Persian hagiography This material formed the basis for the surviving hagiographical material of Zarathustra, which is found in Middle Persian or Pahlavi texts including the "Dēnkard" and the "Wizidagiha", and in New Persian texts including the "Zaratosht-nama" and the "Shahnameh". Using and developing the historiographical methods of the "muḥaddithūn" (scholars of the sayings and history of the Prophet), Persian scholars drew on oral tradition and their own observations to write about holy figures. However, many hagiographies also drew on earlier written sources, often adapting those sources to reflect the writers' own view of sainthood. For example, in the twelfth century CE, Muḥammad
Zoroaster and myths. Zoroaster's name in his native language, Avestan, was probably "Zaraϑuštra". His English name, "Zoroaster", derives from a later (5th century BCE) Greek transcription, "Zōroastrēs" (), as used in Xanthus's "Lydiaca" (Fragment 32) and in Plato's "First Alcibiades" (122a1). This form appears subsequently in the Latin "" and, in later Greek orthographies, as Ζωροάστρις "Zōroastris". The Greek form of the name appears to be based on a phonetic transliteration or semantic substitution of Avestan "zaraϑ-" with the Greek ζωρός "zōros" (literally "undiluted") and the Avestan "-uštra" with ἄστρον "astron" ("star"). In Avestan, "Zaraϑuštra" is generally accepted to derive from