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Was the Sasanian Empire (Pre-Islam) really as evil as the Romans made them out to be?
>>999530
Define """"Evil""""
>>999535
Not letting me conquer you
>>999535
Barbaric. And not just in the "Olives don't grow there" definition.
>>999579
No. It was p comfy to live in. If only Byzantium and Persia saw the arab menace for what it was and crushed it before they both ended up being cucked.
>>999530
No
>>999626
>It was p comfy to live in
Would you say the average non-slave citizen would have a better quality of life then the average Roman? Or just p comfy compared to the rest of sand land?
>>999655
As I understand slavery wasnt even that huge in Zorastrian Persia, and they lived super comfy lives compared to the rest of that part of the world?
>>999655
Not this anon, but can somebody answer this or point towards some literature that deals with this?
I really want to know how was life for the average citizen of the Sasanian Empire.
>>999655
Persians were never very fond of slavery
>>999655
Freemen of Aryan descent lived lives centered around their professions: architects, artisans, painters, sculptors, tailors,etc...Freemen of Iranian stock also were expected to serve certain lengths of time in the Sassanid military as soldiers; usually those elite Persian archers were the typical free lower caste men.
We also know the Sassanids were huge on philosophy as when the Noe-Platoistic schools were being shut down in Greece and Anatolia under the Christian dominated Byzantines that many of these intellectuals and theologians traveled to the city of Gondishapur which Khosrau I welcomed them to.
>>1000788
This is somewhat correct. The Sassanids did not believe slavery in the same way Romans or West saw it. A man could be indentured to another man if he ended up in debt from gambling or whatever other reason. However his "master" could not beat him or harm him, if he did they could suffer the pain of death for abuse of their "slave".
After the indentured man had served a period mandated by a higher magistrate for his time of service, they were set free. Even the Romans enslaved by Shapur after the Battle of Edessa were eventually settled and integrated into Iranian society as freemen.
>>999626
Don't remind me what could of been. It would of been beautiful and maybe the world would be better today if that happened.
>>1002902
I get so depressed thinking about this shit as well.
islam is literally the destroyer of culture
>>1002918
I don't like Islam but you know that Islamic Persia was pretty GOAT tier itself right?
>>1002918
I'm not the biggest fan of the Abrahamic religions, but Islam is the only religion that I completely hate. They destroy and corrupt every culture they get their hands on, and the religion is one based on violence and more violence, with a little dash of superiority and than more violence.
>>1002954
Yeah all pre Islamic Iranian history is just a bunch of Jewish lies anyway
>>1002990
What?
>>1002990
>pre Islamic Iranian history is just a bunch of Jewish lies anyway
Okay.
>>999655
The Sasanians had no slaves
>>1003071
Nah your probably right. Golden Age in the Middle East and West Asia in the Muslim World had little to do with Islam itself, just like how Christendom had little to do with the Renaissance or Enlightenment.
>>1003071
Maybe, maybe not. Ask a Muslim or a Islamic apologist/lover and they would say the Islam brought the golden age, while other people will disagree (such as myself).
The best thing about Pre-Islamic Iran was their clothes.
>>1003103
Iranians have always been /fa/ as fuck.
Fun fact: despite the fall of pre-Islamic Iran, Iranians still maintain the same pre-written oral traditions of poetry, singing, and folk tales that date from the earliest periods of the Arsacid dynasty.
That's over 2200 years of oral traditions still existing in continuity.
>>1003131
That's pretty cool, Persians are pretty interesting as a whole, shame they are muslims tough.
>>1003131
That's surprising and very good to hear. I'm happy that the Iranians still have their folk takes and traditions.
>>1003097
The truth is somewhere in the middle. It's wrong to say Islam brought Iran into its next golden age, but also wrong to say there was no Islamic influence or uniqueness to that golden age.
I really feel bad for the kinds of anons who give themselves heartache and rage over putting one Iran over the other because of their political and religious opinions.
>>1003792
I tought the best about the Islam golden age was than it made possible trade and the traffic of ideas from india and Iran easier to travel, plus the conservation of a lot of Classical stuff. Paired with some andalusians and iranians prospering and developing without being full durka that's it.
>>1002889
This sounds pretty based. Kinda wish Europeans had been influenced by them before conquering the world.
>>1003841
If if 'that's it', that's still a lot, and isn't nearly everything either. At the core of increasing trade/traffic and the Classics is the rise of a middle class almost completely independent of the imperial order of the imperial courts of Ctesiphon or Constantinople. Underestimating it is just as nonsensical as dismissing pre-Islamic Iran as just a lot of fancy beards and palaces that did little more than give some people a good quality of life in the region.
>>1003875
The thing to remember however is that Sassanid rules on slavery were not universal. They applied to Zoroastrians mostly, and more than allowed for the enslavement of non-Zoroastrians captured in war.
In other words it was literally the same kind of rule Christian Romans and later Islamic Iran had. Free (true believing) men could not be enslaved except by debt, but could be freed by adopting the faith, and should not be mistreated.
>>1003841
I tend to hold the view that the products of the so-called Islamic Golden Age were definitely a product of a particularly Muslim social and religious environment, even if different Muslims' intellectual paths clashed with others, as well as the particularly Islamic approaches to the knowledge inherited from pre-Islamic civlizations and so the achievements of this era cannot just be divorced from the Islamic religion. But I wish we could discuss and debate these things in a more hospitable and educated manner without an ideological butting of heads and overly-emotional replies.
>>1003841
The thing about the Islamic Golden Age was that it wasn't actually "Islamic". It was a bunch of scholars, academics, mathematicians, philosophers, scientists, etc...making progress in their pursuits and the overall stability of the Islamic world as it prospered along side that.
Religion played no factor in what Avicenna was doing for example.
>>1003915
Even non-Zoroastrians like Jews and Christians were exempt from being perpuated indefinitely as slaves. But enslaving fellow Zoroastrians was considered sinful.
>>1003962
>Religion played no factor in what Avicenna was doing for example.
Except for the fact that that's wrong?
>>1003131
They still celebrate new years by jumping over fires me think.
Or they just started doing it again rather recently.
>>1003986
they've done it forever, it's an official holiday in Iran and actually is seen as an Islamic holiday
>>1003962
>Even non-Zoroastrians like Jews and Christians were exempt from being perpuated indefinitely as slaves
And that was also true of Jews, Christians, and Muslims under their respective Abrahamic masters as long as they were indentured, not war captives.
>The thing about the Islamic Golden Age was that it wasn't actually "Islamic"
The only thing that makes this remotely true is if by Islamic you mean "Sunni Revivalist and Jurist." Like almost everyone throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, religion was very important if not at the center of many of their lives and philosophies. That they might clash with religious authorities or religious populism, or differed in their interpretation and practice of their religion from later generations doesn't make them not ____.
>>1003986
>tfw that's how we celebrate the solstice in Spain.
>>1003995
>actually is seen as an Islamic holiday
They don't see it that way at all.
t. half-breed Persian with Persian father
>>1004003
Even the war captives from Valerian's army were resettled and built Nishapur under Shapur's guidance and were freed.
>religion was very important
Not to most of these men in with their life works, no.
>>1003995
>it's an official holiday in Iran
And as far spread as Central Asia even among non-Iranians like various Turkic peoples though they just adapted it.
>seen as an Islamic holiday
Its not. In fact several times the Mullahs wanted to ban it.
>>1004070
What's your other half? Russian?
>>1004086
Why would it be Russian?
Sassanid Laws of Slavery
Some of the laws governing the ownership and treatment of slaves can be found in the collection of laws of the Sassanid period called Matikan-e-Hazar Datastan.[11] Principles that can be inferred from the laws include:
1) The slaves were captured foreigners who were non-Zoroastrians.
2) The ownership of the slave belonged to the man.
3) The owner had to treat the slave humanely; violence toward the slave was forbidden. In particular beating a slave woman was a crime.
4) If a non-Zoroastrian slave, such as a Christian slave, converted to Zoroastrianism, he or she could pay his or her price and attain freedom.
5) If a slave together with his or her foreign master embraced Zoroastrianism, he or she could pay his slave price and become free.
To free a slave (irrespective of his or her faith) was considered a good deed.[12] Slaves had some rights including keeping gifts to them and at least three days of rest in the month. The law also protected slaves, including: No one may inflict upon slaves a fatal punishment for a single crime... Not even the king himself may slay anyone on the account of one crime.[
>>1004003
This is one problem I have with academia on this issue.
There is an assumption that Islam has an "Orthodoxy" like Christianity, but it doesn't. There's no central religious authority accepted by all Muslims even today. Islamist revivalism has tried to create such an authority, but even now, Islam doesn't have a pope. Even in Sunni Islam, the caliphs never were seen as operating in the same capacity as the Roman pope or the Byzatine emperor with respect to religion and were resisted whenever they tried. So, to say that the philosophers clashed with the orthodoxy for instance is to suggest that there was a central religious authority accepted by all Muslims by default. Individual jurists, mystics, popular preachers and intellectuals' "orthodoxy" extended as far as people were willing to listen to and accept their ideas. And often times, the Muslims were more concerned with orthopraxy of one another, as established by popular custom and consensus among respected jurists and believers, than with their orthodoxy. Not to say that discovering orthodoxy was not important but a philosopher's penchant for drinking wine would often earn him more scandal than any of his esoteric doctrines which concocted by reading his Qur'an alongside the works of Plato and Zoroaster. And even today, Muslim saints in popular religion are canonized more by the general body of people in the area recognizing their sanctity and making pilgrimage to their shrines, not by any central authority like the pope canonizing them. In Islam, every believer is essentially his or her own priest. This is also why perhaps Muslims had an early penchant for rationalism as any traditional authority accepted by one party could be rejected by the other
>>1004090
Dunno but Shia and Twelver Islam in general have huge influences from Zoroastrianism, Zurvanism, and Mazdakism in general. A lot of Sunni and especially Wahhabbist hate Shia Islam because they see it as just a reskinned Zoroastrian extension into Islam.
>>1004092
Russia was bordering Persia for the longest of time.
>>1004110
Do you think preIslamic beliefs have had any influence on Shia Islam? And have these influences been for the better or not?
>>1004120
That doesn't change the fact that many of the Mullahs and Guardian Council want Nowrooz removed because its an extension of pre-Islamic Iranian culture and heritage. No one is crazy enough to claim its an extension of Muslim traditions.
>>1004120
Doesn't have anything to do with claiming Nowrooz is Muslim. When we celebrate Nowrooz, the only "holy book" near it is the Shah Nameh. This is entirely "pagan" stuff in the eyes of any turban wearing cleric in Iran.
So yeah its a form of Mullah propaganda to include shit about the Imans and Islam in it.
>>1004149
Pre-Islamic beliefs have an influence on Sunni Islam. There's no reason they wouldn't exist within Shi'a Islam.
>>1004165
Muslim tradition was for most of its history defined by whatever Muslims themselves liked doing. Like the Anon at >>1004104 says, attempts to define what is and isn't Muslim, such as the pilgrim traffic to Sufi saints (and even Christian ones), or the tombs of prophets in Arabia and Syria, have always been a part of tradition, but from time to time clashed with authoritarian views from scholars, usually those from outside that tradition who were generally fearful of any hint of syncretism.
>>1004149
Not him, but there's a difference between "influence" and "appropriation". It's more accurate to say that Muslims appropriated elements of the previous religions and often found justification for it in the fact that Islam claimed the founders of these religions for itself. For most Shi'a Muslims in Iran, Zoroastrians are people of the book and so both Zoroastrianism and Islam are rooted in the same divine sources despite their difference. Islam, being the latest and purest revelation, thus has every right to appropriate something from a previous religion if it does not contradict the principles of the shariah, which is probably easier for Shi'a to do because of the nature of the legal system.
Sufi mystics often converted whole populations to Islam by appropriating certain elements of the previous religion to ease the transition or by expressing what were Islamic ideas in that religion's own philosophical language and trying to show that Islam provided the solution to that religion's greatest philosophical dilemmas. In China, for example, the Sufi Muslims there like Wang Taiyu and Liu Chih perfected a "Confucian Islamic discourse" and never saw this as a contradiction and in fact saw Confucius as a great pre-Muhammadan Muslim saint or prophet.
>>1004165
>That doesn't change the fact that many of the Mullahs and Guardian Council want Nowrooz removed because its an extension of pre-Islamic Iranian culture and heritage.
And that doesn't change the fact that many do not specifically because Nawruz has figured so prominently for centuries in popular Shi'ite piety and even Shi'ite hadith attributed to Muhammad's family recommend observing it as an Islamic thing
>No one is crazy enough to claim its an extension of Muslim traditions.
except for probably the majority of traditional Shi'a who see it's being a Zoroastrian celebration as irrelevant.
>>1004212
>It's more accurate to say that Muslims appropriated elements of the previous religions and often found justification for it in the fact that Islam claimed the founders of these religions for itself.
I think it's more accurate to say that Persian converts to Islam brought with them their cultural and religious language which they used as a lens to approach the new religion. Images of Islamic prophets with fire halos were probably not appropriated so much as that's how Persians understood holiness to be.
>>1004212
No traditional Iranian household celebrates Islam or Muslim beliefs when celebrating Nowrooz outside of Iran. Just like how no one apparently "converts" from Islam to other religions because that's what the Guardian Council reports since doing so gets said convert a slow death at Evin.
>Shi'ite hadith
Not relevant.
>except for probably the majority of traditional Shi'a
Sources please.
>who see it's being a Zoroastrian celebration as irrelevant
Its not exclusive to Zoroastrianism, celebration of Nowrooz has traditionally predated Zoroastrianism in the first place. Many Mullahs and other clerics still consider it a pagan festival.
Which is why public celebrations of Nowrooz outside of a two week holiday are no longer a vogue in Iran under the current theocracy, unlike the Shahs before them.
>>1004172
>Doesn't have anything to do with claiming Nowrooz is Muslim. When we celebrate Nowrooz, the only "holy book" near it is the Shah Nameh. This is entirely "pagan" stuff in the eyes of any turban wearing cleric in Iran.
Nawruz is "Muslim" to the extent that Muslims believe they are the rightful inheritors of the tradition and do not see a conflict in celebrating it. Heck, even the Ottomans celebrated Nawruz and even as far as Albania, many Sufis celebrate it without seeing as contradicting their Islamicity.
What the mullahs in Iran quite often oppose is popular religious practices that seem to them to contradict the shariah, but they do this with a lot of things. For example, the self-flagellation that many Shi'a do during Muharram is endorsed or tolerated by many high ranking Shi'a clergy in and outside Iran, including Ayatollah Wahid Khorasani and Ayatollah Muhammad Shirazi, but the official policy of Iran is against it which is a source of contention among students of the Khamenei/Shirazi/Khorasani schools but this is a practice that has been a part of Shi'a tradition for centuries regardless of its actual legitimacy and has always one way or another attempted to justify itself by appeal to the principles and traditions of the religion.
Whether Nawruz was adopted by Muslims and when exactly it was adopted by them from Zoroastrianism is totally irrelevant, the point is most Muslims who celebrate Nawruz see it as an Islamic holiday and don't care if Zoroastrians also celebrated it.
>>1004263
>What the mullahs in Iran quite often oppose is popular religious practices that seem to them to contradict the shariah
i.e. whatever practices don't involve their personal authority
>>1004263
They don't see Nowrooz as a Islamic holiday in the first place. Islamic Iran celebrating Nowrooz has nothing to do with Islam, just like Christian Armenians, Ciracassians, celebrating it doesn't make it Christian.
The entire point was since Nowrooz is seen as a secular/pagan/Zoroastrian tardition of Iranians, the clerics do not entirely endorse it or like it. Which is why in the first few years after the Shah's abadication, it was actually banned and why they sometimes consider banning it again.
If you speak with a Muslim Persian regardless of them being Sunni or Shiite, they won't care how Nowrooz factors in or not with Islam, they'll still celebrate it because Nowrooz is distinctively an Iranian holiday and tradition for over 3000 years.
>>1004301
*tradition
>>1004232
>I think it's more accurate to say that Persian converts to Islam brought with them their cultural and religious language which they used as a lens to approach the new religion.
It's more accurate to say both was the case as Arab and Turkish Muslim ethnic groups with almost no connection to the Persians still observed certain Persian and Zoroastrian customs within an Islamic philosophical framework. Also, important Muslim figures who resurrected Persian philosophy like Suhrawardi were not converts.
>Images of Islamic prophets with fire halos were probably not appropriated so much as that's how Persians understood holiness to be.
Actually, the flames typically came from imitating Buddhist art. "Persian miniatures" are probably more influenced by Turkish and Mongol culture than Persian
>>1004317
>Mongol culture
topeka
>>1004246
>No traditional Iranian household celebrates Islam or Muslim beliefs when celebrating Nowrooz outside of Iran.
We're not talking about why a bunch of Persian diaspora who are actively trying to distance themselves from Islam celebrate it or why secularized Muslims continue to celebrate it. Sure, a lot of people celebrate Nawruz for simply cultural reasons. That doesn't disprove anything I've said
>Not relevant.
Except it isn't,as these kinds of hadith are important for understanding the Islamic interpretations of the holidays significance
>The day upon which Nowruz falls has been recommended as a day of fasting for Twelver Shia Muslims by Shia scholars, including Abul-Qassim al-Khoei, Imam Khomeini[144] and Ali al-Sistani.[145]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowruz#Twelver_Shia_faith_and_Shia_Ismaili_faith
"Nowruz in Islam" http://www.ic-el.com/en/old/show_news.asp?idnum=61&state=article
>Islamic Iran celebrating Nowrooz has nothing to do with Islam, just like Christian Armenians, Ciracassians, celebrating it doesn't make it Christian.
The motivations for why anyone other than Muslims celebrate it is IRRELEVANT to how Muslims who celebrate it understand the meaning of the holiday within their own private religious context.
>Which is why in the first few years after the Shah's abadication, it was actually banned and why they sometimes consider banning it again.
Nawruz was banned during that time mainly because it could have been used as a political rally against the new regime. Ayatollah Khomeini himself endorsed Nawruz as an Islamic holy day, again, based on Shi'ite traditions to that effect. Also, the rejection of popular rituals during that time of the year is not the same as rejection of the holiday as some mullahs dislike the popular expressions of Shi'ite piety during Ashura, but they aren't necessarily looking to ban Ashura commemorations altogether and the same goes for Nawruz.
>>1004480
>We're not talking about a bunch of Persians
But we are.
>Except it isn't
Go ahead post citations of hadith in Iranian thought the last 1400 years with Nowrooz, I'll wait why you scramble to conjure fictional evidence supporting your groundless claim.
>The motivations for why anyone other than Muslims celebrate it is IRRELEVANT to how Muslims who celebrate it understand the meaning of the holiday within their own private religious context.
That's not the tangent and thus irrelevant. The topic stems from soneone claiming Nowrooz is Islamic, it is not. It was merely appropriated as a secular holiday by the Mullahs in modern Iran.
>Ayatollah Khomeini himself
Irrelevant again. It is not Islamic, he endorsed it because they had already backfired on attempts to ban it again when revolts started happening in several provincial regions like Yazd and Rasht.
Nowrooz is not an Islamic holiday.
>>1004246
>Its not exclusive to Zoroastrianism, celebration of Nowrooz has traditionally predated Zoroastrianism in the first place.
Nobody said it was exclusive to Zoroastrian or Islam, but most of the Muslims in Iran, that is the Muslims who are actually practicing in Iran and not the more secularized Iranians who hate Islam and can't wait for their plane ticket to Los Angeles, celebrate it and interpret within an Islamic religious context and they've done this for years Even Muhammad Baqir Majlisi (d. 1698 CE) whose works on law and hadith are still read by many in Shi'a seminaries today regards Nawruz as holy in terms of Shi'ite Muslim belief.
>Many Mullahs and other clerics still consider it a pagan festival
Yeah, except for Ayatollah Khomeini, the former Supreme Leader of Iran
Ayatollah Khamenei, the current Supreme Leader of Iran
Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq who is the most widely followed Shi'ite marja-i-taqlid not only in Iran but the entire Shi'ite world
A good portion of the more pro-liberal reformist clerics in Iran.
Ayatollah Makerim Shirazi, an important pro-regime cleric
all of them support Nawruz as an Shi'ite holiday, but other than that you might be right.
>>1004547
Just because some Shiite scholars or clerics incorporated Nowrooz and other Iranian holidays or folk traditions into Islam, doesn't make it inherently Islamic or Muslim. Ergo there are no documented evidence to this day or any belief that celebrating Nowrooz is foundation of being a good Muslim.
And I'd again like proof of "most Muslims" in Iran actively viewing Nowrooz as being an extension of Shi'ite practices or beliefs rather then following the traditional holiday that's been engraved in Iranian traditions for over 3000 years, personally.
Many Iranians in Iran do not view it as having any relation to Islam. Mullahs, Imans, other religion Muslim officials trying to spin it as such would of course do so because that's how they maintain their authority.
>>1004543
>But we are.
We're talking about Persian Muslims as well as other Muslims who celebrate Nowruz
>Go ahead post citations of hadith in Iranian thought the last 1400 years with Nowrooz, I'll wait why you scramble to conjure fictional evidence supporting your groundless claim.
What's the groundless claim? That Muslims who are celebrating Nowruz have had Muslim religious justifications for it? I don't think you even knew what the argument here was in the fucking first place.
>That's not the tangent and thus irrelevant. The topic stems from soneone claiming Nowrooz is Islamic, it is not.
No, the topic stems from the claim that Muslims regard the holiday as Islamic and you claiming that they don't while also missing the point that nobody is trying to prove Nowruz is Islamic, only claiming that Muslims apply Islamic significance to the holiday which is primary reason if not the sole reason why the holiday has continued in otherwise Muslim majority areas and even non-Persian Muslim majority areas to this day. No Muslim until the modern era understood Nawruz as anything other than a Muslim holiday because if a custom from another religion couldn't find Islamic justification, no matter how tenuous, it was more often avoided.
>It was merely appropriated as a secular holiday by the Mullahs in modern Iran.
It's been celebrated by Muslim in Iran for nearly 1400 years. The mullahs endorsed it because it's a popular holiday and is mentioned in Shi'ite religious traditions that have transmitted for years and used as justification for a Muslim embrace of the holiday.
I don't see why your thick skull has trouble comprehending this unless Persian diaspora are getting more and more stupid each year.
>>1004606
>Just because some Shiite scholars or clerics incorporated Nowrooz and other Iranian holidays or folk traditions into Islam, doesn't make it inherently Islamic or Muslim
Which wasn't the fucking argument
>Ergo there are no documented evidence to this day or any belief that celebrating Nowrooz is foundation of being a good Muslim.
Again, not the fucking argument.
>And I'd again like proof of "most Muslims" in Iran actively viewing Nowrooz as being an extension of Shi'ite practices or beliefs rather then following the traditional holiday that's been engraved in Iranian traditions for over 3000 years, personally.
How about the fact that the majority of them are Shi'ite Muslims who follow the Shi'ite clerics whom by and large endorse Nawuz as an Islamic holiday and the commemoration of the day is accompanied Shi'ite Muslim rhetoric and expressions of piety? And the fact that Muslims generally throughout history have only absorbed the pre-Islamic rituals and ideas they could come up with some Islamic justification for and never divided practices between the "cultural" and the "religious" in the modern sense.
>Many Iranians in Iran do not view it as having any relation to Islam.
Maybe "many" do, but the argument that most divorce it from Islam has no proof to back it up. For the most part, they've just continued the 3000 year tradition but now apply Islamic interpretations to it based on centuries old Shi'ite traditions. Fucking deal with it
>Mullahs, Imans, other religion Muslim officials trying to spin it as such would of course do so because that's how they maintain their authority.
No, the Shi'ite observance of Nawruz as a Shi'te holiday goes back centuries. The mullahs allowing it to continue is simply the norm. If anything Shi'ite mullahs trying to ban it outright is an oddity and more of a reformist position than a traditional one.
>>1003934
true, in this times you rarely can discuss history without people inserting their ideology and world views in history to justfy their believes.
One of the good things Islam did was it was againts racism or ethnic discimination at that era which is how people form all over the islamic world could join in.
Its "unifying" nature also lead to assimilating cultures.
>>1002889
The castes seemed to be rigid. According to "Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century" by R. Foltz, the Zoroastrians were treated as "dhimmi" (peoples of the Book) by the Muslims. In fact, much of their poll tax was waived in favor of maintaining the waterworks in most cities. Yet for some reason, Zoroastrians converted in rather large numbers to Islam.
Much like how low-caste Hindus converted to Islam in India, it is theorized that the Sassanian caste system must have been rather grating to the masses and an encouragement to convert. Food for thought.
>>1003995
The Mullahs tried to ban Chahar-shanbeh-soori (meaning Wednesday eve, as it takes place on Tueday nights) but the masses weren't having anything of that. The Mullahs basically oh-well'd because they can't control it and mullahs are fundamentally (ha!) lazy.
>>1004630
>It's celebrated by Muslim in Iran for nearly 1400 years.
>1400 years ago
Iran didn't even become nominally Islamic till the late 10th or early 11th centuries, so that is patently untrue.
>>1004899
That's not what was said, though. Just because Islam didn't become the majority faith until later doesn't mean there were no Muslims in Iran until then.
>>1003112
My Iranian roommate who wears flip-flops, Ripped white jeans with a Gucci belt and a shiny black and gold adidas jacket all day wants a weird with you.
Iranians are funny cool people though, at least the smart ones.
>>1004954
You are still incorrect even then.
>>999626
It was their fault for waging absolutely pointless wars against one another.
>Tee~hee, now it's my turn to win and get some petty tithes
>Oh heehee, next time I'm going to take your capital
The only reason the Muslims took as much as they did is because they didn't have any opposition.
The Persians and the Greeks had brutalized each other into invalidity, and Spain was going through civil upheaval.
The second they came across a moderately stable State, they got stopped.
>>999626
Don't talk about that, my fantasy is a non Arabicized Persia.
>>1005655
>Arabicized Persia
That never happened in the first place.
>>1003875
Persians are Indo-Europeans. It's literally the same folk and proto-culture with a different face.
>>1005669
There's gradual changes you can see as you go form Western Europe to Eastern Europe to Iran to India, which correspond to the places where the dominant cultures (Germans/Romans, Greeks, Persians, Indians) dominated during the first millennium.
>>1005663
Not that anon, but I see a lot of people claiming that. What's your basis for saying that Persians aren't arabized? Or are you just saying they weren't arabized to a large extent, hence calling it arabization is a stretch?
>>999530
Chosroes (Khosrow) II grandson of Chosroes (who had comparatively good relations with the Eastern Roman Empire during the reign of Justinian) decided to sack and despoil Jerusalem and kill everybody in it circa 600-615 pretty much just because it would piss off the Romans and they couldn't do anything about it. For laughs.
A few years later they weren't laughing when the Muslims rolled into town.
>>1005762
Do you know what Arabization actually is? Arabic never took hold in Iranian lands, Arab culture did not replace Iranian culture, and the Iranian peoples are aware of their own racial and ethnic identity to this day.
What's your basis for claiming Persians were arabized? People that come to Persia get assimilated. Why do you think think the Abassaids were such massive Persiaboos?
>>1005818
I'm not claiming anything, like I said, I'm not that anon. I'm just looking for better justifications from both sides.
I'm actually very confused about this topic.
On the one hand, there's a lot of borrowings from Arabic in Persian. Some people say it's at the level of French in English, but I can't really be sure about that. There's also the fact that a modified Arabic script is used to write Persian.
On the other hand, Pahlavi already looked like the Perso-Arabic script anyways, and I think it even had the same origins, so it's closer Greeks picking up the Roman alphabet than it is Greeks picking up Hebrew or Arabic. There's also the fact that it was Persians who standardized the alphabet, and Persians do have a good sense of what is Persian and what is foreign.
So I'm not really convinced either way.
>>1005894
>On one hand, there's a lot of borrowings from Arabic in Persian.
Not really as much as you think there is. Also I'm not sure you know what Arabization means.
>There's also the fact that a modified Arabic script
That would be the Persian script, and neither are intelligible with each other. Persians added more letters, consonants, vowels, and new meanings in a lexical sense to what they use with the new Arabic script.
>Some people say it's at the level of French in English.
It's not. There's over 10,000 to upwards of 12,000 words of French origin in modern English from the times of Norman invasion and conquest of England. In fact only about 1/4th of "regular conversational" modern Persian stems from Arabic where as English itself is almost 1/3rd French.
>Pahlavi looked like Perso-Arabic anyways
It doesn't. I'm not seeing that comparison at all, to be honest.
And anyway, "Arabization" would imply Persians speak Arabic, which they don't. They don't identify as Arabs, they don't speak Arabic, they don't want to be Arabs, and even using the Arabic script, they have their own words, letters, grammar system, etc...
>>1005077
No, he isn't. Even the earliest Muslim converts from among the Persians were effecting synthesis between the previous Zoroastrian culture and Islam. Plus, some of the early revolts against the Umayyads were Persian converts to Islam. Persia itself was the seat of Sunni Islam for several centuries with most of the early Sunni scholars of note having Persian names. Also, some of the earliest and closest followers of Muhammad included Persian figures, so it's not at all beyond the realm of likelihood that the "Persianization" of Islam goes right back to the very first generation.
>>1004104
very informative post.
>>1003071
Pre Islamic Sassanian Empire was centered around Mesopotamia.
With the arrival of Islam, Mesopotamia got Arabd and Eastern Persia/Khorasan (modern Afghanistan, Eastern Iran: Samarkand+Bukhara, Nishapur, Balkh, etc.) flourished like never before. In fact, that's where modern Persian was born.
Although this might is a somewhat controversial opinion, but the establishment of a transcontinental Caliphate revitalized almost all the areas that were under its domain, especially Spain and Persia.
>>1006192
>No he isn't.
Yes he is.
Iran did not become majority Islamic until the 10th-11th centuries. No one is disputing there were early Persian or Iranian converts, but they did not represent anything remotely signifigant at all compared to the native population even at the time of the fall of the Sassanid dynasty in the mid-7th century. Its not until 300 to 400 years later are Iranians mass converting to Islam that it became Islamic.
There is no "1400" years of Islam in Iran, only about 1000 years. That simple.
>>1006192
Wes Cecil says praying 5 times a day thing comes from Zoroastrianism.
It seems, the more I read and hear, that Islam became more Persian/Zoroastrian than did Persia become Islamic.
>>1004893
>The Mullahs tried to ban Chahar-shanbeh-soori (meaning Wednesday eve, as it takes place on Tueday nights) but the masses weren't having anything of that. The Mullahs basically oh-well'd because they can't control it and mullahs are fundamentally (ha!) lazy.
first of all, which "mullahs" are you talking about? Half the time when people say this, I think they're just memeing. The term "mullah" refers to just low ranking jurists who have virtually no authority at all so the notion of "mullahs" having any authority in anything is kind of absurd. If you're using it like some sort of general term for the Iranian religious class as a whole, the problem is that is a problem because it assumes too much homogeneity and it also assumes that somehow the clergy are distinct from the masses as an independent class, when really the two exist in a very tight relationship, especially the "mullahs" who are low ranking clergy who usually come from the poorer urban and rural classes and tend to be the among the main promoters of popular religion. But even among the higher ranking clergy there is a difference of approach to matters of popular religion, as can be seen in some of the fierce debates that occur in Shi'a circles involving the followers of different marja-i-taqlid. And even in politics, most of the reform movement tends to gather around reformist clerics like Yusuf Saanei, Hassan Khomeini, Mousavi Ardebeli and the late Hussein-Ali Montazeri who are juxtaposed by the conservative clerics like Makarem Shirazi and Noori Hamedani. In between these, you also have Sufi sheikhs and dervishes associated with historic Sufi fraternities in the country as well as other popular religious establishments which may side with various higher ranking clerics on different issues.
>>1006313
>Iran did not become majority Islamic until the 10th-11th centuries.
That wasn't the argument
>No one is disputing there were early Persian or Iranian converts, but they did not represent anything remotely signifigant at all compared to the native population even at the time of the fall of the Sassanid dynasty in the mid-7th century.
This guy was pretty significant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Muslim
Also, Muhammad's companion Salman al-Farisi is regarded as one of the greatest saints of the Muslim tradition. He was especially important to the Shi'a faith as he was regarded as a supporter of 'Ali's right to the caliphate.
>Its not until 300 to 400 years later are Iranians mass converting to Islam that it became Islamic.
The words that triggered you were "Persian Muslims have observed Nawruz for nearly 1400 years". Nobody said that Persia/Iran was majority Muslim for 1400 years, but the earliest converts to Islam from among the Persians goes back to Muhammad's own day and only proceeded to increase over time after his death. And among these Muslims of Persian stock as well as among syncretic sects that attempted to mix elements of Zoroastrianism with the new Islamic religion being imported into the region, such as the Khurammites for example, we see the wedding between the Persian Zoroastrian and Arab Islamic tradition beginning fairly early, around even the 8th century. The argument was never that the region was majority Muslim for "nearly 1400 years." At least learn English before you begin posting.
>>1004862
>Its "unifying" nature also lead to assimilating cultures.
This is why nationalism is such cancer for anyone actually interested in this part of the world because it obscures the dynamic nature of the time period and the conglomeration of cultures that embraced the a religion, which, much like Buddhism, helped to create large diverse cultural networks bound together mostly by shared faiths.
Even Iran, ethnically speaking, is only like 60% Persian. And a lot of poets who wrote in Persian were also Turks and Arabs. Even today, people, including Arabs, like to associate Sunni Islam with Arabness and Shi'ism with being Persian, but for the first, maybe 500 years, the center of Sunni Islam was Iran and the centers of Shi'ism were Egypt, Yemen, and parts of Syria and Lebanon. Iran didn't become majority Shi'ite even until the entire region was taken over by a dynasty of Azeri Kurds of part Greek descent assisted by their Turkmen devotees.
During this period: religion and tribe were the main deals, as well as language groups, not race or nationality which they didn't really have the strongest concept of.
>>1006368
>That wasn't the argument.
It was a tangent in the argument, fairly important here..
>This guy was pretty significant.
Irrelevant.
>Salman-al-Farsi
Also Irrelevant to the discussion as well.
>The words that triggered you
>triggered you
Try harder with shitposting.
>"Persian Muslims have observed Nawruz"
He was implicating the treatment of Nowrooz as an extension of Islamic traditions from the onset of the fall of the Sassanids, that was corrected by others.
>Khurammites
They are not Muslims.
>At least learn English before you begin posting.
Try harder with the nonsensical ad hominem, my autistic little shitposter as well as being less reliant on using wikipedia for the basis of your uninformed arguments. And just to reinforce, there are no attested or even written records explaining why Nowrooz persisted even after Zoroastrian institutions fell to the way side as Iranians solely became Islamic. Nothing comprehensive from even medieval records and onwards at all.
You have nothing.
>>1006419
>Frogposter
Fuck off
>>1006419
>Even Iran, ethnically speaking, is only like 60% Persian.
60% of the population speaks Persian as their main language, that doesn't make 2/3rds of the country ethnically Persian. A black man speaking English does not make him an ethnic Englishmen.
>And a lot of poets who wrote in Persian were also Turks and Arabs.
Pretty sure this is untrue. Early Persian poets and writers in medieval times from the late 7th century and onward originally wrote in Arabic because the Umayyads were vehemently Arab nationalists and descendants from traditional Arab aristocracy, who only endorsed or became patrons to those who wrote in Arabic and followed Arab customs with poetry, writing, letters, mindset, etc...
I also do not see any records that Arab poets or writers employed the use of Persian language in their works. Usually its the other way around, Persian, Turks, and other people had to use Arabic as both the administrative and courtly language until later on when the Abbasids start embracing Persian and allowing the Koran to be translated to Persian and have religious services in Mosques done in Persian to increase converts.
So in regards to Arabs, no, there is no historical precedent of them frequently or ever really utilizing Persian with their poetry.
>During this period: religion and tribe were the main deals, as well as language groups, not race or nationality.
I'm pretty confident this is blatant exaggeration and hyperbole. The Iranians have always had a huge fascination with race both before and after Islam came to Iran. Rumi, Hafez, Ferdowsi, are prime examples of this, especially the latter when it comes to nationalism, cultural and racial identity, and his role in preserving the Iranian cultural and ethnic identity to this day which is why he's so reverred.
>Azeri Kurds
The Safavids? They were Persians and Azeris of possible Kurdish and Gilaki descent, dunno where your getting Greek in there.
>>1006462
>It was a tangent in the argument, fairly important here.
You were addressing something and arguing against a point that was never made in the first place and now you're trying to pretend you weren't.
>Irrelevant.
How? You were saying "Persian Muslims weren't significant at this stage," but they were.
>Also Irrelevant to the discussion as well.
Again, you're point was "okay, yeah, maybe there were some Persian Muslims here and there, but they weren't important," which is wrong no matter how you try to spin it.
>He was implicating the treatment of Nowrooz as an extension of Islamic traditions from the onset of the fall of the Sassanids, that was corrected by others.
No, the implication was that Persian Muslims have celebrated Nowruz for "nearly 1400" years, which is 100% true as both the Umayyads and Abbassids celebrated it.
The only argument made to its Islamicity was that Muslims celebrate it and during the long history of their celebrating have developed Islamic understandings of it. You, however, took this to mean "it's an islamic holiday" when that argument was never made once.
>They are not Muslims.
Again, missing the point entirely.
>And just to reinforce, there are no attested or even written records explaining why Nowrooz persisted even after Zoroastrian institutions fell to the way side as Iranians solely became Islamic. Nothing comprehensive from even medieval records and onwards at all.
We know the reasons why: a mixture of attachment to pre-Islamic traditions as well as a long tradition of Muslim re-interpreting pre-Islamic customs and practices in such a way that fit with their religious and spiritual views which were largely informed by Islam
see: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nowruz-ii
search and read the section titled "Religious Views on Nowruz" for a full rundown of what we know. While what we have is not "comprehensive" it is nonetheless sufficient enough to understand why Muslims continued to celebrate Nawruz
>>1006523
>60% of the population speaks Persian as their main language, that doesn't make 2/3rds of the country ethnically Persian. A black man speaking English does not make him an ethnic Englishmen.
fair point
>Early Persian poets and writers in medieval times from the late 7th century and onward originally wrote in Arabic because the Umayyads were vehemently Arab nationalists and descendants from traditional Arab aristocracy, who only endorsed or became patrons to those who wrote in Arabic and followed Arab customs with poetry, writing, letters, mindset, etc...
The Umayyads, despite their Arab chauvinism, were still greatly attracted to the Byzantine and Sassanid court life..
>I'm pretty confident this is blatant exaggeration and hyperbole.
It's not
>Rumi, Hafez, Ferdowsi, are prime examples of this, especially the latter when it comes to nationalism, cultural and racial identity, and his role in preserving the Iranian cultural and ethnic identity to this day which is why he's so reverred.
Ferdowsi possibly, but only you interpret some of his chauvinism as nationalism. And there is almost nothing chauvinistic about Rumi and Hafez. Appreciation of the Persian tongue as a language of poetry doesn't suddenly make them "nationalists". People were concerned about culture and heritage even then, but nationalism is a modern ideology based on something completely different.
>The Safavids? They were Persians and Azeris of possible Kurdish and Gilaki descent, dunno where your getting Greek in there.
I have never heard of anyone who doubts their Kurdish ancestry. Also, Persians? If you accept their claims of descent from the Sassanids maybe, but we know they were descended from the Aq Qoyunlu Turks and they also claimed they were descended from the Sassanids mainly through the Shi'ite Imams, which would also technically make them distantly Arab if that were the case . Also, Shah Ismail was descended from the Greek kings of Trebizond through his mother.
>Much of what later became known as Islamic culture in art, architecture, music and other subject matter was transferred from the Sasanians throughout the Muslim world.
Why are muslims cultureless swine?
>>1007000
checked
i wonder if i can link to the 10 millionth though
lets try
>>1000000
>>1006462
>It was a tangent in the argument, fairly important here..
No it wasn't. You're the one who first brought it up. The original argument had nothing to do with when Islam became the majority faith in Iran, and it still doesn't.
>>1007000
Divine Revelations tend to be limited in scope to religious matters. I mean it's not like Christian culture today is any different when it's mostly Roman.
>>1006011
>Also I'm not sure you know what Arabization means.
It's a made up word, dude. It only vaguely means "made to resemble Arabs" in the context at hand. (i.e., arabized language, arabized culture, etc.)
>and neither are intelligible with each other.
That's like saying the English alphabet is not "intelligible" with the Turkish alphabet. Their unintelligibility has nothing to do with scripts and everything to do with languages. Extra letters and symbols don't make something a new alphabet, just a new variation, and both alphabets I mentioned are variations of the Latin one.
>There's over 10,000 to upwards of 12,000 words of French origin in modern English
But I'm pretty sure English has more words than Persian, or any other language you compare it to anyways.
>In fact only about 1/4th of "regular conversational" modern Persian stems from Arabic where as English itself is almost 1/3rd French.
>7 percentual points are somehow a huge difference
>It doesn't. I'm not seeing that comparison at all, to be honest.
"looking like" is subjective, but in any case, both had a shared origin anyways, ultimately coming from the Phoenician script just like the Greek, Roman and Hebrew scripts.
>And anyway, "Arabization" would imply Persians speak Arabic
Uh, no it wouldn't? Where's this definition coming from?
>They don't identify as Arabs, they don't speak Arabic, they don't want to be Arabs
Of course. But that doesn't mean the influence from Arabs is as small as to say there's been no Arabization. You have to check at the borrowings from Arabian culture, language, religion, traditions, etc.
>and even using the Arabic script, they have their own words, letters, grammar system, etc...
Why wouldn't they, given that it's a completely different language? I'm confused with the way you handle the distinction between languages and scripts.
