Shikand-gumanic Vichar - His Book

His Book

The Shkand-gumanig Vizar of Mardan-Farrukh was written during an "intellectual renaissance of Zoroastrianism" which occurred "shortly before the rapid decline of Zoroastrianism, migrations to India, and conversions to Islam." Several reasons may account for its occurrence:

"First, the times not only permitted but provoked such writings. Mu'tazilites, or Islamic free-thinkers, many of whom were Persians, had created an atmosphere of free debate and interest in philosophical and theological questions. ... Second, the Zoroastrians were losing ground and they passed from a militant defiance of Islam or the Arabs to an intellectual defensive. This may be seen in a number of apologetic works written at this time such as the Shkand Gumanik Vicar... .

In the first half of his book, Mardan-Farrukh provides his version of the prevailing Zoroastrian response to issues of theodicy (chapters 1-4 and 7-10). As he sees it, the acute moral quandary is how and why a wise and powerful God would create a world that seemingly has turned out so imperfect, which can at times appear merciless and cruel to creatures living in it. He outlines what might be called a dualist ethical metaphysics and a cosmology. In his remaining pages, the author discusses critically other neighboring religions. He addresses (chapters 11 and 12) the doctrines of the Qur'an, and later those of the Bible, both the Hebrew scriptures (chapters 13 and 14), as well as the Gospels (chapter 15). Earlier materialists (atheists or sophists) had been discussed and dismissed (chapters 5 and 6). He concludes with an adverse review of the brand of dualist theology particular to the Manichees (chapter 16). In a limited sense his work might be described as a nascent, adumbrated forerunner of comparative religion studies with the understanding, of course, that it is rendered from the view point of a 9th-century Zoroastrian.

R. C. Zaehner gives this description of Mardan-Farrukh's Shkand-Gumänïg Vichär:

This is in some ways the most interesting of all the Zoroastrian books since it presents a philosophical justification of Zoroastrian dualism in a more or less coherent form; and it further contains a detailed critique of the monotheistic creeds, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity as well as an attack on Zoroastrianism's dualistic rival, Manichaeanism."

The Škand-gumanik Vičār was translated first into Sanskrit c. 1100, for the benefit of the Parsis (the Zoroastrians of India). Modernly, the book has been translated into several European languages.