Litany

Idiotic and Childish

This article is really idiotic and Childish...

 If Shia have to answer to all these human crimes and wrongs...

 Then every Athiest has to answer for Hitler, Stalin, North Korea, Communists, Las Vegas Exploitation of Women, and so on.  

 So many murders and wrongs have been done in the name of Athiesm that it is scary...why do you think the Russians have come back to religion after the Athiest communists lost?

 Islam is the best faith of monothiesm and belief in the one God of all the universe.  

When those who abuse Islam, such as the old man in the story trying to marry a 9 year old...that is not Islam, that is man's animal desire. 

 Islam does not allow marriage to a 9 year old, ever cleric or scholar who says so is not following Islam.  In order to get married in Islam, you have to be an adult male or female, not a child.  

 These Pre-Islamic practices of "Bache Bazi" (male or female) that was rampant among pre-Islamic Greeks, Persians, Turks, and Arabs is sick and wrong.   If you want to see the extent of Bache Bazi, look at the movie Alexander, where Alexander and Darius shared the male child "Bag-o-ass" (no pun intended, but with a name like that you can see why Alexander and Darius liked young men to sleep with) which spoils our romantic visions of pre-Islamic Persia where Zoroastrian Shahs slept with young boys and then shared them with the invading Alexander of the "free" Macedonia/Greece.  

 Currently the number of Muslims is growing in the world, slowly but surely being a Muslim is becoming hip and sexy in the west.  The same Iranians who write these Islamophobic stories will change with the wind.  However, those who understand Islam are always calm and at peace...like myself. 

Great Article Laleh

Thank you! This article was very eye opening for me as I was born in the U.S. from Persian/American parents. I passed your article to everyone in my data base. Truth should be told. Keep up the good work.

Re: Excellent

Thank you. What a wonderful way of ending this thread... I can't thank you enough.

Excellant

Excellant wonderful lady,

I come from family of Shi'a however I personally denounced Shi'aism long time ago.  mostly because of its historical inaccuracies and certain racist intonations.

As a human being however, I always have and  always will denounce any and all atrocities committed by my HUMAN[race]. I shall never hold one person responsible for atrocities committed by someone else. That would make me no different form IR goons, nor from Zionist criminal, who see COLLECTIVE punishment as justifiable tool to stop attacks on their population.

To your question of marriage a 9 year old, as I explained earlier, marriage in very early ages, 9 for girls and 12 for boy, has been rather a common practice. Prehistorically, the practice was done for the purpose of survival of human race, since the average life expectancy was 30 years during pre-Islamic, and 20-25 during ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

I am not aware of the any Sharia Law in current times that will condone the practice. This is not to say that there are not people who do take advantage of this outdated [law], and pray upon illiterate and innocent.

For that fact, if it is any consolation, my sister who resides in Iran is highly active, along with many many progressive and educated Iranian women, in an organization which is very vocal in counseling families and [lobbying] the MAGHAMAT to revise the Sharia and re-interpret the alleged existing laws. As you know very well, majority of these laws are interpreted in order for the regime to exert unjust control over women. One of the most common and humiliating of such laws are the infamous [dress code].

Do I condemn such inhumane act? Do I condemn pedophilia? Do I condemn marriage[RAPE] of a 9 year old tender BABY to a barbaric midle-aged man?

DAMN RIGHT I CONDEMN IT MADAM. But I will only stand responsible for their actions so as long as I am silent about it. Neither me nor my family been silent about these barbaric laws, and my family have paid very hefty price for it.

In closing, I do admire your essay, and for the records, I never disagreed with you on the principles. My disagreement has been on your broad brushing the entire ilk. 

Respectfully

capt_ayhab [-YT]

Re: Perfect

You are absolutely right. Finally we agree on something! It is a start…

I hereby formally denounce all those acts and set out to dedicate my life to remedy those horrors. I also don’t in any shape or form defend or try to justify those horrors. I even will go further to redefine my faith in order to distance myself from that past.

Similarly, on this thread, I expected one single Shi'a believer to step forward to say that it is wrong to marry a nine year old child and have intercourse with her. Without an exception, everyone tried to enlighten my hate filled heart with why that practice was okay so long ago and is absolutely not being practiced today by Shi'a men.

This last statement is entirely false. I know it for a fact: There are Shi'a men in Iran and other Muslim countries who are taking advantage of this Sharia law to marry and rape children.

I realize that you are not a Shi'a. But for my comfort, could you please tell me if marrying a 9 year old girl and having intercourse with her is right or wrong?

Perfect

Lady Gillani,

I appreciate your answer, and apologies for delay in response. Lets see now if we can HOLD you responsible for anything these[cults] may have done. I am sure, at the expense of lack of any further research in my part to come up with any specific incident, I can hold you responsible for crimes of any and all members of your mythology.

So, I hereby HOLD you responsible for the blood of any innocent which was shed by Native Americans [scalping, rape, kidnapping, killing of any white pilgrims, whether being in anger or otherwise]. Unless crimes this people may have committed do not count, unlike crimes of Shi'a's.

I Also hold YOU responsible for any rape, unjust killing and etc of Persian mythologists that may have occurred. Unless you want to claim that no rape, or killing has been committed by believers in this mythologies!

Point of knowledge: Muslims DO not answer to any akhund. A Muslim only answers to his/her conscious and to the God. 

For that fact, I would like you to write another essay, and shame, hold responsible all the Catholics for the rape of all the alter-boys by Catholic priests, so for you to be fair in your incrimination of the world.

My dear lady, not beleiving a certain faith, does not entitle you to demonize entire population of that faith. [THAU SHALT NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SINS OF YOUR FATHERS]

I regret to say, the view you hold, on entire population of Shi'a is nothing but racism, in its uggliest form.

capt_ayhab [-YT]

What Is My Religion?

I am not a Shi'a Muslim, a Sunni Muslim, any other type of Muslim, Jewish, or Christian. I rejected Judaism, Christianity, and Islam after I was convinced that these religions had nothing to offer me to nurture my soul.

My religion is entirely a figment of my own creation. It is a mixture of Persian mythology and American Indian myths. I do believe in a divine power but regard all human beings as fallible. Hence I answer only to my conscious not to a mullah or a priest.

Question

If you kindly tell me your faith, then I will answer all the questions your have proposed. Fair?

cheshm be rahe javabet hastam! ;-)

BTW, this is the statement in question The Shi'a faithful must answer for the cries of untouched maidens as they are raped by Shi'a men who

capt_ayhab [-YT]

the truth

You are so far off the truth... I cannot begin to enlighten you or anyone following your reasoning!
If you really believe God exists, ask him/her for help( he has no gender, as in Farsi) ask for some answers ... don't stop untill he gives you answers.( if you are doing it just for kicks it isn't going to work). you really need to want to know... want to understand and seek the truth)
God will do that... believe me.... he will lead you to where you can find your answers.
But only if your intention is right.
Just talk to him everyday...
Look at the genuine esoteric side of religion tooand try and get a little of this hate off your chest....

Re: “Right There”

I must have failed miserably if those statements have conveyed nothing but “all Shi’a men are rapists” to you. May I attempt again for the last time?

First, let’s see what we can agree upon: IRI is a Shi'a state governed by Shi'a authorities, ulama, and jurisprudence. We like it or not, the Supreme Leader together with the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists is dishing out Shi'a justice to all Iranians. (Do we agree on these points?)

If we do, then Shi'a religion and anyone who defends it is directly or indirectly responsible for the horrors of mullahs’ dark ages.

If we don’t, I have to speculate that the only argument you or anyone else might have is this: “This is not my Shi'a.” Of course, this is a fair reply, and on the surface it might sound very logical and promising. Having heard that statement multiple times, I am responsible for finding out what your Shi'a is, what distinguishes it from IRI’s Shi'a, and who is defining your Shi'a. (So far so good, I hope.)

In this journey, it is inevitable that I start looking at my own life and that of my family. Drawing on these experiences, with the current state of affairs in Iran, the prospects of concluding that there is another Shi'a is very slim. Nevertheless, I still need to read the Quran, study the Hadith, and also tap into the writings of other Muslim scholars.

In a nutshell, I have found the Quran, the Hadith, and the writings of non-IRI Muslim scholars very disturbing. The holy book Quran itself, similar to other holy books, is an ocean of contradictions. It is kind and merciless; it advocates peace and war; it soothes and threatens… It is full of imagery that may be interpreted in many forms.

The Hadith is also disturbing to me because these narratives are collected overtime by fallible individuals with the explicit intention of serving a purpose. The works of other Muslim scholars are furthermore personal opinions of people with whom I can easily find flaws. (So let’s move on to the opposition groups.)

Khatami’s rhetoric is merely lip service to Muslim intellectuals who fear for the future of Shi'a in Iran. This opposition and its interpretation of Shi'a signify a power struggle between different factions of Islam. Not for one moment, I believe that he and his followers intend to end the bloodshed in Iran, free the political prisoners, and give the masses the choice to form a new government.

The mullah-less religion of Mojahedin-e Khalq is tainted by an ocean of mistakes: indiscriminate assassinations, violence and bloodshed, the abandonment of the rank and file, the arrogance of the leadership, the betrayal of Iran during our war with Iraq… The list goes on and on…

At the end, I am bound to conclude that what I see in IRI, what I have heard and seen in my own life and that of my family, what I read in Quran and Hadith, what I see in Khatami and Mojahedin-e Khalq is Shi'a in the nude…

right there

The Shi'a faithful must answer for the cries of untouched maidens as
they are raped by Shi'a men who will hang them at the gallows
afterwards with a clear conscious. Shi'a must answer for the howls of
prisoners in Evin as they try to flee out of the path of incoming
bulldozers driven by the believers who will go home shortly to perform
their daily ritual cleansing to face Mecca at dusk. Shi'a must answer
to Kurdish Iranians as they are slaughtered in the name of God. Shi'a
must answer for the wounds, the bruises, the broken bones of prisoners
tortured at the hands of the believers who pause only to read a fatwā
ensuring themselves of their righteous path. 

And there: I am not foolish to presume to know the religious or political
affiliation of every Shi'a faithful. Nonetheless, I wish them peace
with their faith, with themselves, and with their God to answer for the
blood on their hands.

and there again: Shi'a must answer for the unmarked graves of our fallen in the cemetery
of infidels. Shi'a must answer to the mother of a child whose flesh was
torn apart as he ran through the minefields wearing around his neck a
fake key to the paradise. The Shi'a faithful must answer to themselves,
to their children, to their countrymen, to the world, to the history,
but most of all to their conscious as they comfort themselves with the
infamous excuse of “this is not my Shi'a.”

I have mentioned in my prior comment that I am not a Shi'a. So kindly not to go there trying to label me. Not that there is anything wrong with that faith.

One last request madam. Do show respect for the blood of young which was spilled in defending IRAN, they do deserve our utmost respect, no matter who took advantage of their patriotism and innocence. 

capt_ayhab [-YT]

Apostasy in Islam

This post is for anyone who is still hanging around this thread:

When a Muslim denunciates Islam, both Sunni and Shi'a Islamic jurisprudence agree that “a sane adult male apostate must be executed.” However, some scholars of Islamic jurisprudence favor life imprisonment for a female apostate. Others prescribe a death sentence.

Although many verses of Qur'an have been used to justify the death penalty, these verses only state that Allah will “punish and reject” the apostates “in the afterlife.” Hence, the majority of Islamic jurists base the death punishment on a hadith.

The appropriate method of death for an apostate is beheading. Additionally, all schools of Islamic jurisprudence confer that a Muslim may kill an apostate without fear of punishment.

Did I Say That? I Beg to Differ…

“Then so arrogantly trying to extrapolate this preposterous theory and notion that [all the shi'a men are rapist] over entire population of one faith.”

Silly me! I thought we were winding down… Nonetheless, could you please show me when I said that all Shi'a men are rapists?

Also, a lot has been said about “hatemongering,” “spewing hate,” and “bias.” Could you please point out when and where I engaged in hate speech?

I have strived to handle the insults with logic. Sometimes ignoring them; at other times, responding to them with elegance. I have neither used any slur or insults to identify any group of people nor have advocated hate towards anyone.

I have repeatedly said that having sexual intercourse with a child with or without uttering marriage vows is pedophilia. If Sharia laws happen to allow them today, then Shi'a men who take advantage of this law are rapist. However, I do acknowledge that some 2000 years ago such laws and hence those practices appeared to address the life expectancy of people.

Ms. Gillani

It disturbs me as it has many others, how arrogantly you are defending your baseless and hateful words called 'essay', with your insistence in accepting no historical nor scientific data, which is solely based on some [fairytale] about your own family. Then so arrogantly trying to extrapolate this preposterous theory and notion that [all the shi'a men are rapist] over entire population of one faith. A faith which apparently you know so very little about.

My dear lady, with a quick glance at [trend in life expectancy] throughout the the human history [as easy as Wikipedia] you would have noticed that life expectancy at birth during Medieval Islamic was 35 years, as it was 25-30 years for accent Rome and Greece. With life expectancy like these, societies, in order to survive biologically would have had to marry at puberty, rather than age of maturity. Marriage at early age of puberty was a norm throughout the civilization, and not only of some Arab tribe dear lady.

Asides from lack of ANY substantiating fact about your claim, what has been disturbing me the most has been the amount of hate you spew in your writings. With so much hatred in you, you fit so well with regimes such as IR, or Zionist instead of disguising as an intellectual. I regret to have said this, but this is how I exactly feel about your Ideology madam.

Respectfully

capt_ayhab [-YT]

Wrapping up This Thread…

As we wrap up this thread, I would like to thank everyone for their participation and posts. I have learned a lot and have much to think about… Without a doubt, it has been an enriching experience. We shall meet again on the cyber space…

The person who wrote the comment

I am SJ.
The person who wrote the comment which may have caused you, among other things, to write this blog.
Truly by 'conventional' standards I am not a devout Moslem at all. ( you have indicated that I am,
and you had no way of knowing otherwise)

I had planned on a answering you but now after reading the answers given to you by a number of our friends here, I see that they have done a far greater job than I would have been able to do.
My initial comment was not specifically to you, but to a group of people who were and had been addressing/bashing/ridiculing others and Islam and also referring to the pure 'Aryan blood' which had been infected! (in other instances too)

Please read again and notice the part which says:

--So what are you going to do with me? And the millions like me but with *variations of understanding and thought?*

That 'variation' can be the person who accepts everything which the Mullah of the mosque across the road tells him, or the person who has put a lot of thought and and research in trying to comprehend with his mind and soul, what the distinctions and nuances of his spirituality/religion are --Also I was talking about all Moslems who fall anywhere in between.

I also said:

"There is much which has been left unsaid... "
and there definitely is.

What you cannot always find staring at you in the holy books, you need to search/research until you learn, understand, comprehend or that it dawns on you, and you can put 2 and 2 together! I speak out of personal experience.

I still believe:

"... I also believe that there were sacred people in the world.
I believe Emam Hossein was one of them."

Overall I wish you much success

__________________________________________________

VERY unlikely "Ms. Gillani"

Please forgive me ahead of time for this "jesarat" but I'm not buying any of this story. I think it's fiction. Total fiction. Entertaining but not true. Possibly based on some family legend but from the amount of colorful adjectives you put into the description, it's likely your own work. Not bad, I must say.

This is a story about your grandfather's father? So like what? 90 years ago right? How did he get back from Qom, for this "surprise" visit "skipping school"? On horseback? LOL!

You want us to believe not only that your devout Iranian Shia "grandfather", growing up in a strict-enough Islamic polygamist household turned "atheist" but also that he confronted his own father on the family "estate" and "commanded" him to put his pants back on and took the bride "under his protection" at 25 years old? (Circa 1930?)

I'll hand it to you. You tried hard, but you simply haven't done enough research.

There is such rigid binarism and sharply defined philosophical distinctions in your writing very much at odds with the reality of Iran. It's more likely that in your story of fiction, you are subconsciously immitating a western protagonist with a sprinkling of imaginary events badly themed to be "Iranian".

You're good. You're a real good. You definitly have a knack for creative writing, there's no denyin' that.

But this was probably not your Grandfather's story. In light of this, I don't think your name is Laleh Gillani and reading your previous blogs, I doubt very much you are a woman.

These are my observations. I know they may seem very presumptuous. Sorry about that.

But I'm rarely wrong.

Have a nice day.
[Qumars B. not logged in]

Re: The Y Chromosome?

Dear Ms. Gillani,

Thank you for agreeing with me about how your great grandfather’s act should have been interpreted. I am sure you know that when we talk about the “animal instinct”, we are talking about a trait that is roughly three billion years old. So, please indulge me. Why are you placing the blame solely on Shi’ite Islam?

Are you suggesting that such acts did not happen before the advent of Shi’ism? Are you claiming that they do not happen outside of the Shi’ite sphere?  In a much more recent history than the time of your great grandfather, in the city and the country I live, similar acts (pedophilia?) by ‘men-of-God’ have shaken the pillars of Catholic Church. Can we blame these transgressions on Shi’ites too?

Best Wishes,

W.W.

RE: Act of Larceny

Dear Ms. Gillani,

It is your prerogative to refer posthumously to your great grandfather’s marriage to a nine-year old as “rape.”  I could not allow myself such irreverence. However, according to your own narrative, “…the infallible Sadr Al-Ulama is laboring to consummate his latest matrimony to a nine year old girl. The new, frightened bride, however, is fighting off the groom with all her might. As my grandfather enters the room, the little girl breaks free from the nude Sadr Al-Ulama,..” So, was the marriage consummated by the time of your grandfather’s entry? If the answer is yes, you should blame the ambiguity of your own narrative. If it is no, I am justified in referring to an unconsummated marriage to a non-consenting nine-year old as “larceny” instead of “rape.” Don’t you agree?

Once again, the problem is not that it was "rape" or attempted "rape", or any thing else. The problem is that you based your argument on an anecdotal example, an event that took place so long ago; and then attempted to draw a general and everlasting conclusion, by induction. When I googled “the age of marriage in Iran”, one hit indicated that before the revolution the minimum age of marriage for girls was 18, but that was lowered to 15 by the IR (//www.popline.org/docs/0569/015696.html). Another report suggests that today the average age for girls at the time of marriage is 23. Unless you can provide evidence showing that IR – as the only Shi’ite government in the world - sanctions the marriage of nine-year olds, your condemnation of Shi’ite Islam on the basis of an outdated example will remain groundless. If you know the number of nine-year-old brides in the contemporary Iran, please let the rest of us know.

Best Wishes,

W.W.

The Y Chromosome?

“Your grand father’s disdain for what he had witnessed is quite justified, and his decision to turn his back to religion understandable. The fact that that disdain, in its most primitive form, has survived for three generations in your family, without turning into a more plausible understanding of the man’s abject frailty in dealing with his own lascivious instincts, however, is astonishing to me (it comes with the Y chromosome, after all).”

Wrapped inside this impeccable English, you are describing what is commonly called animal instincts, the drive to rape when in heat. Yes, my family has evolved beyond such instincts. We don’t give in to our animal lust, and we question the integrity and honor of those who do.

Disturbed?

Indeed I am. I am disturbed when nine year old girls in my family are forced to participate in the Islamic ceremony called Taklif. I am troubled when they are coerced into wearing white wedding gowns at age nine to get them ready for their upcoming nuptials. I am distressed when I hear my sister sob on the phone after having been visited by one of the Zainab Sisters of the local mosque… These atrocities are happening today, not some 2000 years ago in an isolated Arab tribe.

I don’t pride myself for living in the land of fiction. With sanctimonious attitude, you can recite poetry to sooth your conscious. Mine is distraught…

Disturbed?

The lost souls are gone stray.They do not comprehend a heart filled with the Love of Almighty, as big as ocean:

O Love, you brought forth a jug
Filled with the ache that my heart clog
I won’t drink this wine, this drug!
Drink but for my heart’s sake!

From this wine poured me a cup
Wisely his praises I brought up
Bittersweet, pleasing to sup
Like the praises my heart would make.

From the Wheel of Fortune and fate
Stepped forth a Soul so great
I ran forth to demonstrate
The rewards my heart had at stake.

O Divine Secret, of Thee I ask
Yourself for crowds do not unmask.
Praised and thanked me for my task
For my heart’s sake, thus He spake.

I was pleased that my Beloved’s face
Towards my home its path would trace
And opened up with much grace
The veil covering my heart break.

If Love for blood may thirst
Brave warriors are curst
Mountains spontaneously burst
In such place my heart quake.

O Thou the bringer of cure
Pleasure and pain you endure
Only in you I am secure
Thou can cure my heartache.

Every fruit if only tries
My heart’s ache can realize
Melancholic face, bloodshot eyes
Streams form heart’s bloody lake.

King of the World put away tears
The Pride of Tabriz appears
Light of Truth, Shams, now nears
Thy light my heart will wake and take.

RUMI

It Won’t Work…

Trying to silence the voice of critics by accusing them of hatemongering won’t work. You can insult me using any slur in the English language or Persian. I will continue to expose Shi'a and the believers who are practicing it with pride.

Act of Larceny?

“Your post is trademark yellow journalism… Therefore, your selective – and mischievous - attribution of your great grandfather’s act of larceny to Shi’ite Islam never goes beyond malicious propaganda.”

You call the rape of a child “larceny,” and then in the same breath accuse me of practicing yellow journalism. I am astonished…

That aside, what is really disturbing to me is that not one Shi'a faithful so far on this thread has stood up to announce that having sexual intercourse with a child is wrong. Even those who appear to be knowledgeable in the Sharia laws have only tried to explain away why it is permitted to marry a child and have intercourse with her. Now I am dumbfounded! (I wasn’t before…)

please..

for God's sake, this issue of relating islam with pedophilia is really getting childish. In those times when a girl got her mentruation it meant that she was ready for marriage. Unfortunately, this norm is still carried out today in certain societies, and these societies are not necessarily always muslim, or Shia' muslism for that matter. 

It's immature and ignorant to hate an entire denomination because of certain customs and traditions that were carried out by some men in our culture. 

Also, blaming shias for the suffering of iranians under the current regime is also unwise. 

Ms Gillani, to answer your question:

'' what do you do with a religion that threatens to kill you if you decide to leave it? What do you do with a religion that sets out to eliminate the infidels? ""

I did leave it, not because it was wrong but because , I saw the new spring of the old religion., So my decision was to leave it, even if they would kill and harm me.I am not suggesting for you to do it, but just to show you that it is possible, and done many many times in Iran.

 Also I believe that man is a mine rich in gems of inestimable value.Education can , alone, cause it to reveal its treasures,and enable mankind to benefit therefrom. So if we are not leaving , we can help to eradicate ignorance by promoting human virtues and qualities.

You asked dumbfounded this :

Until Shi'a authorities have the courage to officially amend the Sharia laws, pedophilia will remain a stain on Shi'a religion. But how can one amend God’s law? That is the question, isn’t it?

My answer to you is that we do not amend God's law HE does it for us, by updating the laws through sending new manifestations of God.

Most regards,

Tahirih

Y Chromosome

Dear Ms. Gillani,

Your post, like many others we read these days, exposes what has become of Iranian.com.  What could have been the market place of ideas – for all who love Iran – has become a flea market for hate mongers: A place for settling old accounts.

Your post is trademark yellow journalism. You excise the memory of an event that took place generations ago, and allow yourself to generalize inexcusably in order to make an adulterated argument for condemning a whole religion, only to justify your own inability to make peace with your own set of beliefs, and if you forgive me, with your own ignorance.

You should know by now is that equating puberty and adulthood – at the expense of adolescence - is a common feature of most archaic cultures, including all Abrahamic religions. Therefore, your selective – and mischievous - attribution of your great grandfather’s act of larceny to Shi’ite Islam never goes beyond malicious propaganda. What you may not know is that in Shi’a, and possibly in other religions, the criterion for marriage is puberty, with all its outward and apparent expressions, and not physical age.  Thus, your reference to ‘pedophilia’ is quite inappropriate.

Your grand father’s disdain for what he had witnessed is quite justified, and his decision to turn his back to religion understandable. The fact that that disdain, in its most primitive form, has survived for three generations in your family, without turning into a more plausible understanding of the man’s abject frailty in dealing with his own lascivious instincts, however, is astonishing to me (it comes with the Y chromosome, after all).

I became an agnostic at the age of 13. In those days of adolescence - in the pre-revolution Iran – debating the existence of God was our pastime. Participants – my classmates – came from all walks of life, every religious and ethnic background that was represented in our school, and there were many. Our debates were sometimes heated and sometime sarcastic, but never hateful. I do not recall any personal or physical attack by anyone during or after those debates. ‘Tassa’hol” was the name of the game, even for the most ardent religious ones among us.

The lessen I learned from those debates, and whatever education I was endowed with afterward, was that religion – like any other human experience – cannot be separated from the socioeconomic conditions that have given birth to it. And, renaissance can only happen when conditions are befitting to such transformation.

What pains me the most, after reading your post, is that bigotry is displayed, day in and day out, not only by those fanatics in the pulpit in Iran, but also by some who use this cultural arena – Iranian.com – as a cover to hide their own malaise.

Best wishes,

WW

marying teens was a norm in

marying teens was a norm in all races all cultures and religions as far as history goes ,so everyones ancestors are phedophiles and rapist ,puberty was held as being fit to marry

its still a norm in india and africa and most backwarded countries ,includinjg some suni countries (but not in iran ) but i guess all of africa and india are SHIA too ..

ohh no no only SHIA DID THAT ! SHIA WAS THE WORST ! you want to see WORST :

milions of teens get raped in usa and isreal and any western country every minute , in cars , in motels , against there will , while intoxicated , in moslem country there is no oportunity for it as sexes segrated strictly and huge punshment meted (if caught ) there is no alchol , but i guess truth is upside down nowdays and we must get kicked in the face from every direction , including by our own :

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jafOCyU-Eg

this jew which is president of iran will start war with isreal which will result in genocide of shias

LAJVARDI , the botcher of Iranian innocent political prisoners was a Jew , may he rot in hell

so were khamooshi, Asgaroladi and Saeid Imami(Ghavami his another name) when he started to reveal the truth they killed him in prison

same way henchmen of stalin were jew ( stalin was a jew)
henchmen of ataturk ( and himself was jew)

both of above genecide 2.5 milion christians ( armenia and ukraine ) holodomore ( stravation gencide of christians ) same way they straveing GAZA to death .. thats thier method

ataturk (which was a jew )held as GOD in turkey , isnt that MOSLEM country ? so why they a JEWISH GOD ?

if one critic this jewish GOD , or even if you even mention that he was jew will be jailed in turkey for YEARS !

picture of this GOD is on ever door in turkey and you dare not remove it

Gillani

By the way,

I feel bad for Iran too. I mean after 1400 years of Islam why is that the Turks, Uzbeks, Tadjiks, Kazaghs, Bengalis, Turkmens, Bosians, Albanians, and all other non-arab moslems were able to create secular democracies without monarachies? Gee, I wonder. Did you ever think about that?

Also, I've no idea in hell what magic power you're talking about because if you didn't already know magic is not real.

Gillani

Gillani-

Since ordinary moslem opinions won't do you any good:

"Morocco’s top body of Islamic scholars condemned on Sunday a Muslim theologian for issuing a religious decree that girls as young as nine years old can marry. Morocco’s High Council of Ulemas “denounces the utilisation of religion to legitimise the marriage of nine-year-old girls”, it said in a statement."

//lifethelove.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/muslim...

This all stems from Aisha's age at the time of marriage. I know it has been said that she was 6 at the time of marriage but as I understand she was 12 when she was married and was 15 when she consummated. (Sarwar, p.144) This website also determines the proper age of Aisha:
//www.muslim.org/islam/aisha-age.htm

I won't lie like you though Gillani. It's still to this date being debated because they're not exactly sure when Aisha was born.
Hadith, Fatwahs, or whatever are not the same as the Quran.

At 15, being married and consummating the marriage, was common for everybody, everywhere in the 7th century.

To be honest with you Gillani, I could talk to about all the misconceptions of Women and Islam. You may have an issue with polygamy for instance. Yes it's allowed, but only in three very restricted cases. One being if there are societal problems where there many more women than men. These problems were caused by natural disasters, war, and other things. I never understood the harem and I believe that was manmade and very un-religious.

However, instead of having a productive discussion I feel your blind hatred of moslems will hinder that. I would love to talk to you about how the IRI has discriminated against women and that is completely wrong and un-religous according to Islam. (Hijab is not supposed to be mandatory, just ask my devout mother) Actually, the Islamic Republic is very UN-Islamic in many ways that ranges from women's rights, politics, and the economy. I would love to go over them point by point with you, but I'm sure your clear hostility will prevent you from giving me a fair chance.
I understand you're just stating your opinion, but if you want to sound intelligent I would recommend you stop being passive-aggressive and condesending towards a people of faith. Sam Harris is a well respected athiest writer, you should look him up and try to emulate him instead of being... well yourself.

P.S. Thanks for responding to my other points... or maybe not. Also, it's interesting in the Old Testament about God's given mandate to Moses about killing and raping. If you're interested in why Shia rape, this would be good food for thought for you.