iran

"They found uranium of Pakistani origin in the centrifuges. It was of Pakistani origin. That makes me nervous."

"When, o Wisdom (Mazda), will the bulls of the days come?"

"...the light of the sun and the shining bull of the midday."

"From the Greek writers we get some idea of Persian education; but it applies only to the nobility, and there was no place for what we should call intellectual pursuits. From what we can gather, the sons of Persians of note were weaned from the ‘harem at the age of five (when for the first time they were allowed in the presence of the father) and until they were twenty or more they were brought up at the royal court (or in the provinces at the satraps’ court). Emphasis was laid on speaking the truth and learning the examples that the legends provided; older children might listen to the judgements of the royal justices. Herodotus says that among the Persians the thing most prized after valour in battle was to be the father of many children, we can understand that he aim was to contribute the maximum to Persian military strength, and the result must have been a population explosion at the higher social level."

"Thank God, we have witnessed incredible and proud advancements and developments in the capabilities of the IRGC Navy over the past four years, which have elevated the Islamic Republic of Iran’s deterrence power."

"And now for a few words about recent events. The first thing I would like to state is that in the events that have taken place over these last few days, the officers working in the country’s law enforcement, the Basij, and the Iranian nation have been wronged more than anyone else. They wronged us. Of course, the Iranian nation was present and very strong in this event too, as it has been in other events, and it will continue to do the same in the future too. In the future, whenever the enemies plan on creating unrest anywhere, it will be the courageous and faithful people of Iran who will stand up to them the most. They will be the ones who will have the most influence. They will come onto the scene as they have done before."

"We have crushed the enemies’ bones in all battles. As you can see, they fled the region in humiliation and from now on, they will not have a room in this region,We know what the enemies want as well as the depth of their intentions. They want to diminish the divine light…, but they are gravely mistaken as all their conspiracies will definitely fail."

"The Iranian threat is the one that worries [the UK] the most."

"Their sphere of influence covers each and every part of the oceans."

"I’d advise all Zionists to go back and repurchase the houses they have sold in Europe, the US and elsewhere to come to the Palestinian territories before the houses become more expensive than today."

"Another holy defense battle is brewing."

"Considering the undeniable realities on the ground, we are confident that the decline and collapse of the Zionist regime is beyond a wish and is a reality that could happen in the near future."

"The country that has the Statue of Liberty does the most work of oppressing, suppressing and hanging of the freedom-seekers in the world and produces most of torture devices in the world and sends them to all dictators around the world and teaches torture techniques to them in order to imprison the seekers of truth, justice and freedom."

"In Lebanon, tens of thousands, even more than one hundred thousand missiles, are ready to be fired to create a hell for the Zionists at the moment of making the divine predestination happen,Bayt al-Muqaddas operation."

"I believe that the Iranian supreme leader makes Hitler look good Hitler didn’t do what the supreme leader is trying to do. Hitler tried to conquer Europe. This is bad. But the supreme leader is trying to conquer the world. He believes he owns the world. They are both evil guys. He is the Hitler of the Middle East. In the 1920s and 1930s, no one saw Hitler as a danger. Only a few people. Until it happened. We don’t want to see what happened in Europe happen in the Middle East. We want to stop this through political moves, economic moves, intelligence moves. We want to avoid war."

"The assimilation of the secular categories of Greek philosophy, however, was no aim in itself but part of an obstinate attempt to rid Islam of the germs of the ancient Perso-Aramaic or Manichaean free-thinking, zandaqa, and its manifestations of moral cynicism which the Arabs called mujun.16 This conflict between the Arab and Persian traditions really went much deeper. The anti-Arab polemics of the Persian literati which became designated as the shucubTya movement introduced elements of a Welt­anschauung which never ceased to be disruptive in the eyes of the or­thodox."

"The third important feature which developed in the early formative centuries of Islam relates to the heritage of Persia or cajam as the Arabs called it. Hindu or Buddhist India was not conquered until the thir­teenth century and parts of it remained outside of Muslim control until as late as the sixteenth century. Similarly, the Byzantine state was not fully conquered (by the Turks) before the mid-fifteenth century. But Persia was conquered in its entirety in the seventh century and by the eleventh century had already largely converted to Islam. It is not sur­prising therefore that of the three metropolitan classical traditions of In­dia, Greece and Persia it was Persia that resurfaced with an integral identity within the Islamic context.10 The Persian imperial tradition could not persist anywhere outside Islam and as a result a vigorous Per­sian resurgence occurred within it. From its Arab roots the Islamic con­quest state then shifted to a Persianized foundation."

"The heritage of Persia, while conflicting with the egalitarian sobriety of the pristine religion, was to become a decisive force in the formation of Islamic society; so much so that when in later centuries the Indians and the Greeks entered Islam it was no longer an Arab Islam but a Persian Islam that they entered."

"…they are obliged to live in a separate part of town…; for they are considered as unclean creatures… Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt… For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans… If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him… unmercifully… If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods… Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them... Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever please them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life... If... a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (Muharram)…, he is sure to be murdered."

"The only possible identification of Airyana Vaejah must point to the great Hindukus mountain range."

"“Given its very Oriental horizon, this list must be pre-Achaemenid; on the other hand, the remarkable extendedness of the territories concerned recommends situating them in a period much later than the Zoroastrian origins. (…) one or several centuries later than Zarathuštra’s preaching.”"

"Also, Airyanam Vaejo, mentioned ibidem, is a bit of a mystery to iranologists, but one serious candidate is certainly Kashmir, where summer does indeed last only two months, in conformity with the description given."

"Geographically, the Avesta has little to offer the quest for the homeland of the Indo-Aryans speakers—with one very important exception. In sharp contradistinction to the lack of any clear reference in the Vedic tradition to an outside origin, the Avesta does preserve explicit mention of an airiianam vaejo, the legendary homeland of the Aryans and of Zarathustra himself. The descriptions of this place, despite the fact that "it is revealed that Ohrmazd made [it] to be better than the other places and regions," speak of severe climatic conditions (Humbach 1991, 35). Gnoli (1980, 130) situates the airiiansm vaejo in the Hindu Kush because all the identifiable geographic references in the Avesta are of eastern Iran, south central Asia and, Afghanistan, with an eastern boundary formed by the Indus. There is no mention of any place north of the Sir Darya (the ancient Jaxartes), nor of any western Iranian place (Boyce 1992, 3). ... There are also identical names of rivers common to both Iran and India, such as the Iranian Harahvaiti and Haroyu, which correspond to the Indian Sarasvati and Sarayu (Sanskrit s = Iranian h). In and of themselves, all that can be said of this data is that these names could have been either transferred by incoming Indo-Aryan tribes from Iranian rivers to Indian ones, as is generally assumed, or by outgoing Indo-Iranian tribes from Indian rivers (although any transfer from Iran to India must have occurred before Iranian developed the h phoneme, since s can become h but never vice versa)."

"”The first chapter of the Vendidad or the handbook of the Parsees enumerates sixteen holy lands created by Ahura Mazda which were later rendered unfit for the residence of man (i.e. the ancestors of the Iranians) on account of different things created by Angra Mainyu, the evil spirit of the Avesta… The first of these lands was of course Airyana Vaejo which was abandoned by the ancestors of the Iranians because of severe winter and snow; of the others, one was Hapta Hindu, i.e. Saptasindhu”."

"However, it is clear that the list of sixteen Iranian lands is arranged in rough geographical order, in an anti-clockwise direction which leads back close to the starting point; and the fact that the sixteen evils created by Angra Mainyu in the sixteen lands created by Ahura Mazda start out with ―severe winter‖ in the first land Airyana Vaējah, move through a variety of other evils (including various sinful proclivities, obnoxious insects, evil spirits and physical ailments), and end again with ―severe winter‖ in the sixteenth land, Raηhā, shows that the sixteenth land is close to the first one. And since Gnoli identifies the sixteenth land, Raηhā, as an ―eastern mountainous area, Indian or Indo-Iranian, hit by intense cold in winter, it is clear that Airyana Vaējah is also likely to be an eastern, mountainous, Indian area."

"Significantly, Iranian traditions record the earliest homeland of the Iranians as Airyana Vaējah, a land characterized by extreme cold. Gnoli, one of the greatest Avestan scholars, suggests that this land, mentioned in the list of the sixteen Iranian lands in the Avesta in Vendidād I, should be ―left out of the discussion since ―"the country is characterized, in the Vd.I context, by an advanced state of mythicization"."

"... Bhargava points out: The evidence of the Avesta makes it clear that sections of these Aryans in course of time left Sapta Sindhu and settled in Iran. The first chapter of the Vendidad [. . .] enumerates sixteen holy lands created by Ahura Mazda which were later rendered unfit for the residence of man (i.e. the ancestors of the Iranians) on account of different things created by Angra Mainyu, the evil spirit of the Avesta . . . [...]. The first of these lands was of course Airyana Vaejo which was abandoned by the ancestors of the Iranians because of severe winter and snow; of the others, one was Hapta Hindu, i.e. Saptasindhu. This is the clearest proof that the Aryan ancestors of the Iranians were once part and parcel of the Aryans of Sapta Sindhu before they finally settled in Iran. Excessive heat created in this region by Angra Mainyu was, according to the Vendidad, the reason why the ancestors of the Iranians left this country. [. . .] The Hapta Hindu mentioned in the Vendidad is obviously the Saptasindhu (the Punjab region), and the first land, “abandoned by the ancestors of the Iranians because of severe winter and snow” before they came to the Saptasindhu region and settled down among the Vedic people, is obviously Kashmir."

"The Iranians had retained a distinct memory of the Indo-Iranian common home in their mythology but the Indo-Aryans... have nothing to say on the point. [... There is a ] distinctively Indian Rigvedic culture... a distinct product of the Indian soil."

"As far as these points are concerned, we must at any rate bear in mind that the great mountain ranges running from the Hindu Kush to the Pamir and the Himalayas could, with their arctic temperatures, have inspired the various successive identifications of nordic, polar elements with the ancient cosmology and traditional geography of the Aryans. This could be the explanation of the story of the severe climate of Airyana Vaēǰah rather than that deriving from theories about nordic origins and reminiscences."

"[In MEK] You lose your identity and are not allowed to think freely. When I started having fights with them and pointed out their mistakes, they put me on trial and sent me to prison for not following the leader's orders."

"Regarding Iraq, bin Laden, as noted, was in contact with Baghdad's intelligence service since at least 1994. He reportedly cooperated with it in the area of chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear [CBRN] weapons and may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin al-Khalq."

"In April 2003, when I visited Camp Ashraf, its main base, northeast of Baghdad, I found Robot-like hero worship of the MEK's leader, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The fighters I met parroted a revolutionary party line, and there were transparently crude efforts at propaganda. To emphasize its being a modern organization as distinct from Tehran theocrats, the MEK appointed a woman as Camp Ashraf's nominal commander and maintained a women's tank battalion. The commander was clearly not in command and the women mechanics supposedly working on tank engines all had spotless uniforms."

"Within two months, simply by discussing the matter with my colleagues and exposing the MEK's true nature, Congressional support for the organization dropped from 220 to 6 Members of Congress. Of course, ridiculous accusations ensued that I was "in the packet of Mullahs" or was an Iranian terrorist, but my part in exposing MEK as a criminal organization is one of my proudest accomplishments."

"We could no longer tolerate an organization that was expanding its terrorist operations, and we feared that it could start organizing and planning attacks from French soil... This is by no means a political movement, a democratic movement... It was not preparing the restoration of democracy in Iran. They are complete fanatics, a fanatical sect with a total absence of democracy, and a cult of personality towards the leader."

"Although I believe MEK, as any other phenomenon, can still change (for better or worse) into another entity that differs from what it is now, until that happens I have to refer to them as a 'destructive cult'. Nonetheless, I have to caution readers that, due to the general character of cult leaders, I don't see any change in MEK's nature taking place as long as the Rajavis (both husband and wife) remain as the group's leaders, and I believe that for the MEK to survive they have to extend and deepen the manipulation of their members' mind even further."

"They use the term democracy, [but] there's no shred of democracy in the Mujaheddin. Rajavi decides who you sleep with, who you marry, who he sleeps with, everything. They stopped being a mass movement with Marxist roots and became basically a cult."

"It [MEK] is a mystical cult... It's the stress on obedience to the leader that has kept it going, rather than any political program. If Massoud Rajavi got up tomorrow and said the world was flat, his members would accept it."

"We the undersigned would like to convey our concern regarding... the [MEK's] false claims to be “Iran’s main opposition” with a base of popular support in Iran. The MEK has no political base inside Iran and no genuine support among the Iranian population. The MEK, an organization based in Iraq that enjoyed the support of Saddam Hussein, lost any following it had in Iran when it fought on Iraq’s behalf during the 1980-1988 war. Widespread Iranian distaste for the MEK has been cemented by its numerous terrorist attacks against innocent Iranian civilians... Prominent human rights organizations – including Human Rights Watch – have determined the MEK to be a cult-like organization with a structure and modus operandi that belies its claim to be a vehicle for democratic change."

"In my opinion, the MEK fits well within the three core criteria often used to define a destructive cult based upon the structure, dynamics and behavior of the group. MEK also uses thought reform and coercive persuasion to gain undue influence over its members... Whatever the rules are within MEK is not the point. What is relevant is that the Rajavis can make new rules, change rules and do whatever they want. Their rules are typically used to manipulate and control their followers. They like what they control and don't like what they don't control. The Rajavis then use that undue influence to exploit and manipulate MEK members for their own benefit and financial gain."

"Mrs. Rajavi told us to kill them [Kurdish revolters against Saddam Hussein] with tanks and try to preserve our bullets for other operations. We were forced to kill both Kurds and Shiites, and I said I didn't come here to kill other people."

"Every morning and night, the kids, beginning as young as 1 and 2, had to stand before a poster of Massoud and Maryam, salute them and shout praises to them... [The Rajavis] saw these kids as the next generation's soldiers. They wanted to brainwash them and control them."

"They kept telling us every one of your emotions should be channeled toward Massoud, and Massoud equals leadership, and leadership equals Iran... Girls were not allowed to speak to boys. If they were caught mingling, they were severely punished... They told us, 'We are at war, and soldiers cannot have wives and husbands'... You had to report every single day and confess your thoughts and dreams. They made men say they got erections when they smelled the perfume of a woman."

"The people [in the MEK], they didn't have any contact with the world... They can't listen to news, read the newspaper, the Internet. During two years in Paris, I left the base just two days"

"[While in the MEK] I was seeing my husband once a month, maybe once every two months"

"Humanity is entering a new orbit. The old powers are declining. They are the "past" and we are the "future". I repeat that they are the "past" and we are the "future".Our view of the future is hopeful. The world is waiting for the saviour promised by the divine religions. This saviour exists and is present."

"In the most difficult days people of Iran won't forget those who turned their backs on them."

"During the Sasanian period not only the Persian culture impacted the Roman culture considerably, but its influence reached as far as Western Europe, Africa, China and India, and played a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asian medieval art. And then much of what later became known as Islamic culture in art, architecture, music as well as math, medicine, sciences and other subject matters was the transfer from the Sasanians to the Muslim world, through the efforts of Iranians."

"The discovery of Iran was only the first step toward a much greater surprise: I recognized that something stood behind Iran and its significance, something that linguistics has been occupied with for the last one hundred years without really getting anywhere: the Indo- German question."

"The Persians ruled for a thousand years and did not need us Arabs even for a day. We have been ruling them for one or two centuries and cannot do without them for an hour."

"In Iran, the walls of homes are transparent and the halls of justice are opaque."