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Majūs (Arabic:مجوس) orMagūs (Persian:مگوش) is a term that originally referred to theMagi, theZoroastrian priestly caste ofancient Persia.[1][2][3] In Arabic usage, it was soon generalized to denote all Zoroastrians.[4][5] The term was borrowed into Arabic viaImperial Aramaic:𐡌𐡂𐡅𐡔𐡀,romanized: mḡušā from theOld Persian:𐎶𐎦𐎢𐏁,romanized: maguš. The same Old Persian root was independently borrowed into Ancient Greek asmágoi (μάγοι), the term that appears in theGospel of Matthew.[6]
In early Islamic texts, Majūs was a technical term that initially had no pejorative implications. In theQuran, verse 22:17 lists "the Magians" (al-majūs) alongside Jews, Christians, and Sabians as a distinct religious community that will be subject to God's judgment.[7][8] Some Islamic scholars have held the theological position thatpre-Islamic Arabs were closer to the Abrahamic tradition than the Majūs, whose dualistic theology was seen as fundamentally different.[9][10] The term was also used in a polemical context by writers such asibn al-Jawzi, who framed Zoroastrian beliefs as deviations from an Islamic perspective.[11]
TheNew Persian termgabr, likely derived from the Aramaicgabrā ("man"), was used synonymously with Majūs in early texts. Over time,gabr acquired pejorative connotations and is now considered an offensive slur in Persian;[4] the respectful term for a Zoroastrian isZardoshti. The label "fire-worshipper" is a common but inaccurate description applied to Zoroastrians by non-adherents, based on a misinterpretation of the central role of fire in their rituals.
Historically, the application of the term expanded. Chroniclers inal-Andalus used al-Majūs to describe Viking raiders, extending the label for one group of non-Abrahamic people to another, likely because Norse practices such as cremation were misinterpreted as fire-worship.[12]
In the 20th century, the term was revived for political purposes. During theIran-Iraq War in the 1980s, theBa'athist government of Iraq used majus in its propaganda to refer to Iranians. This rhetoric was intended to de-legitimize the Iranian population on religious grounds by implying they were not sincere Muslims but were covertly practicing their pre-Islamic faith. This framing presented the war not only as a matter ofArab nationalism but also as a campaign on behalf of Islam.[13]
More recently, someSalafi andWahhabi polemicists and extremist groups have used majus as ananti-Shia slur.[14] This usage attempts to link Shia Islam to its Persian origins, portraying it as a vehicle for pre-Islamic, Majusi beliefs. While distinct from the general Arabic termkafir ("unbeliever"), majus functions as a targeted slur with specific historical and sectarian connotations.
Most of our evidence for that later history comes from the Sasanian period (224–642 CE). In post-Sasanian Zoroastrian sources, the Pahlavi books, the word mogh (mgw), the Middle Persian descendant of Old Persian magu-, is hardly ever attested. Instead of this generic word, more specific titles are always given; where a generic word is necessary, the word mard, "man", is used.55 Since many reconstructions of Sasanian history are based on sources from later periods, the existence of the word in Sasanian Iran has sometimes been obscured. It is, however, not only frequently found in non-Iranian Sasanian sources (in Aramaic, Syriac and Greek), but it is also very well attested in the most reliable Iranian sources from the period itself, namely personal seals.56 In fact, the word mogh is a very common word on Sasanian seals and bullae. The word had a long and distinguished career in Islamic Persian poetry (pīr-e moghān etc),57 which shows that it had not disappeared from the common speech of the Persians. The question therefore arises why the Zoroastrians, who formulated their tradition in the 9th century, wanted to get rid of it, but so far no reasonable hypothesis has been suggested for this problem. The only suggestion one can think of that makes sense is the fact that the Aramaic wordmagūšā and the Arabicmajūs were used not just to refer to Persian priests, but to Zoroastrians in general, and that the term came to be felt to be misleading for those who wanted to distinguish themselves as members of the priestly class.