The Ayatollah Begs to Differ
By Hooman Majd
On this blog, we have been making an effort to understand the Islamic world. Majd says “my hope is that this book, through a combination of stories, history, and personal reflection, will provide the reader a glimpse of Iran and Iranians” and reveal paradoxes of the Iranian character that baffle Americans. He succeeds.
Majd is the son of an Iranian diplomat raised in the West, and seems well situated to bridge the gap between the two peoples.
Iranians are Persians, not Arabs, and are 90% Shia, not Sunni, Muslim. Shia believe in the twelfth Imam, who is not dead but hidden, and who will return as the Messiah in a way that reminds me of Christians’ faith in the return of Jesus Christ. I’m not sure if this similarity will make the two peoples more or less sympathetic to each other, since discussing religion is dangerous outside of trusting relationships.
“Persia” had been “Iran” to Iranians since 226 CE; “Persia” came from the French. In 1935 a Shah who embraced the Third Reich and fascism decreed that the nation should be called “Iran” which means “land of the Aryans”. I found it alarming that today Farsi translations of Hitler’s Mein Kampf are prominent in book stores, though some Americans may appreciate that Marx and Communist are loathed by the theocracy.
Many Iranians (especially expats) view the word “Persian” as connoting their glorious past and they are annoyed that Westerners are ignorant of Iran’s history. Iran was the equal of ancient Egypt, Rome, or Athens. Westerners admire Alexander the Great, while Iranians view him as a barbarian for burning magnificent Iranian libraries.
“The Shia sense of the world [is] a dark and oppressive place” of “estrangement and woe”, “under a perpetual dark cloud” where “death and martyrdom are pillars of Shia Islam.” The nation’s recent history reinforces this gloomy outlook: Muslims have suffered “five hundred years of Western hegemony,” and “for two or three hundred years Iran had been [under] Western powers – specifically Britain and then the United States when it took over the mantle of empire after World War II.” Continue reading