Attacks against Iranian history, culture, nations by foreigners and insiders

[Full Moon]

Some Persian nationalists seem to forget that big part of the 20th century Persian nationalism was a state created, and state enforced ideology of the Pahlavis. While Persians have always been known for their high nationalistic spirit, still, they weren't like Northern Tehranis of today, or LA Persians. What brought the state of Iran together, as we know it today, was the religious based conquests that was fueled by religious and sectarian sentiments (not nationalistic sentiments). Shah Isamil Safavi was another taghuti king. He didn't care about religion. What he cared about was finding an ideology to encourage the Qazilbash brutal fighters to create the big state he created and left us fighting today over its creation's consequences.

 

[Shapur Zol Aktaf]

Ottomanist Pan-turkist elements who infiltrated soccer station in Iran, fortunately their so called "Pro-Syria" project failed badly.

One of the panturkist agents, Fakhteh Zamani, together with other sepetarist elements:

 

[mohsen]

Pointless and harmful thread in my opinion. One has to look at current and maybe immediate past for reference to develop a brighter future.

There is no harm in telling the truth, but for some people who are used to advertise Zionists lies and hide the unfavorable parts of our history and culture, telling the truth means attacking.

 

[Shapur Zol Aktaf]

Focus on your today. What I mean by human development is: much better economic means, mass education, hygiene, plumbing, electricity, modern dentistry, running water, high-tech medicine, sewage services, vaccines, mass entertainment, state enforced law and order, mass communication, higher life expectancy (by far)...etc.

Empty soul materialism is not everything in this life. Defending our culture and identity which is attacked from different sides, doesnt mean we forget education, economy, progress.

 

[Full Moon]

Empty soul materialism is not everything in this life. Defending our culture and identity which is attacked from different sides, doesnt mean we forget education, economy, progress.

Well, the type of nationalism promoted among Westernized Iranians (or those who are just frustrated with the Islamic Republic) is just old fashioned, 19th century European imported, race superiority based nationalism. It doesn't work and it divides people rather than bringing them together.

 

[Shapur Zol Aktaf]

Some Persian nationalists seem to forget that big part of the 20th century Persian nationalism was a state created, and state enforced ideology of the Pahlavis. .

Identity and formation of Iran as a country and united nation goes back to sassanid era, long before Shah Ismail. Cyrus the great and before that, the medians, only united some Iranian nations, however the identity was made firm and established during the Sassanid era.
There is no such thing as persian nationalism, and if it exists it should be eliminated because it would be in conflict with Iranian nationalism and identity which is based on different Iranian nations (medes, parthians, scyhtians etc), not only the persians.

 

[Full Moon]

Identity and formation of Iran as a country and united nation goes back to sassanid era, long before Shah Ismail. Cyrus the great and before that, the medians, only united some Iranian nations, however the identity was made firm and established during the Sassanid era.
There is no such thing as persian nationalism, and if it exists it should be eliminated because it would be in conflict with Iranian nationalism and identity which is based on different Iranian nations (medes, parthians, scyhtians etc), not only the persians.

Most nationalists in Iran do talk day and night about everything Persian (not Iranian). They get an enjoyable goose bumps whenever they add the word Persian before anything. It is obvious that they love to say Persian carpet, Persian food, Persian architecture (not Iranian). You get the point.

Trying to go deep in history causes another wave of the same enjoyable goose bumps to many Persians. Well, that is typical of all nationalists (Turks, Arabs..whatever). The reality is that there is a huge time and cultural gap between the Sassanid era and the Safavids era. It was the Safavids that gave Iran much of its size, and current mind-set today.

 

[Shapur Zol Aktaf]

Well, the type of nationalism promoted among Westernized Iranians (or those who are just frustrated with the Islamic Republic) is just old fashioned, 19th century European imported, race superiority based nationalism. It doesn't work and it divides people rather than bringing them together.

You've a eurocentric view about identities of countries.

Refuting the romantic, nationalist concept of “national identity,” with its proclivity towards “retrospective nationalism,” a group of social scientists and historians have relocated the origin of the discourse on nations from time immemorial to modern times, to no earlier than the 18th century. According to this perspective, nations are modern constructs that are either ‘invented’ or ‘imagined.’ They maintain that nations are artificial constructs or inventions that were deliberately engineered by the ruling classes (Hobsbawm, 1990, pp. 9-10; Idem and Ranger, 1983). It may be noted that Ehsan Yarshater (1971, 1983, 1984) had already described a similar arrangement and codification of tradition for Iran in his analysis of the arrangement of Iran’s traditional history during the Sasanid era. Gherardo Gnoli (1989, p. 177), too, adopted Hobsbawm’s idea of the “invention of tradition” in his survey of the formation of a Pre-modern national state in the Sasanid period. However, the historicizing position of Yarshater and Gnoli, as will be discussed further in the following entries, shows that a type of pre-modern ethno-national identity was present in Iran long before the invention of modern version of the concept in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The land of Iran was distinctively identified as “Iran” or (Mid. Pers.) ērānšahr during the Sasanid period and, after a period of lapses and ups and downs during the early Islamic era, has again been identified by the same name since the 13th century (see iii, below).

 

[Full Moon]

You've a eurocentric view about identities of countries.

Refuting the romantic, nationalist concept of “national identity,” with its proclivity towards “retrospective nationalism,” a group of social scientists and historians have relocated the origin of the discourse on nations from time immemorial to modern times, to no earlier than the 18th century. According to this perspective, nations are modern constructs that are either ‘invented’ or ‘imagined.’ They maintain that nations are artificial constructs or inventions that were deliberately engineered by the ruling classes (Hobsbawm, 1990, pp. 9-10; Idem and Ranger, 1983). It may be noted that Ehsan Yarshater (1971, 1983, 1984) had already described a similar arrangement and codification of tradition for Iran in his analysis of the arrangement of Iran’s traditional history during the Sasanid era. Gherardo Gnoli (1989, p. 177), too, adopted Hobsbawm’s idea of the “invention of tradition” in his survey of the formation of a Pre-modern national state in the Sasanid period. However, the historicizing position of Yarshater and Gnoli, as will be discussed further in the following entries, shows that a type of pre-modern ethno-national identity was present in Iran long before the invention of modern version of the concept in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Before the rise of the European nationalism, most post Safavids era Iranians were just religious Shia who were waiting for the return of Imam Mahdi and had their dream being achieved upon visiting Imam Reza Shrine. Just see how common the name Reza is among Iranians, and how rare it is among Arabs. There are 1000+ tazi claimed shrines in Iran that Iranians sought blessing from. They wouldn't have existed without a big internal demand.

 

[Shapur Zol Aktaf]

Sorry, I don't buy it. Before the rise of the European nationalism, most post Safavids era Iranians were just religious Shia who were waiting for the return of Imam Mahdi and had their dream being achieved upon visiting Imam Reza Shrine. Just see how common the name Reza is among Iranians, and how rare it is among Arabs. There are 1000+ tazi claimed shrines in Iran that Iranians sought blessing from. They wouldn't have existed without a big internal demand.

You don't buy it, then that's your personal problem bro.

The Encyclopædia Iranica is dedicated to the study of Iranian civilization in the wider Middle East, the Caucasus, Europe, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent. The academic reference work will eventually cover all aspects of Iranian history and culture as well as all Iranian languages and literatures, facilitating the whole range of Iranian studies research from archeology to political sciences. It is a project founded by Ehsan Yarshater at Columbia University, started in 1973 at its Center for Iranian Studies. It is considered the standard encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Iranistics.

The scope of the encyclopedia goes beyond modern Iran (also known as "Persia") and encompasses the entire Iranian cultural sphere, and far beyond. Relations of the Iranian world with other cultures (China, European countries, etc.) are also covered

Yarshater is the editor-in-chief, and managing editor is Ahmad Ashraf. The editorial board includes Nicholas Sims-Williams, Christopher J. Brunner, Mohsen Ashtiany, Manuchehr Kasheff, and over 40 Consulting Editors from major international institutions doing research in Iranian Studies. A growing number (over 1,300 in 2016) of scholars worldwide have contributed articles to Encyclopædia Iranica.

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Prof. Richard Bulliet, Columbia University, in International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

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Prof. Werner Ende, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, in ZDMG (translated text)

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“Mit der vorliegenden Encyclopaedia ist ein jahrhundertwerk in Angriff genommen worden.”
The late Prof. Bertold Spuler, University of Hamburg, in Der Islam

 

[Shapur Zol Aktaf]

Chain murders by intelligence agency of Islamic republic. Victims were Iranian nationalists, intellectuals and reformers.

On 20 December 1998, a statement was issued in Tehran by a group calling itself "pure Mohammadan Islam devotees of Mostafa Navvab" taking credit for at least some of the killings. The statement said in part:

"The brave and zealous children of the Iranian Muslim nation took action and by revolutionary execution of dirty and sold-out elements who were behind nationalistic movements and other poisonous moves in universities, took the second practical step in defending the great achievements of the Islamic Revolution … The revolutionary execution of Dariush Forouhar, Parvaneh Eskandari, Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh is a warning to all mercenary writers and their counter-value supporters who are cherishing the idea of spreading corruption and promiscuity in the country and bringing back foreign domination over Iran..."

Victims:
Dariush Forouhar (stabbed 14 times) and Parvaneh Eskandari Forouhar (stabbed 25 times): was an Iranian pan-Iranist politician and leader of Nation Party of Iran.

Documentary about their killings:

Other victims of the chain murders:

• Mohammad Mokhtari: In 1973, Mokhtari joined the literary foundation of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and soon became a member of its scientific committee. His death came only a few days after the death of Iranian political activists, Parvaneh Eskandari Forouhar and her husband, Dariush Forouhar and the assassination of writer Mohammad-Ja'far Pouyandeh
  
• Dr. Ahmad Tafazzoli: was a prominent Iranian Iranist and master of ancient Iranian literature and culture. Professor Tafazzoli was a faculty member of Tehran University. One of his most important books and his latest masterpiece is "Pre-Islamic Persian Literature". Professor Jaleh Amouzegar contributed in editing it. In January 1997, Professor Ahmad Tafazzoli was found dead in Punak, a suburb northwest of Tehran.
• Many other intellectuals, reformists.

More about the "chain murders":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_murders_of_Iran#History_of_chain_murders

 

[mohsen]

Panturkist, Tudeh/communist, islamist propaganda against Iranian identity is countered in this topic. No one knows this ex-communist purpiar conspiracy theorist, revisionist or accepts him as a credible source.

Except Islamists and pan-turkists he has no followers.

He brings solid evidences in his discussion, and you can't counter it, that's why you switch to character assassination against him. a cheap and dirty way for cheap people.

 

[Surenas]

He brings solid evidences in his discussion, and you can't counter it, that's why you switch to character assassination against him. a cheap and dirty way for cheap people.

What evidence did he bring?

 

[Shapur Zol Aktaf]

He brings solid evidences in his discussion, and you can't counter it, that's why you switch to character assassination against him. a cheap and dirty way for cheap people.

It's not character assassination, his past is knows which disqualifies him from talking about certain topics.
Pourpirar was born in 1940 or 1941 in Tehran, Iran. Pourpirar was closely involved with the Tudeh Party of Iran, a major Iranian political party with Communist or left tendencies. After the 1979 Revolution, he joined the revolutionaries.

Now read, lord of the rings is closer to historical facts than what this mental ill person wrote in his whole life:

He considered Behistun Inscription as a symbol of this genocide. He claimed that construction of Persepolis was never finished and that the Achaemenid dynasty was a group of ancient barbarian Slavic invaders that ended with Darius the Great after they returned to their homeland in the Eurasian steppes. The rest of the Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanid, Tahirid, Ghaznavid, Seljuqid and Samanid dynasties according to Pourpirar were fabricated by historians of mostly Jewish background as part of a Jewish conspiracy.

He claimed that all inscriptions said to be Sassanid are modern forgeries. He claimed that historical personalities such as Mazdak, Mani, Zoroaster, Babak, Abu Moslem, and Salman the Persian were invented by modern Jewish historians.

 

[Surenas]

I don't agree with this thread though. It serves no purpose. Iran has had its fair share of traitors in its history, like most states, and while it has faced near catastrophic invasions, it always managed to preserve its identity and distinct culture. In the end, conquerors were always conquered by it.