The Zoroastrians share many common traditions and values with the ancient Hindu Vedic traditions. Their religion was mostly destroyed during the Islamic invasion of Persia and most remanants live in Western India.
The Zoroastrians, also called Parsees, make up one of the most successful communities in India. They also have a proud military tradition.
Quite an overstatement. The author of the article is forgetting that the ancient Greeks defeated Persian invasions twice. The Persians never conquered the Greeks in the west, and certainly never made it to Rome.
“We were once at least 40, 50 million — can you imagine?” said Mr. Antia, senior priest at the fire temple here in suburban Chicago.
I am not sure the figure is correct, but let's assume that the Persian Empire numbered 50 million people. The Persians did not force conquered people to convert to Zoroastrianism, so the number of practicing Zoroastrians would have been much smaller that that figure.
It is an interesting religion. I particularly like their towers of silence. They did not bury their dead because that would pollute the earth. And they didn't cremate them either because that would pollute fire. They put their dead on top of a tower and let the vultures eat away the flesh from the bones.
Why is it that Zoroastrians influenced Judaism? Wouldn't it be the other way around?
The wisemen were thought to be Zoroastrians(more than likely at least one of them was). It is quite an interesting religion and is far closer to Christianity and Judism than it is to Islam.