Anyway

Javan

I am all for freedom of religion. That includes freedom to *leave* a religion. Do you support freedom of people to leave Islam. What is the Sharia rule on people leaving Islam. How does Islam treat conversion from Islam to other religions. How does Koran rule on people who go say from Islam to Christianity or to Atheism.

What lies did I or others say about Islam. Please mention them. Just produce one lie that I said please.

Did the prophet of Islam marry a 6 year old girl then sleep with her at age of 9. Yes or no? Is this something you think is right. Do I make these things up. It is recorded historical fact not made up lies.  Just go read it in any Islamic history book.

99 % of Iran is not Muslim. You may keep repeating it but it will not make it so. In fact thanks to IRI many people who used to be Muslim are rethinking it. Really people watch how Muslims act and they get turned off. Fatwahs; stonings; forced hijab; whipping people; executions including minors. I am not making these things up. Go read the Koran or Sharia law. It is all there; I am not lying or making any of it up. In fact I prefer if Islam was a nice peaceful religion. It would be great but it is not.

Here is a Mullah talking about how Iranian youth are leaving Islam. Not my words his own words right from IRI television no lies and not made up. It is in Persian.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRvSmCLF7N8

You don't know why I use my handle or its meaning. If you did you would know it has nothing to do with grandeur. If you cafre here is a link:

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Muqanna

How do you know I would be worse than the Shah? You are making claims based on no information. I am in fact very liberal; oppose the death penalty; and dictatorship. If I were in charge the first thing to go would be the death penalty. In addition I oppose any forcing of religion or not having religion on people.

Respect vs. Disrespect

No matter how much you disrespect Islam and Muslims...

I will remain a devout Iranian Muslim.  

Making lies about Islam, Muslims, The Prophet (peace be upon him), Hazrat Ali, or anything else is as old as time. 

However, as you can see...Islam went from 1 man to 1.5 BILLION.  

www.harunyahya.com

If you want to help Iran and bring "freedom" that freedom includes FREEDOM OF RELIGION, which 99% of Iran is Muslim.  

If you want support in changing Iran, then you can't attack Islam and Muslims. However, you can take control of your own faith and practice it the correct way to set an example and encourage other idiots like Ahmadinejad and his spiritual ilk of Shahis, Mujahedin, Communists, Hezbollahis, etc. to come to terms and understand that extremism of any kind is not productive.

Just look at yourself, "veiled prophet" you have delusions of grandeur and meglomania.  God forbid anybody like you would ever lead Iran.  You would be worse than the Shah or Ahmadinejad.  God knows best. 

Bia ba to

pand andazam

ta bebinam ke  kar fahm mishi ya moslamoon memooni?

Proud Iranian Muslim...

I am a proud Iranian Muslim =)

www.al-islam.org

www.islamdenouncesterrorism.com  

Islam is most likely a man made religion

Is there any other kind?

This is Shamloo's take on it:

   من بی‌نوا بند‌گکی سربراه
                                   نبودم
    و راهِ بهشتِ مینوی من
    بُز روِ طوع و خاکساری
                              نبود:
    مرا دیگرگونه خدایی می‌بایست
    شایسته‌ی آفرینه‌یی
    که نواله‌ی ناگزیر را
                           گردن
                                کج نمی‌کند.

    و خدایی
    دیگرگونه
    آفریدم.

//www.shamlou.org/index.php?q=node/184

Stop crying

Islam is most likely a man made religion since it promotes an ethnic Arab agenda.

Kooshan

Iranians who lived in the time of Ali and immediately afterwards.

Who are these Iranians? 

Are they Muslims in particular Shiite? Have you heard that history is written by the victor. What do you expect people whose job and lives depended on praising Ali to write! Real unbiased history is probably not available. However

VPofK

Not sure if I should believe you who base your facts on some biased historian (at best) or on the Iranians who lived in the time of Ali and immediately afterwards. There is no value in worshipping anything or anyone or arab or ajam or ajnabi. We need to free our mind, soul and self from slavery!

Put aside politics, I accept Ali (just like many others from different cultures) as a role model for the attributes he had.  I like to be a free soul. Even if I let aside all but just consider his selfishlessness, that is more than enough to believe that he was a decent man.

I have heard many araajifs like this from bahram moshiri who is enslaved to his ignorance and arrogance. He is pretty eloquent though!!!!!!!!

Kooshan

COP

Silly me

Perhaps the so called Iranians defending dead Arabs are unaware that their beloved Ali single handedly separated 400 Iranian heads from their body in one day. (sar borid, Islam's specialty)

Oh...never mind, they must have been AIPAC agents...silly me...

____________

IRAN FIRST

____________

People Ebi is

not a religions figure so why are you so upset. True  I do see it being an unfair portrayal but pretty funny.

By the way when did Ebi side with despotic rulers! Leave him be.

Personally I  do not

Personally I  do not subscribe to attacks on religious figures, out of respect to ordinary. hardworking people who happen to be religious. But I do uderstand why these attacks happen and by such increasing frequency.

This is not uniqe to Iran. There are historical points of reference. in both French and Russian revolutions, churches, priests, religious figures and icons were attacked and destroyed. in both cases, the church had sided with despotic rulers. In Iran, "the church" ARE the despotic rulers....

This is shameful,

This is shameful, desperate, despicable and ignominious act of character assassination which is not inline with the gang of thugs who portray to uphold and die for democracy and freedom of their people.

Yes; This is the works of those who has done worse than this is the history to rule by deception and filth. History has changed and people know true intentions of fabricators of such nonsense.

You have lost your sanity and need a real and imminent therapy!

May Moses and Ahura OR undeserved money you have collected help you!

Dear Afyoun

Thank you for a good analysis. However Ali worship became prevelan during Safavis. They really pushed Shiiate with the threat of death. I do believe it had to do with control and power more than anything. 

There is truth to the good news. I see it all around. Before the revolution pretty much all of us accepted the party line on Ali and Shiitism. The revolution woke us up. It made us think and do soul searching. A myth based on lies is unable to withstand the light of reality. I was once from a Shiite family. We all accepted the Ali myth. Even had his "picture" around the house. The first thing that made me think twice about Islam was the hostages. What kind of religion has its top priest openly support taking hostages? From there on it took another 6 years for me to totally reject the whole mythology. I see this happening with other Iranians now. Right and left taboos are broken and rejected.

Since we live in the West we get away with it. What we say is heard by Iranians in Iran. The information goes back and forth waking all the people up.

This is what is making the Islamists so angry and so vicious. They see myths they built over centuries  falling  apart right and left. But ut it is too late. No way to stop the avalanche.

As Ferdowsi said: 

• Ze Khabe geran bayad az chashm shost, Ze rokh barafkande nangin, shost.
• Bia ta bekoshim va jang avarim, boron sar az in bare nang avarim.
• Biarim an abe rafte be joy, magar ze an biabim baz aberoy.

Dear Khorasani

I liked your analogy.

The reason believers consider ali a hero is because his tribe invaded, surrounded and settled down in Iran, then they began telling post-war tales(or forced Iranians to write history books about it).  

Remember? "History is written by the winners"

Had Hitler won the wwii, then undoubtedly there would have been Jewish hitler admirers and fan club too.

Does "Stockholm Syndrome" ring a bell? Iranians are suffering from for centuries. BUT, the good news is; Iranians are admitting it and exponentially are moulting this "several centuries old psychological disorder" off their minds. Just look at this thread and see which group is standing the majority. I'm proud of you guys.

Why do

Why do we want to glorify Ali? He is not an Iranian and most surely not  an Iranian hero. If people want a mythical hero we have Rostam. If they want a historical one there is Babak Khorramdin. There are in fact many real historical real Iranians. 

The Ali myth wants to make us feel better about occupation. But we should feel bad about the occupation. You don't sugar coat these horror. When you do they last much longer. It is much easier to shake off the horror when you confront it. The occupation was brutal and Ali was one of the criminals.  Jews don't make a mythical hero out  of Hitler or Gobbeles now do they? Why should we make heroes out of this man? He is not worth it and truth is much more valuable than anything.

It is pretty clear to an objective mind that Ramin's #1 is most likely version. He was a follower of Mohammad who pretty much did what he was told. What did he do for Iran other than rape and plunder? It is time for a reality check. If you want fantasy try a movie folks!

It is time for a cup of strong coffee people. VPK

Dear Ahmad Bahraini

Please EDIT your post.

I reckon after spell-checking(or copy and pasting) you changed the text format from Rich to Standard or vice versa. This is an incompatibly bug.  I hope drupal comes up with an update solving this issue soon.

Dear Doctor X

You have every right to disagree and hold an opinion or be true to your faith. I hope you don't think I want to take that away from you.

I just hope you allow me to hold mine, and Spicy Jihad theirs, and be aware that there are many versions of Imam Ali.

But before you decide that what our elders told us is true I have a small riddle:

When Rumi says:

"dee sheikh baa cheraagh hami gasht gerd-e shahr, kaz deev o dad maloolam o enssaanam aarezoost!"

Who was it that did such a thing?

No It was not Shams, in fact it was Diogenes who lived at the time of Alexander the Great and went round with a lamp in daylight looking for an honest man.

So you see not all that our elders told us is true!

There is a beauty in the myth of Ali, the image served a purpose it is an image of a mentor who is seen as an immaculate being. It has a fundemental place as it is the source and foundation for Shiite Sufi beliefs in that the light of esoteric wisdom was handed to him and passed down to our day. Now I would not want to be like Moses and tell off the Shepherd! ( evey man's beliefs is sacred to that man).

When my Indian friends invited me to a temple and put flowers around the statue of Garnish I did not insult them for having a god that has an elephant's head, there is a beauty in all that and take away all these rituals and we stop being human but what I am asking for is tolerance. Tolerance that we can have a society where you hold your beliefs and I hold mine and we can still be friends.

A society where someone who tells you the historical truth behind such myth is not taken to gallows, and comedy and cartoons pave the way to change attitudes, and afterwards those who want to go to a mosque still go a mosque and those who need a glass of wine go and drink that wine.

There are at least five images of Ali, and they don't always contradict each other:

Historical Ali - a young man loyal to his patriach who when asked to execute the 700 "infidels" of Banighoraizeh he carried out his duty. When he had to go and sell captured slaves and sell them in Medina he would do so, a man who later brought the young Islamic empire to the brink of civil war.

Sunni Ali - Fourth Caliph and therefore respected, but with little value given to the family bonds of marriage.

Shiite Ali - True heir to Mohammand with a twist that where the prophet had asked for Arabs to show Ali loyalty when unease was felt in the camp that was taken as an endorsement of making him heir apparent, changes the Arab patrich system to the sacred right inheritance of the holy sperm travelling through generations, and since the last of his generation is hidden away but present he has made an Akhoond the leader of the 70 million. 

Sufi Ali - Holder of esoteric wisdom with attributes of Mithras and Rustam.

Dante's ( traditional christian) Ali - Ali's face cleft from top to bottom  in the part of hell Circle 8, Canto 28 reserved for those who bring discourse amogst men and doomed to slice themselves for an eternity.

If you want me to dig out more images of Ali I would do so but I just wanted to support my argument that there is more than one image of Ali. As to which one is a true or false image, I leave that to every reader's own decision.

VPK

Stop your Psycho bazi . I was not talking to you Ok? Mifahmi?

NON OF YOUR GOD DAMN BIZ WHAT I WORSHIP  YOU NAZI BULLY.

STFU!

This truly made me laugh

like any other cheap thrill. We need to lighten up. Still I value Ali's contribution to humanity. Check out his nahjulbalagha and especially his letters which speak of the history of the time and the true character of Ali, and all in the context of the time. "Things have changed" as Bob Dylan sang after his "The times they are a'changing"

//www.nahjulbalagha.org/sayings.php

Some of the ones I quickly picked to share with whoever likes to read:

Live amongst people in such a manner that if you die they weep over you and if you are alive they crave for your company.

Every person who is tempted to go astray, does not deserve punishment.

The best form of devotion to the service of Allah is not to make a show of it.

The wiser a man is, the less talkative will he be.

Loving one another is half of wisdom.

There is enough light for one who wants to see.

Poverty is the worst form of death.

One, who acquires power cannot avoid favouritism.

One who comes into power often oppresses.

And one of my own:

"Everyone is entitled to her/his opinion depending on the state of her/his knowledge at the time - move on."

Salamati

Ahmed from Bahrain

Give it up

Ostad Ari

Who said those who are enjoying such immense and bulletproof Immuinty are necessarily the real and genuine religious people?

There should be some kind of "trust" towards those who have truly pure religious mind, Unhindered and not tainted by political and other vicious motives, In order to see the capability of this moral force and it being in action. The question is How could this even have the slightest chance of materizling if we constantly point towards those who contribute to this injustice rather than coming up with a solution?

It may not have been the case in iran, But does that make religious the culprit? Do we have followers of a religious doctrine leading  in China and Venezuella or North Korea? Can we find similar examples? I am sure we can.

  So as a secularist I feel I have nothing to lose in working to uproot this source of immorality, through art or otherwise. Your spiritual beliefs happen to have coincidentally been caught in a fight perhaps not of your own. My insults are not aimed at your spiritual beliefs but at the corrupt religious order which you may or not be part of. 

Precisely. But how about Targetting and maintaining the focus on the source of this brutality or this order rather than bashing the follower of the true and Just form of that ideology? (i don't mean you per se but those who do)

 Why can't people make that distinction and always fail, mostly intentionally, to separate the two?

I enjoy talking to you Ari. You are the best teacher and always Logical. Thanks:)

Ramintork jan

I disagree with you totally.

There is No such thing as Iranian vs Arabic Ali. That is a false notion. What we deem as Divine about him is part of the culture that has been passed down to us By our mostly elders. This is really not about Inventing anything (to me). I have the right to that belief and I should not have to be confronted for it by anyone.

What bothers me the most here is that This is constantly brought up in the context of the current political situation and that is totally irrelevant. You can not Use the current situation as a weapon to deny anything. That is really not logical simplyy because they have nothing to do with each other.

Doctor X

I am concerned that if the "religious type" disappears the purely secular societies that follow may be morally unsustainable. In other words humanist morals are enjoying a herd immunity because the religious part of the society is immunized against bad morals such as theft, rape, murder, injustice etc. Having no religion does not guarantee liberation from destructive ideologies and actions--maybe the reverse in fact. No way to be sure yet.

But this concession to religion only holds if the religious mind is actually able to function as a moral force and not itself contribute to injustice. In the case of Iran this has not been the case recently--unless we deny the unpunished rapes and murders that happened and are happening in the Islamic Republic. So as a secularist I feel I have nothing to lose in working to uproot this source of immorality, through art or otherwise. Your spiritual beliefs happen to have coincidentally been caught in a fight perhaps not of your own. My insults are not aimed at your spiritual beliefs but at the corrupt religious order which you may or not be part of. 

Just a note of hypocrisy...

for a list of "small minded" people "unable to deal", please see this blog.

//iranian.com/main/blog/q/issue-future-ir...

Dear Doctor X

Idris Shah has a great book on Sufism. In it a Sufi master comes a cross an Indian tribe who each made a clay image and held it in one hand and never took their gaze off it. One day one off them accidentally drops the idol. He pulls a dagger and cuts his belly and in his gasp cries if you loved me you would not let me drop you. The Sufi mesmerized by this scene and the power of belief takes this lesson learnt back to Iran and uses it as part of the practice.

We invented the Iranian Ali; we did this as part of our rebellion. We gave him his divine attributes. We did so because we needed our immaculate being and stamp our Mithraism/ Zoroastrianism on Islam.

Now 31 years after the revolution when we find the manifestation of continuing our mythology becoming a very concrete being called Valih Faghih who is killing our kids and holds a country of 70 million held hostages, we have dropped this clay image and some in the process want to cut their bellies!

Dear friends go and read history and unclasp your fists and drop your idols. We have a country facing a nuclear war, invasion, a collapsed economy and disintegration. We have a planet facing devastation; a generation of humanity that faces extinction so don’t get upset about a cartoon challenging a mythical reinvention of Ali! Go and drink wine and enjoy life for as the dawn breaks you have lost another day of life.

Good Comedy is meant to be challenging; the Ali in this cartoon has gone through the same transformations as our fellow countrymen. This is a parody on our metamorphosis; it is not about historical Ali.

Ari

Yes, I am aware of most of what you said about Alexander. I have also read Zoroastrian texts which refer to Alexander as the "damned". They are no fans of him.

He destroyed the original texts of Avesta: a blow far worse then burning down Persepolis.

I rather be honest and not make false excuses. The Kian were defeated by a foreign power: Alexander. The Sassanian were also defeated by Arabs. No need to put up a pretense. We are better off with the truth. Neither Alexander nor Ali were Iranians or protectors of Iran. We must accept our history; learn from defeat and stand on our own feet. Back by truth and the courage to admit it. Not by false tales and myths. Not by false Imams or fake half brothers. Reality and facing it head on is the only path that will help any people.

VPK

seamorgh- you are wrong

you say:

 For all of those worshiping the US, in the US, if you have even said anything pro NAZI or communism, you cannot become a US citizen.

Not true.  You arguably cannon become a citizen if you were a member of the communist party or if you were a member of the Nazi party between 1933 and 1945.  Here's the link to the naturalization form where it asks the question:

  //www.uscis.gov/files/form/n-400.pdf

This is also wrong:

Also, it is illegal to use "obscene" language in front of women and children 

There may be some arcane state laws somewhere in some states that may be interpreted as such.  But even if they are, there are never enforced.  I challenge you to show us how many arrests were made last year in the U.S. for such "crimes". 

VPK, Ali no Iran protector

A historical/literray point to consider in this context (which you may already be aware of). Alexander was incorporated into the Shahnameh as the son of the Persian king Darab (Achaemenids) by the daughter of the Greek king Filqus (philip of Macedonia). In this way a historical continuity was mythologically constructed by our patriotic ancestors to appear as though the quarrel was "all in the family" so to speak. As an interesting aside, the harsh reality was also preserved and ecoded in the myth. Filqus' daughter had bad breath one night and the king dismissed her forever, but by then she was already pregnant with Alexander. Alexander later defeated his own step brother Dara for the Persian throne.