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Inspired by the last show and the overwhelming responses to our blog, Dr. Behrooz joins us to discuss the influence of Islam on Iran. Was the religion of Islam forced on Iranians or generally accepted by the populous? Did Islam or the invasion of Arabs exclusively inhibit or catalyze the civilization’s progress? Finally, between Iran and Islam, which influenced the other more? This is another polarizing topic, specially in the current political climate, and we have panelists representing each pole on our show. Can they meet somewhere in the middle? Join our discussion tonight at 7PM live on Radio Javan.
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Update (4/29/2011): Relevant Lecture by Professor Touraj Daryaee at UC Berkeley (or YouTube)
5 comments
hello, this is in repliance to Dr. Behrooz’s talks this past Wednesday. One point I wanted to make is that the 300 years that he mentioned (right there it should show it was faced with moghavemat since it took that long) that it took for the religion to take over was not all by willingness, it was by force, and people did resist, they spread to other parts of the surrounding towns, cities and villages, including yazd, kerman, esfahan and shiraz, as well as other countries, including, china, and india (to preserve their original persian religion)..
I was enlightened by Dr. Behrooz’s comment at the last minute about the concept of country. I makes so much sense. Indeed, describing ones self as a citizen of a particular country is a relatively new concept. I enjoyed the remarks.
One more point:
So far as the troubled political systems in Iran are concerened, there is very little to blame on Arab invasion. In fact, the kind of centralized ruling methods that places a despot on a par with God (or just barely below him), is very Iranian and very ancient. Even the post Islamic Arab civilization learned it from Persians when they modeled their system (suh as Abbasids) after the Persian Empire. So, folks we have a very perian problem at hand that requires a smart Iranian solution, otherwise it will not disapear no matter how much you whine and point finger at Macedonian/ Arabic/ Moghul/ Afghan/ Turkish/ British invasions.