The Legacy Of Pax Islamica

"The Pax Islamica" Hawk Dove

SCROLL DOWN FOR IMPORTANT UPDATE

Professor Andrew Bostom has been a hero of mine ever since I finished reading what is now considered the Jihad Bible otherwise entitled "The Legacy Of Jihad". It came as a breath of fresh air amidst the rancid sea of apologists on the left, who have never quite understood the meaning of the word "Jihad", and were busy defending it as a mere spiritual struggle in the path of Allah.

My position on this has been crystal clear from the outset of my writing this blog, and although I have written about it many times before, I shall repeat it for the readers that may not be so familiar with the workings of the "Religion Of Peace".

Recently, apologists in the West have asserted that Jihad means primarily "spiritual struggle." There are several things to be said about this. First of all, the tradition to which they are referring is a late Sufi tradition, of the eleventh century, which divides jihad into a "Jihad of the Sword" and a "Jihad of the Spirit," stating that the former is the "lesser" Jihad and the latter is the "greater." This tradition is not contained in any of the canonical volumes of Sunni traditions, however, and has occupied, historically, only a very minor place in the Islamic tradition.

How do we know this to be so? There have been thousands of books composed on the religious duty of Jihad throughout the 14 centuries of Islamic history. Every last one of those books was about the "Jihad of the Sword" but one - and that one was composed only in the 20th century, by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shi'ite, and not exactly a pacifist. Second, and far more important: all that this tradition states is that the "Jihad of the Spirit" is the greater Jihad; it does not in any way abrogate the "lesser Jihad," the "Jihad of the Sword"- on the contrary. It is not accidental that the word for a Sufi monastery and for a fortress of volunteer border warriors (ribat) is identical in the Islamic languages; the same people who were "struggling in God's path" in the Jihad of the Spirit were simultaneously "struggling in God's path" in the Jihad of the Sword; even the Sufis who invented this tradition saw the two types of Jihad as being complementary, not mutually exclusive. Moreover, even had the late Sufi tradition actually been the dominant one in Islam, it would in no way abrogate the militaristic Qur'anic verses which order the believers variously to "fight' or to "kill" the unbelievers.

Every classical treatise on Islamic government has viewed the primary duty of a ruler as essentially that of ordering the world according to God's will. The world is divided into two mutually antagonistic parts: the "Abode of Islam" (Dar al-Islam), in which God's rule has already been established, and which is ruled according to Muslim law; and the "Abode of War" (Dar al-Harb); that portion of the world which is not yet under God's rule, but which the Muslims must eventually bring into the Islamic oecumene by force or by persuasion. What the apologists are not revealing when they talk of Islam as a religion of peace is that the "peace" they are referring to is a Pax Islamica.

Today we continue with the struggle of sending the message which if understood, will have a profound effect on how we deal with the sort of information given to us by Amir Taheri in the last few days, and which despite constant criticism from the left, culminating even in attempts to discredit him as the sterling journalist which we all know him to be, and calling me a Nazi, still needs to be explained further. Dr.Zin @ Regime Change provides a perfectly  logical explanation: "Why does he say it "envisages" it [the law]? Perhaps it is because it has been reported that a separate dress code for minorities has been included in earlier versions of the proposed law," and the Anchoress makes an intelligent deduction: "Just because a document “makes no mention” of something doesn’t mean a thing is not - under a definition of “standard” - implied."

The New York Sun has an excellent article today expressing a vote of thanks to Taheri from the Iranian Jews. IMPORTANT UPDATE: Amir Taheri issues a press release and stands by his story.

Professor Bostom MD, MS, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Brown University Medical School, and an avid historian and author, whose knowledge of this particular subject  is matched   by very few.

Today he writes me an e-mail enclosing his latest article on the subject, pointing to the historical significance that goes a lot further back than Nazism, and points directly at the well established bigotry against non-Muslims deeply ingrained in Iran's history. Published @ Front Page today, fasten your seat belts, it is a must read:

"The Iranian Majlis or Parliament has reportedly passed  (now disputed) a law requiring that, “Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.”  An outraged Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Weisenthal Institute immediately responded to the provisions for Jews: “This is reminiscent of the Holocaust…Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis.”

Such a comparison sprang to the minds of many.

But Rabbi Hier’s statement and this general view ignore the immediate context—most glaringly, the simultaneous dress badge requirements for Christians and Zoroastrians living in Iran—and more importantly, the sad historical legacy of Shi’ite religious persecution of all non-Muslims which dates back to the founding of the Shi’ite theocracy in (then) Persia, under Shah Ismail at the very outset of the 16th century.

A reflexive invocation of the Nazi era is ahistorical, and symptomatic of a general failure to appreciate either Judenhass or much broader anti-“infidel” (i.e., in this case anti-Christian and anti-Zoroastrian) motifs intrinsic to orthodox Islamic doctrine and practice—both Sunni and Shi’ite. The Iranian Parliament’s legislation reflects the profound influence of najis—a unique Shi’ite institution—not Nazism.

Shi’ite Theocratic Rule in Iran: Najis and non-Muslims (especially Jews)

Visceral, even annihilationist animus towards Jews is a deep-rooted phenomenon in Shi’ite Iran, hardly unique to the contemporary post-Khomeini Shi’ite theocracy, including the current regime of Ayatollah Khameini and President Ahmadinejad. The Safavid rulers, at the outset of the 16th century, formally established Shi’a Islam as the Persian state religion, while permitting a clerical hierarchy nearly unlimited control and influence over all aspects of public life.

The profound influence of the Shi’ite clerical elite, continued for almost four centuries (although interrupted, between 1722-1795 during the period of Sunni Afghan invasion and rule), through the later Qajar period, as characterized by the noted scholar E.G. Browne:

The Mujtahids and Mulla are a great force in Persia and concern themselves with every department of human activity from the minutest detail of personal purification to the largest issues of politics.

These Shi’ite clerics emphasized the notion of the ritual uncleanliness (najis) of Jews, in particular, but also Christians, Zoroastrians, and others, as the cornerstone of inter-confessional relationships toward non-Muslims.

The impact of this najis conception (based on a literal interpretation of Koran 9:28) was already apparent to European visitors to Persia during the reign of the first Safavid Shah, Ismail I (1502-1524). The Portuguese traveler Tome Pires observed (between 1512-1515), “Sheikh Ismail…never spares the life of any Jew”, while another European travelogue notes, “…the great hatred (Ismail I) bears against the Jews…”. During the reign of Shah Tahmasp I (d. 1576), the British merchant and traveler Anthony Jenkinson (a Christian), when finally granted an audience with the Shah,

…was required to wear ‘basmackes’ (a kind of over-shoes), because being a giaour [infidel], it was thought he would contaminate the imperial precincts…when he was dismissed from the Shah’s presence, [Jenkinson stated] ‘after me followed a man with a basanet of sand, sifting all the way that I had gone within the said palace’- as though covering something unclean.

Mohammad Baqer Majlesi (d. 1699), the highest institutionalized clerical officer under both Shah Sulayman (1666-1694) and Shah Husayn (1694-1722), was perhaps the most influential cleric of the Safavid Shi’ite theocracy in Persia. By design, he wrote many works in Persian to disseminate key aspects of the Shi’a ethos among ordinary persons. His treatise, “Lightning Bolts Against the Jews” (pp. 216-220), was written in Persian, and despite its title, was actually an overall guideline to anti-dhimmi regulations for all non-Muslims within the Shi’ite theocracy.

Al-Majlisi, in this treatise, describes the standard humiliating requisites for non-Muslims living under the Shari’a, first and foremost, the blood ransom jizya, a poll-tax, based on Qur’an 9:29. He then enumerates six other restrictions  relating to worship, housing, dress, transportation, and weapons (specifically, i.e., to render the dhimmis defenseless), before outlining the unique Shi’ite impurity or “najis” regulations.

With regard to dress, Majlisi’s stipulations from the late 17th century are consistent with the contemporary the Iranian Parliament’s proposal (albeit the “color-coding” differs):

it is appropriate that the ruler of the Muslims imposed upon them clothing that would distinguish then from Muslims so that they would not resemble Muslims.  It is customary for Jews to wear yellow clothes while Christians wear black and dark blue ones.  Christians [also] wear a girdle on their waists, and Jews sew a piece of silk of a different color on the front part of their clothes. 

But it is the latter najis prohibitions which lead Anthropology Professor Laurence Loeb (who studied and lived within the Jewish community of Southern Iran in the early 1970s) to observe, “Fear of pollution by Jews led to great excesses and peculiar behavior by Muslims.” Again, according Al-Majlisi’s authoritative and influential late 17th century text,

And, that they should not enter the pool while a Muslim is bathing at the public baths…It is also incumbent upon Muslims that they should not accept from them victuals with which they had come into contact, such as distillates, which cannot be purified.  In something can be purified, such as clothes, if they are dry, they can be accepted, they are clean.  But if they [the dhimmis] had come into contact with those cloths in moisture they should be rinsed with water after being obtained.  As for hide, or that which has been made of hide such as shoes and boots, and meat, whose religious cleanliness and lawfulness are conditional on the animal’s being slaughtered [according to the Shari’a], these may not be taken from them.  Similarly, liquids that have been preserved in skins, such as oils, grape syrup, [fruit] juices, myrobalan, and the like, if they have been put in skin containers or water skins, these should [also] not be accepted from them…It would also be better if the ruler of the Muslims would establish that all infidels could not move out of their homes on days when it rains or snows because they would make Muslims impure.

Professor Laurence Loeb’s seminal analysis of dhimmi Jews in Shi’ite  Persia/Iran (Outcaste- Jewish Life in Southern Iran 1977), documents the social impact of najis regulations, beginning with the implementation of

a badge of shame [as] an identifying symbol which marked someone as a najis Jew and thus to be avoided. From the reign of Abbas I [1587-1629] until the 1920s, all Jews were required to display the badge

Loeb emphasizes, “Fear of pollution by Jews led to great excesses and peculiar behavior by Muslims.”

Indoors/Outdoors and Wet/Dry

The enduring nature of the fanatical najis regulation prohibiting dhimmis from being outdoors during rain and/or snow, is well established. Examples include item 5 of  Benjamin’s list (Eight Years in Asia and Africa- From 1846-1855, Hanover, 1859, pp. 211-213) of “oppressions”

(they [i.e., the Jews] are forbidden to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans),

and item 1 of Hamadan’s 1892 regulations for its Jews (From a letter by S. Somekh, The Alliance Israelite Universale, October, 27, 1892, translated and reproduced in Littman, D.G. “Jews Under Muslim Rule: The Case of Persia” The Weiner Library Bulletin, Vol. XXXII, Nos. 49/50, 1979, pp. 7-8.)

(The Jews are forbidden to leave their houses when it rains or snows [to prevent the impurity of the Jews being transmitted to the Shiite Muslims]),

as well as  this account provided by the missionary Napier Malcolm who lived in the Yezd area at the close of the 19th century:

They [the strict Shi’as] make a distinction between wet and dry; only a few years ago it was dangerous for an Armenian Christian to leave his suburb and go into the bazaars in Isfahan on a wet [rainy] day. ‘A wet dog is worse than a dry dog.’ [Malcolm, Napier. Five Years in a Persian Town, New York, 1905, p. 107.]

Moreover, the late Persian Jewish scholar Sarah (Sorour) Soroudi related this family anecdote:

In his youth, early in the 20th century, my late father was eyewitness to the implementation of this regulation. A group of elder Jewish leaders in Kashan had to approach the head clergy of the town (a Shi’i community from early Islamic times, long before the Safavids, and known for its religious fervor) to discuss a matter of great urgency to the community. It was a rainy day and they had to send a Muslim messenger to ask for special permission to leave the ghetto. Permission granted, they reached the house of the clergy but, because of the rain, they were not allowed to stand even in the hallway. They remained outside, drenched, and talked to the mullah who stood inside next to the window.”[ from, “The Concept of Jewish Impurity and its Reflection in Persian and Judeo-Persian Traditions”, Irano-Judaica, Vol. 3, 1994, p. 156.]

Souroudi added this note, as well  [p.156, footnote 36]:

As late as 1923, the Jews of Iran counted this regulation as one of the anti-Jewish restrictions still practiced in the country.”

A more disconcerting 20th century anecdote from an informant living in Shiraz, was recounted by Anthropologist Laurence Loeb [in Outcaste, p.21]:

When I was a boy, I went with my father to the house of a non-Jew on business. When we were on our way, it started to rain. We stopped near a man who had apparently fallen and was bleeding. As we started to help him, a Muslim akhond (theologian) stopped and asked me who I was and what I was doing. Upon discovering that I was a Jew, he reached for a stick to hit me for defiling him by being near him in the rain. My father ran to him and begged the akhond to hit him instead.

Finally, Janet Kestenberg Amighi. (in The Zoroastrians of Iran: conversion, assimilation, or persistence. New York, NY: AMS Press, 1990, pp. 85) has argued that the Zoroastrians were perhaps the lowest non-Muslim caste in Shi’ite Iran, and accordingly, subjected to the most severe najis-related restrictions:

In Yezd and Kerman (through the early 20th century), Moslem pollution prohibitions were strictly observed and extended to most aspects of life. A Moslem would not eat out of a dish touched by a Zoroastrian nor permit even his garment to be touched by a Zoroastrian. Zoroastrians were forbidden the use of most community facilities such as barber shops, bath houses, water fountains, and tea houses. Water and wetness were considered to be particularly strong carriers of pollution. Zoroastrians were not permitted to go to the market in the rain. They could not touch fruit when shopping in the bazaar, although the dry goods could be touched.

Far worse, the dehumanizing character of these popularized “impurity” regulations appears to have fomented recurring Muslim anti-infidel violence, including pogroms and forced conversions, throughout the 17th, 18th ,19th  and into the early 20th centuries, as opposed to merely unpleasant, “odd behaviors” by individual Muslims towards non-Muslims."

Respite and Recrudescence

Reza Pahlavi’s spectacular rise to power in 1925 was accompanied by dramatic reforms, including secularization and westernization efforts, as well as a revitalization of Iran’s pre-Islamic spiritual and cultural heritage. This profound sociopolitical transformation had very positive consequences for Iran’s non-Muslims. By virtue of , “…breaking the power of the Shia clergy, which for centuries had stood in the way of progress”,  Walter Fischel observed that Reza Shah, “…shaped a modernized and secularized state, freed almost entirely from the fetters of a once fanatical and powerful clergy”.

Regarding Jews specifically, Lawrence Loeb wrote in 1976 that,

The Pahlavi period…has been the most favorable era for Persian Jews since Parthian rule [175 B.C. to 226 C.E.]…the ‘Law of Apostasy’ was abrogated about 1930. While Reza Shah did prohibit political Zionism and condoned the execution of the popular liberal Jewish reformer Hayyim Effendi, his rule was on the whole, an era of new opportunities for the Persian Jew. Hostile outbreaks against the Jews have been prevented by the government. Jews are no longer legally barred from any profession. They are required to serve in the army and pay the same taxes as Muslims. The elimination of the face-veil removed a source of insult to Jewish women, who had been previously required have their faces uncovered; now all women are supposed to appear unveiled in public…Secular educations were available to Jewish girls as well as to boys, and, for the first time, Jews could become government-licensed teachers…Since the ascendance of Mohammad Reza Shah (Aryamehr) in 1941, the situation has further improved…Not only has the number of poor been reduced, but a new bourgeoisie is emerging…For the first time Jews are spending their money on cars, carpets, houses, travel, and clothing. Teheran has attracted provincial Jews in large numbers and has become the center of Iranian Jewish life…The Pahlavi era has seen vastly improved communications between Iranian Jewry and the rest of the world. Hundreds of boys and girls attend college and boarding school in the United States and Europe. Israeli emissaries come for periods of two years to teach in the Jewish schools…A small Jewish publication industry has arisen since 1925…Books on Jewish history, Zionism, the Hebrew language and classroom texts have since been published…On March 15, 1950, Iran extended de facto recognition to Israel. Relations with Israel are good and trade is growing.

But Loeb concluded on this cautionary, sadly prescient note, in 1976, emphasizing the Jews tenuous status:

“Despite the favorable attitude of the government and the relative prosperity of the Jewish community, all Iranian Jews acknowledge the precarious nature of the present situation. There are still sporadic outbreaks against them because the Muslim clergy constantly berates Jews, inciting the masses who make no effort to hide their animosity towards the Jew. Most Jews express the belief that it is only the personal strength and goodwill of the Shah that protects them: that plus God’s intervention! If either should fail… [emphasis added].

The so-called “Khomeini revolution”, which deposed Mohammad Reza Shah, was in reality a mere return to oppressive Shi’ite theocratic rule, the predominant form of Persian/Iranian governance since 1502. Conditions for all non-Muslim religious minorities, particularly Bahais and Jews,  rapidly deteriorated. Historian David Littman recounts the Jews’ immediate plight:

In the months preceding the Shah’s departure on 16 January 1979, the religious minorities…were already beginning to feel insecure…Twenty thousand Jews left the country before the triumphant return of the Ayatollah Khomeini on 1 February…On 16 March, the honorary president of the Iranian Jewish community, Habib Elghanian, a wealthy businessman, was arrested and charged by an Islamic revolutionary tribunal with ‘corruption’ and ‘contacts with Israel and Zionism’; he was shot on 8 May

The writings and speeches of the most influential religious ideologues of this restored Shi’ite theocracy – including Khomeini himself – make apparent their seamless connection to the oppressive doctrines of their forbears in the Safavid and Qajar dynasties. For example, Sultanhussein Tabandeh, the leader of a Shi’ite Sufi order, wrote an “Islamic perspective” on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to Professor Eliz Sanasarian’s important analysis of religious minorities in the Islamic Republic,  Tabandeh’s tract became

“…the core ideological work upon which the Iranian government…based its non-Muslim policy.”

Tabandeh begins his discussion by lauding Shah Ismail I (1502-1524), the repressive and bigoted founder of the Safavid dynasty, as a champion “…of the oppressed”. It is critical to understand that Tabandeh’s key views on non-Muslims, summarized below, were implemented “…almost verbatim in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”. In essence, Tabandeh simply reaffirms the sacralized inequality of non-Muslims relative to Muslims, under the Shari’a:

Thus if [a] Muslim commits adultery his punishment is 100 lashes, the shaving of his head, and one year of banishment. But if the man is not a Muslim and commits adultery with a Muslim woman his penalty is execution…Similarly if a Muslim deliberately murders another Muslim he falls under the law of retaliation and must by law be put to death by the next of kin. But if a non-Muslim who dies at the hand of a Muslim has by lifelong habit been a non-Muslim, the penalty of death is not valid. Instead the Muslim murderer must pay a fine and be punished with the lash

Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim…then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain…Again, the penalties of a non-Muslim guilty of fornication with a Muslim woman are augmented because, in addition to the crime against morality, social duty and religion, he has committed sacrilege, in that he has disgraced a Muslim and thereby cast scorn upon the Muslims in general, and so must be executed

Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them. Since the marriage of a Muslim woman to an infidel husband (in accordance with the verse quoted: ‘Men are guardians form women’) means her subordination to an infidel, that fact makes the marriage void, because it does not obey the conditions laid down to make a contract valid. As the Sura (‘The Woman to be Examined’, LX v. 10) says: ‘Turn them not back to infidels: for they are not lawful unto infidels nor are infidels lawful unto them (i.e., in wedlock).

And Sanasarian emphasizes the centrality of this notion of Islam’s superiority to all other faiths: …even the so-called moderate elements [in the Islamic Republic] believed in its truth. Mehdi Barzagan, an engineer by training and religiously devout by family line and personal practice, became the prime minister of the Provisional Government in 1979. He believed that man must have one of the monotheistic religions in order to battle selfishness, materialism, and communism. Yet the choice was not a difficult one. ‘Among monotheist religions, Zoroastrianism is obsolete, Judaism has bred materialism, and Christianity is dictated by its church. Islam is the only way out’. In this line of thinking, there is no recognition of Hindusim, Buddhism, Bahaism, or other religions

The conception of najis or ritual uncleanliness of the non-Muslim has also been reaffirmed. Ayatollah Khomeini stated explicitly, “Non-Muslims of any religion or creed are najis.”

The Iranian Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri further elaborated that a non-Muslim (kafir’s) impurity was, “a political order from Islam and must be adhered to by the followers of Islam, and the goal [was] to promote general hatred toward those who are outside Muslim circles.”

This “hatred” was to assure that Muslims would not succumb to corrupt, i.e., non-Islamic, thoughts.  Sanasarian provides a striking example of the practical impact of this renewed najis consciousness:

In the case of the Coca-Cola plant, for example, the owner (an Armenian) fled the country, the factory was confiscated, and Armenian workers were fired. Several years later, the family members were allowed to oversee the daily operations of the plant, and Armenians were allowed to work at the clerical level; however, the production workers remained Muslim. Armenian workers were never rehired on the grounds that non-Muslims should not touch the bottles or their contents, which may be consumed by Muslims.

Khomeini’s views were the most influential in shaping the ideology of the revitalized Shi’ite theocracy, and his attitudes towards Jews (both before and after he assumed power) were particularly negative. Khomeini’s speeches and writings invoked a panoply of Judenhass motifs, including orthodox interpretations of sacralized Muslim texts (for e.g., describing the destruction of the Banu Qurayza), and the Shi’ite conception of najis. More ominously, Khomeini’s rhetoric blurred the distinction between Jews and Israelis, reiterated paranoid conspiracy theories about Jews (both within Persia/Iran, and beyond), and endorsed the annihilation of the Jewish State. Sanasarian highlights these disturbing predilections:

The Jews and Israelis were interchangeable entities who had penetrated all facets of life. Iran was being ‘trampled upon under Jewish boots’. The Jews had conspired to kill the Qajar king Naser al-Din Shah and had a historically grand design to rule through a new monarchy and a new government (the Pahlavi dynasty): ‘Gentlemen, be frightened. They are such monsters’. In a vitriolic attack on Mohammad Reza Shah’s celebration of 2500 years of Persian monarchy in 1971, Khomeini declared that Israeli technicians had planned the celebrations and they were behind the exuberant expenses and overspending. Objecting to the sale of oil to Israel, he said: ‘We should not ignore that the Jews want to take over Islamic countries’…In an address to the Syrian foreign minister after the Revolution Khomeini lamented: ‘If Muslims got together and each poured one bucket of water on Israel, a flood would wash away Israel’…

Professor Reza Afshari’s seminal analysis of human rights in contemporary Iran  summarizes the predictable consequences for Jews of the Khomeini “revolution”:

As anti-Semitism found official expression…and the anti-Israeli state propaganda became shriller, Iranian Jews felt quite uncertain about their future under the theocracy. Early in 1979, the execution of Habib Elqaniyan, a wealthy, self-made businessman, a symbol of success for many Iranian Jews, hastened emigration. The departure of the chief rabbi for Europe in the summer of 1980 underlined the fact that the hardships that awaited the remaining Jewish Iranians would far surpass those of other protected minorities

Conclusions

An ethos of infidel-hatred, including paroxysms of annihilationist fanaticism, has pervaded Persian/Iranian society, almost without interruption (i.e., the two major exceptions being Sunni Afghan rule from 1725-1794, and Pahlavi reign, with its Pre-Islamic revivalist efforts, from 1925-1979), since the founding of the Shi’ite theocracy in 1502 under Shah Ismail, through its present Khomeini-inspired restoration, since 1979.

Having returned their small remnant Jewish community to a state of obsequious dhimmitude—including now, perhaps the full restoration of discriminatory badging —Iran’s current theocratic rulers focus most of their obsessive anti-Jewish bigotry on the free-living Jews of neighboring Israel.

Former Iranian President Rafsanjani’s December 2001 “Al Quds Day” sermon  threatened, explicitly, the nuclear annihilation of this largest concentration of autonomous Jews in history. Current President Ahmadinejad has reiterated these threats repeatedly as Iran’s nuclear ambitions near fulfillment. But Ahmadinejad has also reportedly vowed, “To stop Christianity in this country” [i.e., Iran]  , and his recent “letter” to President Bush emulates the jihad war precept (originally formulated by the Muslim prophet Muhammad) of calling infidel powers—often Christian powers—to accept Islam, prior to initiating a jihad war against them.

The Iranian regime’s words and deeds are authentic manifestations of the hatred of jihad. Whether directed against internal or external “infidels” this is a potentially genocidal animus which must be understood in its Islamic context without meaningless and distracting invocations to modern Western forms of totalitarianism, like Nazism."

Comments

[Lee]

Please read this one and learn Islam.

link

[foreign devil]

Here is a link to a press release dated May 23, 2006 from Benador Associates and Amir Taheri in which he stands by his statement that Iran has passed a dress code for Iranian Muslims and have also introduced the idea of coloured strips of cloth for different faiths. The strips are called zonnars.

http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19508

"Regarding the dress code story it seems that my column was used as the basis for a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun.

"As far as my article is concerned I stand by it.

"The law has been passed by the Islamic Majlis and will now be submitted to the Council of Guardians. A committee has been appointed to work out the modalities of implementation.

"Many ideas are being discussed with regard to implementation,
including special markers, known as zonnars, for followers of
Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the only faiths other than Islam that are recognized as such. The zonnar was in use throughout the Muslim world until the early 20th century and marked out the dhimmis, or protected religious minorities. ( In Iran it was formally abolished in 1908).
I have been informed of the ideas under discussion thanks to my
sources in Tehran, including three members of the Majlis who had tried to block the bill since it was first drafted in 2004.

"I do not know which of these ideas or any will be eventually adopted. We will know once the committee appointed to discuss them presents its report, perhaps in September...."

[Michael Galien]

Prof. Bostom, thank you for answering my questions.

NxN Whenever apologists are trying to diminish the 'Judenhaß' in the Middle East as confined to fringe extremist groups which are unfortunately often excessively vocal, but are in reality of much lesser significance and much smaller in numbers than we are being led to believe, and when such apologists question state sponsored Antisemitism and indoctrination in schools and daily media, this context helps setting the record straight.

I agree completely. It is important for all of us to know about the historical context of Islamic aggression. It is repeated time and time again everywhere that the problem is not Islam itself, nor the tradition of Islamic countries, nor most Muslims, no, according to what we all hear and read it is a problem of a very small, minority.
Articles like that of Prof. Bostom, remind of us the fact that, for instance, Ahmadinejad's views / opinions / acts, are not in breach with the history of Islam. In fact, he simply carries on the history of Islam / his country.

[Pete Blackwell]

Alexandra,

I'm right with you on Cole and I've followed the Hitchens-Cole dust-up closely (siding with Hitchens in this case). The issue may all revolve around the way this story was framed by Weblogistan as the Holocaust part deux, especially with Drudge's screaming headline and Andrew Sullivan's prominent post. You may be right about what's to come, but this story set off more alarms than maybe it should have. That said, I find no good in Ahmadinejad's letter, or in anything else he's ever done.

[Patrick O'Hannigan]

I know you meant "Pax Islamica" ironically, but lest some readers have any doubts, that's the only way such a phrase can be uttered in reference to a culture where "peace" has been decoupled from "freedom" and linked inextricably with "submission."

[Alexandra]

Pete,

Look this is difficult for me. I greatly respect Taheri, and would certainly rather take his word than that of Juan Cole. It aggravates me when his story is labeled as "debunked", by both sides may I add. It upsets me even more when a world class journalist who was the editor of the largest Iranian newspaper, with a sterling reputation gets smacked around by idiotic bloggers and would be journalists who are asking "and who is Taheri". Excuse me, and you are?

Taheri's sentence no 1) "The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress."

We have had that confirmed.

Immediately followed by sentence no 2) "It also envisages [being the operative word] separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public."

We know that this has been "envisaged" and discussed. We also know that this is nothing new. It may have even been a part of earlier versions of the law. The code was only abolished in 1908, and historic precedent is very comfortable with this idea dating back as far as Caliph Omar II in 717AD.

Much has been made of the fact that the law makes "no mention" of it. Just because a document "makes no mention" of something does not mean it is not - under a definition of "standard" - "implied."

This is hardly cause for a credibility check of the supposed "secondary motion" (this has been confirmed) that fits the pattern of laws that Iran has already instituted.

The very fact that it is envisaged, discussed and considered is bad enough. These guys are just warming up, so fasten your seat-belts.

I would rather believe Taheri's sources in Iran than the left wing apologists, who are busy looking for "the good in Ahmadinejad's letter" and Islam, and confirmation of Iran's peaceful intentions, rather than recognizing it as a da'wa (an invitation to convert to Islam), a prerequisite for waging war, which it actually is.

Someone told me the other day on a leftie blog that Ahmadinejad did not say that he will annihilate Israel, and that this is a right-wing, pro Jewish conspiracy to sabotage the Farsi translation and to encourage warmongering. And all this with a straight face.

Let me stand with Taheri on this any day of the week, what I see as opposition to his view on this, even on the right, I do not like.

[gringoman]

Thank you Professor Bostom, Alexandra (and other Culture Warriors) for delivering what the slick Lamestream can't handle--- elementary historical facts. (Remember the "educated" bonehead here who bashed "Alexandra the Nazi" recently (not even sparing her short hair style) for not appreciating the greater tenderness shown to Jews by Islam as opposed to Christendom?) Remember when (most) everyone thought that the astounding special dress code for Jews in Germany was an invention from the Nazi beer hall? (Even the socialists and Communists seemed righteous and honest when promoting such ignorance for their flocks.) Now we learn that there were centuries of precedent. The Hitlerites were not original. They were industrious copy cats, inspired by the gang with Allah on its side (whether or not this Allah is really, as they claim, the same as the Biblical Jehovah, or is in fact a theological make-over of the old Arabian moon god.) Who knew?

[Pete Blackwell]

I see you link to my post as an example of the "constant criticism" of Taheri coming from the left. In fairness, this piece was written before he made his statement standing by his story. That said, the National Post retracted the story, which tells you something. We'll see if it pans out in the end.

In my post I had two main points:

1) We should always be at least a little wary of reporting done by an interested party. That's nothing against Taheri, it's just an obvious fact. In this case, there were no "independent" sources for this information. That doesn't mean the story is false (although I assumed it was shown to have been—a point where I may be wrong), it just means it isn't sufficiently sourced to appear in a newspaper.

2) If the story was in fact false, it does a disservice to the cause. The truth about Iran's government is bad enough.

[North by Northwest]

Professor Bostom,

Israel as the "collective Jew" is ANATHEMA to the entire Islamic umma (again, both Sunni and Shi'ite) because it represents the liberation of a dhimmi people [...] who have reclaimed a "fay" territory.

This reminds me of Charles Moore's heads-up:
"All I want to ask my fellow Europeans is this: are you happy to help direct the world's fury at the only country in the Middle East whose civilization even remotely resembles yours? And are you sure that the fate of Israel has no bearing on your own? In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is "the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance", the world of the West. He is busy building his country's nuclear bomb."

Our valued Guest, a Professor of Islamic Medieval History, had this to add: "I'd very much like to take up one of your points (Israel being seen as an outlier of the West) because I think you and your readers couldn't realize just how true this is; all the Muslim writers, Jihadists, apocalypticists, etc. make this quite clear.

Since the Muslim world believes that the Russian Czarist forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is an authentic historical document (a national museum in Egypt exhibits this work alongside the Talmud as a primary Jewish text!), they see America as the foremost "Zionist entity," completely dominated by sinister Jewish conspiratorialists, and the real source of power of "World Jewry." I highly recommend Professor David Cook's book "Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature," (Syracuse University Press, 2005) since he reads and quotes from the Muslim fever swamps."

Whenever apologists are trying to diminish the 'Judenhaß' in the Middle East as confined to fringe extremist groups which are unfortunately often excessively vocal, but are in reality of much lesser significance and much smaller in numbers than we are being led to believe, and when such apologists question state sponsored Antisemitism and indoctrination in schools and daily media, this context helps setting the record straight.

[Jeremayakovka]

Dr. Bostom (and everyone),
First, it's a shot in the arm hearing from you directly. Thanks! It's been empowering to read your articles and watch clips of you recently (I'll get around to your book before too long), this is extra special.
Short point: Your mention of slavery brings to mind a talking point David Horowitz has made, that what was unique about abolition movements in Western democracies was that they were saying not "Let my people go," but "Let other people go," and that that was a unique quality of Western civilization.
Thanks so much for all the provocative information.

-JMK

[Andrew Bostom]

Michael,

For more specific details on Persia/Iran see my 2004 FrontPage article as well as my book website which has articles that may elaborate.

But in summary, NO I would argue that if anything the Zoroastrians suffered MORE than the Jews under Shi'ite rule in Iran...They are almost EXTINCT now in their indigenous homeland...Persecution ebbs and flows depending on the ability of Muslim rulers to either restrain the ulema (Shi'ite or Sunni) or, more ominously, to join in and exhort them on...

But the doctrines are themselves palpably bigoted and thus far unreformed and unrepentant in any serious way...After all there was NEVER a slavery abolition in Islam (Islamic societies collectively being the greatest enslavers in human history---in fact slavery is still practice !!), just as there was never an Islamic movement to abrogate the laws of dhimmitude.

Both the abolition (incompletely and imperfectly as history reveals!!) of slavery and the end of dhimmitude required outside, i.e., Western or Russian or Soviet "infidel" powers to intervene

Sunni Afghan in Iran rule saw some rather brutal deportations of the Armenian population, and all the dhimmi populations were of course at risk for being caught up in the internecine violence between Muslims..My point was that it seems there was a respite from najis regulations as the Shi'a were out of power

Getting back to "The JOOZ"---Israel as the "collective Jew" is ANATHEMA to the entire Islamic umma (again, both Sunni and Shi'ite) because it represents the liberation of a dhimmi people (a particularly disparaged and formerly "weak" and "meek" people) who have reclaimed a "fay" territory (or even part of that territory), ie., fay meaning taken by jihad and considered permanently to be part of the Dar al Islam, i.e., historical Palestine (Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Israel within the 1949 armistice borders, and Jordan).

What a DANGEROUS precedent this is for ALL the pre-Islamic peoples in the Near East who might also seek their autonomy---Maronites, Copts, even pre-Islamic Berbers (who were Animists prior to being converted to Islam during their subjugation)---and so CLOSE to the spiritual homeland of Muslims, i.e., Arabia

[Jeremayakovka]

Michael (and everyone):

In short, do not lead with "Hitler" or "Nazi" when trying to convey the Islamic and/or Persian threat.

Thinking aloud here: according to Islam, Hitler was an infidel, was he not? And his Reich, had it prevailed in Europe, would eventually have pressed up against the "bloody borders" (borrowing Huntington's phrase) of "Dar al-Islam". So I speculate whether the ayatollahs of the 1930s and 40s were saying amongst themselves, "That Hitler, he's a son of a bitch, but at least he's our son of a bitch." You know, in the way many in the West have spoken of "strong men" like Saddam and Arafat when it served our short-term and/or misguided purposes of having them in power. In short summary, we all need to dig deeper into actual facts and facets of the subject, like Bostom has done.

best,
JMK

ps - My thoughts here are being occasioned in part by Sharansky's very (perhaps too) modestly presented The Case for Democracy: his confidence "in free societies", etc. In any case, some days I feel like a candle.

[Michael Galien]

Alexandra; this is a great article from Prof. Bostom. It is incredibly important that experts like him, join the debate about Islam in general and Iran more specifically.

There are some questions I have and hope someone here is able to answer them.
Let me start by saying that I too, have come to the realization that the essence of Islam is, quite simply, the opposite of what we, as Westerners believe.

The questions:
- An ethos of infidel-hatred, including paroxysms of annihilationist fanaticism, has pervaded Persian/Iranian society, almost without interruption - Is this incredible Jew hating a typical shi'a conviction?
What I mean to say is: did Iran (Persia) always play a leading role in persecuting Jews (and Christians), or are they something like the 'first among equals', is this history of Persia / Iran regarding to the treatment of Jews, comparable to the history of that treatment in other Arab, or Muslim, countries?

The reason for this question is that Mr. Boston wrote that one of the two major exceptions being Sunni Afghan rule. This makes me wonder: could it be true that although the Qu'ran speaks out quite clearly about (the treatment of) 'infidels', some 'sects' or 'tribes' have a history of, indeed actively persecuting those infidels, while other sects / tribes traditionally adhere less to those Islamic rules / laws?

And if so, why?

Furthermore: I understand the reasons why Mr. Bostom does not agree with connecting the current Iranian regime with that of the Nazis, since, among other things, the history of Shi'a persecuting Jews is incredibly much older. But - to make people understand something they don't know anything about, I have found it to be quite useful to compare that particular topic they don't know anything about to something they do know (something about).
One of the most important things that need to change is the common attitude in the Western world that exists out of... ignoring this Islamic / Iranian problem. Wouldn't you agree that, by comparing the current Iranian regime to that of the Nazis it makes it more easy to digest (to accept) for most Westerners?
One could argue that, after they accepted that comparison and thus the importance of the problem, one could broaden the debate by emphasizing the historical Persian / Shi'a convictions.

[sigmund, carl and alfred]

Bostom is a laser guided pile driver.

In fact, while there will those might disagree with some parts of his analysis, that is no more than disagreeing about the parameters of a particular orbit of a heavenly body.

The fact remains that the the body is in orbit and remains a part of the reality of a particular solar system- and pretending it isn't there or hoping the planet in question will go away, is absurd.