What would you tell him?

Innocent question for you Iranians, who happen to be Muslim


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What would you tell him?
by Cameron Niakan
13-Dec-2007
 

Imagine: It's 1 a.m. You open your eyes, and there he is, standing in the middle of your bedroom.

"Damn you live far!" he says, wearing a white robe.

"Another Halloween moron. Damn these American idiotic traditions!", you think to yourself.

"Who are you? What are you doing in my room? Did Hassan let you in?" you ask.

"I have come far, and I have a question to ask you," he says.

"Oh, you must be looking for Hassan. He has been tutoring all you Calculus III students this semester. His room is the other one. Ass-kicking exam tomorrow, huh?"

"What the hell is "Calculus"?"

OK. Now you are a little scared. Another nut that didn't get his Prozac for the day, and lost his way. The old man looks harmless though. Maybe you can take him home, or wherever in the world he came from.

"What's your name and where do you live?" you ask him.

"I am 35 years old, and live in Iran," he tells you.

OK. 35? This is not IranianSingles.com. The guy looks at least 55 for God's sake. But fine, you let it go.

"Ehhhhhhh iroonee hasteed? Pas cheraa zoodtar nemeegeed? Cheh lahjatoon khoobeh. Taazeh oomadeed? Kojaa veezaaa gerefteed?"

Ignoring you, he continuous: "Life is not bad, although it could be better. There's a corrupt group of individuals that are powerful and run the show, and the central government has not been very stable, but, personally, I can't complain too much. I want to see my country prosperous, Iranians good to each other, and world peace."

"Well, enshaallaah dorost meesheh"

He goes on with his story:

"I just heard there is trouble in the Western border. Muslem Arabs are coming to invade and the government is drafting young men to go to war against them. Here and there I have heard they are bringing this new religion with them that, at least to me, sounds good. Maybe it's time to find a new God anyway," he says, looking at the ceiling of your bedroom.

"Son", he turns his face toward you and says to you," I am your great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
grand- father. I was supposed to time travel 1000 years and meet some great grand son, but I am a little late- about 400 years."

You can't believe it. You want to say, "Is this you great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great
grand- Pa?", but he interrupts you:

"I don't have much time. I have an angle others don't. I have managed to travel into the future and meet you. I understand you have chosen to be a Muslim, and enjoy practicing this religion. I also know you love your country. Tell me son! Tell me! If I fight and keep them away, would it make things better for YOU 1400 years later? If I let them in, would YOU be better off? What should I do? What would YOU do? Fight the invaders, or welcome them? I'll be back tomorrow night"

And with that, you wake up.

Now, my fellow Iranians, who happen to be Muslim, I have an innocent question for you:

What would YOU tell him?


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Mehdi

I Would Tell Him To Forget Politics And Search For Truth

by Mehdi on

Religion has been used throughout history as an excuse for domination - as a way to solicit support for mass murder and genocide. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all been used to trick people and to attain domination goals of some less than rational or decent ruler. This doesn't prove that the essence of these religions were bad, but they were definitely used for evil purposes a lot.

 

 

So I would advise my grandfather to forget the hype which is just an evolutionary step for Iranians, as part of Mankind. If he really wants to do something valuable, he needs to overcome his burning desire for approval by others; his desires to become known as a hero. He needs to ignore these "invasions" or whatever they are. These are ignorant pretentious people (on both sides) who clearly have other purpose than they claim.

 

 

I would advise him to ignore all that and start a new civilization. Study what has happened and create a group based on truly civilized agreements (laws). Neither side was righteous enough to be supported much. Governments have practically never been a source of civilization or improvements. It has always been the efforts of a small few who has created a leap in Mankind's evolutionary advance. So don't get too involved in the hype. Whether you fight the "invaders" or not makes very little difference.

 

 

Obviously, if the "Persians" at the time were so righteous, they would not have been "defeated" by the "invaders." Obviously, the "invasion" did not improve conditions in Persia otherwise there wouldn't be so many people wondering if this invasion was good or bad for us - instead we would be proud we aloud the invaders in. But neither one is that important or righteous. My grandfather should have looked for a third alternative. But he was probably too concerned about what people would think of him than what was the right thing to do.


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I would tell YOU to stop

by Ali (not verified) on

I would tell YOU to stop smoking whatever you are smoking before going to bed, and to just get over what happened 14 FREAKING CENTURIES AGO!

If you are not happy with your Iranian identity as it is today, maybe you should ask your great-great-great-great-great grandpa to take you back with him in his time machine!

Satire or not, this obsession of some Iranians with the arab invasion of 1400 years ago is really starting to become unhealthy!! I have yet to meet someone from another country complain about being invaded 14 centuries ago!! They would pass for lunatics!!


dariushabadi

"invade" iran through peaceful means.

by dariushabadi on

Jamshid,

 

From your previous posts I assume you are monarchists. Let me ask you this:

1) Why did NOT the Achaemanids (Hakhamanishiya) and the Sassanids "invade" their neighbors through peaceful means? Let us not joke ourselves, but the greater Iran (Persia) that you all speak of did not join Iran's territory because Iran was righteous. It was all brought under Iran's influence through brutal wars and conquering Persian armies. Iran's cultural influence from Egypt to Central Asia was not brought by peaceful messengers, but warring armies and conquering battleships. 

 

Let us not say it is okay for Persians (or Byzantines) to engage in conquering wars, but it was not okay for the Muslims at the time. That would be a joke on your part and a historical anamoly.

 

2) The Muslim armies did conquer the Persian (and Byzantine) empires, but Islam didn't actual take root as a majority religion into Iran until 240 years after those invasions. And by that I mean that after 240 years after all of Persia was under Islamic influence, did the Iranian region even experience a "Muslim" majority (51% +).

 

That means that for the lifespan of the America's existance, Iran was ruled by Muslims (I wouldn't even call them Muslims, I would just call them jahel Arabs that still didn't know what Islam even meant), yet Iran didn't experience a massive conversion to the religion, solely because the Ummayad rulers and the Abbassids after them put heavier levies (taxies) on Muslims than on non-Muslims, because they rather had a non-Muslim population they could heavily tax, than a Muslim population that could stand up against them.

 

You must remember that the Ummayads and the Abbasids were the most repressive and anti-Islamic governments of the time. They were closer to Saddam than anything else (actually, they made Saddam look righteous at times). The Ummayads and Abbasids were the enemies of the Prophet (S) during his life, and therefore are you surprised the way they acted AFTER his life?

 

The conversion to Islam of the Persian population, according to both Western and Eastern scholars (including Orientalists) was solely a slow evolutionary process, and mostly through Sufi influence. The government above had little interest in converting people to Islam (peacefully or non-peacefully).

 

 

Note though:

The only time Iran did experience a forceful conversion was the Safavids who overnight killed a lot of Sunni scholars and pressured everyone to convert to Shi'ism overnight (including non-Muslims who weren't even Sunni).

 This took place in the 1500's and not 700's.

 

I am personally Shia, but I do not accept what these Safavids (or even the Ummayads and Abbasids before them) did in the name of Islam, Humanity or anything.


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To Jamshid

by Areyo Barzan (not verified) on

 

Dear Jamshid

I agree. I would have also asked him to fight the savage invaders to
the death.

In fact I would have even volunteered to go with him to fight and to make sure
that each and every single one of those Arab bustards were killed.

I do also agree that even if the Sassanid dynasty have became corrupted towards the end then the change should have come from inside and not by a
foreign invasion.

However what was unfortunate about the Sassanid internal problem and people's
frustration with them, was their timing which collided with the Arab invasion

However despite their corruption and short comes one can not put all the
blame on the Sassanid kings.

As in the end it was the ordinary people who
refused to fight and let the Arabs in, just because they (although justly) were
not happy with the way things were going in Iran. In my opinion they were
all guilty of treason even if they stood by and did noting in Arabs favor or
otherwise

But I should also warn you and my other fellow countrymen that this danger is yet far from over.

Today we have got another enemy at our gates who is as destructive
and savage as (if not even more than) Arabs of 1400 years ago and what we should definitely avoid is to repeat
the same mistake of inviting another enemy to destroy our land just because we
(falsely) believe that they can solve our problem with today’s murderer mullahs

Just remember that in the end

Those who do not learn from the history are doomed to repeat it


jamshid

Re: Fight them

by jamshid on

I would tell him to fight the Arab invaders with their tooth and nails.

 

For those that may say the Sasanid were corrupt, I say that they would have fallen from within anyway, sooner or later. After their fall BY THE HANDS OF IRANIANS from within, another era of proesperity would emerge. These up and down cycles would continue, as it did in other countries, and our country would evolve with each cycle.

 

Just as we don't need a war today, we didn't need a war back then either. And today, even if there were a war, the Americans would not immigrate to Iran nor impose their religion or culture on us, as the Arabs did. AND I would still be against such war. With the Arabs, it was even worst, and any Iranian who welcomed the Arabs were traitors. May their soul burn in hell.

 


jamshid

Re: Dariushabadi

by jamshid on

Whether christians were violent or not was not the issue. The issue he brought up is why moslems didn't "invade" Iran through peaceful means?

 

Don't divert a valid point into something else.


dariushabadi

to Ali P:

by dariushabadi on

Ali P,

Last time I checked, just as their are peaceful christian missionaries, their are peaceful muslim missionaries.

 

But christian missionaryship has had a dark past (even to this day). They raped and killled the indeginous people of south america, and north america. They are to this day putting hand in conflicts in Africa that are causing genocides (in Rhwanda for example).

 

And last time I checked, Bush launched a crusade that has so far killed 1 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

What peaceful Christian missionaries? Give me a break. Where are the peaceful christian missionaries that are standing up and condemning bush and his warmmongers that are killing our people in the name of Christ?


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I am melli-mazhabi ( more Melli, than mazhabi)

by Ali P. (not verified) on

Mmmmm....Ok,...holam nakoneen...I got it...so,...I guess,...I'll have to say,...I would tell my Great grand pa:
Have Yazdgerd III, send a message to the Muslim Army :

" Why do you have to be always so freaking violent? You are going to tie your religion's reputation to barbaric acts forever. Don't you claim your God,Allah, loves everyone? Why can't you - like today's Christian missionaries, or Mormons, or Jahova Witnesses- just politely come, build a few schools and hospitals, tell us about your religion, and I'm sure, most of us will sign up."


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We Iranians should claim back our Iran and way of life.

by Iran and Iranian (not verified) on

Stop the invaders then and now. Islam thrives on misery and poverty.
We Iranians should claim back our Iran and way of life.
Iranian simple mindset (No Religion Needed): Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.

Islam is the root of our problems and needs a good boot. It is a virus in Iran that needs be overcomed for having a healthy mind and body.


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I am keen to ask what would

by Apple (not verified) on

I am keen to ask what would happen if Adam would not have eaten that apple?!
It was just an apple. As greedy as they are, even Mullhas in Iranian government are able to overlook an apple.


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I would have to say that

by 111Anonymous (not verified) on

I would have to say that you're another religious fanatic from another religion and as harmful as any other religious fanatics (bar none). Selling something, maybe a new religion? don't be bashful what are you selling?


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Very difficult to answer,

by Stirer (not verified) on

Very difficult to answer, since only a name, and a set of superstitions are all that remains from Islam in today's Iran. For example, "Do not lie" is a basic Islamic teaching. Nowadays, people in Iran, and many other seemingly Islamic countries, take pride in deceiving each other. "Do not be jealous" is another command. I doubt I need to elaborate on this one! List goes on and on. So, we really have no idea how would it be to live in a "truely" Islamic system. And people, are usually divided into two polarized camps; Over-zealous idiots with a dirty beard and bad smell who hang 12 year old girls under the name of Islam, and Islam-haters who push to assign all problems to "arab invation" that happened some 1400 years ago. Ye..h, we are Persians. We are not arabs, even though we look physically so identical to them. Yehhh, Persia is land of culture... Cyrus ... human rights charter ... other great kings ... persian empire ... persian pride (with fake blonde hair, nose job and change of name from Fatemeh to FiFi) .... Aryan race (man, I love this one) .... yeeh we were this ... yeeeh we were that .. but today it is a load of crap ... land of history and culture .... public hanging ... Mullahs ...
Mr Niakan, I am keen to see how many "F" words and "S" words your article is going to generate!


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