Article 13 of the Iranian constitution singles out “Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian Iranians” as the country’s “only recognized religious minorities” (so tough luck for the Baha’i).
As such, the Jews are guaranteed a seat in the Iranian parliament. The current Jewish MP is Siamak Moreh Sedgh.
Here is an article from Tablet, about “How Iran Kept Its Jews.” It’s worth reading in full, but here’s a telling anecdote: In 1979, a group of Iranian rabbis visited Ayatollah Khomeini, asking for assurances that their people would be protected. At the end of the meeting, the Ayatollah declared that “we recognize our Jews as separate from those godless, bloodsucking Zionists.” The quote, which became famous, pretty much sums up Iran’s official position vis-à-vis the country’s Jews.
Cite? As I understand it, most of the Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan is rooted either in Deobandi, an Islamic-revival movement emerging in India in the mid-19th century, or 20th-century Salafism encouraged and funded by the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Salafis, and other foreign hardliners.
As far as I know, all modern Islamic fundamentalist cultures have been strongly influenced by religious-extremist movements that took shape in the past five to fifteen decades, rather than simply representing “centuries to millennia of cultural tradition”.
Fundamentalist Salafi Islam isn’t some timeless ahistorical phenomenon, any more than evangelical Protestantism or Lubavitcher Hasid Judaism or Shin Bukkyo Buddhism is.
I would guess that the politics excluding the iranian jews who have stayed are like those in the Maghreb, who have the strong cultural attachment and also are successful in the business area, so to leave is to leave a successful economic community.
Spend some time around regular Muslims, like most of the billion or so in the world, and you will find that they don’t hate Jews or Christians. In fact, they understand that Judaism and Christianity and Islam have common roots and are horrified by religious discrimination, which is why Jewish and Christian communities lived mostly peacefully in Islamic civilization, in contrast to the pogroms against the Jews and the religious wars in which Protestants and Catholics slaughtered each other in Europe
This is why the bigoted people in the West who promote Islamophobia are an especially repugnant lot. It is no accident that these individuals usually represent intolerance across the board.
There is a general misconception that Salafism = Wahhabism. This is simply not true. Most genuine Salafists are horrified if called Wahhabis.
This confusion also extends to their dates. Wahhabis are relatively recent from the 18th/19th Century following Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. Salafists have been around since the early days of Islam and leaders included Imam ahl al-Sunnah in the mid 800’s
If you look at remote Iran and Afghanistan you see very primitive peoples (usually Sunni) who practice stoning amongst other things. These practices are not acceptable to the majority of Muslims but arise from tribal traditions. Interestingly a reasonable proportion of the Swat valley in Afghanistan only recently converted to Islam from animist religions.
My error - I was referring to Nuristan in Afghanistan - formerly know as Kaffiristan on account of its people being Kaffirs - non Muslims - up until 1895.
I’d appreciate if you could point out specific errors. I’ve made and acknowledged one error on the location of pagan/kaffir religions in Afghanistan. For the rest, I’m pretty sure on my points.
The explain this paper on Salafist Sufis in Indonesia
Islam’s devotional and mystical tradition, Sufism (tasawwuf), is commonly cast as
antithetical to Salafi Islam. Self-identified ‘Salafis’, with their ideological roots
in anti-liberal strands of twentieth-century modernist Islam, do commonly view
Sufis as heretics propagating practices wrongly introduced into Islam centuries
after the time of the pious ancestors (the Salaf). Yet reformist zeal that fixes on
the singular importance of the Salaf (particularly the Prophet Muhammad and
his principal companions) as models for correct piety can also be found amongst
Sufis. This paper calls attention to the Salafist colouration of Sufism in two areas
of popular culture: television preaching and the popular religious ‘how-to’ books
and DVDs that make the preachers’ messages available for purchase. It reprises
the teachings of two of the best known Indonesian Muslim televangelists, ‘Hamka’
(b. 1908, d. 1981) and M. Arifin Ilham (b. 1969), both of whom also happen to be
champions of Sufism, and analyses the different rhetorical uses each has made of
references to the ‘Salaf’ and the notion of ‘Salafist’ Islam.
… well if you make the term salafiste apply to a very different idea and change the meaning from the way it is used elsewhere then … yes you can have ‘salafiste’ sufi. But it is nonsense.
A classic “no true Scotsman” argument. The fact is that the modern “Islamic-fundamentalist” movement that self-identifies as “Salafi” is largely shaped by the religious and scholarly doctrines of Ibn Taymiyya and other Hanbali thinkers as interpreted by Ibn `Abd al-Wahhab in Saudi Arabia in the 19th century.
This is because Wahhabi doctrine was not only widely embraced in its own era but enthusiastically disseminated and funded by the wealthy Saudi religious establishment in the 20th century.
Yes, it’s true that there are a number of other “puritanical” or “reformist” Islamist schools or movements throughout the world that also identify their vision of “pure Islam” with the tradition of the salaf or early generations of Muslim leaders, and some of those movements pre-date Wahhabi Salafism. But they are not more numerous or more influential, and certainly not more “genuine Salafists”, than the Wahhabi-influenced worldwide modern Salafi movement.
The fact that many followers of Wahhabi-influenced Salafi doctrines don’t like being called “Wahhabi”, just as many members of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints don’t like being called “Joseph Smithians”, doesn’t mean that the person in question wasn’t actually crucial to the historical development of their beliefs.
Being an Iranian, I can tell you that no one in Iran hates neither Jews nor Christians. Those words against Israel are only from politicians and Mullahs to have an excuse to suppress people inside Iran (accusing any opponent of being a spy), and to distract people outside from other more important issues.
You appear to be proving the point against which you post.
The factions within Islam that have practiced terrorism do not make up the entirety, or even the majority, of Muslims, yet Islamaphobes act and speak as though all of Islam embraces those actions.
It is rather like various Muslims calling for hatred of all Westerners because “Westerners” have oppressed their nations and encouraged the suppression of their religion for the last 90+ years, (longer in some locales).