People
The population of Yazd is predominantly Persian, most of whom are Shi'a Muslims. There are also small Zoroastrian communities. The city of Yazd’s first mention in historic records predate it back to around 3000 years B.C. when it was related to by the name of Ysatis, and was then part of the domain of Medes, an ancient empire of Iran. Excavations of Gharbal Biz remaining from the Achaemenid period are another example of the antiquity of Yazd.
Zoroastrians have traditionally been populous in Yazd. Even now, roughly ten percent of the town's population according to some estimates adhere to this ancient religion, and though their Atashkadeh (Fire Temple) was turned into a mosque after the Islamic Conquest of Persia, a dignified new fire temple was inaugurated thirteen hundred years later.
Read more about this topic: Yazd Province
Famous quotes containing the word people:
“Some people ... can’t see the country for the money in their pockets. They think their state is the country, or the way they live is the country. And they’re willing to split the country because of it.”
—Dan Totheroh (1895–1976)
“Gods always love the people who make ‘em.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“My time has come.
There are twenty people in my belly,
there is a magnitude of wings,
there are forty eyes shooting like arrows,
and they will all be born.
All be born in the yellow wind.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)