Zoroastrian prophecies:
didymus said:
Is the prophecy listed on the first post here written by Bah'ai? What was the date of its writing?
Well here's the quote...
When a thousand two hundred and some years have passed from the inception of the religion of the Arabian (Muhammad) and the overthrow of the kingdom of Iran and the degradation of the followers of My religion, a descendant of the Iranian kings will be raised up as a Prophet.
(Zoroaster - Dinkird)
I think the book is known more often as the "Dinkard" or "Denkard" rather than the "Dinkird" and it's supposed to be in Pahlavi the sacred language of the Zoroastrians that migrated to India to escape after the fall of the Sassanids to Moslem rule:
"It is written in that form of Pahlavi language, which was current in the Sassanian times (226-641 A.D) and thereafter. It is an extraordinary treatise containing enormous information on the doctrines, tenets, traditions, history and the scriptural and other writings of the Mazdayasni Daena as imbibed in, and observed by, the ancient Iranians."
Source:
http://tenets.zoroastrianism.com/3dinkard33.html
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When i quote ancient books i prefer if possible to cite the verse and chapter if available, as a reference point for others to verify but sometimes people just quote....and of course not all manuscripts have been versified or divided into handy sections.
I found a site of prophecies of Baha'u'llah alleged to be from Zoroastrianism sources and it seems the exact quote used in the first post is there. You can easily see this quote in red letters at
http://bci.org/prophecy-fulfilled/zoroaste.htm
This is not a scholarly site. I think a Joel Smith built this site and Joel is a Baha'i.
The quote also appeared earlier in a book by John Farraby called "All Things made New" and gives no other source that "Dinkird". It seems most likely that Joel's source was Ferraby's book. My edition of Farraby's book was a revised edition and published in 1975 and the quote above appears on p. 171. The source is given simply as "Dinkird".
On p. 310 Ferraby indicated "The Dinkird. The passage quoted was translated from the Persian by HM Balyuzi for this book."
Recently. the Research Department which provides information to the Universal House of Justice was unable to identify where this quote came from.
See
http://bahai-library.com/uhj/dinkird.zoroastrianism.html#1
While i have some Pahlavi texts and they have references to various prophecies I haven't seen this particular one...although the general gist is that Saoshyans as a future Saviour is to correct all the wrongs and restore religion and Baha'is with Zoroastrian believe Baha'u'llah fulfilled tehse prophecies.
For a more scholarly article on this subject see the essay "Bahá'u'lláh as Zoroastrian saviour" by Christopher Buck at:
http://bahai-library.com/articles/buck.zoroaster.html
- Art