Iranian of the Day

Back to Tusi

I agree that Iranian people owe much to Tusi. I have read some of his book; not all. Unfortunately I have too many distractions like work! Still I find his contributions to be great and not appreciated. 

While all Iranians know Ferdowsi many do not know Tusi. But I still find him a puzzling man. On one hand his writings imply a devout Muslim. But his actions are more of a nationalist Iranian. And of a real scientist who forced Halagu to fund an obvervatory.

To get a Mongol to actually pay for science took some doing. Halagu was as I read like clay in hands of Tusi. He molded the warlord and got him to promote Persian over all. Well if you don't have the power yourself then get someone to do it for you :-)

"As I have said before,

"As I have said before, unless you have read the Qur'an in the original Arabic, and have read or otheriwse know about the commentary tradition, you have not read the Qur'an and are just repeating parrot fashion the hype of the times. Period!"

Same old nonsense. Sounds familiar to everyone? I know what's best for you and what God wants for you, because I know Arabic and I know "tradition"! The result :IRI.

It is interesating you don't even know the meaning of the word "bias". You cannot be unbiased studying religion when you already believe in it. That is by definition. Regardless of what you think.

You sound like a lost soul in the trees, having never seen the forest. You can regurgitate historical minutiae, but are completely incapable of explaining simple facts about Islam's violence, coertion, polygomy, pedophelia, gender equality and so on. You answer is: you all don't understand and I know best. Sorry, we have learned about people like you and don't buy it anymore! 

VPK

The question of the destruction of the library of Baghdad is a hot topic amongst scholars of the field because there is evidence that the Mongols actually didn't destroy all of the library's collection because there are manuscripts which copyists quote as being from items in this collection a century after the destruction of the library that is impossible for the copyists to be quoting from if they had been destroyed. There is reasonable evidence that the actual library, or a good chunk of it, was dispersed in a dozen different locations throughout the Muslim world on the eve of the Mongol onslaught of Baghdad. One theory has it that the Seljuq sultans of the East became the inheritors of some of the items. Apparently the Ottoman manuscript libraries, like Suleymaniye and Topkapi, boast of manuscripts in their collection from the Baghdad library.

Anyway, I agree with you about joe Ahmad. But this is the medieval world we're talking about. Warcraft was the same everywhere and conquerors subjugated high and low alike sometimes in the most bloodthirsty ways. The Mongols were first class in this department. That said, the Abbasid caliphate was corrupt to its foundations and what the Mongols did in delivering the final blow to it, did indeed accomplish what you say. The Mongol invasion universalized Iran and made Persian the lingua franca of most of the Eastern Muslim world. In the process the Mongols themselves ended up becoming Persianized. And if people realized what Tusi's political cunning and guile actually accomplished, they would praise the man as one of the greatest cultural saviors of Iran. Without him, it is no exagerration to say that today we would probably be having this conversation in some evolved Mongolian dialect. 

Tabriz

I missed this before but now I read and find it very disturbing. Imagine substituting Islam with Christian or Atheist. How would you feel about it.

Yes I want you to be a Muslim and if I could force it on you I would but I can't and it doesn't work that way either.  

Religion must not be forced on people and if you try to force it  there will be war. Islam has tried to force itself by war and now tables are turned. It lacks the military ability or man power. The most powerful military are: USA; China; Russia; NATO; India; Turkey. Out of which only Turkey is Muslim and their military is secular. Plus a total puppet of USA. So I would not go down the "force" approach. It will be a loss.

Better to let people decide for themselves. A head to head fight will result in a big loss on all sides specially Muslims. 

Sacking of Badhdad

Ok, I have been really divided on this whole thing. On one hand it release Persia. Allowed Persian to be restored as the official language of the kingdom. We all owe the survival of our culture or its reassurance in part to Tusi.

But at the same time the library of Baghdad was destroyed. The "river ran black with ink from the library books" is said in one accord. Somehow I have a hard time celebrating it. Yes Abbasids were corrupt but was the destruction necessary. I supposed there was not much Tusi could or would to to save the library. The accounts are scarce. Not to mention the filling of irrigation channels and utter destruction of the city. What did some joe or "Akbar" shmoe in Baghdad do to deserve this? 

Why do people not distinguish between a citizen and a currpt ruler. The citizens pay a heavy price for a bad leader as is. Getting your head chopped off is not deserved.

religionoutofgovernment

Condescending or not, like it or not, this is the bottom line truth of the matter. All of the Islamophobic discourse articulated on this site is a feature of the hype of the times - and specifically a North American/Anglo-European "mainstream" generated form of hype. Because most of you - including and especially the woman that is the subject of this blog - are desirous to fit into the white Anglo societies you live in, hook, line and stinker, you have adopted his "clash of civilizations" point of view about Islam and the Islamic world: partial, biased, uninformed, misrepresented and ignorant to the core.

As I have said before, unless you have read the Qur'an in the original Arabic, and have read or otheriwse know about the commentary tradition, you have not read the Qur'an and are just repeating parrot fashion the hype of the times. Period!

Where science and learning is concerned, the entire European tradition owes it to the Muslim world and the Islamic tradition of learning for where it is at today. In the middle ages while European potentates where busily fighting each other every which way, and while the Church's flat-earth perspective ruled the European horizons, the Islamic world had institutions of research and higher learning in Baghdad, all throughout Iran and Muslim Central Asia, in Cairo and elsewhere which produced figures like Abu Rayhan Biruni, Ibn Sina and many countless others, ad nauseum.

Real facts are never a substitute for hype. Unfortunately Iranians of every generation - just like the generation that brought Khomeini to power - keep falling for hype rather than facts.Yesterday they fell for the bamboozlement of Khomeini and his thugs; today they are buying the bamboozlement of the Neo-Cons and theirs.

tabriz

"Yes I want you to be a Muslim and if I could force it on you I would but I can't and it doesn't work that way either. "

And people wonder why no one in the West wants Muslims in their countries....sheesh.

You're doing nothing to help the image of Islam as tyrranical, intolerant and incompatible with 21st century values. Or 19th century values for that matter. 

With all due respect

"Most of you Islamophobes on this site follow a mainstream discourse about Islamic history and ideas that has absolutely nothing to do with facts or history, and which is more a reflection of your own personal biases and sign of the times "trends" then anything else."

 This is probably the most condescending statement I have read in IC in a long while! Give me a break! To realize that religion and progress are contradictory you just need to have a little brain and get rid of your biases. The long, verbose list of your credentials don't really mean much. In fact, our problem has been that for centuries we assumed we had to rely on so called "Islamic experts" like you, instead of reading the Quran and seeing what it really stands for. So please, take your condescending remarks to a place where people will buy them. Here on IC people like to think for themselves.

Islam is the topic of interest NOW

I wonder if anyone would challenge the subject I state here.

The is a fact but we all have our own opinion of it.

This is good.

 And some hates it wholeheartedly blaming it for loss of their self-interests they have lost.

This is pathetic.

Some love it and find happiness and peace with it.

 This is the objective of the creator.

Some want to reform it to serve their selfish interest.

 This is possible if they find some dumb brains.

But for majority, Islam is a religion under fire. They would rathe see spending their energy on something else that directly affects them.

Politics and religion are bad mix...Politics is taming a wild horse... but all I see now is a war waged against Islam by the entities who have lost their domination of countries to other entities who are in domination.

Ignorance is the culprit. Islam is not immune from this as any other country or religion is not. As Rumi says: it is all us....we need to search within find the knowledge and shine it on ignorance eyes to blind it!

Tusi

Raoul - with pleasure

Most of you Islamophobes on this site follow a mainstream discourse about Islamic history and ideas that has absolutely nothing to do with facts or history, and which is more a reflection of your own personal biases and sign of the times "trends" then anything else.

1) My academic research history in Islam is in the history, literature and texts of heterodox and esoteric movements and ideas. I have been trained in languages and can read classical Arabic fluently. I have a Masters degree in Islamic studies and finished all seminar and exam work for a doctorate, but walked away from my Ph.D due to my topic being unacceptable to my advisor (I was going to write a dissertation on the Zoroastrian Sepassi sect's usage of Suhrawardi's Arabic prayer book, al-Waridat wa'l-Taqdisat, where he invokes Zoroastrian themes and angels in Arabic) and because my advisor at the time and I did not see eye to eye on methodology - I am a phenomenologist, he thought orientalist analytical-descriptive approaches are the only kosher methodologies; I am a Corbinian, he had made his career as an anti-Corbinian - so having been offered a cushy, well-paying job as translator, I walked away from completing a doctorate and the Ivory Tower with its dirty politics and the wankers who generally run it. I am considered an expert on Babism and due to my expertise I was recently invited by the Persian Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (an extension of the Isma'ili Institute at the University of London) to  deliver a lecture on the subject at their Khalili Lecture Theatre - since there were two members of the Haifan Bahai faith attending that lecture in July, I am sure you can very easily verify this together with the 8 part Youtube videos of the event. I am quoted by Matthijs van den Bos in his publication Mystics Regimes (Brill: 2002) under my old name as an authority on contemporary Sufi orders in Iran. My translations have been quoted and cited by several academics in journal publications, and  a recent monograph by me was recast on Tom Cheetham's site (who is considered the Anglophone world's foremost expert on Henry Corbin). I can keep going, but you get the picture...

2) The concept of Islamic regime in my world is a contradiction in terms. But if the Agha Khan Isma'ilis where to take over the machinery of a state somewhere, I would be on a short-list advising them.

And, you, what are your credentials beyond echoing the herd?

Re: Nasiruddin Tusi

Wasn't he the adviser to Halagu Khan the Mongol warlord? If I recall Tusi pushed him to attack and sack Baghdad. Hence ending the "Golden Age" of Islam. He always seemed like a mass of contradictions to me.

Islam

Raoul, it gives me great pleasure to respond to your post. Great pleasure because finally internet provides us the freedom to finally discuss an issue for which you would be persecuted, killed, stoned and burned for the last 1400 years. Even now, you can only have this discussion with anonimity. Otherwise, you don't know what kind of fatwa will be issues against you.

In this sort of oppressive environment you ask about "academic and research in Islam"?????   Academic research by definition takes place in an environment free of bias where questions are posed and answers are sought based on evidence. This kind of environemnt has never existed with Isalm. Certainly the Islamic schools wouldn't dare question Mohammad's wars, violance, pedophelia and polygomy. When a cartoonist in Denmark has to fear for his life because of a simple cartoon of Mohammad, you expect unbiased research on Mohammad? When Salmon Rushdie has to go in hiding for years fearing his life because he indirectly questions Mohammad's pedophelia in a novel, you talk about reputable site on Islam?

Thankfully, you don't need much research to know what sort of society Mohammad created. When a religion is spread by wars and people of Mecca are forced to convert, how can you talk about love and peace? A religion spread by violence cannot be peaceful. You cannot deny his many wives, one of them only 9 years old. In the 21st century we call that pedophelia and polygomy. In the 21st century, we have evolved to consider both immoral. You hardly expect the messenger of God to commit immoral acts at any time in history. When the Quran talks about beating your wife, it is hardly peacefull. It is against what humanity has come to accept as gender equality.And don't let me start with the rights of homosexuals and many other issues.

All you need to do if get rid of your bias. You don't need scholars or research. it is very obvious. 

Just be a human

In order to be a good and responsible human ,you don't need to have a religion.you just need to have a brain,eye for detail and a sense of analysing thing .by looking at the history of all religions(including communist idealogy) you will see a trace of blood and murders.

There is no limit to stupidity & ignorance of some humankinds

Tabriz etc.

Unfortunately most of us have come to recognize islam as a violent cult and its founder a mentally ill guy who heard voices and such.  I know that the man was a wonderfully peaceful and loving man who preached love and tolerance.  Having said that, could you provide confirmation for your assertions on islam and mohammad by:
1) Describing your academic and research background in islam.
Please include links to reputable and verifiable sites that support any and all of your assertions on islam.
2) Have you been consulting the so-called islamic regimes on their failure to follow the 'mohammadan' way of life?
Thank you,
Ayatollah Raoul

Veiled Prophet of Khorasan

please read more about Muhammad, his life, his character.  he single handedly designed a way of thinking and a way of life that is the only thing standing between you and salvery/control/manipulation/lies/self-destruction. i don't know how old you are but i hope that you are young and still have the chance to fall in love with Muhammad and his teachings.  Just please read about him see what he did in 23 years. and if you find a more liberating idea than "laa elaa ella allah", please let me know.  you're thinking about rules in Islam! don't please.  Rules will may or may note make sense.  don't lose the sign of main point here. Yes I want you to be a Muslim and if I could force it on you I would but I can't and it doesn't work that way either. 

~be an act of the knowing love~

Tabarzin:

Perhaps islam is the only cult that regulates EVERY aspect of a follower's life. 
No wonder islam means submission.

A quote from Nasiruddin Tusi

-

Christianity (modern, traditional, orthodox) has nothing on the profoundity of discourses in Islam. People may be jaded by their experiences with the fundalooniests and the establishments they represent, but the kind of world that produced a Nasiruddin Tusi only produced something comparable in the Christian world many, many centuries after the likes of Tusi were dust. BTW the reason why Tusi speaks of 7 pillars and not 5 is because he was an Isma'ili.

Tabriz

do you thinnk Muhammad was a lier or just a crazy person?

I never met him so all I know of him is from what I read. In response: I don't know what he was like. As for religions I said before I dislike all organized religions. Christianity was reformed Islam was not. Therefore Islam is worse now. Maybe it gets reformed one day.

کارل ماركس

Good for her and humanity if she is now a better human being!

and I will leave her hereafter affairs to God!

One down three to go! Oki doki!

One down three to go! Oki doki!

But she has good Aryan facial features!

Yaap once again a new Christian convert is more religious and more Christian than most born Christians. Kaaseh daagtar az aash! So nice. Once again Iranians abroad overflowing with sweet open-mindedness. So is it hypocrisy or idiocy? No it is genuine!

As far as I am concerned God is neither Muslim, nor Christian, nor Jewish. But at the same time I believe in the Persian saying: "Khaahi nashavi rosvaa hamrangueh jamaa'at sho!"

to convert

I get agitated when someone converts from Islam to Christianity (although both are useless anyway), but more agitating is when that person attempts to convert others

Freedom!

I feek sorry for her, she still doesn't know the real meaning of freedom , which is freedom from religion ^%#%^$#&%$.

Veiled Prophet of Khorasan

do you thinnk Muhammad was a lier or just a crazy person?

~be an act of the knowing love~

Amirparviz

I say it the other way. Got out of the chah fell into Chaleh. Which is better by any standard. Many people want to have something to worship. At least she got a less troublesome one. Alright Earth is 6000 years old :-) 

All the dinasaour bones are there to test our faith! She probably would do better with Christianity. Let her do her thing and at least be accepted in the West; prove you may leave Islam.

Of little girls and credulity!

      Watch min 5.23. She says "I told God, if you are planning anything for my sister's life it's got to be this weekend"!

        Vo, vo, vo hold on sister! Be more gentle to Almighty! :-)

      "The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind."     H. L. Mencken.

         If you are planning to convert or anything please read this first:

         Of Deity and Diarrhea

Poor thing..... Cruel world..

All she wanted was to feel safe, to love and be loved and be accepted, natural things I and others all long for.

She is now living another partial lie. 

Az chaleh daromad oftad to chah, amah khoshaleh chon-ke-esq-eh khodeshro esas mikoneh va esmesho gozashteh peacikekeh fagad mitooneh begigereh az jesus.  Halah bachehah va bozorgah famidine che gir bozorg mahah darim, and so it was another religous person was born and being spolit now herself all she wanted to do was ruin the barrel of apples, using personal experience, acceptance and love!  Didn't it ever occur to her the love she felt was her own?

Pity she never spent her time reading geology, the verifiable history of the earth.  Poor grand father accepted the free gift and everyone threw a party he went to jesus.  Jesus, please save me from your followersin every corner of the world.

Not surprised

Many people have left Islam just as I did; we just don't announce it. When you live in America most people don't ask your religion. At least not where I am. Therefore one day I decided not to be a Muslim.

Had been thinking about it for years but about 32 years ago I did it. Just a few people gave me a hard time. All of them were practicing Muslims. They saw me eating in Ramadan and asked why I was not fasting. I told them I gave up on Islam. One was a Palestinian woman working at the same company. She told me "you should not be ashamed of your heritage". I responsed "my heritage is Iranian and my ancestors were Zoroastrian. I am not ashamed of my heritage".

The other one was an Egyptian man who was red with anger and rage. Why: because I was having a sandwich and a beer over Ramadan. I didn't know it was Ramadan because I did not care. Honestly he would have attacked me if this was not America. But it was America and if I could have lodged a complaint. I let is pass and did not. I bet you there are millions of pretend Muslims around the world. Violence and its threat keep Islam going. Remove it and there goes Islam. That is why they get so mad.

ANY religion is better than Arab Islam

Any religion , or No religion is thousand of times better than imposed savage Arab Islam. Congratulations to this brave lady who has openly left  the cult of Islam (something that millions of people in Iran and around the world would do, once the element of force is removed from Islam and they are free to do so).