The conflict between Iran and the US, instigated by Israel, has by some sections been cast as a religious war. There have been reports that US military commanders have been invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical “end times” to justify involvement in the Iran war to troops.
They were told that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth”. Israel, of course, believes that they are the chosen people of God and that the land of Palestine, along with parts of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, was promised to them 3000 years ago.
Iran, on the other hand, is the stronghold of Shia Islam, whose leader, the now deceased Ali Hosseini Khamenei, was the second most important Shia religious figure after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani based in Najaf, Iraq. So, for some, it is a fight between three major monotheistic faiths—Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.
Ironically, all of these three religions are thought to have originated from Abraham, a mythical figure who is considered to be the patriarch of all these religions. In fact, collectively, these three religions are called Abrahamic religions.
What is, however, overlooked is that Iran, or as it was known in the past, Persia, had a great influence in shaping their theology and mythology. To understand this story, one has to go back more than 2,000 years.
In the eighth century BCE, the kingdom of Judah was captured by the Assyrian Empire, a fate it suffered again at the hands of the Babylonians during the sixth century BCE.
On both of these occasions, many of the elite were forcibly removed from the kingdom and settled in Babylon (today’s Iraq), which was a common strategy to curtail local uprisings. Some returned home when the Achaemenid (an ancient Iranian empire) King Cyrus conquered Babylon and issued a decree stating that the Jews would be allowed to return to their homeland.
Judah became a Persian province. The loss, exile, return, and restoration that were associated with this tumultuous period triggered a flurry of literary activities that gave rise to the Hebrew Bible (known as the Old Testament) as it is found today.
In her award-winning book God: An Anatomy, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter, has dealt extensively with ancient Judaism as reconstructed through Hebrew texts and archaeology.
The book situates the origin of the religion within the larger religious landscape of southwest Asia and traces the beginning of its adoption of monotheism. It traces how Yahweh—originally a ferocious storm deity—evolved from one among many gods, along with a wife, to supplant El as the head of a local pantheon, and ultimately become the sole divine being in the universe.
The latter process started with the return of Judah’s exiles. While rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, they also reconfigured the religion to adopt a more monotheistic character. There is even a silver coin minted during the fourth century BCE in Persian-controlled Judah of a high god enthroned on a winged chariot, identified to be Yahweh.
But Persia’s influence on the Abrahamic religions goes beyond the fact that it allowed those exiled to return and compile the religious books that laid the foundation of Judaism, and later Christianity and Islam.
Many ideas now regarded as core concepts of these religions have also been influenced by Persia’s state religion, Zoroastrianism, the world’s oldest monotheistic faith.
The story of the Garden of Eden, from which Adam and Eve were banished (which was a reworking of an older myth of a king who could be expelled from the heavenly sphere if he displeased the gods), represents their departure from heaven for having committed sin.
The word ‘paradise’ is actually derived from an Old Persian word ‘pairidaēza’, which means “a (garden) surrounded by walls”. Contact with Zoroastrianism also gave rise to the concept of hell and the afterlife.
Before this, ancient Jews believed that after death, both the righteous and the unrighteous would go to the underworld, called Sheol. This is not surprising, as many cultures around the world lack a concept of hell as a place of punishment.
Indigenous Khasi faith does not have any reference to a place of punishment. Dujok and Norok, the words used for hell, are of non-Khasi origin, derived from Dojakh in Persian (Islamic) and Narak in Sanskrit (Hindu).
The final destination of all the deceased is to have kwai in the house of God. It is only when the rituals are not conducted in the proper manner that the spirits of the deceased are forced to wander the earth aimlessly.
In her 1969 PhD thesis The Origin and Early History of Khasi-Synteng People, Namita Catherine Shadap mentions a dark underworld, but it is inhabited by goblins and demons.
In this, the Khasi are very similar to many indigenous groups around the world, for whom the final destination for all is the home of the ancestors rather than a flaming pit of damnation in which some are tortured for eternity. In fact, Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination, also do not believe in a hell of fiery torment, but rather in something similar to the original concept of the Hebrew Sheol.
In a culture where ‘sin’ is not a guiding principle, honour—moral consistency in remaining true to one’s word—becomes central.
In fact, spoken words have great importance in Khasi cosmology, with the right utterances allowing humans to communicate with other non-human beings in the world.
This is best illustrated by a version of the story of how the Pnars—a subgroup of the Khasis residing in the Jaintia Hills, excluding areas inhabited by the War and non-Khasi groups such as the Biate—overthrew the oppressive Syiem Malngiang of Hima Madur Maskut.
This version is found in the 2015 PhD thesis Reconstructing the Early Jaintia State through Oral Traditions by Betty Laloo.
A plan was devised among the Pnars to overthrow the oppressive Syiem, and assistance was sought from some of the Pnar servants in his household.
They initially refused, stating that they were bound by the oath they had taken to serve him faithfully. In the end, they agreed, but not before accepting the fact that God might punish them for breaking their oath, though they were willing to bear the punishment.
Transgressions are thus punished during the lifetime of the wrongdoers rather than after death, removing the need for a concept of hell in Khasi cosmology.
Another idea which is crucial to Abrahamic faiths is the idea of the Messiah. In Zoroastrianism, Saoshyans is the messiah who will come at the end of the world to destroy evil and resurrect the bodies of the dead.
This concept entered ancient Judaism, with the Hebrew Bible referring to Cyrus as a messiah for his decree to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple. Christianity and Islam later adopted the idea; however, Jews do not regard Jesus as the messiah.
In fact, Orthodox Jews who are against the state of Israel argue that it is only the coming of the messiah which will undo the exile of the Jews and allow them to return. Some Orthodox Jewish sects, therefore, do not recognise the state of Israel, as it violates Jewish religious law.
Similarly, other ideas like the fight between good and evil or light and darkness also have their origin in Zoroastrianism. The Magi, important figures associated with the birth of Jesus Christ, were originally a term used for Zoroastrian priests.
So, if one were to take away the ideas of monotheism, heaven and hell, sin, the fight between good and evil, and the messiah, the whole theology of the Abrahamic religions would look very different.
Indeed, history itself may have turned out very differently. Imagine there was no Arab conquest of large parts of West Africa and North Africa, nor European colonisation of many parts of the world, nor the displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their land.
The world will never be perfect, but it would not be the same as we see it today.
Instead, today we have a crisis which, if not solved, will affect not just mythical claims but the real-world economy in which all of us live, irrespective of which religion one believes in or does not believe in. So, hopefully, this ‘religious’ conflict among siblings ends soon.
(The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not reflect in any way his affiliation with any organisation or institution.)
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