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Zoroastrianism is a reminder of the mysterious ways of religious faith. It was founded in Persia, probably around 7th century B.C. by the prophet Zarathushtra, known to the Greeks as Zoroaster. The force of his teachings, collected in scripture known as the Avesta, made his faith a dominant religion from Turkey to China until the rise of Islam in the 7th century A.D. Thirteen hundred years later, Zoroastrianism endures. Its adherents now number less than 300,000. When National Public Radio reporter Jacki Lyden and Washington Post photographer Nancy Andrews traveled to Iran in February, they found evidence both of its historic vitality and its inexorable decline. In the desert plateau of Yazd, 350 miles southeast of Tehran, they found the flame of FAITH still burning but among ever fewer PEOPLE. When their journey was over Andrews returned to contemporary Iran where her travel journal, AN AMERICAN IN IRAN, captured the human realities that belie the mutual demonization of the Islamic Republic and the United States.
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