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:
“If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world to contradict any person who described me other than I was, although he did it to honour me.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water until he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“Most of the money given by rich people in “charity” is made up of conscience money, “ransom,” political bribery, and bids for titles.... One buys moral credit by signing a cheque, which is easier than turning a prayer wheel.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)