Shia Muslims From Iran

"The picture of today's Iran in the world is terrible, comparing the past and now. I'm happy that few years ago at the time of Tehran's post-election unrest in 2009, the world for the first time in many years saw the true face of Iranians and both people inside the country and foreigners once again reminded themselves of Iran's glorious civilisation, history and art. I hope the situation changes and they can have the regime they deserve."

"I turn to right and left, in all the earth I see no signs of justice, sense or worth: A man does evil deeds, and all his days Are filled with luck and universal praise; Another's good in all he does—he dies A wretched, broken man whom all despise."

"For nearly a thousand years they have continued to read and to listen to recitations from his [Ferdowsi] masterwork [Shahnameh], the Shāh-nāmeh, in which the Persian national epic found its final and enduring form. Though written about 1,000 years ago, this work is as intelligible to the average, modern Iranian as the King James version of the Bible is to a modern English-speaker."

"The Persians regard Ferdowsi as the greatest of their poets. For nearly a thousand years they have continued to read and to listen to recitations from his masterwork, the Shah-nameh, in which the Persian national epic found its final and enduring form. Though written about 1,000 years ago, this work is as intelligible to the average, modern Iranian as the King James version of the Bible is to a modern English-speaker. The language, based as the poem is on a Dari original, is pure Persian with only the slightest admixture of Arabic."

"Now there was fought a battle such as men have not seen the like. And the earth was covered with steel, and arrows fell from the clouds like hail, and the ground was torn with hoofs, and blood flowed like water upon the plains. And the dead lay around in masses, and the feet of the horses could not stir because of them."

"توانا بود هر که دانا بود"

"The Shāhnāmeh is the greatest epic in history. It is a treasure trove of ideas, wisdom, advice, help, guidance, and rites. With this immense work, Ferdowsi revived the spirit of serenity, magnanimity, and pride in the Iranian nation, which had lost itself under the weight of the Arab conquest of Iran. It empowered divided Iranian peoples to unite."

"O my son, thy lips still smell of milk, and thy heart should go out to pleasure. But the days are grave, and Iran looketh unto thee in its danger."

"According to Islamic tradition (sunnah), marriage has been deemed to be an essential requirement. Celibacy has been regarded as a malevolent condition fraught with evils."

"Do not be worried about the events and earthquakes that have occurred. Know that God created this world as a test ... The supreme leader holds a great many of the blessings God has given us and at a time of such uncertainties our eyes must turn to him."

"We should know that 1,400 years ago the Koran said that the enemies of Islam will always fight while chanting peace-seeking slogans."

"Our noblest duty is to strive to reduce oppression, to be more [stringent] in our implementation of Islamic law... and to weaken the control of oppressive and tyrannical regimes over the oppressed. These [actions] can [hasten] the return of the Hidden Imam..."

"...when protecting Islam and the Muslim `Ummah depends on martyrdom operations, it not only is allowed, but even is an obligation..."

"Islam cannot accept that a group of people congregate and decide to initiate laws for themselves"

"Islamic Iran will resist … any kind of threat and will give a powerful answer to enemies and oppressors."

"We consider the capacity of the Syrian defensive forces as our own and believe that expansion of defensive ties would … help deal with threats of the enemies."

"The Palestinian cause is the cause of the entire Islamic world, and we cannot stay indifferent to it."

"The US has always taken velvet revolution into consideration by promoting Western culture in the society and by causing strife between people and the government through propaganda, organizing certain individuals, psychological warfare and making intentional use of media, intellectual circles, university student's establishments and feminism movements in order to implement its interfering policies."

"Instead of negotiating with the Israeli regime, the Arab states should talk to the Palestinian nation so as to garner divine consent and national popularity."

"Our main enemy is the Great Satan—America and the Zionists."

"The enemy's new strategy is to finance and organize various groups under the cover of women's or student movements."

"You need diplomacy and not slogans. This is the place for wisdom, the place for seeking windows that will take you to the objective."

"Europe resolved a great problem – the problem of the Zionist danger. The Zionists, who constituted a strong political party in Europe, caused much disorder there. Since they had a lot of property and controlled an empire of propaganda, they made the European governments helpless. What Hitler and the German Nazis did to the Jews of Europe at that time was partly due to these circumstances with the Jews. They wanted to expel the Zionists from Europe because they always were a pain in the neck for the governments there. This is how this calamity fell upon the Muslims, especially the Palestinians, and you all know this history, more or less.[...]The first goal was to save Europe from the evil of Zionism, and in this, they have been relatively successful."

"Hashemi Rafsanjani: Take Palestine, for example. We give support to the mujahideen in Palestine. Are they Shiites? No, they are Sunnis. Moreover, they are zealous Sunnis. Hamas is zealous with regard to Sunni Islam, but because of their Jihad and resistance, we supply them with aid. Likewise, when we supplied support in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo – were they Shiite? It's not like that. Similarly, in Afghanistan, when we gave supported to the Jihad of the mujahideen, we support all the groups – Sunni and Shiite alike – as much as we could. In the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, many of our Sunni brothers found refuge in Iran, just like the Shiite brothers. In Lebanon as well, we gave support when Israel invaded Lebanese territories and occupied them. We gave support to whoever resisted the Israeli occupation in Lebanon. The late sheik Sa'id Sha'ban, who was a close friend of Iran – was he Shiite? He was a Sunni scholar. It's not like that. It is not part of our plan..."

"Interviewer: How do you view the fears of the creation of a "Shiite Crescent"?"

"The possibility of a war under the current circumstances is not far-fetched and there is some evidence for that."

"We want all the Palestinians back in their homeland, and then there can be a fair referendum for people to choose the form of state they want. Whoever gets the majority can rule."

"There is no doubt that America is a superpower of the world and we cannot ignore them. I think that Americans should gradually begin to adopt positive behavior rather than doing evil. They should not expect an immediate reaction in return for their positive measures. It will take time."

"I believe the main solution [referring to the nuclear issue] is to gain the trust of Europe and America and to remove their concerns over the peaceful nature of our nuclear industry and to assure them that there will never be a diversion to military use."

"What America does all over the world in the name of the war on terrorism, the way in which it plunders the resources of peoples in needy and backwards countries, its aggression in international organizations, which belong to all of the world's peoples, and the inflammatory propaganda it uses in order to undermine other countries – all of these certainly contradict the spirit of the teachings of Jesus.[...] Pope's functionaries [...]should say to the Americans: Through the crimes you commit you disgrace Jesus, because you use the names of Jesus and the church to win over many votes in the American public."

"This democracy… The elections in Iraq were held despite the American opposition. It was the will of the Iraqi people and the religious authorities. [The elections] were the result of pressure by Ayatollah Sistani, by the Iraqi religious authorities, and by the fighting forces in Iraq on America. They left the US no choice but to allow the elections."

"Look, as long as we can enrich uranium and master the fuel cycle, we don’t need anything else. Our neighbors will be able to draw the proper conclusions."

"If the Americans attack Iran, the world will change. …They will not dare to make such a mistake'"

"If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists' strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality. Of course, you can see that the Americans have kept their eyes peeled and they are carefully looking for even the slightest hint that technological advances are being made by an independent Islamic country. If an independent Islamic country is thinking about acquiring other kinds of weaponry, then they will do their utmost to prevent it from acquiring them. Well, that is something that almost the entire world is discussing right now."

"On June 3, 1989, Khomeini, eighty-six years old and ailing, died of heart failure. In his will, he left a parting shot against the Saudis. The twenty-nine-page document was read by Ali Khamenei, the president and soon-to-be Supreme Leader. “Muslims should curse the tyrants, including the Saudi royal family, these traitors to God’s great shrine, may God’s curse and that of his prophets and angels be upon them … King Fahd spends a large part of the people’s wealth every year on the anti-Qorani totally baseless superstitious faith of Wahhabism. He abuses Islam and the dear Qoran.” Khomeini’s death would in fact allow a détente to begin between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The president, Ali Khamenei, became Supreme Leader; the speaker of the house, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, was elected president. Despite the vitriol Rafsanjani had spouted at the Saudis during the 1987 hajj crisis, he was a pragmatist, eager to rebuild the country’s economy after the war with Iraq. In August 1990, Iran’s enemy Saddam Hussein invaded and annexed Kuwait; his troops were on Saudi Arabia’s border. The Iranians and the Saudis were suddenly united in fear of the same madman. By September, the foreign ministers of both countries were talking in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly."

"A large group of Iranians have doubts about last month's (June) disputed presidential election … something should be done about the situation., on the 2009 presidential election."

"How do they allow themselves to commit so many crimes? Is this the same democracy that Bush, Blair, and Sharon want to bring the Iraqi people as a gift? Death to this democracy. Is this how you want to present this democracy to the world? Shame on this democracy. Are you humans? Animals? What are you?...Why do they commit so many crimes? Stop it. Enough with the treachery. Enough with the crimes. The Iraqi people must know that they will steadfast. Even if half of them will be killed, they will not give up"

"By using power, money, fraud, the enemy is interested in gaining control over the world of Islam."

"I say to the American people: What is this life you are living? Why do you keep silent? What situation are you in? I say to you the American people, according to the Koran: "They drive their people into the house of perdition." Your lives are lost, you will collapse, America will collapse."

"If you [Americans] behave with disrespect – even just a little bit – [the Iranian people] will punch you in the mouth so hard that all your devouring teeth will fall off."

"The West pays money and piles up pressure to cause a strife between Islamic countries so that Muslims would kill each other and the West can obtain its desirable outcome thereby."

"Human rights is a universal standard. It is a component of every religion and every civilization."

"In the last 23 years, from the day I was stripped of my judgeship to the years of doing battle in the revolutionary courts of Tehran, I had repeated one refrain: an interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of faith. It is not religion that binds women, but the selective dictates of those who wish them cloistered. That belief, along with the conviction that change in Iran must come peacefully and from within, has underpinned my work."

"When a person is humiliated, when his rights are being violated, and he does not have the proper education, naturally he gravitates toward terrorism."

"Any person who pursues human rights in Iran must live with fear from birth to death, but I have learned to overcome my fear."

"In my memoir, I wanted to introduce American women to Iranian women and our lives. I'm not from the highest echelons of society, nor the lowest. I'm a women who is a lawyer, who is a professor at a university, who won the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, I cook. And even when I'm about to go to prison, one of the first things I do is to make enough food and put it in the fridge for my family."

"I compare my situation to a person on board a ship. When there is a shipwreck the passenger then falls in the ocean and has no choice but to keep swimming. What happened in our society was that the laws overturned every right that women had. I had no choice. I could not get tired, I could not lose hope. I cannot afford to do that."

"I, who have defended many prisoners of conscience such as the seven imprisoned Baha'i leaders and others, would face unacceptable restrictions on my human rights work if I returned to Iran, if I were not arrested, now my own lawyer - who also represents many other activists - is detained, and her lawyer has been threatened with arrest for defending her. Where is the justice if your lawyer is arrested for defending you?"