Letters

Men AND women created by a GOOD God

In response to Vida Kashizadeh's "Not that old hat again":

Madame you may wish to go as the daughter of the rest of the world and you are welcome to do so - as long as you are quite clear in your own mind that you will never be any daughter of ours! Ours are taught form birth and it runs in their veins that our religious beliefs and customs are sacred to us and may not be viloated by ignorance of the facts at any time and for any reason.

I do not know what stupid, utterly ignorant person has informed you of Zoroastrian women being created by ahriman - nor do I know what great authors and publications you have studied to date to be able to pontificate at such great length on a subject that you are obviously not at all au fait with! By merely mention Prof Mary Boyce's name to lend support to your ignorant pronouncements you simply show how little you have actually read of her works or studied under her tutelage. Her great and profound respect for Zoroastrianism, (I would not have called it a mere fascination) has made her study us in greater detail and therefore had you studied her in turn, you would not have found yourself making such foolish statements about us and our long history and influence on the world's religious stage!

It is disgraceful that any writer should descend to the base levels of journalese in attempts to sell/display their stories - and the only papers who would fall for such drivel have to be, in my opinion, simply yellow rags not worth the paper they are printed on - though since I read your attempts in cyberspace, perhaps I should be saying not worth the cyber space you are occupying!

The owner of the site may have found your article actually interesting (in spite of all his accomplishments in the field of journalism) and therefore may have allowed it to see the light of day thus unedited - to us it is an insult - specially to Zoroastrian womanhood! Jahanshah Javid, may well have reason to claim that he has had religion upto here - well we have not -and to presume that all have given up living their religion and are simply giving it some cursory lip service - is yet again a basic unawareness and a lack of knowledge equaling ignorance - ahriman's greatest tool to fight the forces of Ahura Mazda with!

Had you the slightest real indepth knowledge of Zoroastrianism you would never have made the claims you have. To a true blue Zoroastrian, God's finest creations, i.e., men AND women are simply and completely created by a GOOD God, Ahura Mazda - the Lord of Wisdom. Obviously since you lack any, should we be classifying you as being not created by Him and that you are a spawn of ahriman the same as those snakes, lizards and frogs mentioned somewhere before?

Gender equality and the protection of all of God's creations is a very basic part of Zoroastrianism. Laws against the evil one's destructive attempts are very much a part of our every day lives. Keeping God's gift of life clean and unpolluted, should be everyone's aim in life. Your take on segregation during a menstrual cycle should have been better researched, to learn exactly why it was ever in existence, before mouthing off your utter ignorance of the subject.

Likewise your comments on Zoroastrianism "Whereas Zoroastrianism was until their recent reform (after the Islamic coup d'etat) a more race orientated faith " etc. (read deformed instead) is not in consonnance with facts. We still believe in the fact that our race and our religion are completely intertwined. Someone may have called your ability to write a flair for the art - I beg to differ. If some idiots somewhere have taken it upon themselves to pretend to be the authorities on MY religion of birth and breeding and practise, kindly have the courtesy to us, not to give their unholy actions sanction by your stance. As you so rightly state a little later on somethings are actually 'beyond' you - not because you cannot fathom them but because you have not even tried to.

Had you really studied Persian History you would have known exactly what brought the last Sassanian King to the throne - or just how low he would have had to bend to get under the crown. You would also have learnt a lot about Zoroastrianism and you would have been saved from making an exhibition of your ignorance of the subject in public.

Perhaps whilst I am at it, I might as well tell you that there are more Behdins than Athravans in Zoroastrian society today - as has been the case in most communities that do have a class distinction between their priesthood and their laity, through the ages. At no stage has Zoroastrianism been riddled by what you seem to call a caste system - again a severe display of your knowledge of Zoroastrianism AND anyone else's caste system.

You further state : "Meanwhile even the Zoroastrians had to learn about genetics and the advantages of being a mixed race. And perhaps also becoming conscious of the opportunities they had lost - during the Reza Shah's rule - amongst the anti Arabs (who are a Smeitic race as Jewsish people) and the Hitler Youth in Iran (and would you believe, there seem to be a revival of this amongst some young people in Iran at present?)."

It would indeed be an advantage to know exactly what these great advantages are supposed to be and why anyone would state such a thing unless they themselves are already suffering from that mixed race syndrome. What opportunities are lost by not becoming mixed? Are they worth giving up one's religion for? Should the Zoroastrians in Iran have intermarried so that they could gain some power in the temporal, secular world? Do you really believe that there is some great advantage to being one with those who are anti-Arab and even may be today's version of that horrible Hitler Youth of yore? Perhaps to your mind - but NEVER to ours!

It would be rather interesting to know just who this Dealer addressing a literary crowd in Cairo was. It wouldn't have been some ahrimanali would it?

Nothing may be sacred to the site you write at and get published at - but do try to get your facts right or else Iranian.com will lose all credibility. Any Zoroastrian women who would have been attracted to Islam over the practises of their religion are quite welcome to go over to the opposition and leave the rest to the practice of their Godgiven religion in peace.

Though someone else may have seen your essay as being well written, you basically jump from one to another topic and back again like some Mexican flea - reminding one of the state of what your own mind may be - pretty unstable and unfocussed. Try to stick to the topic and go step by step to a final conclusion. BUT above all else do some more research on the subject before you set fingers to keyboard - specially when you write about any subject you are simply not familiar with, via your genes or upbringing - for you land up hurting a lot of people's religious sensibilities to boot.

In conclusion Vida Kashizadeh, your entire article is full of surakh!

In regret that you choose to poke fun at another's religion,

Shirin JM
A full blooded Parsi Zoroastrian by birth - and proud to be one!

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