Mazdak son of Bamdad (مزدک بامدادان)
fl. c. 490s-520s; d. c. 524-528 (Crone 1991: after 531) · Ancient Near East · Known
Mazdak led a movement in late Sasanian Iran that demanded the means of subsistence, and access to women, be divided out to everyone alike, on the ground that God laid these on the earth for all and that private surplus breeds strife. He was a Zoroastrian priest. Not one word of his own survives. Every account of him comes from hostile authors writing after his followers were massacred.
Signature
The position Mazdak is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Economy
- Stateless Communism
Positions on the 0 axes the sources answer
20 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Mazdak refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Good and Evil
- Cosmic Dualism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Division of Good and Evil
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Economy
- Stateless Communism
What is the ideal organization of economic life?