Ezad II

Recently I did a post on the word Ezad, a Persian name of God unfamiliar to most of us that is found at the end of Meher Baba's Universal Prayer. There I explained its meaning and derivation.

Here I wish to say how to pronounce it, after asking a few people. I think it is hard to determine, for you really need to hear it from the mouth of an Iranian Zoroastrian – for whom the word is familiar.

It is a form of Yezdan. And a Persian will pronounce it in a way that is hard to put down on paper, but I will do my best.

It is something close to Ee'-zat. Accent on the first syllable. Ee as in "free" and zad as something between "had" and "hat," where the "d" is very sharp, almost like a "t", and the "a" is short. If it helps, think of "EE GADS !" (pun swiped from the wit of Talat Halman).

Sources:

• Spoken in person to me, Mehernoush McPherson. 
• Through text email: Fereshteh Azad, communicated to me via Dr. Talat Halman, Associate Professor of religion at Central Michigan University specializing in Islamic studies. 
• Kendra Crossen Burroughs, well-known editor of religious books.

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Thinking up my two cents

But if anyone wants my two-cents, I think the way we have said it in America all these years is even cooler, and sounds even more foreign and mysterious.

Ee-Zod'

Ee as in free, Zod as in sod, accent on zod.

You are named Ezad – the only One worthy of worship.