The Political Discourse Role of Zoroastrian Religion in Constructing the Territorial Identity of Iran in the Sassanid Era

From the view of postmodern political geography, territorial identity is formed as a text within a set of systematically mental elements under discourse and then it finds objectivity in a node called "space". In other words, the objectified identity is the result of a set of relations regulated by political power Which at a certain point in history, make the meaning of territory. In this regard, for the first time in the history of ancient Iran, the Sassanid dynasty used the ideological apparatus of Zoroastrianism to create territorial identity. In this research, has been attempted to investigate how the elements of Zoroastrianism are articulated by Sassanid dynasty for creating the sense of territorial belonging between people.

The study findings show that the political role of charismatic leaders has played an important role in building government, borders, territory and identity during Sassanid dynasty. The Sassanid dynasty in a way represents the territorial identity from the teachings of the Avesta (Holy Writ for Zoroastrians), in which the Integrated territory of Iran blends with holiness and forms the collective spirit. During this period, under the official religion discourse, a kind of alienation was formed which represented Iran as Ahuraian territory and this country was discursively contradictions to non-Iranians. A mission was delegated to the political power for developing the Zoroastrian identity in the minds of the Iranian people and remove the internal and external demons from this original identity.