the resting place of Zarathustra

Farid Shoolizadeh
Amordad bi-weekly 

The resting place of the Iranian prophet or the first Imam of the Shiite Moslems?  This is a question, which the writer will try to answer, as far as his knowledge allows.

Inside the mausoleum of Mazar-i Sharif an epigraph is engraved with the following poem written by the Iranian learned and insight seeking poet and philosopher, Jami, which tells us of his knowledge about the truth of Mazar-i Sharif Mausoleum:

They say the house of Mostafa is in Najaf

But come to Balkh and see the house of a pure man

Jami, forget paradise and Bein-al-Jabalein

The sun is single and its light is spreading everywhere

This is part of the poem that the people of his time inscribed on stone and engraved it in the Mausoleum of Mazari Sharif.  I should draw your attention to this point that none of the two dates of the birth and death of the first Imam of the Shiite Moslems occurred during Nowrooz, while historic documents and Zoroastrian religious texts show that 6th Farvardin (Khordad Day) is the birthday of the messenger of wisdom and righteousness, Ashu Zarathushtra Espantaman.  Therefore, isn’t all these joyful Nowrooz celebrations, especially on the first days of Nowrooz, celebrated by the Afghans, a message of the ancestors and a national unity with Iranians, specially Zoroastrians?

I have not come across any study made by a foreign or local researcher about the reason that, and the time since this mausoleum has been attributed to the first Imam of the Shiite sect, but there are stories told in that place which has come chest to chest, to the present generation.  The story is that Abu Moslem Khorasani succeeded, in Baghdad, to overthrow the cursed Bani Omayeh dynasty.  Since the Bani Omayeh dynasty would insult the family of Imam Ali, Abu Moslem paid pilgrimage to the Mausoleum of Imam Ali, after establishment of the Qaliphate of Abu Al Abbas Saffah Abbassi and decided to transfer his body to Khorasan, as a sign of respect.

This story says that the armies under command of Abu Moslem were mostly from 4 groups of people, from which the Balkh group were one of them.  Since each of the groups wanted the body of Imam Ali to be buried in their city they started arguing with each other.  Abu Moslem ordered to prepare 4 coffins.  Then, he placed the body of Imam Ali in the coffin belonging to the Balkh group and filled the other 3 coffins with other objects, and closed and sealed the coffins and handed them over to the 4 groups.  The Balkh group took the coffin to Balkh, under great hardships, and built a mausoleum in the present place (Mazar-i Sharif) and buried the correct coffin there.

This story, for various reasons, does not have historic credibility because, first of all, Abu Moslem was not Shiite to have been interested in the mausoleum of Imam Ali in Najaf.  Instead, he was the representative of Mahdi of Al Abbass dynasty, and was assigned, with sufficient funds, from Medina to Khorasan in order to instigate the Arabs in Khorasan and the newly converted Moslems of Khorasan against Bani Omayeh and in favour of Bani Abbass, the grandsons of Abbass, the prophet’s uncle, and transfer the Qaliphate, not to the grandsons of Ali, but to the family of Abbass.  One point that has been clearly forgotten in this story is that why should a follower of Sunnite sect get himself into trouble for the sake of the objectives of the Shiite sect and by doing the sin of opening a grave, displace the body of the first Imam of the Shiite sect?

We know that from the start of Islam, Arabs showed great interest in destroying religious buildings of other religions and building mosques on top of them.  A proof is the building of mosques on top of fire temples and the synagogues of Jews and Christian churches.  The most famous of them is Alaqsa mosque which was built on the Suleiman Synagogue in Jerusalem.  This destruction by the Arabs also included the fire temple of Anush Azar in Balkh.  This place of worship is the same place where the noble Ashu Zarathushtra Espantaman was martyred at the age of 77, while praying, by a wicked man named Toorbaradroosh.  Ferdowsi very well described this story in Shahnameh:

“An army from Tooran invaded Balkh, which made the life of the people of Balkh bitter.  Balkh became full of plunder and murder, the people started fleeing.  King Lohrasb was killed in Balkh and from that day the life of Iranians became dark and bitter.  They raided the Anush Azar temple and killed whoever was in it.  The fire died.  Such tyranny cannot be imagined.”

Based on some opinions, after the invasion of Balkh by Tooranians, which resulted in the destruction of the city and massacre of the monotheist people and martyrdom of the great prophet and many other pious followers, the followers who survived buried the body of Zarathushtra in the same school and worshiping temple where Zarathushtra would teach the people, guide them and advise them.

In the opinion of the writer, with view to the existing historic evidences Mazar-i Sharif can be accepted as the resting place of Zarathushtra.  Maybe, if the possibility arises for scientific excavation in this area, we can get access to strong evidences in this regard.  Previously, Mazar-i Sharif was situated in the suburbs of Balkh but after the invasion of the Arabs and prevalence of Shiite sect and then the overall destruction of Balkh by the Moguls, slowly Mazar-i Sharif turned into a big city.  There is no doubt that the Iranian Zoroastrians knew where the resting place of Zarathushtra was before the invasion of the Arabs, but after all the written documents of the Iranians were burned by the Arabs, the following generations remained blank about their identity and their history, to such an extent that before the travel of Hassan Sabbah to Egypt and his visit to Alexander library, and before the publishing of Ferdowsi’ Shahnameh, Iranians had no

trace of their identity.  There are many historic sites in Iran, like the Mausoleum of Yaghub Leis in Shooshtar, Azargoshasb Fire Temple in Sheez (Takhte Sulieman), the tomb of Kourosh the Great in Pasargad (grave of the mother of Suleiman) and . . . which have been saved by changing their names.  I have gathered the ancient history of some of them, which I will publish in a comprehensive article, in the near future.

It will not be surprising if, behind the layers of the walls of the present structure in Mazar-i Sharif another building with the architecture style of ancient times of Iran is hidden; a scene which future generations might be lucky to see.  Eidoon bad (may it be so).