The Reflection of Zoroasterian Ethics in Naser Khosro's Counsels

This article seeks to explain that Naser Khosro had been inspired by Zoroasterian ethical teachings in expressing his moral views – which are mostly represented in his counsels. The effect he received from Middle Persian Literature and Zoroastrianism is not just limited to ethical counsels; the penetration of such themes in his subconscious mind had influenced the linguistic and mental structures of his works. In this research, on account of  the significance of investigating the effect of language and Pahlavi's literature on early Islamic centuries poets and writers' works, and the significance of such an effect on reading and a more precise analysis of Islamic texts era, as well as considering the fact that the penetration of linguistic and mental themes of Persian Middle Literature into works of Islamic era has often been neglected by researchers, a comparative study of Naser Khosro’s counsels and Zoroasterian ethical texts using Dēnkard (Acts of the Religion) full-text book IV – which is in fact the abstract of Zoroasterian counsels – has been conducted. With the analysis of the similarities between these two works in a mental and philosophical system, and from moral perspectives, we have concluded that Naser Khosro had been influenced by, and owes a lot to Zoroaterianism and Zoroasrian literature in writing his counsels.