Mazdak

Mazdak (died around 524 or 528) was an Iranian mobad, a Zoroastrian priest, and a social reformer who rose to prominence during the reign of the Sasanian emperor Kavadh I. He instituted a religious and social movement known as Mazdakism, which preached a dualistic cosmology and social welfare programs, including the communal ownership of property and, more controversially, of women, a position some scholars read as a reaction against the harem system. Kavadh I initially supported Mazdak and his followers as a way to weaken the power of the nobility and the established clergy, but Kavadh's son and successor Khosrow I, known as Anushiravan, later purged the movement. Mazdak's ideology survived in altered form, influencing later movements such as the Khurramites.