Zoroastrianism was the religion of the Iranian peoples before Islam came with the Invasion from Arabia. Some, especially around Yazd, have held to it. Much of it’s tradition was adopted by later religions. It brought on a radical change in attitude that saw Cyrus I write what is seen as the first declaration of human rights, the Cyrus Cylinder, and follow policies of tolerance and respect to many peoples once he’d conquered them.  There aren’t records of that happening before in the ancient world.

Chak Chak is the most holy of the mountain shrines.  Tradition has it that pilgrims are to stop the moment they see the sight of the temple and continue their journey on foot the rest of the way. Our driver impatiently beeped them out of the way as he drove us up as close as he could possibly get to the shrine, in his beat up car with it’s cracked wind screen and dead dashboard. He smiled and shrugged to the protesting old man along the way, relaying the incident with evident surprise to our guide, who arrived later.  Men and women are meant to cover their heads inside the shrine, but foreigners and guides seemed exempt.  There was some more shrugging and garrulous grinning aimed at the shrine caretaker, I couldn’t understand the precise details of the exchange, but that was the upshot.