Kurds open Zoroastrian temple in Sweden

[Zerdusht]

Dear All,

It might be interesting for Kurds worldwide to know that the first Zoroastrian temple run by Kurds (at least in the last 1000 years ) is opening in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 9 2012.

Hopefully, someone in Sweden could send some pictures or clips from the opening ceremony.

It is a great step forward for the Zoroastrian-minded Kurdish people, and for Zoroastrians in general.

With ill-will to no one, and goodwill to everyone,

Zerdusht

[kurd-sthanam]

welcome, strange news.. proud of worlds strangest people

but where to go with religion.

[Zerdusht]

Zoroastrianism is a philosophy- actually Mazda-yasni, or worshippers of the mind. So it cannot really be called religion in the sense of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. In any case, let everyone be happy in their own way. All we ask for is not to be persecuted and killed as "kafirs", which unfortunately is exactly what has happened during the past centuries.

A true philosophy is not afraid of free speech and freedom of choice. So our motto is : live and let live.

Warm regards

[alan131210]

wellcome dear , yes i have seen this and have been eagerly following it , i have the picture of the temple as well .... are you a member in the community !?

by the way , welcome to the forum feel free to introduce yourself in the "introduce" section above this one .

[Zerdusht]

Dear alan131210!

Thank you for the welcome, I will be introducing myself more formally later on. Yes, I am a Mazdayasni but not member of the Kurdish Zoroastrian Association of Sweden. However, I hope that some friends from Sweden will be able to send some pictures of the event, which I will forward to this site.

Thank you,

Best regards

Zerdusht

[Zerdusht]

And here is a link to pictures from the event - apparently a great success with over a hundred people in the audience!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.426124680755541.100418.100000740378236&type=3

Hope you can open the link - let me know otherwise.

/Zerdusht

[jjmuneer]

Can I ask a direct and personal question?

[Zerdusht]

Of course you can - and I will respond if possible!

[jjmuneer]

Do you look down on other Kurds? i.e Muslim Kurds

[Zerdusht]

Interesting question - and quite surprising?

The answer is no - or perhaps: of course not.

Belonging to a minority that has been beaten, raped and threatened into almost nothing, perhaps it would have been understandable if I and people like me had been bitter towards the majority religion.

Yet - as I said - live and let live is the motto. To each person his or her own choice.

So my answer is - I do not agree with the Muslim religion, I find it not true or in any way understandable. But I will not treat a Muslim sister badly, nor will I look down upon her. She is my equal in all senses - we just belong to different philosophies. But Zarathushtra and our Zoroastrian religion clearly says in the holy ritual "Hama Zor Bim" that we are to join not only the good and righteous Zoroastrians, but also good and righteous people of all religions and faiths.

Hope this explains my view. May I ask you how you view Zoroastrians?

Best wishes!
Zerdusht

[jjmuneer]

Interesting question - and quite surprising?

The answer is no - or perhaps: of course not.

Belonging to a minority that has been beaten, raped and threatened into almost nothing, perhaps it would have been understandable if I and people like me had been bitter towards the majority religion.

Yet - as I said - live and let live is the motto. To each person his or her own choice.

So my answer is - I do not agree with the Muslim religion, I find it not true or in any way understandable. But I will not treat a Muslim sister badly, nor will I look down upon her. She is my equal in all senses - we just belong to different philosophies. But Zarathushtra and our Zoroastrian religion clearly says in the holy ritual "Hama Zor Bim" that we are to join not only the good and righteous Zoroastrians, but also good and righteous people of all religions and faiths.

Hope this explains my view. May I ask you how you view Zoroastrians?

Best wishes!
Zerdusht

Sorry if it came across as rude, but that is what people were saying on here. As in I got the image that Zorastrians think they were "pure". Anyways forget that.

Well I'll answer this question as a Fayli Kurd. We respect the Zorastrian faith, I don't know if you know we are Shias, so we cannot agree with the dualist ideas of Zorastrianism, but we also don't view you as lesser Kurds. Actually for me personally it would be great to see more Zorastrian Kurds come out.

Are you allowed to convert to Zorastrianism?

[Zerdusht]

Hi again.

Yes, indeed there are some people who call themselves Zoroastrian and then proceed to heap abuse and insults on Arabs, Turks, Muslims and non-Aryans. I do not think these people are representative of Behdin or the Good Faith.

Actually, you mention Zoroastrianism as a dualist faith. I know that this is a common perception of our tradition - Ahura Mazda versus Angra Mainyu/Ahriman - a Good God versus an evil God.

But actually - this is a misinterpretation of Zarathushtra's message in the Gathas - which constitute the core of Zoroastrianism. What Zarathushtra says is rather that within every human lies a choice - to choose the constructive or to choose the destructive thought, speech or action. And that humans have a free will to choose. But there is really no talk of a God - in the sense a personal god. The conclusion of most scholars and intellectuals is that Mazdayasna is really a monistic philosophy - i.e. the universe is one indivisible whole. Meaning Man is not separate from God and neither are separate from the universe. Some others come to the conclusion that Ahura Mazda is God - but not omnipotent and therefore Humans are soldiers that assist Ahura Mazda in the fight against destructive thoughts, words and deeds.

But dualistic as believing in two separate gods - one good and one evil - I can tell you we are definitely not! We rather view Muslims, Jews and Christians as dualistic - in the sense that God is separate and above the creation (including humans) - i.e. a dualism between spirit and matter.

Of course I am just a simple man - no trained philosopher or priest, so these views could be challenged by other Zoroastrians. I am sure you will be seeing more Zoroastrian Kurds "coming out" in the future - at least in Western countries where they feel safe to change their religion. Am I correct in saying that apostasy or leaving Islam is - at least in theory - punished by death in many Muslim countries? I also think you will see a strengthening of our brother faiths Yezidism and Yarsanism, as well as part of the Alevis/Qizilbash. These small minorities are getting organized and ready to strengthen their unity to preserve their existence.

There are two main branches of Zoroastrianism. In India, you have the Parsees (approx 120.000 people) who mostly are not accepting conversion. In Iran, you have perhaps 50.000 Zartoshti who do not convert anyone openly in Iran, but welcome converts outside Iran (because of the threat from Iranian Muslims). Finally you now have Zoroastrians in the West who convert openly anyone willing to come to us: Russians, Latvians, Norwegians, Indians, Americans, Brazilians etc etc. There are small communities spread all across the world.

So, my hope is that we shall learn to co-exist without killing or insulting each other. If my daughter chooses to become Muslim I must accept her choice. And if your son chooses to become Behdin I would hope that you would accept his choice. Humanity first, religion comes second .

[Saipul]

This is good news. Hopefully soon Zoroastrian Kurds will be able to build their houses of worship not just in Sweden but also in Kurdistan.

[alan131210]

yes we need to get our old religion back and the holy book of Avesta needs to be taught in religious classes in our schools , if we can manage to turn 50% of SK and WK back into Zoroastrians it will be awesome .

[Kurdistano]

This is good news. Hopefully soon Zoroastrian Kurds will be able to build their houses of worship not just in Sweden but also in Kurdistan.

The funny thing is and my main problem with, Kurds are and where actually never real Zoroastrians but followed sects of Mithraism (sun worshipers), see Yazidis, Al e Hagg etc, They have simply absorbed some Zoroastrian traditions.