Iran class

My six-week class on the history of Iran at the OSHER Institute ended on Wednesday. The young historian working on his dissertation, Zachary Heern, was very good. His wife, who escaped Iran through a camel ride to Pakistan when she was 10 years old in 1984, spoke during the last hour about her experiences. It was very moving and they were lucky to make it out. She was a member of the B'hai faith which is persecuted mercilessly by the government of Iran. She had one strong message about it though on differentiating a government from its people. Many of her Muslim friends and neighbors helped them greatly.

Iran is a complicated place, home to many ethnicities. There is a contradiction between its Persian heritage and the views of Shi'a Islam, which was adopted by most in the 16th century. Persia was one of the oldest civilizations with urban settlements dating back to 7000 B.C. Zoroastrianism was the first recorded monotheistic religion. Farsi is the main language but the Koran is written in Arabic. The Sufi poets who are greatly revered write about many things that fundamentalist Islam disapproves, such as the joys of wine, beauty and sex. And there are different kinds of Shi'ism depending on which Iman is most revered. Its government is a constitutional theocracy. Here are a couple other fun facts: only 1.4% of the population attends Friday prayers and women make up 60% of the university student population. Beware of sterotypes!

Anyone who knows any of the history of Iran knows that the CIA and Brits orchestrated an uprising against the democracy movement in 1953 and reinstalled the Shah on the throne. I now have some good book recommendations which include one on current intellectual thought in Iran and one criticizing the fundamentalist movement in Islam by a cleric who now teaches at UCLA. My best wishes to those who fight tyranny today.

Hooman Majd

I just finished Majd's book The Ayatollah Begs to Differ. Here is a review by Steve Coll. It is a wonderfully entertaining book full of insights about Iranians (or Persians, if you will). In the West, we clearly fail to understand them. Here is a post by Majd in September, which gives you an idea of the reason behind Ahmaddinejad's outrageous statements about the holocaust and why the nuclear issue plays into the hands of the conservatives who stole the election. They are deflecting attention from the clash between the reformers and conservatives in Iran. Mr. A has a lot of supporters but most Iranians know he stole the election, a first in the country of which they are very proud. It is not because there is so much difference between A and Mousavi; they are angry that their votes wre taken.

The nuclear question is one on which most Iranians agree, as is the centrality of Shia Islam in their country. As Shias everywhere, they see themselves as persecuted. And Western powers ran Iran for many years prior to the 1979 revolution. They are not interested in a western-style democracy, but they deeply care about their Islamic democracy.

I continually wonder at all the Americans that continue to portray all Muslims as the same. This is real ignorance. Iranians hate the Taliban, who are Sunni fundamentalists. Shia have Ayatollahs, or religous authorities, somewhat similar to Catholics. Sunni's do not. So those who say "why don't their religious leaders protest the terrorism" are guilty of not undertanding Islam on many levels. There are no Sunni authorities per se and the terrorists are Sunnis. Within Iran, there are many views of religion, and different Ayatollahs disagree strongly.

Addendum: Started reading Eugene Rogan's The Arabs. Arabs were ruled by non-Arabs beginning with the Ottoman Turks in 1571. Of course, Persians are not Arabs. Many refer to Arabs as "locust eaters," according to Majd.