahura Mazda.