Defending Iranian Democracy

:-)

Thanks folks :)

Mash_Ghasem, there are two translated items from Subh-i-Azal on my blog for the month of July: //wahidazal.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html One of these is a full-length work by Subh-i-Azal regarding the Imaginal World ('alam-i-misaal), which is going to be published as a full length work once I finish it, the other is a prayer from a work on spiritual ethics by him I mean to finish translating someday.

Vildemose, Tom Cheetham and I (whose blog you linked to) have shared material from Corbin among each other. Some of that material ended up linked there from stuff I scanned. He also published one of my recent studies on the Bab's treatment of Alchemy on his site some months ago:

//henrycorbinproject.blogspot.com/2011/06/journey-with-me-unto-divine-throne.html

&

Direct link to the paper, here: //www.scribd.com/doc/56690194/Journey-With-Me-Unto-the-Divine-Throne

Ostaad Nur-i-Azal

I always had a hunch, not sure though..............happy to see you back........Great Ostaad................of good old days...........and better ones to come............

here is what I found on Corbin

 //henrycorbinproject.blogspot.com/p/henry-corbin-texts-online.html

Reform requires the consent of the corrupt

...

Dude you rock. Good stuff, thanks for all the resources on Corbin.

P.S.Tis haghir used to use Sobh Azal as an id on another site.  SOBH AZAL: it just has such a nice ring to it.

Pdfs of Corbin

Alright, folks, send me your emails and the Pdfs shall be on their way. Mash_Ghasem, I've written about Henry Corbin here before in the past.

//iranian.com/main/blog/nur-i-azal/henry-corbin-great-honorary-iranian-20th-century

Tabarzin

Thank you and I will take you up on your genereous offer for the Henry Corbin Pdf. I've never brought myself round to reading his philosophies so this will be a good start.

I confess that  I am not familiar with Shihabuddin Sohravardi either but from the limited understanding I also have of Corbin it seems the Islam you are following is a concoctment of different religious beliefs all rolled into one but unlike Corbin who did not renounce Christianity Islam is at the centre. Last year I was invited to a Sathya Sai Baba gathering, whose followers are Hindu with a masala (no pun intended) of Christian, Islam, Judaism and what is considered good beleifs of all religions. I gather what you are dong is very noble but the same. I may be wrong about the comparison.

Again, your version (interpretation) of Islam is an esoteric one and you remind me of my Ismaili lawyer who informs me that how Islamic law is progressive and women and men sit side by side as equals in prayers or Sufiism where concentration on the word Allah is sung to a  frenzy. This is all good and proper but unfortunately it bears little or no relation to what is written in the Koran or stated beliefs and acts of Mohammed in the Hadiths. I see no reference to simorghs or ancient persian myths adopted in the Koran or any Islamic manuscript. The Islam which you claim to follow is an embelishment of the real Islam and hides its pernicious nature.

I see nothing wrong in what you are doing. Infact, I do enjoy looking at some mosques and the beautiful geometrical patterns, especially those of the Shah mosque in Esfahan but for all its beautiful domes and minarets nothing can hide the ugly truth of how they came about and the price Iran had to pay for it.

Finally, I am not going to condone the aggressive nature of what is the Old Testament where as Alex Burgess described it in Clockwork Oranage  as 'Yahudis tolchocking' one another to death. It is the same as Islam. Islam is almost the carbon copy of Judaism whereas most Jews have moved on from we have in Iran a real implementation of the Old Testament. 

Tabarzin: Dude you ought to do a proper blog on Corbin, worthy

of his works. You're probably one of the few in here, if not the only one, who could do a good job.

Ismaielieh and their rationalist approach  would also be another really good topic for a blog.

Isn't just 'wonderful' when I get this damn insomnia and start assiging tasks to folks!?!?

But seriously those PDF files of Corbin would be very nice.

Simorgh

You are using the standard of exoteric Islam to argue against me, an esotericist and gnostic, who by all standards is a heretic to two creeds - and maybe more. My Islam is the Islam of Neoplatonic Quranic tawil (esoteric commentary) of Shi'a gnostics, from the Isma'ilis to the Sufis to the Babis, and the Imam 'Ali (as) of the hadith al-haqiqa and the Sermon of the Two Gulfs. My Islam is the Islam of Shihabuddin Sohravardi who conjoined the names of Zarathushtra with Abraham, Hermes, Plato and Muhammad (pbut). My Islam is the one who lauds Fatima Zahra' (as) as the symbol of the Divine Feminine which is the ultimate Theophany of the Divinity - and which btw I simultaneously call Simorgh (who is female fyi). My Islam is the Islam of the mystical ministrels of love such as Ahmad Ghazzali, Ruzbehan Baqli, Hafiz and Fakhruddin 'Iraqi, etc. If you think my Islam is the Islam of the mullahs and the bloody fuqaha (juriconsults), you are seriously mistaken! F*%k those demons - all of them, in all ages and in all times! I will even go out on a limb here and state unequivocally for the record that the Shar'ia is a trap, a prison of the mind, to be absolutely overcome and surpassed!

The thing you and people such as yourself do not understand is that Islam has never been a monolith and that there has always been a plurality of Islamic discourses, i.e. a polyvocality. To argue it as a monolith is to fall into the arguments and traps set by the fundamentalists and their leaders. In other words, by painting Islam with a single brush you are making common cause with these so-and-sos and playing right into their hands. Don't do that. Broaden your perspective and horizons. You may be very surprised by what you find. And on that note, I am happy to introduce you to the writings of Henry Corbin and send you all the Pdfs I have of his works. You are welcome to them.

Every government and every state in human history, amongst every culture, race and creed, has in one form or another oppressed and brutalized its people.  Pre-Islamic empires and potentates of ancient Iran were brutal oppressors as were the Islamic ones that replaced them. This has never changed, which is why I don't believe in any government or adhere to any exclusive political theory and am an Anarchist, because there has never been nor will there ever be a political utopia nor will there ever be 100% just human rulers.

Now you take the behavior of the Muslims during war-time against the Meccans against them. Have you ever read the Book of Joshua in the Old Testament where God tells Joshua to commit genocide against the denizens of Jericho?

On the question of Ayesha's marriage: I stand by my earlier remarks.

Now to answer your question about Khomeini: by my standards, everything he did was wrong, beginning with his lust for power. That man was evil incarnate, one of the epiphanies of Dajjal!

The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism

Free download link:
//ebookee.org/go/?u=//depositfiles.com/files/4ddlykceo

Tabarzin

 "Sound bites are never a substitute for critical thought"

 True but neither are manuscripts and ancient books where God reveals truth and enlightment betweent the cover of 400 pages. You would actually expect the Almightly to reveal the existence of snow and ice in just of the Surrahs.

Critical thought tells me that God would not want to anihilate an entire tribe by severing off heads of males and sending women and children into slavery.

Critical thought tells me that God would not want a sexual athlete to consumate marriages wiith minors.

Critical thought tells me that God does not want people to venerate a black box in the desert where pagan gods were kept and yet the early Muslims refer to Iran before Islam as  the 'period of ignrance' for 'worshiping' fire. The thought of grown adults in the twenty first century throwing stones at Satan during the Haj is nothing less than ludicrous. 

Hanging, gauging eyeballs out, eye-for-an-eye punishment ghisas, killing people based on gut instincts and visits from the angel Gabriel are all patterns of behaviour exercised by Mohammed and his followers. 

Even if I were to suspend disbelief and accept your word that the real nature of Islam is differet from what the IR professes and practises then how do you account for the vicious nature of the caliphates who ruled Iran sice the 7th century. The corrupt  nature of the Sassanians does not mean I betray my country and embrace a hord of alien invaders who promise 'an army of death' if I were to failed to submit to Islam who destoyed fire temples, coerced and forced conversions, the banning of the Pahlavi tongue until it was partially restored by Ferdowsi.  There is even a Zoroastrian prayer, which I have tried in vein to pull out, which prophecizes the restoration of the the fire temples over the ruin of mosques. 

Every single ruler of Iran since the  early Sunni rulers (before the schism in Islam) Saffavids (from the Safi or Sufi) and Shia rulers to the Qajar have been corrupt and opressed the Iranian people. It doesn't matter which branch of Islam has come into power they have all been equally cruel which was  also evident in the spread of the Mughal Empire in the East  where Budhists, hindus and other religions were killed. Do you ever ask yourself why Sikhs hate Muslims so much 

Now you may quite rightly argue that the those claiming to be apostles of a religion may have distorted the original source of a religious text or prophet such as the Crusaders but Islam by its own nature is inherrently a dark and cruel religion.

Several years ago I visited Yazd and I visited the Towers of Silence and a modern Zoroastrian cemetery where women lighted esfand and came to visit the graves of their dead burried in asphalt (so as not to desecrate the earth) wearing colourful headscarves and overalls. The warden told me, and later discovered to be true through research, that wearing the colour black and even crying or wailing are considered to be sins of 'Ahriman'. Contrast that with with what is meainstream  Sunni and Shia Islam, women and men draped in black (Shia especially) , music  and dancing is frowned upon, dancing and mixing of sexes is prohibited and the sweet taste of wine which humans have been making for thousands of years is banned. Instead of song and beauty you have a double edged dagger which represents the followers of Ali and his evil death cult.

Yes, you would get groups like Suffis and Ismaelis, but they are the exception rather than the norm. 

So I will ask the same question which you have avoided, which one of Khomeini's practices was not in alignment with Islam?  

If not mistaken it was actually a special issue 'entirely'

devoted to Imamolog, " from start to finish!"  With a culture as profusely religious as our, any enlightenment project must take into consideration this historical fact, which predates Islam.

Thanks for all the info, Corbin is always a must read. Check out Edmund Wilson, you might enjoy.

Simorgh

Sound bites are never a substitute for critical thought, wide ranging scholarship and philosophical reflection. I posted Nefrin-Nameh myself here years ago!

Zoroastrian scholarship, Ahura vs devs, Daev vs ashuras

I vaguely remember the article on Imamology you're talking about in Iran-Nameh. Is it the one by Nasr?

Anyway, the Indian influence on Zoroastrianism may be overstated somewhat. The difference between the Mazdaean and Vedic visions of the world is conspicuous, even in the choice of the words used for who is beneficient and who is malefic, who is divine and who is not. In the Mazdaean tradition Ahura refers to the Godhead out of which emerges the Amesha Spenta, and the forces of the counter-powers of darkness are the devs. In the Vedic vision, it is directly the opposite. Dev is the Sanskrit word for deity and ashura means demon. Obviously we are dealing with a common Indo-Aryan religious template that at some point in history diverged into two diametrically opposed visions of the universe: with one being dualist and the other monist. This is the basic point of view of the scholarship these days.

The best overview of Zoroastrianism to me still remains R.C. Zaehner's The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism with the first section of Henry Corbin's Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth the single best treatment of Zoroastrian theology ever penned.

Nefrinname

Please see these excellent videos and understand the true nature of Islam.

Iranians have woken up and learnt for themselves the damage this religion has inflicted on Iran.

Nefrin Name 1

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

Nefrin Mane 2

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dyjf-IJIN0

Your point on Angelology, another isntance of our thoroughly

religious culture, "from start to finish." On that note couldn't help but remember a special issue of the Persian journal Iran Nameh on : Imamology!

Thinking back about Wilson, I think I must have read it in one of his interviews about his days in Iran and the research program he was involved with. I have very ambivalent feelings about PLW, my favourite Wilson remains: Edmund Wilson.

Why do I get the feeling we always underestimate or totally neglect the Indian infulence on Zoroastrianism? 

Do you remember which of his books it was?

Because other than one book, this here, I've read everything else of PLW's.

Absolutely Judaism got angelology from Zoroastrianism. This is well documented.  Angelology is a totally Iranian idea from start to finish.

Tabrzin, he was probably quoting some German historians

As they point out that Judaism was a semitic religion with no angles. But after their Persian rescue, you see introduction of angles in their theology, a sort of a Persian-Indo influence?

Why IRI and Israel are so despotic?

//iranian.com/main/blog/amirparvizforsecularm...

Answered by intellectuals.

Simorgh

I apologize for taking a while to respond:

Have you also observed the fallacy of the Muslims apologist arguments?

The issue is simply that a Muslim believe considers Mohammad the ideal man. Therefore they are not going to accept criticisms of him. This is just like a fundamentalist Christian and Jesus. You try to convince them otherwise and it won't work. You will depending on the person get:

• Arguments based on reason and logic. Not necessarily sound ones but an educated Muslim will use reason.
• Anger if the person is emotional or not educated. They get frustrated and mad. Maybe even get insults and violence.
• Disgust as they figure you are not changing to their point of view. Then ether walk off or do got knows what.

I do not get into these arguments with people face to face. It does no good except result in fights. But on IC I do get in the arguments at times. It is a discussion board and figure that is its purpose. For most par though people think what they will. Nothing you; I or Tabarzin say will change it unless people want to.

MG

Yes we managed to infect them with our ideas of "Messiah" and assorted BS! They got liberated by also introduced to Iranian ideas. Which have haunted the world :-) Savior; heaven; hell and all kinds of things to give kids nightmares. 

To be fair the Egyptians already had the afterlife thing worked out. So they get some of the credit for their share of the confusion. Who is counting...

Simorgh

Netanyahu's government just rammed legislation through the Israeli knesset that criminalizes any call for boycotts, political or economic, where the term "boycott" has been quite broadly defined. In essence this law criminalizes dissent against the state and its establishment. Already this law has been curtailing the independence of journalists and intellectual critics alike. So your own comparison is slightly off in light of recent developments.  It is also off in light of the example of Mordechai Zanunu (Israel's version of Akbar Ganji).

Again, the atrocities committed by the IRI has been equally perpetrated against Muslims - in fact more so against Muslims than anyone else. Over and over again you and people like you have been told that the IRI regime and its ideology does not represent the full gamut of Muslims and their beliefs. Yet over and over you and people like you come back with the same strawmen of holding the example of the IRI against Muslims who have been victimized and terrorized by it. What you and people like you are doing which you don't realize is that by identifying the Islam of the IRI or al-Qaeda as typifying Islam as a whole you are inadvertently acting as the mouthpieces of the IRI and al-Qaeda against the majority of Muslims everywhere. In essence, you are making their argument for them.

Mash_Ghasem: no question Judaism evolved in its encounter with Persians after the Babylonian captivity. I don't know whether Peter Lamborn Wilson has written about this. Are you sure it was him?

Tabarzin

I agree with you that the increasing influence if Jewish religious minority groups are destroying the secular ideals that defined the spirit of Israel including the terrible collective punishment of Gaza. However, I will not allow this perpetual and complex conflict distract from the terrible atrocities committed in Iran by Islamic fanatcism. The Suffering of Palestinians is by and large well documented by the media in the UK and Europe whereas the only thing which concerns the West is Iran's nuclear ambitions and the terrible suffering of Iranians which as far I am concerned is just as worse than Palestinains is not given the attention it deserves. There are 7 million people in Israel/Palestine combined but 65 million Iranians imprisoned, killed, mutilated, stoned, hanged and raped in the name of Islam. As I have said on numerous occasions just look at the Middle East compare the size the whole of Palestine (including Israel proper) and compare that to Iran. Compare the size of territory which you are begrudging Israel to establish their state and compare that to the territory stolen from us from Russia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. Israel isn't even the size of Darfur which most Muslims don't give a blind bit of notice about.
Your comparison of the Israeli state being the mirror image of Iran does not stand. Israel does not throw journalists and bloggers into jail and kill them. They do not stone women and mentally imapired sixteen year old girls. Well at least not to their own people

Tabarzin,wasn't there some change in Judaism after their Persian

Encounter?

If I'm not mistaken Peter Lambert Wilson had a short piece on this, and how Judaism evolved after their liberation from Babylon and all that. Do you recall such writing by Wilson?

You wouldn't get that impression

By talking to secular Jews about recent developments in Israel and the fact that far-right religious parties in the Knesset are more and more imposing a Halakha-centric legal regime upon Israel. In fact, Israel has been steadily evolving into a full-blown Jewish theocracy over the past 20 years, and now with Netanyahu at the helm that process is accelerating. Israel today is not the secular Israel of the early Zionist settlers or the Israel of the socialist Ben Gurion or Golda Meir of its founding. More and more, there is very little that distinguishes the theocratic visions of the IRI and Israel. Where it counts, these two are beginning to mirror each other.

I have no problem with criticism. The problem is that Islamophobes are generally unintelligent, uninformed and uncritical interlocutors straitjacketed into a very ahistorical and unnuanced form of thinking and who know very little of what they're talking about or criticizing. As such their criticisms are usually of the nature of propaganda - which in itself is informed by an underlying narrative of racism or 'clash of civilizations' - rather than valid, objective criticism.

Tabarzin

Yes, I believe that Judaism and Mosaic law is equally reprehensible although Israel  Jews and diaspora Jews do themselves a number of favours:

1) Israel is a Jewish state but does not define what 'Jewish' is. Orthodox Judaism dominates some areas of Israeli law such as marriage but Jews of every kind are allowed to practise their beliefs whether they be reform, progressive or Jews for Jesus

2) Non JewsArab Israelis (in theory) are equal under the law. They are discriminated for sure but ask an Israeli Arab whether he prfers to live in Israel or in a refugee camp in Lebanon because the government there refuses to grant  citizesnship to Palestinians cica 1948 and even their descendents!

3) Archaic and barbaric Old Testament laws are not applicable to punishment of crimes Israel. There is no stoning or capital punishment.  There is no 'eye for an eye' punishment which means no amputation of limbs, guaging eyeballs out and execution of minors

4) Freedom of expression.Israelis are free to wear what they like (unless they venture into strict Orthodox areas), openly declare themselves as athiests, criticize their government policies  (see Haaretz) whereas Islam is stuck in the past.

4) Judaism is not an apostolic religion and unlike Muslims they are not coercing or using methods of duress to force people to convert.

The 'good' thing about Jews is that  their religion, regardless of its nature, is kept strictly to themselves.  

If you are a Muslim then keep it to yourself. Flaut your religion about then you will be susceptible to criticism.  

Mutatis mutandis, Simorgh

Are you personally willing to say the same thing about Judaism and the Mosaic law? Yes or no?

Someone should still teach "Dr." some about Multi Culturalism

in the U.S. (and the world) and remind him of all the Arab, Muslim names many cities in the US have, and ....

And how to correctly spell SECULARISM. All and all this blog is more embarassing than anything else

Tabarzin

You have completely lost the plot or I think you are living.in denial. You keep trying to justify Mohammed's actions by the same old tired argumemts: 'but' we never had the Geneva Convention in the 7th century; 'but' the rules of engagement were different; 'but' marrying young children was the norm at the time etc etc.
The only difference is that Muslims consider Mohammed to be a prophet then as he is now- the last messenger of God. If God had chisen Mohammed to lay down morals and ideals about the way of life by which individuals and societies must conform to then Mohammed's comortment both in his personal affairs and dealings with adversaries should be exemplary not just for its time but forever. This is what Muslims believe and not me. So you cannot cherry pixk which teachings of Islam is relevant today and remove the ones which you are embarassed about by justifying it retrospectively.
Jesus Christ's teachings about forgiveness and turning the other cheek are timeless; and ironically Judaism and Islam are almost identical from Halal/Kosher, circumxision, the indivisibility of God, burial rites and many more.
No 'if's no 'but's, either you believe Mohammed was a prophet today and he was a man of exemplary behaviour today just as he was in the 7th century or he wasn't.

Anachronism city

The fallacy is all in the possession of the resident  Islamophobes with their uncritical typologies.

Again, you cannot apply the category of "pedophilia" to cultures that did not consider 14 year old girls to be childern but rather adults. Second, until quite recently women were not considered eligible to be placed under the rubric of pedophilia were sex crimes are concerned. Until recently pederasty and pedophilia were considered synonymous: meaning, pedophilia applied to sex crimes committed by full grown men against little boys - but not girls. Whatever Western feminists think of this, these are the facts, and it is only quite recent that pedophilia as a definition has been extended to include women as well. So given this, you can not reasonably speaking indict the Prophet of Islam (pbuh) post facto for a standard that did not exist in his culture and when Ayesha was considered by the standards of that culture to be a woman and not a child.

What the Muslims did against the Bani Qaynuqah and during the wars with the Meccans falls under the definition of engagement during a time of war. Pray tell, show me one European power who has not committed worse atrocities? The Americans have commited far worse in Vietnam and Indochina, Latin and South America, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, ad nauseum, and recently too. The genocidal behavior of the Israeli IDF in southern Lebanon in 2006 and against the Gazans is even worse than anything Muslims have done during the period in Medina.

That said, it is quite telling that Muslims are held to a standard that Jewish and rabbinic laws and perspectives are not held to. Besides, everything that is considered "barbaric" in Sha'ria law comes straight out of the OT and rabbinic law. But who amongst the Islamophobic AIPAC lobby of IC has the backbone to criticize Judaism? None.

VPK

Have you also observed the fallacy of the Muslims apologist arguments?

When Mohammed decapitated an entire tribe based on nothing more than a hunch; enslaved women and children and married minors at the ripe old age of fifty-five we are criticised for applying twenty firsy century ethics to 7th century Mesopotamia. In that case why are the tenets of Islam relevant to the 21st century? 

If beheadings, marrying pre-pubescent girls, mutilation of limbs and gouging eye balls as part of an eye-to-eye mideval punishment have to be considered in light of the era when it was committed then what is the significance of Islam today?

Which values of Islam are universal and not outdated? None of us assume for one moment that Cyrus the Great was a prophet - he unified Iran and like all Kings and great men in hisotry he probably committed wrongs as well as good deeds. And as much as this sounds pretentious- we must remove the halo from the head of saints and view history dispassionately and without bias.

 In contrast Muslims hold Mohammed hold Mohammed as a man of 'exemplary comportment' but if you dare point out controversial apects of his life, you are immediately rebuked for taking things out of context. Even when Muslims cannot defend the indefensible - the marriage of Ayesha and beheading of entire tribes they are always looking for excuses to defend their 'prophet'. For F-Sakes why are you following him then?