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:
“Do not give heed to everything that people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you; your heart knows that many times you have yourself cursed others.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Ecclesiastes 7:21.
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—John Berger (b. 1926)
“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”
—Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986)