Leader of a religious revolutionary movement in Sassanid Iran under King Cavades [1] (AD 488-496, 498/9-531). The fundamental characteristic is a strong social egalitarianism.
A basic difficulty in researching Mazdakism is that almost all information originates from sources that are hostile to it. The only contemporary report is found in the Syriac chronicle of Joshua Stylites. Byzantine (Procop. BP 1,5-11; 2,9; Agathias, Historiae 4,27-30; Ioh. Mal. 465, 633 and 653 Migne) and Arabic sources from a later period are particularly impor…