The burning of Persepolis - source of Arab-Western tension?

Great Debates
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People who live in northern Iraq remember Alexander the Great as Iskander, an alternative name for the devil.

In Plutarch’s collected works on Alexander, published by Penguin press, reference is made to a prostitute named Thaia who, during a drunken celebration prompted Alexander and his men to burn down the royal palace at the city of Persepolis, which was then the imperial capital of Darius’ Persian Empire. Hell of a party.

Plutarch says the fire was quickly put out, but I’m sure I’ve read elsewhere (Arrian or Quintus Curtius Rufus?)that the fire spread throughout the city and destroyed it. I don’t really trust Plutarch, who was more or less the tabloid journo of his day. A picture of the remains of Persepolis is here.

Granted the Crusades didn’t improve relations between Christendom and Islam, and of course the invasion of Greece by Xerxes decades prior to Alexander’s conquest soured things for the Greeks, but the arbitrary destruction of the great city of Persepolis seems to be the thing which really annoyed the people in that part of the world.

Does anyone have any information on this?

Further, it is correct to pin Arab - Western tensions down to one fundamental event (like the sacking of Constantinople led to the split into the Orthodox Church), or was it inevitable? Western Europe and Asia Minor have always seemed to have had very different cultures (even or perhaps especially under Roman rule) and their imbalances in power have greatly varied.

I’d be interested to see what people make of this. What is the source of Arab-Western tension?

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…sorry, the link doesn’t work - I’ll try and find a new picture.

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I’m very reluctant to pin broad cultural attitudes on a single event. A more modern corollary would be to ask “What was the final ‘nail in the coffin’ on American commitment in Vietnam? At what point in the 50s or 60s was it impossible for the American government to withdraw, throw up their hands, and say ‘hell with this’?”

Even if societal differences weren’t enough to make conflict inevitable, I doubt that there would be a single event but rather a collection of events over centuries. Mistrust and animosity doesn’t spring up overnight, and doesn’t last for millennia unless there are other factors.

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We should remember two things in this:[ul][li]Arabs are not Persians[sup]1[/sup][/li][li]Achaemenid Persians were not Muslims[/li][/ul]Now, certainly, attitudes (and grudges) can be inherited, acquired from essentially unrelated sources, or even artifically revived (see Mussolini’s pretence that Fascist Italy was the heir of Rome, or Hussein’s that Baathist Iraq is the heir of the Chaldeans). However, we note that Turks (who are, again, neither Persians nor Arabs) have used “Iskander” as a personal name, and that the Koran speaks of Alexander (under the epithet “Dhul-Qarnein”) in an essentially neutral tone.

I would suggest that, whilst the Persians who view themselves as the heirs of the Achaemenidae (a rather secularist view that went out with the late Mohammed Pahlavi, IMHO) might still be ticked off at the burning of Persepolis, the average man in the suk couldn’t give a rat’s ass, or indeed knows, about it.

[sup]1[/sup][sub]On a certain mailing list, a poster recently express the view that Arabs were lazy layabouts until whipped into shape by the Persians, who then used them as cannon fodder in their conquests from Acharmenid Persia to the Ummayad Caliphate. A damned dangerous and ignorant view, from my perspective.[/sub]

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I’m with Akatsukami ( I think ) - I don’t really see the connection between the sack of Perseopolis and current Arab-West ( or past ) Arab-West tension. Frankly the Persians have just as much interest in being pissed at the Arabs for burning Ctesiphon to the ground in the 7th century ( ~1,000 years after Persopolis got it ).If you’re going for some sort of analogy, could you perhaps re-phrase?

As an aside - Alexander himself became something of a Persianophile in his last years, adopting many of the trappings of an ‘Oriental Monarch’, much to the the dismay of the more vaguely “democratic” ( in an oligarchic sort of way ) and xenophobic Macedonians. In so doing he appeared to have actually generated a fair bit of acceptance among the Persians for his rule. His choice for satrap of that province, Peucestes ( the other exception that proved the rule of Macedonian xenophobia ), was likewise moderately popular ( which is why Antigonus Monophthalamus felt it necessary to maneouver him out of power ). My understanding is that traditional Persian folklore actually regards Alexander with a certain resigned respect, although I’m not an expert and my understanding may be wrong.

  • Tamerlane
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Urkk. Let me re-phrase: Going by the OP’s reasoning, the Persians have just as much motivation to be pissed at the Arabs as the West. And the Arabs have no motivation to care about a ancient Persian city at all. If you’re using “Arab” as a euphemism for “Muslim” ( a semantic snarl even Scylla might even admit is worth correcting :wink: ), then it still doesn’t make that much sense.

  • Tamerlane
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Dave Stewart:On the nature of Arab-West tension - If we’re talking historic, I think religious differences pretty much covers it :slight_smile: .

If we’re talking recent - It’s a little more complex, but has a lot to do with the “combined and uneven development” of the Arab world compared to the West in the 17th -20th century, the legacies of the collapse of the Ottoman state and the brief period of European colonial domination, the geographic importance of the region, the thorny Israel problem, and religious differences :wink: .

If we’re talking about why the Near East/West separation historically - Well it wasn’t always. Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor were part of the “Western” sphere from Alexander’s time until the 7th century ( with a little local variation. Asia Minor until the 12th, and in some cases 15th century. North Africa was Roman for several centuries. The persistence of Persia as a historic entity, was part accident ( initially - the rise of Cyrus as a world conquerer ), part geography, and once firmly established, in part cultural resilience.

  • Tamerlane
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Recall also that Plutarch was not writing history in the contemporary, conventional sense, but moral biography. He cannot be counted on to report events with considerable accuracy outside his own era, considerably removed from that of Alexander the Great.

Read de viris illustribus for pleasure and edification, but be careful how much you trust him.

MR

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Thannk you, especially Tamerlane, for laying that particular personal theory to rest. Its something I’d been pondering for a while, and I agree there isn’t much to support it.

Excuse my ignorance, but you use “Arab” as a term for speakers of Arabic, and “Persian” as a term for speakers of Farsi?

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Dave Stewart: Re: Definitions - Pretty much, yeah :slight_smile: . Of course Arab also embraces a certain amount of ethnic and cultural variation, insomuch as not all speakers of Arabic today are direct descendants ( or at least not primarily so ) of “ethnic Arabs”. Like Latin, it became a lingua franca in much of the Near East. But these days it’s accurate enough I think, to refer to Arabs generally as people whose first language is Arabic.

  • Tamerlane
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… But even that is open to interpretation. The Arabic language fluctuates enormously from country to country and even region to region. Egyptians and Syrians speak different dialects. Not to mention Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccans whose dialects are incomprehensible to other so-called Arabs.

The question of who counts as an Arab is actually historically very thorny. Lebanese Christians, for example, whose first language is Arabic, do not necessarily consider themselves Arabs. Same goes for Tunisians, and other North Africans. People on the Arabian Peninsula have the best shot at being “Arab”, but the meaning of the word has shifted to include so many other diverse countries and traditions that it is almost useless. I see this a lot in France where arabe means anyone of North-African descent and has a very negative connotation-- it basically refers to Muslims.

So who’s an Arab? Depends on who you ask. It can’t be defined easily by religion, since there are many non-Muslim groups in the Middle East. The Arabic language doesn’t answer the question either, since wildly different dialects exist. It’s a very touchy subject, especially recently with the media pitting the “Arabs” against the Jews.

Sorry this is so long. Just my .02 cents.

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True, (excepting the so called arab line) although frankly the incomprehensibility is as much a part of attitude as reality IME.

Yeah there are some idjits who claim to be phoenician or some such rubbish.

On the other hand, the impetus for pan-Arab nationalism was largely laid down by Leb Xtians. Most Leb xtians, including Maronis have id’d themselves as Arab to me. American xtian lebs on the other hand for the obvious reasons seem to have a penchant for the idiotic phoenician thing, again in my experience.

Who are you talking about? Native Berber speakers? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Native Arabic speakers, in all my fairly extensive experience I’ve never heard a native Arabic speaker reject the Arab label, although they’ll off diss the Eastern Arabs.

Utter and complete rot. The word is pretty simple, in Arabic use. To be an Arab is to grow up speaking Arabic. Of course internal discrimination arises and sometimes you get claims about who are the “real” arabs, but I’ve found that’s fairly rare to have someone excluded.

Sure there’s not one Arab culture, any more than there’s a single English culture, but that’s no fucking rational standard.

Yeah so. Oil Texans do the same fucking thing, its their stupidity. French ignorance and idiocy is hardly a standard upon which to base one’s idea of what Arab identity is. Fucking stupid actually.

Easy, someone who grows up speaking Arabic as their native language (or one of their native languages) and claims the label. In practical, rational terms you’ve got most people ordinarily calling themselves Arab.

So the fuck what? The folks in question don’t give much of a fuck, and dialectal variation is a fact of any language.

??? It’s a bit more than “the media” unless you want to include the Arabic media.

Tamerlane’s definition, in short is both reasonable, matches pretty much the “native” definition andis workable.

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This is a subject that I’m rapidly becoming aware that I know little about at all.

So Farsi speakers (Iranians?) are Persian, and Berber speakers are North Africans? Both groups tend to be Muslim but neither are Arabs?

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Maryliza: Although I get what you’re saying, I think your definition, or lack of one, is a bit cumbersome. I’ll happily grant that we should call people whatever they like. But for the sake of utility, I think mine is “good enough for government work” :wink: . After all one has to have some common frame of reference. I don’t think it is out of line to refer to speakers of Arabic, generally, as Arabs ( in the widest possible sense of that word ). All while still keeping in mind that the actual situation can be more complex when we get to specifics :slight_smile: .

Dave Stewart: Yep, all unrelated linguistic groups :slight_smile: . A few examples:

Farsi ( modern Persian ) - Indo-European language spoken by modern Iranians ( exclusive of the very large Turkish speaking component of Iran ). Persian has gone through several linguistic shifts over the millenia and some dialects/languages, like Sogdian, which once was dominant in Central Asia, are extinct.

Dari - Persian dialect spoken by the Tajiks, among others.

Kurdish - Another language closely related to Persian.

Arabic - A Semitic language ( with numerous dialects ), distantly related to Hebrew, the old Aramaic language, etc. . There are some Arabic speaking Christians ( some Palestinians and Lebanese for example ).

Berber - A Hamitic language ( although I hear that term is out of favor these days ) of ( last I heard, I’m probably out of date ) uncertain antecedents and relation.

  • Tamerlane
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Coullonsbury: I’ve heard the Phonecian claim too, and I agree that it is pretty ridiculous. It’s like me claiming I’m a Celt because my family emigrated from Ireland. Many Lebanese Christians that I know like to think they are descended from Europeans who stayed in the Middle East after the Crusades and mingled with the, er, local population. To them this explains the high incidence of blue eyes and blond hair. Perhaps you consider this rot too. All I know is that the question of whether or not Lebanese are Arabs is a sensitive topic in Lebanon. For example, in writing their Consitution, they couldn’t decide whether or not to define themselves as an Arab state. So they included a phrase describing Lebanon as a country with an Arab appearance. I will look for a cite today. Also, I don’t know whether you speak Arabic; if you do you can judge whether or not the problem understanding different dialects is really due to attitude. Based on what I’ve been told, it’s less a question of attitude and more the result of the fact that the dialects really are different. But my Lebanese is fairly limited.

I was trying to point out, and perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, that in the West the word Arab has grown too broad and is used often as a racial epithet (as it is in France). Perhaps in Arabic the use is simple. But in the community of Lebanese that I know many reject the label “Arab” as too broad.

Finally, when I said the media pitted the Arabs against the Israelis, I was trying to point out that the media puts everyone who speaks Arabic (since that is our definition of an Arab) under one neat label to make a story comprehensible. Fine. But the result of that is that many Westerners come to think that everyone in the Middle East worships Allah, sends their sons to battle armed with rocks and prays five times a day facing Mecca. And that isn’t true. Obviously there is a war between Palistineans and Israelis. But the media characterization would have many people believe that Arab = Muslim extremist and that anyone from the Arabian Peninsula to the farthest North Africa (except the Israelis) is ready to start strapping bombs to their bodies.

Tamerlane, I was really just trying to point out the fact that the question of who is an Arab and who is not is far more complicated than most people think. For simplicity’s sake, I accept the definition of an Arab as someone who speaks Arabic. What I object to is an oversimplification of the issues surrounding the word. I agree that my lack of a definition is cumbersome-- as I said I was mainly trying to point out some of the issues surrounding the word “Arab”.

Sorry for the long hijack, back to your regularly scheduled thread about the burning of Persepolis.