MAZDAKISM          

In Persia itself Manichaeanism was severely persecuted and uprooted, but its aspect of social protest continued until two centuries later when it appeared once again in the form of Mazdakism. This strong social movement proposed a communistic state in which wealth and women were shared, but at the same time claimed that it was a return to pure Zoroastrianism. Although differing in many ways from Manichaeanism, it shared this factor with its predecessor that it too was a protest against the Zoroastrian priesthood and the hierarchical society of the Sassanian period. But the movement of Mazdak, like that of Mani, was extinguished in Persia and it was not until the rise of Islam that Zoroastrianism lost its commanding position in the Persian religious scene.