Zoroastrianism, as the major Iranian religion before the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century, exercised a deep influence on other religious traditions of the region around it. In particular, it has exercised a strong influence on the development of eschatological ideas in the Arabic and Islamic literature. This article explores some of the main features of the transmission of ideas from Zoroastrian sources to Islamic literature, focusing on doctrines regarding the judgment of souls after death. It argues that the Islamic literature that emerged in the first centuries of Islamic history borrowed several eschatological themes covered in Zoroastrian sources, and incorporated them into an Islamic theological system.
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