ABC News stated that the Zoroastrian religion may be saved by the use of modern technology to couple people up into eventual marriage and family life, which is an interesting commentary international minority religions and the maintenance of the religious community broadly speaking.
Zoroastrianism is an ancient monotheistic faith older than Islam and Christianity, but with far fewer members. It was birthed in Persia. One Mumbai-based mother of two manages a database of Zoroastrian singles, bachelorettes and bachelors.
Her name is Zarin Havewala. She said, “So far, 55 couples have found their partners through my efforts — 53 couples are already married, and two more couples are engaged to be married soon. … About seven years ago, it struck me very badly [that] a lot of our youngsters are getting married outside the community. … I thought maybe they are not having enough avenues to know that there are other young Parsis available.”
The database is quite extensive and incorporates ages, careers, email addresses, names, numbers, and qualifications for the single coupledom-searchers. Originally, it was an idea for Indian Parsis, but then this extended to the globe with people from “Austin to Auckland and Iran to Oman.”
People simply started contacting Havewala. One woman, Auzita Pourshasb, said, “When you're taught that you're a part of a diminishing community … you feel like you've got a sense of responsibility to meet a Zoroastrian and to help those numbers grow.”
Based on the census information from 2016, there were only 3,000 Zoroastrians living in Australia, for an example. Pourshasb, herself, married a Christian man. Now, she is 30.
Around the world, the global Zoroastrian community is estimated to only be 200,000 with as many as 30 percent living in India alone. There are converts to some of the communities, but many of the orthodox Zoroastrians do not like the conversions into the faith.
The community is concerned about how best to bring about a maintenance and even growth of the 4,000-year-old faith. What does this also mean for other faiths and traditions with similar small or dwindling global numbers in proportion to the other dominant faiths of the world?
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