In Sūrah of Al-Ḥajj (22), Āyah 17:
إِنَّ
الَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ وَ الَّذِينَ هَادُواْ وَ َ الصَّٰبِئن وَ النَّصَارَى وَ الْمَجُوسَ وَ الَّذِينَ
أَشْرَكُواْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَفْصِلُ بَيْنَهُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلىَ كلُِّ شىَْءٍ شهيدٌ. ۞
Indeed those
who believe [in Islam], and those who became Jews, and the Ṣā’ibīn,
and the Naṣārā (Christians), and the
Majūs and those who take partners [with Allāh ], Allāh will indeed judge
between them on the Day of Resurrection.
Indeed Allāh is Witness to all things. 17 ۞
We
see that Allāh has divided all
people of the world into three major
groups:
1.
Those who believe [in Islam],
2.
“people of the Book”, specifically the Jews, the Ṣābi’īn, the Naṣārā (Christians),
and the Majūs. Therefore, the population of Majūs is not
considered as pagans, and are among the “People of the Book”.
3. The pagans who worshipped idols, or placed
partners to Allāh. However, many
groups in the second category gradually deviated from the path of their
monotheist prophets, and took partners with Allāh . They should also be categorised in this category.
The Majūs were an old famous tribe (Mughān),
who later followed Zoroaster, and his book, Avesta. Islamic traditions reveal that the Majūs
had a Prophet, and a Book, in 12 chapters, written on the skin of cow. But they killed their prophet and burned the
Book.
In some
old Persian literature the term Majūs has been considered to be synonymous with Gabr [denoting
the followers of Zoroastrianism]. In time, Gabr came to have a negative
implication, unfairly, and was superseded in literature by the respectable Zardushti
[Zoroastrian in English].