Zoroastrian Studies Seminar Series: Babak Rahimi

Secular Religion and Neo-Zoroastrian Performatives in the Iranian Diaspora

The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies in collaboration with the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, the Ontario Zoroastrian Community Foundation, the Zoroastrian Society of Ontario, and the Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation jointly present "Secular Religion and Neo-Zoroastrian Performatives in the Iranian Diaspora: A Southern California Case Study".

Abstract:
This paper outlines the changing religious landscape of the Iranian diaspora in North America by focusing on the reconstruction of pre-Islamic cultural traditions as a distinct public religion. It specifically examines neo-Zoroastrian performatives as diasporic practices in Southern California, highlighting how ritual, heritage, and spectacle function as sites where race, religion, and identity intersect within the post-secular age. These include Zoroastrian material culture, Nowruz, Mehregan, Faravahar iconography, and references to Cyrus the Great-deployed not primarily for theological purposes, but as cultural markers of identity. The paper argues that such practices reflect a diasporic form of "cultural
religion" rooted in pre-Islamic motifs and expressing both a secular disidentification with Islam and an Aryanist racial imaginary tied to Indo-European lineage as a source of spiritual renewal. The paper is divided into two sections. The first section offers a brief historical overview of religious culture among Iranian diaspora communities in North America. The
second section examines two case studies of what the study terms neo-Zoroastrian performative culture-a distinct form of diasporic public religion that blends ritual, heritage, and spectacle with implicit racial motifs. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Diana Eck, Thomas Tweed, and Emile Durkheim, the paper understands these religious reconfigurations as communal expressions of racial identity formed within secular-liberal and multicultural contexts. The final section is theoretical and offers a critical discussion of the intersections between religion, race, and diasporic identity in shaping new modalities of public religiosity in the post-secular setting.

Bio: 
Babak Rahimi is Professor of Culture, Religion, and Technology at the University of California, San Diego, where he serves as Director of the Program for the Study of Religion and the Middle East Studies Program. He is the author of Theater-State and the Formation of the Early Modern Public Sphere in Iran: Studies on Safavid Muharram Rituals, 1590-1641 C.E. (Brill, 2011), a historical-sociological examination of the interplay between public ritual, state power, and social dynamics in the Safavid era. His recent book, Senses of Mourning: Moharram Performances in Shi'i Iran from the Qajar to the Covid Era (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2026), explores the sensory dimensions of religion in modern lranian history. Rahimi is the editor of Theatre in the Middle East: Between Performance and Politics (Anthem Press, 2020) and Performing Iran: Culture, Performance, Theatre (1.B. Tauris, 2021). He has also co-edited Social Media in Iran (with David Faris, SUNY Press, 2015), The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam (with Armando Salvatore and Roberto Tottoli, Wiley Blackwell, 2018), and Muslim Pilgrimage in the Modern World (with Peyman Eshaghi, University of North Carolina Press, 2019). His current research examines the intersections of culture, religion, and empire, with a focus on Islamicate societies, particularly Iran.

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