Definitive Zoroastrian Critique of Islam

Christian Sahner is Associate Professor of Islamic History at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Fellow of New College, University of Oxford. His work explores the transition from Late Antiquity to the Islamic Middle Ages, relations between Muslims and non-Muslims (chiefly Christians and Zoroastrians), and the interconnected history of Syria, Iran, and North Africa. His publications include Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World (Princeton University Press, 2018) and Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook (co-editor) (University of California Press, 2020).

‘Un glossaire et un index complètent utilement cet ouvrage qui constitue à la fois une introduction très accessible à l’histoire du zoroastrisme avant et pendant la première période abbasside, un moyen de découvrir la pensée dualiste des élites zoroastriennes à partir d’une oeuvre qui vise à en dégager les premiers principes et à les défendre, et un outil de travail pour étudier cet exemple singulier de kalam zoroastrien et ses relations avec les discours musulmans contemporains.’ ‘A glossary and an index provide a useful addition to this work, which serves as both a highly accessible introduction to the history of Zoroastrianism before and during the early Abbasid period, a means of exploring the dualist thought of the Zoroastrian elites through a text that seeks to identify its fundamental principles and defend them, and a working tool for studying this unique example of Zoroastrian kalam and its relationship with contemporary Muslim discourse.’ Bastien Dumont, Bulletin critique des Annales islamologiques Translated from French