MAGIANSthe late Sasanian period. This had probably proceeded further in Fars
than in Iraq, however, where Magians were still virtually identical
with the ruling elite. Three factors that may have retarded the devel-
opment of a Magian religious community were doctrinal diversity,
dependence on the state to enforce conformity, which both inhibited
the development of completely autonomous institutions and made
Magians vulnerable to the loss of political support, and the identifi-
cation of Magianism with the upper classes.
CONFLICT AND CONVERSIONMagians justified their hierarchic society by an elitist social ethic
that emphasized establishmentarian virtues. They placed a high value
on order, stability, legality, and harmony among the functionally de-
fined divisions of society (priests, soldiers, bureaucrats, and workers,
or priests, soldiers, artisans, and farmers), so each would perform its
specific duty towards the others. They emphasized the justice of re-
wards and punishments on the spiritual, political, and social planes,
and used economic, legal, and religious sanctions to ensure the obe-
dience of women and children. They equated material wealth with the
virtue and goodness inherent in the upper classes, whose destiny or
fortune (M.P. xvarrah) it was to enjoy the good creation of Ohrmazd,
Naturally antiascetic, they equated poverty with the sin and evil in-
herent in the lower classes.^97
This kind of Magianism was challenged from one direction in the
early sixth century by the Mazdaki reform movement, which proposed
to share women and property as a cure for passions. This reform seems
to have been aimed at breaking down the privileges of the upper classes
and at creating a more popular, egalitarian form of Magianism; but
it also had the effect of touching off serious social disorders. The
movement was crushed by Khusraw Aniishirvan, who killed Mazdak
and eighty thousand of his followers between Jazir and Nahrawan
early in his reign. Mazdaki ideas survived or were revived in the
Magian sect called the Khurramdiniyya, which enjoyed a degree of
popularity among common people in western Iran in the early Islamic
period.^98
Magians were also challenged by alienated members of their own
97 De Menasce, Denkart, pp. 143,225; Duchesne-Guillemin, "Religion of Ancient
Iran," pp. 335-36.
98 De Menasce, Denkart, p. 31; Mas'udi, Muruj, Il, 305; Prokopios, Wars, I. v. 1;
Wright, Joshua the Stylite, pp. 13-15; Ya'qubi, Ta'rfkh, I, 186.
')Q7