Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is the ancient pre-Islamic religion of Iran that survives there in isolated areas and, more prosperously, in India, where the descendants of Zoroastrian Iranian (Persian) immigrants are known as Parses, or Pareses. In India the religion is call Parsiism. Founded by the Iranian prophet and reformer Zoroaster in the 6th century BC, the religion contains both monotheistic and dualistic features. It influenced the other major Western religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The ancient Greeks saw in Zoroastrianism the archetype of the dualistic view of the world and of man