From Iran to Karachi: Taking a Look at Parsi Migration

November 11, 2006

Source: Daily Times Monitor

http://www.topix.net/religion/zoroastrian

Before the creation of Pakistan, Karachi had the fourth largest Zoroastrian population in the subcontinent, writes John R. Hinnells in his book The Zoroastrian Diaspora: Religion and Migration. Daily Times has reproduced a review of this book that appeared in the September issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

“The followers of the religious message of Zarathustra, the Zoroastrians, are members of one of the world’s smallest religions, numbering approximately 100,000 to 120,000 individuals worldwide. The significant history of the Zoroastrians and their incredibly declining numbers warrants study. The Zoroastrian Diaspora marks the culmination of over thirty years of research and scholarship by John Hinnells on the Zoroastrian and Parsi communities of the world. The information is researched, gleaned, and analyzed from a variety of divergent sources that include books, journals, periodical publications, and some 1,840 responses to a global survey.

“The author has made assiduous effort to account for all the published literature on the modern Zoroastrians. At the same time, The Zoroastrian Diaspora seeks to fill what the author regards as a clear lacuna in the literature on the Zoroastrians, that is the absence of scholarly analysis of the Zoroastrian diaspora outside Iran. Indeed, the central conviction of the work is that “the diaspora groups have made a significant role in the development of the community and the religion”.