Zoroaster’s birthplace

Scholars the world over are divided about the birthplace of Prophet Zoroaster. Most of them feel it is in Azerbaijan (northwest Iran), a few feel it is in the ancient eastern region of Iran known as Merv or Margiana as the Greeks called it, in modern south Turkmenistan, while yet others feel it is near the Aral Sea (in ancient Khwarezm, Greek Chorasmia, modern Uzbekistan). A tiny minority places the Prophet’s birthplace even further north in Central Asia, in Kazakhstan. Very few feel it is in Afghanistan. Recently Ragh in north Afghanistan (Ragha or Rae in Iran), believed to be the birthplace of the Prophet’s mother (with the father’s in nearby Azerbaijan) has been suggested, but this is not conclusive with little historic or geographic data to support it.

There is, however, one aspect that favors Afghanistan as Zoroaster’s birthplace. Many scholars believe that Balkh in north Afghanistan was at least the site of his ministry, being the ancient city where according to tradition resided the Prophet’s patron King Vistaspa, and where the Prophet’s mission first met with success. If Balkh in Afghanistan was the place of the Prophet’s ministry, surely his birthplace could not have been too far from it? After extensive research for over 40 years involving various disciplines such as prehistory, linguistics, archeology, ethnology and others, I have come to the conclusion that Zoroaster’s birthplace is about 200 km from Balkh, a once prosperous city now in ruins in the suburbs of the modern city of Mazar-e-Sharif near the river Amu Darya, the Oxus of the Greeks.

It is not so odd to believe that the Iranian Prophet was born in Afghanistan, for that is not the ancient name of the country which was at different times known as Khorasan (meaning the east), Ariana (the country of the Aryans, named so by the Greeks) with some Afghan provinces being included even in ancient India and ancient Iran. Secondly, Balkh, the seat of the Prophet’s ministry was then an important and prosperous city located at the crossroads between ancient Iran, Assyria and Anatolia (Turkey) on one side and India, China and Central Asia on the other.

Two countries that figure prominently in the times of Zoroaster are Sogdiana (present Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) and ancient Ariana (modern Afghanistan), situated on either side of the Oxus. It was from the Farghanas (in and around modern Kyrgyzstan) that the Aryans who migrated southward down the Belur Tagh and the Alai mountains into the western slopes of the Pamirs and ancient Sogdiana crossed the Oxus into Afghanistan below, from where they spread out into various Afghan provinces.

Prof SAM N. DOCTOR

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