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Focus Iran: pre-islamic identity and the encounter with shiism

Take a look at the map representing the ethnic-religious composition of Iranian population: it is hard to understand how such a fragmented population is able to consider itself a unique people – almost a Chosen one - who perceives itself as superior and separated from the rest of the world, especially that Arab world from which Persians often feel encircled and threatened.

The permeability of Iranian borders has permitted the continuous coming/flowing of invaders and migrants who have then turned into inhabitants, but the country’s original core has never been touched; those Indoiranic tribes which around the 18th century b.C. covered the steppes of Central Asia and stopped in the middle of the Iranian plateau of Fars, sowed the seeds of Persian culture, that nobody – neither Mongols, nor Turkish or Greeks - have been able to eradicate. Special emphasis deserves the encounter with the Arab Islamic world in the years of the great Muslim expansion; Iran absorbed the Islamic message, but only to combine it in such a way to give birth to a new empire containing the two fundamental components shaping Iranian identity still today: the glory of ancient Persia, with all the arts, beauty and culture it was able to donate to the world, and the Islamic component of Shiism, the branch of Islam that best suits a population which succeeded in resisting, invasions and devastations, constantly waiting for the redemption it feels to deserve.

UNITY/UNITED IN DIVERSITY - But who are Iranians? The central core is represented by a people of Indoeuropean origin, the Arians, who has given birth to the Persian saga of that “Land of the Arians” (Eranshahr) which since then would have been called Iran. Today Persians represent about 51% of the population, almost all of them speak Farsi language and believe in Shiite Islam. But Iran is also home to other people. There are 12 million Azeris speaking a Turkish dialect and 6 million Kurds, whose strong sense of nationalism has repeatedly endangered Iranian central government’s stability. There are also various nomadic tribes: Baluchis in South-Eastern Iran, whose aim is to rejoin their brethren in the so-called Historic Baluchistan, a region extending across Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan; Lurs and Bakhtiaris living respectively in the center and to the south of Zagros Mountains; Turkmens, living along the border with Turkmenistan, who speak a Turkish dialect and believe in Sunni Islam; Qashqais in central Iran, who speak a Turkish dialect and are essentially indifferent to the religious element. Also important is the Arab presence of the so-called Marsh Arabs who live in the South-Western province of Khuzestan, in the wide marsh surrounding the Shatt al-Arab, along the Iraqi border. Then, there are Gilakis and Mazandaranis, who live in the coastal plain south of the Caspian Sea. The fragmentation is not only ethnic or linguistic, but also and above all religious. 98% of the population is Muslim - 89% Shiite and 9% Sunni - but there is also a small percentage (2%) of Iranians who believe in the religions of the pre-Islamic age: e.g. Zoroastrianism, Hebraism and Christianity – Assyrian or Armenian – or Bahai Islam, an heretic branch of Islam born in the 19th century.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ZOROASTRIANS – Notwithstanding this combination of languages, ethnicities and religions, Iranian people have been able to develop a strong identitarian narrative which dates back to the Achaemenid Persia of Cyrus the Great. Cyrus' deeds inevitably mixed with the teachings of Zoroaster, a prophet born between the 10th and 8th century b.C. in Iranian Azerbaijan who, after having received the divine revelation, walked through the Iranian plateau to spread the word of Ahura Mazda. Zoroastrians' God is a just God, who gives mankind a moral code of behavior which, if adequately followed will allow/enable the achievement of the ideal of social justice, in addition to salvation on the day of the Last Judgement. As a consequence, Zoroastrianism conveys a huge social message: religion does not pertain to the spiritual world only, but also to the political realm. This would become particularly true with the marriage between Zoroastrianism and Persian dynasties; even though Zoroastrianism never became the official state religion, it shaped the forma mentis of Persian kings. Cyrus was the first sovereign to play the role of the “just king”, who deserves his subjects’ loyalty by virtue of the farr, the sign of the divine favour, which lies with the king who keeps walking in the light. Zoroastrianism gave Iranian culture a deep sense of affection for the ideal of justice, intended as the conservation of balance and harmony in a world constantly threatened by the forces of evil and chaos. The advent of the Sassanid dinasty (226-651 AD) gave birth to the second great Persian empire. By using the religious element of Zoroastrianism in order to legitimate their political rule, the Sassanid Shah-in-shah crystallized a social-political order based on the alliance between the king and the magi; an alliance not motivated by the need of joining forces in the perpetual battle between good and evil, but by the mutual need of protecting pre-eminent positions and of maintaining the government’s stability. Anyway, as Sassanids rightly feared, even the most powerful and glorious kingdoms on Earth are not meant to last forever.

THE ARAB CONQUEST – Between 637 and 651 the Arab warriors completed their conquest of Sassanid Persia. Military conquest went hand in hand with the cultural onslaught. In Ctesiphon, Arabs stole the beautiful “Spring of Khosrow” - the masterpiece of Iranian textile art - brought it to Mecca, cut it into pieces and sold it to the best bidder. In Persepolis, according to the Islamic precept which prohibits the representation of God, the winged bulls opening the way to the throne room were destroyed. Despite Persians' resistance, in 651 the Islamic conquest of Persia was accomplished. Unlike the waves of conquest which had previously afflicted Persia, the Arab conquest was meant to stay. Anyway, the Persians’ submission to those Arab people who they sophisticated regarded as rough and ignorant would have never been total. Farsi language would have been contaminated by the Arab language, but under the ashes of the Islamic conquest,the soul of Achaemenid and Sassanid Iran would continue to emanate a magic halo of superiority and attraction. By virtue of this strong sense of national pride, Iranians would never embrace the Islamic philosophy which labels as “ignorance” all the events occurred before Islamic revelation. After the Islamic conquest, Persia did not repudiate/reject its glorious pre-Islamic history; on the contrary, it added a new component, the Islamic one, creating a unique entity in the whole Middle East. Today, Iran is a powerhouse of culture, history and traditions reconciling pre-Islamic and Islamic age, as masterfully narrated by the great Iranian poet Ferdowsi in his Shahnameh, “The Book of Kings”.

THE ENCOUNTER WITH SHIISM – After the Turkish rule of the Seljuqs and the Ghaznavids and the Mongol rule of the Khans and the Timurids, Persia finally met her destiny embodied in a child-emperor named Ismail who, after acceding the throne with the help of the Qizilbash – a Turkish warrior class – brought Shiism into Iran and elevated it to the rank of state religion. Safavid Shiite Iran built its identity against the Ottoman Sunni empire which dangerously extended in the west of Eranshahr, encouraging Ismail to move the empire’s capital from Tabriz to Isfahan. Safavid Iran reached the height of its glory with the reign of Abbas I, whose great power and influence earned him the title of “Shadow of God on Earth”. As well as Sassanid kings had made use of Zoroastrianism to legitimate their political rule, Shah Abbas I called for Shiism in order to unify an otherwise fragmented population. By putting together the ancient legitimation to rule given by the possess of the farr and the new legitimation given by Shiite Islam, Abbas I gave unity and stability to an empire threatened outside by the Uzbeks and the Ottoman Sunni empire and inside by the internal feuds among? the Qizilbash. By means of his great diplomatic skills, Shah Abbas I put Persia at the crossroads of the most important commercial and diplomatic ways of the time, and gave it the role of a bridge between East and West. The death of Abbas I in 1628 marked the beginning of the end for the Safavid dinasty and the starting a time of difficult relations with Europe. It was in that period which the seeds of an important process of intellectual reflection/consideration/meditation were sowed that in the years following the second World War would have given birth to the Islamist discourse upon which the ideological foundations of the Islamic Republic were laid.

منبع:

http://www.fusiorari.org/world/attualita/575-focus-iran-pre-islamic-identity-and-the-encounter-with-shiism.html