Sciiti o zoroastriani? Luoghi e identità religiose multiple nell’Iran contemporaneo

The purpose of this paper is to present how sacred and archeological Zoroastrian sites in Iran are worshipped not only by Zoroastrians, but also by iranian shi’a Muslims. Fire temples and holy places cannot be considered proper «multi faith places». However, in contemporary Iran, Zoroastrian sites act as the places where multiple layers of identity overlap, interact, and create a collective, national memory, balanced between the greatness of the «Persian past» and present-day Islamic republic, bridging different religious beliefs, with the aim to enforce the modern Iranian national identity. In this sense, the attraction of Iranian Muslims towards holy Zoroastrian places develops through a network of memory and identity, built upon a recent reinterpretation of ancient Persian history, initiated by the Pahlavi dynasty and continuing through the Islamic Revolution in 1979 until today. In this construction, Zoroastrian heritage, Persian identity and shi’a Muslim faith are intertwined and highly connected to the environment, to the landscape and to the buildings and archeological sites, making places sacred not only in relation to a particular confession, but sacred in a more universal sense, for all those Iranians who feel they belong to the modern nation-state of Iran.