Asha Raham (ed.) The Doubt-removing book of Mardānfarrox (Šak-ud-gumānīh-vizār)

Alain Mole, 2015. — 300 p.Asha Raham (ed.) Shakud humanih visar: The Book of Mardanfarrokh, Dispelling Doubts (in English and Pahlavi)Škand gumānīg wizār (Doubt-dispelling exposition), a Middle Persian Zoroastrian text written by Mardānfarrox son of Ohrmazddād in the ninth century. Its author mentions the Dēnkard compiled by Ādurfarrbay ī Farroxzādān as one of its sources, but does not quote the later compilation of the Dēnkard by Ādurbād ī Ēmēdān, and this may lead one to date his work more precisely to the second half of the ninth century.
The Škand gumānīg wizār may well be considered a “key text” in Near Eastern religious history, and it clearly provides the best example of Zoroastrian polemical skills applied to the refutation of the tenets of other religions current at the time. In fact, the Škand gumānīg wizār can be assigned to that same apologetic genre to which belong also the first three preserved books of the Dēnkard. Here, however, reason prevails over myth and the author’s argumentations are detailed and rational.Translation.
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