Essayists From Iran

"Not every man is greater than every woman, nor every woman inferior to every man."

"But to be fair, in any covenant and time and in any land and place, has it ever happened that someone was told "my darling…" and she replied "shut up"? If a man doesn't say thousands bad words to a woman and doesn't hurt her, that woman won't give an ugly answer even once."

"Haji Mir Abolhassan Angji - The cowardly mullah who once threw himself in front of the constitutionalists and spread his false ideas in support of them, and then in the occupation of Tabriz by the Russians, he fell in front of the mob and looted the city.- excommunicated me because he had heard my attachments to constitutionalism."

"Curses and insults about the companions of the Prophet, which they called "Tabarra", is another basis of Shiism, and this is a disgraceful ugliness. Shiite books are full of curses and insults."

"They have said that the Qur'an, which was a book for reading, understanding and salvation, should not know its meaning except for the Imams, and thus they have despised that book. Shiite scholars considered the Qur'an incomprehensible to the general public and preferred "hadiths" to it."

"The Europeans have been trying for years to keep the Orientals in the well of ignorance, and they have come to one conclusion from this behavior: the Orientals become powerless and helpless in the shadow of this ignorance."

"We know that when Nader Shah was killed, the greatness he had created for Iran disappeared. But Iran was still considered one of the so-called countries, and Karim Khan and his successors, if they did not add anything to the country, did not reduce it. But during the Qajar dynasty, Iran became very powerless, and its greatness, position and reputation were greatly diminished, and the reason for this was more than one thing, and that was that the world was modernized and countries changed, but Iran was backward."

"As we have seen, they created a small group of constitutionalists in Iran, and many people did not know the meaning of constitutionalism, and it is clear that they did not want it either. At the beginning of its rise, the constitutional movement, above all, had the character of "Shiism" in order to gradually acquire the character of "patriotism". This duplicity also appeared in the newspapers, and the newspaper Sur-e Esrafil followed this new practice from the very beginning, and its writers showed a good knowledge of the history of Europe and the countries there, and over this innovation, animosities arose with them."

"If we want the truth, these scholars of Najaf and Sayyids and other scholars who insisted on constitutionalism did not know the true meaning of the constitution and the result of the prevalence of European laws, and did not know the very obvious incompatibility between the constitution and the Shiites. The brave men, on the one hand, saw the distress of Iran and the inability of the government, and saw no other way out of it than the constitution and the parliament, and tried to support it with great insistence, and on the other hand, were bound by religion and could not ignore it."

"If you have heard that Dr. Zamenhof has created a language called Esperanto from the rules of knowledge, the ease of which is amazing, we should follow the same rules in adorning the Persian language and make this language very easy."

"There is no doubt that our alphabet must be changed. It has been talked about for fifty years, and now it must be used, and it is the most worthy group to use. If we do not use it today, it will either remain unfulfilled or fall into the wrong hands of those who have created something flawed and called it the alphabet."

"It is the responsibility of literate writers to try to cut down on Arabic words, and for others to follow them. The involvement of inexperienced youth in this work will bring no other benefit than loss and will create a series of other destructions in Persian."

"The work of the word should not be despised, whoever turns to goodness, his word should also be trimmed and adorned. Language is the mirror of thoughts, language is the example of temperament"

"I never wanted to be known and my name to be mentioned. But whether or not this happened, it was very appropriate for me to write my own life history so that there would be no need for others to make incomplete inquiries and get a combination of right and wrong."

"Our family in Tabriz was a mullah family. Aqa Mir Ahmad, my grandfather, was one of the famous scholars who was followed by all the people. He built a mosque in Hakmavar, which is now standing and is called Mirahmad Mosque. As I have heard, he was a very humble man and he was kind and sympathetic to people. When I was a child, even though thirty years had passed since his death, his memory was still alive among the people. Mir Ahmad's youngest son, my father, chooses to stay away from the mullah. My father wanted to have a child to succeed his father, so he named me Mir Ahmad."

"From childhood to the age of six, I do not remember anything but shaving my head and suffering from it."

"In Hokmavar, because many people were illiterate, they did not value literacy and there was no Maktab there. Only one mullah named Mullah Bakhshali taught us to read the Qur'an. He himself was not very literate and did not know Persian well, and because his teeth were missing, his words were difficult to understand. His art was to beat the hands and feet of children. People did not want anything more than this and saw education in beating children. However, from the day I went to Maktab, I did not give up because I wanted knowledge until I understood the lesson. I learned the alphabet in a week. Then I learned some lessons in Quranic chapters from mullah Bakhshali and learned the rest myself."

"My father, like his father, had studied Sharia, but had become a businessman. He was a Shiite but avoided many superstitions. There were many differences between Sunnis and Shiites at that time. Especially in Azerbaijan, where hearts were full of resentment against Sunnis and this caused ugly behavior. For example, on the ninth of Rabi al-Awal, they celebrated the day of Omar's death, thinking that it was the day of his death, and engaged in a series of light-hearted work. Clear such ignorance from Iran, the constitutional movement, and that is why Iranians should be happy that that movement is happend."

"Cholera broke out and people hung the Quran in the streets at that time, so that anyone who passed under it would take refuge from the disease, and they set up Rawda Khwani in the gates and alleys. One day, one of the grandchildren of an ayatollah was put on a donkey and brought to our alley, and the men and women kissed his hand."

"I had to become a mullah after studying, and apart to my father's will, I hated the mullah myself."

"When I was in Tehran, on the one hand, I became acquainted with the Esperantist group, and on the other hand, I became acquainted with the Baha'is. When I went to Mashhad, I wished to go to Nader Shah's grave. When I left, I was very sorry to see that they had turned it into a sleeping place for camels. When I arrived, a man with an Aftabeh came out. This upset me a lot. In Mashhad, I wrote a speech and sent it to a newspaper that I do not know whether it was published or not. A year later, in Tabriz, I wrote another speech in the newspaper Tajaddad. Bahman Mirza Sheydani, who represented the Great Association of Esperanto, had read it. Therefore, when there was a conversation in the National Assembly about Nader Shah's grave and a law was passed to clean it up, the prince wrote me a letter in which he gave good news. We got acquainted from there and sometimes we sent letters. In Tehran, he told me one day: I want you to learn Esperanto and become Esperantist. I said: I know Esperanto. He said: From whom did you read? I said I learned it myself. He was very pleased and invited me to the assemblies of the great association of Esperanto. One day he arranged a magnificent party for me."

"Kasravi has the spirit of an honest historian. He is meticulous in detail and in presentation"

"Kasravi wore a black turban at the time, wore a long robe and cloak, and wore a black cloak. His small compact turban was the best representative of Tabrizi students. His skinny face showed prominent bones, a look of suffering and anger, and at the same time a tyrant to the vote and Egypt in belief. He was not wearing glasses yet. He spoke Persian with a special Azerbaijani accent, but very well. In the first conversation I had with him, it was proved to me that the man is very fearless and even expresses his own opinions with a certain recklessness. He was not afraid to say anything against the custom and against the opinion of others."

"a true anti-cleric."

"All Iranians with little knowledge are concerned about the country's backwardness - especially the decline of Iran from a large and powerful empire to a weak and small state. Where is the root of degeneration? At the turn of the century, intellectuals could claim that the main culprits were tyrants who had a hidden interest in the illiteracy and ignorance of the people of the country. But in fact, twenty years after the constitutional government, we can not give the same answer. We now know that the main fault lies not with the rulers but with the obedient. Yes, the main cause of underdevelopment in Iran, and perhaps in most Eastern countries, is division and discord among the masses."

"Today, one of the problems of Iran, in fact, its worst problem, is the dispersal of Iranians. People who share a common land and live within the territory of one country should not be divided into rival sects. Today's Iran is in this misery, and if this continues, God knows what a hard hand the Iranians will suffer."

"Regarding Reza Shah, it should be said: Many of the benevolent ideals of Iran were fulfilled by Reza Shah, from founding the National Bank, overthrowing the capitulation, unifying the clothes, railways, etc., to liberating women and removing the veil and chador."

"Our words have deep strong roots, and will never be eradicated with a pistol. There will be no better result from using a pistol than bloodshed. Say and write whatever you like, we will never be offended, but your support for thugs has a different meaning."

"The basis of Shiism is that the caliph should be chosen by God and not by the people. We ask: What was the reason for this? The book of Islam was the Qur'an, where is the Qur'an in such a statement? How could there be such a thing and it is not mentioned in the Qur'an?"

"If the Prophet wanted to appoint a "caliph", he must first speak on the fact that the selection and appointment of a caliph should be from God and not from the people, and he must said openly: "Now is my first caliph It is Ali who has been chosen by God.""

"We have a really shamefully horrid healthcare system, and I think that’s part of it. It’s much more convenient to think these people are just crazy, or it’s in their heads. It’s a very real thing; I don’t know of anyone who doubts it any more. Occasionally I encounter people that do. I’m astounded at their wilful ignorance; it’s not actual ignorance."

"I like ghosts as a metaphor for the outsider. I wish they were real; that would be my preferred afterlife plan. I'd love to observe and haunt with little involvement—I guess that's what being a writer is."

"Estrangement is a constant theme in all of my work. The thing that makes it really difficult is people will look at me and not understand why I feel like an outsider, or why I couldn’t belong in all kind of circumstances. I’m one of those people who visually presents as whoever you want—whatever ethnicity or race is predominant. For me, the challenge is always figuring out what people’s assumptions are, and how I can actually take up space against their assumptions. Because they’re almost always wrong about who I am. That’s a hard thing to get used to in America…"

"When I first started writing, it was much more important for me to appeal to academic audiences or an imagined high-art literary audience. The older I get, the more important it is for me to communicate with everyone and anyone. Right now to me, America is in a crisis of constant misunderstandings. Some of it is willful ignorance, but some of it is not willful and it requires people to explain things…"

"Modernity is one of the most delicate and vital issues confronting us, the people of non-European countries and Islamic societies. A more important issue is the relationship between an imposed modernization and genuine civilization. We must discover if modernity as is claimed is a synonym for being civilised, or if it is an altogether different issue and social phenomenon having no relation to civilisation at all. Unfortunately modernity has been imposed on us, the non-European nations, in the guise of civilization."

"In the tradition of Abudhar, who is my mentor, whose thought, whose understanding of Islam and Shi'ism, and whose ideals, wants, and rage I emulate, I begin my talk with the name of the God of the oppressed (mustad'afan). My topic is very specific."

"The enlightened soul is a person who is self-conscious of his "human condition" in his time and historical and social setting, and whose awareness inevitably and necessarily gives him a sense of social responsibility."

"Similar to the prophets, the enlightened souls also neither belongs to the community or scientists nor to the camp of unaware and stagnant masses. They are aware and responsible individuals whose most important objective and responsibility is to bestow the great God-given gift of "self- awareness" (khod-agahi) to the general public. Only self-awareness transforms static and corrupt masses into a dynamic and creative cantor, which fosters great genius and gives rise to great leaps, which in turn become the springboard for the emergence of civilization, culture and great heroes."

"The Imamah (religious leadership) and ummah (religious community) shed light on...the principle of progress [which society should strive towards], of reforming the relations of society, ideology, belief, life, and the pulling and driving of society and the souls, thoughts, and minds that make up this society to the best possible form. The ummah is not a society where human individuals feel a stagnant form of comfort and happiness, or feel a free, careless sense of irresponsibility and make static comfort the goal of life."

"The bringing down of one of the most oppressive regimes, that of the Shah monarchy, was a remarkable event of twentieth century. Whether one finds the outcome of the Revolution in terms of the establishment of an Islamic Republic under the dominance of Ulama (Islamic clerics, in narrow, contemporary sense) agreeable or disappointing, a most remarkable aspect of this revolution that has become an object of interest of observers of contemporary events is the mass movement that underlies the revolution. Indeed, the kind of mass participation - in terms of both absolute and relative magnitude - in the movement leading to the revolution is still unprecedented. While the role of the Ulama, especially that of Imam Khomeini, received overwhelming attention worldwide, there were other powerful influences that shaped the ethos of the revolution. One such source of influence was Dr. Ali Shariati. A sociologist, trained at Sorbonne University (France), he was gunned down in United Kingdom by Savak for his anti-monarchy stance and popular influence among the modern educated and youth of pre-revolutionary Iran."

"Ali Shariati wrote more broadly ranging critiques and provided important intellectual foundations for the later Islamic revolutionary movement in Iran. Early in the 1970s, some of the last elements of the perceived Western successes were undermined. For a long time, non-Western intellectuals had been willing to admit that at least in terms of material advancement and power, Western civilization was successful. These last spheres came to be seen in a very different light during the 1970s. In terms of sheer military power, the prestige of the West was undermined in the years following World War II."

"Ali Shariati wrote extensively on an Islamicized version of historical materialism, which sought to offer a radical reading of Shi’ism. According to Shariati, the central teachings of Islam offer the oppressed, the poor, and the excluded the means to achieve emancipation from further class conflict. Most significantly, Shariati argued that the abolition of all institutions associated with property would lead to a more just and classless society. Such arguments found a sympathetic ear in the People’s Mujahedine. Wealth creation is not therefore concerned solely with investment, profit maximization and personal wealth. Under Islamic economics, the duty to use surplus wealth for the good of the um m ah demands that investment and production activity includes social utility calculations before proceeding. This could include the goal of full employment, environmental protection, health provision, social welfare, and social housing."

"The fire was sparked in 1977. It began with the death in June of Ali Shariati, the dangerous visionary ideologue of the revolution. Tall and dapper, in his early thirties, with fuzzy hair on top of his balding head, Shariati was a nationalist who had studied sociology in Paris. He was of the same generation as Chamran and the other LMI members, and he too had grown up in the era of Mossadegh. As a young man, he was caught scrawling pro-Mossadegh graffiti and was made to lick the wall clean. Shariati was full of contradictions: the son a religious leader in the holy city of Mashhad, he disliked the influence of the clerics; he was devout but admitted once that if he were not a Muslim he would be a Marxist. Leftist and Islamist, he dressed the Western way, in a suit and tie, always clean-shaven. Nonetheless, he despised the sterile modernity of Europe and railed against Iranians who rejected their own history and embraced everything Western. At the same time, he derided the commoner wedded to tradition and stuck in the past: “A futureless past is a state of inertia and stagnation, while a pastless future is alien and vacuous.” And yet in his search for a future that was anchored in his country’s past and Iran’s distinct identity as well as in Islam, he looked to foreign authors. He was inspired by Frantz Fanon, the anticolonialist thinker from Martinique, and by the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, who was close to many Iranian revolutionaries."

"From all these contradictions, Shariati produced a new brand of Shiism, even more militant and mobilized than what Imam Sadr had been preaching in Lebanon. There was nothing quietist or ritualistic in Shariati’s deeply political and insurgent version of Shiism. He coined the term Red Shiism, one tinged with Marxism ready for sacrifice to attain social justice. It stood in opposition to Black Shiism, the quietist, ritualistic one who submitted to rulers and monarchs. By rediscovering an authentic Islam, he asserted, Iran could be a utopian society with a perfect leader, a philosopher king, as in Plato’s Republic. The similarity to Khomeini’s faqih was striking, except that Shariati did not believe clerics had any role to play in politics. Khomeini despised secular thinkers, but he let the militant fervor that Shariati had awakened serve his purposes. In 1971, Shariati openly called for the masses to rise against the shah. Lecturing at the university of Mashhad, he smoked while he talked, sometimes holding forth for as long as six hours, his audience enthralled, their minds captivated. By 1973, he was in jail. After four years he was released and left for London. He died a month later from a heart attack—though many felt the circumstances were mysterious and attributed his death to the shah’s secret service, the SAVAK. Imam Sadr praised Shariati’s efforts to produce a discourse for emancipation and change that was indigenous to Muslim societies."

"'Party,' in the general vocabulary of world intellectuals, is basically a unified social organization with a 'world-view,' an 'Ideology,' a 'philosophy of history,' and 'ideal social order,' a 'class foundation,' a 'class orientation,' a 'social leadership,' a 'political philosophy,' a 'political orientation,' a 'tradition,' a 'slogan,' a 'strategy,' a "tactic of struggle," and … a "hope" that wants to change the "status quo" in man, society, people, or a particular class, and establish the "desired status" in its stead."

"Since is a society on the move, a society not in place, but on the way, towards an objective, having a direction, [then we need an (from the same root as umma) to lead us toward that objective]."

"The sky was dark, the night was black, obscurity reigned, the gleam of the wolves eyes was the only light that came to sight, the howling of the jackal was the only sound to be heard, conspiracies were in the making while slanderers and the malicious were busily chattering"

"Islam is the first school of social thought that recognizes the masses as the basis, the fundamental and conscious factor in determining history and society not the elect as Nietzsche thought, not the aristocracy and nobility as Plato claimed, nor great personalities as Carlyle and Emerson believed, not those of pure blood as Alexis Carrel imagined, not the priests or the intellectuals, but the masses."

"In the world view of , man fears only one power, and is answerable before only one judge. He turns to only one qibla, and directs his hopes and desires to only one source. And the corollary is that all else is false and pointless all the diverse and variegated tendencies, strivings, fears, desires and hopes of man are vain and fruitless."

"Debates on the definitions of culture versus barbarism, or on the question of who is civilized and who is modern are best discussed in the light of Islamic doctrine. Quite significantly, this point must be kept in mind, particularly as a matter of concern to individuals of the educated classes of Islamic societies upon whom lies the burden of responsibility and leadership of the Umma."