Fitzgerald: Also sprach Zarathustra

Zoroastrianism as I understand it is a system of God as sevenfold pantheon. Ahura-Mazda is at its head and the subordinate gods are conceived roughly as: Right Law, Good Thought, Noble Government, Holy Character, Health, and Immortality.

Zoroastrians became known as fire worshippers because they use the flame as a symbol of the spirit. Is was also spread by the sword in Persia.

Here is an example of its teaching:

Praise God by seeking the pleasure of the Wise One. Worship the God of light by joyfully walking in the paths ordained by his revealed religion. There is but one Supreme God, the Lord of Lights. We worship him who made the waters, plants, animals, the earth, and the heavens. Our God is Lord, most beneficent. We worship the most beauteous, the bountiful Immortal, endowed with eternal light. God is farthest from us and at the same time nearest to us in that he dwells within our souls. Our God is the divine and holiest Spirit of Paradise, and yet he is more friendly to man than the most friendly of all creatures. God is most helpful to us in this greatest of all businesses, the knowing of himself. God is our most adorable and righteous friend; he is our wisdom, life, and vigor of soul and body. Through our good thinking the wise Creator will enable us to do his will, thereby attaining the realization of all that is divinely perfect.

Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world.

Thats exactly why there is no such thing as a moderate muslim, and real reform is impossible.
If a muslim refuses this 'obligation' he is then an apostate. There is no moderating without apostating...we know the penalty for the apostate...damned if you do, damned if you dont. What a beautiful religion...damned no matter what you do...Allah knows best...or so they say...

With ego freshly battered and bruised, Wile E. Coyote retires his dysfunctional ACME demolition kit and offers the following by way of constructive input:

HUGH: "Later on his followers would polish off the naive leftists who had initially thought they could use him, though it turned out to be the other way round; Shahpour Bakhtiar was the most deplorable example."

Actually, Bakhtiar was never part of Khomeini's regime. He was appointed by the Shah as the last PM of the monarchy just before the 'King of Kings' shed his crown and left Iran. Bakhtiar himself fled into exile when it became apparent that the Islamic revolution was an irresistible force; he left in the days before Khomeini's return and was later murdered in Paris by agents of the Imam.

I just wanted to set the record straight and protect the reputation of the man. The Leftists you are referring to were many: The hapless members of the Provisional gov't, specifically Medhi Bazargan, Ibrahim Yazdi, and Kareem Sanjabi, the future President-turned-exile, Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr, members of the Mujahadin El Khalq who were instumental in the success of the Revolution, acting as its vanguard, siezing bases and armories from the Shah's military, and later falling victim to Khomenei's purges, and of course the Communist Tudeh, whose leaders openly acknowledged their treason in show-trials that Stalin himself would have approved of.

One other point...

HUGH: "How many secretly nurse an increasing distaste for the Iranian regime..."

I've associated with a number of Iranian exiles in the states who, even back in the 80s, referred to Khomeini derisively as "the great Satan." Given attitudes here and in Iran (recurrent student demonstrations, pathetically low voter turn-out, etc), I'd say the distaste for the regime is no secret.

It is likely that Zoroastrianism is the source of such religious symbolisms as Satan, an eschatological resurrection of the body, a Last Judgement, an eschatological Armageddon, and an eschatological Hell -- and, indeed, of eschatology itself. Before Christ, various Jews became influenced by Persian mythopology, and the Inter-Testamental period became charged with a syncretic mix of Persian (and other) ideas by the time Jesus began to flourish. The entire eschatological complex of symbolisms associated with the three religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam (really one religion, Israel, sprouting two branches, one healthy and flowering (Christianity) and the other a twisted and grotesque graft (Islam)) thus could be said to have its mother in Zoroaster.

Everyone keeps saying that many Iranians are disgusted with their Islamic regime, yet

- they have no problem recruiting for their suicide martyr brigades
- any street protests I have seen are pro-government, down with the infidels
- the women are all wearing potato sacks with out protests. And whatever happened to that lawyer who got a Nobel, and did not wear a potatosack when she accepted her award? Maybe she is wearing her potato sack now.
- they seem to all want the bomb.

I know what you will say, they are all scared. Sometimes you have to help yourself. What you cannot do is come to America and STILL embrace this deathcult crap called Islam.

John,

Periodic student demonstrations have been a staple in Iran for some time now. Often, they are forcefully repressed by the Religious police, thugs who weild iron bars and attack the students mercilessly.

The MSM tends to ignore these protests, but Iranian-exile weblogs document them, sometimes with vidio footage.

Meanwhile, yes the regime has its rabid supporters. But the record-low turnout in the last elections is indicative of the extent to which Iranians are disillusioned with their government and system.

Hugh,

There may be some problems with this proposal. Traditionally, Zoroastrianism has not allowed converts.

Zoroastrianism is not a dead religion. Although there are probably less than 150,000 still in Iran (the Islamic Regime claims there are only 20,000), small communities exist in Tehran, Yazd and Kerman, where many still speak an Iranian language distinct from modern Farsi. The Muslims call them Gabri (a derogatory term derived from the word for an unbeliever in Islam) while they call themselves Behdinan (literally "Of the Good Religion").

Then there is the substantial community of them in India, where they are known as Parsis (Persians). There are also some in the US and Australia.

Currently, the question of whether Zoroastrianism should change and allow converts is one of the most divisive and bitter issues facing the whole community.

Most of the anti-conversion sentiment in the Zoroastrian world comes from the very conservative (and free from oppression)Indian Parsis. In order to be Zoroastrian, both parent must be Zoroastrian. No children of mixed marriages are officially Zoroastrian. Which is why the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was Hindu, even though his father was Parsi.

In practice, however, the children of Zoroastrian fathers and non-Zoroastrian mothers are sometimes given admission to the faith - but never the children of Zoroastrian mothers and non-Zoroastrian fathers. Zoroastrian identity is through the father's line, unlike Jewish identity, which is defined by the mother being Jewish.

In contrast to the Indian Parsi, Iranian Zoroastrians are much more likely to accept converts, marriages to non-Zoroastrians (who are then welcomed into the community) and people of mixed ancestry. The problems with conversion in Iran are mainly political: converting someone away from Islam is an offense against the Islamic Republic and may be seriously penalized, even with death. Therefore, conversions in Iran are done very quietly.

Dr. Pepper, you certainly are correct to point out that Zoroastrianism sees Good and Evil in conflict on equal terms, but I believe you err in describing Zoroastrianism as some sort of early mainstream in the tree of religion. Zoroaster was a major figure in the 6th Century BC period of religious flowering. He stands along with Lao Tse (Taoism) and Confuscious (Confusianism) and Gautama Siddhartha (Buddhism). These are much younger religions than Judaism, Hinduism or Cynicism (as an example of ancient greek religion). Zoroastrianism stands more along the lines of Jainism or Shintoism as an offshoot.

You are right, Wile, about Shahpour Bakhtiar being the last, desperate prime minister in the ancien regime. In fact, I have mentioned him 17 times so far at Jihad Watch (google "Shahpour Bakhtiar" and "Jihad Watch" and "Posted by Hugh") and clearly never intended to identify him as someone who had thrown in his lot with Khomini.

For example, he appears in the following, just two months ago:

"If democracy is on the march in a Muslim country, there will always be more primitives in the population than the enlightened. If the Bush Administration, or others waiting in the wings, would carefully analyze where any moral progress has been made in the Muslim world, it has always been not from below, but from above, from enlightened or quasi-enlightened despots. Ataturk systematically limited the role of Islam and tried as much as he could to diminish its social and political influence. If Kemalism is coming undone, slowly, it is not because of pressure from the top, or from the beneficiaries of Kemalism, the Turkish middle and upper classes, but from below. In Iran, whatever progress was made came from the two-man short-lived Pahlevi dynasty. The Shah, that corrupt and vain man and not terribly intelligent man, predicting that Iran would become the "second industrial power of Asia" (after Japan), who was allowed to let that OPEC money go to his head, seems in retrospect to have been a lovable fellow, deserving of all our support (for compare him to what came after). And his court and courtiers, in a Teheran that still had a French lycee, and the Goethe Institute, and a mayor's daughter who could grow up to teach "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" -- or was that someone else? -- and even reappare in the United States, as the most unrepresenative representative of Iran it is possible to be, with those Tabatabais as air-force generals, who now have the glow of old Czarist generals, and Hoveyda, and all the others -- corrupt, but not unduly so, corrupt, but by good they seem, in the Iranian context, compared to what followed, like the greatest statesmen who ever lived. And as for those who first threw in their lot with Khomeini, because they misunderstood both him and their own country, and the power of those primitives, and thus the power of the main animating source of those primitives -- Islam itself, and what it inculcates -- think of what happened to that former member of the French Resistance, Shahpour Bakhtiar, the last prime minister under the Shah. Think of Mehdi Bazargan, and think of all those others who had never been enthusiasts of the Shah, had been in the Mossadegh line, and yet were murdered not only under Khomeini, but under Khatemi, with impunity, in broad daylight, in the full light of history.

Here's just a bit to remind you:

"Dariush Foruhar, the 70 years old veteran Iranian politician and a leading opponent of the ruling Islamic Republic was stabbed to death Sunday alongside his 54 years old wife, Parvaneh, also an outspoken critic of the regime, according to official, family and friends sources.

Leader of the Iran People's Party (IPP), one of the country's oldest political organisation fighting for a Western type parliamentarian republic, both husband and wife were executed in Islamic tradition, with Mr Foruhar's head and one of Mrs Parvaneh's breasts cut off. Both had been stabbed several times with a long knife by unidentified but professional killers.

An opponent of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Mr. Foruhar was jailed several times under the former regime. After the revolution, he briefly took charge of the Labour Ministry in the first government of the Islamic Republic led by the late Mehdi Bazargan, but resigned in protest against the new constitution based on Islamic Sari'a, or Canons by calling for a secular republic. Outlawed by the ruling ayatollahs, his party was nevertheless tolerated. Despite several threats to their lives and attacks of the meetings of the party by Islamic thugs operated by the Information Ministry they were among the very few adversaries of the Islamic Republic who refused to leave the country.

The savage double murder that took place in broad daylight at the couple's residence in the Iranian capital Tehran bore the landmark of execution of political dissidents by the regime's agents, including that of Dr Shahpour Bakhtiar, the Shah's last Prime Minister who was murdered in his Parisian residence in August 1992 by 4 agents of the Islamic Republic's Information (Intelligence) Ministry employing almost exactly the same method, his head and hands cut off.

Both Mr. Foruhar and his wife Parvaneh were outspoken critics of the Islamic regime they would describe as anti-Iranian. In declarations and interviews with foreign-based Iranian media, they denounced publicly and from Iran itself devastation the ruling ayatollahs have caused to the economy of the nation, the violations of the basic rights of the Iranians, particularly the women, the ostracism of Iran in the world, the shame they have caused to the Iranians because of terrorist activities of the state or the support given by the ruling hard liners to terrorist organisation.

The barbaric assassination of the dissident couple, a first that takes place under the government of the of the ayatollah Mohammad Khatami, the so-called Iranian reformist president is the most sever blow to both his personal prestige and political programmes he promised during his electoral campaign 17 months ago, including the restoration of the rule of law, limited political freedoms and the implementation of a civil society."

So that was Iran, where it was the Shah and his court, as in Turkey it was Ataturk and his collaborators, who made the place semi-decent precisely by limiting the power of Islam.

And the same could be said for those two protectors of the local Jews, Mohammad V of Morocco (himself less vulnerable to Islamic charges because of his own descent) and Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia. The latter, of course, also limited the power of Islam, and his sucessor, running what necessarily has to be an authoritarian regime, has continued in the Destour Party line.

It is not "democracy" that will undo Islam. It is the enlightened or semi-enlightened ruler, and if not a single ruler, then it will be up to the quasi-secular or secular beneficiaries of some enlightened despot's rule.

Which brings us back to Egypt. Does Mubarak qualify as one more "enlightened despot" because he is opposed by, and opposes, the Muslim Brotherhood? No. Mubarak is simply a thuggish and corrupt man who has no desire whatsoever, and has shown it, to make a real peace with the Infidel state of Israel, has done nothing to encourage any fulfillment of the solemn commitments made by Egypt in order to repossess the Sinai (most of which became "Egyptian" only in 1922), has done the absolute minimum to protect the Copts, or to end the campaign against them in the Egyptian press, radio, and television. No, he is not an "enlightened despot" and he and his Mena-Island jockey-club crew deserve no aid, no further jizyah, from any Infidel power. It is grotesque that the Americans cannot see that a country as poor as Egypt, that in the most recently published list of buyers of foreign arms stood third, after India and China, and is not an "ally" (as the press routinely calls it -- "America's ally"), but part of the problem, a big part of the problem.

Let the Egyptians go hat in hand to the rich Arabs for all further funds. It will use up Arab money that might otherwise go to pay for mosques in the Western world, and madrasas, and propaganda, and paying for the army of apologists in every walk of American and Western life. Let the rich Arabs turn them down, or not. Let the Egyptians mutter, and rage, ove those same rich Arabs. Let them begin to feel, as Nasser did when he went to war to support the so-called "Marxists" in south Yemen against the Saudi-supported "Royalists" (as they were called), that the rich Arabs should begin to shell out to their fellow Muslims far more than they have -- really shell out.

And that will cause all kinds of things to happen, things which from the standpoint of the Infidels, will be good. The shelling out, or the other kind of shells if the shelling out does not take place. All to the good -- not of the Muslim world, but of the Infidel one. Which should be the one we care about.

Posted by: Hugh at November 30, 2005 10:28 AM "

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So Shahpour Bakhtiar was not one of those who threw in his lot with Khomeini.

But he was, in his own mental makeup if not in the post he was thrust into as a last gasp, closer, I suggest, to some of those who, briefly but fatally, in the Mossadegh nationalist line, thought that they could join the Muslm forces in overthrowing the Shah, and then would be able to master Khomeini's primitives. For Shahpour Bakhtiar was appalled by the corruption in the court and in society, and disliked the Shah's instruments of control (Savak) as much as Bani-Sadr or Bazargan or the other leftists or quasi-leftists who were seen, very briefly, before being dragged away for execution, or fleeing into exile to that same France from whence Khomeini had arrived (presumably not moving into his old house in Neauphle-le-chateau). These were people who thought that they, well-educated and expressing the best, as they saw it, in Iran, would naturally be able to deal with the likes of Khomeini. But it turned out to be Khomeini who dealt with the likes of them.

Those Iranians on the left lived in an Iran that was limited. They did not live in the villages. They did not live among the poor and the primitive even in the cities. They knew that they were the people who thought, the people who understood the great world, knew what was best for Iran -- so how could they conceive of the permanent power of Islam. It is no different with the secularist beneficiaries of Kemalism in Turkey, who have allowed Islam and the Islamic parties to reconstruct themselves, to come back, and now to dominate Turkey. It is no different from the would-be westernizing "secularist" so-called "reformers" in Egypt or from (not in, but from) Syria, who cannot face the power of Islam, cannot figure out what to do about Islam, cannot admit to themselves or to the Westerners they keep inveigling, as Chalabi and other Iraqis helped to inveigle, the Americans into supporting them with money, and with all sorts of grand schemes, and in the case of Iraq, with an invasion (not illegitimate) followed by the fiasco of trying to create a non-existent nation-state (which had been held together by the glue of mass murder and decades of Sunni despotism masquerading, more or less, merely as "Ba'athism" open to all "secularists" (a "secularism" to be distinguished from the real Islam largely by pan-Arabism rather than pan-Islamism, for pan-Arabism helped claim the loyalties of the otherwise disaffected Shi'a, while anything that put pan-Islamism and Islam front and center could slide dangerously into the question of what Sunnis thought of Shi'a, and vice-versa).

Those Iranian leftists -- and Shahpour Bakhtiar might be thought of as a kind of Kerensky, someone who was against the old regime(even if he served in its last government) but who, had circumstances permitted, had the secularists and leftists prevailed, could also have served in a new regime, one where Khomeini had never been allowed to return, and the army turned, this time by the new regime, into a force to suppress the clerics and the more fanatical Muslims, who turned out to be much more powerful than the succession of lame leaders, whose names we dimly recall and which you mention above: Bani-Sadr (the one whose face looked like a rubbery Halloween mask) and Ghotbzadeh (the two of them had quite a run on American television, especially Nightline), and Mehdi Bazargan.

I think the reason I mentioned Shahpour Bakhtiar, but did not properly identify as the last to hold a post under the old regime so that it appears that I thought -- I didn't -- that he was part of the post-revolutionary regime -- (though I think the Shah had left Iran soon after appointing Bakhtiar -- I'll have to check on that) -- was that I have a particular fondness for him. He struck he as the best of the lot, in that line of old-fashioned fully westernized Iranians, some in the line of "weepy" (as Time Magazine used to call him, just as the epithet "strong-man" would always be employed for Nuri al-Said of Iraq) Mossadegh, others simply patriots. They were too weak. They misunderstood the power of Islam. Just like Chalabi and Allawi. Just like Al-Ghadri of Syria, fresh from a meeting with Richard Perle. Just like Said Eddin Ibrahim or Ayman Nour.

The problem is not only or mainly corruption. The problem is not to be solved by the democratic left.

The problem, in the Islamic world, for those in that world, but even more for those without (let's not keep hearing that the real thing going on is a "civil war within Islam" -- it isn't, and the main thing is the endless war of Islam against Infidels), is Islam.

Provoslavni, I wonder if the whole idea of religion being bestowed as a birthright from one's line of descent in Zoroastrianism might have come from centuries of Muslim influence.

Islamozoroastrians? Behold the power of Islam.

And don't forget to thank the French for harboring this quasi-human carbuncle Khomeini for years "in exile" where he lounged around on the dole and recorded and distributed cassette tapes of his doctrines to be spread to the confused "students" in Iran (and America... I remeber the Shah and Jimmy Carter being in tears in the Rose Garden from drifting CS gas used to break up Iranian "student" demonstrations outside the White House in the late 1970's).

Thanks, France, for not having the animal cunning that the Iranian ayatollahs showed with their opponents who fled Khomeini's regime (when he left France in triumph and returned to create hell-on-Earth in Persia), who then also went into "exile" in France, and were thereafter assassinated by Iranian hit squads.

Vive la imbeciles!

I've heard the Keresky analogy made before. I think it's apt. Neither man had the internal wherewithall or the external assets to resist the tide of history.

I'm still struggling with your (and Robert's) repudiation of Democracy as an effective means to transform the Muslim world....mulling over its viability juxtaposed to the 'enlightened ruler' model you advocate.

The 'enlightened ruler' model has some effective precedents other than Ataturk; it was constructed quite effectively in Tunisia under Bourguiba - how remarkable for him to have gone on Tunisian national television in the 1980s to break the Ramadan fast and set an example for the entire nation. Ben Ali has faithfully continued his secularist path.

But will Tunisia eventually go the way of Turkey? Though Kemalism outlasted its founder by over half a century (a testimonial to its comprehensiveness), you correctly point out here and in other articles how it is in the process of being dismantled. This phenomenon exposes the great weakness in your 'enlightened ruler' paradigm; it is historically only as effective as the longevity of his rule (and the willingness of his predecessors to adhere to his wisdom). How long before one of Bourguiba's successors jettisons his system? What will transpire after Ben Ali?

Other examples in history include India's Akbar, whose remarkable pluralism was effectively undone by his immediate successor.

Democracy offers an institutional solution that could transcend the problem of a leader's mortality. On the other hand, I certainly agree that the Democratic model is fraught with all the pitfalls that you and Robert have effectively pointed out, chiefly the absence of a cultured civil society in the Muslim world to guide its evolution.

PS - I'm going to retire Cornelius Boza Edwards and return as Wile E. Coyote. Some nics were meant to stick.

I do not believe there is any one model for undoing the control Islam has over the oppressed middle of the old world. Enlightened despots, democracy, envy of the west, pressure to end discrimination against (and the death penalty for) apostates, missionary activity (mainly by Christian groups) all play a part.

Any transformation of the Muslim world is merely a means to an end, and that end is the undoing of Islam itself. As a morally and intellectually indefensible faith, the only workable prescription is conversion from Islam to another religion. Turkish-style secularism cannot be the end goal, but rather a waypoint. There will be regression, we are seeing it now, but history moves slowly and in fits and starts. We are in the early stages of formulating strategies of resistance to Islam's encroachment, and still casting about for methods of rolling it back. All should be tried.

Quijybo

PSS...

HUGH: "Think of Mehdi Bazargan, and think of all those others who had never been enthusiasts of the Shah, had been in the Mossadegh line, and yet were murdered not only under Khomeini, but under Khatemi, with impunity, in broad daylight, in the full light of history."

I was under the impression Bazargan died of a stroke or heart-attack in Europe.

Provoslavni

There may be some problems with this proposal. Traditionally, Zoroastrianism has not allowed converts.

While this is true, I don't think this is an insurmountable problem. For instance, how did it start during the lifetime of Zoroaster (or Zarathustra - I don't know which one is correct) if not by conversion? After all, the Persians before that time were not Zoroastrians, and they had to be persuaded to accept Zoroaster's religion.

Also, what do the original Zoroastrian texts (Book of Avesta?) state on this subject? Anybody?

Then there is the substantial community of them in India, where they are known as Parsis (Persians). There are also some in the US and Australia.

While this is true, the term Parsi is a misnomer, since the Parsis in India don't speak Persian but Gujarati, Marathi, etc. The only thing Parsi about them is the religion, but if other religions, like Christianity, can be Indian, then why not Zoroastrianism?

Currently, the question of whether Zoroastrianism should change and allow converts is one of the most divisive and bitter issues facing the whole community.

Recently, in India, there has been a move by the Parsi community to allow the offspring of mixed marriages to remain Zoroastrian. After all, if
this policy simply continues, then there won't be a Parsi community left in India.

Most of the anti-conversion sentiment in the Zoroastrian world comes from the very conservative (and free from oppression)Indian Parsis. In order to be Zoroastrian, both parent must be Zoroastrian. No children of mixed marriages are officially Zoroastrian. Which is why the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was Hindu, even though his father was Parsi.

However, in Hindu circles, his mother was not regarded as a Hindu, but as a Parsi, which is why she was once denied entry into a Hindu temple while she was Prime Minister.

In Iran, if and when Islamic stranglehold ceases, I wouldn't be surprised if several thousand Persians embraced Zoroastrianism. Some years ago, I was talking to an Iranian colleague of mine (an athiest), and he told me that while most Iranians don't openly apostate (for obvious reasons), the count of those who have secretly switched to Zoroastrianism is in the hundreds of thousands. If this is actually the trend, then what Indian Parsis believe or even what the original book of Avesta says would be irrelevant - by sheer numbers, new Persian converts to Zoroastrianism would end up defining the religion.

As an aside, would the non-Persian ethnic groups in Iran have any reason to prefer Zoroastrianism to something else, given the opportunity should it arise?

Kerensky

Rebecca JW,

What's interesting in this case is that the Zoroastrians who are free to practice their religion in India are the ones so traditional about not accepting outsiders, while the Iranian Zoroastrians, fearing their extinction, are more accepting of converts.

Kemal Ataturk brought "democracy" and that "democracy" in the end brought Islam back. That's the problem with "democracy" in Muslim countries. And enlightened despots die. In the end, the problem remains: Islam.

Infidel Pride:

There is no central authority in Zoroastrianism to determine official policy, so Zoroastrians tend to worship in local groups. With no obvious body to dictate an official position on the debate, Zoroastrians have a variety of opinions about conversion. see: http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/Zoro3.html

Interestingly, the World Zoroastrian Association advocates allowing converts and claims the prohibition is due to "(1) The rigid Hindu caste system, which has made the Parsis for the last 1000 years "the fifth caste," which, whether they like it or not, has become ingrained in them. (2) The economic surge during the British rule in India. This second reason made them give up the custom of silently converting their male and female servants to their religion. Conversion would have meant a rush by the lower caste poor people to improve their own lot." http://beloit.edu/~gummern/critical_tools/rlst214_fall_2001/exegesis/zoroaster/

Unfortunately, the opposition to conversion remains strong among Parsis but it may be less so in the younger generation.

I suspect that if large numbers of Iranians were to "return" to Zoroastrianism publicly, then the debate would be solved. One of the critiques that Khomieni made against the Pahlavi monarchy was that the Shah was abandoning Islam for pre-Muslim Persia. There may have been some justification for his accusation.

Another possibility, would be for Iranians to revive one of the ancient spin-offs of Zoroastrianism such as Mazdakism, Mithraism or Manicheanism, but that would be highly unlikely.

The fact that many Iranian Muslims who have rejected Islam, call themselves Zoroastrian as an anti-Muslim social identification would give hope the possibility of a revival of this ancient faith.

There is a modern example of this kind of revival of a nearly dead faith in India. In 1900, Buddhism was an almost completely dead religion in India. But in the 1950s, the "untouchable" leader Dr. Ambedkar, declared his conversion to Theravada Buddhism. Lakhs of scheduled caste Hindus followed suit in mass conversion ceremonies and today there are again several million Buddhist Indians who are building viharas and actively practicing the tenents of Buddhism.

Perhaps something like this can happen in Iran, leading to a mass revival of Zoroastrianism. The anti-conversion traditionalists would then face a choice of accepting and teaching these new Zoroastrians or being marginalized on the edge of their religion.

I was reading an article by Rabbi Daniel Lapin last night in the wnd magazine, Whistleblower, and he said, "Only a religion can stand up to another religion."

He may be on to something there.

As much as we would like to see Islam as a political philosophy only, and therefore oppose it with our political philosophy (democracy) only, such is not the case.

Watching the television coverage of Iraq tells the average person a much grimmer story and tells him this war couldn't possibly simply be about a democracy deficit or democracy gap. By now the entire western world is dimly aware that there is something psychically wrong with Muslims as a people. Something that makes them hatefilled and barbarous wherever they are found. We see clearly that it isn't just the terrorists who hate us. It is the entire Muslim universe that hates, hates, and then hates some more.

Even if we do not allow that Islam is a religion in the full sense of the western term, one must still allow that Islam is the only religion Muslims know. It forms the basis for their world of ideas, their world of the possible. It is the reason so much that is possible for us in art, science and civilization remains out of reach of the ummah, except that which is "borrowed".

I love that term "borrow," used so much in anthropology. This tribe's stuff was found in that tribe's area. They must have borrowed it, like a cup of sugar, nothing violent of course.

Provoslavni, seems your facts mitigate against my theory. I shall bow to the facts. Thank you.

Wherever islam goes, progress ceases.

"What's interesting in this case is that the Zoroastrians who are free to practice their religion in India are the ones so traditional about not accepting outsiders..."

It is also "interesting" to note that Hindus largely reject the idea that conversion is possible into Hinduism... Most non-Hindus are unaware, but the average Hindu believes that you are either born into Hinduism, or you are not... End of story... There is not really a parallel notion of "conversion" in Hinduism, nor is there any developed notion of proselytizing... Perhaps this is a cultural legacy which says as much about pan-Indian cultures as it does about religion in general, and Zorosrianism in particular.

I had a friend who was an adherant of Zoroastrianism in my residency and he was from Pakistan. I never asked him what kind of troubles he had back home(I can only imagine), but he was a brilliant guy. It must grate on the Shia thugs to see adherants to Zoroastrianism and adherants to Judiasm walking around, knowing that these religions preceeded the 'true faith.' If the thug in chief of Iran ever rolls into my emergency room, I'll get a psych consult.

Of this topic, but on the topic of Jihad Watch, this pope seems to understand the problems of Eurabia(more so than the late John Paul II). I had the greatest respect towards John Paul II because of his attitudes on reconciliation with Jews as well as his strong stand on Islam. Sadly though, his Parkinson's Disease robbed his vitality in later years.

jsla - this is very interesting. I didn't know that about Hinduism either. You may be right about it being a pan-Indian concept.

jsla,

You are correct that "the average Hindu believes that you are either born into Hinduism, or you are not".

However there is one really beautiful exception. In the past, many Hindus converted to Islam to escape the Caste system. In recent years, there have been mass re-conversions of thousands of these Muslims or their descendants back to Hinduism. What is interesting is these re-conversions had the support of the most traditional of Hindu leaders and (I believe) were carried out under the auspices of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

It gives one hope, that more peoples will reject their ancestors forced Islam and return to their orignal traditions.

jsla

While Hinduism doesn't encourage conversions, it doesn't ban conversions to Hinduism either. There have been a number of people other than Muslims who have converted to Hinduism, and they haven't been stopped from doing so. George Harrison and Mick Jagger come to mind.

Like Provoslavni notes above, the VHP performed several re-conversions of Muslims to Hinduism in the '80s. I'm not aware that that has been a recent activity. Also, I don't believe that that applies only to re-conversions, since Hindu scriptures don't define people as Hindus and non-Hindus. Nor is it required that people prove that their forebears were Hindus in order to convert.

It's not an Indian thing - it is restricted to some religions and varies. For instance, one has to either be born a Sikh or marry into Sikhism (I believe only a non-Sikh bride can become a Sikh after marriage, but not vice versa, but I'm open to being corrected on this) to become a Sikh. In the case of the Parsis, marriage costs one ones Zoroastrian faith, although as I mentioned above, that is being debated. There is however no such ban in Jainism, although within India, it tends to be treated as a sect of Hinduism.

As for Buddhism, since it doesn't have a concept of God, it fits more into the definition of philosophy (a la Confucianism), rather than religion. Also, Hindus have Buddha (who was born a Hindu just as Jesus was born a Jew, and nothing that he did in his lifetime stopped him from being one) defined as the 9th incarnation of Vishnu (whether this was done before his birth or after his death, I don't know). Given these facts, would it be legitimate to define Buddhism as a derivative of Hinduism?

Provoslavni

This is the first time I'm hearing about Parsis being described as the fifth caste. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if they are mistaken for Muslims, since Parsi names, being similar to Iranian names, would easily pass off as Muslim (e.g. Khusrao, Jamshed, etc.)

OT - As for Ambedkar's movement, it was a protest movement by Scheduled Castes (thereafter called Dalits) to switch from Hinduism to Buddhism to protest the caste system. It was a better choice than the one followed by Bengali scheduled castes in the late 19th century, in which they switched to Islam. Prior to that, Bengal was a Hindu province every bit as much as the rest of India.

What's interesting in this case is that the Zoroastrians who are free to practice their religion in India are the ones so traditional about not accepting outsiders, while the Iranian Zoroastrians, fearing their extinction, are more accepting of converts.

One more point - a few years ago, some Parsis held a ceremony to prepare for the day when there would cease to be a Parsi community due to the inter-marriages. Given that, I think Indian Parsis could face extinction just as easily - but for compellingly different reasons.

While it is true that leaving Islam only to convert is one solution to say - Zoroastrianism, is perhaps the most likely means to escape Islam, there is another way: atheism. However, atheism seems to have failed in the Muslim world.

Atheism is so despised by all the religions of the world precisely because it breaks the religion paradigm. Thus it should be no surprise that Islam fears it.

Europe has changed in the past decades. Europeans (and some Americans and others) tend to no longer see Christianity as central to their lives. Instead, it is peripheral; something not to be taken too seriously. Europeans have grown increasingly atheistic, or at least agnostic. Foolishly, they presently believe that since Christianity was "tamed" with logic, surely such is the fate that will befall Islam.

WESTERN USAGE OF SECULARISM (FRANCE/BRITAIN)

However, historical evidence demonstrates that applying European logic to Muslim societies did not work in most countries. Before the Muslim Brotherhood was formed in Egypt in the 1920's, several Islamists developed the notion that Western civilization (and secularism/atheism/serious questioning of religion) had crept into the society and corrupted that society. After all, in the 1920's, a few educated and urbane Egyptian Men sipped coffee in Cairo cafes and dared to contemplate if there even was a God! How dare they! A little bit of secularism created the monster of the modern terrorist movement.

In Syria, Lebanon and other countries, France essentially imposed secularism. Iran too imposed secularism - violently - by the Shah with his infamous Savak.

In a mere handful of countries - perhaps only one - Lebanon coming to mind, did any real secular rule catch on. But Lebanon had a large Christian minority. In any event, Lebanon collapsed.

Iraq and Syria styled their regimes after NAZI rule, which they both admired and emulated. In these countries, as is still the case with Syria, an interesting amount of self-imposed secularism exists.

RUSSIAN INFLUENCE

While Russian has had ties (and continues to have ties) with numerous Islamic countries, including many in the former USSR/CIS, which they conquered, Russia has tried hard to push for atheism. However, even in its own backyard in the former Soviet Union, primitive Islam is rising again.

In light of the foregoing, it appears unlikely that atheism alone would ever have a prayer (pun intended) of conquering the Islamic world. Therefore, a conversion to 'indigenous' faiths would be the easier solution.

ISLAMIC COUNTRIES LACK THE CONDITIONS IN THE WEST

Atheism did not survive because people in the Islamic world are by and large poor. Moreover, those who are "enlightened" and have resources use religion for their own benefit vis a vis inshallah fatalism of allocation of resources (oil), to perpetuate their rule. Ironically, many of them succumb to Islamism too.

Secrets of Zoroastrianism

Read it and learn