Iran's Identity Faultlines - Islamic / Aryan

[RoyG]

You should see the amount of 'Aryan' sucking up these Iranians do with their nose jobs in the LA area. Pakistan and India have sizeable shia populations and they are very good at cultivating assets and starting proxy wars. They are the future threat to us unless they slowly begin embracing Zorostrianism.

[Agnimitra]

My conclusion has been that Iranian racism is aesthetics based - color and features, with bucketful of cultural and impirial arrogance.

Yes it is based on a combination of aesthetics and identification with imperial power. Iranics have always sidled up to whoever was the mighty imperial power of the time, using flattery and filling their courts. During Mongol rule, their miniatures and other artwork showed all Iranians as being slightly Mongol-featured. It even became a fashion to shave/trim the eyebrows at the ends so that one got the Mongol look. Needless to say, one era before the Mongol invasions the Iranics were fashionably becoming more Arab than the Arabs. Of course, in all these spells, a countervailing cultural resistance force also existed.

This is the great Persian miniaturist Kamaloddin Behzad's work (16th century), and these are supposed to be Iranis. Such features were also used in depictions from the Shahnameh! Coincidence that the Mongols were the power at that time, from Russia to India? I think not.



Next era when Mongol power in that part of the world was on its way out, Iranians were committing genocide on Mongols within their territory. Today in Iran, people with Mongol features get racially discriminated against. Some of the more high profile ones do plastic surgery to get a higher nose and get rid of the epicanthal fold over the eyes.

[Agnimitra]

X-post from Kurdistan thread

Muslim Kurds abandon their religion to Zoroastrianism to escape "extremism"

Shafaq News / The Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs in Kurdistan region said on Sunday that it has received a request from followers of Zoroastrianism to allow them

to practice their religious rituals and help in the construction of their temples after their numbers increased in the region.

The ministry’s spokesman , Mariwan Naqshbandi said in a statement posted on his personal account in Facebook that followers of Zoroastrianism appeared again in Kurdistan and made a formal request to have a representative in the ministry and open their own temples.”

He explained that the recent months have witnessed the return of those in public and Kurdish cultural circles appreciably, which indicates a migration of Kurdish Muslims to their old religion and.

According to Naqshbandi, one of Zoroastrian spiritual leaders had told him that their number in Kurdistan exceeds 100 000 people and they are constantly increasing.

Commenting on the reasons why Kurds are converting from Islam , the Kurdish official said " he doesn’t see the emergence of Zoroastrians and Baha'is before them, with conspiracy point of view or that there is US , Israeli or global Freemasonry or other allegations behind it that some are trying through it to escape from the ongoing facts."

Naqshbandi explained that "there are intellectual and ideological unrest and various imported Islamic extremist facing the peaceful Muslims in Kurdistan and that caused the majority Muslims in Kurdistan to go towards extremism , political and social chaos made them despair."

On 19 of last April in Erbil , the Supreme Council of Zoroastrians was formed in Kurdistan, which will promote the Zoroastrian religion and its Prophet Zoroaster.

Luqman Haji Karim, the President of the Council the Supreme Council told Shafaq News that Organization of Zoroastrians in Kurdistan (Zend Organization) was founded in Europe in 2006 and transferred its activities to Kurdistan Region to apply for an official acceptance to work in the region.

Zoroastrianism dates back to BC and was the religion of the Kurds and neighboring folks like Persians. The official religion of the emirates , kingdoms and empires that had ruled in Mesopotamia areas.

[Agnimitra]

Tajikistan Muslim Name Ban: Parliament Considers Forbidding Arabic-Sounding Names Amid Crackdown On Islam

[Agnimitra]

X-post from Kurdistan thread:

Thanks to Islamic extremism, Iraqi Kurds revive ancient Kurdish Zoroastrianism religion

On local social media there has been much discussion on this subject. One of the most prevalent questions is this: Will the Kurdish abandon Islam altogether in favour of other beliefs?

“We don’t want to be a substitute for any other religion,” al-Karim replies. “We simply want to respond to society’s needs.”

However, even if al-Karim doesn’t admit it, it is clear to everyone else. Committing to Zoroastrianism would mean abandoning Islam. But even those who want to take on the Zoroastrian “belt” are staying well away from denigrating any other belief system. This may be one reason why, so far, Islamic clergy and Islamic politicians haven’t criticised the Zoroastrians openly.

As one local politician, Haji Karwan, an MP for the Islamic Union in Iraqi Kurdistan, tells Niqash, he doesn’t think that so many people have actually converted to Zoroastrianism anyway. He also thinks that those promoting the religion are few and far between. “But of course, people are free to choose whatever religion they want to practise,” Karwan told Niqash. “Islam says there’s no compulsion in religion.”

[Agnimitra]

Here's more material on ...
1. How Iran's "Aryan" heritage involved an infusion of Indian Veda into their priesthoods
2. And subsequently the infusion of knowledge traditions further north and west

The Magi & Zoroaster
The 4th century CE, Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus made the following observations in his Rerum gestarum libri 23.6.31-36:

"31. They have also as many cities as Media, and villages as strongly built as towns in other countries, inhabited by large bodies of citizens. In short, it is the richest residence of the kings.

32. In these districts the lands of the Magi are fertile; and it may be as well to give a short account of that sect and their studies, since we have occasion to mention their name. Plato (at Ax. 371D; Isoc. II.28, 227A), that most learned deliverer of wise opinions, teaches us that Magias is by a mystic name Machagistia (Mazdayasni? If so, one of the few Western references to this name which is the Zoroastrian name for their religion and means 'Worship of God'), that is to say, the purest worship of divine beings; of which knowledge in olden times the Bactrian Zoroaster derived much from the secret rites of the Chaldaeans; and after him Hystaspes, a very wise monarch, the father of Darius.

33. When Zoroaster had boldly made his way into the unknown regions of Upper India, he came to a certain woody retreat, of which with its tranquil silence the Brahmans, men of sublime genius, were the possessors. From their teaching he learnt the principles of the motion of the world and of the stars, and the pure rites of sacrifice, as far as he could; and of what he learnt he infused some portion into the minds of the Magi, which they have handed down by tradition to later ages, each instructing his own children, and adding to it their own system of divination (an interesting reference and we can only wonder about Marcellinus' source).

34. From his time, though many ages to the present era, a number of priests of one and the same clan has arisen, dedicated to the worship of the gods. And they say, if it can be believed, that they even keep alive in everlasting fires a flame which descended from heaven among them; a small portion of which, as a favourable omen, used to be borne before the kings of Asia.

35. Of this class the number among the ancients was small, and the Persian sovereigns employed their ministry in the solemn performance of divine sacrifices, and it was profanation to approach the altars, or to touch a victim before a Magus with solemn prayers had poured over it a preliminary libation. But becoming gradually more numerous they arrived at the dignity and reputation of a substantial clan; inhabiting towns protected by no fortifications, allowed to live by their own laws, and honoured from the regard borne to their religion.

36. It was of this clan of Magi that the ancient volumes relate that after the death of Cambyses, seven men seized on the kingdom of Persia (cf. Smerdis), who were put down by Darius, after he obtained the kingdom through the neighing of his horse.

37. In this district a medical oil is prepared with which if an arrow be smeared, and it be shot gently from a loose bow (for it is extinguished in a rapid flight), wherever it sticks it burns steadily, and if any one attempts to quench it with water it only burns more fiercely, nor can it be put out by any means except by throwing dust on it.

38. It is made in this manner. Those skilful in such arts mix common oil with a certain herb, keep it a long time, and when the mixture is completed they thicken it with a material derived from some natural source, like a thicker oil. The material being a liquor produced in Persia, and called, as I have already said, naphtha in their native language."

8. The Extent of the Zoroastrian-Magian-Persian Corpus of Knowledge
According to Martin Haug, Hermippus, the philosopher of Smyrna (ca. 250 BCE), "is reported by Pliny (Historia Naturalis 30.2.4) to have made very laborious investigations in to all Zoroastrian texts, which were said to comprise two million verses, and to have stated the contents of each book separately." Pliny credits Callimachus' pupil Hermippus with having "written on this art in the most exact fashion, while also making accessible, by the contents-lists prefaced to his volumes, the two million verses composed by Zoroaster" (qui de tota ea arte diligentissime scripsit, et viciens centum milia versuum a Zoroastre condita, indicibus quoque voluminum eius positis explanavit). Hermippus' work has been lost.

A copy of the corpus of Hermippus' work (or a portion of it) was said to reside in a library at in Egypt at Alexandria - which was at one point part of the Persian empire. That copy has also been lost to us.

2nd century CE Greek philosopher, Celsus stated that "Zoroaster and Pythagoras formulated their doctrines in books" which were conserved until his time, an observation affirmed by a medieval textual commentator of Alcibiades who stated that Zoroaster had left philosophical writings.

If Zoroaster lived before the advent of writing, then the writings credited to him were likely written by his followers including the magi. We take these various references to Zoroastrian texts to mean that Zoroastrian texts had been committed to writing at some stage and that these texts were extensive in both size and the breath of content.

ZOROASTRIAN HERITAGE
AUTHOR: K. E. EDULJEE

[amritk]

Tajikistan Muslim Name Ban: Parliament Considers Forbidding Arabic-Sounding Names Amid Crackdown On Islam

Religion with Chinese characteristics. Merci Agnimitra for your posts.

[Agnimitra]

This might give us clues to the origin of the "Khorasan" myth in Islam also...

Some interesting speculation on the lands from which the supposedly Ahura-worshipping tribes migrated north and westward, out of the Indian Continent. It is interesting that the material on the 'Nagas' has been used as a link to fix and resolve ambiguities.

The Sixteen Lands of the Ahuras

(As mentioned in the Avesta - see references.)



Migrations Outward:



Local Migrations:



The places and their supposed Vedic equivalences, plus their associations in the Ahuric mind:

[Agnimitra]

Another set of speculative coordinates for the "16 Ahura Lands" from the later Zoroastrian Vendidad - possibly after migration outward:

[Agnimitra]

Since the Babylonians and the Magi have had such a major effect on the evolution of Middle Eastern traditions, I thought I would X-post this from the Understanding Islam thread:

Agnimitra please document the series of tweets you have on the message thread.

The discussion was about the Adhidaivika (subtle powers that influence natural phenomena, events of past, present and future, etc) versus the Adhibhautika (purely physical) and Adhyatmika (psychological and spiritual). The discussion was about whether or not Adhidaivata (AD) potentials could be used in defensive or offensive acts for the sake of a civilization.

One discussant said, "Islam is a Pishacha-upasana...so placating Djinns comes naturally to them." Beyond this, it was assumed that there is no Adhidaivika realm in the Abrahamic religions. However, this is not true.

The Qur'an mentions the angels Harut and Marut who had taught the faithful AD tricks to vanquish enemies, but warns that that was only for the sake of self-defence and not to be pursued for their own sake. The names Harut and Marut are definitely of Zoroastrian origin.

A lot of it goes back to Kabbalah and Zoroastrianism. In some schools of Islam, when pone is introduced to the kalmah, 5 points are laid out that need to be accepted - one of these being something like - "the existence of angels in the cosmos - the physical Sun has a corresponding angel associated with it", etc.

They believe in hierarchies of beings in the Unseen - so its not all just "paishacha" only. Of course even revelation comes from the Archangels - Gabriel in Muhammad's case.

Whether Daivi or Asuriya... AD is definitely there. I am not clear yet on all the differences...but the difference is in the form of an undercurrent - externally there is a superficial correspondence between both sides at all levels. Even on the non-Abrahamic 'Dharmic' side - Tibetan Budhism has its own AD - with many Asura names.

Also, I think AD should also include methods of mass mobilization or hypnotism - fundamental parts of some types of priestcraft. A lot of AD is based on a gradient on a scale of Agreement. Generating mass appeal or "faith" is part of that. It is also directly related to political outcomes.

Continuing - in Islam (not just Sufi variety but also mainstream), meeting with AD figures like Khidr / Khizr are considered almost crucial steps on the path. Some propaganda artists among the Islamics sometimes try to show that Buddha was an incarnation (yes they have that concept) of Khidr/Khizr (probably in order to poach on Buddhist spirituality in the West, and also the significant attraction of Buddhism in Islamic countries).

The question was raised: "Will advent of ISIS, what is is prospect of Islamic AD survival? Isn't Wahabism antithesis to AD?"

It depends. Wahabism is like an Arya Samaj to Islamic AD - could actually enhance focus by rubbishing the bhautik *symbols*...OR it could have a negative impact. I find that many highly focused entrants to Sufism have been through a "Wahabi phase". So these days, one important point that Sufi Sheikhs emphasize is that the mureed should learn to be comfortable with the fact that the Unseen has a variety of beings who can and do communicate with humans. Not be solely focused on an abstract unitary "Allah". Yet, many of these Sufi masters "connive" with Wahabism by saying "it is part of what is prophesied". This is because Wahabism should be seen as a "phase".

But, "Arya samaj is definitely antithesis (to large extent) to Deshi AD."
Well, if Arya Samaj serves as a "portal" to Mimamsa and Yoga, then it can be seen in a different light. By itself it is "antithesis" - but in concert with thesis it can yield a positive spinoff.

On a tangential note - Western churches with a more obvious infusion of their gnostic traditions, such as Mormonism, are also big on AD. The church has clairvoyants and others who can tell you all about your past and presage the future, like astrologers. They also assign members into one of the "12 tribes of Israel" - a sort of social division based on basic nature. But in the Protestant Christian West, most AD streams have been stereotyped as diabolical.

In the Islamic world today, most Islamism is a political concert between Sufism and Wahabism, with the former being the senior partner. They are not totally at war, as is often portrayed. Both, their concert and their friction, are seen as necessary by Islamic thinkers. It is a well-known hadith that Muhammad prophesied at the End Of Times,the rulers of Najd (Saudi heartland) will lead a movement exactly like Wahabism today. It sets off a sort of psychological dynamic by an implosion at the core.

It seems that the Christian West understands this internal dynamic. Imam Ghazzali had brokered the formal marriage by fusing these two innate strands of Islam into a Jarasandha-like powerful being. The West is trying to selectively upset the balance and tear these apart and put them at cross purposes with one another. [Ref. blogpost "Owais and Owaisi: Two halves of Jarasandha"]

Naqshbandi and other Sufis understand this Western game and are always establishing supportive channels with Wahhabis. Some act as the glue to hold it together. In Pakistan, see the role of "Islamist Sufis" like Ghamidi - who shift their goalposts depending on the situation.

Many stories of Islamic savants using AD powers to influence forces of nature, etc. E.g., case of the famous mathematician and astronomer (cum Islamic scholar) Jamshid Kashani, who meditated and then lead communal prayers and thereby supposedly ended a drought, causing massive downpours that cleaned the city's water system and thereby ended the cause for a water-borne epidemic.

Several ahadith (especially current among Sufi tariqats) about Muhammad himself influencing weather patterns and other events. A significant chunk of such ahadith is about his connection with weather, lightning, rain, dawn, dusk, etc.

As regards trikala-jnana, it is a standard part of Islamic spirituality - not just Sufism. Called "firasat" in Naqshbandi tariqah.

Several authentic ahadith seem related to AD aspects. There is actually a separate, distinct type of salat (namaz) for almost every 20 minute period of the day/night. The 5 basic types of namaz are only for laymen. For actual sadhakas, there are umpteen. Several savants who lived in forests, hills, etc often practiced the different types of namazes around the clock.

Question: "where does dharmik AD come in here? What are the fundamentals of Abrahmic AD? In dharma, it is basically karma-siddhanta and methods of tampering it (either communally or in person-specific manner)."

I feel that some of these were stolen from Indic tantra systems (and then attributed to Muhammad via some hidden line of transmission - as is usual). The reason is that some of the most copious literature on these AD type round-the-clock namazes were written by Islamic converted savants in places like present-day Bangladesh. And we know that Bengal has been a center of tantra for long.

The tantra of AD often involves alignment of one's psychological sense of time with chronological and cosmic time. So these practices are pointers.

Now if one reads the works of even modern Islamist philosophers like Said Nursi (who was a Turkish "shatavadhani") - one can see a lot of material exactly like karma-siddhanta. A lot of his corpus - Rusale Nur - talks about how to change destiny, though he himself felt that the demolition of the Ottoman Empire was karmically *necessary* - and he explained it to the Russians who once imprisoned him.

As regards personal targeting - Islam definitely has a lot of this about spells, drishti (buri nazar), etc - about protecting oneself from it, but also attacking (though this part is not public).

Regards fundamentals of Abrahamic AD (which is fused with older Greek 'pagan' AD) - they differentiate "black", "grey" and "white" magic. The black is related to influencing others materially. White is about influencing solely one's own spiritual path by removing spiritual obstacles by wisely investing one's own material karma. The "grey" tries to make a combination of both. In terms of sexual practices related to these 3 types, the differentiation is based on types of sexual celibacy or practice.

My hunch is that a lot of the karma-siddhanta of the Abrahamics goes back to the "Khaetvodatha" concept in Avestan Gathas - and how one's personal life trajectory puts one in contact with an environment at the intersection of the human, animal, plant and mineral kingdoms - and by modulating one's habits and enjoyment/abstinence from these in combination with one's Daena (deen) and its access to the Yazatas (gods) one can effect certain changes.

[Paul]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has wished a happy new year for the Jewish community all over the world.

On Sunday, Rouhani congratulated Jews on the occasion of their new year, also called , voicing hope that common “Abrahamic roots” would pave the way for the creation of more “respect” and “understanding” between Muslims and Jews.


“May our shared Abrahamic roots deepen respect & bring peace & mutual understanding,” the Iranian president said in a tweet, ending his message with the Hebrew phrase “L'Shanah Tovah,” meaning “May it be a good year.”

[Paul]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has wished a happy new year for the Jewish community all over the world.

On Sunday, Rouhani congratulated Jews on the occasion of their new year, also called , voicing hope that common “Abrahamic roots” would pave the way for the creation of more “respect” and “understanding” between Muslims and Jews.


“May our shared Abrahamic roots deepen respect & bring peace & mutual understanding,” the Iranian president said in a tweet, ending his message with the Hebrew phrase “L'Shanah Tovah,” meaning “May it be a good year.”

[JE Menon]

^^here we go. Remember what has been predicted here on BRF, in particular about the behaviour of the Iranian state and its managers.

[Agnimitra]

X-post from Understanding Islamic Society thread:

More on the Adhidaivika and Islam -

First a news item - Since the beginning, there are 'loopholes' in Shari'ah to permit the use of entheogenic substances, even though alcohol consumption is generally banned:

Senior Iranian Ayatollah rules in favor of entheogens

Interesting that the couple who lobbied the Iranian government for this legislation is well-connected with the international entheogen community.

Entheogenic Islam – On Haoma and Ayahuasca

“The ḥarmal does not grow, whether from a tree, a leaf or a fruit, without there being an angelic guardian spirit attached to it.” Muhammed (a.s)

“I believe that Shiism is the only school which has preserved for ever the link of the divine guidance between God and the creatures and has kept alive the rule of the divine authority. I believe that all religions pursue a fact but it is only the Shia school which has preserved this fact believing that this characteristic remains for ever between the human and divine world.” Henry Corbin

The starting point of my excursions into Islam’s relationship with plant medicines and psychoactive plants, is this interview in Reality Sandwich with my husband, Wahid Azal. My husband, together with brothers, obtained in 2014 a Fatwa (legal ruling) by Grand-Ayatollah Rohani in Iran concerning the permission to use psychoactive plants (including Ayahuasca) for purposes of treatment and spiritual growth.

Quote from the interview:
“To make a long story short, after well over a year and a half of back and forth discussions and correspondences between my friend (and one other individual) with the office of Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad Sadeq Hussaini Rohani in Qom, Iran; in mid March 2014, via email, the Grand Ayatollah issued a formal legal ruling (that is, afatwa) determining the use of entheogens and psychoactive substances to be licit and thus permissible (ḥalāl) for Shi’i Muslims provided it be under the direction and supervision of qualified experts (ahl al-ikhtiṣāṣ), and that, moreover, such plant substances as a rule do not impair the mind.”

...

This ruling is very encouraging in many aspects. It is a further step to reclaim Islamic and Iranian traditional medicine, identity, spirituality and the communion with the “plant spirit world” for humans and for holistic treatment. I have personally little experience with Haoma but study the world of herbs, flowers, grass and plants and I am a enthusiastic gardener and communicator with the “subtle plant realms”. It is further very encouraging to find that the prophet Mohammed (pbuh) himself endorsed the use of a spiritual plant medicine such as the Harmal/Esfand/Syrian Rue:

“As far as the evidence in the Islamic period is concerned: in his monumental 110 volume collection of Islamic traditions and narrations attributed to the holy Islamic figures (i.e. the Prophet Muḥammad and the holy Imāms), and entitled The Oceans of the Lights (biḥār al-anwār), the Safavid narrator-traditionist and polymath Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī (d. 1659) devotes an entire chapter of his 59th volume to the sayings of the Islamic holy figures regarding both the Syrian Rue and Olibanum (frankincense). Let me quote one of these here:

The Messenger of God [i.e. the Prophet Muḥammad] said: the ḥarmal [i.e. Syrian Rue/Esfand] does not grow, whether from a tree, a leaf or a fruit, without there being an angelic guardian spirit attached to it, until it reaches whosoever it reaches, or turns to waste. In both its root and its branches there is a talisman. In its seeds there is a cure for seventy-two maladies, so treat yourselves with it, as well as with the olibanum [i.e. frankincense], for purposes of healing. (…)”

The Fatimiya Sufi Order and Ayahuasca

There's nothing unique about this new Sufi order - such substances have been used for a long time within Islam - and obviously have pre-Islamic use as the name "Haoma" (Avestan for Soma) suggests.

[Agnimitra]

"The curious rebirth of Zoroastrianism in Iraqi Kurdistan"

http://projects21.com/2015/11/26/the-cu ... kurdistan/

[Agnimitra]

X-post from Iran thread:

X Posted from the Islamism thread.

Gathering around Pre-Mohammadden tomb of founder of the Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus the Great and chanting what prosecutor of Shiraz, Ali Salehi, terms “unconventional slogans” and which Mohammadden Cleric Ayatollah Nouri Hamedani amplifies means “chant the same slogans (about Cyrus) that we chant about our supreme leader” gets a bunch of people arrested:

Iranians arrested after celebrating ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great

[Agnimitra]

X-post from Indo-Russia dhaga:

Nasty scheisskopfs with the odd individual an exception. Vaulting arrogance coupled with a bottomless sense of entitlement and underpinned by a sense of grievance dating back to Alexander. Pakistanis with brains and without the inbreeding.

Iranians used to be extreme inbreeders - in fact Islam made them less so. Inbreeding among Iranian elites was especially high - including sister-brother marriages (siblings from the same parents).

Post-Islam, rebellious poets like Fakhruddin Assad Gurgani wrote epic poems like Veys o Ramin, harking back to the proud pre-Islamic practices of sister-brother marriage, etc. Concomitant with sibling marriage was the paramour culture, also glorified in a different vein. That is also why, in Persian (and Urdu) poetry, the paramour is such a constant object of verse. I had written and quoted from such poems on the earlier avatar of BRF, posts which are now lost.

Only during the last century, the Shah instituted genetic tests before marriage, which continue to be enforced in Iran. This was because of a much higher number of congenital physical and mental illnesses. Still, even today Iran has a 38% rate of marriage to 1st or 2nd cousins - not as high as Pakistan, but still pretty high.