Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2008
We owe to Zoroaster one of the oldest religions ofmankind. We cannot call Zoroaster's doctrine a worldreligion in the strict sense, for it did not spreadfar beyond the limits of the Iranian world, nor didits followers spread over the world as the Parsis donow and the Manichaeans once did. But many ideasfirst expressed by Zoroaster or his followers, suchas the all-encompassing dualism of good and evil,light and darkness, or the resurrection of the deadin the flesh, or the responsibility of mankind forthe fate of this world and the world beyond, haveinfluenced, from the middle of the first millenniumBCE on, the spirituality of the near eastern peoplesand so also the religions of Judaism, and by way ofJudaism, Christianity and Islam, too. This issufficient to grant the religion of Zoroaster a mostimportant position in the history of humanreligiosity.
Professor Mary Boyce memorial lecture, Schoolof Oriental and African Studies, University ofLondon, May 2007