Christianity in Persia and the Status of Non-Muslims in Iran
Christianity in Persia and the Status of Non-Muslims in Iran A. Christian van Gorder
LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Plymouth, UK
Published by Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.lexingtonbooks.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data van Gorder, A. Christian. Christianity in Persia and the status of non-muslims in Iran / A. Christian van Gorder. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-3609-6 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-7391-3611-9 (electronic) 1. Christianity—Iran. 2. Islam—Iran. 3. Iran—Religion. I. Title. BR1115.I7G67 2010 275.5—dc22 2009039379
⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America
God has hidden the sea and revealed the foam. God has hidden the wind and revealed the dust. How can the dust rise of itself? Yet, you see the dust and not the wind. How can the foam move without the sea? Yet you see the foam and not the sea. Jalal al-din Rumi Know, O beloved, that humanity was not created in jest or at random, but marvelously made and for some great end. al Ghazali I remember the times of the despot. Those tyrannical times were good and everything was cheap; Life was slow and not interfered with then. Bread cost a farthing a loaf and butter cost four pence a pound. Life was quiet and carefree and no hearts were in disarray. There was only one single robber in the land—the Shah. But now, in every hamlet, on every borough-council and in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate House all of the thieves are called “My Lord” and “My Honor.” Those were the days of liberty—under despotism we were free. Ghulum-Reza Ruhani, b. 1896
Contents
Preface: Reza Safa
ix
Foreword: George Braswell
xiii
Acknowledgments
xvii
Abbreviations of Organizations
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1
Introducing the Land of Persia and Early Persian History
2
Early Persian Religions, Judaism, and Christianity Before Islam
21
The Rise of Islam and the Role of Non-Muslims in Persian Islam
47
4
Types of Islam in Persia and Iran
99
5
Modern Protestant Missionary Efforts in Persia
121
6
Non-Muslims and the Islamic Revolution of 1979
169
7
Contemporary Christianity in Iran
199
8
The Persecution of Protestants in Modern Iran
219
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1
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CONTENTS
Conclusion—The Future of Christian and Muslim Relations in Iran
237
Appendix I: International Organizations Confronting Religious Persecution (2009)
261
Appendix II: Statements from the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights
267
Appendix III: Timeline of Persian History
271
Appendix IV: Chronological List of Rulers in Iran
275
Appendix V: Ethnic and Religious Groups in Iran (1999)
277
Appendix VI: Non-Muslim Religious Minorities
279
Glossary of Arabic and Persian Terms and Names
281
Selected Bibliography
305
Index
321
Preface
The cultural qualities of any people develop over time and are brewed, like fine Persian tea, through the long march of history. The more ancient a culture, the more seasoned and flavored the expression of that culture will become. The nation of Iran is replete with over three thousand years of written history. It is a country that is home to some of the greatest empires that have ever ruled the earth, such as the Achamenians, Sassanians, and Safavids. To generalize about a place like Iran is a common mistake. It is a complex society that is made up of a host of varying belief systems and distinct cultures. In my mind, however, we Iranians do share a few common traits. We Iranians often have a saying that if there are five Iranians in a room, there will usually be at least ten different opinions or ten different suggestions on how to get something done. We Iranians sometimes also warn non-Iranians that they should never be so foolish as to try to tell an Iranian man what to do or how to do something, because he already knows! I am reminded of the elaborate and busy bazaars of the Iran of my youth. My father owned and operated a small but successful little fabric store in the fabric bazaar. As a child, I was always afraid of getting lost in that endless, winding, narrow, covered path while trying to make my way to the safety of my dad’s fabric store. It seemed to me that there must have been thousands and thousands of different shops—one next to the other—but all selling fabrics! The town also had a jewelry bazaar, a carpet bazaar, a spice and produce bazaar, and countless other types of bazaars that all specialized in selling exactly the same things even though they were right next to each other. A non-Persian might ask the question, “How can each vendor make a
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business when each of them sells almost the same kinds of materials?” But this is the Persian way, and it has been the Persian way for centuries. It seems that no one in Iran appreciates being bossed around unless the person making all of the demands is paying a very high amount of money! A glance at our history shows that no foreign military power has been able to rule the Persian people for a very long period of time. Slowly but surely, we will take back what is ours because, at our core, we are free-spirited and refuse to be harnessed like someone’s docile mule. In the West, people tend to analyze Middle Eastern politics based on their own assumptions about the world. One of these assumptions is that religion and politics are to be separate. For a Muslim, however, Islam is more than simply a religious belief about the world to come or how to live a moral life. Islam has been a forceful political system ever since the Prophet Muhammad took the road toward Medina and away from the religious shrines of Mecca. The politics of any Muslim people should be rooted in the original ideology of the seventh-century people of Arabia. Such ideas seem very contradictory to people raised in the West, who tend to reason that political solutions should be found for the future in the present instead of in a distant past. For me as an Iranian, it is amazing to me how flat the media analysis in the West is about the president of modern Iran. Some in the media tend to glorify President Ahmadinejad’s power and emphasize a few statements that this man has made about Israel or the Holocaust. In actual fact, his religious views and the views of his superiors are of far more importance in trying to understand present actions or to predict future choices. In order to evaluate Iran’s current political and religious system correctly, one should carefully consider three major factors that inform the psyche of the people of modern Iran: religious beliefs (mazhab), cultural behaviors and expectations (addab), and the current political context and agenda (seeyasat). Let me provide an example. In the middle of the seventh century Iran was invaded by hostile Arab armies. Some in the West have forgotten that the people of Iran have never been desirous to become Arabs or to embrace Arab culture, and they do not seek to be placed under the dominance of any Arab influence, to put it mildly! These facts explain why Iran readily embraced Shi’ite Islam once it became fully localized and no longer seen as an Arab import. Deep feelings about Arab domination also explain why Iran seems to be, in many respects, quite isolated from the Arab world. The fact that President Ahmadinejad supports a Palestinian state, in this light, should be seen
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more as a protest voice against a “Zionist” Israel than as any deep enthusiasm for an “Arab” Palestine. One of the lessons of history is that Iran has always been central to a host of changing political and military realities. As a Christian, I believe that God has a specific plan for this nation in the future. I base this on the message of the Prophet Jeremiah, who wrote that, at the end of time, God would “set his throne in Elam” (Jeremiah 49:38). Even as Iran once again becomes a key force in the region that the West must confront, people should remember the message of Jeremiah that Persia will be of principal importance at the end of the ages. Iran is also a predominantly Islamic nation that is now experiencing the grace and power of God in new ways. Some believe that as many as three to five million Iranians have come to Christ in Iran over the last decades of Christian radio and now Christian satellite programming into that nation. Our ministry, Nejat TV, began broadcasting Christian programming into Iran six years ago, and since then our phones have not been silent. We receive literally hundreds of calls and emails every single week from all over the nation of Iran from people who want to know more about Christ and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. It is truly a new dawn for Christianity in the nation of Iran today. It is my conviction that God has a special plan for Iran that will dramatically affect Israel and every nation throughout the Muslim world. I feel that believers should know that plan, and this is why knowledge is key. The more we can understand this nation, the better equipped we can become to know God’s purposes and pursue God’s will for the people of Iran. I would like to commend Dr. van Gorder for his thorough research into Iran’s deep history and culture. Reading Christianity in Persia and the Status of Non-Muslims in Iran can open doorways of knowledge that can offer a brighter and more accurate vision of what lies ahead for all of us. Pastor Reza Safa Harvesters World Outreach and Nejat TV
Foreword
Readers of Christianity in Persia and the Status of Non-Muslims in Iran will journey into the rich history and culture of Iran. They will meet with Shahs Cyrus and Darius and learn something about the great Safavid, Qajar, and Pahlavi dynasties. They will meet the Mongol, Turkmen, Ottoman, and Arab invaders of a vast history and will also learn about the history of the religious currents that have swept through Persia: Zoroastrianism, Shi’a Islam, Judaism, the Baha’i Faith, and Christianity as it has been lived by Armenians, Assyrians, and Persians and as it has been taught by Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant missionaries. Reading this book for me brought back pleasant memories of the time that I was preparing to live in Iran and also of my full and fascinating years living in that great nation (1968–1974). As a youth in Sunday school in a Baptist church in Virginia, I remember being intrigued with the Old Testament story of the Persian King Cyrus liberating the Jewish people and the New Testament account of three dedicated Zoroastrian Magi who traveled from such long distances to present their gifts to the baby Jesus. When I was finally able to travel to Iran, one of the first things that I did was travel to a Zoroastrian temple and talk with the Magi in that place about their fascinating faith. I was able to develop a close friendship with those men over the following six years that I was able to live in Teheran. It is sad to me to learn now that many of these same Zoroastrians have suffered persecutions and have lost some of their religious freedoms since the advent of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. I spent six years of my life at the invitation of the dean of the faculty of Islamic theology at the University of Teheran as a teacher
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of comparative religions. Most of my students were young Shi’ite mullahs who were preparing themselves for a lifetime of study and service in masjids and madrassahs around the nation. I not only taught in those six years, but I also learned so much in dozens of masjids and in countless meetings with various Muslim clerics and legal and academic authorities. I listened to more sermons than I can remember and, afterward, often sat on the floor with devout Muslims over a plate of delicious Iranian food. I also have wonderful memories of eating in the homes of the kind families of many of my students. Throughout my years in Iran I was always received with warm kindness, gracious generosity, and the renowned civility of the people of that great nation. In many of these times, and because I was a Christian, we would often talk together about the meaning of the message of Isa (Jesus), and we would share together in the integrity of our two faith traditions. It is hoped that all Christians and Muslims in Iran can return again to that level of amicable and sincere interaction. While I was in Iran I also spent two years at Damavand College. I came to work at this wonderful women’s liberal arts school at the invitation of its president. While I was there I taught courses in sociology and also in the history of Western civilization. This was a meaningful experience for me because it allowed me to learn firsthand about the ongoing struggles that the women of Iran were going through at that time in order to gain a greater degree of freedom, independence, and social responsibility. In the years since that time, the struggle for women’s rights in Iran continues to be a major challenge. Shortly after I arrived in Iran, I organized a church leadership conference in Teheran that was to be attended by pastors and bishops from many Christian communities throughout the Middle East and North Africa. This conference was very fortunate to have a wonderful presentation by Bishop Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, the first native Iranian bishop of the Anglican Church and a former Muslim. Our program of speakers also included the Reverend Iraj Mottahedeh, pastor of St. Luke’s Anglican Church. This book tells of what happened to these faithful Christians after the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution. Both men were severely persecuted and Bishop Dehqani-Tafti’s son was brutally murdered. These are a few of the stories of persecution that Christian van Gorder describes in this book. He is to be greatly commended for writing the story of the faithful Christians of Persia, as sad as this story sometimes becomes because of so many seasons of persecution and martyrdom. His narrative makes a valuable contribution to other
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books of church history that ably recount the privileges and the perils of two millennia of Christians living in Iran. My experience in Iran was a most positive one. Relationships with Shi’ite students and scholars, Persians from the Jewish community, Zoroastrians, Baha’is, and various groups of Christians from many different ethnic backgrounds were all marked by mutual respect. Each person freely shared with the other the integrity of their faith. At the same time that I was there, in the late 1960s and into the mid-1970s, while the political order underwent various challenges, these interfaith relationships remained stable and amicable. I am very grateful that I was able to take advantage of the freedoms of this time to live out my Christian faith with joy and share my experiences with so many friends. Dr. van Gorder expresses the hope for better communication and a deeper sense of mutual respect between peoples of different cultures and religions. He points out that half of the seventy million peoples of Iran today live in urban areas and that 45 percent of these seventy million are under fourteen years of age and 60 percent are under the age of nineteen. These statistics show that the future of Iran will continue to be a time of dramatic change and is clearly in the hands of its young people, who have lived their entire lives within the Islamic republic and probably have never met a Christian missionary of any kind. May the Carpenter and the sons speak wisely and gently to these millions. George W. Braswell Jr., D.D., D.Min., Ph.D. Senior Professor of World Religions (2005–present) Founder/Director of the World Religions and Global Cultures Center Campbell University Divinity School Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Missions and World Religions (1974–2004) Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Acknowledgments
The Devil keeps hammering his subtle persuasions until the learned man becomes convinced that he should set about to teach others. Then the Devil intimates to the scholar, “You should embellish your thoughts with pretty language and impressive conceits. Also play up your qualifications. Otherwise, your words will not have much effect; they won’t reach people’s hearts and they will not succeed in attaining the truth.” al Ghazali He whose foundation is bad will not take instruction from the good; to educate unworthy persons is like throwing nuts on a cupola. Proverb of Sa’di
This research project began in 1993. I first learned to appreciate the nuanced currents of Persian Christianity while working as a researcher at the field offices of Open Doors International in Ermelo, the Netherlands. David Jones and Alan Hall at our offices in the United Kingdom had asked us to tell churches around Ireland to be in prayer for the upcoming trial in Iran of a Pentecostal pastor named Mehdi Dibaj, who had already been imprisoned for a decade because he was an apostate from Islam. When it was announced that Pastor Dibaj was to be executed, I joined colleagues in efforts to reverse this unthinkable decision in fervent prayer. It was a bright, cold, but joyful morning in January of 1994 when word came that Pastor Mehdi Dibaj was being released from a prison
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in Teheran, thanks, mostly, to the work of Bishop Haik HovsepianMehr, but also through the energy of countless Christians worldwide who had prayed and sent thousands of letters to Iran and to their own governments on behalf of Dibaj. Relief turned to sadness when, about six months later, everyone learned that Dibaj had disappeared. His body was found about two weeks later in a public park in Teheran. Another Iranian Christian had died for his faith. One could probably have not gained a finer first impression of the church in Iran than through the dedicated example of Pastor Dibaj, and I have kept a photograph of him since that time to remember his message of faith and the price that he had paid for our shared convictions. In April 2008, I traveled to Iran after decades of research and after visiting a number of Persian Christian communities in exile in a number of countries. I would like to thank Jerry Dekker and Armand Tansanian for their able assistance inside Iran. I would also like to thank Baylor University for providing the financial assistance for this research through a university research grant. My colleagues, such as Ralph Wood, Dan Williams, Lee Nordt, Rady Roldan-Figuero, Jonathan Tran, Abjar Bakhou, Chris Marsh, Charles McDaniels, and Bill Bellinger, as well as my students at Baylor, have been a consistent source of feedback throughout this process. There is a wonderful Persian proverb about scholarship and research: “A donkey with a load of holy books is still a donkey.” I have been fortunate to have the research assistance of Brian Small, Jim Keener, and David Nydegger. Professors Artyom Henryk Tonoyan, Tibra Ali, George Gawyrch, William Baker, Mark Long, and Greg Webb also merit thanks for their input with various questions. I have also appreciated the assistance of Muslim friends and scholars, including Al Siddiq, Muhammad Bahamdun, Ricky Dnani, and Muhammad Alhendawi. I also want to note the support of Jonathan Warner, Mustansir Mir, David Johnston, Jon Hoover, Glenn Sanders, and Kurt Werthmueller, and am deeply grateful to A. H. Matthias Zahniser, my beloved and esteemed Doktor-Vader. Thanks for the kind research assistance of Seta Hadeshian and those at the Middle Eastern Council of Churches in Beirut. I am grateful for the hours of assistance provided by everyone at Lexington Books and especially to the patient and dedicated Jessica Bradfield and Patricia Stevenson. It has been gracious of the faithful scholar and missionary Dr. George Braswell to write the foreword for this book, and of the dedicated author and pastor Reza Safa to agree to write the preface. Both of these colleagues know firsthand, through their lives, the challenges that Persian Christians have experienced and the gifts that they have
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to offer to the worldwide Christian community. Thanks also to my colleagues at Open Doors International such as Alan Hall, Paul Jensen, David Jones, Johann and Anneka Companjien, and, most of all, Ralph Servaas, Klaas Muurling and Steven van’t Slot, who made the problems of Persian Christians their own as they sought to live out, as best as they knew how, the command of scripture to “bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:4). I have been blessed with a beautiful, encouraging wife, Vivian Ndudi, and six healthy and strong children: Tatijana Ezeife, Gretchen Ngozi, Sean Michael, Keegan Joy, Patrick Xavier, and Brendan, the lad from Donaghadee by the sea. This book is dedicated to Brendan Daniel Christian van Gorder because, as I have told him many times before, at the end of the journey, I will have to leave my books to one of my children who becomes a professor of Islamic studies and Muslim and Christian relations, so he might as well step up to the plate. Even if you “go astray” and follow a far less fascinating path, I hope your life will be marked by some of the beautiful fragrances and fabrics from beloved Iran and ancient Persia. I hope you will one day sing a song from your heart at the grave of Sa’di in Shiraz and bow in silent prayer with the birds at Attar’s quiet shrine. Most of all, my prayer for you, my son Brendan, is that through this effort of your father, you will one day retell the stories of our Persian brothers and sisters that belong to all of us and should never be forgotten. There have been countless saints, and most of those names have been lost to us, but a few remain. Brendan, you were born in the year that our Pastor Mehdi Dibaj was murdered. Never forget, Brendan, that your Christian faith comes to you through a high price paid by those who have gone before you. Tell the story to your children and your grandchildren of those who have shown us all the truth of how our valuable faith is to be cherished. Tell it in your own energetic words, but tell it with feeling, and tell it at the point of tears. Never forget, Brendan, the name and legacy of a Pentecostal pastor who once lived in Iran named Mehdi Dibaj. A. Christian van Gorder, April 30, 2009.
Abbreviations of Organizations
ABCFM ABS APOC BFBS DFI ICI IKI IMB IRP LMI MCC MECC NCR NDF NIOC ODI OM OPEC PMOI SAVAK SECI SNC TMTC UPC USCIRF
American Board of Christian Foreign Missions American Bible Society Anglo-Persian Oil Company British and Foreign Bible Society World Council of Churches Sub-Unit on Dialogue with Living Faiths and Ideologies International Christians Incorporated Imam Khomeini Institute, Qom International Mission Board (Southern Baptist) Islamic Revolutionary Party Liberation Movement of Iran Mennonite Central Committee Middle East Council of Churches National Council of Resistance National Democratic Front National Iranian Oil Company Open Doors International Operation Mobilization Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran The Shah’s Secret Police. Synod of Evangelical Churches of Iran Secretariat for Non-Christians, Vatican II Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre United Presbyterian Church United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
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WCC WEC YWAM
ABBREVIATIONS OF ORGANIZATIONS
World Council of Churches Worldwide Evangelization Crusade Youth with a Mission International
1
Introducing the Land of Persia and Early Persian History
The start of a journey into Persia resembles an algebraic equation—it may or may not come out. Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana (1937) Anyone who knows, and knows that he knows, makes the steed of intelligence leap over the vault of heaven. Anyone who does not know but knows that he does not know, can bring his lame little donkey to the destination nonetheless. Anyone who does not know, and does not know that he does not know, is stuck forever in double ignorance. Nasr al-din Tusi, Persian poet (1201–1274)
INTRODUCING IRAN How should one consider Iran? Who are the Iranians? How does Persian history affect present realities? How does religion today affect the way that Iranians view the world?1 Does history show Iranians generally to be a tolerant or a militant nation? What is the experience of Christians and other non-Muslims in Iran today and throughout Persian history? Many Europeans and North Americans approach these questions with a host of preconceptions. Richard Frye states that “Persia in the mind of the West today is conceived as the center of archvillains who support and finance terrorism against the West.”2 Many of these stereotypes are driven by orientalist scholars, recent political experiences, or media pasquinades rooted in military and economic
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considerations. Iran is a complicated nation with a dramatic history that defies easy generalizations. Its paradoxes and contradictions are often overlooked. Few non-Iranians genuinely struggle to understand Iran in all of its complexity. Since the revolution of 1979, only a small number of European and North American scholars and political and social commentators have visited Iran, and even fewer have spent significant amounts of time living in Iran. What lenses should a non-Persian or a non-Shi’ite Muslim use to better appreciate modern Iran? How different people view another culture or another religion relates to a wide range of factors, perceived and implicit. This effort, intended for a general readership that may, or may not, have any prior knowledge about Iran, focuses on only one small area of intercultural interaction: Muslim and Christian relations in Iran past and present. It is hoped that this research will positively contribute to a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the complicated world that is Iran. As a Christian, my intention is that this study will enable Christians and Muslims worldwide to appreciate the fascinating story and the extensive contributions that Christians have made to Persian culture throughout the last two thousand years. As a North American, I hope that this book will contribute to improved communication and a deeper sense of mutual respect between people of these different cultures and countries. Perhaps this book might also encourage other students and scholars to probe more deeply into the specific episodes that this work briefly introduces. Understanding Iran is a daunting task. Those foreigners, and there were many, who lived in Iran during the era when the last shah of Iran was in power were there for a host of reasons.3 Foreigners came to Iran as missionaries, business opportunists, military consultants, students and teachers, or, most commonly, employees of the oil industry. These Westerners perceived Iran through their own limited lenses and rarely worked to bridge the vast gulf that existed between their own interests and the day-to-day concerns of millions of average Iranians simply struggling to survive. On the other hand, Iranian perceptions of North Americans and Europeans are also clearly defined along political constructs rooted in the assumption that foreigners are a largely unsympathetic threat. Latent distrust for both proselytizing Christianity and the aggressive West has combined to create a toxic mix of alarm and rising disenchantment.4 Such gaps, Muslim and Christian, East and West, rich and poor, will not vanish with the wave of a hopeful wand. Patient scholarship and a wide range of varying interactions over time are the only ways to bridge these gaps in our mutual mis-
INTRODUCING THE LAND OF PERSIA
3
understandings. Our perceptions of each other are often unfair, and our expectations of each other are often unrealistic. There is plenty of room for intercultural progress. Iran is an ancient land that, for millennia, was known as Persia.5 The country sits atop a lofty elevated plateau with an average height of about three thousand feet above sea level. Iran is set between the Caspian Sea to the north and the Persian Gulf to the south. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the sixteenth largest nation in the world and shares borders with seven different neighbors. The center of the country is made up of a desert plateau surrounded by a lofty mountain chain. Massoume Price describes the nation as a “complex of mountain chains encircling a series of interior basins.”6 These mountains begin in the Caucuses and in Turkey and spread as far as the plains of the Punjab in India. Agrarian civilizations have flourished alongside the rivers that come from these mountains. Despite these small rivers, however, there is only one navigable waterway in the entire country, the Karun, which is 520 miles long from the lofty Zagros Mountains in the northwest until it flows into the Persian Gulf. Primarily, autocratic governments have ruled Persia for the past five thousand years. Throughout this period, the boundaries of the country have frequently shifted. The centrality of Iran to a number of other thriving civilizations has long made the region important for her neighbors. This has been an asset in times of economic prosperity but also a serious liability when wars with neighboring nation-states transformed Persian territory into a vast battleground. Abbas Maleki notes that “Iran’s geographical position made it the bridge for communication by land between far eastern Asia, China and India, and the African and European lands.”7 The fabled Silk Road passed through Persia as it wound its way toward the bazaars of Central Asia and Western China. Today, Iran enjoys a central geopolitical position of influence between the potential economic powers of Central and East Asia and the ancient civilizations of the Middle East. Iranian culture is changing rapidly from a rural to an urban base. Today, over half of Iran’s seventy million people live in her cities. Since most of Iranian land is arid, the population faces frequent challenges and has often been forced to resort to manmade water supplies. For centuries, an ingeniously creative water supply system of qanats (or underground canals) was built which was able to capture water from underground water tables and carry water to nearby fields needing irrigation. Deep wells are also ubiquitous. M. M. Salehi claims that Iran’s arid climatic conditions have forged the “core of Persian culture
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and personality” which includes a willingness to embrace political and religious centralized despotism in exchange for essential agrarian aid.8 Iran, today, is a nation of young people, and almost 45 percent of its seventy million citizens are under fourteen years of age while 60 percent are under nineteen years of age.9 The country is well-educated with compulsory instruction for all citizens from age seven until the end of secondary school. The republic enjoys a literacy rate of close to 87–94 percent and almost all Iranians have at least finished the fifth grade in their public education.10 Many Iranians study English and pay for private tutors in a wide range of academic disciplines. Learning has always been highly valued among Persian cultures. Modern Iranian politicians frequently assert that there are now no ethnic problems within Iran. Indeed, ethnic rivalries are much less pronounced than in past centuries, but significant cultural divisions and distinctions remain. Massoume Price states that 51 percent of all Iranians are non-Persians.11 A majority of Iranians are of Aryan descent—originally from India—and are not Arabs or Arabic speakers. Some Arabs remain in Khuzistan, but they constitute only about 3 percent of the national mosaic. The independent Turkmen people of the north make up another 2 percent of the population. There are almost three million Kurds in Iran, but the largest minority is the Azeris in the north who comprise almost 20 percent of the national population. One can also find Baluchis, Jews, Armenians, Chaldeans, and other minorities in Iran. Edward Said reports that many minority groups, such as “Azerbaijanis, Baluchis, Kurds, Arabs, and others” are “stifled” by the state structures of dominance.12 There may well remain some undercurrents of division, but, in modern Iran, most public expressions of ethnic tensions are kept locked under tight control. Each of Iran’s minority groups cherishes its own distinct language. The largest (and official) language of Iran, Persian (Farsi), is an ancient language with roots in the Indian subcontinent. Persian also shares many linguistic and grammatical links with modern European languages.13 A number of other languages, such as Armenian, Kurdish, or ancient Chaldean, are also widely spoken throughout Iran. The fact that Persians have been able to maintain their cultures and languages is amazing given the countless numbers of strong invaders who have ravaged their nation throughout the millennia. Political stability and frequent interactions with the larger world do not describe modern Iran. Newspapers in North America and Europe are often filled with portentous fears about the possibility of Iran’s developing nuclear weapons and about its willingness to start wars, either directly or indirectly, against Israel or the United States.14 Iran, at
INTRODUCING THE LAND OF PERSIA
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the time of this writing, is under the political leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, according to Yossi Melman and Meir Javedanfar, is a “strong believer in conspiracy theories,” including ideas that the Danish cartoons which mocked the Prophet Muhammad were a “Zionist inspired plot against Islam.”15 These views, along with his disdain for the Zionists of Israel, led Ahmadinejad to convene a conference in December 2006 with the world’s leading advocates of denial that the Nazi Holocaust ever occurred. The Iranian economy is gradually recovering from the devastating aftereffects of the Iran-Iraq War which slowed to an inconclusive stalemate in 1988. The government controls most economic sectors, including the major airline and shipping agents, the largest oil company, and all significant media outlets within the country. The Iranian economy has also had to survive a series of stringent trade embargos because of its strident political positions. In spite of these embargoes, the oil economy continues to bring floods of revenue into the country. Petroleum, which was first drilled in Iran in 1908, remains the country’s primary source of revenue.16 Other natural resources are exported, including copper and natural gas. Huge pipelines are now being constructed to export natural gas to the countries of the former Soviet Union. For many Iranians, little has changed for decades on a stagnating economic front. Much of the Iranian populace remains reliant upon subsistence agricultural production for its tenuous livelihood.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF EARLY PERSIAN HISTORY The country of Iran is one of the oldest in the world and has some of the richest cultural traditions of any nation in human history. Many of the grandiose events, written across the pages of Persian history, are retold in the beloved epic Shahmeneh or Book of the Kings, written in Persian by Firdausi (or Ferdowsi).17 For over thirty years (ca. 935–1020) this elegist sought to retell over a thousand years of colorful Persian history with special attention to Rostam (and his son Sohrab), the great defender of Persian culture against the first Arab invaders.18 These dramatic epics written in skillful poetic verse read like compelling narratives from the ancient Persian Book of a Thousand Tales which might have first been told at the makeshift stages of caravanserai along the ancient Silk Road.19 The architecture, literature, poetry, paintings, calligraphy, music, ceramic, and folk arts of Persia are some of the most splendid in the
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world. The boundaries of the ancient Persian kingdoms reached far beyond the demarcations that define modern-day Iran to stretch into the Caucasus and Iraq in the west, Afghanistan in the east, and Central Asia in the northeast. The history of the region, in the words of Mohssen Massarrat, is marked by “tribal campaigns of conquest and the establishment of new relationships of rule and loyalty over other tribes of varying ethnic origins, languages, religions, and cultures.”20 Iran throughout its long, colorful history has been controlled by Persians, Arabs, Mongols, Turkmen, Afghans, and many other lesser-known ethnic and tribal groups. People have lived in Iran since the time of the Old Stone Age, about one hundred thousand years ago. Archaeological evidence indicates that human life existed in the Paleolithic Era, and Neolithic Era findings are continuous beginning around 9000 B.C.E. In one Sumerian settlement, archaeologists unearthed the “remains of the world’s oldest wine-jar complete with grape residue and traces of resin that were used as a flavoring and preservative, indicating that the wine would have tasted something like Greek retsina.”21 Semi-nomadic peoples and cattle breeders began arriving from the Indian subcontinent into Persia (shortly before 6000 B.C.E.) and developed a unique dialect and culture. The cities of Susa and Elam were constructed on the Susanian plain near Iraq (Mesopotamia) around 3900 B.C.E. Tribal groups came from modern-day India to the west of Iran and invaded a languishing Babylonian empire. The independent state of Elam was able to defeat Assyrian and Babylonian powers and capture fabulous treasures from these realms as plunder around 2000 B.C.E. At the same time, massive migrations began to take place throughout the entire region. People had been coming in successive waves from the Indian subcontinent and from Central Asia to the rich Iranian plateau.22 Extensive agricultural and trading communities were established in Fars, to the south, which resulted in the development of a distinct linguistic and religious culture. By 1000 B.C.E., Iranian people groups had formed states in oasis communities wherever water was available. One of these tribes, the Medes, progressively gained political ascendancy. Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis notes that “the first definite mention of an Iranian tribe, the Medes, occurs in ninth century B.C.E. Assyrian texts.”23 The Medes were unrelenting warriors who settled first in the Hamadan valley before spreading across Khurasan in northern Persia. At first, they were a loose confederation of states and posed no real military threat to the Assyrians. Gradually that began to change, and, in about 670 B.C.E., when the Babylonians overran the Assyrians in
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612 B.C.E., the Medes were already established as a powerful, organized empire. The other main ethnic group, the Persians, settled in the province of Fars. A Mede and Persian political-military coalition coalesced to form the Achaemenian Kingdom. This dynasty ruled over an immense empire for half a millennia and spread from modern-day Afghanistan to Turkey. The Achaemenians were the first truly Persian empire, and they ruled from about 559 or 558 until 330 B.C.E. Their dream was to build a powerful dominion from northern India to Greece with colossal armies, inexhaustible wealth, and passionately practiced religious conviction. The Achaemenid Kingdom is primarily known for the rule of Cyrus the Great who became the king of Fars and anointed himself the “king of kings.” Within a few years, Cyrus (modern Persian, Kurosh) conquered a sweeping empire that ranged from Pakistan all the way to the Mediterranean coast. In 549 B.C.E., Cyrus seized the Medean capital of Ecbatana (modern day Hamadan) and ten years later came to the high walls of Babylon and entered the city as a liberator, sparing the population (a rare show of mercy in that era). Cyrus unified the lands under his control and had a policy of tolerance for the religious and cultural differences among his citizenry that became a trademark of his reign. He ruled with deftness over at least thirty different ethnic groups and established an elaborate administrative structure that included satrapies (provinces) where each governor that he appointed was obligated to collect tribute. In 529 B.C.E., Cyrus died in battle at the hands of Queen Tomyris of the Massagetae, east of the Caspian Sea.24 Cyrus was succeeded to the throne by his son Cambyses (Kambojiya) who continued his father’s military prowess by conquering Egypt. While in Egypt, Cambyses heard of a rebellion against his authority in Persia. He died suddenly and unexpectedly in 522 B.C.E.—perhaps by suicide or through intrigue. The confederates against Cambyses were led by Darius the First (Daryavaush). When Darius became king he organized an excellent administrative structure to preside over twenty-three different provinces under the direction of the twin governmental and religious cities of Susa and Persepolis. Darius subjugated the Indus valley in 512 B.C.E. but died in 486 B.C.E. He was succeeded by his son Xerxes (Khashayarsha). Greek historian Herodotus claims that Xerxes took two million soldiers with him to attack Athens in 480 B.C.E. While Xerxes was able to overthrow Athens and kill the Spartan King Leonidas in Thermopylae, his fleet was trounced at Salamis, and Xerxes had to withdraw back to Persian soil. Xerxes died in 465 B.C.E. and was
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followed by his son Artaxerxes (Artakhshatra) who governed for over forty years. The biblical stories of Ezra and Nehemiah took place during this era. The annals of the Jewish people record stories of their relations with these exalted Persian kings. This is because, since about 727 B.C.E., Jews had been residing in Mesopotamia after they had been brought to the area as slaves by Assyrian (and, later, Babylonian) kings (2 Kings 18:11). There is one Jewish legend, however, which claims that the first Jew to enter Persia was actually Sarah bat Asher, a granddaughter of the Patriarch Joseph.25 What is certain is that a series of expulsions from Israel and Judah occurred in 586 B.C.E. with the cataclysmic destruction of Jerusalem. The Persian King Cyrus is known in Jewish history as a messiah and liberator of the Jewish people (Isaiah 44:25–28; 45:1–4) because he freed them from the grinding weight of Babylonian domination.26 In spite of a visit to the Lion’s Den and the oppressive actions of Prince Haman, the biblical stories of the prophet Daniel and Queen Esther show the Jewish people living in relative peace in the lands of the Medes and the Persians.27 Under the Achaemenid rule the Jews of Persia were usually free to practice their religion in exchange for their loyalty to the throne.28 Jews had authority to establish their own courts and legal codes in conjunction with Achaemenid civil law. Ezra and Nehemiah, biblical writers and statesmen, served in the Achaemenid court. The Jewish community flourished under such acceptance. Judaism‘s encounter with Persia also may have dramatically changed their own religion in a number of theological and doctrinal ways, including introducing new ideas about the afterlife, about Satan, and about a promised political Messiah.29 James Barr claims that such views are not surprising given the fact that “the Jews lived for about two centuries under the Pax Persia and some of their most important books were written at that time.”30 The Achaemenian Empire was a time of cultural transition. It was during Achaemenian rule, around 400 B.C.E., that the Kurds, a warring mountainous tribal people, are mentioned for the first time in written history.31 It is also when the people who live in what is now called Azerbaijan and Armenia begin their long relationships with Persia.32 After many wars with Romans and Greeks, the Armenians fought the Persians but were unable to win their independence and became a Persian province. In an effort to win over the will of the Armenians, the Persians initiated a number of royal marriage alliances and shared their religious and cultural legacies with the Armenian people. The Achaemenians were skillful politicians, warriors, and master builders,
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and they raised the vaunted cities of Persepolis and Pasargadae. The stately tombs that were carved for their kings into the rocks and cliffs of these cities still remain to this day.33 The Achaemenian Empire eventually fell to Alexander the Great who captured Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis between 330–325 B.C.E.34 Alexander was the son of Philip II of Macedonia who had trained his child in the school of the great philosopher Aristotle. According to the Greek historian Eratosthenes (276–194 B.C.E.), Alexander “believed that he had a mission from God to harmonize men generally and to be the reconciler of the world.”35 His brief rule certainly brought an extensive interchange of cultures and religions which forever changed their characters. Alexander called himself an Achaemenian king and married several Persian princesses, including the legendary Roxana of Bactria. He prompted his soldiers to intermarry and settle in Persia. Persians, however, do not always remember his conquering prowess in a charitable light. The Greek king ravaged many of the treasures of the Achaemenian Empire and countless holy artifacts of the Mazdaen state religion. Zoroastrian historical records claim that Alexander slaughtered scores of magi and extinguished the holy flames at thousands of temples. In fact, Alexander the Great is the only human being in Zoroastrian writings who merits a title which is usually reserved only for devils and demons—guzastag—“the accursed.”36 Alexander’s untimely death marked the dawn of new empires. His vast realms were divided into smaller kingdoms led by various military leaders. The region of Persia was gradually conquered by one of Alexander’s generals, Seleucos Nicator of Phrygia (312–281 B.C.E.), based in Babylonia. Seleucos also consolidated his control over much of Asia Minor. His reign, and those of his followers, the Hellenistic Seleucid Dynasty, flourished in the region until about 250 B.C.E. The Seleucids were progressively weakened and finally overthrown by the repeated pillaging efforts of the invading Parthians. The Parthians, a northern Iranian nomadic tribe of warrior horsemen, came to power in 250 B.C.E. and ruled Persia for almost five centuries until 240 C.E.37 They were uproarious soldiers and dexterous archers. The Parthian Empire extended from the Euphrates River in Babylonia to Herat in Afghanistan. Parthian armies marched as far as Syria and Israel exacting tribute. Their primary rivals were the Romans whom the Parthians challenged in a series of inconclusive wars.38 The fall of the Parthians, however, came not from external forces but from internal political squabbling. The Parthians were mostly Zoroastrians but were usually ambivalent about other religious traditions. Jewish writers chronicle an era of
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peace and prosperity under Parthian rule. It was during Parthian rule that Christianity first arose in the Middle East. The Zoroastrian magi mentioned in the New Testament probably came from Persia, and the book of Acts mentions that Parthians were present on the day of Pentecost at the foundation of the Christian Church (Acts 2:9).
METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS This research primarily focuses on Muslim and Christian relations in Iran. I have tried to frame this story within the broader context of Persia’s enchanting history and multivalent cultures. Appreciating this historical context will better facilitate analysis. It is instructive, for example, to appreciate the various ways in which nationalistic governments in Persia have often equated the Christian religion with the foreign military and political ambitions of the Roman and Byzantine Empires. This explains why, in certain periods, religious persecution has been unleashed against the nation’s Christians. How many non-Muslims reside in Iran today? Because the nation’s population is overwhelmingly Islamic, it is not easy to get an accurate answer to this question from unbiased sources. What is certain is that there were between 276,000 and 310,000 Christians in Iran at the time of the 1979 revolution and that at least half of that number has since fled the country.39 This means that Christians in Iran now only constitute somewhere between 2 and 4 percent of Iran’s entire population.40 Iran is often described as the easternmost region of the Middle East. The term, however, is not particularly useful because it is too generalized, so the terms Persian and Iranian will be used interchangeably, although this is sometimes meant to include Armenian, Chaldean, Kurdish, and Arab Christians or Muslims living within Iran. Terms pose a unique problem in this study because of the wide variance of spelling. There are many examples: The term Sasanian, for example, is often spelled “Sassanian” in English-language sources. The capital of Iran is usually referred to as Tehran but in this text will be cited as Teheran. Even though this spelling is less frequent in English, some argue that it may actually more closely approximate the Farsi pronunciation.41 My intent in this process has been simply to be consistent in hopes of avoiding unnecessary confusion. The breathtaking extent of Persian cultural and religious expression is profound, and this book is designed to be an introduction to the region and to the interfaith interactions of Muslims and Christians to readers who may not be well-versed in either the Persian context or
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the unique experiences of these two faiths and their intriguing interactions. Iran is an intensely religious country which has given the world a host of unique religions and even a host of basic concepts, such as “paradise,” which have shifted into other world religious traditions.42 I have tried, either in the text or in notations, to provide some salient context, which means that I will briefly mention other religions, mainly Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and the Baha’i Faith, to show how their experiences with Shi’a Islam have paralleled or contradicted the experiences of Christians in Persia. Perspective is another factor which should be considered in any thematic survey of this nature. I write as a North American Baptist with the Pentecostal sensibilities of the African American church. It is often the case that studies on Muslim and Christian interactions written by Christians are seen as “attacks from the outside” and are “received by Muslims with suspicion and sometimes hostility.”43 It has been my intent, however, to introduce Islamic ideals and themes in as positive and sympathetic a light as possible. In any event, I hope Muslim readers will forgive any lack of nuance and contact the author to assist my deeper appreciation of the themes and concepts in which I have not represented Shi’ite Islam as they feel it should be presented. Another consideration that research for this book has had to address is the ways in which orientalist assumptions drive European and North American scholarship about Persia. I am deeply indebted to all of those non-Persian scholars in this area who have gone before me, and yet, in this process, I have been repeatedly obligated to step back from what I have been reading and consider again the mental outlook of the writer and how that perspective positively or negatively contributes to helping people gain as accurate a picture as possible of Persian Christianity and its relation with Shi’ite Islam in Iran. When possible, I have sought to rely on recent texts which, one hopes, may be more sensitive to such concerns, and also to rely on Persian or Muslim authors. Iran poses unique questions for contemporary Western scholarship. The nation is often presented in the worst possible light imaginable. While it is true that Iran generates 75 percent of the world’s executions even though it makes up only 1 percent of the world’s population, such facts should not cause us to assume that the present religiously zealous government provides a mirror representation of the attitudes of its citizens. Iran is much more than a captive nation of veiled women, brusque ayatollahs, menacing plans for nuclear weapons, or incendiary remarks from an unbalanced president. It also is a country with environmental activists, groups like Students Seeking Freedom and
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Equality, moderates, and dedicated campaigners in a women’s movement for social change.44 How can non-Iranian scholars responsibly present data in a context where there is little access and frequent hostility toward international media sources?45 Accounts speaking for religious minorities in Iran, for example, cannot always be relied upon to be objective. Both Western and Iranian sources are often motivated by political polarization. How can these accounts be trusted? In spite of these concerns, the stories of those who are suffering need to be told in the hopes that their presentation will encourage further scrutiny and consideration. I have tried to include as many Iranian perspectives as possible in this research. What is most needed, at the initial phase of consideration, is background information which should help to provide a fuller picture of the situation. Establishing a historical foundation for appreciating the Christian experience in Persia is not only prescient for the present, but also these stories contain consequential lessons in and of themselves for the study of Muslim and Christian interactions. Griffiths writes, “Now is the time for Westerners to consider the lessons to be learned from the experience of Christians who have lived in the world of Islam for centuries.”46 At the same time, the sobering recitations of the past offer sparse and meager ground for any deliriously optimistic expectations about future Muslim and Christian interactions within Iran. We are wise to proceed realistically, while also holding forth a measure of hope that these interactions can stabilize and improve in a very uncertain future. What is undeniable is that the presence of Christians in Iran has created within the life of Persia an ongoing conversation that continues into the present and provides a unique, rich expression of global Christianity. When Islam, another foreign religion from the children of Abraham, enters Persia, there are even further fascinating cultural transformations. It is the task of historical interfaith analysis to find the ways in which the intellectual and philosophical cultures of both Persian Christianity and Persian Islam are dynamically interrelated. This book introduces some of those unique contributions to both Persian Islam and Persian Christianity. One further reminder needs emphasis: There are as many variant experiences of being Shi’ite or Muslim as there are of being Christian, Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox. There are as many divergent ways of being an Iranian as there are of being a Canadian, a Bengali, or an Irishman. Societies often structure themselves with distinct patterns, and this is certainly the case within Iran. In some ways, outsiders lack even the capacity to appreciate certain deeply cherished worldview assumptions, but, at other times, our perceptual divides can be eased by
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the reminder that all of us share experiences and concerns as mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, which can provide an ample shared space in which our conversations can be mutually beneficial and instructive. The focus of this book is on the interactions that Christians have had with Muslims in Persia historically and in modern Iran. The contextualization of present problems are best discussed in light of the historical record of the ways in which Persian Christians have related to people of other faith traditions in their homeland. In addition, in the words of Aidan Nicholls, “church history can be a privileged means of access to the inner truth of a Christian confession.”47 Christians in Persia are far more than a historical footnote; they are a living entity and present-day witness for the Christ of God. Learning about their testimony through the ages has certainly been a humbling inspiration to this author. Many of the same problems that Muslims and Christians face in their global interactions with each other are also present in the Persian context. John Esposito remarks that the similarities between these two faiths have invariably “put the two on a collision course.”48 Fear and ignorance have marked much of the Muslim and Christian interaction worldwide. Both transnational religions often claim to preach the ultimate, universal truth, and both are often dedicated missionary religions which promise paradise and warn of a fiery hell. Historically, both traditions have often chosen to remain relationally apart from each other, although there have been a few bright exceptions through the centuries. It is a puzzling, engaging relationship, and I have immensely enjoyed both the research on this topic, and interactions with Persian Christians in Iran, Europe, and North America. NOTES 1. One of the few empirical and comparative studies on this question was published in 2002. See Ghorbani, Nima, P. J. Watson, Framarz Ahad, Ronald J. Morris, and Ralph W. Hood. “Muslim-Christian Religious Orientation Scales: Distinctions, Correlations, and Cross-Cultural Analysis in Iran and the United States.” International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, volume 12, number 2, 2002, pages 69–91. 2. Frye, Richard N. “Persia in the Mind of the West.” Islam and ChristianMuslim Relations. Volume 14, number 4, October 2003, page 406. Frye also notes that in the pre-1979 era the people of Persia were often compared with the French, “in both positive and negative features, so it is not surprising that this generality has emerged in writings of Westerners about Persia,” (403).
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3. Michael Axworthy writes: “There were Americans everywhere in Teheran in the 1970s. Author and professor James A. Bill has estimated that between 800,000 and 950,000 Americans lived in or visited Iran between 1944 and 1979 and that the number resident there increased from fewer than 8,000 in 1970 to nearly fifty thousand in 1979. Ten thousand were employed in defense industries around Isfahan alone. There were of course some Americans living in Teheran who made an effort to understand the country but many did not” (Axworthy, Michael, Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran. New York: Basic Books, 2008, page 248). Axworthy notes that only American citizens could attend Teheran’s American school or be treated at the American hospital. Iranian hospital staff could not speak Persian and had to eat in the janitor’s room. 4. Religion has always played a large role in the political misconceptions that devout Muslim Iranians have had about the focus of American foreign policy. This can be proven through the various statements that the Ayatollah Khomeini has made about the role of religion in the United States. Iranians, for example, were aware that presidents such as Nixon and Ford placed their hands on the Bible and made an oath to God to serve justice. They saw the shah of Iran make the same public expressions of religion. When Jimmy Carter, an openly evangelical Christian and devout Sunday school teacher, arrived on the scene, he claimed that his faith led him to work for human rights. This led to hope among some Iranians who hoped for a change from the Nixon-Ford policy of ignoring human rights abuses inside Iran. When it came to the human rights of the people of Iran, however, Carter was not interested in challenging the shah’s totalitarianism and indeed supported it by increasing arms sales and welcoming the shah to the White House as a distinguished guest. Carter also traveled to Iran where he warmly praised the relationship between the shah and his citizens. The mixture of religion and politics, in this context, encouraged some Iranians to see America as being both anti-Iranian and antiIslamic. When speaking of Israel, the ayatollah would often point out the religious implications of the fact that little American assistance, at the time, was forthcoming to tens of millions of Arab Muslims in the region, while so much attention went to supporting the three million citizens of Israel. 5. The term “Persia” comes from the word “Pars,” which is the name of the southwestern province of Iran along the Persian Gulf. The Arabs, with no “p” in their phonetics, referred to the country as Fars. The term “Farsi,” which is the name for the ancient language of Persia, comes from this Arabic term. Local people called their country Iran meaning the “land of the Aryans” for millennia before it became the official name for the country in 1935. 6. Price, Massoume. Iran’s Diverse People: A Reference Sourcebook. Santa Barbara, California: ABC Clio, 2005, page 1. 7. Maleki, Abbas, “Iran’s Northeastern Borders: From Sarakhs to Khazar (the Caspian Sea),” in The Boundaries of Modern Iran. McLachlan, Keith, editor. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, page 11. 8. Salehi, M.M. Insurgency through Culture and Religion: The Islamic Revolution of Iran. New York: Praeger, 1988, page 13. Salehi’s argument notes
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that many of the sources of water in feudal times were under the control of those who had the wealth to maintain them. Land without water was not of much value, but irrigation networks forced people to work together and rely on the kindness of others. Further, skilled and trained workers were needed to maintain and annually repair these irrigation networks, and these requirements further made local populations beholden to those wealthy political elite who were able to maintain these effectively. Lastly, the wide open plains of Iran made them vulnerable to military raids and attacks which necessitated that farmers gain the protection of an external lord. All of these factors gave these lords almost total control over the people who were dependent upon him and strengthened the power of a feudal lord. No disobedience or disloyalty was to be tolerated, and any opposition was usually met with brutal force. Salehi’s point is that the social systems of premodern Iran, based on water availability, create deeply rooted communitarian assumptions about the benefits of despotism. 9. Bailey, Betty Jane, and J. Martin, Who Are the Christians in the Middle East? Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publications, 2003, page 159. 10. Price, 321. 11. Price, 321. Price goes on to state, “The government is well aware of the hostility and problems imposed by such (repressive) trends among the younger generation. It has taken a few steps to reduce tensions and ease living conditions but with little success” (Price, 322). 12. Said, Edward. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. New York: Vintage Books, 1997 (1981), page 63. 13. Axworthy (1) observes: Any speaker of a European language who is learning Persian soon encounters a series of familiar words: pedar (father—Latin, pater); dokhtar (daughter—German, tochter); mordan (to die—Latin, mortuus; French, mourir, le mort); nam (name); dar (door); and, perhaps the most familiar of all, the first-person present and singular of the verb “to be,” the suffix -am (I am—as in the sentence “I am an Iranian: Irani-am). An English speaker who has attempted to learn German will find Persian grammar both familiar and blessedly simple by comparison. There are no genders or grammatical cases for nouns. Persian, like English, has evolved since ancient times into a simplified form, dropping the heavily inflected grammar of Old Persian.
14. The East-West Institute released a study on May 20, 2009, reporting that “a group of U.S. and Russian scientists say Iran could produce a simple nuclear device in one to three years and develop a nuclear warhead in another five years.” Waco-Tribune Herald, May 20, 2009, 6A. 15. Melman, Yossi and Meir Javedanfar. The Nuclear Sphinx of Teheran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran. New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2007, page 53. 16. The Australian oil prospector William Knox D’Arcy began explorations for oil in 1901 after his agent bought rights to look for oil throughout the country except for the five northernmost provinces. The agreement was to pay the Qajar rulers twenty thousand British pounds up front and 16 percent of
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the profits for the next sixty years. Oil was discovered in 1908, and the AngloPersian Oil Company (APOC) was formed in 1909. APOC built its first oil refinery in Abadan before World War I but the war curtailed its efforts. When drilling resumed after World War I the results were quite profitable but, since little of the profits went to Iranians, foreigners became the focus of particular resentment. The APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in 1933. In a 1954 agreement, the United States entered the oil industry in Iran in a joint partnership with the dissolved AIOC and reformulated NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company). 17. Axworthy (87) writes: “The great themes of the Shahmeneh are the exploits of proud heroes on horseback with lance and bow, their conflicts of loyalty between their conscience and their kings, their affairs with feisty women who are as slim as cypresses and radiant as the moon, and royal courts full of fighting and feasting—razm o bazm.” Axworthy goes on to say, “The Shahmeneh has had a significance in Persian culture comparable to that of Shakespeare in English or the Lutheran Bible in German only perhaps more so—it has been a central text in education and in many homes, second only to the Qur’an and the great fourteenth-century poet Hafez” (87). 18. During one battle Rostam wounds an opponent that he discovers, too late, to be his son Sohrab whom he had with a Turan girl. In this way, Sohrab is sacrificed for the Persian nation. Firdausi writes of this event: This was the fate allotted to me. The heavens gave my key into your hand it’s not your fault. It was this hunchback fate such is decreed by the stars that I am slain by my father.
From the Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam, translated by Jerome W. Clinton. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996, page 151. 19. The Persian book Hazar Afsaneh (Book of a Thousand Tales) is the precursor to the classic book of stories called One Thousand and One Nights (in Arabic, alf-Layla wa Layla), which is from Arabia and includes beloved stories from Arabia, Persia, Turkey, Egypt, and Mesopotamia such as “The Adventures of Sinbad,” “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves,” and “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp.” The Arabic version came to Europe during the Middle Ages but was not completely translated until Antoine Galland made a French translation in the eighteenth century and Edward Lane and Sir Richard Burton wrote English translations in the nineteenth century. The same story that frames the Arabian version also provides the outline for the earlier Persian book, Book of a Thousand Tales. It is a story of Sasanian kings Shahzaman and Shahriyar who are both brothers who rule from Samarkand and India and China. Both kings discover that their wives have been unfaithful and decide to take a new wife every night and have her beheaded in the morning. Finally, one woman, the vizier’s daughter named Dinazad, tells a story to King Shahriyar every evening and thus is allowed to live and become queen. Most of the stories in the Arabic version first appear in the Persian narrative.
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20. Mohssen Massarrat, “The Idealogical Context of the Iran-Iraq War: Pan-Islamism versus Pan-Arabism” in Amirhamdi, Hooshang, and Nader Entessar, editors. Iran and the Arab World. London: St. Martin’s Press, 1993, page 36. 21. Axworthy, 2. The archaeological site is called Hajji Firoz Tepe, near the Zargos Mountains. 22. Currents of migration moved in both directions in terms of Central Asia. Peimani reports that “the domination of Iranian peoples over Central Asia began in the second millennium B.C. However, the region was incorporated into the Iranian empire of the Achaemenids only around the sixth century B.C.” Peimani, Hooman. Regional Security and the Future of Central Asia: The Competition of Iran, Turkey, and Russia. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Books, 1998, page 23. 23. Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh. Persian Myths: The Legendary Past. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1993, page 8. The Assyrian Empire collapsed in 612 B.C.E. 24. Herodotus (Book 1:216) states that the Massagetae, a warring Iranian tribe, may have established a polyandrous society based on matrilineal rule. Herodotus suggests that the women of this tribe could have all of the husbands or sexual partners that they wanted, but the men could have only one. Many scholars dismiss Herodotus’s claim as being sensational and reflective more of his own views of the role of women. 25. This legend is cited in Deshen, Shlomo, and Walter Zenner, editors, Jewish Societies in the Middle East: Community, Culture, and Authority. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982, pages 99–114. 26. Cyrus liberated everyone from Babylonian rule with no particular interest given to the Jews or to any other ethnic group. The Bible, however, portrays his coming as “God’s anointed,” and all biblical accounts of his reign are positive. Cyrus gave all Jews citizenship, and many chose to remain in his kingdom instead of return to Israel. The book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible is entirely set in Iran. The Jewish festival of Purim also very closely parallels the Iranian springtime celebration of Fravardigan. The tomb of the prophet Daniel is said to be in the southwestern city of Shush (Susa). The temple in Jerusalem was not rebuilt until the following century and with Persian assistance. Israelites played a leading role in developing the commercial Silk Trade route with China. When the temple was destroyed a second time by the Romans in 70 C.E., a new form of Judaism, Rabbinic Judaism, emerged which relied on a text called the Mishnah, a commentary on the Mishnah called the Gemara, and a series of Talmudic books including one known as the Babylonian Talmud. Babylon was part of the Iranian world, under the control of the Sassanian Empire, at that time. The Sassanian ruler Yazdigerd I (399–421) had close relations with many rabbis. Unfortunately, the rule of Yazdigerd II (439–457) saw a time when Sabbath schools were closed, Jewish leaders were executed, and the observance of the Sabbath became forbidden. 27. The city of Hamadan, the summer capital of the Achaemenid Empire, in the foothills of the Zargos Mountains is home to a large Jewish community
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that claims even today that it was in Hamadan that the story of Esther took place. 28. There were occasional troubles in ancient Persia as in the theme of the story of Queen Esther and the evil vizier Haman. At times, certain Zoroastrian priests attacked Judaism. 29. Before coming to Iran, the Jews wrote or spoke little of the afterlife. In contrast, Iran had a developed world of angels and demons. Jews had a cyclical view of time before coming to Iran and hearing of the apocalypse promised by Zoroastrians. They also taught about an evil deity named Ahriman which also came into Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the person of Satan (who is only vaguely mentioned in Job). Iranians had a belief that, at the end of time, Saoshyant, a righteous king, would emerge to save people. 30. Barr, James. “The Question of Religious Influence: The Case of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity“ in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Volume 53, number 2, June 1985 (201–235), page 201. 31. Price, 12: “Kurds are mentioned as mountain tribes of Zagros and were engaged in destroying part of the army of the rebellious Persian prince, Cyrus the Younger, around 400 B.C.E. They were called Carduchi by Xenophon and were described as ‘rough mountain dwellers resisting all intrusion, fighting with sling shots and shooting arrows.’” 32. During the Achaemenid Era, Azerbaijan was known as Atropatene after the name of Governor Atropates who was a Mede who had declared his state independent from the rest of the country. He called his territory Atropatene which means “the place of tending the sacred fire.” It is possible that the name was used before that time. After Alexander the Great captured Atropatene, he established fortifications to control the area. 33. One has to ask how the Achaemenid kings could be loyal Zoroastrians if they were burying their kings in tombs instead of following the religious practice of exposing their dead to the sun and to vultures. Perhaps the royal family or the upper class of citizens was exempted from the requirement of this ritual. 34. In the fifth century C.E. poems were written about Alexander who claims that he was directed by angels in his conquest of Persia. See G. J. Rennick, Syrian Christianity under Later Sasanian and Early Islamic Rule. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing, 2005, chapter 6 entitled “Alexander the Great in Seventh Century Syriac Apocalyptic Texts” (150–78). 35. Waterfield, Robin. Christians in Persia: Assyrians, Armenians, Roman Catholics, and Protestants. London: Allen and Unwin, 1973, page 12. 36. Dockerty, Paddy. The Khyber Pass: A History of Empire and Invasion. New York: University Square Press, 2008, page 34. While Alexander is the only person given this title, it is also used to describe Anga Mainyu, the hostile spirit who is the personification of evil and the eternal opposite of Ahura Mazda. For Zoroastrian writings see The Book of Arda Wiraz, 1:9, The Great Bundahishn 33:14, and Denkard 4:16, and 7.7.3. The historian Livius also writes about the ways that Alexander was scorned by Zoroastrians.
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37. Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis gives the date for the founding of the Parthian Empire as 238 B.C.E. and marks the end date as 225 C.E. (Curtis, 8). 38. Parthian kings fought Crassus, Mark Antony, and many other Roman leaders. Augustus wisely followed a course of diplomacy with the Parthians. What invariably happened based on the nature of the two armies, their weapons, and their tactics was that the Parthians could never defeat the Romans on Roman soil where they lacked siege equipment and the hills provided aid for the Roman infantry. On the other side, the Romans were vulnerable to the Parthians on the wide expansive fields of Mesopotamia, and they were not able to provide their forces with the needed supply lines. 39. As recently as 1999, Victor Assal claimed that there were still 310,000 Christians living in Iran which would be about 4.5 percent of the entire population of almost sixty-nine million. See www.bsos.umd.edu/cidcm/mar/ irnchst.htm, August 13, 2001, page 1. 40. Robert B. Reppa reports that, in 1974, there were 276,000 Christians, 67,000 Jews, and 35,000 Zoroastrians in Iran. Reppa, Robert B. Israel and Iran: Bilateral Relationships and Effect on the Indian Ocean Basin. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974, page 107. 41. I am referring to the “h” sound which is not the hard “h” implied by the more widely used spelling Tehran. Both spellings are sometimes used in the same source. The governmental website for the Netherlands, for example, uses the spelling “Tehran” in their English version and “Teheran” in their Dutch version. Reuters and the New York Times, for example, also use both spellings interchangeably. 42. In modern Persian the term ferdows means both “heaven” and “garden.” The English word “paradise” is borrowed from the Greek transliteration of the Persian term which was paradisos. The Arabic term for Paradise is jannat but the Persian concept of paradise predates the advent of Islam in Arabia. 43. Marshall, David. God, Muhammad, and the Unbelievers: A Qur’anic Study. London: Curzon Press, 1999, page 2. 44. Students Seeking Freedom and Equality claims to have campus organizations on a number of campuses with over forty students involved. Recently, four students from SSFE—Berooz Kerimzadieh, Peyman Piran, ‘Ali Kantori, and Majid Pourmajid—were arrested and their case is being closely watched by Human Rights Watch who issued a statement on their behalf on April 10, 2008, that they should either be charged or released. Students were also arrested at Shiraz University after a protest there in March of 2008. They were arrested after a rally on Student Day on December 7, 2007. This observes the day when three students were shot and killed at the University of Teheran in 1953. More information can be found about recent student protestor arrests at the website of the organization International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. 45. Iranian-American reporter Roxana Saberi was given an eight-year prison sentence for spying for the United States, but was released in June 2009. Saberi is a freelance journalist for the BBC and National Public Radio and had lived
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in Iran for six years before her arrest. The New York Times. “Iranian Court Will Review Prison Term for Journalist,” by Nazila Fathi, May 7, 2009, A10. 46. Griffiths, Sidney H. The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008, page 179. 47. Nicholls, Aidan, Light from the East: Authors and Themes in Orthodox Theology. London: Sheed and Ward, 1995, page 2. 48. Esposito, John L., The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? New York: Oxford University Press, 1999 (1992), page 35.
2
Early Persian Religions, Judaism, and Christianity before Islam
The Elephant dreams of one thing—the Elephant driver dreams of another. Iranian proverb One day the Prophet Abraham invited a person to dinner but when he learned that he was an infidel he cancelled the invitation and turned him out. Immediately the Divine Voice reprimanded him saying, “You did not give him food for even a day because he belonged to a different religion, yet for the last seventy years I am feeding him day and night in spite of his heresy. Had you fed him for one night, you would not have become poor on that account.” al-Ghazali
EARLY PERSIAN RELIGION AND ZOROASTRIANISM The first settlers of Persia had religious beliefs which seem to parallel the faith convictions of early Indian civilization. Foltz explains: “Ancient Iranians believed the universe was created in seven stages—the number seven having a lasting mystical significance.”1 Humans forged links with supernatural beings that they called mainyus and also with the forces of the natural world such as the sun, moon, stars, and elements. Those favored by the gods received a heavenly blessing—a khavarna—which would provide them with financial prosperity, long life, and health. One of the loftiest gods was Ahura Mazda, the Sun God, who was also associated with wisdom.2 Ancestors and heroes
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who died would also join this pantheon of powerful spiritual forces. Libation rituals, animal sacrifices, chants, and formulas were passed down from generation to generation as a way to effectively unleash divine blessings upon the community.3 It was from rituals and prayers developed in early Persia that the religion of Zoroastrianism sprung into existence. The major ideas of the religion are ancient, but the rituals and holy books, called the Avesta, were written between 1000 and 600 B.C.E.4 It was shortly after this time that Cyrus the Great came to power. Major religious works are called the gathas, or “hymns.” Many of these are dedicated to relating accounts about the life of Zoroaster (Persian, Zardosht) who is not to be considered the founder of the religion but only its apt promoter. Followers of his teachings find the term “Zoroastrian” offensive and sometimes call themselves modestly followers of “a good religion” (veh-din) or, more frequently, “worshippers of God” (Yazdan Parast).5 Those who poured out libations were called magi (“guardians of the sacred flame”) or zaotars, and this is likely where Zoroaster, a priest in this rank, received his name.6 Little can be known about Zoroaster, the most preeminent advocate of “the good religion.” In fact, Foltz writes that “among the founders of the world’s major religious faiths, none is more shrouded in mystery than Zoroaster.”7 It is not certain where or when he was born, but one legend tells that at the moment of his birth he laughed instead of cried out because he came to the earth with a hopeful message of joy and affirmation. The Prophet was more of a reformer who restored ancient ideas than he was a teacher of new doctrines.8 He taught that Ahura Mazda was the one, supreme God, probably making Zoroastrianism the most ancient form of monotheism. Zoroaster taught that there was a dualism expressed throughout the world: the power of good, represented by light and Ahura Mazda, was in perpetual spiritual combat with evil, represented by darkness and Ahiram, the king of lies.9 The world was brimming over with demons who unleashed chaos and disorder and also angelic spirits who imparted prosperity, health, good weather, and kept the faithful from natural disasters. Zoroastrianism has a strong ethical core and commends its followers to work tirelessly for social justice against life’s pressing social evils. Above all else, Zoroastrianism affirmed the wonder and beauty of life. Adrian Fortescue claims that “it is perhaps the only religion which considers fasting actually wicked.”10 The religion promoted “truth as opposed to lies” and told followers to “always strive for good words, good thoughts, and good deeds.”11 It is a pragmatic faith which seeks
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to touch every dimension of life with holiness in hopes of making this life become a preface to an eternal celebration of heavenly reward. Sexual ethics were strict in terms of fidelity, and celibacy was seen to be an unconscionable evil. In one odd expression of sexual mores, however, Zoroastrians felt that it was morally acceptable—some might say even advisable—to marry one’s own brother or sister.12 Zoroaster taught that one’s moral decisions in this life would directly affect one’s level of blessing in the world to come. After death, a person’s good deeds would be weighed on a scale balanced against one’s evil deeds. Good people would ascend to a realm of bliss while evildoers would face a period of punishment in hell.13 Zoroastrianism has played a sizeable role in the evolution of Persian civic and religious culture. Even today, the names of the months of the Persian calendar represent Zoroastrian archangels.14 Universalist Zoroastrianism also has had an impact on the world’s religions, and, as Michael Axworthy asserted, “Nietzsche was right—Zoroaster was the first creator of the moral world we live in: Also sprach Zarathustra.”15 Zoroastrians believed that the way that one curried God’s favor was to perform acts of virtue but also to pray at least five times a day. Priests recited scriptures with special readings being added for certain holy days and festivals. Many of these festivals were already celebrated in Persia and focused on the changing seasons of the year. Worshippers would always pray in the presence of a sacred fire which has led some to describe Zoroastrianism as fire worship. This common term of disapprobation was given to them by both ancient Greeks and Muslims who first arrived in Persia during the middle of the seventh century. Zoroastrianism teaches that the natural way of things was not to be disturbed either in life or death. The faith is well known for its practice of exposing dead bodies in lofty “Towers of Silence” so that remains can be picked clean by vultures and the sun can fully bleach the bones of the beloved departed. This was also done so as not to pollute life-giving soil with dead bodies. Zoroastrians also felt that life-giving water, as well as fire, was sacred and pure. The ceremonialization of the natural order made it a religious anathema for anyone to kill a snake, spider, or scorpion because these minions have been released into our world in order to serve the inscrutable designs of the evil Angra Mainya.16 From its inception, Zoroastrianism was a universalist religion of missionaries who went throughout Persia promoting their message and warning all to avoid the fires of hell and embrace the liberating truths of their holy books. Missionaries carried these books throughout Central Asia and even traveled as far as China with their gospel.
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Sometimes their declarations were seen as threatening to those whom they traveled among, and they were persecuted and even killed for their preaching. Part of their difficulties may also have sprung from the fact that the very concept of missionary proselytization was unknown to most cultures before that time: Zoroastrians were probably the world’s first missionaries. The main way the religion spread, however, was both through the exemplary lives of saintly followers and through the distribution of Zoroastrian holy books, which were continually being revised, adapted, and translated in order to better reach their intended audiences among the various cultures that they encountered.
BUDDHIST MISSIONARIES IN PERSIA The Buddhist king Asoka (Ashoka) governed India and dispatched missionaries to the Kambojas (Persians) in the middle of the third century B.C.E. Early Theravadan evangelists tried to adapt their message to Zoroastrians by downplaying alien concepts and accentuating points of theological and ethical agreement.17 Because the distances were so vast and the dangers of travel were so extensive, these Buddhist preachers tended to travel in groups and along the well-guarded caravan routes. Sometimes, Buddhist monasteries were established alongside caravan centers which would serve as hotels and restaurants for grateful travelers.18 Buddhism spread modestly throughout the eastern Iranian world, and archaeologists and historians have affirmed the presence of the Buddhist message from Persian missionaries along with some traces of their work in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, as well as throughout Persia.19 Buddhist influence can be seen in Persian art, literature, and certain phrases in the Persian language while Persian influences might be traceable to certain Buddhist rituals and festivals which closely parallel Persian festivals.20
CHRISTIANITY IN THE PARTHIAN ERA Christianity first arrived in Persia during the Parthian Era and possibly as early as the first century.21 Persian Christians sometimes claim that the wise men (the magi) of the Epiphany were the first Christians. The book of Acts cites that “Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,” three Persian tribal groups, were present at the founding of the Christian Church on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:9). St. John Chrysostom affirmed this view when he taught, “The Incarnate Word on coming into
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the world gave to Persia, in the person of the magi, the first manifestations of His mercy and light so that the Jews themselves learn from the mouths of Persians of the birth of their Messiah.”22 Some Persian Christians believe that the Apostle Thomas visited Persia en route to India. Adrian Fortescue regrets that “instead of these legends we can advance only timid conjectures about the origin of Persian Christianity.”23 What is certain is that Christianity came to Persia early in the life of the Christian church. Some Christians probably moved into the tolerant realm of the Parthian kings, settling just across the Roman frontier, as refugees fleeing persecution in the Roman Empire (beginning around 68 C.E.). Others may have come as missionaries seeking to preach to Jewish communities in the Parthian Empire. All of these Christians, whatever their motive in coming to Persia, looked to Edessa (modern-day Urfa in Turkey) as their spiritual home.24 Edessa had a flourishing Christian community by the end of the second century. It was under the ecclesiastical control of the Patriarch of Antioch. The eastern Aramaic dialect of Edessa, perhaps the Aramaic spoken by Jesus, was to become the primary liturgical language of the Orthodox churches of Persia. Missionary bases were set up in northern Mesopotamia and a Christian bishop was appointed for the largely Jewish city of Arbela (near the Tigris River in modern-day Iraq) in 104.25 According to the disputed Chronicles of Arbela, one of the first martyrs of Persian Christianity was Samson (Semsoun), the bishop of Arbela, who was killed somewhere between 118 and 123 by Zoroastrian priests who felt threatened by the rapid growth of the church. Christians had been allowed by the government to practice their faith freely but were arrested quickly whenever they began to preach their faith to settled Zoroastrian communities. This was because Zoroastrianism was seen as the only faith of a true-born Persian and arrests began as early as 170 in the province of Bactria. A number of early Christian writings, including reflections by Chrysostom and Clement of Alexandria, reveal an early and vigorous discussion between Christianity and Zoroastrianism. Local officials, however, did not allow such debates to express themselves in Zoroastrians choosing to convert to Christianity.26 One of the first verifiable histories of Christianity in the region was written by Tatian the Assyrian (110–180), a zealous ascetic who wrote a synoptic gospel in hopes of stamping out heretical ideas among the Christians who lived “between the two rivers.”27 One Armenian document written by a cleric named Bardaisan, from 196, shows that a Christian community was in existence “among the Gilanians and
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Bactrians,” and the apocryphal Acts of Thomas (from the same era) mentions Christians in the “land of the Kushans.”28 By the year 225, over twenty bishoprics were established throughout the Parthian Empire. Christians in Persia even established monasteries although they used different titles for monks and nuns than were used among Greek and Coptic Christians.29 These Christian parishes were spread out over a wide range of the Parthian Empire. Dutch archaeologists have uncovered a Christian cemetery on the Persian island of Kharg (16 miles from the mainland) which dates to 250 along with about sixty tombs that speak of the remnants of an active Christian church. By the end of the Parthian Era, Christian churches spread from Edessa in modern-day Turkey to Herat in western Afghanistan.
RELIGION IN PERSIA DURING THE SASANIAN EMPIRE The Parthians governed through a loose alliance of tribes and clans which were constantly fighting each other. One of these groups from Fars in the south, the Sasanians, was able to take control of this confederation and created a much stronger central authority which used religion and language, as well as the threat of force, to cement loyalties. King Ardrashir I established a new kingdom, the Sasanian Kingdom (240–642 C.E.), from his hometown of Istakhr (near Persepolis).30 The Sasanians named their new nation Eranshahr (where the term “Iran” originates from) and claimed that they were ruling with the direct mandate of the gods. Under the absolutist monarchical Sasanian Empire, Zoroastrianism became the state religion, and other faiths were relegated to a second-class status.31 Zoroastrian religious texts were redacted and revised during the Sasanian period in order to remain relevant in addressing quickly changing political circumstances.
GNOSTICS, MANACHAEANS, MAZDAKITES, AND JEWS BATTLE WITH ZOROASTRIANS One legacy of Greek military presence in Persia may have been the presence of certain gnostic ideas. The term “Gnostic” (from the Greek “those who know”) means a belief in mystical, esoteric teachings which will bring spiritual enlightenment about the true, hidden nature of the world. A group of gnostics, called the Mandaens, emerged (and still exist) in the southern marshes of modern Iraq and Iran.32 The
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Mandaens trusted in a sacred text called the Ginza which related the need to follow certain Jewish rituals, the water-baptismal rite given by John the Baptist, and the secret teachings of Jesus. Humans are born in a fallen state and need to return to the pure light of truth. If they fail morally, they will be consigned temporarily for purging, to a cold world of darkness ruled over by evil spirits associated with the zodiac, who are children of an evil female spirit named Ruha. Each human has a heavenly twin who is able to assist them in this evil life and who serves to guide people toward spiritual light and pure truth. Baptism (masbuta) in flowing water is the central ritual for the moral inward purity that the Mandaens seek to attain. During the Sasanian period, another new religion emerged through the teachings of a dark and brooding prophet named Mani who was born in Persia in April 215 C.E. Mani received a number of revelations that he should not eat meat, drink wine, or sleep with women (because they were impure).33 Sexuality was the way in which evil imprisoned light and held humanity in darkness. Mani, who mixed gnostic ideas with Jewish and Christian teachings, claimed he was God’s final prophet. His message was that Jesus Christ came to the earth to teach the truth of spiritual dualities and ascetic practices.34 Today known as Manichaeism, this religion fought for influence among the priests of the Zoroastrian (then known as Mazdaen) elite who were close to the central imperial powers. One modern critic stated that Mani promoted a “monstrosity of existence,” while Axworthy states that the thinking of Mani “was a kind of Pandora’s box of malignity, the particles of which went fluttering off in all directions on their misshapen wings.”35 The Prophet Muhammad was supposed to have explained, “All will be saved except one: the Manachaeans.”36 Manichaeism is easily one of the most maligned—and thus one of the most misunderstood—faith traditions in all of religious history.37 It has been argued that one of its greatest critics—the Christian monk St. Augustine (a former Manichean)—was also probably responsible for carrying the remnants of a number of Manichaean ideas into the heart of medieval Christian theology.38 The message of Manichaeism survived, however, due to the aggressive work of faithful missionaries who took the message across Central Asia and into China.39 These zealots worked hard to master local languages and translate their writings into vernacular dialects. They also incorporated local rituals and worldview assumptions into their teachings as they continued to adapt to their target audiences. Zoroastrian influences eventually won out, and Mani was imprisoned by royal edict and thrown into jail where he died shortly there-
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after. A Zoroastrian magi named Kerdir succeeded in encouraging the Sasanian king to acknowledge that Zoroastrianism was the official state religion. But this status, and the triumph over Manichaeism, was a pyrrhic victory. At the same time that “Zoroastrianism sought to become the official religion of Iran,” it also continued to foster an “open and syncretistic relationship with neighboring religious cultures” in an attempt to “harmonize Iranian traditions” into a unifying fusion with those of their ethnic and religious neighbors.40 There were many other religions that emerged over the three and a half centuries of Sasanian rule, and this fact troubled the Zoroastrian elite. In the fifth century, another religious visionary named Mazdak began preaching a message of social justice before he was arrested and executed.41 His followers, the Mazdakites, shared a vision of shared goods and lands (and perhaps also shared wives). This faith, sometimes described as a form of proto-Communism, later reemerged to some degree among certain Isma’ili sects. This is probably where the greatest legacy of this movement was to be found. Zoroastrians felt that religionists such as Mazdakites, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and relocated Indian Brahmans should be curtailed by the rulers, but government officials were concerned with more pressing political and economic concerns and allowed other religions to flourish.42 In fact, a number of faiths increased their influence and extent dramatically under a Sasanian rule indifferent to their presence. Under Sasanian rule, Jews lost any political autonomy that they had gained in the Parthian Era. Zoroastrian priests sometimes incited followers to destroy Jewish places of worship and sought to have local politicians forbid the practice of Jewish rituals. In spite of these attacks, the Jewish community was able to thrive during the Sasanian Period, because their economic networks were extensive and instrumental in the operation of the Silk Road trade. When Jews actively rose up to support Sasanian military efforts against their Roman enemies, it was soon realized at the governmental level that they were no threat to the Sasanian rule and that their business acumen was an invaluable asset to the wealth of the royal court. Jewish scholarship was eventually able to flourish in Persia under later Sasanian rulers. The first Persian translation (in Hebrew characters) of the Pentateuch was published in 1546 (in Istanbul), and Walter Fischel claims that “the Bible became an inseparable part of Persian literature.”43 In contrast to improved Muslim-Jewish relations, tensions began to increase between Jews and Christians in this era, characterized by a number of heated Jewish-Christian arguments.
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CHRISTIANITY IN THE SASANIAN ERA Christianity, which had first come to Persia during the Parthian Era, continued to flourish under early Sasanian rule. Whenever Sasanian warriors captured Roman territories in battle, they deported Christians from conquered lands and resettled them in Persia. The first such mass deportation took place between 256 and 260 at the outset of the reign of King Shapur I. These thousands of Christian prisoners of war originally came from Antioch. Some of these Christians who arrived in their new country served with distinction at high levels of the Sasanian military and in the government.44 Church historian Eusebius noted that a certain John of Persia attended the Council of Nicea in the fourth century.45 One of the first Persian church leaders was the fourth-century monk Aphrahat whom Jacob Neusner called one of the “first great fathers [along with Ephrem] of the Iranian Church.”46 Aphrahat wrote long polemics against Judaism and encouraged Persian Christians to pay little attention to their Jewish neighbors.47 Another important person in early Persian Christianity was Abraham of Kashgar (born about 491) who was responsible for reviving monastic Christian orders in the country.48 Nestorian Christians began to arrive in Edessa (and other cities in Persia) in large numbers at the end of the fifth century. Other Persian Christians gladly converted to Nestorian Christianity as a way to sever all religious ties with Rome. The fact that the church experienced no persecution from the government almost certainly had something to do with the fact that it had no political connection with Rome (Persia’s greatest political rival). Another positive factor for many Persians was that the Nestorians quickly adapted to the local Zoroastrian context and forbade all forms of celibacy. Bishop Bar Sauma, the first Nestorian bishop in Persia, set the example by marrying a former nun. The Nestorians are one of the most misunderstood communities in all of Christian history. This is because, according to Stephen Neill, “almost all of Church history has been presented exclusively from the Western point of view.”49 Nestorius was a monk in Antioch who had been promoted to the rank of Archbishop in Constantinople (Istanbul), but he faced political opposition which soon became framed in the guise of charges of religious heresy. Nestorius was forced to flee to the Libyan Desert where he spent his last years writing his Apologia (which one writer described “as one of the dullest books that ever came from the hand of man”50). The actual theological points of disagreement that Nestorius had with Cyril were minor and semantical, although, at the time, they were considered of earth-shattering consequentiality.51
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As Nestorian Christians were persecuted, they fled to the East. Even in Edessa, however, there were schisms between those who supported Nestorius—such as the theologian Theodore of Mopsuestia and the translator Hiba—and those who warned that he was a heretic— such as the Syriac bishop of Edessa Rabbula who forced Theodore and Hiba into exile. When Rabbula died in 437, Hiba returned from exile and became the archbishop of Edessa and cemented its role as the center of Nestorian Christianity. This position of honor was held until 489 when the Monophysite bishop of Edessa closed down the Nestorian seminary in the city. This led Nestorians to retreat even further eastward to the city of Nisibis where they established a training center (with as many as one thousand students studying the Bible and evangelistic missionary methods52). It was at this point that the decision was made that Nestorian priests would be allowed to marry. This break with tradition further outraged their foes. Most of the sacraments developed in the West remained in the East except the confession of sins to a priest. The first Nestorian patriarchate was organized by Persian bishops at the Synod of Marktaba in 424.53 Christians and Zoroastrians often had an uneven relationship from the outset. Christians were so numerous in Persia during the Sasanian period that one Zoroastrian leader suggested that Christians should be eliminated altogether.54 Laws were passed which were stricter than previous Parthian laws about Christians in Persia, and Christians were no longer able to operate with their own legal civil codes.55 Zoroastrians attacked Christians for believing that God could be a human being and that He could mysteriously allow Himself to be killed. Some Christians responded by engaging Zoroastrians in challenging debates about the nuances of their own religion.56 Other Zoroastrians called for calm: “Cease, therefore to harass the Christians, but exert yourselves diligently in doing good works, so that the Christians and adherents of other religions, seeing that, may praise you for it and feel themselves drawn to your religion.”57 Some of the first Christians to arrive in Persia were of Armenian descent although little historiographic evidence remains of their communities except “theological and liturgical” documents.58 Another source to learn about these first Christians comes through literature written against them by their opponents.59 Propagandists warned, “Christians destroy our holy teaching and teach me to serve one God and not to honor the Sun, or Fire. . . . They attribute the origin of snakes and creeping things to a good God. They despise many servants of the King and teach witchcraft.”60 Conversions to Christianity, however, seem to have continued unabated throughout the Sasanian Empire.
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The most difficult time for Christians under Sasanian rule was during the era of King Shapur II (or Shahpur, 310–379). During the last forty years of Shapur II’s rule, Christians were seen in a negative political light as a “potential fifth-column for the Romans.”61 Since Shapur was fighting the Romans who were Christians, he equated Christianity with treason—a sad misconception which has often affected Christians worldwide throughout church history. It was also around this time that Constantine mandated that Christianity should become the favored religion of the empire and provocatively ordered that the symbol of the Christian cross become emblazoned on the battle standards of the Roman armies. When Shapur lost a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Roman army at Nisibis, vulnerable Christian communities came under a scalding attack in an empire that was eagerly looking for scapegoats. Taxes on Christians were doubled by the Persian ruler (called the “king of kings”) with the thought that they should bear the brunt of the costs of war. The bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, Catholicos Simon Bar Sabbae, refused to oblige the shah, saying, “I am no tax-collector but a shepherd of the Lord’s flock.”62 The bishop, along with five other bishops and over one hundred other church leaders were arrested and then publicly beheaded in front of Bishop Simon on Good Friday, April 17, 341, before the bishop was the last to be killed. For the next forty years, assaults against Christians were carried out in vehement force. The emperor concluded that Christians had sympathies and extensive communication networks with Christian Rome and were probably acting as spies. In Shapur II’s proclamation against “these Nazarenes,” he explained: “They dwell in our land and share the ideas of Caesar, our enemy.”63 Shapur II became convinced by his Zoroastrian advisors that fealty to the emperor should be expressed by Persian subjects as loyalty to the emperor’s religion. This is how Zoroastrianism assumed the role of the state religion of the Sasanians. J. Duchesne-Guillemin cites the fact that Christian martyrs had their severed heads offered to the god Anahita as an act of devotion as proof of this opinion. Other scholars, such as Jacob Neusner, feel that the Zoroastrian religion of the time was too eclectic and unorthodox for Shapur II to inaugurate a uniform state religion.64 In any event, Christians suffered in countless horrific ways. Of this era, Fortescue writes: It is strange that anyone can forget the Persian martyrs. Not in the worst times of Roman persecution was there so cruel a time for
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CHAPTER 2 Christians as under Shapur II of Persia. In proportion to the extent and the time the persecution lasted, Persia has more martyrs than any other part of the Christian world.65
Persecutions were sadistically carried out if any Christian refused to “deny the son of the carpenter.”66 Persian Christians, also called “Sons of the Carpenter,” were often flayed alive, dismembered, and even thrown into deep pits filled with rats and left to starve and be eaten.67 At least thirty-five thousand Christians “joined the white-robed heavenly army of martyrs” after being tortured to death for refusing to become Zoroastrians.68 Samuel Moffat claims that as many as 190,000 Persian Christians were slaughtered during this ghoulish pogrom of terror.69 It is amazing that any Christians at all survived these four decades of state-organized genocide, but Christians had managed to continue to both worship and evangelize. The situation improved dramatically for them after Shapur II’s death in 379. King Yazdigerd I (399–421) issued an Edict of Toleration in 409 which paralleled the Edict of Constantine a century earlier. Grateful Christians immediately adopted the Nicene Creed and sought to bind themselves more closely with Christians in the West.70 Yazdigerd I was “hailed in Christian documents as the victorious and glorious king and some even claimed that he was a Christian.”71 Yazdigerd I mandated that those churches which had been destroyed should be rebuilt and that those Christians who had been imprisoned should be released. It is even reported that the shah considered making Christianity the state religion after being impressed by “various miracles of healing wrought by Christian authorities.”72 He also offered the same policy of toleration toward his Jewish subjects. While grateful Jews hailed King Yazdigerd I as a new Cyrus, his royal edict enraged the religious elite, and he was widely branded as an apostate and a traitor to the Zoroastrian faith. This public opposition by the religious elite meant that the period of official toleration toward Judaism and Christianity was to be short-lived. After only a decade, the aging king began to heed the shrill, persistent laments of powerful Zoroastrian priests who expressed outrage at the conversion of some of their members to these alien faiths. The plight of Jews and Christians changed dramatically once again shortly after the death of Yazdigerd I. The shah was succeeded by a hedonistic son, Bahram V, who had no interest in opposing Zoroastrian priests who called for restrictions against religious minorities. Bahram V, also known as Bahram Gur (The Wild Ass) because of his love for hunting, women, and wine, ruled briefly because, one day, he disappeared suddenly into a
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concealed bog of quicksand while hunting for wild boar in the marshes surrounding Medea (in 439 C. E). Persecution resumed in force again under Yazdigerd II (439–457) who seemed determined to return the Zoroastrian elite to power and to reignite a national passion for the true faith. This led to large-scale oppressive torments for non-Zoroastrians. Over one hundred fifty thousand Christians were murdered in the two decades that Yazdigerd II was in power.73 Christians were publicly tortured and held in public cages until they starved to death. Some had their bodies torn apart with broken reeds or were thrown into “pits to be eaten by starving rats.”74 Other Christians who refused to deny their faith were beheaded or crucified by Zoroastrian priests. In one particularly brutal ceremony, on August 24 and 25, 446, the shah gathered church leaders and their families from throughout the empire in Karka (modern Kirkuk in Iraq) where he proceeded to butcher them slowly one by one. One of the executioners was reportedly so touched by the stalwart faithfulness of those he was killing that he too confessed faith in Christ, which meant that he himself was condemned to be crucified (on September 25 of that same year). Another leading evangelist, Pethion, continued to preach boldly and had a harvest of results until he was beheaded in 447 near the city of Kholwan. The only positive factor from this era was that the intense persecution forced the Persian Church to break from the ecclesiastical rule of the Patriarch of Antioch and independently establish their own Catholicos Dadishu as Patriarch in the Council of Marktaba held in 424. During the Sasanian era, the Nestorian Apostolic Churches arrived in Persia through intense missionary activity which continued on into Central Asia and even as far west as China. Persia soon became the jumping-off point for the expansion of Christianity into Asia.75 Christian minorities found sanctuary in Persia in the face of the intense sufferings which they were experiencing in the Roman Empire (usually by their fellow Christians). Unlike other Christian groups, apostolic churches did not grow because of the decline of Zoroastrian influence. It is possible, according to Neusner, that many early Persian converts to Christianity might have been converted Jews. This is proven by a number of Jewish-Christian Arguments which were transcribed in Persia from the fourth century. Neusner writes that, in the fourth century, the “everyday relationship between the two communities was vigorous, intimate, and competitive.”76 Nestorians fled to Persia for safety after the bitter Chalcedonian Council of 451. When they moved to Persia, they tended to settle
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in isolated communities and not to mix much with local populations. They were free to practice their religion and broke entirely from Byzantine religious authorities. Celibacy and monasticism were renounced and diophysitism (the two natures of Christ) became the official doctrine of a large portion of the Persian church in 486. The present-day Armenian Church maintains that the two natures of Christ, the divine and the human, have united to become one nature. This doctrine is derisively called monophysitism by its non-Armenian and Nestorian critics.77 The city of Gondeshapur in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan became the center of their activities and home for a Nestorian-sponsored medical college.78 Nestorians were able to convert most of the Assyrians living in the region to accept their doctrines. Many Nestorian Assyrians were forced to flee from their homeland in Iraq to the relative safety of the mountainous regions of Kurdistan near the city of Urmiah. The Assyrian Church of the East gradually joined with Nestorian churches and became one of the most widespread missionary movements in the history of Christendom. Nestorian Christians extended from Cyprus in the west to Tibet and central China in the Far East.79 Vibrant Nestorian bishoprics were established in the Persian cities of Nishapur (in Khusiristan), Merv (in modern-day Turkmenistan), and Herat (in modern-day Afghanistan). Nestorian Christians were present in some of the larger cities of India and even in remote Mongolia. Persian Christian crosses with Pahlavi inscriptions have been unearthed near Madras (in India) dating from the eighth century.80 The presence of Nestorian missionaries is chronicled in Marco Polo‘s book of legends from the fourteenth century. The Church of the East was known for its commitment, not only to evangelism and missions, but also to careful scholarship, and that is how it often first gained a foothold in certain localities. Some missionaries, including one beloved Armenian missionary, not only preached the gospel of eternal life but also pragmatically taught the Turkic tribes of Central Asia the everyday concerns of how to grow hardy vegetables and plant corn. Nestorian parishes continued to expand because church members were not afraid to share their faith with their neighbors and because they conducted services and published portions of the Bible in various local languages. The Nestorians were also noted for their discipline and zeal, and they conducted their church communities with strict rules about how to raise their children and how they should dress. One historian from the period said that during their Christian meet-
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ings, “no one whispers, no one fell asleep, laughs, or makes signs.”81 However, their rapid evangelistic growth among formerly Zoroastrian villages resulted in further difficulties during the Sasanian era under the reign of Shah Chosroes I (Khosrow Anushirvan, 531–579). While the shah was away fighting a war with the Roman Empire (from 540–545), his officials detained the Orthodox Patriarch Mar Aba I (bishop from 540–552) and warned him that he would be released from prison only if he promised to stop making converts.82 When Mar Aba refused, he was shackled in prison for a number of years.83 Zoroastrians accused Mar Aba of being an apostate and an enemy of the true religion and claimed that Christians disgustingly married their close relatives.84 When Chosroes learned that Mar Aba was imprisoned he released him and sent the patriarch into exile in (what is now called) Azerbaijan. Mar Aba, however, returned illegally from exile which led some Zoroastrian leaders to attempt to assassinate this prominent church leader. Again, the shah intervened and, again, the patriarch was briefly imprisoned. When Mar Aba finally died of old age, Zoroastrian opponents sought to have his body thrown to the dogs to be ripped apart, but the bishop was instead buried at the monastery outside Seleucia-Ctesiphon in a widely celebrated public ceremony. Sasanaian antipathy towards Christianity also carried over to Persian actions on distant battlefields. In one odd narrative, the Sasanian ruler Chosroes II (Khosrow) ordered the Orthodox Patriarch Sabaryeshu I (596–604) to accompany the army in order to pray for its success against their Byzantine Christian foes.85 This, however, was not a difficult task for Sabaryeshu, since he believed that the Byzantines were misled heretics. In another expression of interest in Christian leaders, Chosroes (one of his wives was a Christian) forbade the church to replace Gregory (who died in 608) as patriarch until 628.86 He also forced Christians to wear a distinctive mark on their clothing and doubled their taxes to pay for his wars.87 When Sasanian warriors advanced into the Middle East (from 614 to 628), they demolished a number of Christian churches, including the storied Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. There were also examples of Christians who were slain near the end of the Sasanian Empire, such as the martyrdom of the Armenian Christian Magundat-Anastasius who was murdered by order of Shah Chosroes II on January 22, 628.88 Yazdin, the royal silversmith appointed to the shah, was also beheaded for his Christian faith, and his goods were confiscated by the state. Yazdin’s wife was also tortured to see if she would reveal any other valuable treasures that the silversmith might have hidden. Vine explains that this wave of persecution
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“was partly motivated by the urgent need for money to carry on the forlorn defense of the empire, for the Christians had many men of substance among them. Many innocent Christians thus suffered to appease Persian fear and to help refill the war-depleted royal treasury.”89
NOTES 1. Foltz, Richard C. Spirituality in the Land of the Noble. Oxford: OneWorld Publications, 2004, page 12. 2. While Ahura Mazda is later singled out by Zoroastrians as the one, supreme God, in these early stages there are many gods. This has led some scholars to refer to pre-Sasanian Zoroastrianism as Mazdaism. 3. Foltz (2004) notes that ritual vessels were purified through the use of cow urine, rich in ammonia, page 14. 4. The Avesta was first translated into a European language in 1771 by the Frenchman Anquetil du Perron. This version was much criticized for its inaccuracies. The first English translation of the Avesta was not published until 1887 and was translated by James Darmesteter. The Avesta is composed of a number of sections including ancient myths called the Yascht. Some of the same myths from this book are also repeated in the Shahnameh (The Ancient Book of the Kings) which is an epic poem in rhyme by the Persian poet Firdowsi which was completed about 1010 C.E. 5. The term “Zoroastrian” is offensive to them in the same way that the term “Mohammedan” is offensive to Muslims. Neither religion worships their founder. The term they use to describe themselves is “Yazdan Parsat.” The term “Parsee,” which is how they are referred to in India, comes from the Sanskrit word for Persians. Because the term Zoroastrianism is offensive, some have called them Mazdakites given the fact that their god is Ahura Mazda. Detractors also have called them fire worshippers, which is a term that they detest. Muslim critics call them Gebers, although the origin of this epithet is uncertain. I have chosen to use the word Zoroastrian in this book simply to avoid confusion and not out of disrespect. 6. Zoroaster is also known as Zarathustra and by other names and titles. Foltz (2004) suggests that the name Zarathustra means something like “camel manager” (21). 7. Foltz, 2004, 19. Some have suggested that Zoroaster lived as early as the time of Abraham (the eighteenth century B.C.E.) while others say he appeared at about the same time as Buddha (sixth to fifth centuries B.C.E.). 8. The holy books tell of a period where ancient truths had been discarded and set aside for hedonistic and materialistic impulses. It was in this context of chaos that the message of Zoroaster emerged. 9. Hasenfratz, Hans-Peter. “Iran und der Dualismus,” in Numen, volume 30, number 1, July 1983 (35–52), is an excellent article focusing on the dualism which was promoted by Zoroastrian teachings.
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10. Fortescue, Adrian. The Lesser Eastern Churches. New York: AMS Press, 1972 (1913), page 25. 11. Kriwaczek, Paul. In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World’s First Prophet. New York: Vintage Books, 2002, page 229. 12. This supposed accusation would put them in clear disagreement with Oscar Wilde’s suggestion that “everything should be tried once except incest and Morris dancing.” 13. Heaven is a place for good people (ashavan), and it is ruled over by Ahura Mazda, while hell is reserved for those who are evildoers (drugvant) who will spend eternity in a kingdom ruled by Angra Mainyu. These decisions were to be made on a Day of Judgment, which would occur on Mount Hara on the fourth day after a person died when they would have to cross a bridge. For the righteous, as one walks along the bridge it becomes wider and easier to traverse while, for the wicked, the bridge becomes progressively narrower and then becomes as narrow as a sharp blade. The good would be joined in their journey by a beautiful young goddess named Daena, and she would lead them into heaven. In contrast, the wicked would find themselves being escorted into hell by a tired, old, and ugly hag who was smelly and who would eventually hug them and throw them into the gaping mouth of hell. 14. The month of Bahman is named after the archangel Vohu Manu. Other months named after archangels are Ordibehesht and Khordad. It is interesting that the Islamic Republic did not change these names. 15. Axworthy, 10. 16. These creatures were deemed demonic (khrafstra) and impure, and should not be touched. 17. The concept of devas, who are minor deities according to Indians, was ignored because these were seen to be devils by the Zoroastrians. Buddhist missionaries in Persia referred to Zoroastrianism as “The Good Religion.” 18. The Taliban in Afghanistan made famous one of these shrines that was carved out of solid rock in Bod Ghaya in the Bamiyan valley. One statue measured over one hundred feet and the other measured over one hundred fifty feet in height. They dated from the sixth century B.C.E., and they had survived until they were dynamited in 2001. 19. The presence of Buddhist missionaries is also to be seen in the place names of Persia. A number of villages in western Khorosan and as far west as Rayy near modern-day Teheran bear the name No Bahar, which means “Buddha House.” Towns in southern Iran and along the coast have similar names. 20. The yearly festival of the hungry ghosts has been practiced in China since the advent of the T’ang Dynasty. This festival very closely parallels the All Souls festival held every year called Fravardigan. 21. Price, 19. 22. Waterfield, 16. 23. Fortescue, 39. 24. Edessa originally was a center for Jewish learning before many Jews in that community converted to Christianity. Edessa was considered the beginning of the Metropolis of East Syria and the center of Syriac-speaking Christianity in
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the early church. Antioch was the center of the more Hellenized western Syrian churches. Edessa, however, remained in the Patriarchate of Antioch and was never joined with the Patriarchate of Rome or Alexandria. Edessa was in the prefecture that spread all the way to Asia. The actual authority of the church in Antioch, or for that matter Edessa, the further one traveled from those cities, was more theoretical than practical. Language becomes a key factor: Greek was not spoken at Edessa. 25. Price states that the Jewish historian Josephus noted that “a king of Adiabene accepted Judaism around A.D. 36” (Price, 19). This might explain why Christians would feel comfortable coming to that city. Adiabene is a small border kingdom east of the Tigris River and in modern-day Iraq. Another center for Jewish learning was the city of Nisibis where an academy had been established. A large number of Christians were also said to reside in Nisibis at the end of the Parthian Era. 26. Masani, Rustom. Zoroastrianism: The Religion of the Good Life. New York: MacMillan and Company, 1968 (1938), page 18. 27. Bradley, 138. Bradley also notes that Jerome accused Tatian of being the heretical “father of the Encartites who practiced extreme forms of self-denial such as chaining themselves to rocks, walling themselves up in caves, and only eating uncooked grass” (138). 28. Foltz, Richard C. Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchanges from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century. London: Macmillan, 1999, page 65. 29. Monks in Persian Christianity were called “Sons of the Covenant.” There was also another designation for ascetics who chose not to take a lifetime vow. These were called the “Sons of the Church.” The covenant that was referred to in the first title was the lifetime vows that were being made by monks. 30. The term Sasanian comes from a legendary ancestor of Ardrashir I named Sasan. Ardrashir came to power after defeating the Parthian King Artabanus V. Ardrashir’s hometown of Istakhr was where the Zoroastrian holy book known as the Avesta was kept on ox-hide parchments written in gold. Most of these ancient treasures were destroyed by Alexander the Great when he conquered Persia. Present copies of the Avesta only date back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and are far from complete. 31. There were two chief languages of high culture in the Sasanian Empire. As was true of the Achaemenid Empire one of these languages was Semitic and one was Indo-Iranian. The Iranian language Parsik (or also called Pahlavi or Farsi) was spoken in the highlands of Fars in the southwest and was the official language of the Court and the Zoroastrian priests. A form of Syriac or Aramaic was spoken among the Nestorian Christians and the Jews of the region. Other literary and social languages were also used. 32. “Iraq’s Ancient Mandaen Community Close to Extinction Says Report” in the Hindustan Times, October 9, 2007, page 1: “The United States did not set out to eradicate the Mandaens, one of the oldest and misunderstood of the many minorities of Iraq.” This article states that the Mandaens, with their
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own language, Mandic, a derivative of Aramaic, were about sixty thousand in number before the war against Saddam Hussein. Today, there are fewer than five thousand Mandaens in Iraq and about a thousand in Iran. Many of the exiles have fled to Syria and Jordan with smaller numbers going to Australia, Indonesia, Sweden, Yemen, and three families have come to the United States. In an interesting attempt to make this group more relatable to his American audience, Todd Robberson’s article in the Dallas Morning News on February 25, 2004, is entitled “Iraq’s Baptist Mandaens are survivors, but ranks are thinning.” Robberson’s first line in his article states, “They call themselves the original Baptists, but any similarities to Americans of that description pretty much end with the waterborne ritual they share” (www.dallasnews.com/). 33. Mani based this on the teaching of the gospel (Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25) that human beings would be transformed into asexual beings in the purity of heaven and would be “like the angels” and not marry or be given in marriage. Further proof came in the idea that the fatal moral virus of original sin was seemingly passed on to future generations through the sinful and impure act of human procreation. 34. The Jesus presented in Manachaen writings is one that would be unfamiliar to Christians. Jesus has three aspects. He is the “Splendor,” the one who gives knowledge. He is also a docetic, historical Jesus—who only appears to be human. Manachaeans promote asceticism that teaches that the body is evil and designed to promote harmful sexual lusts and Jesus was able to overcome these base instincts and urges and, in so doing, overcome this physical world. Lastly, Jesus is the judge who will come again at the end of time. The forces of evil in the world are led by an evil spirit who entraps light and brings darkness. 35. Axworthy, 51. 36. Axworthy, 51. 37. Many of the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo, himself a former member of a Manichaean sect for ten years before converting to Christianity, focus on discrediting the religion. Other Christian and some Muslim writers have similarly attacked their views. 38. St. Augustine of Hippo was a Manichean before he was a Christian. He attacked his previous religion as a heresy, but some of the ideas that he promoted, and which became central to medieval theology, have their precedent in Manichaeism. St. Augustine promoted the doctrine of original sin and related its inception with the act of sexual union. He preached the predestination of the elect and the damnation of all who were unbaptized, including infants. Pelagius, in the fifth century, challenged these ideas with his message of free will but he lost this debate in the halls of ecclesiastical authority, and was branded as a heretic. Axworthy (52) comments: “As pursued later by the Western Christian church in medieval Europe, the full grim panoply of Manichaean/ Augustinian formulae emerged to blight millions of lives, and they are still exerting their sad effect today—the distaste for the human body, the disgust for and guilt about sexuality, the misogyny, the determinism (and the tendency toward irresponsibility that emerges from it), the obsessive idealization of the
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spirit, the disdain for the material—all distant indeed from the original teachings of Jesus.” 39. There was even a brief period of time, from around 763 to 840 C.E., that Manichaeism was the state religion of the Uighur Turks in Central Asia. 40. Shaked, Shaul. From Zoroastrianism Iran to Islam: Studies in Religious History and Intercultural Contacts. Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing, 1995, page 253. 41. The teachings of Mazdak began to spread around 530 C.E., and they emphasized social justice and the just distribution of property and resources. His was a proto-Communistic movement that sought to empower the impoverished masses. This group, according to its enemies, even shared their wives as well as their possessions. The Sasanian ruler Khosrow Anushirvan had Mazdak executed, but their teachings went underground and reappeared again in later riots (such as the uprising at Babak in the eighth century). 42. The currents between indifference and concern often shifted. Perhaps the most intolerant Sasanian ruler was Shapur II (309–377 C.E.) who had little, if any, toleration for other religions within his realm. He strongly supported the role of the Mazdaen magi in the civil and political life of the country. 43. Fischel, Walter J. “The Bible in Persian Translation: A Contribution to the History of Bible Translations in Persia and India,” Harvard Theological Review. Volume 45, number 1, January 1952 (3–45), page 5. The translation was done by Jacob ben Tavus, a Jewish scholar from Persia, and was published as part of a Jewish polyglot Bible by the publisher Eliezar ben Gerson Soncino. This book was hardly known until it was used as part of the London Polyglot Bible published in 1657 by Thomas Hyde of England. There may have been earlier Persian-Hebrew translations of the Bible before the 1547 version was published. Giambattista Vecchietti (1552–1619) collected portions of texts of Hebrew translations when he visited Hamadan and Shiraz in 1606, but his books may have been lost during a pirate raid off the Barbary coast. Vecchietti claimed that he had received in the city of Lars, Persia a copy of the book of Psalms dating to 1316. He also claimed to have a number of ancient copies of translations of the Prophetic writings. Vecchietti himself worked on a Persian translation of the Psalms and other Wisdom literature while living in Agra (1604) with the active patronage of Akbar the Great (1542–1605). Akbar at this time tried but failed to launch a new eclectic religion called Tauhid Ilahi focusing on monotheism and designed to welcome Hindus and all others to a place of shared worship near Agra called the Ibadat Khana. 44. A treaty with the Roman Empire, signed in 561, was to guarantee that Christians would be left alone and be able to build churches and live freely in society. It was shortly thereafter that Christians began to enter the military and government. The plight of Christians improved dramatically under the rule of one Sasanian ruler, Khusrau Parviz, who was able to “regain his throne as a result of Byzantine intervention and who was married with two Christian wives.” Berkey, Jonathan. The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600–1800. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003, page 25.
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45. Christopher Buck, “The Universality of the Church of the East,” in the Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society, volume 10, number 1, 1996, page 61. 46. Neusner, Jacob. Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism in Talmudic Babylonia. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1990, page 199. 47. Aphrahat, known as the Persian Sage, lived in the first half of the fourth century. He was a monk and then a bishop at the Mar Matai monastery north of Mosul. Between 337 and 345, Aphrahat wrote a number of sermons or Demonstrations which were organized acrostically with each sermon bearing a letter of the Syriac alphabet. Since there are twenty-three letters in the Syriac alphabet there are twenty-three sermons. Nine of these twenty-three are concerned with attacks against Judaism, and none of them attack Zoroastrian ideas. These tracts give historians a clear picture into the theology and church structure of early Parthian Christianity. 48. Vine states that there had been monastic orders in Persia in the third century. The church in later years began to loosen its emphasis on celibacy. Abraham of Kashgar established the Christian monastery on Mount Izala near Nisibis. Monks at Mount Izala followed many of the same rules for order that had been used in Egypt. Abraham had traveled to Egypt and instituted the same tunic, belt, cloak, hood, sandals, cross, and stick used by Nestorian monks in Egypt. The monks of Mount Izala “met for common prayer seven times a day but later this was reduced to four times a day. They were vegetarians and ate only once a day at noon” (Vine, 74). After three years of training, and with the abbot’s approval, a monk could begin the life of a hermit in complete solitude. Abraham died at age ninety-five in the year 586 and was succeeded as abbot by Father Dadyeshu. The most famous monk of Mount Izala was Mar Babai the Great (529–628), not to be confused with the Patriarch Mar Babai. Monk Mar Babai was abbot during the long vacancy without a patriarch that occurred in Nestorian Persian Christianity between 608 and 628. 49. Quoted in Waterfield, 25. 50. Fortescue, 70. This critique comes from M. Jugie. The title of the treatise was The Book of Heraklides, which was the pseudonym that Nestorius used in order to get a better hearing from his audience. 51. Nestorius was promoted to being the Archbishop of Constantinople in April of 428 and was attacked aggressively by Cyril by the end of 428 and in his Easter letter of 429. The argument was over the term for Mary, to be called “the Mother of God,” which was a term that Nestorius did not use. Cyril claimed that this was because Nestorius did not believe that Jesus was God. Eusubius wrote a letter that also confirmed this notion that Nestorius was a heretic who did not believe that Jesus was God. The actual semantical question was on the relationship between the divine and human nature of Jesus and how they were related. For a more extensive discussion on the issue, I would recommend chapter 14, “The Problem and the Person of Christ,” in the book The Early Church: The Story of Emergent Christianity from the Apostolic Age to the Foundation of the Church in Rome by Henry Chadwick. New York: Penguin Books, 1990 (1967), pages 192–212.
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52. Bradley, 140: “With the Bible, radical discipleship and mission at the heart of the curriculum this school grew to have about one thousand students by the mid-sixth century.” 53. There had been a catholicate at Selucia-Ctesiphon before that time which was linked to the church in Antioch. The decision to establish a patriarchate meant that the church formally broke this link with Antioch. There are various lists of exactly how many bishoprics were established by the Nestorian church in the Persian Empire. Aubrey Vine states that there were seven different bishoprics in the sixth century. Six of these seven were in Persia proper while the seventh was in the Persian vassal-city of Merv (Mary), which is in modern-day Turkmenistan. 54. Foltz, 2004, 81. 55. Shaki, Mansour, “Citizenship in the Sasanian Period,” in Encyclopedia Iranica, volume 5, edited by Ehsan Yarshater, Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Press, 1991, 633. 56. There was an interesting interaction between Mihram Gushnasp and a Zoroastrian priest that is recorded in a book called The Acts of the Persian Martyrs and is recorded in Foltz (2004): Priest: We in no way hold fire to be God, but only pray to God through fire, as you do through the cross. Mihram: But we do not say, as you do to the fire, “We pray to you, Cross, God.” Priest: That is not so. Mihram: So you have it in your Avesta that it is a god. Priest: We revere fire because it is of the same nature as Ormazd. Mihram: Does Ormazd have everything which fire has? Priest: Yes. Mihram: Fire consumes dung and horse-droppings, and in brief, whatever comes to it. Since Ormazd is of the same nature, does he also consume everything like it? As the source in question is a Christian text, the priest’s reply to this challenge, if he offered one is not recorded. (Foltz, 2004, 88).
57. Foltz, 2004, 83. 58. Garsoian, Nina G., “The Locus of the Death of Kings: Iranian Armenia— The Inverted Image” in the book The Armenian Image in History and Literature edited by Richard G. Hovannisian, Malibu, California: Undena Publications, 1981, page 27. Many of the documents that have survived by Sasanian Zoroastrian high priests make clear that they are speaking of Christians who originated from Aneran, which was their term for modern-day Armenia. 59. Most of the negative polemical material of the time written by Christians was directed toward Jews and not toward Zoroastrians. 60. Foltz, 2004, 81. 61. Foltz, 2004, 81. 62. Waterfield, 19. 63. Fortescue, 46.
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64. Various views, including Duchesne-Guillemin, are presented in Neusner, Jacob. Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism in Talmudic Babylonia. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1986, pages 114–15. 65. Fortescue, 45. One notable martyr in this era was Simon Bar Sabba’e who was commanded in his trial to worship the Sun. The bishop’s answer was, “The Sun put on mourning when his creator died, as a slave does for its master.” Five of his closest friends were slowly tortured and killed in front of him before the bishop himself was executed on Good Friday, 339. The annals of Roman martyrs list his feast day, and that of his companions who also were killed, as April 21, and the Byzantine Church remembers his death every April 17. His successor, Shahdost, was also martyred in 342. 66. Stewart, John. Nestorian Missionary Enterprise: The Story of a Church on Fire. Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark, 1928, page 28. 67. Stewart writes: It is not easy to describe the new kinds of punishment that the Persians invented to torment Christians. They flayed the hands of some and the backs of others. In the case of others again, they stripped the skin of the face from the forehead down to the chin. They tore their bodies with broken reeds causing them excruciating pain. Having dug great pits, they filled them with rats and mice and then cast the Christians into the pits first tying their hands and feet so that they could neither chase the animals away nor place themselves beyond their reach. The animals themselves having been kept without food devoured these Christian confessors in the cruelest way. (26–27)
Another torture, according to Stewart, called for the Christians to have molten silver poured into their eyes and ears (262). 68. Fortescue, 50. 69. Moffet, Samuel H. A History of Christiantiy in Asia, Volume One. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1998, page 140. 70. They also acknowledged the hierarchical patterns of the Western Church under a designated bishop and agreed to conform their liturgical calendar to those being used in the West. 71. Foltz, 2004, 83. In contrast, Zoroastrian documents call King Yazdigerd I the “sinner” (winahgar). Other Sasanian kings had members of their court, including wives, who were Christians. The last Sasanian emperor, Yazdigerd III, was said to have a Christian burial when he died in Merv in 651. 72. Neusner, 138. 73. Foltz, 2004, 82. Foltz says, “In many cases Iranian Christians seem to have sought out their martyrdom, deliberately provoking Zoroastrians by putting out (or defiling) their sacred flames and committing other acts of sacrilege. But even at the worst of times, Christianity was never actually a banned religion in Iran, as it had been in the Roman Empire for three centuries” (82–83). 74. Bradley, 139. Bradley continues: “At Kirkuk one chronicler reported that ten bishops and 153,000 Christians were slaughtered, till the chief official, sickened by the blood, and overwhelmed by the faith of his victims, believed in Christ himself and was murdered. In the midst of this horror, the
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bishops gathered for the Synod of Dadyeshe in 424, where, probably for political reasons, they loudly asserted that they were not subject to any other bishop in Christendom” (139). 75. Nestorian missionaries, traveling in pairs, were trained in Persia and went on their missionary journeys into Central Asia and China. The renowned Xi’an Stele of 781 was erected under the direction of an Iranian named Yazdbozed (Foltz, 2004, 84), and their influence was also felt in Tibet and Mongolia. 76. Neusner, Jacob. Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian-Jewish Argument in Fourth-Century Iran. Leiden, the Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1971, page 4. 77. The two chief protagonists in this early debate were Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, and Nestorius, the Bishop of Constantinople. The two theologians of the Antiochene School that supported the views of Nestorius were Diodre of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Cyril taught that both the divine and the human were fully present in Jesus but that there were two distinct natures. The union of the divine and the human natures of Jesus were not unified until the final ascension of Christ. Armenian Christians tended to develop theological formulations which more closely approximate the views of St. Cyril. 78. The school survived into the Islamic era, and Christian teachers trained Muslims in their medical arts. The medical academy at Gondeshapur was under the control of the Nestorian Bokhtishu family for many generations, and it was this academy that provided medical doctors to the Sasanian royal court for many years. 79. The first contact that Nestorians had with Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia was in the sixth century. The principle advocate of these missionary efforts was the Nestorian Patriarch Timothy I (who was Patriarch from 780–823). The Nestorians used many methods to win converts. Some even claim that Nestorians resorted to magic, and there is one account where a Nestorian missionary was able to stop a thunderstorm after a local shaman had tried to do the same but had been ineffective (Foltz, 84). 80. Two famous identical crosses still remain in Milapore on the Coromandel Coast near Madras, and there is also archaeological proof of an ancient church with Pahlavi inscriptions in Kottayam. Documents from between 700 and 824 have been found which mention the Christian missionaries in this region. One of the documents, written in 824, is written in Tamil, Arabic, and Pahlavi. This group lived in Cranganore. The famous Western Chinese stone at Xian Fu is dated to the year 781 and was found in a monastery that was founded in 638. The stele consists of 1,900 Chinese characters, about fifty Syriac words, and about seventy Syriac names with Chinese transliterations. There may even be one Persian word on the stele, denoting Sunday (yaksambun—from the Persian for Sunday, yekshambeh). The Persian missionary Alopen came to the emperor’s palace in 635. According to Waterfield (45), Japanese archaeologists working in China unearthed a stone in Western China with a Pahlavi language translation of Psalm 24:6. To show the extent of Persian missionaries Waterfield also cites (46) the legend of a priest from Persia who came to the village of St. Ives (Huntingdonshire) in the sixth or seventh century. A poem entitled Poly-Olibion, written in 1666 by Michael
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Drayton states, “From Persia led by zeal, St. Ive this island sought and near our eastern fens a fit place finding taught. The Faith, which place from him alone the name derives and of that sainted man has since been called St. Ives” (Waterfield, 46). 81. Bradley, 142. 82. Chosroes, or Khoshraw Parvez (the Victorious), was said to be deeply in love with a Christian girl whom he made one of his wives and added to his harem. He was a great supporter of dancers and magicians and loved to spend his time hunting. When he went hunting he did so in a huge game-park that was stocked full of all kinds of animals for him to kill. His throne was resplendent with jewels, and the dome of his palace was also a planetarium which had mechanical arms that moved representations of planets and stars. 83. Patriarch Mar Aba I was not released until seven years after he would have been able to leave prison had he agreed to cease his evangelistic efforts. Although he did not die until 552, another seven years after he had finished his prison sentence, it is probable that his harsh imprisonment hastened his death. 84. This charge probably came from the false assumption that Manicheans, who did not always forbid incest, were one with the Nestorians. 85. Vine, Aubrey R. The Nestorian Churches: A Concise History of Nestorian Christianity in Asia from the Persian Schism to the Modern Assyrians. London: The Independent Press, 1937, page 66. 86. Gregory served the Nestorian Church as patriarch from 605 when Sabaryeshu died until 608. Even though the church was forbidden to have a leader at this time by the edict of the king, the community was led by Mar Babai, the abbot of the monastery on Mount Izala. 87. Vine, 89. 88. It is possible, however, that Magundat-Anastasius was killed not because he was a Christian but because he had previously been a Zoroastrian. As such, his conversion made him an apostate subject to death. A hagiographic biography was written about the martyr in Greek shortly after his death. It has been revised many times. The manuscript is one of the best pictures historians have of the early Eastern Syrian Church. 89. Vine, 67. Vine also claims that the wife of Chosroes was herself a Nestorian (68). Chosroes was deposed and killed in 628 by his own son, Kavadh II. The boy reigned for only a few months before he was also deposed and the Sasanian Empire fell into even greater political chaos. Four kings ruled the country in the four years between 628 and 632. It was at this time of weakness, in 633, that the Arab conquest began to enter Persia. Resistance was feeble, and the decisive battle occurred in 637.
3
The Rise of Islam and Non-Muslims in Persian Islam
THE ARAB CONQUEST (SEVENTH TO ELEVENTH CENTURIES) The rapid rise of Islam forever changed the world of Persia and the entire Middle East. Ehsan Yarshater wrote that “Islam was born at an opportune moment, when the two powers of the seventh century— the Persian and Byzantine empires—had been depleted by protracted war, heavy taxes, and abuses of royal and sacerdotal powers and had become paralyzed by inner contradictions.”1 Initially, Arab warriors were not militarily prepared against their Persian foes. In 634, the Sasanian emperor Yazdigerd won a dramatic victory over the fledgling Arab army shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (in 632). The military situation changed rapidly, and the Muslim armies of Arabia were able to advance into Persia without much effective opposition. Arab forces rallied and captured the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, although the Arabs faced limited pockets of Persian resistance for a number of years.2 The Arab invasion of 642 shattered the territorial unity of Persia.3 For the first time since the Achaemenid Era, the entire region was once again under one singular rule. Military victories allowed the Ummayad Caliphate to sweep across Persia with zealous passion and fierce determination. Their occupation began with Arabs firmly ensconced in military garrisons far removed from the potentially corrosive social and religious influence of local Persian communities. When the Ummayad Arab warriors marched into Persia in the 640s, they came in contact with an exhausted Sasanian Empire that was teetering on the brink of dissolution. The sudden blitzkrieg of
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these Arab jihadists was a shock to the confident, insular people of Persia who did not take their enemies seriously even as they moved steadily toward them. Soon, the country was thrown into unparalleled chaos, and the Zoroastrian religious clergy (who had benefited from Persian royal favor for centuries) fell into a precipitous decline. Arabs brought with them not only an unknown religion but also a host of novel cultural and technological ideas, as well as unique businesses. Most tellingly, the invaders sought to enforce a series of Arabization efforts which threatened the core of Persian identity. Arab leaders mandated that the Persian language be recast into the Arabic script—a move which angered many intellectuals but forced them to retranslate ancient texts (which ironically promoted a stronger sense of Persian uniqueness). The fear of losing their traditions at the hands of these rude Arab aggressors prompted extensive efforts on the part of Persian scholars to preserve their distinct cultural heritage. As a result, the overall process of Arabization did not go smoothly, and problems were exacerbated by some Arab warriors who were either intent on personal gain or given to indulgent pleasures. In contrast to the usual Persian practice of grace toward vanquished enemies, Arab soldiers plundered “hoards and ornaments in the Sasanian treasures and palaces” and stripped the country of its wealth, often reinvesting it in business.4 As the Arabs began to realize the widespread nature of their growing problems with their Persian subjects, they chose to turn over the reins of their government to malleable Persian families who were willing to be submissive to their rule in exchange for financial rewards.5 Another social change which resulted in Persia as a result of the arrival of the Arabs was the advent of Persian involvement with the murky African slave trade. While there had been a lucrative slave trade during the Sasanian era, it was confined to the usual suspects of debtors, criminals, and unlucky prisoners of war. Persians had historically never promoted slavery as a means of gaining wealth or for building their cities. Arab conquerors began to bring huge numbers of black African slaves into southern Persia. Ronald Segal reports that, for the first time in Persia, massive black communities were formed along the Persian Gulf and that, in 936, one single slave trader dealt with over twelve thousand black slaves in Persian markets.6 The first century of Arab rule in Persia did not immediately see local people converting to Islam. In actual fact, the Islam of the enemy became both increasingly Persianized and influenced by Zoroastrian ideas the longer that it remained in the country.7 Those Persians who decided at an early date to become Muslims were often entranced by the attempts of Shi’ite holy men to draw parallels between their own
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convictions and local beliefs which were already cherished among Persians.8 At first, the advent of Islam into Persia resulted in tremendous suffering for the Zoroastrian community. Fire temples were summarily demolished, and priests were rounded up and slaughtered because they were seen to be impure and godless idolaters. Over time, it became Ummayad government policy that Zoroastrians should be approached in the same way that Christians and Jews were to be treated. Eventually, Zoroastrians were recognized by Muslim authorities to be “People of the Book,” which then obligated them to pay a jizya (or poll tax). Those who chose to convert to Islam no longer had to pay this extra burdensome expense.9 Converts to Islam also discovered that they often enjoyed other economic and trade benefits. New pro-Muslim laws were passed, such as those mandating that whenever a Muslim married a non-Muslim, the children born were forced to be raised Muslim. Such laws (and economic benefits) gradually shifted Persia toward devotion to the Holy Qur’an. Conversion happened more quickly in urban than in rural areas, but probably 80 percent of the entire nation was Muslim by the year 1000.10 Since Buddhists were not widely recognized as “People of the Book,” they were usually forbidden to practice their faith and had the choice between either an enforced exile or immediate conversion to Islam. As Muslims consolidated their grip on power, Persia’s small Buddhist communities were easily brushed aside, and most Buddhists simply converted to Islam instead of facing death. It is possible, however, that some of their esoteric ideas survived in various Sufi teachings in which adherents became “intoxicated with God.”11 Buddhism reappeared in Persia during the Mongol Dynasty when it was known as the Il-Khans because a number of the members of the Mongol Court were nominal Buddhists. The conversion of the Mongol ruler Ghazan Khan to Islam at the outset of the fourteenth century, however, convincingly ended any traces of Buddhist influence in Persia: All Buddhist shrines were either leveled to the ground or turned into masjids.12 The Persian Christianity that Arab Ummayad invaders encountered was characterized by, among other qualities, strong ascetic sensibilities. It is not surprising that Christians would hold to such world-renouncing ways of looking at the world after having survived centuries of unmitigated persecution under the Sasanian Empire. Christian monks and church leaders focused on the renunciation of the world and the denial of the self. Monasticism was often presented as the ideal, while common Christians supported the devoted efforts
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of these monastic orders. There were no copies of the scripture in the vernacular languages, and even worship services were in Aramaic instead of Persian. The celibate monks of Persia prayed seven times daily and ate only one meal a day. They also promoted scholarship and widespread education. When Arab invaders met these monks, however, their ascetic qualities were little appreciated. The Christians, for their part, did not comprehend the message of Islam, and many early Christian leaders simply assumed that Islam was some version of another unknown Christian heresy.13 The Ummayad Caliphate regarded Christians in their midst as enemies and invariable supporters of Byzantium (and even of the previous Sasanian rule). Christians were forced to continue to display an identifying patch of white cloth on their clothing, as the Sasanians had previously mandated. They were also forbidden to ride on horseback or carry any weapons. Christians were taxed heavily but were allowed to repair existing churches—although they were not allowed to build new ones. The overall first encounters between Christianity and Islam in Persia were mixed. Bishop Adiabene (in 655) wrote that the Arabs were “by no means as bad as they were thought to be; they were not far removed from Christianity and they honored our clergy and protected our churches.”14 The fact that many scholars, scribes, accountants, teachers, and doctors were Nestorians probably also eased these first interactions between Arab Muslim leaders and their Persian Christian subjects. The brief reign of Caliph Umar II (717–720) was marked by dramatic attempts to force non-Muslims, at the threat of death, to convert to Islam. All Christian churches which had been built without government permission were summarily destroyed. Umar II was followed by Caliph Hisham (724–743) who reversed most of his predecessor’s negative injunctions and promoted a greater degree of tolerance toward his non-Muslim subjects. In some regions, Christians were even treated with a sort of favored status. One of his governors in eastern Persia, Khalid, had a mother who was a Christian, and so Christians in that region experienced little or no difficulties at all. In 750, Abu Abbas was restored as caliph, and the Abbasid Dynasty established its center of government in Baghdad. The coming years were a time of stability. Under the Abbasid Caliphate, the next century saw an unprecedented era of widespread economic and intellectual growth and cultural, scientific, and artistic advancement. There were some tensions, however, along the fringes of the Abbasid rulership. Slowly, internal dissensions among various Persian princes
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became increasingly noticeable, and a number of these began to break away from centralized rule with the intent of establishing their own distinct fiefdoms. Once Zoroastrians were recognized by Muslims as “People of the Book,” their culture was able to flourish in Islamic Persia. Zoroastrian holy books were transcribed and codified, and numerous scholars emerged so that Zoroastrianism actually thrived as never before during the ninth and tenth centuries under Abbasid rule. One factor in this development was that Zoroastrians began “reformulating some expressions of their tradition in response to the Muslim impact.”15 This positive situation gradually deteriorated, and, once again (as they had when the Muslims first arrived) Zoroastrians became the subject of personal scorn and public attack. Muslims started to refer to Zoroastrians as fire worshippers and infidels. Muslim leaders openly seized Zoroastrian property and blatantly violated the religious sanctity of their holy sites. Some Muslims began to physically beat Zoroastrians and forced others to torture dogs—an animal considered sacred by Zoroastrians but unclean by Muslims. This led to many Zoroastrians fleeing to Bombay (Mumbai), India, where they eventually became known as the Parsees (Persians).16 Jews in Persia had a similarly uneven experience with that of the Zoroastrian community under early Muslim rule. Many Persian Jews quickly converted to Islam while others were initially treated with respect. A large number of famous Jewish physicians, astronomers, and mathematicians found employment in the court of their new Muslim rulers at Isfahan. Many of the translations of renowned texts from Greek into Arabic were done by noted Jewish scholars at this time. Things changed, however, when some Jewish dissidents attempted to stage a revolt which, predictably, was decisively crushed.17 A few Jewish rebels emerged who claimed that they had been sent by God to serve as Israel’s promised messiah. These few eccentrics negatively affected the overall positive status of Jews in Persia, and many Jews decided to flee into Andalusia (Spain) where Jewish scholarship was once again able to flourish. Before the appearance of Islam, a large portion of western Persia had been Christian, but the Arab invasion brought an end to the advance of Christianity in Persia. Many Christians concluded that the arrival of Islam had come as a divine judgment from God and was a clear sign of the imminent return of Christ.18 Others taught that the Prophet Muhammad was the antichrist and the Holy Qur’an was a crass corruption of the Christian Bible.19 Muslim rulers, however, expressed few worries about how they were perceived. All non-Muslims
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immediately fell into a clearly proscribed status as second-class citizens with few rights and limited possibilities for economic or political advancement.20 In one decree it was mandated that no Christian church could stand which was taller than a Muslim masjid. NonMuslims were often forbidden from serving in the military and rarely held any key posts in local or regional governments. In times of social unrest, it was often the case that Christians and Jews were the first to be blamed. Some scholars have argued that, initially, Christian and Islamic cultural themes and intellectual ideas were able to coexist and probably even dialogue with each other to the betterment of both communities.21 Both Muslims and Christians seemed to share a mutual disdain for Judaism, and there were some early attempts at interreligious dialogue between Muslim and Christian scholars. Such efforts, however, could never function as a meeting between two equals since Islam was not only seen to be the superior religion but also the ideological foundation of the ruling government. Muslims often relied heavily on Christians for the bureaucratic tasks required to run their government, but many prominent Christian scholars and doctors were also awarded positions of prominence. Christian scholars under Muslim rule were involved in many noteworthy translation projects. Some Muslims became resentful of the role that these non-Muslims were playing in society. When attempts were made to Islamicize the government by removing Christians, many of them chose to become Muslims instead of giving up their careers and positions of privilege and authority. One of the first extended periods of persecution that Christians and Jews experienced (other than during the rule of Caliph Umar II) was initiated by Caliph Mahdi (775–785). Near the middle of his reign, about 780, Caliph Mahdi became convinced that Christians—and others—were assisting the Byzantine Christian enemies. Once again, non-Muslims, Manachaeans, Christians, and Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face torture and probable death. Vine writes that “an unpleasant feature of this persecution was cruelty directed toward Christian women, with as many as a thousand lashes with a bull’s hide thongs being applied to make them apostatize.”22 Abbasid rule launched an era of relative prosperity and support for Persian culture and the arts. The Abbasid ruler, al-Mansur (813–833), built a magnificent library in Babylon that imitated great Sasanian libraries of the past.23 Little else changed, however, for the non-Muslim minorities of Persia. Throughout the coming centuries of Arab rule, Christians were treated with suspicion and underwent periods of intermittent persecution. Christians were increasingly segregated from
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society and excluded from political power and government employment. The ongoing pressures that they faced led many Christians to move away from Persia back into the Roman Empire where they could practice their faith openly and avoid repressive taxation as secondclass citizens in their own country. New laws were passed by various rulers, such as Caliph Mutawakkil (846–861), which forbade Christians from attending the public markets on Friday. Christian cemeteries were destroyed, and, according to Vine, a wooden image of the devil was even required to be nailed on the door of every Christian home.24 Mob violence also increased against Christians at the same time that the power of the caliphs of Baghdad was progressively weakening over their Persian states. When someone was killed or a masjid was vandalized it was often the case that Christians would be arbitrarily accused and punished with death. The end of the Arab rule in Persia was a dark epoch for Christians. The faith of many was already weakened and internal moral and relational problems often further divided Christian communities in Persia. Patriarch John VI (1013–1020) wrote that “Christians were compelled (once again) to wear distinctive dress and a number deserted the faith on account of the trials, woes, and injuries that befell them.”25
NON-MUSLIMS DURING THE SELJUK AND MONGOL ERA (ELEVENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURIES) When Arab control languished in Persia, the Saffarids briefly rose to power. Their rule was short but significant because they were not Arab-language speakers and they promoted the Persian language.26 Other smaller dynasties, such as the Samanids and the Buyids promoted both the Persian language and the Islamic religion.27 The era of small disparate Persian dynasties was reversed with the forceful arrival of the Seljuk (Saljuq) Turks who came from Central Asia and conquered Isfahan in 1051.28 The Seljuks had repeatedly been attacking Persia from Central Asia in search of food and plunder, and these incursions had led previous rulers to erect massive, but ultimately ineffective, fortifications along Persia’s northern frontier. The Seljuks had already converted to Islam by the time they came to Persia and had also been active in wars against Byzantine and Armenian Christian Empires. These wars made them predisposed to be decidedly anti-Christian. Alp-Arsalan, according to Waterfield “did not take kindly to the presence of Christians in his dominions, and he gave orders that iron collars should be fixed around the necks of all
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Christians who refused to adopt Islam.”29 Christians under Seljuk rule faced countless painful indignities. The Seljuks created a ruthless centralized state with an efficient administrative order and a stalwart army. They did not, however, seek to change the local languages and also allowed many of the previous administrative functions of government to continue uninterrupted. The final Seljuk ruler, Malik Shah, died in 1092 which marked the furthest extent of their rule. In the following century, the Seljuks gradually lost power and were eventually overwhelmed by the Mongol onslaught of 1217. In the twelfth century, Seljuk government administrators referred to one of their provinces in the western part of their domain as Kurdistan, which was the first known usage of this term.30 Kurdish tribes were primarily military mercenaries who had established minor dynasties in the northwest of Persia since the tenth century. Kurds were even recruited in the crusader wars, and one Kurd, the legendary Saladin, became a noted military and political leader. Kurds spoke their own language and were a fiercely independent, isolated, nomadic people. They were slow to embrace Islam and give up their own unique tribal shamanism which seems to have been a mixture of diverging religious influences.31 While some Kurds became Sunni Muslims, still others joined a host of marginal Shi’ite or Sufi groups.32 Some of the Kurds who became Sunni were enlisted into Arab armies and eventually lost most of their distinctive Kurdish identity. The first Franciscan and Dominican missionaries arrived in the northwestern part of Persia at the end of the thirteenth century. By 1300, there were three centers of Dominican work: Tabriz, Dehikerkan, and Maragheh. Their efforts, however, were eventually frustrated by the invasion of Tamerlane into the region. Dominican and Franciscan missionaries, however, focused on people who were already Christians and were able to make some inroads among the Persians because the Nestorian Church was so weakened after decades of intense persecutions. The Mongol invasion, led by Genghis Khan, the “Scourge of God,” began in 1256. Three years before, Seljuk rulers received a cryptic message from the khan, warning, “Send me large sums of money and place yourselves under my rule or I will destroy your kingdom.”33 The missive went unheeded, and the Mongols began a period of unmitigated carnage and destruction which swept aside all resistance in its path. Khurasan, in the north, became a wasteland and did not recover for centuries. The Mongols, led by one of Genghis Khan’s grandsons, Hulugu (Hulegu, 1256–1265), subjugated all of Persia as far eastward
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as Armenia and Georgia. Large-scale slaughter decimated entire cities, and the victors piled pyramids of skulls outside each city that seemed to extend into the clouds. It is impossible to know how many were slaughtered. Vine believes that between seven hundred thousand and one million three hundred thousand were killed in Merv and that all but four hundred artisans of the seven hundred fifty thousand citizens of Nishapur went to their deaths.34 This same kind of devastation took place in Tus, Herat, Balkh, Ray, Hamadan, and wherever the Mongol armies attacked. This “unrestrained regime of systematic pillage and oppression led to the massive annihilation of production and the destruction of economic life” throughout all conquered lands.35 As the Mongols lunged westward, Persian cities wisely chose to surrender instead of being razed to the ground. In this way, cities like Tabriz were saved from annihilation. The Mongols installed their regional capital in Tabriz but were mostly content to rule through emissaries and local bureaucrats. Some Mongols embraced Christianity, largely because it taught that God would reward those who followed Christ and heal those who were sick and bring victory in battle. Five of the first six Mongol kings were connected, in some tenuous way, with the Christian faith.36 Hulugu’s mother and his chief’s wife (Dukas) were both Christians. Some of the scholars and administrators, who traveled with the Mongols and had joined the Mongols in Central Asia, were Nestorian Christians. Other reasons for favoring Christianity were logistical and political. Because their enemies in battle had been Muslims, the Mongols first favored the Christians in their midst and gave them political power and social status. Muslims were also resented because they controlled so many of the trade routes that Mongol invaders hoped to capture for their own benefit. Restrictions and taxes against Christians and Jews that had been put in place by Muslims were lifted. Because the Mongols were opportunists, they used Christian skills to their own advantage. Further, many Mongol courtiers had already learned Christianity from Nestorian missionaries whom they had encountered in Central Asia. Since it was felt that Muslims could not be trusted for government positions, many of these were given to Christians. Jewish merchants in Persia were also often well-treated by the Mongols who benefited from their activities and who did not seem threatened by their small numbers. In Tabriz, for example, Mongol governors appointed two Jewish prime ministers.37 One Mongol leader actually decreed, in 1282, that all government clerks should either be Jews or Christians. The Il-Khan Teguder (renamed Ahmad) even chose the Jewish teacher Sa’d al-Dawla to serve as his trusted vizier until he was deposed for assuming too much authority.38
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The sack of Baghdad and the capture and execution of the Caliph in 1258 marked a turning point in both Muslim and Mongol history. Shortly thereafter the enthusiasm that some Mongols had shown for Christianity began to wane. This change occurred because the Mongols saw their Muslim opponents winning victories against non-Muslim enemies, which led them to assume that the Muslim God was thus stronger than the Christian God. In 1260, a Mongol army was defeated by Muslims at the battle of Ain Jalut, and this further led many Mongols to question the power of the Christian God. Another major strike against Christianity occurred at about the same time when a Christian Tatar chief named Nayan tried to lead a rebellion against the Mongols. The uprising failed, but the fact that the leader of this insurrection, and all of his army, were Christians, left the Mongols with deep suspicions that other Christians might become eventual enemies. When Muslim forces soundly defeated Christian Crusader forces at Acre in 1291, the Mongols regarded this as another conclusive victory by Islam over the Christian religion. Shortly thereafter, in 1295, the next Il-Khan chosen was Ghazan, who assumed the Muslim name of Mahmud (1295–1304).39 After Mahmud’s ascendancy, Mongol rule turned into an unmitigated nightmare for the Christian church in Persia. Mahmud began a tireless, fierce persecution against Christians and ordered the destruction of all churches in Persia. Once again, Christians were reduced to a position of subjection and assigned to an inferior social status. The Mongols realized that it was better to adapt to the majority Muslim population than to alienate them, and so they were converted en masse in Mahmud’s summer camp in the Lar Valley north of Teheran in June of 1295.40 The status of the Christian churches in Persia shifted overnight. Another change occurred for religious minorities in Persia with the arrival in 1383 of the fabled Timur.41 Timur, also known as Tamerlane (and Timur Beg, or in Marlowe’s rendering Tamburlaine), led another massive wave of wreckage throughout Persia which led to a carnage of countless people.42 As Turko-Mongol warriors had done before his tidal blood bath, Timur made sure that all valuables from this plunder were carted back to his capitol of Samarkand, Central Asia along with legions of slaves and cattle.43 Timur’s barbaric cruelty in war was legendary. He followed the practice of his ancestors, and after liquidating a city and butchering all of its occupants, he took the time to laboriously pile up huge mountains of skulls as a testimony to the uselessness of resisting his mighty rage. Outside of Isfahan, it was recorded that the seventy thousand heads Timur’s army had lopped off were neatly stacked into 120 different pillars.
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There were ninety thousand heads similarly arranged outside conquered Baghdad. While Timur centered his rule in Samarkand, he left Persia to be ruled by a complex web of various princely families and local aristocracies to oversee his power to tax and fleece the citizenry. The region saw a huge influx of Central Asian Turkmen. This is known as the Timurid period. Timurids, at first, were plunderers and invaders. The Timurids who settled in eastern Iran eventually, however, ended up being active protectors of Persian culture, in particular Shah Rokh (1405–1447).44 The arts and music flourished and schools of painting, especially miniatures, were established in Shiraz and Herat. Timur saw himself not only as the restorer of Central Asian Turkic grandeur but also as a guardian of the truth of Sunni Islam. He seemingly had no respect for non-Muslims and the rise of Timur meant that Jews and all other non-Muslims were targeted for ethnic cleansing. Halib Levy estimates that “some 350,000 Persian Jews were killed, converted, or fled Persia during Timur’s rule.”45 What Timur did to the Jewish community, he also sought to do to his Christian communities. Timur was determined, wherever he went, to destroy all traces of these two false and impure religions. Whenever any traces of a Christian community remained, it was mercilessly erased, and those Christians who sought to run from these attacks were not usually able to flee fast enough or run far enough from their enemies before they were hounded down and cut to pieces. Some Christians who supernaturally managed to survive one horrific wave of persecution would move to another locale only to experience the exact same result. It is nothing less than a miracle that any expressions of Christianity survived Timur’s hellish storms against their churches, schools, monasteries, and resident communities. The ruthless tyrant finally died in 1405 while attempting to invade China. After Timur, the greatest concentration of Christians that remained was in the Lake Urmiah region in the relatively remote and mountainous northwestern portion of the country.
THE SAFAVID EMPIRE (SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURY) AND JEWISH PERSECUTION The Safavids were sovereigns of Turkish origin who ruled at a “crucial turning point in Iranian history” and were the “longest-lasting Persian dynasty in the past thousand years.”46 The Safavids were rooted in Azeri culture and first rose to power in what is now called Azerbaijan
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under the oversight of Shah Isma’il Safavi (born in 1487, ruled from 1501–1524).47 The shah penned poetry in Azerbaijani and introduced over a thousand Azerbaijani words into Persian. His rule offered a clean break from previous Arabic Sunni Islamic overlords, and one of his first acts as shah was to introduce the names of the Twelve Imams into the weekly khotba at every masjid and shrine in the country.48 The Safavids trace their origin to a tight-knit Central Asian Sufi religious order but gradually adapted their practices to embrace Twelver Shi’a Islam as they became increasingly more successful.49 In the sixteenth century, Safavid rulers changed their official titles from shaykhs to the more secular term of sultan. Shah Isma’il threatened anyone who refused the Shi’ite faith with either a slow death or an immediate banishment. The most successful of the Safavid rulers was Shah Abbas I (who ruled from 1587 until 1629). He was an intriguing monarch who often visited the market incognito to learn what his subjects were saying and truly thinking. Shah Abbas is wellknown because he was eager to encourage Persia’s interactions with the outside world. With the help of his conscripted army of Armenian artisans, Shah Abbas refurbished his capital of Isfahan into one of the most magnificent first cities in world history. The primary focus of his attention, however, was on modernizing his military (with gunpowder and canons), as well as improving his nation’s economic prospects. It was not unusual to see a host of foreign merchants lobbying for favors and lucrative contracts at Shah Abbas’s political court. Persian Islam was undergoing dramatic changes at this time. Folk traditions, Sufi mysticism, emerging Shi’ism, and orthodox Sunnism were all interacting during a period of transition which brought transformations to all of these varied expressions of Islam. During the Safavid Empire, Persians adopted Shi’ism as the state religion, and the Shi’ite faith was seen as a significant unifying factor throughout civic society. One of the main reasons for this shift was because the citizens of the Ottoman Empire, the primary rival of the Safavids, were Sunni Muslims. The Safavids hoped that the embrace of Shi’ism would serve to glue the variant interests of the country together under one holy banner and in opposition to the false faiths of their enemies. The Safavids also created, according to ‘Ali Shariati, “public rituals” which incorporated “totally new symbols or rituals”—many of which were borrowed from Persian Christians—“which had no precedent in Iran or Islam.”50 They also turned to Shi’ism as a way to promote their assertive vision of Persian nationalism. According to Mark Bradley, Safavid rulers portrayed “‘Ali and Hussein” as rulers who “were semi-detached from the Arab elite” in order to portray them as “virtual Iranians.”51
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Persia’s transition to Shi’a Islam was imposed by unquestioned military force. The Safavid government also imported Shi’ite clergy from Lebanon and Syria to reeducate common Sunni Muslims. The Safavids repeatedly attacked Iraq in hopes of gaining control of Najaf and Karbala, but these forays were not successful. At the same time, the support of state political power brought dramatic changes to Shi’ism. Once it became a state religion, Shi’ism developed new theological ways of seeing the relationship between faith and society. Even though the Safavid rulers had not been able to maintain their political power and grew progressively weaker, they left an indelible mark on Persian religious civilization. Faith became more totalitarian, and politics became more ideological under Safavid rule. Even though the Mongols had, at one time, sought to wipe out all non-Muslims in Persia, they had allowed for a few non-Muslims to remain. The Safavids were particularly harsh with Sunni Muslims and with Zoroastrians.52 Persecution also increased for Jews and Christians. One British traveler to Safavid Iran was even followed around at the order of the shah with a basket of sand to cover over all of his steps while he travelled through the palace grounds because his footprints were considered the markings of an unclean infidel.53 It was an era of religious intolerance in the name of civic uniformity as an expression of loyal patriotism. A new code known as Jam Abbasi controlled the dress, travel, and housing of non-Shi’ites. Persian Jews were categorized as unclean heretics, and many chose to leave Persia (and move to the Ottoman Empire) at this time. Those Jews who remained had to submit to some of the harshest codes of conduct ever put in place in the Muslim world against non-Muslims. Jews were segregated into ghettos and forced to wear a badge of shame on their clothing at all times.54 One account claimed that, in 1642, a series of odd edicts were passed which demanded that Jews “must not wear matching shoes, fine clothes, or waist-sashes, that they must not walk in the middle of a street or walk past a Muslim, that they must not enter a (food or coffee) shop and touch things, that their weddings must be held in secret and if they were cursed by a Muslim they must stay silent.”55 When Safavid rulers issued decrees that all Jews should convert to Islam, some chose outwardly to convert while inwardly maintaining their Jewish beliefs and practices. Converts to Islam were given the homes and the goods of their non-Muslim family members as a reward for their decision. When the Safavids were overthrown by the shortlived Afsharid Dynasty (and the subsequent Zand and Qajar dynasties), Jewish life in Persia continued to dwindle. It was not until Jews in
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Europe began to take a measure of interest in their Persian sisters and brothers that their situation improved slightly.56
CATHOLIC AND ARMENIAN CHRISTIANITY DURING THE SAFAVID EMPIRE It was during the Safavid era that Roman Catholic missionaries, after a three hundred year hiatus, returned to Persia. Their disembarkation coincided with extensive involvement in Persian politics, for the first time, of European powers such as England, Holland, France, and Russia into the nation’s domestic and economic affairs. Most of Persia’s initial interaction with Europe related to trade routes between Asia and Europe which went through the Persian Gulf. These emerging routes bypassed the Ottoman Empire. In 1507, the Persian Gulf island of Hormuz was seized by the Portuguese, which led to a group of Augustinian hermits coming to the island around 1575. Their leader, Simon Morales, then journeyed to the Safavid capital of Isfahan in 1582 and established a mission there in 1602. The first English merchants landed in Persia via Russia in 1559. On July 6, 1604, a group of Discalced (Barefooted) Carmelites set off from the Vatican, via Russia, to launch a new mission in Persia. The Carmelites settled in Isfahan in 1607 and joined with the Augustinians who had arrived a few years earlier. These Carmelite missionaries spent the next 150 years gaining notoriety as one of the most devoted, persevering Christian missionary ventures in Persian history.57 They translated the mass service and missal into Persian and opened schools for the Christians of Isfahan. The Carmelites were received by Shah Abbas in May 1608, and their leader, Father John Thaddeus, presented him with a crucifix made of pure gold, a book of Old Testament miniatures, and a barrel of strong vodka (a gift from the Russian czar). Father John was beloved by the shah and traveled freely throughout the kingdom doing his missionary preaching. In one expedition in 1614, Father John was arrested in Astrakhan by Russian authorities who regarded him as a Persian spy. The diplomatic pleadings of Shah Abbas probably saved Father John’s life. In 1621, the Catholic missionaries of Hormuz Island abandoned their post when their Portuguese protectors were vanquished by a joint British-Safavid invasion. At this time, five Persian Carmelites were falsely accused of being spies and were killed as they traveled towards Hormuz to warn Christians of possible dangers. One martyr, Chassader, was a gardener who had converted from Islam. When he
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freely admitted to being a Christian and refused to recant, Chassader was publicly disemboweled. Another convert, Elie, was wrapped in a donkey skin, impaled on a stake, and left to die. The final three members of this Catholic expedition also refused to deny Christ or admit to being spies and, for their resolution, they were stoned to death, and their bodies were burned. Shah Abbas was an autocrat in domestic policies but a diplomat when it came to foreign policy.58 This is why the shah granted Augustinian missionaries concessions to work among minorities of the country, although they were not allowed to proselytize Muslims. Shireen Hunter notes that the “fame of Shah Abbas’s benevolence toward the Christians reached the European powers.”59 In coming decades, Carmelite, Capuchin, and Benedictine monks set up monasteries in Isfahan. Father Bernard de Sainte Therese built a cathedral in Isfahan in 1640, and the first Jesuits reached the city in 1653. In 1695, Dominicans dedicated a church in Isfahan which is still standing to this day. While Catholicism took root slowly in Persia and eventually lost most of its support from Europe, the ancient Armenian Christian Church became an increasingly visible presence in the Persian capital. Armenia had been home to the oldest Christian kingdom in the world, established in 301 when their pagan king became a Christian under the teachings of Gregory the Illuminator.60 Although Armenians are sometimes called Orthodox they have no historic connections with either Greek or Russian Orthodoxy but find basic doctrinal agreement with both Orthodox communities. Armenian Christians worshipped in an independent church but one which fully supported the theological creeds of the Councils of Nicea, Ephesus, and Constantinople. Shah Abbas brought the first Armenians to Persia in 1604 as captives from his wars in neighboring Azerbaijan (Karabagh).61 Many of them were resettled near Isfahan and, in 1617, were awarded a monopoly to manage the shah’s vast trading houses in silk. In 1620, the shah took a prominent role in an Armenian religious ceremony.62 Although this patronage provided Armenians with a tremendous economic opportunity, it was also the case that Armenians were treated in different ways at various times by Shah Abbas. At one point he offered increased economic incentives if any Armenian would convert to Islam. At the same time (1621) he sent out generals to the edges of his empire to forcibly convert a number of Armenian communities to Islam.63 The men of these villages were forcibly circumcised, and some were killed. Near the end of his reign and, shortly before he died in 1629, the shah passed an edict that any Christian who converted to Islam would be
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able to claim all of the wealth and property of any non-Muslim relative for seven (later reduced to four) generations back in time. In order to save their wealth and lands, tens of thousands of people converted to Islam.64 Very few of these converts, however, were Armenians. One of the worst periods of persecution against the Armenians took place briefly from 1656–1658, where, again, attempts were made to forcibly convert all non-Muslim Persians into the one true faith of God.65 During the Safavid reigns of Shah Suleiman (1666–1692) and Shah Sultan Husayn (1692–1722) more discriminatory laws were passed against heretical and impure Persian Christians. These two rulers were weak and were usually controlled by political and religious authorities who sought to extend their control at the expense of helpless religious minorities. Throughout this period, Armenians were repeatedly robbed by the rulers of Persia and were often forced to pay exorbitant taxes. If they refused to pay these fines, they were threatened by the government with annihilation. Some parents tragically had no choice but to sell their own children to pay for these mounting expenses. In other instances, Armenian women were simply taken by the royal court and added to the harem as payment for these taxes. Waterfield reports, “In 1683, after the Blessing of the Waters Ceremony, twenty-seven young Armenian girls were abducted for the King’s pleasure; some of them were afterwards compelled to marry Muslims who proceeded to claim what little remained of their new relatives’ goods.”66 While some Catholic mission focus was directed toward the Armenian community, the majority of Catholic efforts centered on serving the needs of the economic and political expatriates who lived in Isfahan. In addition to the Armenians, some Catholic missionaries targeted Assyrian Nestorians in western Persia. Some of these Uniates, as they were known, accepted the authority of the pope in Rome in 1844 (they were also known as Chaldeans or as Syrians). By this time, Persia had become a Middle Eastern ethnic melting pot with large Kurdish, Assyrian, Georgian, and Armenian communities becoming increasingly vibrant in the fabric of the nation. Of the Armenian community in New Julfa near Isfahan, Waterfield observed that “the incorporation of a large body of Christians into the very heartland of Persia and their continuing presence in the country was to have a very considerable effect on the future of Persia. From now on they were always confronted with a body of devoted Christians, who in spite of many attempts to induce them to abandon their faith and adopt Islam very rarely did so.”67 Over one hundred thousand Georgian Christians were also resettled in Persia, and many of these eventually gained noteworthy prestige in the royal court.68
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While most Armenians worked for the Safavids in building the city of New Julfa, other Armenians settled in Mashad, Hamadan, and Shiraz. These communities fared much worse than the Armenian community in New Julfa. The Safavids and Armenians had a complicated relationship since both the Safavids and Ottomans were fighting to gain control over Armenia. Most Armenian historians consider the Safavid era a catastrophe for the nation. During war many Armenians were captured by the Safavids and became slaves and eventually servants (called ghullams) with limited freedoms.69 It is probable that Safavids treated Armenians better than Ottomans and were thus seen as allies, if not liberators. It is impossible to substantiate such claims, but it was reported that the total number of Armenians killed or forcibly deported to cities throughout Persia between 1604 and 1605 was somewhere between 250,000 to 300,000 people. Tens of thousands of these Armenians probably also died during this harsh move. In 1620, there were probably about three hundred thousand Armenians living in an increasingly prosperous emerging city of New Julfa.70 Andrew Newman notes that Safavid rulers favored Armenians and “generally sided with indigenous, especially elite Armenian interests against the interests of foreign Christians.”71 In New Julfa, Armenians were usually able to appoint their own mayor and administer their own government. Armenians chose their own tax collectors who also served as intermediaries between the villagers and local landlords and the Safavid crown. There were even periods of time when Armenians were permitted to build churches, ring church bells on Sunday, consume alcohol, and construct schools that taught in the Armenian language. Price asserts that some of these privileges were unprecedented in other Muslim countries at that time.72 There were also as many as twelve other smaller Armenian villages that ringed New Julfa which were also autonomous. Kenneth Scott Latourette believed that New Julfa was the “center of religious devotion and learning” for the Armenian community of the time.73 New Julfa certainly became the spiritual center for Armenian Christians during this era. Famous Armenian painters, scholars, and writers flourished in New Julfa. A library and a printing press were established there in 1641. By 1715, the city had grown to include a population of more than sixty thousand Armenians with almost thirty separate Armenian churches.74 Most of these churches were Orthodox, but there were also a number of Armenian Catholics which were supported by the missionary activities of Jesuits who had established schools and other programs among the Armenians. One Armenian church near New Julfa, in the village of Shrushkan, was particularly renowned in its time. Within the church was an
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Armenian manuscript of the New Testament which was said to have curative, miraculous powers. Those who touched this Testament were often immediately healed. The book was brought out once a year to New Julfa in a festival organized by a group called “The Gentlemen of the Testament.”75 Sacrifices of sheep and other animals were made at the festival. Leon Arpee reports some of the odd scenes that also took place at this festival: “Male and female mediums rolled on the floor in a trance, beat their breasts, pulled out their hair, and clawed at their faces,” while they prophesied the future before the Testament, while crowds joined into a “sing-song church chant in cryptic language to the accompaniment of burning incense.”76 Pilgrims, including Muslims, came from far and wide to the Festival of the Testament to ascertain their future or to receive their healing miracle by touching the sacred book. New Julfa was also a center for the Silk Road trade between Europe and Asia which featured, among others, scores of prosperous Armenian merchants. Unfortunately, Afghan interlopers ransacked most of New Julfa when they arrived, and Armenian businessmen were forced, once again, to go into exile throughout the markets of the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. The loyalty and industriousness of the Armenian community in Persia was exemplary. When, in the early eighteenth century, Ottomans invaded Persia they were expelled under the able leadership of three Armenian Meliks (military leaders). These efforts resulted in Nadir Shah (1736–1747) honoring the entire Armenian community. One of the benefits he bestowed upon them was that they were to be granted tax-free status, and this resulted in Armenians from neighboring countries moving to Persia to enjoy such a favorable condition. As the community grew in size so did their wealth and significance to the nation as a vital link between Persia and the countries of the West.
NON-MUSLIMS DURING THE QAJAR DYNASTY (1794–1925) The Safavid Empire was strained by repeated Afghan incursions until Nadir Shah came to power and beat back the Afghans before going on to invade India.77 Nadir Shah, who was not an orthodox Muslim, had expressed public interest in Christianity and Judaism and insisted that Jews provide him with a translation of the Torah and that Armenian Christians present him with a translation of the Gospels. Nadir Shah was many things, including indulgent and tyrannical. He was known for his cruelty and his skills at extortion. One account explained that
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Nadir Shah “extracted everything he could from the hapless Armenians” in order to fill his war coffers.78 Persia was racked by internal turmoil and political chaos at this time. One of the key contributors to this grim situation was Nadir Shah himself. He was tormented with mental grief and pressing guilt after having ordered that the eyes of his own son, Reza Qoli, be torn out (after the youth had been falsely accused of leading a rebellion). Nadir Shah seemed unable to rule, and soon enemies rose up against him. In 1747, he was knifed by his own bodyguards outside Mashad in his harem tent while sleeping. One assassin sliced off the shah’s arm as he raised it to defend himself, and another cut off his head. After Nadir Shah’s death, the stunned and exhausted realm was divided between barbarous Afghan warriors and the nomadic Zands of Kurdistan. Another Turkish tribe, the Qajars, eventually rose to conquer the entire breadth of the Safavid Empire, and, finally, the sadistic warrior Agha Muhammad Khan was crowned the shah of Teheran in 1796.79 Upon coming to power he decreed that a number of his political enemies, such as Lotf Ali Khan, should be publicly gang-raped by his Turkmen slaves. In one account, Agha Muhammad Khan ordered that all the women and children of one vanquished city be awarded as slaves to his warriors. He also mandated that any villager who resisted was to be blinded and that the eyeballs of all rebels be brought to him in heaping baskets. His fearful servants carried out this gruesome order and reportedly filled twenty thousand baskets of eyes. In the following decades, blind victims of the khan’s vindictive tortures wandered across the length and breadth of Persia asking for alms of mercy and recounting their stories of lament. Agha Mohammad Khan died in 1798 and was succeeded by Fath Ali Shah who led the Qajar Empire for thirty-seven years. Fath Ali Shah’s governance was lenient, unlike the despotic authoritarianism of his predecessor. This was because the new shah seemingly only wanted to drink and carouse. Fath Ali Shah sired an impressive 260 sons by his 158 wives.80 It was under his reign that the Qajars, facing external threats on all sides, were forced into significant concessions to the French, Russians, British, and even their bitter rivals of the Ottoman Empire.81 The ultimate threat to the Qajars, however, came from the fevered rivalry between Russia and Great Britain, which both sought to exert political control over Persia.82 Captain John Malcolm was the first British agent to enter Persia in 1801.83 He was followed in 1802 by Napoleon‘s first envoy, the Armenian Mir David Melik Shahnazar.84 Nasir al Din Shah (1848–1896) frequently appointed envoys to Europe and Russia from among the ranks of his Armenian subjects.
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The situation unfolded rapidly after these first foreign envoys took residence in Persia. The Qajars were powerless in the face of Western military superiority and, later, its economic penetration into Persia. Persian independence was slowly strangled to death by foreign domination. When Russian troops marched toward Teheran, the Qajars had no choice but to turn to British support which was slow in coming. Turning to Britain led to a Faustian bargain which ultimately undermined their power even further. Even with British assistance, Russia was able to impose a harsh treaty on the Qajars which allowed the czar to gain control over a huge portion of the territories of northern Persia.85 Britain, for its part, was interested in pulling the marionette strings of a weakened Persian government because it was seeking a profitable land route to India and also to slow down the steady southward advance of their Russian rivals. Russia and Great Britain both won concessions from Iran which gave these nations significant control over Persia’s natural resources. The foreign control of Persia’s economy reached its height under the indifferent rule of Nasir al-Din Shah. Local populations became increasingly restless, and, in 1906, religious leaders clamored for the shah to establish a constitutional parliamentary system of government. Some members of the Armenian community (including some who had recently returned from Russia’s 1905 revolution) provided leadership to a number of the new political movements trying to gain influence in Persia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Persia approved yet another national constitution in 1911. This document declared that Twelver Shi’a Islam was the official religion of Persia and also installed a group of five mujtahids designated to approve all potential legislation from an Islamic perspective before allowing it to be considered by the nation’s elected officials. Local Christian communities, however, did not feel threatened by these developments. In fact, the genocide of about 1.5 million Armenians in neighboring Turkey resulted in thousands of Armenians fleeing to Persia, which only strengthened their community.86 While World War I did not directly involve Persia, its affect was to weaken Persia’s status as an autonomous state. In 1919, Persia signed over its military and financial resources fully to Britain, and, in effect, became a British mandate.
CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN THE SAFAVID AND QAJAR DYNASTIES In the seventeenth century other European nations became increasingly active in Persia through religious as well as economic channels.
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French Catholics became interested in the cause of foreign missions through the Society for the Propagation of the Faith which was formed in 1622 and was strongly supported throughout France. In 1627, a French Capuchin mission team was sent to oversee the area now known as Iran and Iraq. These Capuchins were medical doctors and teachers who were based in Baghdad and who enjoyed the patronage of Shah Abbas. This assistance included the shah’s reversing a number of long-standing anti-Christian laws. In 1638, the French bishop of Baghdad, Father Bernard of St. Theresa, had to flee to Isfahan after it was captured by the Turks. In the 1830s, the Catholic Church was led by Pope Gregory XVI who had, as cardinal, served as a prefect of the missional Propaganda Fide (formed to continue the work of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith).87 The pope was deeply committed to expanding foreign mission programs at a time when Protestants were increasingly active in such efforts. Gregory inaugurated a vast restructuring of the mission efforts of the church, which coincided with French imperialist expansion at the same time. Catholic Lazarist priests arrived in Persia in the 1840s. They established a diocese in Isfahan in 1850, in Teheran (in 1853), and one in Urmiah in 1892. The last Catholic diocese which was established in Iran was organized in 1966 in Ahwaz for Chaldeans who had moved southward for economic reasons. The arrival of French representation in the royal court also facilitated the arrival of large numbers of Catholic priests. The French counsel set about opening primary schools for Armenian Christian children in Tabriz and Isfahan and for Chaldean Christians in Urmiah and Salamis. The Lazarist schools in Isfahan and the one in Tabriz were established by the enigmatic but brilliant layman, Eugene Bore.88 French Sisters of Charity (Soeurs de la Charite) worked with the tireless Bore and with the Lazarists to staff these Catholic educational efforts. This was the same order that distinguished itself in heroically aiding the wounded on the battlefields of the Crimean War in 1856. Another group, the Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus, opened leprosariums in Tabriz and Mashad.89 Not all Catholic missionaries, however, were French. Dominican scholars would later come from England and Ireland to teach in Catholic schools, and Silesian missionaries traveled from Italy to lead a summer camp for Iranian youth.90 The Qajar Dynasty interested in courting French favor as an alternative to English and Russian political designs did not interfere with French Lazarist efforts and allowed further projects to advance. A Lazarist seminary was opened with training in French, Latin, Syriac,
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and Armenian. Large Catholic churches were allowed to be built. Two colleges—one for girls and one for boys—were launched with instruction in French. They were later put under the sponsorship of the Sisters of Charity. A Catholic hospital and orphanage were established that were also open to Muslims. Soon the Lazarist missionaries, Father Varese and Father Plagnard, brought their educational work to Teheran and Shiraz.91 One Lazarist priest even gained a position in the royal court of Nadir Shah. Other than these Lazarist efforts, most Catholic missions left Persia by the end of the eighteenth century. In spite of that fact, there was enough of a Catholic presence in the country to encourage the Vatican to continue maintaining a diplomatic link with Iran even after the events of the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution. Catholic missionaries of all kinds worked in Persia for centuries with few results to show for their labors in terms of converts to the faith. Educational and medical programs, in contrast, were a heartwarming success. It is hard to summarize with a broad brush the extent of so many initiatives across such a long period of time. Short-lived successes and failures combined with both sincere efforts and political intrigues. Waterfield’s opinion of the sum of this venture was that “in spite of all of their mistakes—and the mistakes of those who sent them and who burdened them with such impossible tasks—the presence of these devoted men was a good thing for Persia. They made but little impression on the course of history, but for many, many, ordinary helpless people over the years, they provided charity and hope.”92 The stellar example of Father Aime Chezaud expresses this relationship. He spent his years in Persia sleeping on a straw mat on the floor and wearing a torn and patched gray habit. Father Chezaud ate only bread and wild cherries and devoted his life to patiently serving the poor. At his funeral, after living in Persia for over fifty years, thousands of Muslims as well as Christians of all types came to weep at the loss of Patre-Habib and remember his singular contribution to their lives.
JUDAISM IN THE QAJAR ERA Jews were not as fortunate as were Christians under the Qajar period, since they had no international support which provided a measure of political protection for their communities. Laws were passed which denied them the right to pass on their wealth to their children. Jews were even forbidden to leave their homes during rainstorms because the rain that fell on them might also touch a Muslim and thus make
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them ritually unclean and unable to pray.93 Their problems came in spite of the fact that Haji Ibrahim of Shiraz, a descendant of a converted Jew, had helped the Qajars rise to power and had been appointed to serve as the nation’s prime minister under Nasir al-Din. Lord Curzon lamented that the Jews of Persia were “sunk in great poverty and ignorance.”94 Their penury, lack of education, and lamentable social status meant that they were often openly abused by their fellow citizens. Some Jews chose to flee the country while still others converted to Christianity. These trends led the leaders of the Jewish communities of Persia to successfully seek to develop links with Jews in other countries such as in England and the United States.95 Because Shi’ite clerics became particularly strong in certain areas of the country (such as Mashad and Tabriz), Jews suffered in these regions more than in other areas. In 1839, the Jews of Mashad were given the choice of either forcible conversion or immediate death. At least thirty-one Jews who refused to convert were killed when the Jewish quarter of the city was set on fire.96 Other Jews who refused to become Muslims were publicly beheaded. In spite of public renunciations, Jews continued to practice their ancient religious ceremonies. At this time, Jews were relegated to professions forbidden to Muslims such as trading in jewelry, making wine, and performing as dancers or as musicians. Jews in some cities earned a living as fortune-tellers (falgir khanah) where they would often recite prayers in Hebrew over their unwitting Muslim customers. Jews were, however, allowed to practice medicine, and the Jews of Hamadan boasted of over one hundred physicians and druggists at the beginning of the twentieth century. The worsening situation for Jews, ironically, encouraged large numbers of Persian Jews to embrace a new religion of universal toleration that appeared on the scene, the Baha’i Faith.97
THE BIRTH OF THE BAHA’I MOVEMENT UNDER QAJAR RULE During the Qajar Dynasty a new religious group emerged that is now a worldwide religious tradition. The Baha’is are the largest religious minority in Iran today. Their holy books, the Qayyum al-Asma (or The Resurrection of the Holy Names) and the Bayan (or Exposition) teach that salvation and resurrection life can be attained within this lifetime through accepting the Baha’i message of universal truth. Similar to Islam, fasting and daily prayers are enjoined, and alcohol and narcotic drugs are forbidden among believers. The old Islamic
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rules and outward, formalized rituals, however, were to be set aside to make way for a revitalized law of inward spiritual purity. The Baha’i Faith began as a messianic movement, born at a time of profound social chaos, which called its followers to embrace radical changes and look at the world from a fresh perspective. The rights of women, advocated by the poet, theologian, and Baha’i disciple Qazin (known as Qoorat al-Ain) were actively debated, and thriving women’s societies were formed.98 Such revolutionary ideas were not welcome by the conservative establishment of religious and political authorities. This is one of the main reasons why the Baha’is have faced myriad problems in their interactions with various Muslim groups. The Baha’i Faith is a strongly ethical and multicultural religion which forbids prejudice and seeks to unify people with mutual respect to work for social justice.99 Service to humanity is the primary duty of all believers throughout the world. Adherents are encouraged to pray and meditate daily and to maintain yearly periods of fasting to enhance their spiritual lives.100 The religion—first preached by a teacher called “the Bab,” Seyyed Ali Mohammad, in Shiraz—proclaims that there is only one God.101 God has sent many intermediaries throughout history, including Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad. The final prophet, however, is their founder, the Baha’u’llah.102 In 1866, Mizra Husayn Ali—the Baha’u’llah—proclaimed that he was “the one whom God shall make manifest.” He assumed leadership over a movement that the Bab had begun. The Baha’u’llah encouraged pacifism in a series of revelations which became recognized as sacred texts. His mystical messages and strong following among both clergy and common people led the government to exile him to Akka (Acre) where he eventually passed from this life in 1892. Joseph Sheppherd writes, “In every respect Baha’u’llah is the foundation of the Baha’i faith and the pivot around which revolve all the teachings and principles of His religion.”103 His gospel took root among the poor and middle class in Persia who were eager for social changes. The movement had a clearly nationalistic character, and its holy literature was written in Persian. The main festival was based on an ancient Persian festival. Another group of people which took interest in this movement were Persian women who were encouraged by Baha’i teachings which boldly asserted their rights to express their spiritual and intellectual gifts publicly. In the late nineteenth century, and in the early twentieth century, many Baha’i leaders were murdered because their nonviolent movement was seen to be a threat to the state. Even though the Baha’is have faced long periods of extensive persecution, these campaigns
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were intermittent as various Iranian governments continued to change their policies about how to deal with the group.104 When governmental policies were established which protected their rights, the Baha’is became increasingly powerful as a force of intermediation between Muslim Persia and the non-Muslim West, functioning as “interpreters and agents of European commercial enterprises and even furnishing some of the first Persian envoys posted to Europe.”105 The Baha’is were eager to engage in such peacemaking initiatives because they devoutly believed that “the entire world was but one country and humanity its citizens.”106 Today, the Baha’i Faith, with its lofty aspirations for human unity around the world, have raised awe-inspiring temples in many countries and have gained a dedicated following which is active in missionary advances through educational and social justice initiatives. The international center for the religion is the Universal House of Justice in Haifa, Israel, and, by 2000, the Baha’is claimed to have over five million adherents worldwide.107 The Baha’i movement, however, is not allowed to practice its faith openly in modern-day Iran.
THE INFLUENCE OF WAR AND EUROPEAN POWERS During the nineteenth century the autonomous authority of the Qajar Dynasty continued to decline. Attempts to create a constitution and to reform Persia were attempted in 1906–1909, but these initiatives were too little and too late. It was during this period of revolt that the American Presbyterian missionary Howard Conklin Baskerville was killed in battle while supporting constitutionalist forces.108 During this era of instability the dynasty was critically wounded by the activities of the British and Russians in Iran during World War I. The military machines of these foreign empires were dependant on oil and took control of Persia’s central government in order to ensure their ongoing supply of fuel.109 Fundamentally, however, it was not pressures from outside but internal clamoring for political and social change that finally brought down Qajar rule. The plight of Assyrian Christians in Persia was dramatically affected by the shifting military currents of World War I. This was because in the western part of the country, where most Assyrians lived, Russian troops were fighting against the last, fierce vestiges of the Ottoman Empire. The frontier town of Urmiah, in Kurdistan, had a very large Assyrian Nestorian population, which was protected by Russians fighting the Turks.
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When Russians troops abruptly abandoned the war because of the October 1917 revolution, Assyrian Christian communities were suddenly unprotected and looked to France for assistance. France did provide medical aid and a training unit to create a Christian militia, but this endeavor was frail, and the Kurdish chief Isma’il Aqa (also called Simko) led a brutal attack against the Christians of Urmiah, which led to the assassination of the Assyrian Christian patriarch. The massacre of Assyrian Christians continued unabated in the region until June of 1919 when the national government was finally able to reestablish control. Thousands of Nestorian Christians fled for safety to Baghdad and Hamadan, but only about half of the seventy-five thousand refugees actually reached safety. Christians in Persia were once again reminded firsthand that they were vulnerable and unable to count on distant Christian allies when they required vital, urgent protection. Overall, the Qajar era was a relatively peaceful period for Christianity in Persia. Evangelical missionaries began arriving in Persia during Qajar rule (their activities will be described in chapter 5). During the Qajar Dynasty, the influence of Britain and Russia over Persia led to increasing autonomy being granted to Christians living within the country. Algar writes, “Among the non-Muslim minorities in Iran, the Christians, both Armenians and Assyrians, were able to attain a new position of prominence in government and commerce during the Qajar period. Thanks to the missionaries, Christians in Persia became the most educated, modern segment of society. Christians often served as linguistic and diplomatic intermediaries with the political representatives of Britain and Russia.”110
NON-MUSLIMS UNDER REZA SHAH (1925–1941) It is not surprising that the Qajar Dynasty finally fell. What is amazing is “that they were able to retain the throne for so long with such frail bureaucratic and military structures.”111 By World War I it was a weak regime, and Qajar rulers had long since lost effective control over large areas of their country. The Qajar government was unpopular and seen as a puppet under the control of foreign powers.112 A new administration, the Pahlavi, which was reliant on military and police force, instead of skillful diplomacy, emerged in Iran. The Pahlavi Dynasty began with the assistance of Britain in leading a bloodless military coup over Ahmad Shah which placed an “obscure and practically illiterate Cossack” colonel in the army, Reza (or Rida) Mir Panjeh, in power.113
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After the coup, this colonel renamed himself Reza Khan, Sardar Sephah, and then, finally, Reza Shah Pahlavi, the founder of a new dynasty.114 The British role in his rise to power meant that Reza Shah “was completely lacking in legitimacy and popular support and, as such, was extremely weak and vulnerable to foreign diplomatic pressure.”115 While it is true that British and Pahlavi interests often intersected, it would not be entirely accurate to dismiss Reza Shah as only serving as a British surrogate. Reza Shah was a stern man of spartan tastes who often slept on the floor and reportedly never took off his military uniform. Reza Shah had little time for religion and ordered one man arrested who claimed to be divine by saying, “During my reign I will not permit any prophets to appear.”116 Reza Shah relied on internal brute police force as well as extensive foreign support. He amassed a huge army and used much of Persia’s oil revenues garnered from foreign powers to equip his army with tanks, aircraft, rifles, and artillery. All known political opponents of Reza Shah were arrested, and many were murdered. At the same time, British, Russian, and American economic interests demanded tribute from the new shah. In a “complete sell-out of Persian rights and interests,” the shah ceded to these three powers complete control over the nation’s vast oil and caviar resources and then even allowed for the wide-scale plunder of priceless Persian antiquities.117 In spite of foreign economic domination, the shah hoped to present his political rule to his people in nationalistic terms which paralleled the vision of his Turkish contemporary, Kemal Ataturk.118 Nationalistic, secular propaganda abounded from the state-run Iranian media which magnified the glories of ancient Persia. There were many changes and, in 1935, the name of the country was officially proclaimed to be Iran.119 Reza Shah also transformed the transportation infrastructure of Iran, invested in heavy industries, and expanded the scope of public education with the remaining oil revenues which he did not spend on the military.120 Military service became mandatory, and special guards, assigned to protect the shah, were dressed in ancient Achaemenid attire. One of the religious groups that benefited from this newfound nationalist fervor were the Zoroastrians who gained many converts because they were perceived by many Iranians to represent the truly indigenous religion of the nation.121 On the positive side, Iran underwent dramatic economic improvements during the first decades of the Pahlavi Dynasty, but, at the same time, domestic life was marked by increasing repression and the establishment of an oppressive police state. In order to appease British, Russian, and American concerns, certain legal codes were established by Reza Shah which seemed to
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provide greater human rights for women as well as for religious minorities in Iran.122 The year 1936 was known as the year of the “Great Unveiling” because women were ordered to wear Western hats instead of Islamic veils.123 Negative attitudes among Iranians increased toward foreign missionaries, and they were “carefully watched with considerable interference with their work.”124 During World War II, Iran again declared neutrality, but, when the shah refused to expel German expatriates, British and Soviet troops united to enter the country and force the shah to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammed Reza.125 Reza Shah was exiled to South Africa where he died in July 1944.
RELIGION AND THE REIGN OF MOHAMMAD REZA SHAH Mohammad Reza Shah, the twenty-two-year-old crown prince, rose to power in 1941 under the watchful protection of British and Russian forces.126 Foreign regiments occupied Iran throughout World War II. Only after foreign troops left was the new shah able to turn his attention to consolidating his control and winning the hearts of the Iranian people.127 One of his first initiatives was to reach out to Shi’ite clerics who had been alienated by his father’s secular policies.128 He spoke openly about his frequent religious dreams and visions where the Twelfth Imam would offer him practical advice on how to lead the nation.129 Initially, the shah openly promised to “spread the faith of Islam and very publicly went on a pilgrimage to Mashad,” but he was also, at his core, a secular Muslim who privately sought to remove clerics from any real political influence.130 An assassination attempt against the shah in 1949 (probably by Marxist extremists) was followed by the rise of Mohammad Mossadeq to power as prime minister.131 This difficult period for the shah was not eased until Mossadeq was deposed in a coup. This upheaval, called Operation Ajax, was sponsored by the American CIA and the British SIS.132 Immediately after these events, the shah sought to improve his standing with his citizens by investing in the nation’s neglected economic infrastructure. In 1953, what the shah called the White Revolution (financed by oil revenues) sparked an economic boom which lasted until his political ouster almost three decades later. The shah‘s intent was to drag the nation’s archaic social life into the modern era through economic liberalization and through social secularism which, it was hoped, would weaken the political power of religion in the lives of Iran’s common people. Because of a series of new policies, for example, factory workers received a 20 percent
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raise. Capitalism, and not Marxism, was to be the engine for this new social revolution. In spite of a 1,200-mile border with the former Soviet Union, the shah chose to build increasingly closer ties with the economic oil-hungry giants of Europe and the United States.133 Mohammad Reza Shah’s relations with non-Muslims, like many of his policies, seemed to function on several levels—all of which were ultimately designed to strengthen his own command over every aspect of society. The shah seized control of the curriculum and faculties of Iran’s Shi’ite theological seminaries and determined to quell all forms of rebellion cast in the guise of religious authority. At other times throughout his rule, however, the shah sought to appease Shi’ite clerics, and, when he did this, it often led to severe pogroms against the Baha’is and a few other religious minorities (especially during the mid-1950s). During the 1960s and 1970s, government policies against the Baha’is were eased at the same time that rules affecting other religious minorities were also loosened.134 Since the Baha’is and Protestant Christians (and even a few Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses) were the primary groups committed to aggressive evangelistic efforts, they increased their open proselytization efforts at this time.135 Both the Baha’i and Christian groups, however, refrained from attacking the beliefs of other religions, especially Islam. Protestants held evangelistic slideshows about Jesus and showed religious movies in villages. They even publicly baptized converts from Islam. In these two decades, all religious minorities formed community organizations and educational programs for their children. Religious educational programs by the Armenian community that had to be in the Persian language under the first shah were once again allowed to be conducted in the Armenian language. Certain restrictions for religious minorities remained in place during this period. Non-Muslims, for example, were not allowed to hold cabinet-level positions in the government or to have any leadership roles in the army. Government permission was also required for all religious literature. In addition, persecution continued at the grassroots level, and it was not unusual for non-Muslims to be removed from their employment simply because of their religious affiliation. The Jewish community in Iran largely flourished during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, and this positive relationship began during World War II and continued throughout the rest of his rule. In one little-known incident, the Jewish community in Teheran was able to provide for a group of 848 orphaned Polish Jewish children who came to Iran in 1942.136 This effort was led by Abdol-Husayn Sardari Qajar, the Persian government’s ambassador in Paris (known as the Iranian
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Schindler), who helped all Persian Jews living in Europe (and even some non-Persians), to escape to the relative safety of Iran during the war.137 Jews benefited from the more secular nature of the laws that the shah’s government set in place, and they were often able to integrate fully into Iranian social life.138 Laws of apostasy and requirements for non-Muslims to pay special taxes were eliminated. The shah recognized the State of Israel in 1950 and established close relationships with that nation—a move which was bitterly opposed by his fundamentalist critics and by many other Muslims worldwide. Some have called this era a golden age for the Jews in Iran.139 The shah’s government assisted any Jews in Iran (and also from Iraq) who sought to immigrate to Israel.140 Jewish children were free to attend Hebrew schools, and Jews in Persia participated in all professional fields. By the 1970s, Teheran had become the center of a vibrant and economically ascendant Jewish commercial contingent. A horrific backlash ensued for this community, however, with the 1979 fall of the shah because Jews were perceived to have been strongly supportive of the shah. One of the shah’s most virulent opponents in enacting his social revolutionary vision was the formidable Shi’ite cleric Ayatollah Khomeini. From the pulpits and madrassas of Qom, Khomeini cried out against westernizing influences and against such immoral practices as drinking alcohol, allowing women to dress as they chose, and tolerating loose moral codes of sexual conduct. The mullah would frequently lambast the activities of Queen Farah, and all that she represented, as a secular woman of independence and modernity.141 Khomeini was soon hailed as the inspirer of the growing conservative opposition to the shah. Khomeini was decisive in his convictions that “Islam is the religion of politics and politics is not separate from Islam.”142 Another reason that Khomeini (and many other Shi’ite clergy) opposed the shah was that he confronted their power and had tried to reduce their number and influence in the political life of Iran. In November 1964, the shah exiled this bitter and outspoken critic. A calculated decision was made that it would be safer to expel Khomeini than to execute him and to make him a beloved martyr. Other religious leaders were less fortunate. They were hunted down by SAVAK, as the vice-grips of Iran’s police state became increasingly totalitarian.143 SAVAK was widely condemned by worldwide human rights organizations because it relied on a vast range of physical, sexual, and psychological methods of torture to destroy all opponents of the regime.144 These barbaric injustices led to a flood of anger against the shah throughout the common people of Iran. The nation’s
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economy also began to falter at the same time. A slump in oil sales between 1975 and 1979 resulted in the dramatic deterioration of the economy, and opposition forces organized protest demonstrations to demand sweeping economic and social changes. Iran in the 1970s had the second largest (behind Israel) military in the Middle East and was known by supporters as an island of stability due to its cooperative relations with Europe, Russia, and the United States. Parliament mandated that the shah be called the Arya-Mirh (the Light of the Aryans). He ruled with few constitutional limitations, and it seemed that nothing could restrain his authority.145 Things changed suddenly: In 1979, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was deposed from power. Like his father, the shah had ruled with an iron hand, and over 60 percent of the nation’s yearly budget throughout his reign had been plowed into the coffers of the military and the police.146 Few funds were reserved for the national infrastructure or for rural education, and more than half of the country, at the time of his departure, remained illiterate.147 One of the positive legacies of the shah’s reign was sweeping land reform which had long been resentfully opposed by the feudal aristocracy. This singular issue was a key reason that Iran had no less than eighteen premiers in the first twenty-two years of the shah’s reign. On January 16, 1979, the shah fled the country, and his departure was wildly celebrated throughout Iran. He first went to the United States for medical treatment but soon shifted to Egypt (where he died of cancer in 1980). Even in exile, his enemies sought the shah’s destruction. The Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwah that Muslims in the United States should hunt down the ailing exile: “I order all students and Muslims in the United States, including Africans, Filipinos, and Palestinians, to drag him out of the hospital and dismember him.”148 A host of factors led to the shah’s undoing. His managerial and leadership style was shortsighted, and he failed to focus on pressing political realities all around him. Instead, he often chose to fixate on the intricate details of a distant international scene. The shah publicly squandered exorbitant wealth on the private opulence of the royal court, while some of his citizens floundered in unmitigated (and probably needless) poverty.149 The shah rarely even crossed paths with ordinary Iranians as he flew by helicopter from one palace to another. He feared (rightfully so) assassination attempts and watched obligatory military parades from a bulletproof glass box. Myopic policy misjudgments abounded, leading to increasingly inexorable structural flaws in his governance. Perhaps the shah failed primarily because he did not
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learn the lessons of his father and was too reliant on the fickle hands of foreign nations. The Iran of the shah was a rentier state which was addicted to foreign capital and was willing to export oil, natural gas, and archaeological treasures to other countries in exchange for unimaginable amounts of weaponry and wealth. Just as the shah had become out of touch with Iran’s suffering people, he also eventually lost touch with the times in which he lived. His rule ended—not at the hands of a foreign power—but by the assertions of zealous religious fervor mixed with unfettered social frustrations. NOTES 1. Yarshater, Ehsan, “The Persian Presence in the Islamic World” in The Persian Presence in the Islamic World. Hovannisian, Richard G., and Georges Sabagh, editors. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998, page 4. 2. The Prophet Muhammad died on June 8, 632. Shortly after his death, the new leaders of the community set out to gain military and political control of their region. The defeat of Arab warriors by the Persians at the Battle of the Bridge was one of very few early battles that the Arabs experienced in their advance. In their counterattack and victory in 637, the Persian forces of twenty thousand soldiers were decisively defeated by a far smaller Arab force at Qadisiya. Large tracts of land, including the twin cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, fell into Arab hands. The last Sasanian king, Yazdigerd III held out inside the empire until 641 when he was defeated once again by the Arabs, this time at the battle of Nehavend. Yazdigerd fled to Merv (Mary) where he lived in exile for another ten years until he was assassinated there in 651. This date is sometimes given as the end of the Sasanian Empire. The Persian capital of Ctesiphon was also known as Mada’in. A hastily formulated Persian force was then defeated in Jalula, and resistance continued for many years. Bernard Lewis in The Arabs in History. New York: Harper Books, 1966 (1958), pages 53–54. 3. Territorial reunification of Persia did not begin again until 1491 when Shah Isma’il Safavi began to reunify the various parts of the country that were then under Turkic, Iranian, and Turko-Iranian dynasties. 4. Segal, Ronald. Islam’s Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001, page 23. 5. The most famous Persian family given political power by the Arabs was the Barmakids who ruled for a few generations until they were removed because they had become too powerful. The most famous member of this surrogate ruling family was Jaffar who is popularized as the Grand Vizier in the story of Aladdin and the Tales from A Thousand and One Nights. 6. Segal, 121. Black eunuchs became part of the royal courts of Isfahan, and some African slaves even emerged in Persian culture to high political and military status. In 1717, Segal reports that Yaqub Sultan, identified as
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a black slave, was appointed the governor of Bandar Abbas, a principal port serving southern and central Iran (121). Christian Armenians, Georgians, and citizens of the Caucusus were also sold into slavery as the Persian Empire expanded to the west and north. Segal reports that in 1842 (which may serve as a typical year-to-year number), about five thousand African slaves entered Iranian ports (125). 7. One can observe that the twelve major deities (eyzads) of Zoroastrianism, for example, are replaced by the veneration of the Twelve Imams. 8. The idea of a savior to come at the end of time was also part of Persian mythology, and the occultation of the Twelfth Imam was known in Persia as Imam Zaman (The Lord of Time). Persians were able to keep many of their ancient practices and beliefs when they embraced Shi’a Islam. The structure of Shi’ite practice in Iran was based on Zoroastrian ritual structures. 9. Zoroastrians were not originally seen to be “People of the Book,” but they were later added in order to gain their financial tax contributions. Christian monks were excluded from having to pay the poll tax. 10. Foltz, 2004, 37. British abolitionists put pressure on the Persian court at this time to curtail slavery. The shah of Iran in 1846 initiated legislation which began to curtail the slave trade. One census of Teheran from 1868 claimed that about 12 percent of the entire population was black slaves and another 2 percent of the military, almost eight thousand soldiers, were African slaves (Segal, 126). 11. Sufi Abu Yazid (also known as Bayazid) of Bistam (died in 874) was originally trained by an Indian teacher from the Sindh. He led a group called “the intoxicated ones.” Another Buddhist concept, the annihilation of the soul, became part of the doctrine of Sufis called fana. Some nominal Shi’ites in Western Iran led by Ahl-e Haqq taught a belief in reincarnation and agreed that the ultimate goal of faith was annihilation in God. There is one passage in the Holy Qur’an (Surah 84) which is often used to support this idea. 12. Ghazan Khan, who had been born a Buddhist, and who had lived his life surrounded by Buddhists, seemingly went out of his way to show his disdain for his native faith in his systematic, cruel attacks. 13. One can see this assumption in the writings of John of Damascus. 14. Vine, 90. 15. Hodgson, 307. Zoroastrian magi, for example, came to express that the center for all devotion was Ahura Mazda, who should be seen to serve as “a proper analogue to the Allah of the Muslims. They bolstered this approach, of course, with theological metaphysics and possibly even with reinterpretations of scripture.” 16. Zoroastrians who fled to India to avoid persecution first settled in the Gujarat state around 936 C.E. They also settled in Bombay. Over time, Parsees were not able to maintain contact with Zoroastrians in Persia. A Society for the Amelioration of the Conditions of Zoroastrians in Persia was founded in Bombay with British assistance in 1854, and this society sent a legation to Persia where they discovered that the plight of their fellow religionists was unthinkably abysmal. This group began to lobby Persia to repeal the poll tax
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for Zoroastrians which the government agreed to do in 1882. Their plight improved and in 1906, the new government allocated one seat in the parliament for the Zoroastrians. Since the shah of Iran promoted a secular nation, Zoroastrians were able to become even more visible. A fire temple was established in Teheran in 1908. Persian intellectual Sadeq Hedayat (1903–1951) developed a keen interest in the religion, and some Iranians even converted to Zoroastrianism because it was seen to be more authentically Persian. The first World Zoroastrian Congress was held in Teheran in 1960 with representatives from India, Singapore, the United States, and throughout Europe. Spetna University, a virtual Zoroastrian University, has been set up in Los Angeles and has Zoroastrian students from all over the world, including Brazil and Venezuala. There are only one or two Zoroastrian communities in Iran today, in Yazd and in Kerman, while the largest population of Zoroastrians today is in Bombay, India. There are strong communities in Delhi and other cities, and the large Tata Company is primarily owned by Parsees. 17. A group of Persian Jews followed a man named Abu Isa Esfahani who claimed that he was the messiah. They practiced vegetarianism and acted as if they were always in mourning for the loss of the temple in Jerusalem. Abu Isa gained up to ten thousand followers. Another group of Jews revolted against Jewish Talmudic laws. They were known as the Karaites. In 830, a Persian Jew named Abu Amran taught that he was the Iranian Moses. Finally, in 1121, David al-Ruy tried to establish a Jewish army from among the Jews of Azerbaijan and Iran in order to march on Jerusalem and take back the holy city from the Christian Franks. He was not successful. 18. The Persian monk John of Phenek wrote of the Arabs in the 690s: We should not think of their advent as something ordinary, but as due to divine working. . . . How otherwise, apart from God’s help, could naked men, riding without armor or shield, have been able to win? God called them from the ends of the earth in order to destroy, through them, a sinful kingdom (Amos 9:8) and to humiliate, through them, the proud spirit of the Persians. (Foltz, 2004, 90) 19. Christians reported as proof of this argument their claim that the Holy Qur’an had 1,666 verses. 20. A tax, called jizya, has been administered to non-Muslims in different ways and at different times in Islamic history. There are some instances in Muslim history, including Persian history, where the jizya tax was punitive and was probably designed to drive Christians into either economic ruin or towards conversion to Islam. 21. This assertion is made by Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, Volume I: The Classical Age of Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974, page 91. 22. Vine, 93. 23. Al-Mansur’s library was called the Beyt al-Hikam (The House of Wisdom). His idea was to compile in one place all of the wisdom of the world and then translate it into Arabic. Sasanian rulers had a similar intent when they established their royal library, also called The House of Wisdom, in Gonde-
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shapur, Khuzestan. The Gondeshapur library was still in existence at the time of al-Mansur’s library. 24. Vine, 95. 25. Vine, 98. 26. The original Persian language of the Sasanians, known as Middle Persian or Parsi (Farsi), had a number of linguistic limitations which led to the development of a more flexible dialect called Dari. As Dari (or Parsi Dari, and then Farsi, as it came to be known) circulated, it became the most widespread language of Persia. It is also called New Persian, and it was the major dialect that was popularized by the Saffarid rulers. The Saffarids were followed by the Samanids of Bukhara who carried on the practice of reviving the New Persian script for the administration of their government. In addition to their support of the spread of the New Persian language, the Samanids were also generous supporters of the arts and sciences. It was under Samanid rule that Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the great physician and philosopher, came to the foreground. 27. One notable exception was the Ziyarid Dynasty which seemed to be hostile to Islam and expressed devotion to Zoroastrianism exemplified by their celebrations of Zoroastrian festivals and the use of Zoroastrian symbols on their currency. 28. The Seljuks (Saljuqs) were part of the Oghuz Turkish tribal clan which was a loose confederation of tribes who had previously hired out their mercenary services to various lords in Transoxiana as they moved southward. These tribes unified once they captured the important province of Khurasan. These nomads were forced to organize and become territorial sovereigns. Before they unified they menaced most of Western Iran with their plundering. One contingent of their number, known as the Ghuzz Turks, went down in Persian literary lore for their raping and pillaging of all Persian communities in their path. 29. Waterfield, 39. 30. Previous to this time the term “Kurd” had been used by people traveling through the region of northwest Azerbaijan, Luristan, and in the southern areas today known as Kurdistan (in Iraq) to describe the people that they met there that spoke the Kurdish language. 31. Price (47) claims that their local religion had traces of Zoroastrianism, Islam, Mithraism, and Manichaeism along with some possible Christian and Jewish influences, although these are not specified. There is one religion among the Kurds called the Yazidi religion which mixes a host of elements from many religions. There are still Yazidis who practice this faith among Kurdish communities worldwide. 32. Price (284): “Religious affiliation also divided the Kurds. Although the vast majorities are Sunni, they differ greatly in degree of their devotion and in their loyalty to orthodox Sunni practices and rituals. The popularity of mystical sects, notably the Naqshbandi and Qaderi, and loyalty to competing sheiks and various Shi’a marginal sects, in addition to secular Kurds, created significant divisions as well.”
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33. Waterfield, 48. Waterfield attributes the missive to the Mongol queen regent. 34. Vine, 143. Of the attack on Nishapur Vine wrote, “The Mongols spent fifteen days there, during which time the city was practically demolished, and all the inhabitants were slain—men, women, and children—with the exception of four hundred picked artisans who were deported to Mongolia” (143). 35. H. Papazian, “Armenia and Iran” in the Encyclopedia Iranica. Volume II, edited by Ehsan Yarshater. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986, page 469. 36. Hulugu, the first Mongol ruler, had a Christian wife. She vindictively “sought permission to destroy the Saracens’ temples, and to prohibit the performance of solemnities in the name of Muhammad, and caused the temples of the Saracens to be utterly destroyed, and to put the Saracens into such slavery that they dared not show themselves any more” (Vine, 147). This advice was not taken. Abagha (1265–1280), Hulugu’s successor, ordered that all government officials be either Christians or Jews but not Muslims. Il-Khan Teguder (1280–1284) had been a Christian, but he converted to Islam, and his name was changed to Ahmad. Because of this decision, he was deposed. Another Christian Il-Khan, named Arghun (1284–1291), came to power. 37. Arghun Khan appointed a Jewish physician, recently converted to Islam, named Sa’d al-Dawla, to be the prime minister in the 1280s but had this vizier executed in 1291. In 1298, another Jewish physician who had recently converted to Islam was appointed prime minister. This man, Rashid al-din Fazullah, also fell out of favor and was executed in 1318 because of political intrigues at the royal court. 38. Savory, Roger M. “Relations Between the Safavid State and Its NonMuslim Minorities.” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. Volume 14, number 4, October 2003 (435–58), page 437. Sa ‘d al-Dawla’s crime was that he appointed a number of his own family members to high offices of the state. 39. The Il-Khan before Ghazan was a Christian named Gaikhatu who had ruled from 1291–1295. After his death there were two claimants for the throne. One was Baidu, a half-hearted Christian, and Ghazan, a devoted Muslim. His faith aroused the support of the people, and he was able to come to power. The edict which Il-Khan Ghazan gave to attack Christians stated, “The churches shall be uprooted, the altars overturned, and the celebration of the Eucharist shall cease, and the hymns of praise and the sounds of calls to prayer shall be abolished, and the heads of Christians and the heads of the congregations of the Jews, and the great men among them shall be killed” (Vine, 154). The Il-Khan to follow Ghazan (who ruled from 1295 to 1304) were also Muslims, Uljaitu (1304–1316) and Abu Said (1316–1335). The Persian Empire was in complete administrative and military disarray after the death of Abu Said. Tamerlane, however, did not arrive in Persia until about 1380. 40. The conversion process for the Il-Khan happened in stages. First, at Lar on June 19, 1295, he announced that he had become a Sunni Muslim. On November 3, 1295, he adopted the Muslim name Mahmud. On November 2, 1297, Mahmud and his court formally adopted the Muslim turban instead of
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the traditional Mongol broad-brimmed hat, which marked a break from his Mongol ancestry. 41. Savory claims that Timur first arrived in Iran in 1381 (Savory, 439). 42. Tamerlane—referred to in European history as Tamburlaine or bloody Tamburlaine—was actually known as Timur the Lame, which was a reference to his bad leg that was injured in a riding accident. 43. He was born in Transoxiana, present-day Uzbekistan, and began his life in the service of a local Mongol ruler. Later, he claimed that he was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan which led to him gaining power. When he conquered a region, he took everything that could be moved, including treasure, slaves, riding horses, pack and domestic animals, herds, and household goods, to be given away freely in Central Asia. 44. Shah Rokh ruled most of the Timurid lands excepting Syria and modernday northern Iraq. His base of operations was in Herat which he made a center for the art of miniature paintings which he enthusiastically patronized when he was not fighting a series of wars against various rebels who challenged his rule. The name Shah Rokh does not seem to have any connection with the mythical Shahrokh of Persian literature. This “king of the birds” held many magical powers and is frequently evoked in modern Iranian arts. 45. Quoted in Foltz, 2004, 57. 46. Foran, John, “The Long Fall of the Safavid Dynasty: Moving beyond the Standard Views,” in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, New York: Cambridge University Press, volume 24, 1992, pages 281–304, 281. 47. Shah Isma’il Safavi was a Turkish-speaking Shi’ite from Azerbaijan. It had been the first time that Persia had been united since the time of the Arab invaders, and the shah also linked religion closely with politics as a way to strengthen his leadership authority. Shah Isma’il Safavi was immediately attacked by his neighbor, the Ottoman Sultan Selim I (known as Selim the Grim) who reigned from 1512 until 1520. Persia remained a separate and rival state for the Ottomans for the coming centuries. The threat of the Persians also forced the Ottomans to curtail imperial designs to advance further into Europe. In the words of Bernard Lewis: The Ottomans and the Persians continued to fight each other until the nineteenth century, by which they no longer constituted a threat to anyone but their own subjects. At the same time, the idea of a possible anti-Ottoman alliance between Christendom and Persia was occasionally promoted, but to little effect. (Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. New York: Harper Collins, 2003, page 9)
48. Azeri nationalists are proud of the Safavid Dynasty and see its rise as an important symbol of Azerbaijani identity and shared history. 49. Shah Isma’il I was a descendant of a powerful Sufi master. He became the first military head of a religious order in Persian history to be crowned a king. 50. ‘Ali Shariati is quoted in Abdo, Geneive, and Jonathan Lyons, Answering Only to God: Faith and Freedom in Twenty-First Century Iran. New York:
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Henry Holt and Company, 2003, page 243. Shariati, a strong advocate for the modernization of Shi’a Islam, felt that it was being held captive by the primitive customs that the Safavids had introduced. He believed that the Safavids “had bled Shi’ism of its power as a revolutionary ideology” and replaced sound doctrine with “emotional ceremonies used to divert the people from discovering the truth of Shi’ism and the Karbala revolution.” Shariati also called these festival rituals “sensual” and “imitative” of Christian festivals. 51. Bradley, Mark. Iran and Christianity: Historical Identity and Present Relevance. New York: Continuum Press, 2008, page 7. Bradley also notes: With breathtaking confidence he claimed that ‘Ali when searching for a wife for his second son, [Husayn], did not go to the Arabs. He went to the Iranians. And the girl he found was none other than Shahrbanou, the daughter of the last Iranian Sasanian king, Yazdigerd. With one alleged marriage Ismail achieves a lot for Iranian nationalism. First of all by having ‘Ali come to the Iranians for his son’s wife he underlines the perception that ‘Ali was more comfortable with the Iranians. Then with the actual marriage Ismail combines two of the most revered genealogies in the popular Iranian mind: the Sasanian and Muhammad’s family. And of course now all the imams after [Husayn] have Iranian blood in their veins, so the Shia faith has in a way become an Iranian religion. (7–8)
52. Under the reign of Sultan Husayn of the Safavid era, Zoroastrians were forcibly converted or were killed if they refused. Under the reign of Shah Abbas, many Zoroastrians were relocated from Yazd and Kerman to work in the capital of Isfahan as weavers, carpet-makers, gardeners, and laborers. 53. Savory, 441. The British traveler was Anthony Jenkinson, and he arrived in Persia in 1562. 54. Kazemi, Farhad. “Iran, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Balance” in Iran since the Revolution: Internal Dynamics, Regional Conflict, and the Superpowers, edited by Barry M. Rosen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985, page 84. 55. Axworthy, 140. 56. In 1898, the Paris-based organization called the Alliance Israelite Universelle paid for and arranged for the opening of a Hebrew school in Teheran and in other parts of the country after that. In the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, Jews were granted one seat in the new parliament. But Jews were often criticized in the press, and about one-third of all Jews in Iran immigrated to Israel with the birth of the nation in 1948. 57. Father John Thaddeus arrived in Persia in 1619. Father Bernard de Sainte Therese brought a printing press to Persia in the 1620s and gave it to the Armenians, since the Muslim court felt that as a machine it was against their religion to use it. In 1632, Father John went to Rome to be consecrated as the bishop of Isfahan, but he died suddenly in his native Spain when his mule ran away from him on a mountain track, killing him. In 1638, a wealthy Genoese merchant endowed the building of a large Catholic church in Isfahan where Father Bernard de Sainte Therese was appointed bishop in 1640. In 1649, the Carmelite missionary Father Dimas tried to begin a church among the Geor-
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gian Christians around Shiraz and Persepolis. Father Dionysius of the Crown of Thorns established a Carmelite mission around Lake Urmiah in 1652. The Carmelites worked with other Catholic missionaries such as Father Aime Chezaud and Father Francois Rigordi who were Jesuits who settled in Julfa in 1654 and 1655. In 1656, the Capuchins, led by Father Raphael du Mans, established Capuchin houses in Isfahan and Tabriz. In 1661, a Benedictine Monsignor Placid du Chemin was appointed the new bishop of Isfahan but he never visited his diocese. 58. Shah Abbas II once asked a European ambassador if the king of his country was as autocratic as he was. When the consular said that his king was not, Shah Abbas was said to reply: “Well the difference is that they have men to rule, whereas I have untamed animals” (Waterfield, 61). 59. Hunter, 119. The treatment of the Christian religion and the enactment of foreign policy is a theme that begins with the Safavid rulers and carries through to the foreign policy decisions of the last shah of Iran. This pattern is particularly pronounced during the Qajar Dynasty. 60. Gregory the Illuminator was a devout ascetic who undertook long fasts, slept in mud, ate mostly vegetables, spent days in prayer, and died in solitude. Thortan monastery was built near where he died. 61. Karabagh was one of the most thriving Armenian communities at that time (in contrast Yerevan was an insignificant village) along with the Armenian village at Gumri (formerly known as Kunairi in Armenian and in the eighteenth century by the Russian term Alexandraopolis) and other larger communities. The word “Karabagh” is a combination of the Turkish Kara, which means “black,” and the Persian Bagh, which means “city.” The present term for the city, Nagarno, is a Russian word meaning “mountainous,” meaning that the region’s name is one of the few place-names in the world composed of terms from three languages. 62. Waterfield (67) tells the following story: It was the custom of the Armenians at Epiphany to conduct a solemn and gorgeous ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters on the Zayandehrud River in Isfahan. Shah Abbas often used to attend this ceremony; he was not exactly an easy or tactful guest, but he was the shah and his presence was considered an honor. Gorgeous processions from all the churches in Julfa converged on the river followed by most of the Catholic missionaries and the King and his courtiers. In 1620, Shah Abbas took over the ceremonies, directing the unfortunate Armenian clergy where to stand and what to do. When the ceremony was over the king accompanied them back to Julfa and spent most of the day in religious discussions with them. In the evening he asked to see some relics, which were reluctantly shown to him. At first he treated them with respect, telling those who stood round to behave reverently before such holy objects. Among the most sacred of the relics was a bone of Saint Ripsima. The shah took it into his head to give some of it to Father John Thaddeus, so he calmly took the relic and broke off a piece, wrapped it in paper and gave it to the embarrassed Father John.
63. Savoy (447) quotes one account by the official Iskander Beg from 1621: “In the same way, all the Armenian Christians who had been moved to
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Mazanderan were also forcibly converted to Islam. Most people embraced Islam with sincerity, but some felt an aversion to making the Muslim profession of faith. True knowledge lies with God! May God reward the Shah for his action with long life and prosperity.” 64. Some of these converts inwardly retained their faith. Centuries later, some of them still held to traditions that they could not explain, handed down from their ancestors. In one community near Julfa it was the custom to make the sign of the cross before distributing the bread for the evening meal. 65. Various historians describe the rule of Shah Abbas II in different ways when it comes to the issue of persecution, but it should be acknowledged that foreign Christians were treated differently than Persian Christians, and the attacks of this time focused only on Persian Christians. The persecution of 1656 was launched by the Vizier Muhammad Beg who had risen to that high rank in 1646. Roemer (volume 6, page 294) makes the claim that he believes Muhammad Beg had actually been an Armenian from New Julfa and had converted to Islam as a young man. Jews and Christians were targeted for attacks which lasted for two years. The vizier explained: “According to our religion you are defiled and impure and yet you brush against our bodies” (Savory, 450). 66. Waterfield, 73. 67. Waterfield, 63. 68. Price (72) cites this number, and I have not seen other historical accounts that verify this high number. Both Georgians and Armenians were brought to Persia by the Azeri Safavids in order to weaken the influence of Turkic peoples in the royal court. What is certain is that Georgians gained more power in the royal court than any other ethnic minority. Shah Isma’il II spent twenty years under virtual house arrest due to power gained by Georgians at the royal court and in the royal harem. 69. A number, perhaps as many as twenty thousand of these ghullams were Georgians as of 1616. 70. Redgate, A. E. The Armenians. London: Blackwell Publishers, 1998, page 264. 71. Newman, Andrew J. Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006, page 120. 72. Price, 71. 73. Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of Christianity: Reformation to the Present, Volume II—1500–1975. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1975, page 902. 74. This number is cited in Arpee, Leon. A History of Armenian Christianity: From the Beginning to Our Time. New York: The Armenian Missionary Association, 1946, pages 235–36. 75. Arpee, 237. 76. Arpee, 237. Catholicos Alexander I (1706–1714) took notice of the miraculous Testament and ordered that fees be paid to all the priests in the area instead of funds raised by pilgrims going only to private entrepreneurs. Finally,
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in 1852, Bishop Thaddeus forbade all pilgrimages to the miraculous Testament because he felt that it was idolatrous. 77. Nadir Shah was more of a military adventurer than an effective king. When Nadir invaded India he plundered Delhi, the seat of the Mongol rulers, and brought back all of the Indian royal treasures to Persia. These became the crown jewels of Iran, which are on display in a museum in Teheran. The most famous of these jewels is the Peacock Throne, which came to symbolize the wealth of the last Pahlavi rulers. On an unrelated note, Nadir Shah held to his own version of Shi’a Islam, the Jaffari sect, named after the Seventh Imam, Jaffar al-Sadiq. 78. Waterfield, 76. Waterfield states that, in 1746, he extracted over 60,500 Tomans from the Armenian community after taking about that much in 1745. 79. Teheran did not become the capitol of Iran until 1789. 80. Axworthy (176) cites these numbers. Fath Ali Shah was known for his waist-long black beard, his extravagant lifestyle, and his love of fine clothing bedecked with countless jewels. 81. The fact that the Qajars were also a Turkic people did not improve their relation with the Ottoman Empire. The Qajars, however, did continue the policy, begun by Nadir Shah, to avoid direct confrontation with Sunni Islam. Nadir Shah had been the first to ban the Safavid practice of cursing the first three caliphs who are venerated by the Sunni. Nadir Shah also appointed a permanent ambassador to the Ottoman Court, and this pattern was continued by the Qajars. All of these overtures resulted in Shi’ite Muslims once again being allowed by Ottoman authorities to make religious pilgrimages to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf. 82. Russia became interested in Iran during the reign of Ivan the Terrible who began to establish commercial links with Iran. During the reigns of Peter the Great (1682–1725), Catherine (1762–1796), and Nicholas I (1822–1855), extensive and successful military campaigns were carried out against Iran. Peter took over the territories of Shirvan, Dagestan, Gilan, Mazanderan, and Gorgan, as well as the city of Baku. Many of these territories were returned to Iran. Catherine moved forces back into the Caucusus and conquered most of the region. Georgia went back and forth but finally settled under Russian control. In 1825, Tsar Nicholas I captured Gochka Lake and advanced toward Teheran. The Qajars were not able to defend themselves and agreed to a treaty in 1828, which further strengthened Russia and gave her more land from Iran. Russia then began to advance, with ease, into Central Asia and captured Bukhara in 1868 and Merv in 1884. A Soviet-Persian peace treaty was signed on February 26, 1921, once the Soviet Union came to power and had no desire to advance southward into Iran. Both Soviet and Allied forces entered Iran in 1941. 83. Captain John Malcolm served in the Indian army and was sent to Persia by the governor general of Bengal in hopes of negotiating a treaty with Persia over the power of an Afghan leader named Zaman Shah.
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84. This envoy from France arrived in Teheran in 1802. In 1807, Napoleon dreamed of attacking India through Persia and signed a treaty with Iran, which offered to protect Persia from both England and Russia in exchange for their cooperation. 85. Russia forged extensive ties with Azerbaijan at this time, and the Azeris had one of the strongest economies because of this of any of the provinces in Persia. Azerbaijan also became a center for political opposition against the Qajars, and many of the rebellious parties were financially supported by Russia. 86. Approximately six hundred thousand to one million Armenians were able to successfully flee the Ottoman Empire before the end of World War I. 87. In 1622, Pope Gregory XV had established the first Catholic mission organization that became the forerunner for Pope Gregory XVI’s organization called the Propaganda Fide (Society for the Propaganda of the Faith). This was to be a centralized mission organization led from the Vatican. For political reasons, Rome preferred French missionaries over Portuguese missionaries who often linked their activities with eventual imperial claims. This fact encouraged mission interest in France. In 1663, Louis XIV approved of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (Societe des Missions Estrangeres de Paris). The Capuchins were formed at the same time, in 1622, and placed under the umbrella of the organization which later became known as the Propaganda Fide. Pope Gregory XVI took his papal name in honor of Pope Gregory XV’s commitment to world evangelization. 88. Bore was born in Algeria in 1809 and educated in Paris at the College Stanislaus, where he became proficient in Arabic, Turkish, Armenian, Persian, Hebrew, and Syriac. In 1837, he finally went to Persia on a scientific mission sponsored by the Academie des Inscriptions. Bore was, first and foremost, a passionate Christian determined to spread the Catholic faith. He enlisted financial support from family, friends, and the French government for his French-language schools. He taught fourteen students, eleven Muslims and three Armenians, in Tabriz in a French course that included comprehensive tests, gymnastics, and long walks with their teacher. He left Persia in 1841 and turned over the work to the Lazarist Fathers of St. Vincent de Paul. When Bore left Persia he went to Jerusalem and then to Constantinople before being ordained as a Lazarist Priest in 1850. He preached throughout the Levant for fifteen years until he returned to France in 1866 to become the Secretary of the Order and then the Superior General in 1874. He died suddenly in 1878. 89. Previous to the efforts of the Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus, French missionary Father Charles de Foucauld worked to establish leprosariums. He was their example. Four sisters of this group, also affiliated with the Uniate Chaldean diocese in Persia, launched this effort. 90. In 1933, Father Cyprian Rice (formerly a British diplomat in Persia) and Father Dominc Blencowe came to Shiraz to found a Dominican house. Father Rice made a noted study on Sufism and also translated a prayer book into Persian. In 1962, Father William Barden arrived from Ireland. The first Silesian fathers, Father Streit and Brother Taliano, came to Iran in 1937. Their initial work was with Italian immigrants. The Silesian Father del Mistro came to Iran
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in 1944 and opened a boys’ school at Now Shahr on the Caspian Sea. He also published a Persian-Italian dictionary. Silesians also worked in the Khuzistan oil fields. 91. They opened a boys’ school in Teheran in 1866 and also began to build a church which held its first mass on Christmas day in 1867. In 1892, a school for orphan boys was added to the school in Teheran. The two were later combined to form the College St. Louis, which had over six hundred students before it was closed in 1979. A school was also started in Tabriz at the same time, but it had to close after a few years and was not able to reopen until 1901 under the leadership of Pere Malaval and Pere Mas. Later, a girls’ school was also opened. The Lazarists built a church in Tabriz in 1930. When the schools in Tabriz were forced to close in 1979, there were four hundred students at the boy’s school and over 450 students at the girls’ school. The Sisters of Charity arrived to establish a girls’ school in Teheran in 1875 and added another school in another part of the city in 1896. At the time of the 1979 revolution, there were 1,600 pupils attending Ecole Jeanne d’Arc. 92. Waterfield, 77. 93. Masliyah, Sadok. “Persian Jewry: Prelude to a Catastrophe,” in Judaism. Volume 29, number 4, Fall 1980 (390–403), page 396. According to Masliyah, during the end of the nineteenth century there were between twenty to fifty thousand Jews living in Iran. There were four thousand Jews living in Teheran according to a census in that city in 1813. One of the largest Jewish communities, consisting of about eight hundred families, was in Hamadan because of the shrines there to Esther and Mordecai. A large Jewish community also existed in Tabriz. In 1878 it was reported that eighty-five Jews lived in Kerman and about two thousand Jews lived in Yazd which had long been a center for Jewish scholarship in Iran. There were also small Jewish communities in Kermanshah, Burujird, Siakal, Sakis, and Savoj Bolak, according to Western travelers (Masliyah, 391–92). 94. Price, 110. 95. Masliyah (395) cites the founding of the Anglo-Jewish Association and the Alliance Israelite during the end of the nineteenth century to help Jewish communities in Persia launch their own schools so that their children were not forced to attend Muslim schools or Christian mission schools. Some of the financial aid for these schools came from British philanthropists Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron von Rothschild. 96. Masliyah, 397. According to Masliyah, another twenty-four Jews died in a similar fire in an unnamed community at about the same time. He reports that one Jew was publicly beheaded and burned in Urmiah in 1836 and that another Jew was almost killed in Tabriz in 1888 after being accused of trying to drink the blood of a Muslim child. Jews who willingly converted to Islam immediately saw an end to attacks and also to their being required to pay the jizya. Some of these former Jews were even appointed to serve as muezzin in local masjids. Many Jews fled Mashad and other contexts of persecution by moving to Herat, Turkmenistan, Samarkand, Bukhara, and some even were able to escape to Europe in the Qajar Era. In contrast to these problems an
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interesting event took place in Isfahan in 1889 when the prime minister of the nation at the time, Zill al-Sultan ordered the rebuilding of a synagogue that had been destroyed in a riot. He also ordered that some of the mullahs in Hamadan who called for rioting should be immediately fired. 97. According to Lord Curzon, 150 Jews in Teheran, one hundred Jews in Hamadan, fifty in Kashan, and Jews in other communities joined the movement. More Jews converted to the Baha’i Faith in the 1840s than all Jews who converted to Christianity throughout the entire nineteenth century. Their message of tolerance to others was appealing, and the fact that they did not require a formal conversion process was also attractive to some Jews. For some, the decision to join the Baha’i Faith might have been something of a protest against the rigid Judaism of Iran. There was no social advantage at all for any Jew to convert to still another despised minority. For further discussion of this issue see Walter Fischel’s “The Baha’i Movement and the Persian Jewry,” in The Jewish Review, 1934, page 52. 98. In one famous incident, an early female devotee of the Bab, named Fatemeh Begum Baraghani Qazin (1814–1852), but better known as Qorrat alAyn (Solace to the Eyes), went to a trial in a village called Badasht in northern Iran and spoke at the meeting while removing her veil. This bold move spoke of Qorrat al-Ayn’s view that the old ways of the Islamic law had been definitively abrogated by new revelations. 99. The National Baha’i Center in the United States is at 536 Sheridan Road in Willamette, Illinois, 60091. The National Baha’i Centre in the United Kingdom is found at 27 Rutland Gate, London, SW7 1PD. The National Baha’i Centre in Canada is at 7200 Leslie Street, Thornhill, Ontario, Canada, L3T 6L8. And the National Baha’i Centre in Australia can be found at P.O. Box 285, Mona Vale, Australia, NSW 2103. 100. One prayer from a Baha’i prayer book captures some of the spirit of the urgency of prayer: O God! O God! This is a broken-winged bird and his flight is very slow—assist him so that he may fly towards the apex of prosperity and salvation, wing his way with utmost joy and happiness throughout the illimitable space, raise his melody in Thy supreme Name in all the regions, exhilarate the ears with this call, brighten the eyes by beholding the signs of guidance. O Lord! I am single and lowly. For me there is no support save Thee, no helper except Thee and no sustainer beside Thee. Confirm me in Thy service, assist me with the cohorts of Thy angels, make me victorious in the promotion of Thy Word and suffer to speak out Thy wisdom amongst Thy creatures. Verily, Thou art the helper of the weak and the defender of the little ones, and verily Thou art the Powerful, the Mighty and the Unconstrained. (Sheppherd, Joseph. The Elements of the Baha’i Faith. Shaftesbury, England: Element Books, 1997, page 85.)
101. Seyyed Ali Mohammad was a young merchant who was called “the Bab,” or “the Gate,” by his followers because listening to his words would bring you to the gate of truth. He was born in 1819 and began his life as a very devout Shi’ite believer. After a pilgrimage to Karbala, he returned to Shiraz
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in 1844 where he gained his first disciples. He taught that the return of the Mahdi was imminent. In 1845, the Bab was arrested in Shiraz for blasphemy. He was released and rearrested in Tabriz in 1848 both for blasphemy and for mental insanity. During the trial, held in Azerbaijan, he announced that he was, in fact, the long-awaited Mahdi. Numbers of converts grew, and Foltz cites that there were as many as one hundred thousand, or over 2 percent of the entire population, that were followers of his teaching (Foltz, 2004, 147). In order to quell these riots, the Qajar government executed the Bab in front of a firing squad in Tabriz. After his death Foltz notes that of “at least twentyfive Babis who claim this identity, two brothers emerged” (Foltz, 2004, 148). One of these, Mizra Husayn Ali, became known as the Baha’u’llah and took leadership of the movement. 102. Baha‘u’llah’s given name was Mizra Husayn Ali. The title means the “Glory of God.” He was born in Teheran, Persia, on November 12, 1817, into a wealthy family. He began teaching in August 1852 while imprisoned in Teheran’s Black Pit (Siyah-Chal). He was imprisoned there because of the teaching of the first prophet, the Bab. It was in this prison that he received his divine revelations. He was released after four months and sent into exile where he settled first in Baghdad, Iraq, and then Istanbul, Adrianople, and finally in Acre, in Syria. He died on May 29, 1892, at age seventy-five, while imprisoned in Acre. He wrote more than one hundred volumes throughout his life and probably the most famous, which is called the Most Holy Book or the Kitab-i-Aqdas, was written while he was imprisoned in Teheran. Baha’u’llah also wrote the Kalimat-i-Maknuhih (The Hidden Words) and the Chihar-Vad (Four Valleys). He was succeeded by his son, ‘Abdu’l Baha (1844–1921) who became the authorized interpreter of his father’s writings. 103. Sheppherd, 17. 104. Baha’u’llah’s son and eventual successor, ‘Abdu’l Baha (1844–1921), taught the Baha’is to be fiercely loyal to whatever government they found themselves under because their goals were never to be misconstrued to be political and temporary. Missionaries were actively sent out to many nations. One of the earliest successful Baha’i communities took root in Ashkabad (Turkmenistan) where a beautiful temple was built in 1921. The Baha’i Faith reached the United States through the missionary efforts of an Egyptian named Ibrahim George Kheiralla who came to Chicago in 1894. By 1900 Kheiralla claimed to have won over two thousand American converts to his religion. Dramatically, ‘Abdu’l Baha visited the United States personally in 1912 and rebuked and disgraced Ibrahim George Kheiralla. The movement was continued by the next leader, the Oxford University trained, Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957). 105. Algar is quoted in Spellman, Kathryn, Religion and Nation: Iranian Local and Transnational Networks in Britain. New York: Berghahm Books, 2004, pages 156–57. 106. Foltz, 2004, 152. 107. Foltz, 2004, 154. 108. Reverend Howard Conklin Baskerville of Nebraska was only twentythree in 1907 when he graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary and
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went to Tabriz to work as a school teacher. When Cossack troops, in support of the new shah, Muhammad Ali, attacked constitutionalist supporters in Tabriz he joined the military efforts of the rebels by saying, “The only difference between me and these people is my place of birth and this is not a big difference.” He was placed in charge of 150 defenders and was killed on April 19, 1909. Iran regards Baskerville as their “Yankee Hero,” and in 2005 President Mohammad Khatami unveiled a bust of Baskerville at the Constitutional House of Tabriz. “Iran’s Yankee Hero,” by Farnaz Calafi, Ali Dadpay, and Pouyan Mashayekh, New York Times. April 18, 2009, A17. 109. Part of the urgency of this fuel need was the fact that the British Navy had shifted from coal to oil because oil burned much more efficiently and was less bulky. While Britain had no problem providing the coal it needed for the Royal Navy from within England, that was not the case with oil. The oil reserves of Khuzistan, the first oil discovered in the Middle East (1908), were vital for British national security. 110. Quoted in Spellman, 157. 111. Ghods, M. Reza. Iran in the Twentieth Century: A Political History. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989, page 15. Ghods goes on to say of the Qajars (also on 15): Their position as “supreme rulers” of the country was due entirely to their able exploitation of Iran’s social fragmentation.” 112. Price (137) describes the problems of anti-shah sentiment at the end of the Qajar Dynasty when the shah proposed a visit to Russia: The clergy were outraged at the prospect of a Muslim king visiting a Christian territory. He traveled to Russia but was forced to leave behind his favorite concubine and all other female companions at the border in 1873. Under no circumstances would the clergy permit Muslim women to visit Christian territory. Flyers circulated in the city proclaiming that a Jew, Baron Reuter, was to be in charge of the country’s affairs and that a railroad was to be built going through the holy shrine in south Teheran. Clergy proclaimed the new railway to be the work of Satan, bringing corruption to Muslim lands.
What is certain is that Qajar rulers borrowed extensively from Europeans to take extravagant trips around Europe. In exchange, European rulers demanded economic concessions. In 1901, Nasir al-din Shah granted to William Knox D’Arcy, a British citizen, the sole right to drill oil in southern Iran for sixty years. 113. Majd, Mohammad Gholi. The Great American Plunder of Persia’s Antiquities, 1925–1941. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2003, page 10. 114. Reza Shah consolidated his power gradually. The military coup he led was in February 1921. When he captured the capital he proclaimed a journalist as the new prime minister and proclaimed himself the war minister. Finally, in 1923, he was appointed prime minister and was proclaimed king in 1925. 115. Majd, 10. 116. Bradley, 54. This comment was in reference to a man named Sayyid Ghazanfaar who claimed that he was the Twelfth Imam. Reza Shah was very
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aware of the example of Kemal Ataturk in Turkey and he looked up to Ataturk as an exemplar and motivation for his decision in 1935 to ban men from wearing turbans and beards and to ban women from wearing the veil. When Shi’ite clerics protested in Mashad in 1936 to being forced to wear what was called the Pahlavi caps because it stopped them from touching the ground with their foreheads, the shah sent troops to the Mashad shrine and had them open fire on protestors. Over one hundred people were killed in the incident. In 1926 Vita Sackville-West met Reza Shah and described him in this way: “An alarming man, six feet three in height, with a sullen manner, a huge nose, grizzled hair and a brutal jowl—there was no denying that he had a kingly presence (Bradley, 55–56). 117. Majd notes (11) the 1933 oil concession to Great Britain, the 1927 Caspian fisheries concession and a number of agreements made with various American museums. Of this latter, Majd writes, “Clearly there is part of this story to which museums have not been anxious to draw attention” (15). The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago “descended on and attacked such sites as Damghan, Ray, and Nishapur” with speed immediately after the passage of the Iranian antiquities law of November 1930 (17). The Rockefeller Foundation had been funding the “restoration and repair” of Persepolis and the Sasanian site of Isthakr since 1919, but this work was far more than restoration and repair. Antiquities were smuggled from Iran, sometimes in the American diplomatic pouch, with the assistance of government officials. The two men most responsible were the renowned Professor Ernst E. Herzfield and Arthur Upham Pope. The shah demanded the replacement of Professor Herzfield, claiming that he had stolen antiquities when, in actual fact, the problem had been the professor’s outspoken attacks against what Herzfield called “the Shah’s indescribable reign of terror” (21). Pope, the Advisory Curator of Mohammedan Art of the Art Institute in Chicago went so far as to steal a 1,300-year-old mirhab from a religious school in Isfahan (40), and he was involved for years in the “systematic plunder of Iran’s mosques and shrines” until he left Iran shortly before the start of World War II. 118. Reza Shah went to Turkey in 1934 to meet President Kemal Ataturk. Similar to Ataturk, Reza Shah banned the veil and encouraged women to be educated. He also encouraged Iranian men to follow Western dress styles as Ataturk had done in Turkey. He decreed that all Iranians should wear bowler hats, fedoras, business suits, and ties. These initiatives were very unpopular with many Iranian citizens. The most unpopular thing he did, however, was, in 1935, to quell a riot inside the holy shrine precincts of Mashad by machine gun and tank fire. 119. This was an official declaration. The term had always been used interchangeably with Persia. What the new declaration mandated was that all international correspondences should now use the name Iran and that any government which related to the shah would not be recognized unless it used the term Iran. Many were upset that many Europeans continued to insist on using the Greco-Roman term Persia to describe the country. The other reason for emphasizing the new name was to remind the people of the authority of
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the new government and the legitimacy of the shah in relation to the past great kings of Iran. Symbolism abounded: When Reza Shah had a coronation service, the crown that was made for the event was a copy of a Sasanian crown that was on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 120. According to Axworthy (223–24), there were only 3,100 miles of paved road throughout Iran in 1927; by 1938 there were over fifteen thousand miles of paved roads. In 1925, Iran only had 150 miles of railway, but by 1938 there were over one thousand miles of railway track. There were heavy investments in textile and steel industries and in the improvement of the educational infrastructure of the country. In 1922, there were 55,131 children attending school while in 1938 that number rose to 457, 236. 121. New Zoroastrian temples and libraries were opened up during the Pahlavi Era. By 1979, there were between thirty and thirty-five thousand Zoroastrians in the country, which was an increase in their numbers from the Qajar Era. Research institutions opened up in Iran and around the world that focused on Zoroastrian culture and history. 122. In 1931, Reza Shah had elevated the marrying age for girls and boys both to eighteen from fifteen. Under Islamic codes, girls as young as nine could be betrothed to be married. Women were also given the right to initiate divorce, and the government sponsored women’s organizations to promote the economic and social status of women within the society. In 1936, Reza Shah, his wife, and his daughters attended a graduation ceremony at the Women’s Teachers Training College in Teheran. Invitations to the event encouraged all women to follow the example of the queen and her daughters and come unveiled. Unveiling was soon made compulsory and some religious women felt assaulted when they were forced to walk unveiled in public. 123. Missionary women at this time were forced not only to preach the gospel but also to explain hat and hair styles to Persian women. 124. Morrison, S. A. Religious Liberty in the Near East. New York: World Dominion Press, 1948, page 27. 125. British, Russian, and American statements about Iran’s refusal to evict German residents were simply a pretense. There were probably only between five hundred and six hundred Germans in the entire country when Russian and British troops entered Iran in 1941. American troops entered after the United States entered the war. The final British and American troops did not leave Iran until 1946. 126. Mohammad Reza Shah had never been very close with his father, who treated his son as a distant subordinate. The youth was educated in Switzerland in the 1930s and spent little time with his father. 127. One area of the country that was of particular concern was Kurdistan. The Mahabad Republic of Kurdistan had been formed as an independent nation in December of 1945, only to collapse once Russian troops left the region in May of 1946. Independence had been declared by the KDPI, then known as the Kurdish People’s Government in Mahabad. Once the government of the shah returned to the area they burned Kurdish language bookstores and banned the speaking of Kurdish. Many executions followed, including the
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public hanging of Quiz Muhammad who had led the independent government. Other Kurdish rebels fled with the Russian troops and continued terrorist operations from the Soviet Union. 128. The shah‘s father had prohibited certain public displays of festival devotion. Mullahs reintroduced these public rituals during Muharraman and also, once again, returned to wearing their traditional clothing. At this time, clerics also published anti-Christian and anti-Jewish publications. 129. Braswell, George W. Jr. “The Case Study of an Iranian Young Man and Modernizing Influences,” in Missiology: An International Review. Volume VII, number 2, April 1979 (195–209), page 197. 130. Ansari, Ali M. Modern Iran since 1921: The Pahlavis and After. London: Pearson Education, 2003, page 144. 131. Mohammad Mossadeq had spent his political life in opposition to colonial economic hegemony over Iran’s oil fields. He was an accomplished lawyer and scholar who had studied in Paris and Switzerland and had received a doctorate in law. In 1951, and at age seventy, he was easily the most popular politician in Iran. On March 15, 1951, the Majles voted to nationalize the oil industry, and Mossadeq was named prime minister on April 28, 1951. British and American oil workers simply walked out, and the world boycotted Iranian oil. When the shah tried to lead a coup against Mossadeq in 1953 it failed and the shah had to leave the country in early August. This inspired the CIA and SIS coup that began on August 19 called Operation Ajax which ousted Mossadeq, ended the nationalization scheme, and returned the shah to power. Many members of the Teheranian underworld led by Sha’ban Ja’fari Bimokh (Sha’ban the Brainless) participated in the riots that led to the coup. Mossadeq was convicted of treason by a military court and lived in house arrest until he died in 1967. Mossadeq has always been a national hero. 132. One of the Americans active in the plot was Kermit Roosevelt, son of Theodore Roosevelt, which is poignant given the jingoistic threats made by the president during the 1905 uproar over the Larabee killing. 133. One political incentive that the shah had in weakening the influence of the Soviet Union in Iran was that, during World War II, when Russian troops were occupying the northern part of the country, they were active in building the political infrastructure of the Tudeh Party, which was communist and pro-Moscow. The Tudeh Party was able to gain, according to Morrison (28), influence among the ancient Christian communities in the north, and one of the things that the Tudeh Party did was discourage Iranians from having interactions with American and British missionaries. Soviet propaganda, disseminated through the Tudeh Party, targeted the Armenian community and heralded the Soviet Union’s safe haven for their ethnicity within the Socialist Republic of Armenia. Some Armenians moved from Iran to Armenia because of this influence. Those who left were forced to forfeit their Iranian citizenship and were not able to return. 134. The decision of the shah to ease restrictions against the activities of the Baha’is stands in sharp contrast to repressive measures against the Baha’is
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in other Muslim nations at the time. In 1960, the Baha’is were banned in Egypt, and their activities in Iraq were banned in 1970. 135. Lloyd Miller, an LDS missionary in Teheran in 1975, had a radio program and participated in a Mormon church that was already functioning in the city at that time. He played a role in the conversion of Jamilah Zaifnejed Hagan who went to BYU and later organized an LDS mission to Iran. This effort ended at the outset of the 1979 revolution. The LDS also sent extensive humanitarian relief to Iran in 2004 after the Bam earthquake (see reports on www.desertnews.com). Persia figures prominently in the revelations given to Joseph Smith about a priest named Mordecai during the reign of King Cyrus. 136. The children were Jewish orphans from throughout Poland including the Warsaw ghetto. They had first escaped to Russia only to be interned in Siberia. Finally, because of international pressure, these children were sent by train southward to the Caspian coast and entered Iran. They came to Teheran where they were cared for by the Iranian Jewish community until they were able after the war to go to Palestine. 137. When the war began, Sardari still had a large supply of blank passports. He began to issue them to Persian Jews when they began to be rounded up in 1942. Sardari also worked to secure assurances from the German government that Iranian citizens would not be harmed or detained. About five hundred French Jews, with no connection to Iran, also came asking for his assistance which he provided. When asked about what he had done to help these Jews who had not been Iranians, he simply said, “That was my duty as a human being” (Axworthy, 231). Sardari died in 1981 and was honored after his death with an award given by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles (2004). 138. The language that the Jews in Persia spoke was almost identical to Persian, being only distinguishable by a unique accent. Jews in Iran also used the Hebrew script for writing Persian. Before World War II, some local Iranian newspapers were supportive of the Nazi movement in Germany and published anti-Semitic articles. Mainstream Iranian media did not support these views and attacks against Jews were rare. 139. There was some anti-Jewish sentiment expressed freely by the clergy during the brief reign of Prime Minister Mossadeq. Overall, however, Israel and Iran had very close ties. In 1957, the World Jewish Congress opened an office in Teheran. The population of Jews actually grew in the country at this time. According to Price (266), there were sixty thousand Jews in Iran in 1948 and eighty thousand Jews in Iran by 1979. 140. It is estimated that, between 1948 and 1953, as many as one third of all of the Jews of Iran left for Israel. The Iranian government paid for the safe passage of Iraqi Jews, who had been expelled from Iraq, to Israel. 141. These attacks increased when Queen Farah (Fara) Diba was officially nominated by the Parliament to serve as a Regent since the crown prince was only a minor at the time. This was the first time in Iranian history that a woman had achieved such a high status in the government. 142. Madani, Jalal-Dine. The Islamic Revolution of Iran. Teheran, Iran: International Publishing Company, 2002, page 280. Khomeini used the term
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marji’ al-taqlid to describe the inseparable link between religion and politics. 143. SAVAK is the acronym for the Security and Information Organization of Iran (Sazmani Amniyyat wa Ittila’ati Kishwar). It was founded in 1957 and, by the end of the shah’s rule, may have held more actual power than any other government organization. 144. Madani (227) quotes Amnesty International as saying, The SAVAK executioners, in addition to use of electric shock and whipping, were also indulging in other savageries. They used to spread broken bottles in prison cells, hang heavy weights on their testes, or put helmets on their heads so that they are teased by the cries of the men under tortures and the noise does not reach outside. For teasing their victims the SAVAK had trained animals including bears. The SAVAK used not only physical tortures against their victims but also relied on sexual abuses. Such psychological tortures were particular under the circumstances when they had to gain information from husbands or fathers.
Madani cites the Times (London) in claiming that between twenty-five to one hundred prisoners were under SAVAK control as of mid-1997 even though the shah claimed that there were only 2,200 political prisoners at that time (229). 145. This declaration was made in 1971 at the 2,500-year anniversary celebration that took place in front of the tomb of Cyrus near Persepolis. The ceremonies were an opportunity to display the power of the nation and the relation of the shah to ancient Persian kings. In front of the tomb of Cyrus, the shah declared, “Cyrus, rest assured, we are awake” (Price, 272). 146. Majd, 12. 147. In 1941, when his father left Iran, between 85 percent and 90 percent of Iranians were illiterate. Forty years later, when his son left power there had been some progress, but at least two-thirds of all Iranians remained illiterate (Majd, 12). 148. Haught, James A. Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murders and Madness. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1990, page 200. 149. During the famous event in Persepolis in 1971, the catering was staged by Maxim’s of Paris in three huge air-conditioned tents and fifty-nine smaller ones. The event used twenty-five thousand bottles of the finest imported wines. The overall cost of the event was probably over $200 million.
4
Types of Islam in Persia and Iran
I fear death said one of the birds: Can death exist for one whose heart is joined with God? Replied another bird: My heart is one with God and thus time, and death, no longer exists for me. For death is the suspension of time, and time is born of our attachment to all things that perish. Farid al-din Attar (d. 1230), Manteq al-tayr, The Conference of the Birds All Muslims shall be considered as one single nation and the Islamic Republic of Iran shall make its general policy on the basis of coalition and unity of all Muslim people and shall constantly make every endeavor to realize the political, economic, and cultural unity of the world of Islam. The Constitution of Iran
“There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His Prophet!” thunders five times a day from masjids across the villages and cities of Iran. This definitive truth about God is at the heart of a faith which, Shireen Hunter explains, “aspires to be the principle component of a Muslim’s selfidentity and the main focus of allegiance.”1 Over 1.2 billion people are Muslims, meaning that half of the world’s populations are either Muslims or Christians. According to Muslims, the revelation of the Holy Qur’an provides believers with a comprehensive worldview founded in the certainty of divine guidance. About 90 percent of the world’s Muslims are Sunni, while the remaining 10 percent, about 170 million people, are Shi’ites.2 While about 89 percent of Iran is Shi’ite, about 9 percent of the country’s population consists of Sunni Muslims.3
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Michael Axworthy warns Christians to be careful in making simplistic parallels about the nature of the Sunni and Shi’ite division within Islam: The great schisms of the Christian church between East and West, and later between Catholic and Protestant, came centuries after the time of Christ. But the great schism in Islam that still divides Muslims today, between Sunni and Shi’a, originated in the earliest days of the faith. Comparisons with the Christian schisms do not really work. A more apposite analogy, as noted by the historian Richard N. Frye and others, can be drawn between the emphasis on law and tradition in Sunni Islam and Judaism and, on the other hand, the emphasis on humility, sacrifice, and the religious hierarchy of Christianity and Shi’ism.4
The two groups split from one common source when issues of political succession clouded the community (ummah) after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Shi’a Islam is centered on grieving the betrayal of Hazmat ‘Ali, “the gate of the city of knowledge” and his martyred son Husayn.5 One of the challenges facing those observing the role of religion in Iran is that, throughout history (as has been shown) religion has often been closely tied with political ideology. Religion is not only religion in Iran—it is also politics and a force for social identity and cohesion. There has often historically been little difference between being a Shi’ite and being a Persian. Religion, a range of beliefs and ritual practices, combines with ideologies, defined as “clusters of interests advocated by specific groups in pursuit of shared goals in precise contexts,” to create a revolutionary society which is intent on transforming life for every Iranian.6 This chapter will put some of those sociopolitical factors in brackets in order to look at these religious traditions in a more historical way.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF SHI’ITE ISLAM Shi’ism remains the primary religious force in Iran and is a strong impetus for national and political unity. Nikkie Keddie explains: Shi’ism has become largely intertwined with Iranian national identity down to today. Often it is impossible to say if a trend or identification is Iranian national identity or Shi’ism. Particularly since Iran is the only Shi’i state as well as the only Iranian one, so that both identities often became intertwined.7
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Iran is the center for Shi’a Islam in the world, but there are other expressions of Islam within the country, and even Shi’a Islam is not monolithic; there are a number of different Shi’ite groups. Sadly, for many non-Muslims (and particularly for too many Westerners) the term “Shi’a Islam,” according to Robin Wright has, “became virtually synonymous with terrorism.”8 ‘Ali ibn Abu Talib, the martyred son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, was “one of the most courageous and able men” in early Islamic history.9 He was assassinated on January 27, 661, by the tip of a poison spear after a brief reign as the fourth of the “Rightly Guided Caliphs.”10 ‘Ali should have been appointed to lead the Islamic ummah after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, but he humbly “resigned himself to waiting for years before he could take his turn in leading the new Muslim empire, and his trusting wait is still considered the ideal model for the Shi’ite virtue of patience. It was, in fact, useless to shed blood in order to hasten an event willed by God.”11 ‘Ali waited for twenty-five years before finally coming to power. When his election came, Shi’ites considered ‘Ali’s rule the Golden Age of Islam because of his opposition to all forms of nepotism as well as economic and political corruption with pure Islamic ethical practice. Such noble moral values led to ‘Ali’s having many enemies and eventually to a war which would lead to his deplorable murder. ‘Ali‘s slaying prompted an open civil war among Muslims who sought to succeed him. Shi’a Islam traces its origin to 680 when there was an underground movement of the faithful after the killing of Muhammad‘s grandson, Husayn and his companions at the Battle of Karbala. Another follower dispatched to paradise with Husayn was Qasem, the son of Imam Hasan (who died on his intended wedding day).12 One could suggest that the movement actually began with the homicide of ‘Ali, the faithful follower of the Prophet whose mission and honor the martyr Husayn was seeking to advance. Sunni and Shi’ite sources are in agreement about the basic details of these events. It is imperative when talking about the foundations of Shi’ism to underscore the fact that Shi’a Islam is not a Persian version of Islam. With the exception of Imam Reza, all of the other imams lived and died in Arab lands and were Arabic-speaking Arabs. All of the prayers and the theological texts of the early Shi’ites were in Arabic, and their chief places of pilgrimage (up until about 1920) were Najaf and Karbala in Arabic Iraq. There are still large Shi’ite Arab communities in Iraq and in other Arab cultures.13 It goes without saying, however, that Shi’ism was progressively Persianized in its cultural, as well as its theological and ecclesiastical, formulations across the centuries.
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Islam in its expansionistic inception was, according to Bernard Lewis, “not so much a religion as it was the distinguishing mark of the conquistador aristocracy and the official credo of the state that represented them.”14 It is in that historical context that Shi’ism became a popular grassroots coalition and a revolutionary alternative to the might of Sunni Islam. The Shi’ite movement was constantly persecuted by the political and military powers of the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphates, which meant that followers had to learn how to survive by guile and by revealing only part of the truth about who they actually were (taqiyyah). Devotees outwardly professed to be Sunni but inwardly held to truth. In this, as in all predicaments, Shi’ites experienced direct divine revelation from God on how to proceed. This practice of disseminating the truth is widely criticized by Sunni Muslims as indicative of the problems that they face when interacting with Shi’ites. Shi’ism has always been a party of opposition and a voice of dissent against an unjust status quo. Price argues that “Shi’ism was originally a political faction with no religious doctrines but gradually it acquired a religious and even messianic character.”15 Robin Waterfield believes that “much of the mystical and eschatological thinking” of Shi’ism “was strongly influenced by Christian ideas.”16 Certainly, it can be argued that Imam Husayn in his martyrdom is something of a Christ-like figure who acts as a worthy and effective intermediary between the mercy of a holy God and the evils of a sinful humanity. Shi’ism teaches that a succession of imams has come to lead the ummah. The faithful cousin and son-in-law ‘Ali was the first, and the next six imams are uniformly agreed upon by all Shi’ites. It was a royal family linked by the blood of the prophet and inculcated with supernatural powers and divine guidance. The line of succession is divinely appointed, and the chosen imams are uniquely empowered to interpret the truest meanings of the Holy Qur’an as well as to grasp secret knowledge which has been passed down through the generations since the Prophet Muhammad. Sadly, all but one of the twelve imams, including the final imam, were savagely assassinated.17 Appreciating the function of the Imamate in Shi’a Islam will go a long way towards grasping one of the fundamental differences between Shi’ism and Sunnism. The question is simply framed by Sunni Muslims: why does the Muslim community need an Imamate if the ummah already has the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith?18 The Shi’ite answer is that the Imamate is God’s present-tense gift to the ummah because they are able to accurately apply the meaning of God’s eternal revelation to specific contexts and issues. The imams are God-given guides
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who are sent to explain the Holy Qur’an and Hadith and to provide practical, timely, and communal direction for the true people of faith. God has provided the world with a holy family who are uniquely gifted to serve the ummah. The kingdom that God establishes in the earth is not based on material wealth or political force but on the truth of ethical justice, and is a divine guard against oppression. Shi’ism lifts Islam as a revolutionary revelation which liberates the weak (mostaz’afin) from the yoke of the arrogant (mostakbarin). Yann Richards clarifies that “the Imamate (mama) is to some extent the consequence and the application of the principle of justice to the guidance of humankind.”19 Shi’ism believes that reason is needed to ensure social justice and that a royal family, descended from the Prophet Muhammad, the Imamate, maintains that vital commitment to reason and social justice.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF SHI’ITE ISLAM IN PERSIA There are a number of various Shi’ite groups within Iran. The majority of Shi’ites in Iran are Twelvers (Ithna ‘Ashari), which is a name given to denote that they believe that the Twelfth Imam will return again at the end of an apocalyptic era to restore peace, justice, and unity throughout the Muslim world. The Twelfth Imam is a historical figure, Muhammad al-Mahdi who went into occultation, or hiding, from the world in 873. Because of this occultation, the Twelfth Imam is usually called the “Hidden Imam.” Until the Twelfth Imam reappears on the earth, the mantle of religious leadership is in the hands of the mujtahids whose primary task is to “safeguard the Islamic leadership of the Imams.”20 A number of prophesied miraculous signs will coincide with the second coming of the Twelfth Imam including the return of Imam Husayn, “the 313 who fought with the Prophet at the Battle of Badr,” the return of all other imams, and the return of Jesus Christ who “is also anticipated in the Sunni tradition.”21 Shi’ism was present in Persia since the ninth century but gained a surprising ally during the fourteenth century when Persia was under the sway of Turks from Central Asia who embraced a mixture of Islam and shamanistic totemism. Their focus within Islam was decidedly Shi’ite in its perspective and gave particular devotion to the role of ‘Ali. The Seljuk Empire was followed by the Safavid ruling family which had abandoned Sunnism for the Twelver Shi’ite Islam of the nomadic Iranians.22
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The Safavids made Twelver Shi’a Islam the supreme state religion when they came to power, but they initially found it difficult to persuade Iranians to embrace their religious ideas without help from noted Shi’ite teachers and jurists who were imported from Lebanon. A process of forced conversion took place throughout the sixteenth century among the Sunni majority population. Government agents went from village to village making sure that each resident cursed the first three caliphs (who had usurped ‘Ali‘s rightful role) and the crown staged yearly observations to commemorate the martyrdom of Husayn.23 Shi’ite clergy became increasingly powerful, and those Iranians who did not accept their brand of Islam risked being persecuted, exiled, or even killed. Yann Richards believes that “Shi’ism makes a cult of death and martyrdom.”24 Intense religious practices surrounding the commemoration of the death of Husayn take place every year in Iran for ten days during the month of Muharram.25 Entire villages stage these theatrical commemorations (ta’ziya).26 Displays of passion include lamentations, flagellations, black-clothed men and women rhythmically hitting their chests, and everyone in the community weeping loudly in a sweeping corporate hysteria. There is one Hadith which encourages this weeping: “Whosoever weeps or causes others to weep for Husayn will enter Paradise.”27 People smear mud on their heads to show that they are willingly ready to be buried in an ignoble grave alongside their beloved Husayn. Devout Shi’ites are also encouraged to take regular pilgrimages to the holy cities of Mashad, where the Eighth Imam, Imam Reza, was martyred in 818, and also to Qom, which is the city where the sister of Husayn, Massumeh Fatemeh, is buried.28 These two cities have replaced Karbala and Najaf as the principle places for pilgrimage for Iranians because these other cities are inside the hostile territory of Iraq.29 There are thousands of other smaller shrines called imamzadehs which are dedicated to over ten thousand various esteemed and martyred relatives of the Twelve Imams. Another Shi’ite group is called the Isma’ilis, because they believe that the true revelation of God has come to humanity in the present era through the lineage of Imam Isma’il, the Seventh Imam.30 This explains why Isma’ilis are also sometimes referred to as Sevener Muslims. The living imam not only directs the community of the faithful but also holds deeply hidden gnostic and esoteric knowledge which is carefully passed on only to the most devoted of believers.31 Their critics (which are many) argue that the Isma’ilis have concocted an “amalgam of several mystic and extremist heretical sects”
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including pre-Islamic Persian religions and Greek Gnosticism.32 Sunni Muslims dismiss Isma’ilis as heretical reprobates and say that their misguided leader, Isma’il, should be denounced as being a drunkard— and much worse. The beliefs of the Isma’ilis seem to be a mixture of Islam with mystical themes that resonate from Hellenistic gnostic philosophy and Manichaestic dualism—a world of divine light and evil darkness. One of the strengths of Isma’ilism was its ability to incorporate variant ideas and sects into its expanding movement. On the other hand, the weakness of the faction was that this very same openness and impulse to embrace dichotomies led to many schisms and breaks within Isma’ilism.33 Isma’ilism has always been known for its secretive nature. This fact has given rise to the perception that Isma’ilis are deceivers who only pretend to be Muslims in order to protect themselves and their syncretistic beliefs.34 The group has always stressed an interconfessional openness to new ideas and humility and non-fanaticism in the pursuit of learning.35 They believe that God has scattered different truths throughout all of the world’s religious traditions and continues to give fresh revelations and relevant guidance to sincere people worldwide wherever they genuinely search for God’s grace. Isma’ilism has left its distinct mark on the world. Marco Polo made one of their leaders, Hassan Sabah, famous for his control of the “Assassin” sect of the eleventh century that ruled from Alamut Castle in the Albruz Mountains. Twice in the Medieval Era, Isma’ili’s were able to establish kingdoms, the Fatamids in Egypt and in Syria. They were also largely responsible for founding the first Shi’ite Caliphate. The denomination is still active in the world today. Isma’ilis have always placed a high priority on educating and investing in young people.36 The present imam, and recognized leader of the largest Isma’ili branch, is the agha khan, renowned for his remarkably generous charity in assisting a vast number of educational programs for needy youth around the world.
SUFISM IN IRAN Sufism is the “true mystic path” (haqiqi tariqat) of Islam which is followed by dervishes (probably derived from a Persian word meaning “poor”). The Sufi tradition roots itself in the language of the Holy Qur’an wherein a believer is called to always be “desiring the face of God” (Q. 2:272). Sufis assert that the Prophet Muhammad was the first Sufi—a man who passionately loved God with all of his heart and who received many deep, secretive revelations.
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Iran is home to a number of vibrant Sufi orders (tariqah, from the Arabic for “mystical path”) which promote mystical teachings. These mystical orders are led by wise teachers who call students to transform their individual souls by realizing their deep connection with the eternal God. These orders exist to draw followers into prayer, devotion, and the remembrance (dhikr, or Persian, zeker) of God’s Holy Name. The focus is on the inward and the personal instead of the outward and the social. One extinguishes all sense of the self (or of worldly distractions) in order to concentrate only on the blinding light of truth and a liberating sense of dynamic unity with Almighty God. Sufi tariqah are not monastic, nor do they advocate a retreat from the daily world. Although Sufis frequently pray throughout the night and advocate periods of fasting, their motive is not as much ascetic as it is to express their enflamed love for God in keeping with a Qur’anic promise which offers paradise to “those who were used to passing little of the night in sleep and in the hours of the early dawn were asking for forgiveness.”37 A common organizational structure of many transnational Sufi orders can be traced back to their origins in medieval Persia. Sufi tariqah are built around the teachings of a certain wise teacher and his disciples, and each order often owns a number of lodging houses (khanaqas) to facilitate the travel of wandering Sufi dervishes. Persia is the spiritual home of a great many of the orders led by some of the greatest Sufis. These include Hasan of Basra (died 728), Abu Yazid or Bayazid of Bistam (died 874), Mansur al-Hallaj (executed for heresy in 922), and many other notable saints.38 Persian Sufism is probably best known for the great mystic poets such as Rumi, Hafez, Saadi of Shiraz, Sana’i, Attar, and Jami of Herat. Sana’i was the first of these poets who combined sensual, love-making poetry and images of drunkenness with a spiritual quest towards an intimate union with God.39 Sana’i called the believer to go beyond laws and abstinence (zohd) and to become an unfaithful infidel (kofr) to the carnal soul (nafs). Another Sufi, Nizami Ganjavi, described himself as a man gone insane (manjoun) out of an unquenchable craving for God’s seemingly unattainable love. One of the most famous eleventh-century poets to be translated into English is Omar Khayyam of Nishapur in northeastern Iran (1048–1122). During his lifetime Khayyam was known for his mathematical prowess and is noted for developing the theory of general cubic equations and accurately measuring the length of a year to precisely 365.242198.40 Omar Khayyam became famous throughout the world when his poem the Rubaiyat was translated into English by
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Edward Fitzgerald in 1859. The poet described himself as a wild young man, a rogue (rend) who expressed his love for God from the stools of “a house of ruin,” a tavern (Kharabat), while drinking forbidden wine (Mey-e moghaneh).41 Another poet of Nishapur was Farid al-din Attar (1158–1229) who wrote the forty-five-thousand-line Mantiq al-tayr (The Conference of the Birds), which describes more than thirty different types of psychological profiles of personhood. Sadly, Attar, an apostle of love, was massacred along with the rest of the population of Nishapur when the Mongols invaded and slaughtered every last person in this bustling town of over seventy thousand souls. Probably the two most famous Persian poets are Sa’di (1213–1292) and Shams al-Din Muhammad Shirazi, better known by his pen name of Hafez (1315–1390).42 Both of these poets lived in the city of Shiraz which had been mercifully spared by the Mongols from annihilation. Sa’di’s poetry was some of the first to be translated into English, French, and German in the eighteenth century, and one of his poems from the classic Golestan (The Garden of Roses) appears over the entranceway to the main United Nations building in New York.43 The mystic love poetry of Hafez is widely appreciated throughout the world and is considered by many Persians to be the finest writing in their language. Hafez also wrote about spirituality and promoted a glowing picture of the Prophet Jesus in his poetry.44 Many people memorize his writings, and his Divan (poetry anthology) is even used by devotees as an oracle to determine future decisions.45 Shaykh Ragib Al-Jerrahi describes Sufism as a path, beginning in Islam at about the ninth century, which offers “both an origin and a destination” where the aim is the “elimination of all veils between the individual and God.”46 The task is to look past all within this world which is illusionary and see what is true and real. The noted early mystic Bayazid of Bistam warns, “The thing that we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it.”47 Sufism has been hotly criticized by both Sunni and Shi’a Muslims in Persian history. Sufism began as a response to the formalism and reliance on law in Sunni Islam. In contrast, Shi’ism developed with its own internal Sufi dynamic with a built-in emphasis on “divine friendship” (valayat).48 Some Shi’ite theologians, such as Heydar Amoli (died 1385) felt that it was possible to integrate Sufism into Shi’ism because they both were expressing the same goals and worldviews. The early Safavid rulers were both Sufi and Shi’ite, although as the Safavids consolidated their power they also sought to control the spontaneity and enthusiasms of the Sufis. Qajar rulers in Iran continued this process of
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marginalizing the social influence of Sufi tariqah. Generally speaking, Sufism was allowed to function in Iran as long as it stayed on the sidelines of social activism and avoided political commentary. Rulers had no problems with Sufi orders providing a spiritual alternative to the frustrations and anxieties of their citizens as long as these emotions were not allowed to simmer into public rebellion. Sunnis have attacked Sufism because their teachings often celebrate life’s ambiguity, personal complexity, and the theological grays of uncertainty and doubt that were given voice in their teachings and in their lyric poetry.49 Sufism teaches that the world is full of allegory and surprise and that evil has many faces and moral choices are often multivalent. Theological conservatives found such assertions troubling, because God’s word was clearly stated in the black and white of the Holy Qur’an and had nothing to do with human frailty and doubtfilled hesitation. Trained and authorized clerics alone, not mendicant Sufi mystics, were able to determine the nature of God’s will. Conservative Shi’ite clerics criticized Sufis for studying the writings of other religions and for their willingness to find truth in any and every corner of the world. Clerics called Sufism a heresy, “Islam mixed with whiffs of Zoroastrianism,” and noted that the repeated emphasis on light and fire was nothing more than traces from the paganism of Persian Zoroastrianism hiding as Islamic poetry.50 Other critics felt that “Sufism concealed its kinship with Christian monasticism by a verbal loyalty to Islam.”51 Truth was to be found only in the approved and authorized House of Islam. Heretical Sufism was also condemned as being too secretive and speculative. Equating lovemaking or drunkenness with the pursuit of God was dismissed by some clerics as outrageously blasphemous and dangerous. Ahmad Kasravi (who was murdered in 1946) was an Azeri Muslim who vehemently described Sufism as an escapist “baseless illusion” which has caused “much harm” throughout the history of Persian culture.52 The greatest voice of reason which sought to heal the rift between Sufism and Sunni Islam was the great theologian Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058–1111) who taught careful theological and legal scholarship as well as encouraging individual enthusiastic spiritual disciplines.53 This uniting message of reconciliation between orthodoxy and mysticism allowed for a truce to be declared which may have saved both camps from a needless theological war. Religious authorities ceased from criticizing the relatively harmless ideals of Sufism in exchange for gaining control of the political and religious power that
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could be won within Persia. Some elements of folk mystical Sufism even entered the mainstream of Shi’ite orthodoxy. This trend, however, has started to be reversed in recent decades. Today, there are a number of Sufi orders in Iran although their efforts (and particularly their theology) have come under steady clerical attack from conformist-oriented Shi’ite theologians and intellectuals since the 1979 revolution.54 One of the most famous recent Iranian Sufis, Javad Nurbaksh (1926–2008), was not only a member of a Sufi order but was also raised as a faithful Shi’ite. This teacher has popularized Sufism worldwide. For Nurbaksh, Sufism was a mystical “path of love entrenched in Islam and freed from philosophical jargon” where a person can strive to become intimate with the infinite.55 Nurbaksh lived most of his life in exile from Iran because he refused to allow himself to become beholden to the whims of clerics who he claimed were actually political functionaries. Nurbaksh claimed that he would return to Iran only “on the day when it can be guaranteed that I can insult Khomeini with impunity if I wish to do so.”56 He never returned. Nurbaksh observed that clerical formalism (rasmi, marsum) is usually beholden to expediencies and noted that most mullahs were “nothing more than charlatans who are shut off from genuine spiritual life.”57 Sufi mystics have frequently shown a profound reverence for Christ as the greatest faqir (one who possesses spiritual knowledge and insight). Jallal al-din Rumi (604–645) wrote in Persian that the Prophet Jesus was an ideal example of how a person can be intimate with God. Although the Prophet Jesus is not to be worshipped, he serves as a role model and a beacon to others as they also seek to attain unity with God’s love. Rumi believed that “the breath of Jesus was not like ordinary breath because it brought with it an infusion of the universal soul” of God Eternal.58 Poet Hafez wrote, “Happy news, O heart! The Jesus-breath has come! From his wholesome spirit wafts the fragrance of the One!”59 The Prophet Jesus was a friend of God who became one with God by abandoning his own self-interests and being fully obedient to God. He was one who, in the words of al-Ghazali, was dedicated to “a thirst after comprehension for things as they really are.”60 He chose to enter into life through the “gate of majesty” (izzah) instead of the “gate of lust” and decided to leave this earthly temporality through the “gate of power” (qadr). Christians today might find within Sufism‘s positive portrait of the Prophet Jesus ample common ground to engage Iranian Sufis in meaningful discussions on how each of us can advance in our own spiritual journey toward the vast mercies of God’s rich grace and boundless love.
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SUNNISM IN IRAN Both Shi’ites and Sunnis teach many of the same doctrines, and both place the highest value on the “Five Pillars of Faith,” including the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. Shi’ite clerics also encourage their followers to visit holy Shi’ite cities such as Karbala and Najaf in Iraq and Mashad and Qom inside Iran. One of the major differences between the two groups is not religious but pertains to questions of political legitimacy as to who should rightfully lead the Islamic community. Sunni Islam was the first, and predominant, religion of Muslims in Persia until the sixteenth century. When Islam first came to the country it gained ground among urban populations, but rural areas were much slower to embrace this unfamiliar Arab faith. During the Damascus-centered Ummayad Dynasty (661–749), many people described Islam as the Arab religion (din al-Arabi) which meant that cultural and religious understandings were intermixed. One of the reasons the Abbasid revolt was able to gain traction was that some non-Arab Muslims felt that they were second-class citizens within the house of faith. It was a Persian general named Abu Muslim who, in the name of Muhammad‘s uncle Abbas, overthrew the Ummayad Caliphate with the Abbasid Caliphate based in Baghdad (in 751). This political shift had dramatic ramifications for Persia. The center of the empire moved from Damascus to Baghdad, which was much closer to the former Persian capitol city of Ctesiphon between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Abbasids followed the administrative structure of the Sasanians for the establishments of their local rule and for their legal system. Even the first Abbasid coins had Persian as well as Arabic symbols, and the Abbasids elevated the Persian solar calendar and Persian seasonal festivals to places of prominence in their new administration. There were also religious expressions of Persian influence, and Foltz notes that “all six collections of Hadith considered canonical by later Sunnis were (compiled by) scholars of Iranian background.”61 The interrelationship between Persian and Arabian culture has been an ongoing drama in the course of world history. It has had interesting twists and turns. The initial encounter, under Islam, between Persians and Arabs is only one surprising chapter in that story. Instead of the advent of Islam leading to the Arabization of Persia, it may have, to some degree, led to Persia’s conquest of the Muslim world. The forging of Persian and Arabian cultural and religious influences, created in the early Abbasid period, provided the context for a dramatic flourishing of aesthetic, scientific, and intellectual development that is often described as the Classical Age of Islam.62
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CONCLUSION Social scientists have yet to find a way to freeze-frame the dynamic fluidity of religious practice in a given country and evaluate the religiosity or spirituality of a certain community at a specific point in time. There is no doubt that, since 1979, Islamic fervor is highly visible throughout the fabric of the Iranian nation as never before. Five times a day, the call to prayer echoes out across every village and town in every part of the nation. Everywhere that you turn, the government has plastered photos of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and one cannot watch any amount of Iranian television without being forced to flip past a constant parade of sermons and devotional videos proclaiming the truth of Islam. That may not, however, be the entirety of the story. Kurzman observes that while, on one hand, there were various reports of rising public religiosity in Iran in the 1970s, on the other hand, “rising religiosity did not, apparently, increase attendance at masjid prayers, which was said to be at an all-time low.”63 For many Iranians, the only time they practice their faith is during the Feast of Sacrifice (Id e-Qorban) or other religious festival times. Most of the Iranians that I spoke with when I traveled throughout Iran (2008) explained that few of their citizens were intensely devout. Perhaps only about 20 percent of all Iranians regularly attend weekly prayers. Many Iranians have become increasingly turned off by the notion that religion can provide the answers for every social and political problem. Some evangelical Christians inside Iran view this as an opportunity for them to propagate their faith as an alternative to the present straightjacket of aggressive clerical Shi’ism. One Iranian Christian who is bitterly critical about Islam remarked that “Khomeini has been the biggest blessing our country has ever had because he has revealed Islam for what it really is. Before he came, Islam was a pretty package wrapped up on the mantelpiece. Khomeini took the parcel, undid the wrapping, and showed the world what is really inside.”64 Such views, however, do not represent the feelings of the majority of Iranian Christians, Jews, or non-Muslims, who only hope to live in peaceful harmony with their fellow citizens. In the same regard, most Muslims wish non-Muslims well within their own country and are not interested in unnecessarily creating sectarian barriers and accentuating religious differences. Faith is part of Iranian identity, but it does not define, in any way, even a primary part of many people’s lives. A vast majority of Iranians believe in God and the Prophet but are much more concerned with living their daily lives in peace and
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finding some small measure of economic security for themselves and for their children. Religion’s role in civic society is, once again, at a crossroads in Iranian history. Some Shi’ite scholars are returning to find solace in the earlier ideas of ‘Ali Shariati where he discussed his views about what he felt would be the ideal relationship between the masjid and the state. Shariati advocated for the revival of “Islam minus the clerics” because he felt the “rigid conservativism of the clergy has turned Islam into a literalist, soulless religion, unfit to deal with contemporary problems.”65 It might be Shi’ite intellectuals who will insist that their deeply cherished faith should be strengthened by rising above the shrill, competing voices of a bustling market of crass political argument. Popular Persian religion and organized religion is not usually the same thing. The pedestrian, daily practice of religion often serves as a sort of cultural glue which holds local communities together more than it is about grandiose political and religious ideals. Political elites and common villagers may both call themselves Muslims but the experience of that faith is probably often quite different. Non-Muslims looking at Iran should always keep this in mind as they seek to draw conclusions about the role of religious expression in modern Iranian society. Today, Sufis and other moderate Shi’ite devotees are looking for ways to free the dynamic power of Islamic spirituality from the suffocation of temporary political expediencies. One way for some to maintain their faith is to argue that there are really two Islams in modern Iran; one rooted in institutional forms and the other which is a living faith based on the example and revelations from all of the Prophets. These locally grown faultlines continue to widen, and the religiously based battle for the hearts and minds of the people of Iran continues unabated.
NOTES 1. Hunter, Shireen T. The Future of Islam and the West: Clash of Civilizations or Peaceful Coexistence? Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Books, 1998, page 11. 2. Beverly, James A. Understanding Islam. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001, page 35. 3. Bailey and Bailey, 160. 4. Axworthy, 125. 5. Samawi, Muhammad al-Tijani, To Be with the Truthful, translated by Hasan M. Najafi. Qom, Iran: Ansarian Publications, 1997, page 26. Of the
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extent of this betrayal, Michael Axworthy provides the following interesting observation: “To give a sense of the shame and grievance felt by the Shi’a, one might try to imagine how Christians would have felt if the leadership of the church after the death of Christ had fallen to Judas Iscariot, Pontius Pilate and their successors” (Axworthy, 127). 6. Lawrence, Bruce. “Revolution, Ideaology and Revolution: The Problematic Case of post-1979 Iran” in The Terrible Meek: Essays on Religion and Revolution. Kliever, Lonnie D., editor. New York: Paragon House Press, 1987, page 66. 7. Keddie, Nikki R. Qajar Iran and the Rise of Reza Khan, 1796–1925. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Press, 1999, page 8. 8. Wright, Robin. Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam. New York: Touchstone Books, 1988, page 19. 9. Momem, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi’a Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi’ism. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1985, page 13. 10. When Prophet Muhammad was in Medina, ‘Ali served as his secretary and deputy. The Prophet’s daughter was given in marriage to ‘Ali, and the children of this marriage, Hasan and Husayn, were the only grandchildren of the Prophet to survive into adult life. ‘Ali fought bravely in battle including both the Battle of Badr and Khaybar. 11. Richards, 17. 12. The fact that Qasem died on his wedding day inspires Richards to explore the idea that the rituals surrounding the commemoration of the ‘Ashura ceremony also have some sexual symbology: Amid the confusion and tiredness of the evening, amid the repasts, in the mosques, contact between boys and girls becomes less hazardous, less noticed. All my informants confirm that ‘Ashura is a day for fondling, furtive caresses, and flirtations. All at once the sexual nature of this festival of death hits me. The pole of the majestic emblem supported on the belly and raised skywards to be exhibited to the women’s view. The sweetness of the syrups, the tenderness of stolen glances, of love for [Husayn] and his companions. The bewitching rhythm of the processions, usually in four-four time—three flagellations and one pause, or three lightly swung flagellations and then one step forward—is more like a dance than a funeral march. And the whip with the little chains that the men twirl round to lash their shoulders suddenly resembles the multicolored scarves that the tribal women wave over their heads while dancing in their finest dress at weddings. . . . The ta’ziya reminds us that Qasem, the son of Imam Hasan, was killed at Karbala on his wedding day, a myth that was used on many occasions during the Iranian revolution to make death more moving: the alliance of eroticism with martyrdom, the victims killed before they could consummate their amorous union, their death doubtless being that union itself. (Richards, 100)
13. The first Shi’ite community was in Iraq. The largest Shi’ite community on the Arabian Peninsula is in Bahrain. Wahhabi Muslims (who often call themselves simply monotheists—movahhedun) abhor Shi’a Islam because they build minarets and bury their dead in large tombs. When the Wahhabis
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came to power in Saudi Arabia and took control of the pilgrimage cities of Mecca and Medina, one of their first acts was to destroy Fatima’s tomb and the places where several of the imams were buried were also destroyed. There is a community of Shi’ites in Lebanon. Some of these have joined Hezbollah and have been involved in terrorist activities for decades. Afghanistan also has a large number of Shi’ites, and many Afghani refugees from recent wars have found their way to Mashad. The largest number of Shi’ites in the Indian subcontinent are the Isma’ili, who are very successful merchants in that country. It is rumored that Mohammad ‘Ali Jinnah was from the family of a Khoja tribe who were largely Isma’ili Shi’ites living in Pakistan. Jinnah never made reference to this in any of his writings or his speeches. 14. Lewis, Bernard. The Origins of Isma’ilism. New York: AMS Press, 1975 (1940), 91–92. 15. Price, 38. 16. Waterfield, 94. 17. The Fourth Shi’ite Imam, Abu Muhammad ‘Ali ibn Husayn (born in Mecca in 658) was the son of Husayn. He was poisoned in 712 (or 713) at the instigation of the reigning Sunni Caliph Walid, or, more probably by his brother, Hisham (724–743). There is no clear proof that the Fifth Imam, Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn ‘Ali, was martyred although many assume that he was. There are also different accounts of the date of his death which range from 732 until 743. The Sixth Imam, Ja’far as-Sadiq, was poisoned at the direction of Caliph Mansur (754–775) in 765. The Seventh Imam, Musa al-Kazim, was arrested by Caliph al-Rashid (786–809) and sent to Baghdad where he was later poisoned. There was a rumor at his death that he would be the last imam, which gave rise to Isma’ili, or Sevener, Shi’ite Islam. The Eighth Imam, Abu l-Hasan, also known as ar-Rida (the approved), was poisoned in 818 while traveling at the instruction of Caliph Mamum (813–833). The Ninth Imam, Muhammad at-Taqi, the Tenth Imam, ‘Ali al-Hadi, and the Eleventh Imam, Hasan al-Askari, were also poisoned before the Twelfth Imam went into occultation (ghaybat). 18. Sardar quotes the Palestinian scholar Ismail Raji al-Faruqi who explains that the term ummah cannot be translated and must be used in its original form. It is not synonymous with the people or the nation or the state or any other expression which is determined by race, geography, language, history, or any combination of these. The ummah is trans-local, trans-racial, trans-geographical. And each constituent part of the ummah, that is each Muslim community, itself constitutes the ummah even though it may not fall under the sovereignty of a Muslim state.” (194–95)
19. Richards, Yann. Shi’ite Islam: Polity, Idealogy, and Creed. Translated by Antonia Nevill. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995, page 6. 20. Hussain, Asaf. Islamic Iran: Revolution and Counter Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985, page 25. 21. Momem, 170. The Twelfth Imam, Abu l-Qasim Muhammad ibn Hasan is also known as the Qa’im (“the One who will arise”), the Mahdi
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(“the guided”), al-Muntazar (“the Awaited”), al-Hujja (“the Proof”), and the Baqiyatu’llah (“the Remnant of God”). Probably the most frequently used term is the Qa’im. 22. The Safavids were not the first Persian kings to follow Shi’ite Islam. The Buyid Dynasty of the tenth century embraced Shi’ite Islam. The Buyids were responsible for introducing the mourning ceremonies during annual festivals in Karbala. 23. Shi’ites must go through a period of mourning during the month of Muharram and especially on the tenth day (ashura) of the month which marks the day that Husayn was killed at Karbala in 680. The entire festival lasts for ten days. Women mourn loudly, and men beat their chest and actually reenact the events of the battle of Karbala with vivid, public acts of flagellation and other self-mutilating deeds. Many followers in a public theatre on the streets (called the ta’ziyeh) are whipped while others hit their backs with chains. Still others cut themselves on the head so that they are bleeding profusely as they walk through the streets. There have been numerous instances when the actor playing the role of Shimir, the evil general who killed Husayn, has been overwhelmed by the crowds and has been murdered in the name of religious fervor. 24. Richards, 11. 25. It is interesting to draw a parallel between the story of the martyrdom of Husayn with the story in the Shahmeneh—The Book of the Kings— about the death of the hero Siyavosh who is seen as the Persian incarnation of beauty and bravery (in much the same way Husayn is described). The hero dies as an innocent at the hands of King Afrasyab, and he does so for the sake of the Persian people. 26. These performances were officially banned under the Pahlavi dynasty but did continue illegally far from the control of the central government. They were reinstated with the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and the memory of Husayn‘s martyrdom is a frequent feature of government art and propaganda. Khomeini often pointed out that his arrival on the national scene took place on June 5, 1963, which was the day of ‘Ashura. On June 28, 1981, a terrorist bomb struck at the Islamic Republic Party’s headquarters and the official government report was that seventy-two people died around the Ayatollah Beheshti. This is significant because the story of ‘Ashura is that seventy-two faithful followers were killed around Imam Husayn at Karbala. 27. Richards, 97. 28. Price notes the geographic significance of these holy locations: “Khurasan became the most desirable area, for the Arabs and their families arrived in Khurasan and changed the geographic characteristics of the province. Khurasan later became the home of the holiest Shi’a shrine in Iran, the burial chamber of the Eighth Imam and a major center for Shi’a scholarship. Qom was another favorite area because its arid lands resembled the deserts in Arabia” (Price 39). Qom is 120 kilometers south of Teheran. One Shi’ite related that “Qom and Oxford are the two towns in the world where I feel good because in these two towns teaching and study are truly the central activity” (Richards, 10).
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29. The Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1981–1988, exacerbated this development. Since the war has ended there has yet to have been a period of stability within Iraq where Shi’ites from Iran have been able to travel to Karbala and Najaf without danger. Travel to Mashad at one time was also very difficult and dangerous because it was in an area surrounded by desert and fierce Turkomen tribes. Mashad itself is a refreshing oasis community with a huge provincial marketplace. It is one of the crossroads of Central Asia. 30. The Isma’ilis are often described with a number of names, including Seveners and the Batini Movement. 31. Their emphasis on mystery and esoteric knowledge leads their critics to deride them as the batiniyyah or the esoteric. A group of Sevener Shi’ites came to power in Egypt. They were originally from Libya and became known as the Fatamids (909–1171). When the Fatimids were attacked by the Seljuk Turks, they responded in an interesting way. They sent waves of Isma’ili missionaries throughout the Seljuk-controlled areas of Iran and Iraq. The Seljuks saw all Isma’ilis as fifth-columnists and a threat to their power. The Fatamids were weakened from within when the Caliph-Imam Mustansir died in 1094 and a division arose as to who should replace him. Some supported his eldest son Abu Mansur Nizar while others supported the younger Abu’l Qasim Ahmad. This problem in Egypt affected Iran because the Isma’ilis of Iran embraced the claims of Abu Mansur Nazir and became known as the Nizari who carried on a guerilla war against the Seljuks for over two hundred years. One of the famous legacies of these terrorist acts was the advent of the term “assassin” based on the term hashisiyyun—“hashish takers.” The legendary origin of the term was that one terrorist leader commanded absolute allegiance from his squadron by drugging them and taking them to a beautiful garden filled with beautiful maidens as a way to replicate the promise of paradise. There is no historical evidence to support any of these stories retold in a number of places, including the writings of Marco Polo and amongst the crusaders. 32. Lewis, 1975 (1940), 1. Lewis also describes the movement on page 2 of this book as “a syncretistic hotchpotch of all faiths and philosophies, with a strong undercurrent of pure rationalism, as doctrine and social grievances and organization as an important part of its activities.” 33. Lewis cites four major types of Isma’ili Islam. The initial expression he calls the Isma’ili dawah (or “call”) which appeared in the first Islamic century. The second group took shape in Yemen under the leadership of Mansur and continued in North Africa under Abu Abdullah ash-Shi’a. This group reached its zenith with the formation of the Fatimid Dynasty in Egypt. The third group is the Syro-Mesopotamian movement and sometimes referred to as the Carmathians. A branch of this third group went to Bahrain to become the Qaramita (which is the Arabic for Carmathians). This group is reported to have stolen, in 317 of the Islamic calendar, the holy Ka’aba stone from Mecca. The group kept the stone for some years before returning it to Mecca. 34. Lewis (1975 [1940], 90) writes, “The general conclusion of the early Sunni sources is that Isma’ilism represents the efforts of faiths superseded by
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Islam to insulate themselves into Islam and thus eventually to destroy and replace it, either by pre-existing faiths or by pure atheism.” Lewis then quotes al-Ghazali (91), who explains of the Isma’ili that “Not through open war, they thought, can the Muslims be overthrown, but only by deceit.” 35. Lewis, 1975 (1940) writes, The Isma’ili mission necessarily developed a strong strain of interconfessionalism, verging at times on complete rationalism. In this way they were preceded and perhaps influenced by the ‘Isawiya of Isfahan, a Jewish sect which, during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph ‘Abbd al-Malik, preached that both Jesus and Muhammad were true prophets relative to the countries and peoples among whom they appeared. This was developed and elaborated by the Isma’ilis into a coherent system in which the relative truth of all religion was freely recognized and fanaticism was denounced. (94)
36. Two writings from their holy books illustrate this point: “It befits our brothers that they should not show hostility to any kind of knowledge or reject any kind of book. Nor should they be fanatical in any doctrine for our opinion and our doctrine embraces all doctrines, and all knowledge.” Of the importance of teaching it is written: “Know, O brothers, that it is part of your well-being to find a teacher who is intelligent, good-natured, of fine character, clear-minded, a lover of knowledge, a seeker of truth, and not a fanatical adherent of any religious doctrine.” To young people it is encouraged that “your concern is with young men of sound heart, who incline toward letters, begin to study the sciences, seek the path of truth and the other world, believe in the day of reckoning, make use of the religious codes of the prophets, study the secrets of their books, renounce passion and polemic and are not fanatical in matters of doctrine” (Lewis, 1975 [1940], 94–95). 37. Mottadeh, 135. 38. Hasan of Basra advocated asceticism and called people to resist worldliness. He is often considered one of the first Sufi teachers. The Bayazid of Bistam taught that Sufis should become intoxicated (sukr) with God through prayer and the constant recitation of God’s name (dhikr). The ultimate goal of such devotion was complete annihilation (fana) of the individual within God’s nature. Bayazad of Bistam believed that the “night journey” (miraj) of the Prophet to heaven was a model for all devotees of God. Mansur al-Hallaj embraced many of Bayazid’s ideas such as intoxication of the spirit. Al-Hallaj often did this through dancing and whirling, sometimes accompanied by music. Eventually, al-Hallaj was executed for blasphemy after he proclaimed “I am the Divine Truth!” 39. Axworthy (96) provides a translation of one of Sana’i’s poems: Since my heart was caught in the snare of love Since my soul became wine in the cup of love, Ah, the pains I have known through loverhood Since like a hawk I fell in the snare of love! Trapped in time, I am turned to a drunken sot by the exciting, dreg-draining cup of love.
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40. A calendar year is now known to consist of 365.242190 days and not Khayyam’s 365.242198. 41. Axworthy (93) provides both the Persian and an English translation of a stanza of one of Khayyam’s poems: Gar man ze mey-e moghaneh mastam, hastam Var asheq o rend o botparastam, hastam Hark as be khiyal-e khod gamane darard Man khod danam, har anche hastam, hastam. If I am drunk on forbidden wine, I am. And if a worshipper of love, and roguery and false gods, then I am. Everyone has their own doubts. I know myself; whatever I am I am.
42. The term “Hafez” refers to someone who has memorized and can recite the entire Qur’an. 43. Axworthy (110) provides both the Persian and the English translation for the poem at the United Nations: Bani-Adam a’za-ye yek-digarand Ke dar afarinesh ze yekgawharand Chu ‘ozvi be dard avarad ruzegar Digar ozha ra numanant qarar All men are fellow members of one body For they were created from one essence When fate afflicts one limb with pain The other limbs may not stay unmoved.
The poem only appears in English at the United Nations. The poem continues: Tu kaz mehnat-e digaran dighami Nashayad ke namat nahand adami You who are without sorrow for the suffering of others You do not deserve to be called human.
44. Hafez noted that Jesus did miracles: And if the Holy Ghost descend in grace and power infinite His comfort in these days to lend To them that humbly wait on it Theirs too the wondrous works can be
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That Jesus wrought in Galilee.
In another poem he notes that Jesus was a man of great purity: If thou like Christ be pure and single-hearted who once ascended far beyond the sky Thy life will shine with beams of light, whereby the sun will brighten by thy light imparted.
Translated into English by Bishop Hasni Dehqani-Tafti, Christ and Christianity in Persian Poetry. Basingstoke, UK: Sohrab Books, 1986, pages 8, 11–12. 45. People will open the Divan at random and read a passage and try to interpret some personal meaning for their lives based on what they find. The only other book that is used this way in Iran is the Holy Qur’an. 46. Fadiman, James, and Robert Frager, editors. Essential Sufism. New York: Castle Books, 1997, page 1. 47. Fadiman and Frager, 37. Fadiman and Frager have compiled a compendium of notable Sufi phrases. One phrase that I particularly appreciated attributed to al-Ghazali states, “‘Does money upset the hearts of learned men?’ He answered, ‘Men whose hearts are changed by money are not learned’” (50). 48. The Twelve Imams are often described of as “friends of God,” and their love and relationship with God is a friendship that allows Shi’ites to ask the Twelve Imams for intercession on their behalf before God. 49. Mottadeh writes: The love of ambiguity in Sufism had deeper and stronger reasons. It was also the register in which the Persian-speaking Iranians could talk and yet keep an emotional distance from the Turk and the Mongol who ruled them. In fact, it allowed them to keep a distance from the generations of rapacious and parasitical rulers, Iranian as well as non-Iranian, who held power by standing on the necks of their Iranian subjects. But this ambiguity meant even more. It was the dimension in which the two great and ultimately spiritual visions of Western Asia could be simultaneously accepted without having to be resolved: the gnostic and the neo-Platonic vision of the movement possible in the life of any historical person from time into eternal, as Sohravardi’s bird escaped the hunting park; and the vision of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in which history is a drama of salvation that stretches through all human time from creation to the Resurrection. (165)
50. Richards, 77. 51. Richards, 60. 52. Kasravi, “The Detrimental Consequences of Sufism: Extracts from Sufism” in Religion and Politics in Modern Iran, edited by Lloyd Ridgeon. London: I. B. Tauris, 2005, page 125. Kasravi was born in the northeastern city of Tabriz in 1890 and graduated to be a preacher from that city when he was twenty years old. He was assassinated in 1946 after a series of unsuccessful assassination attempts. 53. Near the end of al-Ghazali’s life he devoted his scholastic energies to the exploration of the metaphysics of light. This was a theme that became central to Iranian Sufi teachers such as Shehab al-din Sohravardi (1153–1191).
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These same ideas reappeared in the Shi’ite Sufi theophosy of Mullah Sadra of Shiraz who died in 1640. 54. Ayatollah Khomeini taught mysticism and philosophy at Qom in the 1950s. He sometimes quoted the Andalusian Sufi Ibn ‘Arabi. He also frequently quoted the Persian philosopher Mullah Sadra (see previous note) who frequently engaged in metaphysical speculation complimentary to Sufi thought. Once Khomeini came to power, however, he did not stop the closure of Sufi order houses (khaneqah). 55. Richards, 51. Javad Nurbakhsh was born in Kerman, southeast Iran, in 1926. At one time he was a psychiatric doctor at Teheran University. He is known for his numerous books, anthologies of Sufi poetry, and collections of early Sufi writings such as Shabestari’s Jasmine of Faithful Lovers (‘Abhar olasheqin). Nurbakhsh died in October 2008. 56. Richards, 52. 57. Richards, 52. 58. Jallal al-din Rumi cited in van Gorder, A. Christian. No God but God: A Path to Muslim-Christian Dialogue on God’s Nature. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2003, 176. 59. van Gorder, 2003, 180. 60. van Gorder, 2003, 176. 61. Foltz, 125. 62. Many of the scholars of the Abbasid Caliphate were of Persian ancestry. The historians Al-Tabari and Mishkawayah and the physicians Rhazes and Ibn-Senna (Avincenna) were Muslims. Noted mathematician Khwarazmi and geographer/astronomers such as Ibn-Khordadbeh, Estrakani, and Ibn alFaqih were Persians. Probably the most renowned intellectual and theological thinker in Muslim history, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, the Prince of Islamic Theologians, was also of Iranian descent. Even the concept of a madrassa, “a place of study” with a fixed curriculum of legal and theological studies, probably has its roots in Iran during the tenth and eleventh centuries. One of the first madrassas to be built in Baghdad, the Nezamiyyeh Masjid, was constructed in 1063 under the leadership of Prime Minister Nezam al-Molk who was himself an Iranian. 63. Kurzman, Charles. The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2004, 68. 64. Brother Andrew. For the Love of My Brothers: Unforgettable Stories from God’s Ambassador to the Suffering Church. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, 1998, page 203. 65. Richards, 88. ‘Ali Shariati was the son of a cleric unfrocked by the secularizing mandates of the Pahlavi Era. He first embraced the nationalizing visions of Mosaddeq and then went to study in France. While in France, he became a leading activist for nationalism and a writer on philosophical and religious topics. He died in London, at age forty-four of an apparent heart attack. Some suspect that agents under the direction of Rafsanjani were responsible for his death, but such an accusation has never been proven.
5
Modern Protestant Missionary Efforts in Persia
I am sometimes led by the Persians to tell them all that I know of the very recesses of the sanctuary, and these are things that interest them. But to give an account of all my discussions with these mystic philosophers must be reserved for the time of our meeting. Public curiosity about the Gospel, now for the first time in the memory of modern Persians, introduced into the country, is a good deal excited here, at Shiraz, and other places, so that, on the whole, I am thankful for having been led hither, and detained; though my residence in this country has been attended with many unpleasant circumstances. The way of the kings of the East is preparing. Thus much may be said with safety but little more. The Persians also will probably take the lead in the march to Zion as they are ripe for a revolution in religion as well as in politics. Henry Martyn, last letter, Tabriz, August 28, 1812 A camel that wants fodder sticks out its neck. Iranian proverb
While the Roman Catholic Church reemerged to some degree in modern Persia, their efforts were never as extensive as the work of Protestant missionaries which will be the focus of this chapter. Protestant missionaries have been active in going to Persia to preach the Christian message for almost three centuries. Perhaps the first modern Protestant missionaries to Persia were the German doctors, C. F. W. Hoecher and Johannes Rueffer who were sent in 1747 by the United Brethren Mission (also known as the Moravians). Their intention was 121
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to travel to Yazd and conduct an evangelistic crusade among the Zoroastrians, but their journey was marred by frequent setbacks. It took months to trek from Germany to Persia and they faced a host of unanticipated problems (including bandits) once they arrived in Persia.1 They only stayed in the country for a year before finding their way to the coast and, then, eventually returning to Europe.2 Most Protestant accounts of Christian missions in Persia begin with the dramatic efforts of the Anglican Bible translator, Henry Martyn. In fact, after the Moravians, the next Protestant mission organization to work in Persia was the Edinburg Missionary Society (also known as the Scottish Missionary Society). This organization sent missionaries to the Caucasus (in 1803) who then traveled south into modern-day Iran. The Scots were based among the Turks in Astrakhan and Azerbaijan but, in 1817, they sent a resident missionary to serve in Tabriz. The work that they had begun was taken over by Swiss missionaries from the Basel Mission, including the author C. F. Pfander, and the Reverend Frederick Haas, who arrived in Tabriz in 1823. Pfander and Haas eventually began a school, but they also did extensive itinerant evangelistic preaching. Pfander is best known, not for his preaching, however, but for printing a series of gospel tracts including one that was widely used throughout Persia for decades, the Mizan al-Haqq (Balance of Truth). None of these efforts were known to have resulted in the establishment of any Protestant Persian church.3
HENRY MARTYN The story of Henry Martyn is one of the most riveting narratives in Protestant missions. When Martyn heard stories about a Baptist missionary named William Carey, he vowed that he too would “burn out for God.”4 Born in Truro, Cornwall in 1781, Martyn was greatly influenced by evangelists Samuel Walker and John Wesley. Martyn determined as a youth to go to Cambridge University where he studied Persian, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, and Hindustani. He studied theology and world religions at Cambridge and planned on following the example of Carey by going to India as a missionary. In 1802, Martyn was accepted for service by the Society for Missions to Africa and the East (later known as the Church Missionary Society). This organization counted the Clapham Sect as some of its earliest supporters. Martyn spent the first four years of his missionary service in Serampore and at the Fort William College with Carey.5 During his years in India, he translated the New Testament into both Hindustani and Arabic with
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the invaluable aid of native-speaking Christians, Mizra Fitat of Benares and Aga Sabat of Baghdad. Because of failing health, in 1810, Martyn took a leave from working on a Bengali translation of the Bible. He decided, instead, to set out for Persia to work on a revision of the Persian New Testament. When Martyn reached Bombay he received assistance from Captain John Malcolm, who also gave him helpful letters of introduction for a number of Armenian Christian contacts inside Persia.6 Martyn arrived in the Port of Bushire, Persia, on May 21, 1811, and reached Shiraz on June 9. One of the first things that he did in Shiraz was visit the tomb of the poet Sa’di, whose writings he had studied in Cambridge and who was of a particular effect on his emotions. Perhaps it was this love of Persian literature which facilitated Martyn’s relative popularity with local intellectuals, clerics, and scholars. Martyn was in Shiraz for less than two years but spent that time in a tireless round of preaching “extensively to mullahs and students.”7 He was well received among the Shiraz intelligentsia as Mullah Martyn and was often found “arguing half the night with them about the fundamental truths of Christianity.”8 He was financially supported (and even housed) by a welleducated Sufi named Ali Khan and also benefited from the assistance of an Armenian servant named Zachary.9 Crowds gathered at Martyn‘s residence for long conversations and in hopes of being able to convert the gracious and courteous foreigner to the Muslim faith. Sir Robert Kerr Porter writes of Martyn’s relations with the local citizenry: “The inhabitants had received, cherished and listened to him and he departed thence amidst the blessings and tears of many a Persian friend.”10 It probably also helped that the shah issued an edict that “anyone who insulted the English priest would be beaten.”11 To his credit, Martyn was able to learn and to speak fluently the classical dialect of Persian. He did, however, preach sermons that criticized Islam, and these public sermons were answered by members of the local ummah, who explained to listeners the many errors of the misled foreigner’s perspectives.12 On February 24, 1812, Martyn finished what he thought was the first translation of the New Testament into Persian during his ten months that he lived in Shiraz.13 In actual fact, there had been other renderings of the Persian New Testament before Martyn.14 Two of the most noteworthy projects were commissioned by Shah Abbas I and the Qajar despot Nadir Shah.15 The latter ordered Armenians in New Julfa to prepare for him a copy of the Hebrew, Christian, and Muslim scriptures in the Persian language.16 A commission of Muslim and Christian scholars, with the Christian contingent under the oversight
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of Monk George of Julfa, finished the New Testament in both Persian and in Arabic.17 Martyn‘s translation was first published in 1815 by the Russian Bible Society and in 1816 by Serampore College in India. Martyn’s effort was later to become the basis for a complete translation of the Bible into Persian by Dr. William Glen of the Edinburg Missionary Society. Glen began studying Persian in Iran in 1817 and did not leave the country until he had translated the entire Old and New Testament into Persian in 1848 with the financial assistance of the United Synod of Scotland. Henry Martyn was nearing the end of his young life when he visited Persia. Martyn was so ill from tuberculosis that he determined he needed to return to England for further treatment. En route, Martyn visited the Armenian Patriarch in Ecmiadzin who was alarmed at how frail his visitor looked at the time. Martyn never reached England and died of fever in the snows near Tokat (Tacat), Turkey on October 16, 1812.18 A modest tombstone was erected over his grave in Tokat which reads, “He will long be remembered in the East, where he was known as a man of God.”19 The English missionary was only thirtyone years old at the time of his untimely death. Before he left the country, in July of 1812, Martyn presented a copy of his translation to one of his converts, Sheikh Salih Muhammad Rahim.20 Another two copies were sent to Serampore for publication, and one was left for his patron.21 Martyn had also hoped to give two copies to Fath Ali Shah, but the shah would not accept the Bible directly from a mere commoner, choosing instead to receive it through the intermediation of the British ambassador, Sir Gore Ouseley.22 Observing this diplomatic dance, Antoine Wessels surmised that this “meant from the very beginning Christianity in its modern form in Iran was identified with a foreign government.”23 Just as Martyn needed political assistance even to give a Bible to the shah, this same pattern marked the decision of every school and hospital built by missionaries in Persia over the next two centuries. Although these Protestant missionaries benefited from the protection these foreign legations provided, this same political connection became a heavy burden as the church in Persia struggled to become fully integrated into the warp and woof of Persian culture. Henry Martyn’s legacy may be the inspiration that he provided future generations of Protestants through his writings, work, and example. In addition to his own carefully kept notebooks, countless devotional biographies have been written about his brief, but full, life. One hagiographic account glowed that
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Martyn’s spiritual zeal was tempered with love and his love was invigorated by zeal. He combined ardor with prudence, gravity with cheerfulness, abstraction from the world with an enjoyment of its lawful gratifications. His extreme tenderness of conscience was devoid of any scrupulosity and his activity in good works was joined to his habits of serious contemplation.24
PROTESTANT MISSION EFFORTS AND THE QAJAR DYNASTY It was during the Qajar Dynasty (1794–1925) that North American and European Protestant missionaries began coming to Iran in steady numbers. There were also some French Roman Catholic missionaries who arrived in Persia in the 1800s, but they focused primarily on supporting existing converts and expatriate Catholics.25 Almost all of any early missionary efforts were, in fact, confined to working among Armenian and Assyrian Christian communities, and all Christians were officially discouraged from openly proselytizing Muslims. The missionaries’ hope of gaining a foothold and moving from foreign efforts to an indigenous church primarily revolved around launching hospitals, schools, universities, and orphanages before establishing local churches. Protestant mission schools, hospitals, and church planning efforts grew exponentially. By 1876, Spellman reports that there were “enough converts to warrant the founding of a church, whose services were sometimes attended by Muslims.”26 This led the government (in 1880), under pressure from furious Muslim clergy, to issue an order forbidding all Muslims to attend any Christian service or to visit any chapel inside of a hospital or church. Regular public services were resumed only two years later when this law was overturned by British colonial pressure on the Qajar government. The back and forth of this decision-making process speaks volumes about the situation in Persia. Another noteworthy interreligious development took place in 1880 when the Protestant community was allowed to elect a representative to deal with cases in their interest before the government. About the same time, foreign missionaries were allowed to establish committees to address the legal affairs of their community, free of the shariah law courts based on Islamic standards. It was even established by the Qajar crown that Muslims who converted to Christianity were allowed to retain their property and inheritance rights. In 1881, the law which stated that the testimony of a Christian could not be used
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against a Muslim was overturned by the direct intervention of the British Foreign Ministry in Teheran. This meant that, from that time forward, “Christians would be placed on a footing of equality with Muslims in giving of [legal] evidence.”27 These first interactions between European missionaries and Persians had profound social ramifications which really had little to do with Christianity and Islam. On the one hand, foreign missionaries returned from their experiences telling a much more nuanced and sympathetic view of Persia than had previously been circulated among the general populations of Great Britain and North America. On the other hand, foreigners often discussed with their Persian neighbors how their two cultures were dramatically different. Spellman writes: “Many Iranian women were inspired by news of women’s lifestyles in Europe. . . . The family in Europe portrayed in an idealistic fashion by Christian missionaries, presented images of romantic love, happiness, stability, mutual support and the absence of divorces.”28 This was contrasted with traditional arranged marriages, polygamy, widespread exploitation of women, and the easy divorces available for men. The rulers of the Qajar government were open to accommodating foreign interests and made few prohibitions against the arrival of Christian missionaries. Some rulers even believed that the missionaries might provide a positive resource for the modernizing advance of the country. Spellman writes that the shah’s officials were “eager to maintain good relations with the imperial powers by helping the English Mullahs. The royal family may have also hoped to gain certain other advantages, or insights about the West, from their visiting foreign missionaries.”29 The tolerant views of these political leaders were shared by only a tiny fraction of Persians and by seemingly few, if any, of the religious elite. In fact, the presence of any foreigners in the country, particularly those seeking to assert their influence, became a major lightning rod for social discontentment against the ruling elite. H. E. Chehabi notes that many Shi’ite clergy felt that these foreign missionaries were “a threat to the spiritual integrity of Muslim societies.”30 Early Protestant missionaries were often looked on with suspicion by local people and were not always trusted at the local level among officials and religious authorities. Persian intellectuals, such as al-Afghani, argued that Christian missionaries were laying the groundwork for a more materialist and secular culture and, thus, serving the economic interests of foreigners’ intent on dominating Persia. Others, more positively, may have appreciated the fact that these foreigners were responsible for exposing Persians, often for the first time, to some of the
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technological, educational, and medical advances of the West. Most Persians, however, viewed these Protestant missionaries as probable agents, or even potential spies, for the competing political ambitions of various foreign powers. It was at this time that Britain was involved in what the British newspapers called the “great game” between England and Russia. These two nations were locked in a thinly veiled contest of wills and intrigue whose focus was to gain a stronger military and political foothold in Persia and throughout Central Asia and the Caucasus. The first waves of communist ideology in the country (at the end of the nineteenth century) also pointed out the negative role that these missionaries were playing in Persia. As the Qajar Dynasty became weaker, xenophobic and anti-Christian ideas became more prevalent. Negative views of foreigners were easily transferred onto the vulnerable missionaries in their midst so that many missionaries resorted to protection in European and North American embassies. These choices only reinforced these interrelationships. Most Evangelical missionaries dismissed Orthodox and Catholic missionaries uniformly as members of papal sects and rebuked their Mariology or their worship of saints and icons. Their goal was to give these nominal Christians “true Christianity.”31 Evangelicals, such as Rufus Anderson (in 1838), wrote that nominal Armenian and Assyrian Christians would eventually leave their “ignorant, degenerate, and degraded church” and convert from Orthodoxy to Protestantism which would become the preface to successful evangelization among all of the Muslim communities of Persia.32 One can easily read a sense of arrogance into these words. British and North American missionaries were imbued with the triumphalist mindset of their times which made them convinced that they shared the “white man’s burden” to civilize and educate Orientals who were invariably seen to be more primitive. This was obviously not a mindset which was going to be very well-received among the proud people of Persia. To the credit of many foreign missionaries, it was not easy to overcome such a widely held and deeply assumed mindset, but it is hardly the only frame of reference that they held. Many missionaries also worked to promote in their specific contexts a sense of mutual respect or Christ-like humility. According to Waterfield, however, the majority of the early missionaries “looked on the Persians much as a kind-hearted lord of a manor would look on his poorer tenants. This attitude had an important bearing on the future of the work in that it created a gulf between the missionaries and the Persians.”33 It seems that many missionaries came brimming with paternalistic ideas and
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believing that they alone were the chosen ones who had the truth and that they were the only agents who could offer the blind, benighted Persians spiritual assistance to reach their Almighty God. It was also often the case that there was little, if any, sense of collegiality or mutuality in their infrequent and usually condescending interactions with local Persian Christians. It is not surprising, then, that Armenian and Assyrian Christians held these foreign missionaries at arm’s length as it soon became obvious that their ancient communities were at risk of being fractured through the competing missionary stratagems of these foreigners. On the other side of the coin, many Armenians were in abject poverty and greatly needed the financial assistance that these foreigners were willing and able to provide for them.34 H. B. Dehqani-Tafti explains: “In the early days, resistance was shown to these missionary establishments by the religious leaders, particularly to the schools. Parents were forbidden to send their children to Christian schools; often children would climb over walls because the doors were watched, knowing that they risked being caught and beaten.”35 Over time, a legion of understandable fears slowly gave way to guarded respect, and the Protestant missionary schools and hospitals were increasingly utilized by Armenian and Assyrian Christians. The tide was to shift one more time for Christians in Persia under the Qajar Dynasty. Both the Constitutional Revolution of 1905 (which lasted until 1911), and the advent of World War I, dramatically affected Protestant missionary efforts in Persia. Social instability and political infighting made minority groups vulnerable, especially far removed from the shadow of the central government.36 Jews, Baha’is, and Christians were all uniformly affected by new legislation which forbade members of these non-Muslim communities from serving as members of the government or as judges (Article 8 of the Constitution). The advent of World War I meant that British missionaries were forced to leave their posts at the insistence, not of Persian authorities, but of the British crown. In 1914, all CMS missionaries in the southern part of the country were told that they needed to evacuate their mission stations and relocate in British-controlled Ahwaz for their own protection. After the end of World War I, an army of missionaries marched back into Persia with most of them returning to the area surrounding the city of Urmiah. In some other areas, the unstable political condition among the Kurdish populations near the border with modern-day Azerbaijan meant that mission groups did not return to Iran until 1923. Eventually, most of the Protestant mission schools and hospitals were reopened,
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but there were to be dramatic changes on the horizon. The situation for Protestant missions in Persia would never be the same as it was at the time of the Qajar Dynasty, which was in its last gasps of life.
ANGLICAN MISSIONARIES IN PERSIA Joseph Wolff, of the Anglican Missionary Society and the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, was the first Anglican missionary to arrive from England in 1821.37 Born in Bavaria as the son of a rabbi in 1796, Wolff always dressed in the full clergy attire of the Church of England. His biographer, Lewis Way, wrote that Wolff was a man to whom a floor of brick is a feather-bed, and a box is a cushion, who makes a friend in the persecutor of his former or his present faith; who can conciliate a Pasha or confute a Patriarch; who travels without a guide, speaks without an interpreter; who can live without food and pay without money, forgiving all the insults he meets with and forgetting all the flattery he receives; who knows little of worldly conduct and yet accommodates himself to all men without giving offense to any: Such a man and such and more, is Wolff.38
Reverend Wolff passed through Shiraz, Isfahan, Kashan, Teheran, and Tabriz in his first journey to Persia.39 In each locale, Wolff would visit Jewish synagogues and Christian churches, but he also spoke to Muslims on the streets in public preaching venues. On the first Sunday that Wolff was in Tabriz, he preached nonstop from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. in six different languages. While Wolff was in Persia, he procured a copy of the Syriac New Testament and arranged to have the British Bible Association print a copy of it in 1827 and distribute it throughout Urmiah. Wolff visited Persia again in 1824 (where he experienced an earthquake in Bushire) and also again in 1830. This eccentric and erratic itinerant preacher was only briefly in each village and traveled onward to the Emirate of Bukhara (in modern-day Uzbekistan) where Wolff was stoned to death shortly after the infamous public hangings of Colonels Connolly and Stoddard.40 Following Reverend Wolff was another colorful representative of the Christian Mission to the Jews (CMJ), Jacob Samuel, who first went to work among the Jews in Calcutta, India (in 1831). Samuel visited the Jewish communities in Shiraz (in 1836) and wrote excitedly to England that the Jews who lived amongst the Georgians and Armenians in the Caucasus Mountains were certainly the remnants of the lost tribes of
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Israel. After this expedition, Samuel returned to India where he wrote a dramatic book about his adventures. In 1844, three more evangelists from the CMJ came to Persia and preached to large Jewish crowds until a group of rabbis intervened and called down a solemn curse on anyone who listened to the English missionaries or allowed any one of them to set foot in their homes.41 The first Anglican Church was established in 1832 among Armenian Christians who were living in New Julfa (Isfahan). The Anglicans showed an early interest in trying to cooperate with both local Christians and other missionaries. Sometimes this required a degree of diplomacy. In 1842, the Archbishop of Canterbury William Howley (1766–1844) sent George Percy Badger (1815–1888), formerly a chaplain of the East India Company, to Urmiah meet with Presbyterian missionaries in hopes of encouraging them to improve their relations with local Assyrian Nestorians. After this assignment, Badger (formerly a printer in Ipswich) returned to New Julfa and partnered with Armenian Christians in launching an Armenian printing press. In both Urmiah and New Julfa, Anglican missionaries sought to encourage local Christians to organize programs where they could also interact more positively with their Muslim neighbors42 The Church Mission Society (CMS) dispatched its first missionaries, led by the twenty-five-year-old Reverend Robert Bruce, of Trinity College, Dublin, to Persia in 1869 to learn the Persian language.43 Although his initial intent was to refine Martyn‘s translation, Bruce reached Isfahan during a devastating famine. During 1871 and 1872, Bruce’s appeals for financial aid to Anglicans in Ireland and England resulted in over sixteen thousand pounds sterling being delivered for famine relief.44 Bruce assisted over seven thousand victims directly, and his work was tremendously appreciated by local officials. Although government policy forbade Bruce’s settling in a Muslim town, his relief work was so appreciated that he was allowed to settle in New Julfa, beginning on June 14, 1875. Bruce began revising Martyn’s Persian translation of the Bible with the assistance of a few Armenian Christians. His warm support among the Armenian community was rewarded when a local leader, Carapet Johannes, asked officially to become a CMS missionary. Dr. Bruce unapologetically shared his Christian faith with Muslims. Shortly after he arrived, Bruce reported that nine Muslims in Isfahan contacted him and asked to be baptized as Christians.45 Bruce took this as a “sign from God that he should remain in Iran” which the CMS reluctantly agreed to accept.46 The effort was slow and saw little results. Bruce himself admitted, “I am not yet reaping. I am not
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yet sowing. I can scarcely be said to be plowing; but I am gathering up the stones from the field.”47 The CMS publicly focused on cooperative educational and medical work amongst needy Armenian Christians since ministering or preaching to Muslims was officially discouraged. As time went on, however, the Anglicans became less concerned about strengthening the indigenous Armenian church and more interested in establishing their own Armenian Anglican church. In 1883, the first ArmenianAnglican Church was founded with sixty-seven Armenian members. This church still exists in New Julfa. Were missionary efforts focused on reaching both men and women given the conservative nature of Persian culture? Since most of the Protestant missionaries were men, segregation laws made it almost impossible for anyone but the wives of the missionaries to communicate with Muslim women. Missionary efforts among Armenian and Assyrian women were far less complicated. Even when some missionaries in Iran “crossed the line” on such cultural issues they were usually protected because of the increasing political influence that Great Britain was exerting inside Persia. There was no protection, however, for any Persian man or woman from a Muslim background who responded positively to the overtures of the foreign missionaries by seeking to be baptized. Any Muslims who converted publicly to Christianity were considered apostates and risked being exiled or possibly even put to death by their angry families or neighbors. Apostates also faced government-sponsored persecution as well as the opprobrium of their families. When two of Bruce’s recent Muslim converts were beheaded for apostasy, “it became clear” to him and to the other CMS missionaries “that religious freedom had not yet come to Persia.”48 Shortly thereafter, another of the converts, Mirza Ibrahim, was arrested in Khoi and thrown into the filthy dungeon of Tabriz after he had repeatedly refused to renounce Christianity. Accounts of his arrest tell of captors beginning to choke him until he would renounce Christ and accept ‘Ali. His response was “Jesus is true. Choke me if you will.”49 Mizra Ibrahim died on May 14, 1893, and a few Christians went to the Tabriz prison to ask how he had died. The jailor simply replied, “He died like a Christian.”50 Dr. Bruce asked local prison authorities for permission to bury his friend but was refused because, since Ibrahim was an apostate, he was to be unceremoniously thrown into an unmarked grave at the Muslim cemetery. Shaken by this tragedy, Dr. Bruce retired from mission service in Iran and returned to England. Bruce was replaced in 1894 by the sixtyseven-year-old Bishop Edward Craig Stuart of Waiapu, New Zealand,
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Dr. Donald Carr, and Reverend William St. Clair-Tisdall.51 The latter was a brilliant scholar of Persian and Islamic studies who continued to advance Bruce’s literary works and maintained the ongoing operation of the Henry Martyn Memorial Press in New Julfa.52 St. Clair-Tisdall learned Armenian and also wrote a conversational Persian grammar text that was used in Europe for decades.53 Dr. Carr was renowned for his epic medical outreaches via his well-worn bicycle which covered extensive areas surrounding Isfahan.54 In 1898, the Reverend Napier Malcolm of New College, Oxford joined the CMS work in Yazd. Malcolm was joined by Miss Mary Bird in the following year.55 Bird focused on providing basic medical assistance but also agitated local Muslims by sharing her faith boldly among the city’s poor citizens. Waves of persecution against Anglican converts from Islam called for some kind of action. One solution that the Anglican missionaries had for protecting Muslim converts to Christianity was to move them from their homes and relocate them at distant schools or hospitals and give them employment in these Christian institutions. Such a segregating, and seemingly inevitable, arrangement raised local suspicions about both those who worked in these service roles and the motives of the missionaries. In Hamadan, for example, the Anglicans had a school for boys founded by Reverend James W. Hawkes which took in a Kurdish convert named Sa’eed Rasool (Kurdistani) who had been facing repeated death threats in his village eighty miles distant. Sa’eed became the assistant to the American medical missionary, Dr. E. W. Alexander, and eventually revisited Kurdistan where he was able to bring his brother Kaka Rasool into the Christian faith. Dr. Sa’eed went on to further medical training in Teheran and then to a noted career as a medical missionary among the Kurdish communities of Teheran, Kermanshah, and Hamadan. When Sa’eed died on July 29, 1942, in his home, Sir Mortimer Durand, the former British minister to Persia, related, “If, in all the years of its activities the American Mission had achieved nothing more than the conversion of Dr. Sa’eed then its labors had been amply repaid.”56 Anglicanism in Persia is replete with the stories of many dedicated converts. Dr. Jalil Qazzaq (1879–1955), sometimes called the father of Iranian Anglicanism, was an adept scholar with extensive skills in calligraphy. Qazzaq was also instrumental in the education of Bishop Dehqani-Tafti.57 Qazzaq was baptized at St. Luke’s Church, Isfahan, in 1922 after being treated at the Christian Hospital by Dr. Donald Carr (of the Church Missionary Society). Throughout his life, Qazzaq worked closely with foreign Anglican missionaries but was still able
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to “completely retain his true Iranian spirit of dignity, good nature, hospitality, pleasure in society, readiness in repartee and witty expressions, the retaining of friendships and, most of all, warmth and affection.”58 Qazzaq was fiercely nationalistic, and friends asserted that no one could ever think that Christianity was a foreign religion after interacting with this passionate patriot so deeply in love with Iran. Jalil Qazzaq spent his life studying Sufism and sharing his Christian faith among Sufi tariqah. Qazzaq described himself as a dervish in the original meaning of the term of a person who seeks to be thoroughly absorbed, body, mind, emotions, and spirit, in the pursuit of God. It was said that he “was a combination of emotions, all heart from head to foot, and a heart that was constantly grieving, burning and melting.”59 He was a prolific translator of Christian literature from English into Persian and was also an able preacher. His life was spent in education and in the administration of Anglican schools. What was the role of women in Iran’s Anglican mission work? More Anglican women than men went to Persia to serve the church. Muslim segregation laws mandated that women would only be able to relate with other women, although these strictures were lighter amongst Armenian and Assyrian communities. Most of the women missionaries who went to Iran were single. This meant that these women faced additional hurdles to overcome in the patriarchal world of Qajar Iran. Guli Francis-Dehqani’s research shows that seventyeight single women served as CMS missionaries between 1891 and 1934 with the average term of service in Persia being over fifteen years per individual.60 When a single woman missionary married, her salary ended, although her work usually continued without interruption. Married women were not considered missionaries by the CMS, and yet their roles were just as extensive. Sometimes the children of missionary parents would themselves become missionaries. This was the case of Margaret Thompson, who was born in Persia in 1897 and married the future bishop of Iran, William Thompson, in 1914. She raised her family and continued working tirelessly until her husband’s death in 1961 but was never acknowledged on the CMS roster of active missionaries.61 These women were invaluable and integral but, paradoxically for the modern reader (but not for the Victorian Era), unappreciated and taken for granted. All CMS missionaries were involved in one of three areas of ministry: education, medical work, or evangelism. Boys’ and girls’ schools were set up in Armenian, Assyrian, and Zoroastrian communities since illiteracy was widespread and elementary education was scarce under
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the Qajar Dynasty. Medical efforts, however, provided faster access into the lives of the average Persian community, and people would often traverse long distances to bring their loved ones to these hospitals which functioned at a skill and success level much higher than what local doctors were able to provide. The CMS considered such “philanthropic enterprises worthless without specific efforts to evangelize. For it was evangelism that defined the missionary task as separate from secular welfare work.”62 Because of this focused evangelistic mindset, many missionaries were set aside as pure evangelists who would “teach Bible classes and preach the gospel wherever opportunities arose.”63 These evangelistic efforts often led to problems with the Persian government and with irate local Muslim community leaders.64 An independent Episcopal diocese was not formed in Persia until 1912 (under the direction of the first Anglican bishop of Persia, J. H. Linton). Anglican missionaries, such as Dr. Norman Sharp (a lecturer at Shiraz University) and others, continued to arrive in Persia and serve with distinction. These missionaries were increasingly tolerant and dedicated to integrating the Christian message with Persian culture.65 Progress was slow, and, when the first synod met in 1933, only one of the delegates that had gathered in Yazd was a native-born Iranian. Throughout the twentieth century, foreign missionaries softened their arrogant postures and became increasingly willing to partner in mutual respect with their Armenian and Assyrian sisters and brothers of faith.66 Converts from Islam to Christianity became increasingly active in the leadership of the church, although this process was entirely too slow in taking root. In spite of this sluggish advance from a mission church to a national church, Anglicans in the twentieth century increasingly turned over the leadership of their schools and hospitals (such as those in Isfahan and Shiraz directed by Dr. John Coleman), children’s hostels, and a school for the blind in Isfahan, to the local church which took full responsibility for administration. Episcopalian efforts (described earlier) continued with greater freedom under Mohammad Reza Shah. In 1963, the Anglican Church ordained Hassan Dehqani-Tafti to serve as the first Iranian Anglican bishop.67 This extraordinary church leader was raised in abject poverty as a Muslim near Yazd and was committed to building amiable Muslim and Christian interactions through the patriotism of Christians dedicated to breaking down barriers of difference and alienation.68 Along with other Christian leaders, Bishop Dehqani-Tafti was invited by the shah to attend his gala celebration of 2,500 years of monarchy. The Anglican Church (along with many other religious groups), however,
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came under increasing surveillance as the secret police (SAVAK) became more heavy-handed. At times, church property was vandalized, and some evangelistic publications were forbidden to be published by the government because they were seen to be divisive. In 1965, the Episcopal Church organized a series of evangelistic programs in Teheran—an effort unthinkable in an earlier era. Even Armenian and Assyrian Christians, long noted for their caution in sharing their faith with Muslims, became active in such efforts. Kane reported at the time, “Even the Eastern Churches, long afflicted with a ghetto-complex, are becoming aware of the possibilities of evangelism. For the first time in Iran, some Assyrian and Armenian Christians have shown great zeal in the public evangelization of the country, which has led to a number of conversions.”69 In the next section, we will examine Presbyterian mission work in Persia. For the most part, the Anglicans and Presbyterians managed to cooperate and avoid working in each other’s territories. An exception to this was made when, in 1886, the Archbishop of Canterbury established an Assyrian Mission to aid Nestorian Christians and chose to place this mission at Urmiah. Anglicans established a printing press and a boys’ school, both of which were already in place through the Presbyterian mission in Urmiah. What was even worse about this incursion was the public declaration that the Anglicans were establishing their base in Urmiah because they wanted to “defend the Nestorians against the Americans.”70 Anglicans resented a number of actions by the Americans, including refusing to accept anyone as a church member who was not a total abstainer of alcohol. Some Anglican missionaries chose to eschew all Western dress and material comforts. Anglican missionaries, such as W. H. Browne, slept on the floor in the tradition of the locals, only ate Assyrian food, and dressed in the same clothes worn by the Nestorian priests.71 These differences were the kind of methodological and ideological friction that often marked foreign Protestant missionary activities within Persia in the nineteenth century. Eventually, however, tact prevailed, and harmony ensued between the British Anglicans and the American Presbyterians of Urmiah.
PRESBYTERIAN MISSIONS IN URMIAH AND THROUGHOUT PERSIA The original agreement between the Anglican and Presbyterian missionaries was that the Anglicans would only work in the southern half
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of the country while the Presbyterians would be responsible for the northern tier of Persia.72 This gentleman’s agreement was the result of an exploratory planning trip, in 1831, led by two Presbyterians, the Reverend Eli Smith and Reverend H. G. O. Davies, who had both been serving as missionaries in Turkey. Tensions remained consistently high from the outset between all Protestant and Catholic missionaries in Persia. Anglican missionaries were most impressed by the ancient Assyrian Nestorian community which they visited in Urmiah (Urmia, Urmi, Urmiyeh, or modern-day Reziah or Rezaiyeh). In their first visits to Urmiah the Protestants met some Catholics who were already working in the area before they arrived. Early Protestant reports urgently called for Protestant missionaries to be immediately sent to help the Assyrian Nestorians avoid the “imminent danger of being led-astray by the ever watchful, wily, and active (Dominican) missionaries of Rome.”73 One of the first Protestant efforts in Urmiah was to publish and circulate a booklet in the Assyrian language as to why all Nestorians should avoid Catholics. It is easy for us, with the ecumenical deftness of distance and history, to judge these attitudes, but the bitter competition and tensions between Protestant and Catholic missionaries were filled with suspicion as well as political distrust because most Catholic missionaries were French while most Protestant missionaries in Persia were either English or North American. This spirit of competition sent a message to bewildered Persian onlookers. It was also the case that the focus of so many foreigners on one specific ethnic group, the Assyrians, raised suspicions among neighboring Muslim Kurds and Persians which would later result in tragic political consequences for the Assyrians. In 1834, American Presbyterians and Congregationalists worked together in an organization called the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to begin a Protestant mission program in Persia that was called the American Mission to the Nestorians. The pioneer missionaries, Reverend Justin Perkins and his wife, were from Boston where he had been a tutor at Amherst College.74 Perkins first came to Tabriz in August of 1834. Soon after arriving, he traveled with the Basel missionary, the Reverend Frederick Haas, to Urmiah to meet the Nestorian bishop. Perkins chose to establish his base of operations in this heavily Nestorian city where he spent the next thirty-six years of his life. When he first settled he was assisted by members of the British Embassy who had arranged housing for his family and had offered political protection.75 Perkins began his language learning with the considerate assistance of the Nestorian bishop. The Assyrians also appreciated his
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efforts to seek the friendship and support of the locals who initially stated to him, “Your coming here is like the sun’s rising upon the world; hereto darkness has prevailed but now the light has come.”76 Initially, Perkins focused on learning Chaldean and sought to address the pastoral needs of the English expatriates living near Urmiah. Reverend Perkins was joined in 1835 by Dr. Ashael Grant, an experienced medical doctor from Utica, New York.77 In the next few years, many other American missionary families followed these first Presbyterian pioneers.78 These missionaries served among impoverished Assyrian Nestorian tenant farmers who had little comprehension of why these strange foreigners were there in the first place.79 Grant explained in 1841 that his goal in ministry among the Assyrians was to “help restore their decaying church.”80 Was it because, in the words of Bradley, these evangelists thought of the “poor and illiterate Nestorians as exotic and easy converts”?81 In 1836, the Presbyterians opened a small seminary with the stated objective of enabling “the Nestorian Church, through the grace of God, to exert a commanding influence in the spiritual regeneration of Asia.”82 The task in Urmiah began in earnest. Perkins established a mission school for Muslim children that used sandboxes for blackboards and relied on the Bible as a textbook for teaching both geography and English.83 Literacy began to increase noticeably in the region through these initiatives.84 A separate school for women was opened in 1838 which, through the efforts of a zealous missionary named Fidelia Fiske, was turned into a boarding school in 1844.85 Fiske was a determined woman who “combined in a remarkable way, deep spirituality with great practical ability.”86 Fiske labored with both tact and moderation and was known for her quiet demeanor and patient persistence in dealing with a host of problems. One colleague wrote of Fidelia Fiske that her “power was her loving-ness and this was the steady outflow of her daily life.”87 Dr. Grant had an overwhelmingly rewarding medical practice based in an outpost in a Kurdish area called Ashitham until he died of typhus among the sick in Mosul (in 1844). His colleague, Reverend Perkins, spent his first ten years of service confronting the lackadaisical Christianity that he observed among the Nestorians. He noted their drunkenness and dismissed Nestorian spirituality as consisting of a “pitiful skeleton in a valley of dry bones.”88 The Nestorians and Presbyterians split decisively in 1848 when the Assyrian bishop forbade any Nestorian from working with any of the foreigners. Perkins decided to continue his reformation focus with an improved translation of the Bible into the modern Syriac language of the
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Nestorians. This Bible translation effort was a comprehensive task because the missionaries had to teach grammar as well as to build literacy among the local people. Evangelistic efforts also went on in neighboring villages around Urmiah, and these often met with results.89 When other missionaries followed them, the Presbyterians established medical and educational projects as well as conducting evangelistic programs. A printing press arrived in 1839 along with a printer who began to launch the press. In 1855, the church in Urmiah listed 158 members, and in 1862 an indigenous presbytery was organized.90 Reverend Perkins died in 1869, and his passing resulted in dramatic organizational changes which shifted the focus from supporting the existing Assyrian Nestorian churches to directly establishing independent Reformed Presbyterian Churches. Of Perkins’s efforts, and the industry of his colleague Grant, Mark Bradley eulogized that their ministry epitomized “all that was great about many nineteenth century Protestant missionaries. They were brave, self-sacrificial activists, determined to give their lives to spreading the Gospel and improving the lives of the people among whom they lived.”91 By 1879, there were at least fifty-two Presbyterian missionaries throughout Persia.92 The first Presbyterian hospital (the Westminster Hospital) was set up in Urmiah in 1882. It was led by Dr. Joseph Cochran who had first come to Persia in 1878 (at the age of twenty-three) and directed the hospital until 1895.93 After this time, he continued on in a number of other medical missionary labors until his death in 1905 at the age of fifty. Cochran was an accomplished surgeon who also spent a considerable amount of time training local people to be medical assistants in basic nursing skills. Cochran also organized other medical programs, often at great personal risk, among the Kurdish communities who lived in the mountains surrounding Urmiah. Patients did not have to pay for their treatments but were required to listen to an evangelistic sermon before being dispatched home. The hospital gave tremendous credibility to the missionaries because the Kurdish people had never before received such a high level of effective medical care. In addition to medical, translation, and educational ministries among the Nestorians, there were also exertions by Presbyterian missionaries to evangelize Muslims directly.94 Reverend James Merrick was a Presbyterian missionary who settled in Persia in 1835. He established the “Mission to the Mohammedans” and joined with members of the Basel Mission in Teheran and Isfahan. His method was to preach publicly on the streets against Islam and to distribute copies of Christian books which attacked Islam among Muslims. Not
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surprisingly, these enterprises prompted frequent death threats. This inspired Merrick to write to his overseers, “I am at length convinced that public preaching to the Persians is at present, not only inexpedient but impracticable.”95 The Mission to the Mohammedans was quickly discontinued. One of the initial goals of the ABCFM was to revitalize the local Assyrian Nestorian Christian community. Mutual misunderstandings led to growing antagonisms and an eventual end to these endeavors. In 1855, however, a number of Nestorian communities near Urmiah did form seven indigenous congregations and, after that, the organization of the first local presbytery, the Synod of the Evangelical Church of Iran (SECI), in 1862. Local Persian Christians continued to act in concert with scores of Presbyterian missionaries from North America and the United Kingdom. By 1870, the ABCFM had turned over all of its mission undertakings in Persia to the Reformed Nestorian Churches which were under the direct leadership and financing of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA (UPC/USA) Mission Board.96 This was an inevitable shift but one that was stubbornly opposed by Reverend Perkins. When the ABCFM closed in 1870, they, probably optimistically, claimed that since Reverend and Mrs. Perkins had come to Persia, there had been over three thousand conversions to Christ among the Assyrian Nestorians of Urmiah.97 As many as fifty different villages surrounding Urmiah had churches at this time, and 960 local children were being educated in their many schools.98 One of these schools, the American School in Seir, thrived for almost forty years.99 New mission centers were launched in Teheran, Tabriz, Hamadan, Resht, Kermanshah, and Mashad between 1870 and 1900. Presbyterian mission hospitals and schools were also stationed in each of these cities. The growing surge of American missionaries was one of the axial reasons that American diplomatic relations with the Qajar Dynasty were elevated to a more active status. The first American diplomat, Samuel Greene Wheeler Benjamin (1837–1914), himself the son of a former Presbyterian missionary to Turkey, presented himself in Teheran on June 11, 1883. His first act as ambassador was to erect a one-hundred-foot flagpole so that “residents throughout the city could see the Stars and Stripes.”100 Thus began America’s highly visible presence in Iran. Senator Andrew Curtin of Pennsylvania had demanded an embassy in Persia in a speech before Congress, where he asserted, We have more missionaries in Persia than has any other country. Surely, those of our citizens who in self-sacrifice have penetrated the
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The ethnic mixture of Kurds, Assyrians, Nestorians, and Persians in Urmiah was further complicated by the large number of foreigners in the area.102 The first eruption of violence took place in 1843, and another wave of violence exploded in 1846 when over ten thousand Nestorians were ferociously slaughtered by their Kurdish neighbors. The entire region seemed rife for future perplexities. Ethnic tensions combined with the political and military instability along the Turkish-Persian frontier to create a sense of constant uncertainty. Another crisis erupted in the summer of 1905 when the son of an American Presbyterian missionary, Benjamin W. Larabee, was murdered. The youth was stabbed on a missionary tour by Kurdish rebels of the Dasht tribe after a local politician had been offended by the missionaries who had been actively lobbying the Qajar government for his censure. The grieving father of the victim, Dr. Larabee, had served at the Urmiah mission for forty-six years (1860–1906) and was beloved throughout the community as both a translator and an author. Dr. Larabee himself was attacked by a sudden illness and died in 1906. The murder of Larabee’s son became headline news across the United States, and President Theodore Roosevelt intoned that he was “greatly disturbed” and demanded “immediate satisfaction,” or, he threatened, the United States would send warships to the Persian Gulf.103 The Qajar rulers had no choice but to imprison and then execute the local politician in question and then award a substantial financial gift to the young Larabee’s widow in order to avert even greater levels of American intervention in their country. Who were the Persians that converted to Christ under the Presbyterian mission? They were often common, uneducated people. Usually, their stories did not end in violent martyrdom but were marked by practical and consistent dedication. Some labored in the church as itinerant preachers making only about four dollars a month for their preaching duties. One such example is that of Rajab ‘Ali. A former Muslim, ‘Ali was baptized in the chapel of the Presbyterian Mission in 1905 (in Teheran) by the Reverends J. L. Potter, S. M. Jordan, and L. F. Esselstyn.104 The new convert asked that his name be changed to Nozad (which means “newborn”). Nozad became a tireless evangelist and a senior elder in the Teheran Presbyterian church and was active in evangelism until his death in 1944.105
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During World War I, internal political and religious tensions began to turn opinion against all Christian missionaries in Persia and the Presbyterians were no exception. Gradually the ventures of the UPC were curtailed, and the Urmiah Presbyterian mission was closed entirely in 1934. One factor for this change came from the deliberations of the World Mission Conference held in Jerusalem (in 1928) which called for an end to the link between Christian mission initiatives and close relations with foreign political powers. The SECI continued to gain ground, and, by the 1930s, there were “eighteen congregations led by seven ordained pastors and several layevangelists” in three different presbyteries.106 An independent synod was formed in 1943 to expand the scope of the SECI, and the constitution of this organization was finalized in 1963 with the goal of assisting all evangelical (Protestant) churches in Iran. The final connection between the American missionaries and the SECI was reached on January 1, 1968. After that, the SECI was reorganized in 1971 along linguistic lines and divided into three groups: the Armenian Evangelical Church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Iran, and the Persian Evangelical Church. These federations are all in fellowship with the Church Council of Iran, the Near East Council of Churches, and the World Council of Churches. Over time, the Presbyterians began to expand from their base of operations in Urmiah. Noted educator and Presbyterian missionary William McElwee Miller preached throughout Persia and saw a number of Muslims become Christians through his strivings. Miller also bought a garden in the northern part of Teheran and held summer schools for boys there as well as a number of evangelistic crusades and Bible studies in what Miller referred to as his Garden of Evangelism. Presbyterian medical projects were established in Tabriz in 1881 by Dr. G. W. Holmes and were further developed in 1888 when Dr. Mary Bradford settled in Tabriz. Reverend James H. W. Hawkes opened a medical facility in Hamadan and led the program for fiftytwo years.107 Reverend James Bassett founded the first Presbyterian Church in Teheran in 1872, and this work was followed by a hospital. Dr. Mary Smith established a medical training center in Teheran (in 1890). This initiative was furthered with the arrival of Dr. J. G. Wisard who established a Presbyterian hospital in Teheran (in 1893). These programs were widely praised by the Persians because, at the time, a number of serious epidemics, such as cholera and the black plague, were sweeping across the country. One obstacle, however, that medical missionaries had to overcome as they expanded beyond the con-
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fines of the Assyrian Nestorian community in Urmiah was learning how to deal with Shi’ite Islamic assumptions that these doctors, since they were impure Christians, were ceremonially unclean and should not be allowed to touch their bodies. Presbyterians were engaged in opening schools beyond Urmiah in the 1880s and 1890s while also expanding their evangelistic work. In 1887, the Reverend Samuel Ward started a boarding school for boys. In 1896, the American Presbyterian missionaries Dr. Samuel Martin and Mrs. Mary Jordan gave birth to Alborz College, which became very popular among the elite.108 Waterfield exults that “Jordan was undoubtedly the greatest missionary educator ever to work in Iran.”109 One member of the royal family, Sayeed Khan, even converted from Islam to Christianity while attending Alborz College.110 By 1900, according to H. P. Beach, the American Presbyterian School in Teheran included “forty-one Armenians, twenty-two Muslims, two Jews and one Parsee,“ with some of the Muslims coming from the royal family.111 Boarding schools were also built and main buildings were added in 1924. By 1933, the campus in Teheran occupied forty-four acres. Schools were also constructed for girls, but in 1903 the shah issued an edict directing that all parents remove their daughters from Western schools because they were “being taught to wear high shoes and long skirts.”112
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX MISSIONS IN URMIAH Russian troops invaded Urmiah in 1897, and these troops were followed close at hand by Russian Orthodox missionaries who opened up a printing press and sought conversions amongst the Assyrian Nestorians living in the area. The presence of these Russian missionaries was closely linked to the political aspirations of the czar, who saw the Nestorian community as a possible ally in his struggles against Persia. The Russian troops were greeted by some, mistakenly, as liberators who would throw off the Muslim yoke over their lives. Russian missionaries came to Urmiah and promised that those Nestorians who wanted to relocate in Russia would be provided with land and homes in exchange for converting to Orthodoxy.113 Instantly, as many as twenty thousand Nestorians became members of Orthodox churches and embraced their cause.114 Other missions in the Urmiah area were able to hold on to their converts and were able to maintain their religious institutions, but this military invasion had a dramatic effect on all Orthodox efforts.
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At its height, Russian Orthodoxy was preeminent among the Nestorians in Urmiah, and a large cathedral was built. Its presence, however, was short-lived. The Russo-Japanese War of 1906 greatly weakened the Russian Orthodox presence in Persia because there were not enough missionary personnel or finances to advance the work. Turkish troops arrived in Urmiah in 1912 but were cast out by Russian forces in the same year. On January 2, 1915, the advance of Turkish troops outside Urmiah forced the Russian army to retreat from the city. When Ottoman Turks entered the city two days later there was widespread murder and pillage. Five months later, the Russians were able to return and gained control of the city until March of 1917 when the czar recalled these troops.115 With the retreat of the Russian army and with the coming of the Russian Revolution of 1917, there was little that remained to show for the presence of Russian Orthodox missionaries among the Assyrian community of Urmiah.
LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN URMIAH Lutheran missionaries were motivated to leave their homes in Germany, Scandinavia, and North America and travel to Iran in response to stirring accounts of what they heard about the plight of fellow Lutherans in Urmiah. John Joseph writes: There was perhaps no missionary field in the world where there were so many rival Christian forces at work as were found in Urmiah at the beginning of the twentieth century, all struggling to get predominance among these few people. Some of the results of this unseemly struggle were demoralization, arrogance on the part of the Persian Christians, and the transformation of religion into a sport and trade.116
The first Lutheran mission came to Urmiah among the Nestorians in 1881 and was led by an Assyrian priest from Wasirbad named Kasha Pera Johannes who had traveled throughout Germany and had gained extensive financial sponsorship from Theodor Harms (and his Lutheran church in Hermannsburg). Johannes and his son Kuther Pera Johannes were also able to raise funds from Lutherans in Alsace and in Hannover, and their mission was one of the most financially solvent in the area. The Presbyterians in Urmiah, already frustrated by the attitudes of Anglican missionaries who had come into their midst, did not appreciate this additional competition in their contest for souls. An Assyrian Nestorian named Kasha Yaure Abraham of Geogtapa (five miles from Urmiah) began to work for the Lutherans and
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for Kasha Pera Johannes. Soon, another Assyrian Nestorian, George Malech, traveled to Germany soliciting funds from wealthy Lutherans with heartfelt stories of anguished, embattled Nestorians. If advancing Christianity in Urmiah had become something of a competition, none played the game better than the enigmatic George Malech (Malek). Both Danish and Norwegian Lutherans commissioned Malech to labor as a Lutheran missionary in Urmiah beginning in 1893. Malech was trained at the Presbyterian College in Urmiah before being ordained in the Nestorian Church. He traveled throughout Norway and Denmark, and also among Norwegian Lutherans in the United States, campaigning for funds for his ministry programs. In America, Malech founded the Persian Christian Benevolent Society of Chicago. He was also the Persian representative for ten years of the Berlin-based Evangelical Association for the Advancement of the Nestorian Church, which underwrote an orphanage outside of Urmiah. What he did not reveal to his unwitting supporters was that he was also garnering funds from numerous Anglican sources to which he presented himself as a member of the Assyrian Nestorian Church without bothering to mention his Lutheran connections.117 A German Lutheran Pastor, Wilhelm Faber, journeyed to Persia with two other German missionaries (Kolze and Zerweck) in hopes of creating their own mission. They were not able to proceed to Urmiah, however, and had to return to Germany, because the government feared that they would operate as spies. The United Lutheran Church of America, which had been contacted by George Malech, finally commissioned its own missionary, Reverend Ludvig Olsen Fossum, to Urmiah in 1905 to oversee the Lutheran work. This marked the end of Malech’s ability to work without any accountability. Fossum partnered with resident German Lutherans and helped them to build an orphanage for refugees outside of Urmiah.118 Lutherans from the United States began an outreach called the Lutheran Orient Mission near Tabriz in 1910. This initiative focused on providing medical and educational assistance to the Kurds and functioned until 1935 when the last missionaries departed. There were also dozens of German Lutherans who were involved in various medical efforts in Persia. German Lutherans continued their toils until World War II when they were forced to evacuate Iran at the mandate of the British and Russian troops occupying the country. A German confessional pastor, Ernst Jakob Christoffel (1876–1955), was arrested along with Fraulein Hanni Harms in Tabriz by Russian troops. After being imprisoned throughout the war, these two German missionaries were released and returned to their stations. During the war, Pastor Christ-
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offel’s School (or Mission) for the Blind in Isfahan, was handed over to the Anglican Church and continued to operate until it was returned by the Anglicans to their German colleagues in 1945.
OTHER PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN PERSIA Armenian Protestants commissioned missionaries from North America to Armenian communities in Iran beginning in 1846. In contrast to some other Protestants, however, they were not confrontational with Orthodox and Catholic Armenian Christians but instead “cherished a filial regard and affection for the mother Church.”119 In spite of such warm sentiments, however, evangelistic Armenian Protestants were conclusively excommunicated and decreed to be anathema by Armenian Orthodox and Catholic Christians The Plymouth Brethren denomination in England and the Brethren Churches of America also assigned missionaries to Iran.120 They joined with three of four local Assyrian Nestorian priests in Urmiah and named their outreach the “Awishalum Mission.”121 Wesleyan Holiness churches, English Congregationalists, and Northern and Southern Baptists also delegated evangelists to Urmiah in the nineteenth century to preach among the Assyrian Nestorian Christian community. Pentecostalism came to Persia in 1909 “when a group of Assyrian Pentecostal Brethren returned from Chicago to their homes in Urmiah in northwest Iran.”122 The first American Pentecostal apostles, Mr. and Mrs. John Wharton, arrived in 1924. They began churches in Kermanshah and Hamadan and also preached in Urmiah alongside the Assyrian Christians who had previously become Pentecostals. Another early convert to Pentecostalism was the Kurdish former Muslim, Dr. Sa’eed Kurdistani of Sanandaj, who helped launch a Pentecostal church in the capital with some Armenian Pentecostals that became known as the “Brethren Church.” One of the converts from this congregation was Armenian Seth Yeghnazar who began a prayer meeting every night in his home which lasted for four years (1956–1960). This home fellowship soon turned into another church which began to reach out to people from Muslim backgrounds. Along with Yeghnazar, it was overseen by two Armenians named Haizak and Hrand Catchatoor who met with a Swedish Pentecostal named John Bohlin to form what they called the Philadelphia Pentecostal Church.123 Reverend and Mrs. Mark Bliss came to Iran as ministers of the gospel from the American Assemblies of God and, by 1970, were overseeing Pentecostal activities in eighteen
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churches with a combined membership of over 550 Pentecostals.124 The Assemblies of God also brought into existence a Bible school which was able to train eighteen Iranians for pastoral ministry before it was forced to close because of the Islamic Revolution of 1979.125 This church launched dozens of other churches which were also assisted by Reverend Bliss.126 The end of the Qajar Dynasty and the rise of Reza Shah and the Pahlavi Dynasty were positive political developments for foreign Protestant missionaries given the unstable, inconsistent relationships that they had experienced with the Qajars in their last two decades of power. At the same time, these Protestant heralds of the faith were themselves becoming less active in identifying their outreaches with Western political interests. This facilitated an easier relationship between the missionaries and the new Pahlavi Dynasty. The shah also reorganized the economy, which weakened the prospects of foreign domination. He also removed from Christian foreigners the ability that some had used in the past to influence economic decisions based on their British political connections. The CMS reported that, immediately after the rise of Shah Reza Khan, “there were many signs in the early 1920s of the mission moving out confidently into new fields and, if converts are still few, the number of Baptists was significantly larger than any other CMS mission in Muslim lands.”127 In 1925 alone, Anglicans sold over twenty thousand copies of the Bible throughout Persia. The reorganization of the economy and the modernization agenda of Reza Shah had a less stabilizing effect on those missionaries who had established hospitals or educational institutions. In 1927, the Department of Education mandated that the Holy Qur’an and shariah law be taught in all colleges and universities and forbade the teaching of Christianity in any secondary curriculum. Further laws were enacted in 1928 which disallowed any educational use of the Bible by Muslim students. In 1930, the singing of hymns and the leading of Christian prayers were outlawed in all Iranian schools. In 1932, Iranian citizens were forbidden to send their children to primary schools under the control of foreigners. In 1934, all missionaries were told to leave their teaching positions in the Urmiah region. Finally, in 1939, all foreign-owned schools (or those that received funds from abroad) were closed or turned over to the government. Exactly one century of educational work came to a sudden end with these unilateral actions of the shah.128 During the 1940s, secular reformers who called themselves the National Front began to call for an end to legislation based on religious
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factors. The prime minister, Dr. Mohammed Hedeyat Mossadeq (Mossadegh or Musaddiq, 1888–1967), came to power on April 29, 1951, shortly after the assassination of Prime Minister Ali Razmara.129 Resentment against foreign domination was at a fever pitch after decades of abuses at the hands of American and British businessmen.130 In that spirit, Mossadeq opposed efforts to promote non-Muslim religious liberty and refused to allow any British or North American evangelists who had left the country during World War II to return to Iran. The son of a Qajar princess, Mossadeq was Iran’s most popular politician because he was a passionate orator and because the people felt that he took a principled stand against encroaching foreign interests.131 As part of an anti-colonial and anti-foreign effort, Mossadeq announced that the Christian hospital in Isfahan would have to close within six months. The Anglican Church, which had been operating this hospital, had no choice but to obey. Once again, however, things changed. Dr. Mossadeq was overthrown by an American-backed coup on August 19 and 20, 1953. Mohammad Shah returned from exile and allowed the Anglican hospital to remain open. This event, however, served as a warning shot across the bow of some of these missions, and the Presbyterians reached the conclusion that they should sell to the government their seven hospitals based in the north of the country. The Anglican Church, in contrast, continued to own and operate a number of hospitals in Iran. The overall situation for Christianity improved after the return of Mohammad Shah as things became progressively less chaotic. The shah was personally sympathetic to the love of Iran shown by the missionaries and saw them as allies in his goal of creating a nation increasingly open to the outside world. This affected government policies on issues such as the one regarding the conversion of Muslims to Christianity. While, in the rest of the Muslim world, if a person converted from Islam to Christianity, they would possibly be killed as an apostate, the shah’s government protected new converts from this fate. Evangelistic congregations had complete freedom to hold evangelical meetings within the confines of their own buildings, and even Muslims were welcome to attend. Morrison reports that one church even held a series of public evangelistic meetings in Mashad (Meshed) in 1943 and freely put up notices and posters around the holy city which advertised the event.132 Christian schools were allowed to flourish under indigenous leadership, were permitted to give lessons in ethics, and were allowed to observe Sunday as a day of rest. The finest of the Christian schools, Alborz College (run by missionaries), was often patronized by the
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elite upper class of the country.133 There was a widespread impression among many Iranians during the shah‘s reign that “foreign missions have the support of their government and that to attack a foreign mission might be construed as an attack on the government to which it belongs.”134 One of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States, the Southern Baptist Convention, commissioned Reverend George W. Braswell Jr. and his wife, Joan Braswell, to serve as their first missionaries to Teheran in 1968. Their first contacts were with American Presbyterian missionaries, and their focus shifted to assisting these workers in teaching English to students—including Muslim theology students—at the University of Teheran. Dr. Braswell taught for eight years at the Muslim seminary attached to the university and was the only American (and non-Iranian professor) on the faculty. Of that experience Dr. Braswell reflected: The competitive spirit was constant. Constantly the questions came to me, “Do you Christians obey God more than we Muslims do? Do you give more than we give? Do you fast more than we do? Do you pray more than we do? Do you work for justice and righteousness more than we do?”135
NONDENOMINATIONAL PROTESTANT MISSION ACTIVITIES IN IRAN The Bible Churchmen’s Missionary Society (BCMS) was one of the first nondenominational evangelical missions to work in Persia (although they began from a break with the CMS in 1922).136 The BCMS sent missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ward to Sistan (now Zabol) in September 1925. The Wards eventually settled in the village of Duzdad (Zahedan) where they organized a medical dispensary and gave Bible lessons. They were joined in 1927 by two nurses and, in 1929, a medical doctor from India.137 Because of a host of obstacles and financial problems all BCMS efforts ended in 1934. A number of interdenominational and nondenominational foreign mission efforts came into Iran at the conclusion of World War II. The International Missions Incorporated (IMI) arrived in Iran from India in 1954 and took charge of the Faraman Orphanage at Kermanshah.138 The IMI was an American interdenominational mission which also ran a Bible correspondence course and helped establish the Teheran Bible Church. When the IMI orphanage was forced to close, it had become a center for church planting and local evangelism. Before
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the 1979 revolution, there had been twenty-one foreign missionaries serving in Kermanshah and Teheran through a partnership between IMI and Operation Mobilization (OM) which were involved in Bible distribution and in summer programs designed to enlist Iranians in Bible correspondence courses. According to J. Herbert Kane, by the early 1970s, “over 30,000 Iranians, mostly Muslims, in 300 cities and towns, had enrolled” in these correspondence classes.139 Another interdenominational faith mission operating in Iran during the reign of the shah was the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (WEC). This organization sent its first missionaries, Wil and Rhonda Longenecker, to Iran in 1963 and followed up by sending seven other missionaries to the country within the following decade. Their work, based in Teheran, focused on following up with people who had participated in radio correspondence courses as well as in Bible teaching and the distribution of the Bible and evangelistic Christian literature. The Bible and Medical Missionary Fellowship (BMMF, now known as Interserve), committed to recruiting doctors worldwide, arrived in Iran in 1969.140 This mission sought to partner with various evangelical denominations and other ministries in order to place nurses, doctors, medical specialists, physiotherapists, optometrists, dentists, and surgeons on short-term assignments throughout the country at no cost to the Iranian government. Modern technology began to be used by foreign Christians in their evangelization efforts in Iran. TransWorld Radio (TWR) beamed Persian-language radio broadcasts—first from Monaco, and then from the Seychelles Islands. A Lutheran Radio Network also began broadcasting sermons in the Persian language into Iran based out of their radio station in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. These broadcasts were prepared by the Iranian Radio Committee of the Near Eastern Council of Churches. The evangelical radio broadcasts of TWR continue to be broadcast into Iran. There is some evidence that such evangelistic radio programs beamed into Iran have resulted in Muslims converting to Christianity. When an earthquake hit the city of Bam in December 2003, Christian aid societies were able to enter the city in large numbers to offer assistance. One organization reported that twenty-eight people in Bam had recently converted to Christianity and had begun a small house fellowship but that the earthquake had killed twenty-five of these members. ICI claims that over one hundred thousand people have sent in positive responses to radio, satellite, television, and online evangelistic invitations presented in the Farsi language and directed toward Muslims.141
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The legacy of Henry Martyn’s efforts can be found in the activities of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) which began in Persia beginning in 1814. The BFBS started by subsidizing the printing of Martyn’s translation of the New Testament by the Russian Bible Society.142 The main focus of the BFBS then became the distribution of Bibles throughout Persia. One of the most capable Bible colporteurs was the Armenian Benjamin Badal, who worked for the BFBS in Bible distribution for over forty-one years and in every corner of Persia. Many times this outreach was accompanied by beatings and the constant threat of being imprisoned. The salary for this simple, but effective, ministry was minimal, yet workers like Badal carried on with positive cheerfulness. When Badal was finally forced to retire, his vision was carried on by two Armenians, Adl Nakhosteen and Aga Tatavos Michaelian, as well as many others who distributed thousands of Bibles, Testaments, and Bible portions publicly until the revolution of 1979. The BFBS opened a Bible bookstore in Teheran in 1910, which then moved to another location in 1914. The American Bible Society (ABS) and the BFBS joined forces in 1963 and launched another bookstore together (in 1964) for the sale and distribution of Bibles in the capital. The efforts of BFBS and ABS missionaries have led to the entire Bible now being translated into Persian. Distribution of these Bibles was carried on with great results throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Successful partnerships were formed which allowed Bibles to be sold and distributed among Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches as well as among Evangelical churches. All Bible distribution initiatives were forced to publicly cease in 1979, but some efforts have continued through underground networks.
NOTES 1. Waterfield (89): On October 21 (1747), they set out for Isfahan in a caravan with six hundred people. Two days out from Shahmakhan (on the border), they were attacked by a band of Kurdish robbers. Both the missionaries were stripped of everything they possessed, even their clothes. In this condition, they had to walk fifteen miles in the heat of the day to the nearest town. Here they found a friendly Persian who took them in and gave them clothes and a little money. It took them nine more days to reach Isfahan and on the journey they suffered from hunger and great cold at night.
The two were robbed once again in 1748.
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2. They were assisted in the coastal port of Bushire by an agent of the Dutch East India Company, who helped them find transport to Basra (Iraq). From there they went to Egypt where Rueffer died. Hoecker proceeded to England and arrived there in 1750. Soon after this, he returned to the missions in Abyssinia. 3. Spellman, 202. 4. Miller, William McElwee. Ten Muslims Meet Christ. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing, 1969, page 6. 5. The English Baptist William Carey is sometimes called the father of Protestant missions. 6. Captain John Malcolm was mentioned earlier in this book as the first British officer to visit Persia. At the time he met Martyn he was living in Bombay and writing his book History of Persia. The letters that he provided Martyn were invaluable. In the letter he wrote to the British ambassador to Persia, Sir Gore Ouseley, Captain Malcolm wrote, “Mr. Martyn expects to improve himself as an Oriental scholar; he is already an excellent one. His knowledge of Arabic is superior to that of any Englishman in India. Martyn is altogether a very learned and cheerful man, but a great enthusiast in his holy calling” (91). 7. Kane, J. Herbert, A Global View of Christian Missions: From Pentecost to the Present. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1972, page 294. 8. Richter, Julius. A History of Protestant Missions in the Near East. New York: AMS Press, 1970 (1910), page 94. 9. Waterfield (94): “Martyn always had a special affection for the Armenians and them for him.” When he left this servant in Shiraz he hired another Armenian named Sergius to assist him, which Sergius did until Martyn died in Tokat. At that point, Martyn was buried by Armenian monks and his tombstone is preserved to this day in a local museum. The only diversion Martyn took from his journey was to stop and visit the Armenian Catholicos at Ecmiadzin. 10. Quoted in Gheissari, Ali. Iranian Intellectuals in the 20th Century. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1998, page 22. 11. Martyn, John C. Henry Martyn (1781–1812): Scholar and Missionary to India and Persia—A Biography. Lewiston, Maine: The Edward Mellen Press, 1999, page 107. 12. Mirza Mohammad-Ebrahim, a mujtahid in Shiraz, wrote a tract titled “Directing the Misguided to the Path by Proving the Prophethood of the Seal of the Prophets” (Irshad al-Muzellin fi-Ithbat-I Khatam al-Nabi’in) (Ghessari, 22). 13. After the translation was completed it was sent to calligraphers who copied the translation into a version that would be deemed beautiful and acceptable to present to the shah. These copies were finished in May. It took Martyn twelve days to ride from Shiraz to Isfahan and another eight days from Isfahan to Teheran. Martyn had to wait in Teheran to find some muleteers. He finally arrived in Tabriz on July 7, 1812. A copy of this first edition of Martyn’s translation is on display at his home church, Holy Trinity, Cambridge.
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14. Catholic missionaries in Persia had translated selected passages from the New Testament but had never translated the entire New Testament. In 1639, a Protestant, Ludovic de Dieu, printed his translation of the first two chapters of Genesis into Persian. He based his work on Jacob Ta’usi’s HebrewPersian translation of the Pentateuch which first appeared in Constantinople in 1547. In 1657, Abraham Whelock translated the Gospels into Persian and published his translation in London. Martyn consulted this translation but found that it contained too many Arabic terms and expressions to be of any valuable use. Martyn also worked from the Persian translation of the Gospels supervised by Colonel R. H. Colebrook at Fort William College, Calcutta. This effort resulted in the translation of the Gospels of Luke and Matthew in 1805. Martyn arrived in India in 1808 and worked with Colebrook’s translators, Mirza Sabat and Mirza Fitrat. 15. In January 1608, two Carmelite priests presented to Shah Abbas I “a parchment of eighty-six full paged Old Testament illuminations, containing four pictures on each page, illustrating 283 events of the Old Testament, from Genesis to the Book of Kings with explanations in Latin” (Fischel, 27). Because the shah could not read the Latin he charged a mullah to translate these explanations into Persian. The shah also asked this mullah to consult with the Carmelites to see that the meaning of each caption was correct. This led Shah Abbas to order the Carmelite John Thaddeus to translate the Gospels and the Psalms into Persian. He began this project in 1616 in Isfahan. John presented the Psalms, and a portion of the Gospels, to the shah on June 18, 1618. A manuscript copy of this first Persian translation is at the Bodleian Library in Oxford University. 16. Fischel (31) states that Nadir Shah became motivated to request such a translation after a discussion of Surah 48:29, which states that the Torah and the Gospels were also sent by God. When Nadir Shah discovered that these books still existed he asked for a translation. Fischel also suggests that Nadir Shah held the same ideas promoted by Akbar the Great of India for the need for the creation of one universally accepted religion. The committee appointed to do the translation worked from May 1740 until June 1741 without reprieve and was composed of “four Jewish scholars, eight Christian and four Muslim scholars” (Fischel, 33). Two Armenian Catholics and two Armenian Orthodox priests were also brought in for the work of translating the Gospels. The translators worked from an Arabic translation of the Vulgate, and disputes about meanings were resolved by the Muslim overseeing this committee. 17. Arpee (236): George and the scholars were given “costly caftans and one hundred tomans of money each.” It is probable that these Armenian scholars worked from an even earlier translation that had already been prepared, according to Arpee, by a monk named John of Julfa (236). Some accounts say that the Christians were very disappointed at this event because they had hoped that Nadir Shah might become a Christian when, in actual fact, there is no record that he actually read or even looked at these texts. 18. George Percy Badger visited Tokat in 1842 and visited the tomb of Henry Martyn. Originally, the Armenians had put a simple tombstone on Mar-
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tyn’s grave. Shortly before Badger arrived, a new tombstone had been erected for the grave by Claudius James Rich. 19. Bradley, 148–49. 20. Sheikh Salih Muhammad Rahim confessed to Martyn his conversion to Christianity. He was baptized by David Brown as Abdul Masih on Whitsunday, 1811, and became an Anglican clergyman. Inscribed on a blank leaf of the Bible was the notation in Martyn’s own hand, “There is joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth. Henry Martyn” (Martyn, 113–14). It is probably the copy that was presented to his patron Jaffar Ali Khan that became the source of the story, probably apocryphal, of a copy of a New Testament that was kept in a box and shown to a visiting missionary who came to Shiraz. The missionary in the story, and I cannot recall where I first read this story, claimed that the one who received him had been waiting all of these years for someone who had the same calm temperament and who observed the Sabbath as did Martyn and that, when he met such a person, he would seek assistance in learning the meaning of the book. 21. Waterfield (95) tells the following story: In the 1860s, a missionary in Algeria came across a desert Sheykh who possessed a carefully-guarded copy of Martyn‘s New Testament not knowing what it was, but only that it had been given to his father by its author, a young foreigner, many years before when his father had visited Shiraz on his way back from the pilgrimage to Mecca.
22. The best scribes in Shiraz were commissioned by Martyn‘s patron Jaffar Ali Khan to “prepare two copies with perfect penmanship and artistry for the Shah and his heir, Prince Abbas Mirza. This work took nearly six months; three months after the ordinary copies were available. The two precious copies were wrapped up by Henry, uncorrected; he was determined to correct them himself, while on the way to the royal palace” (Martyn, 114). Martyn was accompanied from Shiraz to Teheran by the Reverend William Canning, who had been named the new chaplain for the British embassy to Persia. He had hoped to meet the shah but was intercepted by the vizier of the shah who demanded that he recite the creed “There is no God but God and Muhammad is His Prophet.” After a pause, Martyn replied, “There is no God but God and Jesus is the Son of God.” Martyn reports that “all hell broke loose, some asking for his blasphemous tongue to be burnt out. He listened in total silence. Unfortunately he had lacked the tact, the diplomatic skills to control his religious zeal. His precious Testament lay before the Vizier, and in case they trampled on it, Henry lifted it up with care and wrapped it in a towel while they watched him with supreme contempt” (Martyn, 116). 23. Wessels, 181. 24. Sargent, John. The Life and Letters of Henry Martyn. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth Trust, 1985 (1819), page 407. 25. Spellman, 157. 26. Spellman, 159. 27. Spellman, 160.
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28. Spellman, 157. 29. Cited in Spellman, 158. 30. Chehabi, H. E. Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1990, page 80. 31. Wessels, Antoine. Arab and Christian: Christians in the Middle East. Kampen, the Netherlands: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1995, page 174. 32. Badr, Habib. “American Protestant Missionary Beginnings in Beirut and Istanbul: Policy, Politics, Practice and Response.” In New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century. Murre-van den Berg, Heleen, editor. Leiden, the Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 2006, page 222. 33. Waterfield, 155. 34. Because of their poverty in Persia, thousands of Armenians in Qajar times fled to Russia. Still others went northward for seasonal work while leaving their families behind. In 1868, in the city of Tabriz, French authorities claimed that there were five thousand Armenians who had recently returned from exile in Russia after seasonal jobs (Price, 108). Still other Armenians went to work in India and sent money back to their families living in Persia. 35. Cited in Spellman, 158. 36. For a more careful look at this period in relation to social revolts and grassroots tensions, I would direct the reader to an article written by Janet Afary titled “Peasant Rebellions of the Caspian Region during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1909” in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 23, 1991. New York: Cambridge University Press, 137–61. Another article, written by M. Reza Asfhari, probes the shifting historiographic perspectives on the Constitutional era depending on the religious and political views of the historian: Asfhari, M. Reza, “The Historians of the Constitutional Movement and the Making of the Iranian Populist Tradition” in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 25, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pages 477–94. 37. An incredible amount of money was raised among Evangelical Christians in England to convert Persia’s Jews to Christianity. In addition to Wolff, this mission also sent out three German missionaries and former Jews—H. H. Stern, P. H. Sternschuss, and I. H. Bruehl—to work among the Jews of Persia. At first they published booklets with descriptions of how certain Jews had become Christians. Their initial efforts mostly failed, and it was not until they began to induce Jews to attend their schools and study medicine that they began to see a few converts. Sewing classes were set up for Jewish girls and women in Urmiah. Other converts from Judaism did so to avoid persecution or in hopes of receiving the protection of various European governments. One context where such proselytism saw the intended results was through the work of Pastor Shimoon of Hamadan, who established a Messianic Christian congregation in Hamadan beginning in 1875 with about forty Jewish men. Again, such accounts are based on missionary sources and may not be reliable. The vast majority of Jews in Iran had no interest at all in converting to
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Christianity for any reason, and those that did were often severely persecuted by their fellow Jews. 38. Waterfield, 97. Sir Fitzroy McClean, according to Waterfield, wrote a biography of Wolff titled A Person from England. 39. When Wolff was in Shiraz he made it a point to meet a number of the people cited in Henry Martyn’s letters to thank them for their kindness to Martyn and to ask more about Martyn’s time amongst them. Wolff recalled that “all spoke well of him and with great affection . . . they said that he was a man who lived close to God and was like an angel” (Waterfield, 94). 40. Excerpts from Wolff’s sermons and a fuller description of the Connolly and Stoddart Affair can be found in van Gorder, A. Christian. Muslim and Christian Relations in Central Asia. London: Routledge Press, 2008. 41. The three CMJ missionaries were H. A. Stern, Murray Vicars, and P. H. Sternschuss. They visited Persia two times and went to the cities of Shiraz, Bushire, Kermanshah, and Hamadan during the first visit in 1844. They were mostly involved in passing out literature and portions of the Bible. The last visit, in 1849, was to mountain Assyrian Nestorians as well as to a number of major cities. During this visit, Stern became sick and went to the home of the British vice-counsel in Mosul, C. A. Rassam, to recover. Stern reported later that while he was at Rassam’s house the local rabbi brought him a large basket of fruit which was unattainable in the town and prayed for Stern’s recovery. Stern went alone again to Persia in 1852 and revisited Kermanshah, Hamadan, Teheran, Barforoush, Damavand, and a number of other towns. These efforts resulted in a number of Jewish-Christian believers asking to be baptized. The final missionary trip by the CMJ was a three-year tour of Hamadan by J. H. Bruhl and J. M. Eppstein. In 1889, a Jewish convert named Mirza Nurullah opened a bookstore and reading room for the purpose of evangelizing the Jewish community of Teheran. This work went on for ten years until 1898, when he had been forced into exile; Nurullah’s work was carried on by J. R. Garland. Garland continued this work until he died in 1932. Nurullah was able to return to Persia and lived in Teheran until he died in 1925. His work was carried on by his daughter, Gertrude, and by the Reverend Jolinoos Hakim, a cousin of Mirza Nurullah who was ordained in 1935 and worked in Hebrew-Christian communities in Yazd and Kerman. The Jews who converted established their own synagogues and retained their distinctive Jewish rituals and forms. These churches became known as Peniel Churches and were autonomous until 1924 when they joined with the Evangelical Church of Iran. In 1968, the CMJ organization, which had continued to proselytize, became fully part of the Anglican diocese of Iran. 42. In the 1840s a governmental position was established in Urmiah called the “Administrator of Christian and Jewish Affairs” (Sarparast). This organization was funded by those who registered complaints against their Muslim landlords or employers. Describing how this appointment affected MuslimChristian relations, Richard Schwartz states, “While the missionaries were instrumental in fostering potentially more equitable relations between Muslims and Christians at the administrative level, the scheme failed. It is possible that
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a small segment of the Muslim population, knowing that a channel existed for Christians to air their grievances, were reluctant to take undue advantage of their Christian neighbors” (Schwartz, Richard M. “Missionaries on the Rezaiyeh Plain, Iran,” in The Muslim World. Volume 69, number 2, April 1979 [77–100], page 85). 43. Bruce had been a missionary to the Punjab before he arrived in Persia and it had been the original intention of the CMS that Bruce would return to India. His original goal in going to Persia was to revise the translation of the New Testament completed by Henry Martyn, which was also used among Persians who were living in India. He left Persia in 1884 but later returned. Dr. Bruce died in 1915. 44. Bruce also received a generous financial gift of over 1,600 pounds sterling from Reverend Haas, the former Basel missionary in Iran, who had retired to Stuttgart, Germany. This money was used to start an orphanage. 45. Spellman, 159. 46. Francis-Dehqani, Guli. “CMS Women Missionaries in Persia: Perceptions of Muslim Women and Islam, 1884–1934,” in the Church Mission Society and World Christianity, 1799–1999. Ward, Kevin, and Brian Stanley, editors. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000, page 92. 47. Richter, 329. 48. Miller, 8. 49. Miller, 53. 50. Miller, 53. 51. Bishop Edward Craig Stuart came to Iran at age sixty-seven and stayed until 1909, having served in Iran for fifteen years. He returned to England where he died two years later in 1911. He had gone to Agra, India, in 1850 and had helped to found the St. John’s College in Agra. Stuart had served in India for twenty-seven years before being consecrated the second bishop of Waiapu, New Zealand. He was known for his tolerance and broadmindedness which never was a hindrance to his firm convictions as a Christian. 52. The publications of the Henry Martyn Memorial Press were textbooks in both Persian and Armenian. The press also printed portions of the Bible, but more controversial apologetic material was published in India at the suggestion of St. Clair-Tisdall. 53. St. Clair-Tisdall spoke Armenian in the Julfa dialect. In 1902, in recognition for all of his work, St. Clair-Tisdall was awarded an honorary doctorate in philology from Edinburg University. 54. In one instance, Carr traveled from Enzeli to Isfahan via bicycle. This was the way that the missionaries traveled, although the roads were usually tracks in the desert. Another missionary couple, the Stilemans, traveled from Yazd to Kerman, a distance of over 850 miles, on their bicycles in 1904. Missionaries continued to use bicycles into the 1930s. 55. Mary Bird was the granddaughter of a distinguished Indian administrator and was related to the families of Archbishop Sumner and William Wilberforce. She arrived in Iran in 1891. She was very good with languages and had a
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great love for the women of Persia. Another missionary commented that Bird “did the work of six men and live[d] on biscuits and eggs” (Waterfield, 156). Mary Bird remained in Persia until she died in 1915. 56. Miller, 48. A more extensive, and hagiographic, account of Dr. Sa’eed Rasool’s life can be found in the book written by his son, Jay M. Rasool, with Cady H. Allen, titled Dr. Sa’eed of Iran: Kurdish Physician to Princes and Peasants, Nobles and Nomads. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Grand Rapids International Publications, 1957. The devotional nature of the book is exemplified by the conclusion of the book which provides an English translation of: Dr. Sa’eed’s Hymn, of which the conclusion is provided here: “Christ is my Savior, my Portion, my Lord; all honor and homage to Him I accord. Christ is my Peace and Christ is my repast; Christ is my rapture forever to last. In joy and in sorrow, Christ satisfies me; ‘Tis Christ who from bondage of sin set me free. In all times of sickness, Christ is my Health; in want and poverty, Christ is my wealth.” (188)
57. The name Qazzaq comes from the Persian term for “Cossack” since Jalil Qazzaq’s father was one of the Yerevani Cossacks who came to Teheran near the end of the nineteenth century. Jalil was born in Teheran where he also died on November 26, 1955. His life story, according to Miller, has been told in Bishop Dehqani-Tafti’s book, Design of My World. Another account of his life, based on the bishop’s book, is found in Miller (87–95). 58. Miller, 92. 59. Miller, 93. 60. Francis-Dehqani, 94. Of the seventy-eight women studied, forty-eight of them (61.5 percent) stayed ten years or more; twenty-six women (33.3 percent) stayed twenty years or more; sixteen women (20.5 percent) stayed for thirty years or more; and ten women (12.8 percent) married missionary husbands, which meant that they were then taken off the roster of CMS missionaries although they remained in the country. Of the seventy-eight women, ten of them (12.8 percent) died in Persia or on their way back to the United Kingdom. Specific information about applicants both before they came to Iran and after they returned to London are no longer available because their application forms and the candidates’ mission records were housed in the CMS Headquarters in London, and these did not survive the bombing of London during World War II. What is probable is that most of the women who went to Iran were well-educated, and a few of them were doctors and had university degrees. Some of these were financially capable and did not receive any financial stipend from the CMS to assist them in their work. The majority of these seventy-eight CMS women missionaries were English although some were from Canada, Ireland, and Australia. Missionaries sent by CMS received some in-house training before they went to Iran. This training was general and not specific to the Persian context. Evidently, it was the policy of the CMS not to inform candidates exactly where they were going to serve until near the end of their training program. Their first task would be to learn Persian, and every five years they would be allowed to return to England or their home country for a furlough of up to two years. CMS work in Persia was divided into three
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categories—education, medicine, and evangelism—with the goal of affecting families over the long term. 61. Francis-Dehqani, 106. Margaret Thompson (nee Carr) referred to herself as “just a little m explaining that the only proof of her existence in many CMS documents was a letter m printed next to her husband’s name indicating that he was married. Likewise, women who arrived in Iran as single women and later married colleagues were required immediately to resign their posts” (102). These women always held secondary roles to men in the mission and risked problems if any man complained about their actions. Shortly after arriving in Iran in 1893, William St. Clair-Tisdall wrote a critique about a woman worker to the CMS office in London which resulted, fairly or unfairly, in her immediate dismissal. 62. Francis-Dehqani, 99. 63. Francis-Dehqani, 99. One of the most famous female evangelists sent by the CMS to Persia was Mary Bird, who died an untimely death during the typhoid epidemic of 1914. 64. Local Muslim clergy often let it be known that their congregants should not attend Christian schools or visit Christian hospitals. Those who did were sometimes persecuted. Two young soldiers in Kerman were arrested in 1930 for attending the Anglican Church. In 1931, the government made a national decree that forbade the practice of village evangelism. Nonetheless, it continued until World War II. Part of the government’s response was not so much an anti-Christian sentiment as it was a pro-Iranian nationalist sentiment that resented the presence and power of foreigners in the nation’s education and medical fields. 65. One example of this was the Reverend R. N. Sharp, who served in Shiraz for almost forty years. Sharp was both a scholar and an artist. He was active in building the Shiraz Anglican Church which opened in 1938. Sharp made sure that the art and architecture of the church reflected both historical Christian symbols and also was “truly Persian down to the last detail of its fittings and its ornaments” (Waterfield, 167). Sharp taught Pahlavi and wrote and led songs in the Persian language using specific Persian tunes. 66. One luminary in this regard was Dr. Catherine Ironside who died of pneumonia in 1921 while she was visiting the Jewish quarter of Isfahan. She was buried inside the Armenian Cathedral in Julfa because she was so respected by the Armenian community there. She had always worked in partnership with local Armenian Christians and repeatedly confronted medical staff that were not deferential or respectful. She was instrumental in persuading Bishop Linton to meet with the Armenian archbishop in 1920 when the Anglican Church agreed that it would no longer allow Armenian Christians to leave their national church and become members of the Anglican Church. Such an assurance greatly relieved intercultural pressures. 67. Some accounts (such as Kane, 296) state that this happened in 1960. The appointment process actually began in 1960 but was not completed until 1963 when Hasan Dehqani-Tafti was consecrated to be a bishop in Jerusalem which was followed by another official installation ceremony in Isfahan.
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68. Bishop Hasan Dehqani-Tafti often talked about the feeling that many Iranian Christians had in that they felt foreign and isolated from other Iranians. When, at age eighteen, he considered becoming a priest, what deterred him was the notion that so much of the church was foreign. For his own part, the bishop had lived and studied for extended periods of his life out of the country and had even married a woman from the United Kingdom. He wrote of visiting his hometown: “Whenever I visit my home village of Taft, it gave me a queer feeling of belonging and yet, not belonging” (Wessels, 182). 69. Kane, 297. 70. Waterfield (154) cites a Mrs. Bishop of Turkey explaining: “Believe me, the greatest trial of missionaries is missionaries.” 71. Browne lived his life among the Nestorians on their terms. One observer described him in this way (Waterfield, 128): A thin sparse figure stood before me, clad in a double-breasted English cassock, which once was black, but now, discolored by travel and weather, and turned a rusty green. A high canonical hat of black felt, round the bottom of which was twisted a black turban, covered his head. The face beneath the turban was rather pinched and his hair descended on his shoulders. On his feet were sandals or shoes of rope and in his hand a staff with a crooked head.
72. While the Anglican Missionary Society concentrated on Isfahan, Shiraz, Yazd, Julfa, and Kerman, the American Presbyterian missionaries were located in Urmiah, Mashad, Rasht, Kemanshah, Teheran, Hamadan, and Tabriz. 73. Waterfield, 102. 74. Perkins had been born in Holyoke, Massachussetts, in 1805 and spent his early life on a farm. He first went to Westfield Academy and then graduated in 1829 with honors at Amherst College, where he also taught. While he was teaching at Amherst he also studied for two years at Andover Theological Seminary. He was ordained in 1833 and immediately became a member of the American Oriental Society. 75. It was a common practice for missionaries in the nineteenth century to seek some form of political or legal protection for themselves and their families when they entered foreign countries. When British Minister Sir Henry Ellis extended this privilege to Perkins in 1835, Perkins accepted. When British diplomats withdrew from Urmiah in 1839, Perkins then registered at the offices of the Russian Counsel General in Tabriz until 1851 when he asked for, and once again received, protection from the British government. He and his family enjoyed this protection until the first American foreign minister to Persia arrived in the country in 1883. 76. Schwartz, 80–81. Of course, Perkins realized that such comments were most certainly exercises in the ancient art of ta’rruf—politeness. 77. Grant was not only a medical doctor but also thought of himself as an amateur archaeologist. He wrote a book during his time in Persia based on the conclusion that the Nestorians were actually one of the lost tribes of Israel. Grant worked in both the Nestorian and the Kurdish communities and gained respect amongst the Kurds for all of the medical work that he did in their
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villages for many years. Unfortunately, the relationship between the Kurds and the Nestorians deteriorated as the Nestorians felt that they would be protected by the foreigners. This was not the case, and extensive fighting broke out between the two groups. Grant chose to stay neutral in this fight which led to misunderstanding on both sides. He never saw an end to this situation. Sadly, Grant died of typhus in Mosul in 1844 while tending to the sick during an epidemic. 78. In 1837 Mr. and Mrs. Holladay and Mr. and Mrs. Stocking joined Perkins and Grant. In 1839, Mr. and Mrs. Willard Grant and, in 1840, Dr. Austin Wright and the printer Edward Breath joined the Urmiah work. They had built a mission compound over an acre in size. Perkins wrote a poem about this compound and submitted it to the mission board in one of his yearly reports (cited in Waterfield, 105): “Far away, in a benighted land in the heart of a Muhammaden city, we are a garden walled around, chosen and made peculiar ground. A little spot enclosed by grace, out of the world’s wild wilderness.” 79. The first report of Christians in Azerbaijan is in the fifth century, and this reference could refer to the earliest Christians of this region. Documents, reportedly from the eleventh century, claim that one of the masjids in Urmiah had once been a church. The Christians of the region claim that the first Christians who came to this region were converts of St. Thomas who stopped here en route to India. This is cited in John Joseph’s The Nestorians and Their Muslim Neighbors: A Study of Western Influence on Their Relations (Princeton University Press, 1961). In addition to the Nestorian agriculturalists, Perkins and others also speak of a group of Christians whom they call the Hakkari or “Mountain Christians.” This term is not used in the twentieth century. 80. Schwartz, 94. In credit to Grant, the medical mission that he was involved in treated anyone and everyone who came to seek assistance, including Muslims, without any remuneration. Some Nestorians, in fact, were critical of Grant’s willingness to treat Muslims whom they saw as their ethnically historic enemies. Another reason for their anger at this open policy was that many Muslims in the past had gone to local Assyrian shamans who would offer cures and medications for pay. Foreign medical missionaries threatened these livelihoods. On the other hand, some Muslim clerics forbade devout Muslims from being treated by Christians who were seen as impure. Missionaries, such as Grant and others, were instrumental in saving countless of lives during the outbreak of frequent cholera epidemics (1847, 1853, 1866, 1871, 1878, 1892, 1904, 1918). 81. Bradley, 150. 82. Miller, 7. 83. Most of the students were Muslims of the middle and upper classes. By 1840, Perkins reported that the school had forty Muslim students. Predictably, local Muslim madrassahs and local Muslim clerics voiced opposition to the school, but their criticisms were countered by the support of the princegovernor of the region (the western Azerbaijan province). The school was a source of valuable income for the mission.
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84. According to Richard Schwartz, by 1840, the missionaries had established schools in twelve different villages including Urmiah, and by 1849 there were missionary-sponsored schools in at least thirty different villages. By 1895, there were 117 villages in the Urmiah region with mission schools. In these classes, the teaching of the Bible was mandatory along with the teaching of reading, writing, and basic arithmetic. Courses in other fields were added when additional mission staff became available (Schwartz, 93). 85. Fiske had originally served as a missionary in Syria. She worked in Urmiah for the Presbyterian mission for fifteen years, from 1843 until 1858, and was the head of the women’s school throughout that time. After her departure it was known as the Fidelia Fiske Seminary. 86. Waterfield, 109. 87. Waterfield, 109. 88. Bradley, 151. 89. Richter (298): A characteristic feature of the Nestorian Mission is the religious revivals which occur two or three times in every decade, the first of them beginning in 1836. The revivals usually ran the same course. Beginning with the boys or the girls in the seminary, they spread thence throughout the town of Urmiah, and afterwards more or less widely into the surrounding district. The village of Geogtapa, especially, some five miles south of Urmiah, received almost always its share of the blessing. A deep sense of sin, often touching on earnestness in prayer, and an eager desire for the word of God marked those who were awakened. The missionaries had trouble to keep the excitement within bounds. These revivals widely influenced the mission.
90. Richter, 300. 91. Bradley, 150. Bradley cites a colorful description of Perkins offered by Samuel Moffet: “For the next thirty-six years, translating the Bible, preaching two or three times on Sundays, Perkins lived, talked, and almost looked like a native in his great two-foot-high sheepskin hat. So popular did he become that sometimes when he approached a village the people would march out en masse and bring him in to the sound of drums and trumpets” (150). 92. Price, 125. 93. Cochran’s hospital survived the ravages of the war between the Kurds and their Christian and Shi’ite Persian neighbors because he had developed a close friendship with the local Kurdish chief, Ubayad Allah, whom he had previously treated for a certain medical condition. The Kurds began to attack various villages in 1880 after two years of severe drought affected their crops. Before Ubayad Allah launched his attack against Urmiah he used the Westminster Hospital mission station as his encampment, but he did not touch the hospital or bother its staff. Persian military troops were able to arrive in October 1880 and stop Ubayad Allah from capturing the city, and the Kurdish leader retreated back into the mountains. 94. Joseph Grabill stated that the original idea of the missionaries in Persia was to use a “missionary lever on a local Christian fulcrum to overthrow
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the Muslim delusion” (Protestant Diplomacy and the Near East: Missionary Influences on American Policy, 1810–1927. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971, page 139). 95. Miller, 7. 96. In Urmiah they went by the name of the Reformed Nestorian Church. The nature of the shift meant that the original goal of Reverend Perkins, to work within the existing Nestorian church, was replaced by direct organization of Presbyterian mission churches as opposed to Nestorian churches. According to Richter, by 1907 there were 2,658 communicants in the Reformed Nestorian Church. There were also 3,180 children attending Sunday school (Richter, 304). 97. Kane, 295. 98. Richter, 303. 99. The American School in Seir was destroyed during World War I. Seir was used by many of the American missionaries as a summer retreat. Today, one can visit the graveyard in Seir which contains tombstones to many American missionaries and their families. 100. Goode, James F. “A Good Start: The First American Mission to Iran, 1883–1885.” The Muslim World. Volume 74, number 2, April 1984 (100–118), page 106. One of the first confrontations that Benjamin experienced came in the spring of 1884, when he was requested by the Persian foreign minister to speak to Protestant missionaries in Tabriz who had insisted on continuing their evangelistic efforts among their Muslim neighbors even though it was the month of Ramadan. Even though Benjamin himself had served as a missionary, he was not sympathetic with those American missionaries whom he felt created their own problems by being too aggressive and impatient in their activities. In spite of his successes in protecting American missionaries in Iran and in promoting business links between the two countries, Ambassador Benjamin was withdrawn in April 1885 at the decision of the new president, Grover Cleveland. His replacement, E. Spencer Pratt, did not arrive in the country until one year after Benjamin’s departure. When Benjamin returned to the United States he wrote a book, Persia and the Persians, which was widely circulated. 101. Joseph, John. The Nestorians and their Muslim Neighbors. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1961, page 114. 102. It was this same area that was a point of contention in 1946 when Russian troop movements around Lake Urmiah were brought before the United Nations for settlement. The situation was resolved when, on May 6, 1946, the Soviet Union agreed to remove her troops in exchange for consideration of oil development within northern Iran. Joseph reports that this was the “first important problem handled by that world organization” (Joseph, 212). 103. Joseph, 125. The American missionaries demanded that the Qajar government provide a financial remuneration of sixteen thousand American dollars to the widow of Benjamin L. Larabee. They gave her $30,000. 104. Esselstyn focused much of his mission work on Mashad where he opened a mission and served as the lone representative for Christ for the first
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four years until he was joined by Dr. Joseph Cook, who had arrived in Persia in 1918. 105. In 1927, Nozad wrote an account of his salvation in Persian that was translated into English and distributed throughout the United States, titled “How a Human Being may be Transformed.” When the booklet was published his real name and location were not disclosed since he feared for his safety. 106. Bailey and Bailey, 117. 107. This tenure means Hawkes was probably the longest-serving missionary in Persian Christian history. 108. The other school in Persia which was popular with the elite was also a mission school. Stuart Memorial College was based in the south of the country. These two schools had a monopoly on modern education in Persia for almost thirty years. Alborz College sat on forty-four acres and had excellent class and dorm buildings. 109. Waterfield, 134. Jordan came to Iran in 1898 and first served as principal of the Presbyterian Boys’ School which he developed into a fully fledged high school. He began the American College of Teheran in 1913 on forty acres of land in northern Teheran. Mark Bradley notes that Jordan has been called “the most influential man in the history of US relations with Iran” (Bradley, 161). 110. Spellman, 159. 111. Cited in Spellman, 202. 112. Waterfield, 135. 113. Many Christians had already been going into Russian territory for years looking for work and then sending money back to their families in Persia. The trend was so common that, in 1899, missionary William Shedd explained: “Year after year, the ties that bind us to Europe, and especially Russia, are strengthening. The hand of Russia is all powerful in Persia” (Shedd, Mary Lewis. The Measure of a Man: The Life of William Ambrose Shedd, Missionary to Persia. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1922, page 195–96). 114. Richter, 312. 115. Departing Russian troops provided arms and ammunition to assist the Assyrians in fighting the Turks who were certain to return. At the end of July 1918, Ottoman soldiers along with their Kurdish allies were about to capture Urmiah once again. Most of the Christians in the city, led by missionary William Shedd, tried to evacuate. The fact that this effort was led by a foreign missionary speaks volumes about the inexorable role that such missionaries had on the unusual social system that was Urmiah at this time. Between sixty and eighty thousand Armenians and Assyrians evacuated Urmiah on July 31. This huge number, with all of their cattle and all the goods that they could carry, traveled south toward the region where British troops were stationed. Shedd died en route along with probably one-third of those who left the city. Some of these were killed by Turkish and Kurdish marauders, but many more died of starvation or disease. 116. Joseph, 123.
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117. This interesting example of “running with both the hare and the hounds” is cited in Fortescue (120–23). 118. This was the German Lutheran Orient Mission which was under the direction of a Dr. Johannes Lepsius. The orphanage only lasted until the advent of World War I when all Germans were forced to leave Persia. 119. Arpee, Leon. A Century of Armenian Protestantism, 1846–1946. New York: The Armenian Missionary Society of America, 1946, page 3. 120. The first Plymouth Brethren missionary was Anthony Norris Groves who is remembered in Church history mostly for being one of the founders, along with J. N. Darby, of the Plymouth Brethren sect. When he was only nineteen, Groves was a successful dentist practicing in Exeter. After his conversion in 1827, he applied to serve the Church Missionary Society in India, but he was asked to go to Persia instead. He set off from Europe to go to Baghdad in 1829 to learn Persian and Arabic. He eventually left there in 1833 to assume a mission in Tinnevelley, India. Interestingly, Francis Newman, the brother of the cardinal, joined Groves in Baghdad in 1830, only to leave Groves and travel back to England via Tabriz and across Persia. 121. Richter, 315. The name of the mission came from its leader, Awishalum (Absalom) Seyad. 122. Kane, 296. 123. Dr. Kurdistani and the Catchatoor brothers had both become Pentecostals while studying in the United Kingdom. Kurdistani became a Christian at the Brethren Church in Croydon. A biography of Dr. Kurdistani, called The Bitter and the Bold, was written in English by Jay M. Rasooli and Cady H. Allen (Good News Publishers: Westchester, Illinois, 1964). John Bohlin worked for the United Nations in Teheran. He agreed to serve on the board of the Philadelphia Pentecostal Church, named after the five-thousand-member Philadelphia Church on Uppsala Street in Stockholm. Meetings in their church, complete with a baptistery, began in June 1960 in the basement of a cello kebab restaurant on Pahlavi Street in Teheran. Another service was also started in the Armenian neighborhood of Majidieh in December 1961. On December 3, 1961, the church founders Haizak and Hrand Catchatoor were killed, while Assyrian Pentecostal David Thomas and his wife were badly injured. Two other members of the Philadelphia church, Levon Hyrapetian and Tateos Michaelian, took over the leadership role of launching the Majidieh Pentecostal church. Another church building in another Armenian suburb of Namaak was opened by this group in 1972. One of the church members, Yusuf Nazanian, opened a drug rehabilitation center modeled after a Pentecostal program in the United States called Teen Challenge. These Pentecostal churches were eventually assisted by Assemblies of God missionaries from the United States in launching a Bible school and correspondence course for Iranians interested in studying the Bible. According to Bradley this correspondence course soon had ten thousand students participating (Bradley, 156). Bradley also notes that another organization, called International Mission, operated a Bible correspondence course with thirty thousand Iranian students (Bradley, 163). Eventually, the Philadelphia Pentecostal Church (renamed Jammatt-e-Rabani)
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joined the Assemblies of God. The term “Jammatt Rabani” means “People of the Monks,” which is a term sometimes used to describe devout Christians. 124. Kane, 296. 125. Kane, 296. 126. Bliss and his wife Gladys tragically lost three of their children in a car accident in Teheran in 1969. In this same accident the Pentecostal Reverend and Mrs. (Takoosh) Haik Hovsepian-Mehr lost a child. 127. Spellman, 161. 128. Joseph (226) writes: The evacuation which took place exactly one hundred years after the mission was instituted in Urmiah was described by the Secretary of the Presbyterian Board as a grievous course for the missionaries and their friends in the board and the home church but there appeared no alternative. The Board voted that it request to make the whole situation clear to the Christian people in Urmiah and with full sympathy to aid them to adjust themselves wisely to the present conditions and to go forth as loyal citizens of Persia in full fidelity to the Christian spirit and to their Christian faith.
129. Prime Minister ’Ali Razmara was killed by Islamic extremists on March 7, 1951. Before he had been appointed by Mohammad Reza Shah in 1946, there had been no less than eleven prime ministers in the space of only four years. ’Ali had been beloved as a strong spokesman for Iran’s poor. 130. One of the American tycoons in the country was Arthur Millspaugh, who at one time seemed to be running the economy of the entire country. Famines led to bad harvests and rampant inflation at the same time that foreign investors and speculators were making dramatic profits. 131. Bradley, speaking of Mossadeq’s oratorical skills, stated, With his tall ageing frame, drooping shoulders, long nose and soft sad eye he stood out from the crowd as the country’s natural father figure. And his oratory enthralled and enchanted Iranians. Sometimes in the parliament he would speak constantly for two days, and then collapse in a faint. He would be taken home on a stretcher where he would hold court resting on pillows, lying on his simple iron bed and dressed in pajamas. Foreigners who had to visit him in his bedroom were completely confused: Iranians loved the drama. (Bradley, 57)
132. Morrison, 30. 133. One reason that patronage of Alborz High School and Alborz College was often forthcoming from the elite upper class in the country had to do with the high tuition rate that made attendance almost impossible, short of a scholarship, for lower- and middle-class students. The high school was transformed, in 1940, into a government-run institution while the college remained in the hands of Presbyterian missionaries. Alborz College’s prestige was based on the fact that many Iranians felt that it provided the most modern available education in the country throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Another school, the rival Dar ol-Fonun, was seen by its constituents to be more Islamic and to have a higher visibility to Islam, and a surprising number of leaders of the
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Islamic Revolution in 1979 attended Dar ol-Fonun. It was founded at the end of the nineteenth century by the military to train soldiers, engineers, and civil bureaucrats. The middle class in Iran also chose to send their children to the more religious Dar ol-Fonun because its tuition was much more affordable. In the 1960s and 1970s, another rigorously academic high school, the Alive School, was established to compete with these two institutions and offer an even more militantly religious environment for studies. 134. Morrison, 30. 135. Braswell, George W., Jr. “Christianity Encounters Islam: Iran and Beyond” in Missiology: An International Review, Volume XI, number 2, April 1983 (173–84), page 173. 136. The BCMS was a conservative or fundamentalist break from the CMS in 1922. The mission continues to be linked, however, to the Church of England and the Church of Ireland. In 1992 the name of the mission was changed to Crosslinks, or sometimes BCMS Crosslinks. The name change was made to facilitate mission work in a number of countries where the name “Bible” or “missionary” would have hindered efforts. 137. In May 1928, Miss Jacobs (a nurse) and Miss Ginn joined the BCMS work near Yazd. An Indian Christian doctor named Dr. Sitralka was sponsored by the BCMS and came and worked in a number of different medical programs. Dr. Sitralka stayed near Yazd doing medical work until he was expelled because of the nationalizing policies of Dr. Mossadeq. When this effort was closed, Sitralka moved to Teheran where he developed an eye clinic supported by American missionaries after Mossadeq was removed from power in 1954. After Dr. Sitralka’s death in Teheran, the clinic remained open until 1979. 138. The Faraman Orphanage in Kermanshah was originally established in 1923 by the Reverent F. M. Stead who founded the Iran Interior Mission. 139. Kane, 296. 140. Lady Kinnaird founded the London Board for the Calcutta Normal School in 1852 to assist women in that country. Meanwhile, in 1861 in the United States, the Woman’s Union Missionary Society was formed, with significant opposition, to help women enter the mission field. The two missions merged to form the Zenana Mission. In 1880 the name was again changed to the Zenana Bible and Medical Missionary Fellowship. After World War II, the ZBBF began to operate in other mission fields beyond India. The first male missionaries were admitted to the ZBMMF in 1952. The name BMMF was given to this organization in 1957, and it became known as the International Service Fellowship or Interserve in 1986. 141. Kennedy, John W. “Quake Opens Door to Gospel: How Christians are Trying to Ease Tensions in the Islamic Republic.” In Christianity Today. Volume 48, number 3, March 2004, page 19. 142. The Russian Bible Society was involved in the publication of Martyn‘s translation because Sir Gore Ouseley, the British minister to Persia, had a copy of Martyn’s text and gave it to Prince Boris Galitzin, who was the director of the recently organized Russian Bible Society in St. Petersburg. Martyn’s translation was checked but was still full of errors and needed to
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be revised a number of times. The second edition of Martyn’s version was published in London in 1816, and a third version was printed in 1827. It was not revised after that point until Reverend Bruce came to Persia in 1869. Bruce completed his translation of the New Testament in 1881 and took it to London in that year. The text was proofread by Professor E. H. Palmer before six thousand copies were printed. Bruce was awarded an honorary doctorate of divinity by Trinity College, Dublin for this effort. Bruce continued to serve as a representative of the BFBS until 1888. He continued to work on the Old Testament and completed a Persian translation of the entire Bible in 1895. This translation was published by the BFBS in 1895 in Leipzig, Germany. As a result of this work, Bruce was awarded another honorary degree by Oxford University. Much of Bruce’s work on the Old Testament was based on the translation completed by William Glen of the Scottish Missionary Society in Astrakhan. Bruce’s translation of the Book of Psalms and Proverbs were published by the BFBS in 1841. A complete Old Testament was completed by Glen and published in Edinburg in 1846 by the United Synod of Scotland. The first Syriac version, Peshitta New Testament, was produced in 1555 in Vienna by J. A. Widmanstaat and published by Michael Zimmerman. A version of this translation was published in 1846 by the American Presbyterian printing press supervised by Edward Breath. The entire Bible had been published in the Assyrian Syriac in 1893 by the American Bible Society. This translation was based on the work of Benjamin Larabee and a number of Nestorian scholars.
6
Non-Muslims and the Islamic Revolution of 1979
This time either Islam triumphs or we disappear. I have no authority to impose anything on my people; for Islam does not permit me to act as a dictator. We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry, “There is no God but God” resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle. Ayatollah Khomeini Resignation is essential here, if one does not wish to live in a condition of perpetual fury. Vita Sackville-West, Passage to Teheran (1926) When the cat and mouse agree—the grocer is ruined. Iranian proverb
Potent changes rocked Iran in 1979, a turning point in Iranian history. On February 1, 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini returned from over a decade in exile and was hailed with wide acclaim.1 He claimed that he was a “scholar-activist” who thought that “scholars should be the rulers over the people.”2 The ayatollah held the high moral ground among devoted Muslims because he had given his life to reviling the shah and pushing for the advance of Shi’a Islam in Iranian politics. Khomeini recognized the pulse of the Iranian people and sought to motivate them to political action by invoking centuries of Shi’ite symbolism (such as the martyrdom of Husayn) and by asserting with clarion boldness that the path of Shi’ite political power was God’s foreordained will for Iran.3 169
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It was a widespread anti-autocratic crusade beginning from the bottom of a society desperately in search of change. It did not begin primarily as a religious revolution as much as it was a social and economic upheaval of discontentment. People took to the streets because they were tired of the growing gap between the rich and the poor. ‘Ali Rahnema observed, “The revolution in Iran employed open action rather than clandestine activity, it relied on mass participation and mobilization rather than the actions of a small revolutionary vanguard, and it appealed to a broad section of the population, cutting across class barriers, rather than to a specific class.”4 For decades the shah had callously ruled his country with an iron fist and had smashed all forms of political protest. As things began to unravel in 1978 and 1979, political protestors finally were able to emerge from their shadows. They began to stage strikes and hold mass demonstrations right in front of the soldiers who patrolled the streets. Even though the shah’s helicopter gunships attacked crowds, angry citizens threw up makeshift barricades and lobbed Molotov cocktails at the police. In one of the first protests, in Qom, on January 9, 1978, protestors gathered against a visit by the American President Jimmy Carter to Iran. The police opened fire and mercilessly mowed down at least seventy students. In the coming weeks, hundreds more were killed in Tabriz and Yazd. On September 8, 1978, Black Friday, an unarmed crowd of protestors was cruelly massacred by the shah’s death squads. In December, in the town of Qazvin, the shah’s tanks literally rolled over one hundred and thirty-five unarmed protestors. On December 11, 1978 (‘Ashura), over one million ranting protestors filled Teheran‘s streets. Bitterness and unchecked anger spread like wildfire. The country had reached “the point of no return.”5 Various regional ethnic groups sought an opportunity to assert their own specific agendas.6 Many Iranians felt that, under the shah, their nation had become a weak fiefdom slavishly serving the interests of the United States.7 Each group vied for power, and an interim government was formed by the moderate Shapur Bakhtiyar, which was soon brushed aside by the stronger forces of feverish religious zealotry.8 The Ayatollah Taleqani was one cleric who called on Iran to return to its former glory as a thoroughly Islamic state and zealously preached that all authority came from God and should be given to God in a theocracy.9 Taleqani helped organize other clerics and leaders of a broad coalition of forces to support the eventual ascendancy of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The shah made a series of unwise blunders which only antagonized Muslims across Iran and drove moderates into the wide and
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waiting arms of the Ayatollah Khomeini.10 The shah’s attempts to establish closer economic and political relations with the United States and Israel were resented by most citizens who did not feel that such partnerships were in the best interests of Iran. Further, some foreign visitors dressed in ways that provoked conservative Iranians. Some foreigners also drank brazenly and introduced pornographic films into the country. When, in 1978, a Brazilian dance troupe performed simulated sexual acts on stage at the Shiraz Arts Festival (sponsored by the Empress Farah), many conservatives saw such actions as the last straw and took to the streets in an acetous protest against foreign moral indecencies. Many Iranians welcomed the Ayatollah Khomeini’s sudden rise to power and the end of the repressive police-state tactics of the deposed shah. Support even came from a number of minorities including some Christians who felt that the suffocating police state of the shah was intolerable and that nothing could be worse. Once the ayatollah came to power, however, a series of measures and a reign of terror were launched which made previous human rights abuses seem minor in terms of their extent.11 In a process of “relentless institutionalization,” the traditional Islamic, religious, and spiritual life of the Persian people was recast in terms of their “political essence.”12 Sweeping social changes were carried out with fierce and frenzied force. According to Amnesty International, the religious Stalinists who rule Iran lead one of the world’s most repressive nations with one of the worst human rights records of any nation in the world.13 The revolution began with the support of seemingly every ethnicity and by many religious minorities.14 The social and economic goals of the revolution were seen in a positive light by a majority of Iranians even though these were framed in increasingly Islamic religious language.15 At Christmastime, in 1978, the Ayatollah Khomeini distributed among Christian communities a letter which reminded Christians of their long-standing ties with Islam and Iran and requested their support against the shah. The Anglican Bishop Hasan Dehqani-Tafti responded in February 1979 with a letter declaring that the Anglican churches would gladly cooperate with the aims of the revolution and would pray to God “for the establishment of freedom and justice” within Iran.16 Who was the man behind this revolution? Ruhoallah al-Moosavi al-Khomeini was born into pathetic poverty in the small central Iranian town of Khomein on September 24, 1902.17 His father, a penniless, provincial mullah, was murdered by state police while Khomeini was only five months old, and his mother tragically died during a
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cholera epidemic in 1918, which made the youth an unattended orphan. The young seyyed (descendant of the Prophet) began his theological studies when he was fifteen at Soltanabad and soon arrived for further studies in Qom, where he rose, at age thirty-four, to become a mojtahed of jurisprudence and Islamic philosophy.18 Khomeini was private and considered somewhat unconventional because of his love of poetry and his interest in mysticism. The young Khomeini was also known for having a “strong sense of himself—he always dressed neatly and cleanly—not affecting an indifference to clothes or appearance as some young Mullahs did.”19 Khomeini increasingly spoke out against governmental injustices with such declarations as “being a royalist means being a plunderer” and “silence means cooperation with the tyrant.”20 Not surprisingly, Khomeini was exiled by the shah in 1964 to Turkey. Later, Khomeini went to teach at the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq. This began fifteen years of his occultation where he was forced to communicate secretly with his followers from a distance. From Iraq, Khomeini was displaced once more, this time to Paris in 1978, where he stayed for only four months.21 Once the shah had fled, Khomeini returned triumphantly to Teheran in February of 1979. The first thing that he did after his plane landed was to visit the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery to honor the martyrs who had been killed in the past years of civic demonstrations. As many as three million Iranians mobbed the streets leading from the airport to Teheran to greet the ayatollah. The nation was in a mood of euphoria; it was even rumored by some that, on Khomeini’s return, his face was visible in the moon.22 On April 1, 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini established the Islamic Republic of Iran. His first act was to appoint Mehdi Bazargan, a moderate French-trained engineer, as prime minister. Although Bazargan avidly supported the rule of law he was, in his own words, a “knife without a blade” because all decision-making power soon came to rest with revolutionary religious courts and institutions.23 Khomeini crushed all dissent and oversaw the deaths of at least “20,000 Iranians in the name of his revolution.”24 His focus, however, did not stop at the borders: Khomeini called for an uprising in Lebanon and against Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia. When Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980, it did so after claiming that Iran had made a number of assassination attempts against their leaders. This grisly, catastrophic war lasted for eight years, and the ayatollah’s senseless human wave of attacks against the Iraqis left as many as four hundred thousand Iranians dead and at least a half a million Iranians wounded.25 The war’s
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cost not only painfully touched every family, but it also drained the national economy. After years of war, the people of Iran were emotionally broken and economically impoverished. One article in the Chicago Tribune lamented that the ayatollah was “unleashing jihad, a holy war on the world.”26 This touched the United States when revolutionary guards occupied the U.S. Embassy in Iran for 444 days. The siege began on November 4, 1979, with masses of people organized in protest shouting Marg bar Amrika (“Death to America”) as they captured the embassy with the blessing of the new Islamic government.27 The fifty-two American diplomats were not released until January 20, 1981—at the exact moment that Ronald Reagan took the oath of office for the presidency. The revolution dramatically affected the cultural tenor of the nation. Daily life for people changed overnight as Islamic strictures were set in motion. Images of angry bearded clergy and women in black burkas shouting slogans still linger in the minds of many Westerners when they think about this time in Iran. Outsiders can often only see the negative as they struggle to explain the new Iran. James Haught expresses the view of many when he observes that “Iran’s fundamentalist Shi’ite theocracy has become a symbol of inhumanity. It is as if evil, rather than religion, had taken control.”28 Human rights organizations worldwide lambasted the frequent application of the death penalty and the Islamic revolution’s creation of moral police squads, looking for impiety. There have even been cases when volunteer vigilantes have killed people and gone unpunished for murdering citizens who commit such offenses as “walking together in public.”29 Iran’s Islamic penal code, which parallels civil law codes, claims that murder charges are not relevant if the accused can prove that a victim is morally corrupt. Shi’ite clerics struggled with how to enforce an ancient moral code on a modern society. They wondered which laws to enforce and which to ignore.30 All television, radio, and newspapers in Iran were put under strict clerical authority. Music was forbidden at certain times, and Behzad Yaghmaian noted that it seemed at times that “even laughing in public was considered inappropriate Muslim behavior.”31 A modest dress code for both men and women was established which was strictly enforced by roving morality police.32 The social gains that women had achieved under the shah were largely erased. Women were often stopped on the streets and reprimanded for not covering their entire bodies in public. Preachers explained that uncovered women set men “on fire” with lust, which enfeebled economic productivity and encouraged wild infidelity and
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base debauchery. When a newspaper in Teheran reported that one of Khomeini’s influential sons had asserted the bold claim that men and women were equal, the ayatollah felt obligated to angrily refute this accusation, and he demanded a public apology.33 Laws were enacted which forbade women from serving as judges or being elected as the nation’s president.34 They were not allowed to initiate divorce proceedings against their husbands.35 Women had to get written permission to stay or work at a hotel.36 They could only study abroad if accompanied by their husbands.37 Women were, in some places, not allowed to use modern forms of birth control.38 Public transportation was segregated by gender. When women spoke up in opposition to these laws, or flaunted them slightly by not following the letter of the law (on such proscriptions about how to wear their head coverings), they were sometimes imprisoned, and some were even tortured and raped in prison. Many of those who were arrested were young, unmarried girls, and their fate behind prison walls was particularly unspeakable.39 The cultural transitions brought on by the revolution were arguably even worse, (if that is possible) for other groups than they were for women. Homosexuals—and other social pariahs—were rounded up and threatened with death. Intellectuals and writers “had come to find their discourse conditioned and constrained” by increasing antagonisms and reductionistic social fears draped in religious language.40 Many remember the fatwah that Khomeini issued for the Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.41 What many do not remember is that when the ayatollah first heard about the novel he “dismissed it as unimportant” and did not even ban the book from being imported into the country when it was initially printed.42 It was only when Khomeini saw rioters in Great Britain, Kashmir, and Pakistan reacting virulently against Rushdie’s novel that he finally took action. Most of all, Khomeini was not simply a religious cleric, he was also a brilliant politician. Few appreciate that this fatwah was mostly about political concerns and not religious verity.43 Iranian social transformations were in the hands of rabid religious authorities who lived in Qom while the mechanics of the government were operated from Teheran.44 The formation of the Islamic Republic was organized by the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) which became Khomeini’s mouthpiece as well as that of the Guardian Council. Iran established an elected 273-member Parliament supervised by twelve appointed members of the Guardian Council. The nation’s “supreme leader” is the guarantor of stability, justice, and order, and he rules with reason based on God’s revelation. At the time of the writing of
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this book, the current supreme leader of that council, the Ayatollah ’Ali Khamenei, came to power immediately after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. The Guardian Council functions in a way similar to the role that the Supreme Court plays in the United States in that it can veto any law formed by the legislature that is deemed un-Islamic or unconstitutional. In this case, the constitution refers to the Holy Qur’an. God’s Word is the final authority in any and all legal and political issues, and the determination of how God’s Word is to be applied in a given context rests solely in the hands of the Guardian Council. Iran is attempting to develop a unique brand of Shi’ite democracy which both represents the wishes of the people and, at the same time, underscores the final authority of the Holy Qur’an. The goal of this government is both to “safeguard the Islamicity of the regime and to fulfill its revolutionary objectives” which are also decidedly religious in nature.45 While reform-minded and relatively moderate politicians have controlled the Parliament in some recent elections, the 2005 election saw the people choosing the more conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. Conservatives claim to have a divine mandate, while reformers in Iran seek to build consensus from among the people. This arrangement has led to tensions between these two groups and a perpetual see-sawing back and forth between conservative and reform-minded politicians. In the first election immediately after the revolution, Massoud Rajavi, leader of the People’s Mojahedin (PMOI) opposition party, strongly supported improving the rights of ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, but his voice was silenced by a fatwah against him.46 The downfall of the PMOI meant that the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI) was the only “viable alternative to the fundamentalist regime in Iran” able to represent the needs and interests of Christians, Jews, and other ethnic and religious minorities.47 The Parliament, also known as the Assembly of Experts, mandated, in its original formation, a representative parliament which was also to include an allocation for Jews, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Christians.48 This inclusion of Christians, and other non-Muslim adherents, in the government was approved by the Guardian Council and was deemed to be in line with Islamic law.49 As long as Christians, Zoroastrians, and Jews were cooperative and patriotic, they would be protected (dhimmi).50 They did not have the same full rights and responsibilities that Muslims had, and, as such, they remained secondclass citizens as had been previously established since the Constitution of 1906. Religious minorities, like all others who opposed the
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power of the state, were given a clear promise by the Ayatollah Khomeini. In his words, “If you do not obey, you will be annihilated.”51 These groups were completely at the mercy of the government. When one state official walked into the main Zoroastrian Temple in Teheran and replaced the portrait of Zoroaster with a looming portrait of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Zoroastrians were unable to do anything but stand aside and watch this egregious change unfold.52 The final authority in all legislative matters was reserved for a faqih, called the supreme jurisprudent, which consists of between three and five ayatollahs. This group has de facto veto power over any candidates who are running for any political office. All Armenian or Assyrian Christians and Jews appointed to the Assembly of Experts also had to be vetted by the ayatollahs.53 Each of the Christian and Jewish members of the Council had a proportionate role in the new national government. In another symbolic twist, Christians and Jews who were brought into the parliament were sworn in by placing their right hands on their own holy book. Non-Muslim assemblymen are also seated at random amongst the other parliamentarians based on a lottery system. The Baha’is were easily the religious minority which was most poorly treated by the incoming Islamic government. They have received no substantive public support from any Iranian organization or from any other religious minority. The lenient, supportive policies of the shah toward the Baha’is were replaced overnight by doctrinaire intolerance to their beliefs. This hatred was expressed in organized violence and systematic persecution.54 The Baha’is were the only major religious minority group that was not represented in the government, because they were deemed to be heretical and were excluded from all legal protections. Another strike against them was that many Baha’is had been given government offices under the shah and had received a strong vote of confidence under his reign—a fact which made their political allegiances suspect.55 In actual fact, the shah never really had one, consistent, “clear-cut policy” toward the Baha’is.56 Sometimes (especially near the end of his rule) the shah had been sympathetic to this sect. At other times, the shah allowed anti-Baha’i sentiment to increase as a “safety-valve through which it directed the energy and activities of potential anti-regime Muslims” away from his own power.57 Wright reports that the Baha’is were hounded down and thousands were imprisoned after 1979. Price notes that the government’s “un-official policy states that the Baha’i[s] should not be incarcerated without reason but their progress and development should be stopped
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inside the country.”58 In actual fact, the Baha’is have often faced strong persecution without any provocation on their part. All nine leaders of the Baha’i National Spiritual Assembly vanished within the first two years of the Khomeini government. At least sixteen Baha’i properties were confiscated or bulldozed, and one of their temples in Teheran was converted into an Islamic Institute. Baha’i graveyards were desecrated in Yazd, and Baha’i corpses were even exhumed and burned. In 1980, the holiest shrine of the Bahai’i in Iran—the House of the Bab—was destroyed. In that same year, a seventeen-year-old woman named Mona Mahudnzhad was publicly hung in Shiraz because she refused to convert to Islam.59 Her story was not unusual. In 1983, Amnesty International reported that at least 5,195 religious and political prisoners had been executed in Iran during the first four years of the government’s reign of terror.60 Particular targets for these attacks were the Baha’is; it was reported that at least four hundred Baha’is, mostly young people, were executed in Iran between 1979 and 1985.61 What was the ayatollah’s view about Christianity and about Iranian Christians and their role in the Islamic Republic of Iran? What were the bases for these views and for his experiences with Jews and Christians? Generally, Khomeini felt that Christians and Jews, as “People of the Book,” were eligible for protection (dhimma) as long as they paid special taxes, cooperated with the government, and accepted their separate and unequal social status. While they are allowed to conduct their own affairs, they are, “legally speaking, disqualified by shariah for holding any public office which involves exercising authority over Muslims.”62 They are not allowed to proselytize or marry Muslim women. These views are outlined in Article 13 of the new Constitution which gives theoretical freedom of religion to Christians and Jews. There are no protections, however, for Muslims who convert to Christianity. They were to be considered as apostates who were eligible to face legal punishment for their crime of conversion. The Americanbased Iranian Christians International (ICI) claims that there were approximately three hundred former Muslims who had converted to Christianity at the time of the 1979 revolution.63 The 1979 Constitution of the Islamic Republic (revised in 1989) was a clear setback for the status of religious minorities. This is because it is based entirely upon, and is secondary to, all of the mandates of Islamic shariah (law).64 In shariah it is spelled out that non-Muslims have an unambiguous second-class status. While the constitution did allow for a few recognized religious minorities to exist, there was no protection offered to other groups such as the Baha’is or to evangelical
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Christians who are committed to the proselytization of their faith as part of their practice. Price says: In reality, the constitution provided only a qualified commitment to the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of religious or ethnic identity. Although some articles clearly stated equal rights, other articles contradicted this principle and reserved the highest position for Shi’ite Muslim Iranians. Since all codes must comply with shariah; discrimination is inherent despite guarantees of equal rights.65
One of the key social laws established in 1979 that affected nonMuslims was the Bill of Retribution (Qesas). This code specifies how Muslims and non-Muslims are to be treated differently in a vast range of specific economic and social matters. Minorities are to be segregated and subordinated. All religious activities have to be approved by Muslim state authorities. Muslims are prohibited from attending Christian or Jewish services. Job discrimination based on religion is permissible. If a Christian or a Jew accidentally kills a Muslim there must be a blood payment of a substantial amount of money while, if the inverse happens, a much smaller amount is required to be paid to the grieving non-Muslim family. These centuries-old codes of Islamic law, first instituted partially by Caliph Umar, are once again the subject of international human rights criticism and concern. Human rights organizations have become increasingly vocal about the devolving status of religious minorities in Iran after the revolution. In 1979, all foreign missionaries were forced to leave the country immediately, and no further missionary or humanitarian visas were to be issued for foreign workers. The fear was that foreigners would serve as spies and would have a negative impact on the unity and security of the country. Such xenophobia coincided with the hostagetaking at the Embassy of the United States in Teheran which lasted from 1979 until 1981. Opposition to these actions was not tolerated. Iranian politicians, such as Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotzbadeh, who questioned xenophobic policies, were literally sent to a firing squad. Christian institutions which were linked particularly closely with foreign missionaries, especially Americans, were often the target of attention from the security forces of the new Islamic leaders. There could be no fifth column within Iran, and Christians would not be allowed to function if they had even a whiff of any political, financial, or social connection with Christians outside of the country. Since 1979, a number of Christian Human Rights organizations, such as Open Doors International (ODI), have maintained clandestine contact with these Christians in order to help the outside world become aware of
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the persecutions of Iranian Christians.66 The motives for Khomeini’s initial legislation were more political than religious. Khomeini was a masterful politician who “employed the framework of an ideology that dated back thirteen centuries.”67 He relied on Persian myths as well as the Holy Qur’an and the authority of God to assert his control. Armenian Orthodox and Catholic Christians probably fared the best under Khomeini‘s rule, relative to other Christian groups. Armenian Protestant organizations and pastors have not fared nearly as well and have been the frequent focus of attack. Armenian Orthodox and Catholic Christians have had a relationship with Iranians for thousands of years which were mostly marked by amicable coexistence. When Armenians requested to stage an immense march in Teheran on April 24, 2001, to commemorate the Armenian genocide by the Turks, the government gave its blessing. Armenian churches have remained open and unobstructed.68 Once Khomeini came to power, Pope John Paul II sent the Melichite Bishop Hilarion Capucci to serve as an intermediary and to promote the protection and human rights needs of Armenian Catholics within Iran.69 Armenian Christians have faced new obstacles in their path. A handful of their cemeteries were vandalized throughout the country immediately after the revolution, and, in one odd incident, Revolutionary Guards broke into an Armenian Cathedral in 1980 and demanded that a painting of Jesus be repainted to include more clothing on a scantily clad Messiah.70 In 1983, rules were enacted that reduced the extent to which Armenians were allowed to teach the Armenian language in their schools. Further, almost all Armenian schools had unsympathetic Muslim principals and teachers appointed to their staffs by the national government. Many Armenians complained that they experienced extensive discrimination at the workplace, especially in the oil industry, because they were non-Muslims. The decline of foreign tourists particularly hurt Armenians, since they were widely active in that industry. One business that Armenians have been able to maintain is the sale of alcohol.71 In spite of this, many wine shops were burned to the ground or vandalized by righteous rioters.72 State policy (which allowed Armenians to keep all of their businesses open) is one thing, but, in actual fact, all public wine shops are closed, and sale of wine is done covertly. Armenians living among Kurdish populations faced the most problems at the launch of the revolution. In spite of so many troubles, Armenians have amazingly continued to survive, and even thrive, within Iran. The birth of the Armenian national state in 1991, a country with solid ties with Iran, has also helped Armenian
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Christians. There has been increasing levels of travel and trade between Iran and Armenia. The government-issued teaching curriculum which is required for all students in schools throughout Iran (including among the religious minorities) explains that Islamic teachings are superior to all other doctrines. In addition to this obligatory material, the Ministry of Education provides another specific manual to be used among Jews, Zoroastrians, and Christians. This textbook promotes Abrahamic and monotheistic ecumenism and tells students that “life is like a journey, one must know one’s destination, choose to go there and organize one’s trip.”73 The goal of this handbook for religious minority students is to encourage them to embrace a monotheistic view of the world and to reject a secular, westernized, and non-religious view.74 Government leaders fear that secular sentiments among minority factions might lay the groundwork for a host of competing pluralist, separatist, or nationalist ideologies. Assyrian, or Chaldean, Christians are quite apolitical and have for centuries cooperated with any, and every, government whom they have encountered. After the 1979 revolution, however, Assyrian Christians faced many of the same conundrums known to Armenian Christians. For example, the teaching of the Chaldean language was forbidden, and Chaldean schools were closed. Problems increased exponentially, however, for Assyrian Christians with the advent of the Iran-Iraq War where Chaldeans were seen as possible traitors because they were viewed as being directly related to the cultural values and historic legacies of the Iraqi enemy. Because of the problems that they faced in Iran at this time most Chaldean Christians fled to Iraq, North America, or to Europe. Such problems, as significant as they are, are relatively minor compared to the difficulties experienced by Anglicans after the fall of the shah. The Anglican Church, because of its historical connection with Britain, and also because of its evangelistic programs, was the target of a series of state-organized confrontations after the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini. These assaults were surreptitiously orchestrated by the Islamic Propagation Society (and not the government officially), but the government certainly did not oppose these aggressions. Persecution began immediately, in February 1979, when some Anglican institutions were closed and some Anglican Church members were arrested and held without trials. On February 19, 1979, Pastor Arastoo Sayyah, who had originally been a Muslim, was murdered in the offices of his Anglican church in Shiraz. Sayyah had been serving as the pastor in charge of all Anglican
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churches in Fars Province. In another incident, and around the same time, George Braswell reports that an “Iranian Christian pastor opened his study door to two young Iranian men who came to his home ostensibly to seek counsel. Later, in his study, he was found by his wife stabbed to death.”75 On June 11, the Anglican hospital in Isfahan was closed by the government, and the Anglican Church and its offices were raided and looted by known members of the Islamic Propagation Society who declared that the hospital was “a first-class spy base of the West.”76 On July 12, the same thing happened to the Anglican hospital in Shiraz. Bishop Hasan Dehqani-Tafti had his house and diocesan office in Isfahan looted on August 12. His bedroom had been sprayed with bullets, and he would have been killed had he been at home during the raid. Important church documents were burned, and some of the personal property of the bishop was also destroyed. On October 3, a rural property outside Isfahan used by the Anglican Church to train blind people was confiscated. On October 8, Bishop Dehqani-Tafti was arrested while publicly conducting church services in Isfahan. All of these encounters probably revolved around attempts to pressure the bishop to release substantial Anglican Church funds to his foes. While the bishop was eventually released after he skillfully defended himself in court, he was the would-be victim of an assassination attempt of six bullets at point-blank range in the bedroom of his home on October 26. Amazingly, the bishop himself was untouched, and only his wife, Margaret, was wounded in the hand when she jumped on top of her husband to protect him. It is almost certain that Dehqani-Tafti’s status as a former Muslim also contributed to the general antipathy about his presence in the country. Shortly thereafter, the bishop left for Cyprus and England to attend some conferences and was persuaded by friends to remain outside of Iran for his own protection. Vexations continued for the Anglican Church in 1980. Their longtime secretary, a fifty-eight-year-old missionary who had chosen to stay in Iran, Miss Jean Waddell, was tied up and then severely wounded by gunshots in her apartment in Teheran on May 1. Five days later, Bishop Dehqani-Tafti‘s twenty-four-year-old son, Bahram Dehqani, was slain when his car was forced off the road and then commandeered by a gunman who took him to a remote spot in northwest Teheran before executing him. Bahram had been returning from college to visit his mother in Teheran.77 On August 5, the diocesan administrator for Teheran, Dmitri Bellos, was arrested, and, on August 9, three foreign Anglicans who had dedicated their lives to working with the blind in Isfahan were
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apprehended and deported.78 Two other Anglican missionaries who had decided to remain, Dr. John and Mrs. Audrey Coleman, were imprisoned in Teheran on August 10. A week later, Reverend Iraj Mottahedeh, pastor of St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Isfahan was taken into custody along with the Reverend Nosratullah Sharifian, the pastor of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Kerman.79 Another church administrator, Dmitri Bellos, was also incarcerated. No reasons were given for these arrests, but Iranian newspapers reported that the Anglican Church was harboring spies and was involved in other anti-revolutionary activities. All of these Christians were held captive for over six months until they were released through the intervention of Terry Waite, special envoy for the archbishop of Canterbury. The Ayatollah Khomeini’s rhetoric against Christians in Iran became increasingly sharper in the first few years after the revolution. He felt that non-Muslims were loathsome and had the capacity to contaminate the pious by their mere foul presence. The ayatollah, according to Ervand Abrahamian, boasted that he would not eat or drink in any restaurant unless he knew that the waiter was a Muslim.80 In one declaration, he pointed out to the country that the status of Christians, according to Shi’ite tradition, was of those who were ritually unclean (najes), along with urine, stools, and dead bodies.81 Copies of his sermons include such theological questions as “If piety (taqwa) exists among Jews and Christians, why then are they unclean (najes)?”82 Christians at the workplace and at factories were told that they could not touch certain products that would be used by Muslims.83 According to Alfred Guillaume, some devout Shi’ites refused to eat from the same plate or drink from the same cup which had once been used by a Christian.84 It became officially forbidden for any Christian to enter a Shi’ite masjid or holy shrine, to be buried in a Muslim cemetery, or to use the same barbershops or town baths frequented by Muslims.85 It is possible that the ayatollah’s unilateral views on Christians were influenced by the teachings of Sayyid Qutb, who felt that, fundamentally, Western-based Christianity and authentic Islam could never harmoniously coexist.86 Religious minorities, such as Sunnis, Jews, Baha’is, Isma’ilis, and Christians of all denominations, were referred to in Khomeini‘s speeches as traitors and economic plunderers who were enemies of the truth of Islam and of all Muslim intellectuals.87 Such statements encouraged the persecution of Christians and other minorities and contributed to their being further marginalized towards the fringes of society. After two years of these public attacks, the ayatollah began to soften this rhetoric and started to make some private overtures to reli-
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gious minority communities. This welcome tone, however, continued to exclude the Baha’is and those Christians who had previously been Muslims or who were involved in evangelism among Muslims. These changes were launched because new problems were emerging with the war against Iraq and because the country was facing tremendous economic challenges. A number of Iranians were voicing their anger at the overzealous enforcement of a number of draconian religious laws, and this led some to fear possibly violent social tensions. Shortly after the revolution, when anxieties reached a fever pitch between the state of Israel and Iran, on May 9, 1979, a leader of the Jewish community, Habib Elghanian, was publicly executed by an Iranian court on charges of having “contact with Israel and Zionism.”88 Travel restrictions were tightened for Jews, and many were refused passports after the chief rabbi of the community left Iran in 1980 and told others to follow his example. Another Jewish businessman was arbitrarily assassinated in Isfahan around the same time as retaliation for the sufferings of the Palestinian people. These simmering pressures led to a Persian Jewish delegation rushing to Qom to present a substantial financial contribution to the Ayatollah Shariatmadari. Another delegation of Jewish community leaders went to offer gifts and assurances to the Ayatollah Khomeini. Perhaps these circumstances explain why the ayatollah gave speeches, after 1982, which were less vituperative against Iranians who were not Muslims. In one speech, he distinguished Judaism from Zionism and, in another, noted that Imam ‘Ali, the founder of the Shi’ite faith, had treated Jews with the same respect that he gave to fellow Muslims. At one point, the ayatollah arranged a meeting between himself and a delegation of leading Jews during which he assured them that they would be treated with fairness.89 Shiraz, and a few small communities in western Iran, saw anti-Jewish rhetoric burst into riots which created further anguish for local Jews. In spite of these dilemmas, “Iran’s Jewish population remains the largest in the Middle East with the exception of Israel.”90 On the other hand, the government extended some noteworthy olive branches to Christians. In 1979 and 1980, orchestrated electricity blackouts (a regular occurrence in the country) were suspended during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays so that Christians could celebrate their festivities.91 At Christmastime 1982, the Islamic Republic even issued a Christmas postage stamp with a silhouette of Jesus and a Qur’anic verse which was translated into the Armenian language.92 The ayatollah also noted that some non-Muslims had served with honor in the wars against the shah and in the battle against Iraq.93
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Menashri claims that almost half of Iran’s soldiers were ethnic and religious minorities.94 Christians fought with courage and tenacity during the Iraqi War, even though it was presented to Iranians in decidedly religious terminology. A fatwah was issued that said that to carry out jihad was a holy, Islamic duty because Iraq was determined to destroy the true Islam of the Shi’ites. Khomeini even stated that “the battlefield was the place where people were to be educated in religious affairs.”95 How would Christian soldiers, giving their lives for Iran, respond to such an Islamic assertion? For the first time, in the 1980s, local evangelicals began to observe that there was new receptivity from their Muslim neighbors towards their Christian message. Spellman claims that one reason for this might have been that Protestantism, and particularly Pentecostalism, offered to the average Iranian an “advanced form of social differentiation” which was able to gain ground during the country’s social instability.96 Protestant organizations outside the country insist that the church grew by leaps and bounds in this era, although it is impossible to substantiate their claims. Open Doors, one Dutch Christian human rights organization active in Iran, claims that there were fifteen thousand Evangelicals in Iran by the end of the 1980s, while Pentecostals claim that their number had soared to over eight thousand members at that time.97 The activities of all Christians were monitored by the minister of information and Islamic guidance and the Ministry of Religious Affairs. State police also watched their actions to ensure that they were not receiving assistance or developing connections with Christians from other countries. There were many instances in the first decade of the Islamic Republic in which evangelical Christians were called into the offices of these watchdog organizations to be questioned. Evangelical Christians, who had converted from Islam, were considered to be criminals who needed to be sternly punished. The Assemblies of God became a particular focus of persecutions (which will be described in detail in chapter 8). All foreign missionaries were finally expelled from Iran in 1988, and, in that same year, a number of Assemblies of God churches were closed by the government in Mashad (and in Sari) because of their evangelistic outreaches among Muslims. The Ayatollah Khomeini died peacefully on June 3, 1989, surrounded by his family, friends, and confidants.98 He was replaced as the head of the state and the guide of the revolution by his handpicked successor, ’Ali Khamenei.99 It was a surprise choice because Khamenei had no reputation as a scholar and was promoted suddenly from the role of hojjatoleslam to the much more vaunted position of ayatollah.100 At the same time, the Ayatollah Rafsanjani was elected
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to become the new president of the republic. The new government backed away from some of its earlier social reengineering projects and concentrated on economic reforms and the rebuilding of the defensive capabilities of the country after years of a costly war with Iraq. Rafsanjani, however, maintained a tight control on all civic freedoms and harshly opposed any perceived enemies of the state.101 Political elections in 1997 and 2001 saw Mohammed Khatami, a respected reformer, rise to power. Political moderation, however, has not always helped religious minorities in Iran, and, in 1999, thirteen Jews were arrested on charges of spying for Israel.102 A more conservative religious ideologue, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was elected president in 2005 and reelected in 2009. The plight of some religious minorities under Ahmadinejad, such as the Baha’is and evangelical Christians, is at an all-time low. Christians in Iran cannot be lectured on how to relate to their government by those who have not lived under its stern control. Neither, however, can Christians resort to an oppositionalist position vis-à-vis their government which does not seem in keeping with the tone of Christ’s relation to the oppressive Roman Empire. While to some evangelicals, such as David Zeidan, “it is clear that Islam as a political system, especially in its fundamentalist form, is an evil totalitarian system that is rabidly anti-Christian and instigating terror around the world,” such an Islamaphobic view does not help Iranian Christians proceed in their civic interactions in a way that is effective.103 Today, the grandiose burial shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini is a living testament to the devotion that many people still maintain for this leader. The site is already a shrine of pilgrimage and is surrounded by schools, student quarters, and hospitals. Imam Khomeini is buried in a conspicuously Muslim shrine with a classical Persian dome bedecked in gold to evoke the memory of Imam Reza’s shrine in Mashad. People bring flowers and small financial donations and come to the railings around the tomb to intercede for his assistance from paradise. Thursday night, a special night for visiting holy places, often sees thousands of women and children coming to pay their respects and ask the Ayatollah Khomeini for his blessing. At night, the golden shrine glitters with strings of green and golden lights.
NOTES 1. The term “ayatollah” means “Sign of God,” and it is a title given by clerics to those in their midst that they feel are most worthy of this highest
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designation possible for a person of scholarship and piety. Khomeini was exiled in 1964 after criticisms that he leveled against the shah for his modernization program that began in 1963. He went to the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf in Iraq, and his messages were copied onto cassette tapes and then brought into Iran by his devotees. He seemed to speak what many people felt in their hearts and this is why he was so popular when the nation sought new leadership. There were many other contenders in exile who opposed the shah and were ready to take leadership in his absence. Mehdi Bazargan was a French-trained engineer who spoke out against the shah while another secular voice of opposition was registered by ‘Ali Shariati who promoted Islamic modernism. The Communistleaning Tudeh party also had a following while they were in exile based in the Soviet Union. 2. Ahmed, Akbar S. Islam Today: A Short Introduction to the Muslim World. London: I.B. Tauris, 1999, page 109. 3. In 1978, while still in exile, Khomeini called upon all Shi’ites to stage protest marches against the shah during the festival of Muharram which commemorates the martyrdom of Hoseyn. The following year, Khomeini advocated that all Shi’ites return to their neighborhoods and hold a quiet festival. 4. Rahnema, ‘Ali, and Farhad Nomani. The Secular Miracle: Religion, Politics, and Economic Policy in Iran. London: Zed Books, 1990, page 2. 5. Sardar, Ziauddin. Desperately Seeking Paradise. London: Granta Books, 1988, page 163. 6. The Azeris, almost 20 percent of the country, hoped that this period of revolution would advance their hopes for independence. Influential religious and political leaders clamored publicly for greater autonomy. This movement was crushed, and leaders were put under house arrest, such as Ayatollah Shariatmadari, or were killed. The break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s was another era when Azeri nationalist sentiment rose inside Iran. Many Azeri intellectuals who lived in Baku had fled from Iran after World War II and still had links with the Azeris of Iran. Television broadcasts from Baku presented reconstructed maps and showed movies, plays, and musical programs that extolled the history of a greater Azerbaijan. In contrast, the Azeris are often the subject of jokes and ridicule in Iran and even in the Iranian entertainment media. The promotion of negative stereotypes deeply wounds Azeri ethnic pride. Large numbers of Azeris continue to move from Iran into Azerbaijan for economic and political reasons. 7. In one speech Khomeini said of the Americans, They have reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog. If someone runs over a dog belonging to an American, he will be prosecuted. Even if the shah himself were to run over a dog belonging to an American he would be prosecuted. But if an American cook runs over the shah, the head of state, no one will have the right to interfere with him. (Ayatollah Khomeini quoted in Bill, James F. The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1988, page 159).
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8. Initially, Shapur Bakhtiyar, an associate of Dr. Mossadeq, was chosen to lead the interim government because of his long anti-shah record. He lasted for only thirty-seven days before he was forced to flee to Europe. He was assassinated in Paris in 1991 by agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Once the hardliners consolidated power in 1979, they appointed as President Bani Sadr, who was also a moderate. He was also quickly forced out of office because he was seen to be too beholden to Western ideals of democracy. Symbolism replaced substance at this time in the life of the nation. The nation of Israel was denounced, and the embassy of the United States became a symbol of Iranian assertive independence. Another example of symbolism was one of the first acts of the new government—to invite Yassir Arafat to Iran to receive a hero’s welcome. 9. Ayatollah Taleqani was born in 1911 and studied theology in Qom and Najaf. He was arrested by Reza Shah early in his clerical career because he was wearing a turban. This set him on an activist course which lasted throughout his life until his untimely death of a heart attack on September 10, 1979—just six months after the revolution that he had worked for throughout his entire life came to fruition. One of his first acts when he served in the Constituent Assembly of Experts in 1970 was to refuse to sit on the padded chairs that had formerly been used by the senators of the shah’s era. Instead, he sat on the floor. He was the leading architect for a theocratic state and a consistent consensus builder on behalf of Khomeini. 10. In the 1960s and 1970s the shah initiated a series of ruthless attacks against religious institutions that did far more harm than they brought any benefit to his reign. In 1963, the main theological college of Qom was assaulted, and most of the theological colleges in Mashad were destroyed in 1975 under the pretext of improving the site of the major shrine in the city for tourism. He organized a group called the Religion Corps, which was designed to promote moderation in religion, but it was completely ineffective and highly antagonistic. Amazingly, he replaced the Islamic calendar with another of his own making and tried to institute a form of daylight savings time which was seen as an attack on daily Islamic prayers. The work of the Religion Corps is discussed in Arjomand, Said Amir, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, pages 84, 147. 11. The first reign of terror in Iran lasted from June 21, 1981, until the end of December 1982. As many as twenty thousand political prisoners were executed at that time. After this, state terror became more covert and less visible. People simply vanished. A second reign of terror took place in Iran’s prisons in 1988 and 1989. During that time, according to Kazemzadeh, “Iran, with 1 percent of the world’s population, was responsible for 75 percent of all executions worldwide.” This pattern continues into the present. In an article in the New York Times, January 11, 2008 (A7), titled “Hanging and Amputation find Favor in Iran Courts,” Nazila Fathi reports that 298 people were hung in Iran in 2007 and 177 people were publicly hung in 2006. Speaking of amputations, usually for thieves, Fathi writes, “Amputations have been
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a punishment in Iran since the Islamic revolution of 1979 but Iran’s judicial authorities have rarely publicized examples of its use and have rarely ordered double amputations (usually the right hand and the left foot).” Fathi says that doctors perform the amputations and watch to limit bleeding and infection. 12. Alinejad, Mahmoud. “Coming to Terms with Modernity: Iranian Intellectuals and the Emerging Public Sphere.” In Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, volume 13, number 1, 2002, page 25. 13. Euben, Roxanne L. Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999, page 6. 14. Kurds, for example, were very supportive of the revolution because they felt that the shah had persecuted them. The only exception, of course, was among those Kurds who had strong economic and political links to the shah’s government. Many Kurdish fighters from Iraq had fled the rule of Saddam Hussein and settled in Iran. There were close to one hundred thousand peshmarges (“those ready to die”) who had settled in temporary refugee camps. These groups fought among themselves. In 1976, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) fought the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KUP) along the border between Iran and Iraq. Because these groups sought autonomy, they saw the events of 1979 as their opportunity to assert their claims for independence, and Price states that these rebel refugees “played a decisive role in the uprisings against the Islamic Republic in 1979” (Price, 285). After the shah abdicated, Kurdistan became a haven for a whole host of dissenting political groups including previously banned Marxists, monarchists, and the Islamic Mujaheddin. The issue of Kurdish political autonomy was also the focus of spirited discussion in 1979. During the 1981–1988 Iran-Iraq War, Kurdish refugee camps inside Iran were repeatedly bombed by Iraqi forces. On the Iraqi side, the government mined, depopulated, and cleared hundreds of Kurdish villages. This no-man’s land border area remains littered with land mines. Many Kurds in this area make their living through the smuggling of drugs and weapons, which is recognized as a viable way of life. 15. There were many Iranians, including clerics such as Ebrahim Yazdi, who believed that a constitutional democracy was the best way to proceed for Iran’s political future. Yazdi, who lives in Teheran (and once was a faculty member at the Baylor University Medical Hospital in Houston) and is the leader of a small opposition political party, explained: “The day after the revolution, Khomeini was facing the question—What is an Islamic republic? I was in favor of a constitution and elections. They were against it. Khomeini was oscillating, but gradually he turned to the conservative side” (“An Iranian Revolutionary Dismayed but Unbowed” by Michael Slackman in the New York Times, A8, February 1, 2008). 16. Spellman, 163. 17. Throughout his life, the Ayatollah Khomeini kept his distinctive peasant provincial language, which was filled with many rural images and other long-standing marks of rural speech.
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18. This title of honor meant that his family was able the wear a distinguishing black turban and had been clergy for generations since they were descendants of the Prophet Muhammad’s family. Khomeini stated that most of his family came from Nishapur, but some of his ancestors had lived for a short period of time in India, in Kintur near Lucknow. This is why Khomeini’s father was known as Seyyed Ahmad Musavi Hindi. The grandfather moved back to Persia and settled in the town of Khomein in 1839. 19. Axworthy, 245. 20. Ansari, Hamid. The Narrative of Awakening: A Look at Imam Khomeini’s Ideal. Teheran, Iran: International Affairs Office, 1994, page 65. 21. The shah orchestrated this latest exile through negotiations with Iraqi leaders because he felt that it might be too easy for Khomeini to cross the border into Iran. This effort backfired, however, because the ayatollah in Paris was able to galvanize international attention to his cause from that larger stage. 22. Even before Khomeini boarded his Air France flight from Paris it was rumored that his face could be seen in the moon. People went outside to show each other his visage while the moon shone. These incidents all began to underscore the notion that he was the return of the hidden imam. In 1979, when he first arrived, a number of people insisted on asking him directly if he was the return of the Imam of Time. Interestingly, Khomeini chose not to answer these questions or deny these rumors. 23. Bradley, 82. 24. Bradley, 89. The Ayatollah Khomeini’s designated deputy Ayatollah Montazeri publicly spoke against the rulers of Saudi Arabia, calling them a “bunch of pleasure seekers” and wondering “how long must Satan rule in the house of God” (89). 25. It is well known that many of those who died were school boys who were given a special dispensation by the ayatollah to join the army in an edict given on March 20, 1982. Their main purpose was to both blow up mines and to waste enemy ammunition. One Iraqi officer described these advances in the following way: They come on in their hundreds, often walking straight across the minefields, triggering them with their feet as they are supposed to do. They chant Allahu Akbar and they keep coming and we keep shooting, sweeping our fifty millimeter machine guns round like sickles. Once we had Iranian kids on bikes cycling towards us and my men all started laughing, and then these kids started lobbing their hand grenades and we stopped laughing and started shooting. (Bradley, 94)
Ayatollah Khomeini agreed to a United Nations cease fire with Iraq on July 20, 1988, after tensions heightened between the United States and Iran. On July 3, 1988, Iranian boats had fired at a U.S. helicopter. In retaliation, the United States shot down a regular civilian air flight, Iran Air Flight 655 to Dubai, that flew directly over the path of the USS Vincennes, which shot the plane down and killed all 290 people on board. Khomeini agreed to the cease fire rather than fight a war with the United States.
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26. Noorani, A. G. Islam and Jihad: Prejudice verses Reality. London: Zed Books, 2002, page 37. 27. Wright writes that the Students Following the Imam’s Line as the captors announced themselves, were clearly euphoric about their conquest of the den of spies as they dubbed the Embassy. In some ways, this was symbolically as important an achievement as ridding Iran of the shah. It was the fulfillment of the revolution, for the omnipotent Great Satan had been humiliated and defeated. . . . The revolutionary spirit had revived and the hostages’ fate sealed for 444 days—until they were no longer of use to the mullahs in realizing the rest of their domestic agenda. (Wright, Robin, In The Name of God: The Khomeni Decade. New York: Touchstone Books, 1989, pages 79–81)
When the occupation of the United States Embassy began in November of 1979 there were sixty-six people who were held hostage. At the end, there were fifty-two hostages who were held for the entire 444 days. 28. Haught, 199. 29. “Iran Exonerates Six Who Killed in Islam’s Name,” by Nazila Fathi in the New York Times, April 18, 2008, 8. Originally six members of the Basiji state-run militia had been charged for killing five people in Kerman, Central Iran, in 2002. The case was overturned by the Iranian Supreme Court five years later, but the case might be appealed to the full members of the Supreme Court. The six accused were all in their twenties and said that they had taken “their victims outside the city after they had identified them to stone them or drown them in a pond by sitting on their chests.” Another member of the security forces shot and killed a passerby on the Karaj, Teheran, subway for immoral behavior, and he was also released. In Neka, in northern Iran, one sixteen-year-old girl was publicly hung for chastity crimes without the necessary approval from the Supreme Court. 30. This is a common problem in many of the world’s religions. Slavery, for example, is accepted in the Bible (Ephesians 6:5–8; 1 Timothy 6:1–2; 1 Peter 2:18–21) even though Christians find slavery reprehensible, in spite of what divine revelation states. Similarly, the Hebrew Bible commands homosexuals to be put to death (Leviticus 20:13) as well as those who commit adultery (Leviticus 20:10) and have sexual relations with animals (Leviticus 20:15–16), and any child who curses his parents (Leviticus 20:9). 31. Behzad Yaghmaian cited in “Shi’ite Islam in Contemporary Iran: From Islamic Revolution to Moderating Reform” by David Buchman in Michael Feener, editor. Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives. Santa Barbara, California: ABC Clio, 2004. 32. Men were required to wear long pants, not shorts, and a shirt in public. The specific dress restrictions that women have to abide by are detailed later in this book. 33. Masoud Khazemzadeh (Islamic Fundamentalism, Feminism, and Gender Inequality in Iran under Khomeini. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2002, page 17) reports that Khomeini’s son, Hojatolislam Ahmad, responded to a comment made in a Teheran newspaper in 1991.
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34. Article 115 of the Iranian Constitution. Clergy are, by definition, males, and they have an even higher place than the president. 35. Only one month after coming to power, Ayatollah Khomeini nullified the 1967 (amended 1975) Family Protection Law. The divorce rate in Iran changed dramatically overnight from having one of the highest ratings in the world to having one of the lowest—a reduction of almost 50 percent from 1970. Even though census data states that there are more men than women in Iran, shariah laws endorsing polygamy were presented as favorable because they would protect unmarried women. By 1986, over 188,000 women were in polygamous marriages according to Khazemzadeh (21). Men can also have temporary wives (sigeh, or mutah), which their wives do not have to know about, and which can last anywhere between an hour and a hundred years. This is how prostitution is facilitated and adultery is circumvented under Islamic shariah law. Women do not have such privileges, and a woman who commits adultery can be stoned to death. 36. This mandate is from Code 1117 and Article 4 of the Preliminary Labor Law. There are a number of laws that limit what women can do in the workplace. Women, for example, are discouraged from entering law school, and many women who had positions before the revolution were immediately fired afterwards. Women are seen to have a God-given domestic role, and this is why they are discouraged from entering the labor market. 37. This law was passed in 1985. In spite of this law, women with passports simply ignore the law and go abroad to study. One of the attractions for studying abroad came from the fact that laws were set in place which limited women’s access to higher education in Iran after the revolution. Rules about national university entrance exams were changed to ensure that all women who entered were devoted Muslims. Further, 91 of 169 approved study majors were available to women, according to Masoud Kazemzadeh (26). 38. Price, 282. 39. Kazemzadeh (33): 40. Karimi Hakkah, Ahmad, “Iranian Writers and the Revolution of 1979” in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 23, 1991. New York: Cambridge University Press, pages 507–31, 525. 41. When the book first came out it was burned in public protests in Bradford, England, among South Asian Muslims and then again in riots in Islamabad, Bombay, Dhaka, and Karachi. People were killed in these demonstrations. The fatwah which called for the death of the author was issued in 1988 because Salman Rushdie‘s book was seen as a deliberate effort to humiliate and ridicule the Prophet Muhammad and Islam. It was issued, even though Rushdie was not an Iranian, because it was seen to be unacceptable for any Muslim anywhere to read this book according to Iranian clerics. In 1992, the problem was brought to the forefront again when the fatwah was renewed and the bounty was raised by a foundation in Iran for anyone who would kill Rushdie. Many Muslim clerics would have done the exact same thing that Khomeini did because the book was seen to be blasphemous and written by an apostate Muslim. After the Iranian Parliamentary elections of 1996, extremists lost their overall majority in the
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government and President Mohammad Khatami formally distanced himself and his government from this call for Rushdie’s death. 42. Axworthy, 270. In fact, the actual statement that Khomeini made in February 1989 might more accurately be described as a religious judgment (hokm) instead of a legal judgment (fatwah). 43. Khomeini was addressing his remarks about the book to Asian Muslims. Richards writes: It was above all to Asian Muslims that the condemnation of Salman Rushdie was addressed in February 1989. It was less a matter of an anti-Western operation than of an astute maneuver to recover a movement that had gone elsewhere and that the ulema of Saudi Arabia did not dare to touch. By anathemizing the apostate author of The Satanic Verses, Khomeini was killing two birds with one stone. He was proving, contrary to Saudi propaganda, that the Shi’ites were truly strict Muslims, concerned with defending the integrity of the Qur’an and the respect due to Muhammad. He was equally setting himself up—and this was confirmed at the Islamic Conference in Medina where only the Iranian representative dared to uphold the traditional point of view—as the sole effective protector of the Islamic faith in the face of the West’s intrigues. (206)
44. Roy Mottadeh (The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985, page 25) writes of Qom: Qom is a shambling ruin. . . . To the secularized intellectual it seems altogether appropriate that traditional Shi’ah learning should have taken as its home a vast necropolis. To him the six thousand or so students are devoted to a form of learning so antiquated as the mullah clothes they wear, a learning as arid as the climate of Qom itself.
A contemporary poet, Naderpour, sees Qom as many thousand women, many thousand men, women scarves on their heads, men cloaks on their shoulders. A golden dome with old storks, an unpleasant garden with a few isolated trees, empty of laughter, silent of speech, with a half-filled pool with green water, many old crows on piles of stones, crowds of beggars at every step in the road, white turbans, black faces.
45. Moslem, Mehdi. Factional Politics in post-Khomeini Iran. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2003, page 10. The Ayatollah Khomeini was clear that Islamic society should be governed by a faqih, a faithful religious leader who would serve as a religious role model (marja-e taqlid). This ruler will do everything based on the mandates of the Holy Qur’an and will also be expected to receive direct divine guidance. It is a line of succession from the Prophet, through the imams, to the present day that all devoted Muslims should accept. Muslims should willingly give up their sovereignty and rights to these just foqaha. 46. The political party PMOI or the People’s Mojahedin (Sazeman-e Mojahedin-e Khalq e-Iran) was completely repressed by a fatwah issued against
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them by the Ayatollah Khomeini on the grounds that the PMOI had abstained from voting for the constitution of Iran. They were also accused of treason and terrorism. They were clearly anti-clerical and aggressively supported women’s rights, human rights and the rights of ethnic and religious minorities such as Christians in Iran against the fundamentalism of Khomeini. 47. Mohaddessin, Mohammad. Enemies of the Ayatollahs: The Iranian Opposition’s War on Islamic Fundamentalism. London: Zed Books, 2004, page 76. The NCRI was a coalition party where half of all members are women (Mohaddessin, 74). Both the PMOI and the NCRI have been accused by the government of terrorist and treasonous activities due to their networks outside the country. The PMOI was placed on a list of terrorist organizations as “a goodwill gesture to Iran” (79) under the Clinton administration. None of its military operations are ever targeted against the civilian population, and it does not carry out attacks outside of Iran. 48. This concession for religious minorities, Homa Omid notes, is in clear contrast to the fact that cultural minorities such as the Kurds, Turkmen, and Baluchis were not given any direct recognition of any degree of autonomy (Omid, Homa, Islam and the Post-Revolutionary State in Iran. London: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, page 68). Omid also notes that Kurds, Turkmen, and Baluchis were also forbidden to publish newspapers or teach in their own language, unlike concessions made to Armenians. The decision of the new Iranian government seems rooted in its understanding of Qur’anic tolerance for religion whereas there is no explicit mention of cultural difference. In contrast, the People’s Republic of China has chosen to exclude religious representation and focus on cultural distinction in order to create a sense of inclusion in its government. 49. Non-Muslim members of the Iranian Parliament are allowed to serve on most House committees but are not allowed to be members of government committees that focus on foreign affairs or judicial affairs. 50. Zoroastrians do not officially accept converts which makes them a non-proselytizing religion. A number of Iranians, particularly young people, however, have chosen to convert to the Zoroastrian faith. Further, some Baha’is describe themselves on records and documents as Zoroastrians to avoid persecution. The young Zoroastrians seem to have very few links with their historic predecessors in terms of ritual. New Fire Temples have been built in Shiraz, Isfahan, Ahvaz, and in other locations since 1979. The ritual of jumping over fire was officially banned by the government, but people still jump over bonfires in a purification rite. 51. Haught, 200. 52. Fischer, Michael M. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1980, page 229. 53. The Christian representatives must be either Assyrian or Armenian. There is no contingency for any Christian from any other group being allowed to serve. This includes Protestant Christians. The Anglican Church of Iran was formally “declared dysfunctional in Iran in 1981” (Price, 315), and other groups are not recognized. At present, there are two seats reserved for Armenians, but
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this might be reduced to one because of the number of Armenians who are leaving the country in large numbers. 54. Menashri, David. The Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990, page 60. This violence against the Baha’is also functioned as something of a safety-pressure valve. Long-standing negative local prejudices against the Baha’is were now sanctioned by devout clerics. 55. Dr. Mansur Farhang, speaking on behalf of the Iranian revolutionary government, explained to the Western media that the persecution of Baha’is was justified because “they had been recruited in great numbers into SAVAK and had been trained in Israel” (Fischer, 227). 56. Akhavi, Shahrough, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran: Clergy-State Relations in the Pahlavi Period. Albany, New York: State University of Albany Press, 1980, page 82. The worst period for the Baha’is under the shah’s rule was in mid-1955 when a new prime minister, Husayn ’Ali, came to power. This same prime minister attacked Muslim clerics as “bearded infantiles” and “lying prophets and hypocrites” (83). 57. Moaddel, Mansoor, “Class Struggle in Post-Revolutionary Iran” in the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Volume 23, 1991, New York: Cambridge University Press, pages 317–43, 334. 58. Price, 319. 59. It was also reported that, since Islamic law forbids the execution of virgins, Mona Mahudnzhad was probably raped in prison by her captors before she was executed. The Shi’ite prayer “Lord, leave not a single family of infidels on the Earth” was reportedly prayed at her execution. 60. Haught, 202. This pattern has continued after this initial period. Amnesty International reports that in the first nine months of 1989 another 1,466 Iranian political and religious prisoners were executed. 61. Wright, 181. 62. Jahanbakhsh, Forough. Islam, Democracy, and Religious Modernism in Iran (1953–2000): From Bazargan to Soroush. Leiden, the Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 2001, page 34. 63. Spellman, 162. 64. According to Ziauddin Sardar (216), the word “shariah” literally means “the path or road leading to water,” which Sardar takes to be a reference to the waters of paradise. Article 4 states that all penal, financial, civil, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based solely on shariah law and can never contradict shariah. This, of course, is based on a Shi’a interpretation of these laws. Article 12 of the constitution is clear that “the official religion of Iran is Islam and the Twelfth Ja’fari School.” 65. Price, 281–82. Some of the articles in the constitution that seem to guarantee equal rights for all citizens are Articles 15 (which seems to allow for the use of regional and tribal languages and for education) and 19 (which states that all people enjoy equal rights). Article 14 claims that all Iranians are “obliged to treat non-Muslims in conformity with ethical norms and the
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principles of Islamic justice and equity and to respect their human rights.” Article 13 cites only three religious minorities as having any rights at all, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Christians. An English translation of the Constitution has been made available by the government and is published in Teheran (see bibliography under Iranian Constitution). 66. Open Doors International can be contacted in the United Kingdom at P.O. Box 6, Witney, Oxon, England, and in the United States at Open Doors International, P.O. Box 27001, Santa Ana, California, 92799. 67. Wright, 59. 68. Over ten thousand Armenians participated in the April 24, 2001, rally commemorating the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. The Iranian government has, generally, been supportive of recognizing the Armenian genocide. When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Yerevan in 2007, however, he had been scheduled to visit the Armenian Genocide Memorial on the last day of his visit but cancelled this trip, perhaps because of pressure from the Turkish government. 69. Bishop Hilarion Capucci might have been an ideal candidate in the estimation of Pope John Paul II for such a mission to Teheran because he had been arrested by the Israeli government in 1974 under the suspicion of having smuggled arms to Palestinians. Although this charge was never proven, it would have assuaged any fears that Iranians might have had about the political enthusiasms of Bishop Capucci. 70. Foltz, 2004, 166. 71. Armenians are allowed to drink wine because it is required in their communion services. They have also historically controlled the illegal trafficking in alcohol among Muslims. Under the guise of providing other services, such as plumbing or carpentry, Armenians are known to come to some Muslims’ homes that they are able to trust and provide alcohol in exchange for cash or other favors. 72. Armenian wine shops have frequently been targeted for attack well before the 1979 revolution. Michael Fischer writes: The burning of wine shops is perhaps a good example of the dynamics of one kind of conservative pressure. Just after Reza Shah abdicated the throne in 1941, an Armenian from Qazin had the temerity to open a liquor store near the shrine. . . . Some youths got some gasoline and the crowd set the Armenian store on fire, then they crossed the river to the new town and gutted the remaining liquor stores and warehouses there. Ever since, liquor has been available only through private houses; the police will not license a liquor store. (112)
73. Richards, 198. 74. This raises the obvious question as to how the word “secular” is understood in the context of the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to K. Helmut Reich and Raymond F. Paloutzian the term has a specific technical usage that “secularism connotes materialism, modernity, and the secularization of society, that secular notions assume that religion is impractical and full of contradictions, and that such notions corrupt societies and Islamic society in
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particular” (“Editor’s Note,” in The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. Volume 12, number 4, 2002, page 213). 75. Braswell, 175. 76. Bradley, 165. 77. While grieving in England, Bishop Dehqani-Tafti wrote the following prayer of forgiveness for those who killed his son: “O God, Bahram’s blood has multiplied the fruit of the Spirit in the soil of our souls. So, when his murderers stand before Thee on the day of judgment remember the fruit of the Spirit by which they have enriched our lives, and forgive” (Bradley, 166). Bishop Dehqani-Tafti remained in exile serving as the associate bishop of Winchester and writing prolifically until his death in April 2008. 78. Anglicans had a number of ministries focused on assisting the blind. These included the Christoffel Centre for the Blind, the Nur Akin Institute for the Blind, and the Cyrus the Great Training School for the Blind. Between thirty and forty expatriates were working in these institutions at the time of the 1979 revolution, and all but a handful left at that time. 79. Reverend Iraj Mottahedeh was appointed bishop over the Anglican Church in Iran and led the church from 1986 until 2004. At present (2009) the bishop is Azad Marshall of Pakistan, who lives outside of Iran. 80. Abrahamian, Ervand. Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic. Berkley: University of California Press, 1993, page 46. 81. Spellman, 165. She also quotes E. Abrahamian, who says that Khomeini’s views about religious minorities were even more vituperative: Even more loathsome were non-Muslims, including the traditionally tolerated People of the Book—the Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. Being non-Muslim they were considered to be kafer—infidels—and thus, according to Shi’a tradition, were najes (unclean), they could not marry Muslims, touch the Qur’an, bury their dead in Muslim cemeteries, or use public places such as barbershops, town baths, and walk the streets during rainstorms.
82. Fischer, 71. 83. The Armenian-Iranian Eliz Sanasarian describes this attitude as nejasat (impurity) consciousness (Foltz, 2004, 167). 84. Alfred Guillaume quoted in Swisher, Clarice, editor. The Spread of Islam. San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, 1999, chapter 4 by Edward Mortimer titled “The Historical Development of Islamic Sects,” page 147. 85. Many of these restrictions, however, were only on the books, and I was told by a few Armenians in Iran that many of these prohibitions were overlooked at the local level. In 2008, when I visited the holy shrines at Qom and Mashad, although I was asked if I was a Muslim, I was allowed to attend all but the most sacred areas of these shrines. It is assumed, according to an Armenian source, that only tourists would visit such facilities, and local Christians are expected to know they have no reason to visit certain places. 86. Selengut, Charles. Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence. Walnut Creek, California: Altamira Press, 2003, page 76. Qutb believed that Christianity gave rise to the “vacuous and materialistic and depraved” culture
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of the West and that Christianity “and its notions of sin and redemption made no sense at all and the concept of the trinity was idolatrous” (Selengut, 76). There is a clear link between Khomeini’s ideas and the foundational writings and teachings of Sayyid Qutb. Qutb is credited with “influencing ’Ali Shari’ati, a writer some scholars have dubbed the Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution” (Euben, 54). Khomeini wrote that Qutb’s critique of the West was not particular to Sunni Islam (Euben, 117). Both Qutb and Khomeini taught that laws were established by God, and both were virulently anti-Western. Hamid Algar notes that Qutb’s book Social Justice in Islam was translated and widely distributed throughout Iran in the 1970s and 1980s. 87. Spellman, 165. 88. Fischer, 228. 89. The meeting, described by Farhad Kazemi, took place in February 1979, and the ayatollah was clear at this meeting that it was essential for Iranian Jews to have nothing to do with Zionists (Kazemi, in Rosen, 91). 90. Price, 316. 91. Orthodox Christians, of course, celebrate Christmas on January 6 and not December 25 so this date was also included in the provision that Christians receive unlimited electrical supplies on those particular dates. 92. Spellman, 165. 93. Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in September of 1980 claiming that Iraq had sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab River that separated the two countries. The actual motive for attack was probably Saddam Hussein’s worries that the Shi’ite Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran was already being imported into Iraq by devoted followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The United States strongly supported Iraq in this effort. The war lasted until 1988, with little actual benefit coming to either nation after an unbelievable cost in lives. 94. Menashri, cited in Gieling, Saskia. Religion and War in Revolutionary Iran. London: I. B. Tauris, 1999, page 65. 95. Gieling, 61. 96. Spellman, 166. 97. Spellman, 166. 98. Khomeini became the first Iranian leader to die peacefully in his own country since 1907. 99. Previously, Khomeini had chosen the Ayatollah Husayn ’Ali Motazeri but set aside this ayatollah after he made comments deemed critical of the fatwah issued against Salman Rushdie. He was born in Najafabad near Isfahan and was sent there to exile where he is still living. 100. Several senior ayatollahs protested this sudden elevation. 101. One can cite countless examples of political dissidents who were killed in Iran during the reign of Rafsanjani. Political murders were also carried out, however, outside of Iran. In 1992, four Iranian Kurdish leaders were killed in a Berlin restaurant called Mykonos. Five years later, on April 10, 1997, Berlin’s highest criminal court reached a verdict that found that Rafsanjani, Foreign Minister Ali Velayati, and Supreme Leader ’Ali Khamenei guilty of masterminding the murders. Iranian in exile Roya Hakakian is the cofounder of the
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Iran Human Rights Documentation Center in Germany, and she has written a book about the political assassinations at the Mykonos restaurant. 102. The thirteen Jews were residents of Shiraz and Isfahan. Their number included a rabbi, a kosher butcher, several Hebrew language teachers, businessmen, and even a sixteen-year-old boy. The defendants went on trial on May 1, 2000, and were forbidden from hiring their own lawyers to defend their case. The court was closed to observers and even family members. The results were that nine of the thirteen confessed and a tenth was sentenced while three, including the young boy, were acquitted. Their sentences ranged from four to thirteen years. Only three years later the final defendant was released. Account of events is from Bruce Feiler (Where God Was Born: A Journey by Land to the Roots of Religion. New York: William Morrow, 2005, pages 327–31). 103. Zeidan, David. Sword of Allah: Islamic Fundamentalism from an Evangelical Perspective. Waynesboro, Georgia: Gabriel Publishing, 2003, page 134.
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Contemporary Christianity in Iran
Some Israelites insulted Jesus one day as he was walking through the marketplace. Jesus answered them only by praying for each of them by name. Someone watching this said to Jesus, “Why do you pray for these people? Do you not feel anger at their harsh treatment against you?” Jesus answered, “I can only spend what I carry in my purse.” Attar When God wants to make a poor man happy, he causes him to lose his donkey and then find it again. Armenian proverb
A small but vibrant Christian community still remains in Iran. Recent political changes that have fostered a desire to immigrate have dramatically depleted their number, and, today, only between 2 and 4 percent of the entire population consists of Christians.1 There may even only be as few as one hundred fifty thousand Christian Iranians, only half of the number that existed before the 1979 revolution, which largely encouraged this mass exodus.2 Although its numbers are miniscule, the Christian churches of Iran are made up of determined believers who are willing to overcome daunting frustrations for their faith. They make up a diverse array of Christian fellowships from four major groups: Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant or Evangelical Christians.
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ORIENTAL ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS The term “Oriental” has been used generally by church historians to describe those Orthodox Christians who have established congregations of faith independent of Byzantine and Russian Orthodoxy. Orthodox churches worldwide have always based their hierarchy and ceremonial traditions in the specific contexts with which they have found themselves. Nicholls comments that Orthodox churches are not unified with the same organizational and ritual structure but are a “communion of sister churches joined by sharing the same faith and sacraments.”3 Christ Jesus alone is the head of the church, and no individual human should, in the estimation of Orthodox Christianity, be accorded the extent of authority presently assumed by the Roman Catholic pope. Jurisdictional disputes, and not theological differences, characterize many of the distinct Orthodox Christian communions worldwide.4 Speaking of Assyrian Nestorian Christians, Price explicates that they “are often viewed as the most complex Christian group in the Middle East.”5 In the Iranian context, these churches are also called Nestorian or Assyrian churches, and they often refer to themselves as the Catholicate of the East. The Assyrian and Chaldean Church of the East is an ancient community which broke from Western Christians at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. This church, because of exiled congregations and decades of hostile repression, has now established its patriarchic see in the United States. Services in the Assyrian and Chaldean Church of the East are usually held in the Chaldean language around the world. This church is not in communion with any other Christian church and has no connection with any other church in Iran. A separate Chaldean rite was formed in 1672 when certain Assyrian Christians did not accept the return of Nestorian Christians into fellowship. A fixed hierarchy for the church was not formed until 1830 with a separate Chaldean patriarch. The Chaldean Church overshadowed the size of the original Nestorian church, especially in Iran and Iraq. The Chaldean Church grew under the oversight of Patriarch Emmanuel II Thomas (from 1900 to 1947), and today the Chaldean Church comprises about 70 percent of all Christians who remain in Iraq. This church has suffered severe persecutions from various Islamic factions, however, because of the two American sponsored wars in Iraq against Saddam Hussein (a patron of the Chaldean Church). In 1995, there were only about three hundred fifty thousand Chaldean Christians remaining in Iraq and about eleven thousand left in Iran.6
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The current supervision of the Chaldean Church is based in Lebanon. The Assyrian Church of the East is one of the oldest Christian churches in the world and traces its foundations to St. Thomas and the other earliest apostles. Their church architecture is simple, and their altars are unadorned with icons. Services are conducted in the ancient Syriac language. One of the earliest bishoprics of the Assyrian Church was in the Persian royal capital of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. This close link with the political powers of the Sasanian Era obliged this church to cease from any contact with the Byzantine Orthodox Churches beginning as early as in the fourth and fifth centuries. The reasons for the schism between Oriental and Eastern Orthodox churches, then, were not theological, but logistical and political.7 This church is usually referred to as a Nestorian church, but, in actual fact, there is no direct historical connection to Bishop Nestorius. Over time, however, the Church of the East came to hold the same doctrine of the separation of the two natures of Christ that Eastern Orthodox Christians have long considered heretical—but they were warmly embraced by Assyrian Nestorian Christians. This shows a glimpse of the centuries-long and fascinating interplay between historical Nestorians and the ancient Assyrian Church of the East. Warfare erupted between the Christian Assyrians and the Muslim Kurds at the end of World War I. Thousands of Assyrian Nestorians were massacred in 1918 by their Kurdish neighbors in Iraq before Mesopotamia was placed under British rule with the welcome arrival of Major General Lionel Charles Dunsterville (d. 1946).8 These Assyrian Nestorians, at the start of World War I, were promised protection by the invading Russian army who captured Urmiah. Assyrian Nestorians sought this protectorship because they had feared that Turks would descend on them and do to them what they had poured out on the defenseless Armenians of Turkey. Their motive for this alliance was always for their own physical protection and never with the hope of establishing their own politically independent motherland. When the Russians took control of Urmiah, one missionary, Mrs. William Shedd, exalted, “our hearts beat to the measure of the Psalmist’s music.”9 The relief was short-lived, however, because the Russian troops suddenly evacuated, leaving their Assyrian allies to the whims of their hostile Kurdish neighbors. The Assyrians were slaughtered without mercy in retaliation for what had earlier happened to Kurdish families at the hands of the Russian invaders, who had cruelly attacked and robbed them without any provocation. The Assyrian Church of the East was granted full membership in the MECC in 1994 which was the same year that Patriarch Mar
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Dinkha IV met with Pope John Paul II to sign what was called the Common Christological Declaration. These moves show that the members of the Assyrian Church of the East—the Nestorians—are no longer regarded by the Catholic Christians as being outside the pale of normative Christian fellowship. This marked a dramatic shift for the Assyrians as well because, for centuries, they had not been involved in any efforts to build any sort of ecumenical alliances. The controversies of the past have faded in light of a mutual recognition of respect and the genuine conviction that earlier doctrinal arguments were largely the result of nuanced misunderstandings and political and regional differences. After World War I, many Assyrian Nestorians immigrated to Europe and then to North America. Their congregations in Canada and the United States now allow them to be able to live in peace after centuries of seemingly unmitigated persecution. The Assyrian Church of the East has its international headquarters in the United States but still has assemblies in Iran, and those churches are committed to the linguistic and religious education of their children to remain true to the legacies of their culture and faith.10 The storied people of Armenia have one of the most colorful, tragic, and enduring histories of any society in world history. Armenian historian Pasermadjian writes of his countrymen that “a nation is not only a state and a frontier, it is above all a mission. In the case of Armenia, the mission was to serve as intermediary and interpreter between East and West.”11 This role was played to perfection in Persia. Persia, however, was only one component of a vast Armenian history. Armenians believe that their primordial land was visited by Noah and his descendants and that the Ark of the prophet landed on Mt. Ararat in Armenia. The term “Armenia” is a Greek and Persian (Armina) term, and Armenians call themselves Haikh and their country Hayastan. Armenia emerged as a vassal nation under the Persian King Darius I (521–486 B.C.E.) and was later included among the list of nations within Alexander’s vast empire. The foundations of Armenian Christianity date back to the time of the Apostles. Christian tradition holds that both St. Bartholomew and St. Thaddeus journeyed to Armenia in order to proclaim the message of Christ.12 Those who believed were the first Armenian Christians to be persecuted under the rule of King Artashes in 110 and again under King Khosrov around 230. Armenia became the first kingdom in the world to proclaim Christianity as the state religion in 301, shortly after King Trdat was miraculously healed by prayer and subsequently converted to the faith.13Almost all Armenians promptly followed their king’s edict and became baptized as Christians.
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Charles Kimball has observed that “the unity and strength of this church through the centuries has been visible to all: to be an Armenian has always been practically synonymous with being a Christian.”14 In turn, it was the Armenian Church, according to Sirarpie der Nersessian, that served the nation through many perilous times by being the “guardians of the language and of the traditions of the people.”15 Armenia was under Persian domination for centuries of its labyrinthine history. J. R. Russell notes that “Armenian religious vocabulary is almost entirely Iranian and covers most Zoroastrian ideas, religious institutions and instruments.”16 The province of Armenia is first cited in Iranian sources during the pre-Christian Achaemenid Era. Pagan pre-Christian Armenian rituals, such as exposure of the dead to vultures, bore a striking resemblance to similar Persian practices. The chief deity of pre-Christian Armenia was Aromas, the Armenian equivalent of the Persian god Ahura Mazda. The remainder of the Armenian pantheon of gods also closely paralleled the pantheon of Iranian deities.17 Small numbers of Armenians throughout history, called Arewordik or “Children of the Sun,” remained Zoroastrian and never converted to Christianity. One of the most consistent, distinctive features of all expressions of Armenian Christians in Persia throughout their history has been their fierce sense of loyalty to their Persian leadership, whomever that may be. This trend continues into the present. Nina Garsoian observes, “The Christian bishops of Iran invariably have stressed in fulsome terms their loyalty to the Persian crown and have opened their councils with prayers for the welfare of the Zoroastrian (or Muslim) ruler, and have disassociated themselves formally from the authority of Church fathers further to the West.”18 More than opportunism and contingency, this quality of loyalty burns deeply within the Armenian soul and has usually (with the horrid exception of the later Ottoman Empire) created space with their neighbors for the toleration of their religion and culture throughout most of their history. Armenian Christians first settled in Persia during the Sasanian Period. In the fifth century, Persian Nestorian Christians trekked into Armenia seeking converts. Armenia was also a key battleground in the steady advance of Islam, and Armenians often found themselves serving as go-betweens with both the Christian Byzantines and the Arabs. The nation was frequently a war zone at the precarious faultline of competing civilizations, and all Armenians could often do was to focus on their own basic survival which, in itself, was no easy task. When Islam came to Persia, the Armenians faced high, punitive taxes which
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put heavy pressures on them either to convert to Islam or to “abandon their entire holdings and seek refuge in Byzantium.”19 When Persian Safavid kings waged a scorched-earth war against the Ottomans, it was the Armenians who faced the brunt of the suffering and atrocities. In one particularly amazing forced exile (described in chapter 3), tens of thousands of Armenians were transplanted from Julfa on the Araxes River (Azerbaijan) and resettled in the Safavid capital of Isfahan (New Julfa) in order to build a palace along the banks of the southern branch of the Zayandeh River. A viable Armenian community exists in New Julfa to this very day. The Armenian Apostolic Church, also known as the Armenian Orthodox Church, is the most prominent of the Oriental Orthodox churches in Iran. To distinguish themselves from Armenian Catholics, they sometimes refer to themselves as Georgian Armenians in recognition of their spiritual lineage that begins with St. George.20 They are the largest group of Christians in Iran and number more than two hundred thousand in more than thirty-five different parishes.21 Armenians are not only a religious group but also a clearly definable ethnicity which has very little social contact (e.g., intermarriages) with people outside of its own ethno-linguistic community. The Armenian Apostolic Church has ties to the Catholicate of Cilicia in Lebanon. Armenian Orthodox Christians rally around the guidance of the Catholicos which is based in Lebanon. The graceful liturgy of the Armenian Church was developed at the dawn of the Christian tradition and is sung in the ancient Armenian language.22 Armenian Christians join with other Orthodox believers in affirming the theological certitude of the Council of Ephesus (431).
EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCHES IN IRAN The theological and ecclesiological distinctions between Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Christians are not consequential. They mostly pertain to terms, to titles, and to ecclesiastical organization. There are a number of Eastern Orthodox churches in Iran, including both Greek and Russian Orthodox communions.23 The broader term “Eastern Orthodox” is used to describe the major type of church. The terms “Greek” and “Russian” can be misleading to some because these terms refer primarily to the language of the ritual that is used in liturgical services.24 All Eastern Orthodox churches have a structure of administration consisting of patriarchs. This ancient system came from the first Christians who divided the oversight of their fellowships
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based on geographical considerations. A region would form a diocese and would report to a bishop who would rule over that diocese. Eastern Orthodox Christians, unlike Oriental Orthodox Christians, recognize the patriarch of Constantinople as the Ecumenical Patriarch and the “first among equals” (primus inter pares) over all congregations. The Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East has churches in Iran. This is the largest Eastern Orthodox community in the Middle East. The church began in Antioch where followers of Christ were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). It holds services in Arabic and tries to reach out to the needs of the local Christian parish. While Orthodox and Catholic Christians have had amicable relations in Iran, there have been more frequent tensions with Evangelicals (Protestants) who have been repeatedly aggressive in trying to convert Orthodox Christians into their Evangelical churches.
CATHOLICISM IN IRAN The schism between Catholic and Orthodox Christians was concretized in 1054 over the primacy of the pope in Rome and over Roman Catholic revisions of the Nicene Creed (written in 382). Catholicism is small but strong within modern-day Iran, and the Catholic Church has a long history relating to the people of Persia. What is known as the Roman Catholic Church in the West is called the Latin Church in the Middle East and in Iran. Catholics who live in the country are primarily members of the Chaldean Catholic Church which was founded in the sixteenth century and has its largest number of constituents in neighboring Iraq. This is why the term Chaldean, a synonym for Babylonian, is used to describe this church. The head of the Chaldean Catholic Church is the patriarch of Babylon, and he has his main mission from Baghdad. As was the case for all other congregations resident in both of these two neighboring countries, Chaldeans came under suspicion during the rampant nationalist paranoia of the Iran-Iraq War. The Armenian Catholic Church was a presence in Iran before the Armenian Genocide, but their numbers noticeably swelled after 1915. When the Council of Chalcedon met in 451, many Armenian Christians were in agreement with its theological formulations. Those who rejected the doctrinal formulations of Chalcedon became part of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The center for Armenian Catholicism shifted to Cilicia (Lebanon) when crusaders forged alliances with an Armenian king. Jesuit, Dominican, and Franciscan monks followed, and relations between Rome and Armenia continued to strengthen in
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the coming centuries. One can even suggest, as does Kenneth Cragg, that one of the principal reasons that Armenians first embraced Catholicism was to create external alliances which would help sustain their survival against intimidating odds.25 The ancient Armenian language is used in Armenian Catholic worship services while the format and liturgical patterns come directly from Roman Catholicism. The largest concentration of Armenian Catholics is in New Julfa and Teheran. In 1995, there were probably sixty thousand Armenian Catholics living throughout the Middle East, and only a fraction of these were resident in Iran.26 In recent years, Catholic and Orthodox dignitaries have met together to try to bridge the gaps between their two faith communities. Pope Paul VI met with Patriarch Athenegoras of Constantinople in 1964, and in that meeting both church leaders repealed the mutual anathemas issued in 1054. Many of these Catholic churches are showing hopeful signs of gradual renewal and have managed to keep most of their young people within their ranks. One of the biggest conundrums faced by the Catholic Church is the temptation that many devoted Christians face in hoping to leave Iran and the Muslim world for the relative peace and financial promise available for their families in Europe or North America. In the area of Muslim-Christian interactions, the Catholics of Iran are the beneficiaries of a host of recent Catholic initiatives designed to explore the theological issues between the two religions. The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) promoted Catholic dialogue with Islam and cited the merits of Islam in two specific instances in their declarations.27 In May 1964, Pope Paul VI instituted the Secretariat for NonChristians (SNC) which has sought to guide and stimulate interfaith dialogue.28 The Pontifical Study Center for Muslim-Christian Dialogue in Rome publishes a journal once a year called Islamochristiana and a smaller bulletin called Encounter.29
IRANIAN EVANGELICALISM Protestant missionaries began landing in Iran at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Today, there is a panoply of distinct Protestant churches. These are often called “Evangelical” instead of Protestant because those who responded to the message of the Protestant missionaries were called injiliyyeh from the Arabic term which refers to evangelists. The missionaries brought with them not only the Christian message but also a pattern of building schools and hospitals.
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Evangelicals have always been committed to sharing their Christian faith among their Muslim neighbors both through acts of mercy and kindness as well as through sharing the gospel message that God was resident in the revelation of Christ Jesus. Many Evangelical denominations are to be found in modern Iran. This has been both a positive and negative factor, since the divisions inherent in these distinctions have also been imported into the Iranian-Christian equation. One particular problem was that many Evangelicals refused to recognize the authenticity of the Christian faith of their ancient Orthodox or Catholic brothers and sisters. Many of their initial efforts, and most of their first converts, were drawn from among the numbers of Christians from Orthodox or Catholic traditions. On the positive side (and especially recently), a number of ecumenical efforts have been initiated to breech these interpersonal and historical legacies and began to work together simply as Christians to address shared interests. The Middle East Council of Churches has been one of the primary catalysts behind a number of encouraging ecumenical efforts throughout the Middle East and especially within Iran. The Synod of the Evangelical Church in Iran (SECI) has a membership which is about 55 percent Assyrian and 21 percent Armenian, with the rest of their number consisting of ethnic Persians.30 These churches are active in both medical and educational ministries, but some of these efforts were closed with the revolution of 1979. The good news is that several local elementary schools, connected to local Evangelical congregations, have managed to continue to operate. Synod fellowships hold traditional Presbyterian services with the varied local needs also being expressed in their functioning. Services are conducted in Armenian, Farsi, Turkish, and Syriac. Bailey and Bailey reported that in the late 1980s there were forty-one synod congregations with over 3,100 members.31 Many of these churches are found in the northern part of Iran while the national headquarters for the SECI is located in Teheran.32 Iranian Armenian Christians are also members of the Union of Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East (UAECNE), and they seek to build ever stronger relationships among all Iranian Armenians. This promising coalition, which began as a reformation of the Mother Church—the Armenian Apostolic Church—has tried to maintain ongoing ties with their ancient roots. Their primary reason for breaking with their Orthodox parents was their desire to identify only with biblical texts and not to feel obliged to base church identification on the basis of historical and foreign creeds.33 Members of this group were excommunicated in Turkey, and many of them relocated to Iran after
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the Armenian Genocide of 1915. These Evangelical Armenians have sought to improve closer ties with members of other faith communities. Armenian Evangelicals, like their colleagues in the Orthodox and Catholic community, remain focused on educational programs, but most of their churches have day schools, Sunday schools, and youth meetings to aid their young people in appreciating the values of their ancient faith. Another denomination, the Armenian Evangelical Spiritual Brotherhood (sometimes also known as Armenian Brethren), maintains a small presence in Iran. This group is committed to lay leadership of appointed elders and has no ordained clergy. They maintain a pietistic way of life and primarily follow an Anabaptist theology. They hold the Lord’s Supper celebration every week and stress active evangelism among non-Christians. Armenian Brethren are related to Christian Brother’s churches in Iran and with the Plymouth Brethren Churches of England and the United States. The Seventh-Day Adventists are another international church which claims to have members remaining active within modern Iran. Congregants are committed to evangelism and a strict daily life which includes a rigid diet. Their name comes from the fact that they worship on Saturdays and maintain that the Second Advent (or the coming) of Christ is drawing ever closer. Their presence in Iran is the result of missionary activity which began in the 1960s although it is not possible to ascertain exactly how many Seventh-Day Adventist congregations remain active in modern Iran. There are several Anglican parishes in Iran, and more than half of the members of some of these parishes are expatriates.34 The same is true of Presbyterian churches in Iran. Evangelicals constitute probably the largest groups of Protestants in modern Iran. The numbers of Presbyterians and Anglicans were small before the 1979 revolution, and many of their contingent fled the country after that time due to increasing persecutions. As mentioned earlier, the first Pentecostals in Iran were Assyrian and Armenian Christians, and in the 1920s there was a small Assyrian and Armenian Pentecostal church in Teheran. The Assemblies of God entered the country as a result of missionary efforts but chose to remain unaffiliated with other Evangelical groups. They emphasize the power of Pentecost and the supernatural work of God among their assemblies. Dreams, visions, miracles, prophecies, and other supernatural manifestations are seen as God-given and available to all Christians regardless of title or education. Pentecostal teachings often include the conviction that God gives to believers spiritual gifts such as the ability
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to speak in tongues or to perform miracles. Their view is in contrast with other Evangelicals who acknowledge the biblical basis for this phenomenon but discount their relevance or appearance among the contemporary church. Assemblies of God congregations have pastors, but they actively encourage the participation of their membership and are committed to evangelistic efforts, even among their Muslim neighbors. These autonomous churches have a loose affiliation with other Assemblies of God churches worldwide.35 Evangelicals grow their congregations through proselytism. People from the lower and middle classes are often the target of their evangelistic efforts, and many are also Assyrian or Armenian in their ethnic background. Many were nominal Muslims, but a few have related that they came from strident Islamic homes. When converts decide to become Christians they obviously do not usually begin with a deep grounding in Christian doctrinal teachings. Converts to Pentecostalism often relate that they came to their dramatic decision to become Christians after dreams, visions, or even miraculous healings. Some became Christians because they saw in their Christian friends and neighbors admirable personal qualities such as loving-kindness or honesty. Others were touched by the dedication of Christians even though they faced serious problems of persecution. Prerevolutionary missionary hospitals and schools often had an impact on the initial decision that some Iranians had made in joining Evangelical churches. Whatever their reasons, or the circumstances of their radical act of conversion, these Evangelicals faced many daunting challenges—ranging from threats and harassment to actual imprisonment and persecution—living as Christians in Iran among their Muslim friends, family, and neighborhoods.
IRANIAN CHRISTIANS WORLDWIDE Iranian communities exist all over the world today, and many of these include Christian communities. A number of Evangelical mission groups are active among Persians in other countries. The Iranian Christian Fellowship (ICF) and Elam Ministries were formed in England in 1986 with Pentecostal church services in the Farsi language every week in London and other British cities. Elam Ministries, in the West of London, is “the first residential Iranian Bible College which trains Farsi speakers from Muslim backgrounds to become Christian pastors.”36 Both the daughter of Mehdi Dibaj and the son and niece of Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr went through a Christian training program with Elam Ministries. This group has set up training programs in
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England, the United States, and Germany, among other places. Elam Ministries often leads mission trips to other countries, often among Iranian refugee or expatriate communities, and holds frequent prayer meetings on behalf of the souls of Iran and the Persian Diaspora. Their motto, Jeremiah 49:34, 39, declares: “In the latter days I will restore the fortunes of Elam, says the Lord.” Another group, Iranian Christians International (ICI), is active in both Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Southern California and was founded in 1980 in order to assist Iranian Christian refugees who were fleeing the revolution of 1979. There are so many Iranian refugees, perhaps thirty-five thousand, living in Southern California that some have given the region the humorous title: Irangeles, or Teherangeles.37 One can find Shi’ite, Baha’i, Jewish, and Zoroastrian places of worship for these Persians as well as Christian churches with services in both Persian and English. The region has at least fifty different Persian cultural organizations and many Iranian magazines, newspapers, and radio and television stations. These broadcast via satellite twenty-four hours a day and around the world. The ICI organization is active in leadership training and the evangelization of Iran. The ICI claims that there were, in 1980, at least twenty thousand Evangelical Iranians living outside the country. The organization also cites that there are forty-five different Iranian Evangelical churches outside of Iran. These communities hold services in Persian but may also hold meetings in English for their children and for other family members who are increasingly removed from life in Iran. Most of these churches are in North America and Europe, but there are also churches in Australia, Turkey, and other countries. Unfortunately, some residents of these host countries have questioned the validity of the Christianity of these Iranian exiles and have accused them of only using religion as a cover to allow them to remain in their adopted countries. In 2007, Ali Reza Panah, an Iranian Christian who had fled to New Zealand for safety, was told by the Immigration Ministry that he had to apply for a passport to return to Iran and leave New Zealand. Another Christian named Thomas (Hossein) Yadegary faced the same treatment. Both of these men went on hunger strikes demanding asylum, while the New Zealand government assumed that their conversions to Christianity were false and an “apparent attempt to rort (deceive) the system.”38 Two Anglican archbishops have petitioned New Zealand authorities to reconsider its repatriation efforts: “There is a need for the government and its officials to take more seriously the concerns about the ongoing persecution of Christians in Iran as documented by Amnesty International.”39
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All communities of Iranian Christians worldwide naturally share an abiding concern for the fate of their constituents inside of Iran as well as the demands of thriving as ethnic believers in daunting new cultural contexts which often press their youth toward social conformity and progressive acculturation. Iranian Christians seek to support each other through their prayers as well as through various teaching and devotional programs generated on computers or shared in youth gatherings, conferences, and schools. Many in the Iranian Diaspora suffer from depression, dislocation, and times of loneliness because they are far from all that is familiar to them. Often their morals and ethical standards are quite conservative compared with the prevailing attitudes of the Western countries in which they find themselves living, and this fact creates stressful challenges for them in raising their children. Many immigrants often share financial pressures as ethnic outsiders who are sometimes looked upon with suspicion. All of these obstacles have often served to make the dedication to their cherished faith only stronger. These Persian Christians in exile are united in sharing together a common vision, a history of persecution, and a proud Christian identity.
CONCLUSION One of the biggest barriers confronting Iranian Christians today is the temptation to emigrate from Iran to Europe or North America. Christians are more frequently silently vanishing abroad, than being dramatically uprooted from Iran. The recent political success of fanatical Shi’ite revolutionaries has often served to neutralize the long-term aspirations of moderate and mainstream Iranians. Patriotic Iranian Christians feel like they are second-class citizens within their own country which has also led them to consider emigration along with their pervasive sense of resignation about what is happening in their beloved homeland, which seems far beyond their ability to control. Iranian Christians are often fully Persian in every cultural and linguistic way conceivable. The problem they have is that they will probably forever be marginalized under the present strident regime because they are not Muslims. Some Iranian Christians accept this cross and feel that their destiny will, ultimately, be bound up with their Shi’ite Iranian neighbors. Others choose to find newer and far easier lives for their children through emigration while hoping to maintain links of aid and encouragement back to their homeland. Christians worldwide should support and encourage those who are willing to stay and serve as witnesses for
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Christ in their demanding social and economic contexts while also not condemning those who choose to assist Iran from afar. Assyrian, Armenian, and Nestorian Christians have been part of the story of Persian culture for almost the last two thousand years. It is impossible to downplay the role that these historic faith communities have played in enriching the lives of Persian culture. While Armenian and Assyrian Christians are not usually aggressively active in proselytism, their reputation as good neighbors is widespread, and most Muslims who live in cities would probably have some interaction with Armenians or other Christians. The journalist Syed Mohammad ’Ali Abtahi noted with gratitude the “the gentleness and the kindness of Armenian Christians in Iranian history.”40 The Christian and Muslim dialogue that they have engaged in through these centuries is a rich, and often unappreciated, resource for all Muslims and Christians worldwide. Recent waves of persecution, combined with first-time, unique opportunities for Christians to escape Iran for Assyrian and Armenian communities in the West, have endangered this church as has no previous wave of virulent persecution. It is hoped by this author, and many other believers worldwide, that Christianity will always be able to flourish in Persia’s rich and ancient soil. NOTES 1. Bailey and Bailey, 160. 2. Foltz, 2004, 169. Foltz claims that there are only between twenty to thirty thousand Jews in Iran today and about three hundred thousand Baha’is in modern Iran (Foltz, 2004, 170). Foltz claims that there are anywhere between 50,000 and 135,000 Zoroastrians remaining in Iran out of a worldwide population that may approach three million Zoroastrians (Foltz, 2004, 167). In recent years, easier traveling restrictions have made it possible for Zoroastrians to visit their sacred shrine of Chak Chak, which is about thirty miles north of Yazd. Foltz also says that there are less than fourteen thousand Mandaens (and one hundred thousand Mandaens worldwide) that remain in the country (172). 3. Nicholls, 6. 4. Nicholls (6) notes that the term that is used to describe the organizational structure of Orthodox churches is that they are autocephalous, which means that each distinct branch of the church provides itself with its own ecclesiastical leadership. Orthodox Christians argue that this pattern was established in the early church and throughout the historical period of the early church fathers. 5. Price, 213.
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6. Wessels, 98. 7. In 431, after the Council of Ephesus, the church would no longer fellowship with the Syrian Church of the East (called Nestorians). The Syrian Church of the East then divided between the Jacobite Church in the West and the Melichite (imperial) Church in the East, which included Persia. Nationalist factors were involved in all of these decisions. Armenians, for example, were not able to attend the Council of Chalcedon, and this meant that they were cut off from the decisions that were made there. Over time, liturgies developed in local languages and with distinct nationalistic characteristics, which underscored these divisions. Other issues arose such as the role of icons and their function in worship. Armenian Christians had icons, but they did not have the screen of painted icons called the iconostasis which is said to be the place where the mystery of the Eucharist transpires in certain orthodox traditions. In Armenian Orthodox churches, icons are usually placed behind the altar. 8. Joseph (141) reports that Dunsterville became world-renowned while he served in the British army in India because of Rudyard Kipling’s poem about him called “Stalky.” Before World War I, Nestorians had been attacked by the Kurds. Many Nestorians went into mountain enclaves in northern Iran and Iraq to avoid persecution. Some Nestorians came to Mosul, in Iraq, at the start of World War I to help the British defeat the Ottoman Empire in hopes of gaining their rights. Nestorians served as conscripts both in the British and in the Russian armies. In 1917, their leader the Patriarch Shim’un Benyamin XX was murdered in northern Iran by a Kurd. After the war, the stateless and homeless Nestorians went to the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates controlled by the British, whom they felt could offer protection. The British did facilitate Nestorians taking their claims before the newly organized League of Nations, but Nestorians were not protected on the ground where they were living, and they were attacked by their Muslim neighbors. The British offered to relocate any Nestorians who wanted to go to Canada in the spring of 1919, and some accepted this offer. Further, they refused to participate in the newly organized Iraqi government, and, in 1932, Patriarch Mar Shim’un was accused of insurrection and exiled to Cyprus, where he spent eight years. In 1933, thousands fled to Syria only to be turned back. Nestorian refugees had been coming to Syria, first in 1914, then in 1921 and 1924, and some were able to enter the country in 1933. In 1940, after eight years in exile in Cyprus, Patriarch Mar Shim’un relocated to Chicago in the United States, where the church presently has its offices. In 1971, the Iraqi government rescinded his exile, and his Iraqi citizenship was returned to him by Hasan al-Bakr. At the same time, the Iraqi government refused to allow him to reestablish his residence in Iraq. When he was sixty-five years of age, in 1975, Patriarch Mar Eshai Shim’un married, which forced him to leave his office. He was replaced by Patriarch Mar Dekha IV, who had previously been the Nestorian patriarch of Iran in 1976. Mar Dekha visited Iraq in 1978 before moving to Iran, where he held Iranian citizenship until he returned to the United States.
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9. Joseph, 133. Of Russian attacks on the Kurds, Joseph writes: “The outrages which the Russians committed against the Kurds should not be left unmentioned. Wherever they went they left the innocent Muslim population impoverished and hostile. Plundered of all the food they possessed, deprived of their cattle, flocks, and transport animals, thousands died of famine” (136). 10. The Assyrian Church of the East, His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Church of the East, 8908 Birch Avenue, Morton Grove, Illinois, 60053, www.cired.org. 11. Quoted in Waterfield, 63. 12. According to the tradition of the Armenian Church, Thaddeus, one of the first seventy disciples of Christ, traveled to the southern part of the Armenian Empire, while Bartholomew, the apostle, traveled in the north of Armenia. They are called the “First Illuminators” of the Armenian people. 13. Some church historians have questioned this date and suggested that a more probable date would be 314 for this edict from King Trdat. In either case, Armenia would still be the first Christian nation in the world because the Edict of Constantine (313) was only an edict of tolerance and not one that mandated that Christianity should be the sole religion of the realm. 14. Kimball, Charles A. Angle of Vision: Christians and the Middle East. New York: Friendship Press, 1992, page 28. 15. Nersessian, Sirarpie Der. The Armenians. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970, page 78. 16. J. R. Russell, “Armenia and Iran: Armenian Religion” in Encyclopedia Iranica edited by Ehsan Yarshater, Volume II, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986, page 443. Russell notes that the words “bless” (awrhnem) and “curse” (nizovem), “heaven” (draxt), “hell” (dzoxk), “judgment” (datastan) and “wonder” (hrasakert) are just a few of the many examples of Persian words and their Armenian parallels. 17. Mithra, the god of sun and light, in Armenia was known as Mihr. The goddess of fertility and wisdom was Anahit in Armenia. Verethragna, the god of victory and war, was known as Vahagn, and the gods and goddesses of science and love were also parallel in both names and renderings. Many of these same qualities are also ascribed to Greek deities from the same time, and Persian and Armenian sources both probably related with Greek understandings of these deities. 18. Garsoian, Nina G. Armenia Between Byzantium and the Sasanians. London: Variorum Reprints, 1985, page 347. 19. Keating, Sandra Toenis, “Habib Ibn Khida Abu Ra’ita al-Takriti’s ‘The Refutation of the Melkites concerning the Union of the Divinity and Humanity in Christ, III’” in David Thomas, editor, Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule: Church Life and Scholarship in Abbasid Iraq. Leiden, the Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 2003, page 41. The Arab population grew exponentially with the arrival of Abu Qurra at the beginning of the ninth century. One Armenian ishxan (ruler), Ashot Msaker (who ruled from 804–26), faced significant pressures. Soon Arab invaders were able to impose their will through the requirement that non-Muslims pay a poll tax (jizya). The jizya is often presented
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as a fair and moderate tax, and it certainly was that in certain political and historical contexts. Alternatively, such a tax, arbitrarily assigned, could work to bankrupt people and force their conversion to Islam. 20. Of course, Armenian Catholics also claim St. Gregory as the founder of the Armenian Catholic Church. It is an interesting argument for both parties, because St. Gregory was clearly not sympathetic with the monophysite ideas taught by Nestorius nor was he in any union with Rome, given his life in early Christendom. For all Armenians, St. Gregory is the Illuminator and the honored apostle of Christianity. 21. Bailey and Bailey, 160. 22. Makar Yekmalian (born February 2, 1856, in Ecmiadzin, near Yerevan, and died in 1905 in Tbilisi) rewrote the most widely used ancient Armenian Church divine liturgy into its present form at the end of the nineteenth century. The liturgy is now presented in homophonic song instead of as a monophonic chant. 23. There has always been a special relationship between Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians in the Muslim world. Russia has always protected Greek Orthodox Christians when politically able to do so and see Constantinople as the third Rome (since the first Rome had fallen away and the second Rome had fallen into the hands of unbelievers in 1453). Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians, in spite of some minor differences over time, share a strong history of mutual respect. 24. In the Muslim world they are often referred to as “Rum Orthodox” because Rum (“Roman”) is the Arabic term used to describe Byzantium. There is even a Surah of the Holy Qur’an (Surah 13) that bears the title Rum. The term “Greek Orthodox” might lead some people to think that Arabs and Arabic-speaking Christians were not central to this church in the Arab world. The Patriarchate of Antioch was occupied by Greek prelates from 1724 to 1899, but all prelates since that time have been Arabic-speaking Arabs. One could even argue, as does Wessels (71) that “Arab nationalism originally was inspired by the struggle of Greek Orthodox Arabs to throw off the Greek yoke.” Another term that sometimes causes confusion is the term Syrian Orthodox Church, which is sometimes a reference to the Assyrian Orthodox Church. 25. Cragg, Kenneth, The Arab Christian: A History in the Middle East. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991, page 24. The Anglican bishop, Cragg notes, repeats the same argument later in the same book: There was pressure and there was yielding to extend the logic of protection to that of ecclesiastical affiliation. Churches that could be protégés could well be also Uniates—as the term went—accepting the rule and discipline of Rome through the labors and the wiles of its French, Italian, or other emissaries. All the major groupings during the later Ottoman centuries experienced the schisms in which erstwhile protégés threw in their lot completely with Latin Catholicism, bringing Arab Christianity into yet greater division. Greek Catholic, Coptic Catholic, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic “Uniates” all eventuated in the Ottoman period detaching from their parent churches and aligning with the papacy. (124)
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26. Larger concentrations of Armenian Catholic Christians exist in Beirut, Aleppo, Damascus, Istanbul, Cairo, and even Baghdad. There are also Armenian Catholic communities in Kesab in Syria and Anjar in Lebanon, according to Wessels (155). 27. The following citations are from Samuel Schlorff in the article “The Catholic Program for Dialogue with Islam: An Evangelical Evaluation with Special Reference to Contextualization” in the journal Missiology, An International Review. Volume 11, number 2, April 1983 (131–71), pages 132–33. One document titled The Constitution of the Church (Lumen Gentium), Number 16 states, “But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place among these there are the Moslems, who professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God who on the last day will judge mankind.” The most famous document, The Declaration on Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate), number 3, states, Upon the Moslems too, the Church looks with esteem. They adore one God, living and enduring, merciful and all powerful, Maker of heaven and earth and Speaker to men. They strive to submit wholeheartedly even to His inscrutable decrees, just as did Abraham, with whom the Islamic faith is pleased to associate itself. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as prophet. They also honor Mary, his virgin Mother; at times they call on her, too, with devotion. In addition, they await the Day of Judgment when God will give each man his due after raising him up. Consequently, they prize the moral life, and give worship to God especially through prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. Although in the course of the centuries many quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this most sacred Synod urges all to forget the past and to strive sincerely for mutual understanding. On behalf of all mankind, let them make common cause of safeguarding and fostering social justice, moral values, peace and freedom. (Abbott, 1966, 35, 663)
Caution is advised: These are excerpts and their meaning can only be understood when reading the broader context and drawing conclusions on their intent through comparing other statements, such as those on salvation, within all of the documents of the Second Vatican Council. 28. The SNC has also held joint meetings with the World Council of Churches (WCC) program called the Sub-unit for Dialogue with Living Faiths and Ideologies (DFI). 29. Both publications are edited by the White Fathers. Articles are accepted in both English and French. 30. Bailey and Bailey, 118. 31. Bailey and Bailey, 118. 32. The contact information for the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Iran is the Reverend Matauos Sergei Shaverdian, P. O. Box 11365-4464, Teheran, Iran. 33. They stated this by saying that while they received the Nicene Creed, the true foundation of the Christian church was the revelation of the Bible alone.
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34. The Bishop of the Anglican Communion in Iran can be reached by contacting the Most Reverend Iraj Mottahedeh at P. O. Box 135, Code 81465, Isfahan, Iran. 35. The regional headquarters of the Assemblies of God responsible for encouraging and supporting Iranian Assemblies of God Churches is the Office of the Assemblies of God Middle East and North Africa. The regional address is P. O. Box 25749, 1131 Nicosia, Cyprus. 36. Spellman, 147. 37. Price, 338. 38. Eaton, David. “Christianity Faked in Bid to Stay—MP to Asylum Seekers” in The Press, Christchurch (New Zealand). August 18, 2007, page 12. This charge was made by New Zealand First Party Deputy Leader Peter Brown. The Labor Department deputy secretary for workforce, Mary Anne Thompson, said the deportations should proceed because the two men had already been given a “full and fair hearing.” Immigration Minister David Cunliffe did not respond to Eaton’s request for comment. 39. Eaton, 12. The two Anglican archbishops were the Maori Archbishop Brown Tueri and his counterpart David Moxon. The statement was released by the Anglican social justice commissioner, Anthony Dancer. Both archbishops had met ’Ali Reza Panah and were convinced that he had genuinely become a Christian. 40. Quoted in Bradley, 147.
8
The Persecution of Protestants in Modern Iran
Even loss can become a profit. Iranian proverb Never step on either a Persian carpet or a holy man, for its value only increases. Iranian proverb
The Catholic archbishop of Denver, Charles Caput, warns that “antiChristian persecution and discrimination around the world is ugly and it’s growing and the mass media seem to generally ignore or downplay its gravity.”1 Some Christians in Iran have faced extensive persecution since the revolution of 1979. While most, perhaps 90 percent of all Christians in Iran, especially Armenian and Chaldean Christians, remain able to openly practice their faith without persecution, there are some notable exceptions that merit consideration.2 The primary focal points of persecution among Christians in Iran today are against Protestant, and particularly Pentecostal, groups who hold their religious services in the Farsi language and who are committed to the evangelization of the country and the conversion of their Muslim neighbors to the Christian faith. Such Christians often live in an insecure “mood of fear.”3 Because many Iranian Evangelical denominations were launched in Western nations, and because the majority of Protestants are living in the West, there is also the xenophobic fear that these missionistic Christians have direct links with the West. Evangelicals in Iran are also the object of suspicion because the shah of Iran treated their efforts with active support at times. The Protestant commitment to evangelism and the fulfillment of the 219
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Great Commission mandate of Matthew 28:16–20 has led to institutionalized and systematic attacks against its presence in the country with sometimes lethal consequences for those who resisted autocratic and deadly threats. International organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented a number of instances in which Evangelicals in Iran have been severely persecuted. Their findings show that this persecution comes in sharp contrast to the relative acceptance of Assyrian and Armenian Orthodox churches but notes that these groups have also experienced a number of instances of social discrimination. Human Rights Watch notes that one of the biggest issues that Christians face is in the area of legal concerns. Many churches have Christian religious authorities which deal with issues of personal law such as those relating to marriage, divorce, morality, and inheritance. Problems emerge, however, when Christians leave lower levels of legal administration and become involved in courts based on Islamic shariah codes, which often “take decisions that very often favor the Muslims.”4
PASTOR MEHDI DIBAJ AND BISHOP HAIK HOVSEPIAN-MEHR Pentecostal Christians began to receive the same kind of national opprobrium in the late 1980s that had previously been reserved for Anglicans in the early 1980s. In 1985, the government began to voice its concerns, and in 1988 the superintendent of the Assemblies of God, Bishop Haik Hovsepian-Mehr, was summoned to the police station and threatened if his church did not stop their evangelistic efforts among Muslims. In the coming years these threats were realized: pastors were imprisoned, churches were closed, publications were shut down, and Bibles and Christian literature were confiscated. The reason for this treatment was that Pentecostals openly prayed that Muslims would become Christians and had weekly evangelistic services with altar calls where some Muslims announced their intent to become Christians. Some Pentecostals, such as Luke Yeghnazar, even preached on the streets and passed out (or sold) gospel literature which was directly focused toward this goal. Some Muslims responded to this literature and asked to join Pentecostal Churches. According to Bradley, the largest Pentecostal church in Teheran had 350 members in 1990, including 80 percent of whom were formerly “Iranian Muslims.”5 This decision to convert to Christianity made them apostates who would
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face charges in civil courts, such as the revocation of inheritance or property or the annulments of their marriages. Also labeled unprotected infidels, these converts were susceptible to criminal charges in federal courts because conversion from Islam to Christianity was a crime that could result in the enactment of the death penalty. In October 1990, an Evangelical Pentecostal Assemblies of God minister and a previous convert from Iran, Pastor Husayn Soodmand, aged fifty-five, was arrested, charged with apostasy, and sentenced to death. Before this could be carried out, the Assemblies of God sent the Reverend Hovsepian-Mehr to plead for his life on the grounds that Soodmand’s wife was blind and needed his daily assistance. At first the judges agreed, but when Pastor Soodmand sought to move to Gorgan for safety, the courts blocked his departure. When he decided to resume his pastoral work, he was rearrested and publicly executed by hanging on December 3, 1990, in Mashad. Pastor Soodmand became the first modern martyr of Iran’s Pentecostal church. Soodmand had been the pastor of a church in Mashad before it had been closed by the government in 1988. He had continued holding private meetings in the city of Gorgan, northeast of Teheran. In addition to the first charge of apostasy, Pastor Soodmand was also accused of spying because he had once worked for the Iranian Bible Society, which may have had some links with Christians in other countries. Because Pastor Soodmand was a former Muslim, he had been warned many times by mullahs in the region to stop preaching and to revert to Islam.6 Each time his answer was the same: “I am the shepherd and I must not leave my sheep.”7 Pastor Soodmand’s body was not allowed to be seen by family or friends after his execution. This fact raises suspicions that Soodmand had probably been tortured in his two months in prison before the hanging.8 In 1993, the Iranian government issued a “policy of gradual eradication of existing churches under legal pretenses.”9 The Assemblies of God churches in Gorgan and Ahwaz were forcibly closed. All Assemblies of God churches were issued the following directive by the government: No church service must be conducted in the Persian language. All members must be issued with membership cards and their admittance to services would be on production of the appropriate card. Photocopies of these cards and appropriate membership lists with their addresses are to be given to competent authorities. Sunday meetings are for members only. No meetings are to be held on any other day, in particular Friday. Services are not allowed to be conducted in Farsi— the national language.10 No new members are to be admitted without
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The superintendent of the Assemblies of God Churches in Iran (1980–1984), Bishop Haik Hovsepian-Mehr, was the chairman of the Council of Protestant Ministers in Iran at the time of this edict. When this draconian measure was published Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr responded to it by saying that Iran’s Evangelical churches could never “bow down and comply with such inhumane and unjust demands,” because a Christian church should always be “open to all who want to come in.”12 In this same spirit, the bishop refused to comply with the demand that he sign a government-issued letter to the international community, and to human rights organizations, which asserted falsely that Christians enjoyed unlimited religious freedom in Iran. What soon happened to one of Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr’s pastors, Mehdi Dibaj, was vivid proof that such a claim was an inaccurate fabrication. Mehdi Dibaj became a Christian in 1953 when, at the age of fourteen, he read a piece of Christian literature given to him by a traveling evangelist. Dibaj was shunned by his family for his decision, and this forced the youth to move to Teheran. He found employment in a Christian bookstore while also attending meetings at the Philadelphia Church. Dibaj was an active member in this church, and at that time he began a practice that he carried on throughout his life, of donating at least 50 percent of all of his income to the church. Eventually, Dibaj traveled to India, Lebanon, and Switzerland for evangelistic missions and to further his theological education which led to his ordination. Dibaj then moved to Afghanistan, where he worked as a missionary translating the Gospel of Mark into the Dari language. When Dibaj was refused reentry into Afghanistan because of suspicions about his evangelistic efforts, he returned to Iran to teach English at a university in Babol (on the Caspian Sea) and worked with a local Christian radio station. He also became the pastor of a local Assemblies of God fellowship in the town of Sari. In 1983, Dibaj was arrested for the first time with the accusation that he had written insults about the Ayatollah Khomeini in a letter to a friend. He was released from these groundless charges after more than two months in prison, but his daily activities were closely monitored by both local authorities and religious zealots. In 1986, Pastor Dibaj was imprisoned again and, in 1987, was tried by a shariah court for three crimes: insulting Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Ayatollah Khomeini; acting as a spy for the West; and being an apostate. The primary grounds for accusing him were the document they had produced earlier, which was clearly shown to
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be a forgery. It was undeniable, however, that Pastor Dibaj had once been a Muslim and thus was clearly an apostate. Dibaj refused to sign a document which attested that he was mentally weak (because of his conversion), which further galvanized local political and religious antipathy against him. Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr launched a worldwide human rights campaign to assist people in learning about the arrest of Mehdi Dibaj. Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr also sheltered Dibaj’s four children and raised them, while their devoted father languished in prison. Pastor Dibaj was imprisoned without a trial or any visitation rights for nine years. Two of those years of detention were spent in an unlit solitary confinement cell which was only one square meter (about three yards) in size. During these years, Dibaj was sometimes taken from his cell in a mock execution exercise in hopes that such a simulation would inspire him to recant his Christian faith. When a guard reminded Pastor Dibaj that he could simply say the shahadah and be set free to return to his family and friends because he was an old man of sixty with white hair, the pastor responded, “I have plenty of time until I am 120.”13 When a trial was finally launched (after extensive international pressure), the proceedings seemed to drag on without any hope of a quick resolution. One Christian reported that while Pastor Dibaj was awaiting his court date in prison, he not only answered the questions of his interrogators but also tried to preach to them and convince them of why they should also become Christians. When Pastor Dibaj was able to make his own defense in a public court (this time in the international spotlight) he again used the opportunity to preach about Christ more than present any legal argument in his own defense. Here is an excerpt from his closing argument in that trial which was published by Open Doors International: They tell me to “Return!” [to Islam]. But from the arms of God to whom can I return? Is it right to accept what people are saying instead of obeying the Word of God? It is now forty-five years that I am walking with the God of miracles, and His kindness upon me is like a shadow. I owe Him much for His fatherly love and concern. He is our Savior and He is the Son of God. To know Him means to know eternal life. I, a useless sinner, have believed in His beloved person and all of His words and miracles recorded in the Gospels and I have committed my life into His hands. Life for me is an opportunity to serve Him and death is a better opportunity to be with Christ. Therefore I am not only satisfied to be in prison for the honor of His holy name, but am ready to give my life for the sake of Jesus my Lord and enter His kingdom sooner.14
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In December 1993, the Supreme Court of Iran finally agreed to dismiss the first two criminal charges on the grounds that there was no evidence to substantiate them. They chose, however, to keep Dibaj in prison because of his admitted apostasy from the truth of Islam. When the call for execution went out, Pastor Dibaj sent a letter to the court asking them to “expedite the process and carry out the sentence” because he was tired after many long years in prison.15 An Armenian guard smuggled out of the prison three letters from Dibaj and passed them on to Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr. The bishop acted quickly and had these letters released to the international press, which attracted worldwide attention.16 Human rights officials from the United Nations, and many other human rights organizations, began to put pressure on the Iranian government to free Dibaj from prison. Reynaldo Pohl, a UN human rights inspector, reminded Iran that they had signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which (Article 18) guaranteed religious liberty for all citizens. The Vatican also began to pressure the Iranian government on behalf of Dibaj. In one last effort to gain some concession from this problem, the Iranian government once again contacted Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr to sign a document where he would go on record stating that Pentecostals “enjoyed full constitutional rights as Christians in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Hovsepian-Mehr refused to sign any such falsehood. On January 16, 1994, Mehdi Dibaj was released from the Sari prison; the Iranian Supreme Court ruled that an error had been made in his case. On January 19, three days after Pastor Dibaj was released, Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr suddenly vanished. His body was found on January 20, 1994, in a small back alleyway at the edge of Teheran. Family members were not notified, however, until January 30, when they were asked to identify the mutilated body. The forty-eight-year-old father and pastor had disappeared en route to meet his sister-in-law at the Teheran airport. The autopsy revealed that Hovsepian-Mehr had been stabbed twenty-seven times and had been severely bruised and barbarically tortured before finally being murdered. At first the police were not even willing to allow the bishop’s body to be identified and saw to it that he was quickly buried in an unmarked grave in a Muslim cemetery.17 After outrage reached unexpected proportions, Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr was exhumed from this first grave, and his body was given to his wife and family under the strict condition from the government that he be reburied immediately.18 On a bitterly cold February 3, 1994, over two thousand people,
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including many Muslims and even Norway’s Ambassador to Iran, paid their final respects to the beloved Bishop Haik Hovsepian-Mehr. Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr’s assassination was reported worldwide, because the bishop had gained a high profile while championing the cause of Pastor Dibaj. Even though police had already closed worship services at his church in Teheran (on April 25, 1993), Hovsepian-Mehr publicly insisted that Christians were obligated to share their faith with everyone, including Muslims. Many suspected that his murder was a contract killing initiated by the government once HovsepianMehr had called on United Nations human rights officials to investigate the widespread persecution of Christians in Iran. Others, such as Patrick Sookhedo, were convinced that “there is no shadow of doubt that Haik Hovsepian-Mehr was in the hands of government security forces” when he was executed.19 Human rights organization Middle East Watch called on the government of Iran to thoroughly investigate this gruesome killing. At Hovsepian-Mehr’s death, the London Times reported that “Bishop Haik walked always in the shadow of violent death because of his religion, but probably that fact, together with his succor of Dibaj, was enough. At least we can safely say that he was tortured and murdered because he was a Christian and for the support he was always ready to give to his brothers and sisters in Christ.”20 His wife, Takoosh Hovsepian, explained her feelings after the shocking loss of her husband in terms that other Christians could understand: “I have been in God’s University. I started out in the lowest grade, but slowly and surely God began to work in my heart. First, I simply had to be willing to forgive the murderers. One day the hatred was gone. At last, I could forgive the people who had killed my husband.”21 Pastor Mehdi Dibaj attended the funeral and lamented, “I should have died, not him. He had a wife and a family and a ministry.”22 Six months later, on June 24, 1994, Dibaj, aged sixty, was returning from a church conference in Karaj (a suburb of Teheran) when he was kidnapped en route to his seventeen-year-old daughter’s birthday party. On July 5, 1994, his family was notified that his tortured body had been found abandoned in a park in western Teheran. Pastor Dibaj’s body was only released two hours before his funeral and, even then, the family was not permitted to open the coffin. The official death certificate stated that he had been stabbed in the heart. Security spokesman Sa’id Emami publicly denied allegations that the government had any involvement in Dibaj’s murder and framed three female members of a terrorist group called Moedjaheddin e-Khalq
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(MEK) for the stabbing.23 This extremist group in Iran has, indeed, been involved in several violent acts against Christians. Government sources also claimed that these three women had initiated a bombing attack at the holy shrine of Imam Reza in Mashad which had resulted in the deaths of twenty-six pilgrims. Christians in Iran questioned the suspect evidence and the final verdict that these three women were culpable for Dibaj’s murder. The United Nations also rejected the trumped-up case against the three women as an unfounded fabrication.
REVEREND TATEOS MICHAELIAN On July 1, only a few days before Pastor Dibaj was slain, the sixty-twoyear-old Reverend Tateos Michaelian, pastor at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Teheran, was shot three times, at least once in the back of the head, and murdered.24 His son was called by the police to identify the body on July 2, and he confirmed that his father had been riddled with bullets. Reverend Tateos Michaelian had been highly regarded as a scholar of Persian philosophy and literature who had translated more than sixty Christian books into the Persian language (including a Good News version of the New Testament). At one time Michaelian had served as the secretary of the Iranian Bible Society before the government shut down this organization in 1990. Reverend Michaleian, as the executive secretary of the Synod of the Presbyterian Church, had replaced Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr as the chairman of the Council of Protestant Pastors in Iran after Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr’s stunning murder. Reverend Michaelian sought to continue the international, activist work on behalf of the church that his friend Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr had begun. He called on the United Nations and the World Council of Churches to censure Iran for the persecution of Christians and cited the fact that many Christians had difficulty finding employment because of their faith. In a conference in Cyprus in 1994, he publicly called the Iranian government a “religious dictatorship which can be compared with the Middle Ages.”25 Reverend Michaelian boldly told a foreign journalist at the bishop’s funeral that the government was responsible for his murder. When a friend heard this, he told Michaelian that he had “just signed his own death warrant.”26 Michaelian’s wife, Juliet, and his three children fled into exile in the United States after numerous death threats.
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FURTHER PERSECUTIONS After these events, on September 28, 1996, another Assemblies of God pastor, the thirty-five-year-old Reverend Mohammad Bagher Yusefi, was murdered in the city of Sari, in northwest Iran. The body of this former Muslim was found hanging on a tree twenty miles from his home in Ghaem-Shahr, near Sari in northern Iran. The government decreed that the obvious lynching of this apostate from Islam was actually a suicide. Pastor Yusefi, also known as Ravanbakhsh (soul-giver), was a tireless evangelist who frequently talked to his Muslim friends and neighbors about his Christian faith. He had become a Christian from a nominal Muslim background when he was twenty-four years of age. Yusefi had been a close friend and mentoree of Mehdi Dibaj and had even agreed to take care of Dibaj’s children after their father had been murdered. Yusefi became the pastor of the Gorgan Assemblies of God Church after completing his training for ordination. After his murder, Pastor Yusefi’s widow (Akthar) was supported in the care of Mrs. Hovsepian, wife of the martyred Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr. Dozens of other Christians were detained at the same time during these events, including a permanent U.S. resident named Hassan Shahjamali who was finally allowed to leave the country on July 20 after being held for a few weeks of questioning. An odd incident took place on January 6, 1997, when Dan Bauman, an American tourist visiting Iran with missionary intent, was arrested in Teheran on charges of espionage and accused of having some connection with the Assemblies of God in Iran. This was not the case. Bauman was actually a missionary with the interdenominational charismatic Youth with a Mission (YWAM) and had been working in Ashkabad, Turkmenistan. He was released on March 16 after being held in prison for over two months. Bauman returned to the United States to write an unflattering book about Iran and his imprisonment.27 The Assemblies of God pastor, Hamid Pourmand, age forty-seven, was arrested at a church conference on September 9, 2004. He was detained because he was an apostate from Islam who had converted to Christianity through an Assemblies of God church in the 1970s. This Assembly of God lay pastor and former army colonel was also charged with seeking to proselytize Muslims.28 For months, Pourmand languished in solitary confinement. When charges were finally presented in court, it was raised that when Pourmand had joined the military, he had not publicly declared that he was a Christian, and, because of that,
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Muslims had unintentionally served under the command of a Christian. This is a crime that can be punishable by death in Iran. Pourmand was set to be tried in Teheran in May 2005, but his trial was moved to Bandar-i Bushehr, his hometown. He was ultimately given a three-year prison sentence for his decisions. The memory of dedicated Christian martyrs such as Mehdi Dibaj, Haik Hovsepian-Mehr, Tateos Michaelanian, Ravanbakhsh Yusefi, and many others should be a source of inspiration for all Christians. The theme of martyrdom has become central to the strengthening of Persian Christian identities. Anneke Companjen reports that an Iranian pastor, responding to the fact that they were being prayed for, said, “You pray for us but maybe you need our prayers more. We cannot afford to wander away from Jesus. We need him so much for every small detail of our lives that we have to stay close to him. It’s a matter of life and death for us.”29
CONCLUSION Persecution of Christians within Iran, and especially of Evangelicals, is often random. There may be many more cases of harassment than are actually reported or ever come to the attention of those outside Iran, given local pressures to avoid pressing charges publicly. Further, the situation is constantly changing. One of the consistent factors is that Christians who were formerly Muslims risk being brought to court on charges of apostasy. These cases, however, are not uniformly tried. Another probable factor is that Christians who practice their faith through proselytism are more likely than others to run into difficulties with the government. All Christians face unique challenges by living in Iran, but those facing the greatest obstacles are those Evangelicals, many of whom who are former Muslims, involved in trying to spread their faith. Laws are unevenly enforced, and the actions of officials are often unpredictable, but the verifiable realities of past persecution make fear a common factor among Iran’s Evangelicals. One of the primary government-sponsored organizations in Iran that terrorizes religious minorities is called the Basmijis, or “those who enforce religious laws.” They do not focus only on religious leaders but also harass ordinary Christians and especially Evangelicals. Sometimes, according to Jeff Sellers, it has been the case that the Basmijis will enter a church service and arrest between twenty and forty Christians at a time.30 In March 2001, a group of Basmijis forced an Iranian Evangelical into his car, tortured him, and then detained him
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for three weeks, during which time he was not able to contact his family or his church. When this evangelist returned home, he could not speak, write, or walk. His name cannot be reported because he may still be living inside Iran. Such harassments understandably encourage many devout believers to flee the country at their first opportunity. It had been widely asserted that, since coming to office in 1997, President Mohammad Khatami was a reformer, and this impression is true to some extent. He had even been invited to the Washington National Cathedral in 2006, after Ahmadinejad became the president of Iran, to speak on Muslim and Christian relations, and he was invited because, in the words of the Dean of the Cathedral, he was “a man of peace and moderation.”31 The plight of religious minorities (especially the Baha’is) under Khatami, however, did not improve in any meaningful way. This may be a result of the inability of Khatami to rein in conservative clerics, because he had proposed certain legislative initiatives which might have eventually been helpful to Iran’s religious minorities. Under President Khatami, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) claimed that “discrimination against non-Muslims prevailed in education, government, and other areas. It reports that at least eight Evangelicals were killed by Iranian authorities in the past thirteen years and fifteen to twenty-three are missing or ‘disappeared.’”32 It is hard to know exactly how reliable these statistics are since there could be problems related to both underreporting and overreporting. Another source, Abraham Ghaffari of ICI, claims that there were between fifteen and twenty-two disappearances in 1997 and 1998 alone and three more disappearances in 2000 and that “one must presume that most, or all, were murdered.”33 Ghaffari reports that, in 1997, “several Iranian Christians were injected with radioactive materials. They apparently wanted the Christians to die, but not on police premises.”34 In another incident, in 2004, close to seventy Evangelical Christians were arrested in a single raid because of fears that they were trying to convert Muslims.35 What all of these Christians had in common had been that they were Protestant and that they were probably involved in proselytizing efforts among their Muslim neighbors. Evangelicals, and especially the Assemblies of God churches, have had to adapt their way of conducting services to account for these new pressures. It is often the case that main entrance doors to a church remain locked, and members enter their churches from small side doors one at a time where they can be identified and, sometimes, even frisked if they are not well-known. There have been a number
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of churches that have closed their church parking lots for fear that an incoming vehicle might explode close to the church during worship (as has happened to a number of churches in Iraq). Financial resources and supplies of Bibles and other Christian educational materials are limited after repeated confiscations throughout the years. One Iranian pastor explained, “We don’t have Bibles, we don’t have finances. The government has cut off all the resources and wiped out the leadership.”36 These unsympathetic conditions have led many Christians to seek to flee with their families into Turkey, Armenia, Pakistan, or Turkmenistan in search of greater freedom. Even in exile, however, these Christians sometimes receive death threats and worry for their lives.37 Other Christians and Jews simply choose to flee Iran for economic reasons, only to gain access to countries like the United States by emphasizing possible prospects of their persecution.38 A number of Armenian Christians have fled to India where there is already a large Armenian community which is able to offer them assistance.39 One of the most popular destinations for these Christian refugees is neighboring Pakistan. Along the porous border, a number of Christian aid organizations have established refugee camps where they provide basic shelter and food. This was where a Christian, Mrs. Susan Jazani, arrived with her children after spending her life in relative wealth and ease in Iran. Because she and her family had not initially been recognized as refugees, they were forced to stay in a camp for more than three years. Mrs. Jazani explained why she chose to flee Iran: “I had done nothing wrong but the soldiers came to my house and told me that Christianity is an immoral religion. They forced me to quit teaching and go into chardor.”40 Mrs. Jazani had been jailed several times and repeatedly threatened with death by stoning. She felt that she had to spend her days and nights fearfully indoors. Her children also could not find a place at a university because their non-Muslim father had not been a martyr of the Iran-Iraq War. Unless one has served in the military, it is difficult for a Christian to be issued a passport or a travel visa from the Iranian government. Some manage to find their way to Europe or North America, often without legal paperwork and often in poverty.41 Many Christian refugees without passports have to travel clandestinely by night, crossing the Iranian-Pakistani border in small groups of three or four. This explains why Farsi-speaking Assemblies of God churches have emerged along the border. After arriving in Pakistan, Christians seek refugee
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status through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for relocation to Australia, France, Canada, or the United States. Some are unable to attain this status and, as such, are unable to work or to attend school. Local Pakistanis do not always treat them well because, since they are both Christian and Persian, it is assumed that the refugees might be smugglers or troublemakers. What about the future status of relations between religious minorities and the present Iranian government? The prospects for increased religious liberty for Iran’s religious minorities under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad do not look promising. Once again, under President Ahmadinejad, the Baha’is are suffering more than any other religious minority in Iran. In December 2005, the Baha’i Iranian civil servant Dhabihu’llah Mahrami died while in custody. According to Adam Ereli, a deputy spokesman for the U.S. State Department, “Unfortunately, Mr. Mahrami’s incarceration is not unique. Members of the country’s religious minorities—including Sunni Muslims, Sufis, Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians—are frequently imprisoned, harassed, and intimidated based on their religious beliefs” under Ahmadinejad’s rule.42 Jewish congregations in modern Iran also encounter continued frustrations. The more than twenty-five thousand Jews who live in Iran are facing increasing pressure to leave after Ahmadinejad proclaimed war on all Zionists and publicly called for Zionist Israel to be “wiped off the map.”43 In 2006, about two hundred Iranian Jews were able to resettle in Israel, although none of them were released legally to emigrate by the Iranian government.44 Israel and Iran do not share any postal or telephone services. All that these two countries actually share are a host of mutual threats of attack. Such tensions have invariably affected the local Jewish community in spite of public declarations that all remains peaceful for the Jews of Iran. Tensions within Iran seem to be on the rise, and the voices of religious assertion are becoming, as they often do in periods of economic and social transition, increasingly strident. If there will ever be another revolution within Iran, Bruce Lawrence warns that it will not come through increasing secularism and modernization but through the rise of a “regime that is fiercely Islamic, avowedly revolutionary and consistently repressive of all segments within Iranian society which continue to oppose its policies. At the same time it will be boldly aggressive in seeking to disseminate its views beyond Iran, globally as well as regionally.”45 Lawrence bases these views partially on the motivations which power the Shi’a faith, according to his perspective—a desire for a
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utopian society led by the advent of the Twelfth Imam whose eventual political advent will be hastened by religious devotion. In recent years, the shouting assertions of zealous clerics have grown louder, while more moderate voices have seemingly been muffled. This pattern is already beginning to have chilling effects on the relation between Islamic Iran and its non-Shi’ite minorities. One source reported that on May 19, 2007, Iran’s Parliament, at the president’s suggestion, considered a law requiring Jews, Zoroastrians, and Christians to wear color-coded identification badges. Jews were to wear a yellow strip of cloth, Christians were to wear red badges, and Zoroastrians would wear blue badges. Although this outlandish law has never been enforced, it is unbelievable that, in the twenty-first century, it was even considered in the first place. Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, believes that such actions show that “Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideologies of the Nazis.”46 Year after year, human rights committee hearings are held worldwide, and the exact same findings are published which cite the limited freedoms for religious minorities within Iran while describing new incidents to illustrate how these findings are accurate. As Lawrence Goodrich has said, “The facts are in and what we need now is action. Lots of fine words have been spoken. We have had lots of hand wringing. Now what we need is for the President to say: ‘This must stop.’”47 International outcry will only come after the international community becomes aware of the repressive plight of religious minorities in Iran.
NOTES 1. Duin, Julia. “Christian Persecution Growing: Panel Addresses Discrimination, Torture Faced Around the Globe” in the Washington Times, December 15, 2005, A2. Another church-based human rights organization that has looked at persecution of Christians in Iran and is mentioned in this article for attending these meetings was the International Religious Freedom Watch, whose president in 2005 was Lawrence Uzzell. Richard Land represented the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and Jeff King represented the organization International Christian Concern at the hearing of the U.S. Congressional Working Group on Religious Freedom and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which listed Iran as one of the six most dangerous countries in the world for Christians, along with China, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Iraq, and Indonesia. 2. Bailey and Bailey, 161. 3. “World Scene” in Christianity Today, Volume 39, number 2, February 6, 1995, page 58.
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4. “Iran: Religious and Ethnic Minorities: Discrimination in Law and Practice” in the Human Rights Watch Report. Volume 9, number 7, September 1997. See also www.hrw.org for other citations on religious persecution of minorities within Iran. 5. Bradley, 168. Bradley notes: “The church also grew outside Teheran, and during the 1980s they planted nine new fellowships throughout Iran in different provincial towns and all of these had Muslim converts in them” (168). These cities included Shahinshah, Ahwaz, Resht, Bushehr, Arak, Shiraz, Jannat, Abad, Karaj, and Gonbade Ghaboos. 6. Pastor Soodmand had converted from Islam to Christianity many decades earlier when a Pentecostal Armenian shared his faith with him while he was serving his military obligations in Ahwaz. Because his family rejected him on his initial return to Mashad, Soodmand first moved to Isfahan, where he met his Armenian mentor, and took a position at the Anglican Christian Hospital, where he met his wife. 7. Bradley, 170. Soodmand was buried in the city’s main cemetery in an area designated for those who are cursed. There is no memorial gravestone with his name or date of death over his body, but someone has scratched a cross on the stone that marks his grave. 8. “Execution in Iran” in The Christian Century. Volume 108, number 4. January 30, 1991, page 107. 9. Spellman, 167. 10. “World Scene” in Christianity Today. Volume 38, number 3. March 7, 1994, page 58. 11. Spellman, 167. 12. Spellman, 167. 13. Bradley, 183. 14. Andrew, 206–7. 15. Bradley, 172. 16. Copies of the documents—the official sentence of execution stating that he was to be killed for apostasy, the letter that Dibaj had written to the judge asking for a speedy execution, and a copy of his final defense to the court on why Christians should be evangelistic—were faxed to international human rights organizations for translation into many languages. The Dutch organization Open Doors contacted Christian churches worldwide, and some of these documents were read in churches as soon as they were translated. Bernard Levin published Dibaj’s Final Testament in its entirety in the Times (London). 17. Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr had been first buried at Beheste Zahra, Iran’s largest cemetery near Teheran. 18. President Rafsanjani, according to Bradley, was involved in making this decision (173). 19. “Christian Cleric Killed in Iran,” in The Christian Century. Volume 11, number 11. April 6, 1994, page 348. Patrick Sookhedo at the time was the director of the International Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity in London.
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20. Marshall, Paul. Their Blood Cries Out: The Untold Story of Persecution Against Christians in the Modern World. Dallas, Texas: Word Publishing, 1997, page 24. 21. Companjen, Anneke. Hidden Sorrow, Lasting Joy: The Forgotten Women of the Persecuted Church. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001, page 87. 22. Andrew, 207. 23. Sa’id Emami was later himself arrested for a series of murders and supposedly committed suicide in June 1999 by drinking hair removal cream. He had been accused of being the ringleader in the stabbing of the seventyyear-old Daryush Foruhar and his wife Parvaneh, who were stabbed in their homes on November 22, 1998. Foruhar had been the leader of the National Front Party (launched by Mossadeq). Emami was also accused of organizing the strangulation of the poet Mohammad Mokhtari, whose body was discovered on December 9, 1998, and the killing of Majid Sharif, a religious reformer who called for a modern interpretation of Islam, whose body was found on November 24, 1998. Democratic activist Pirouz Davani (executed November 22, 1998), his colleague Rostami Hamedani (missing since December 1998), Fatemeh Eslami (strangled January 13, 1999), judicial expert Javad Emami and his wife (both killed January 17, 1994), and Mahmoud Ghafouri (missing since January 20, 1994) were also, according to the Khatami government, killed by Sa’id Emami. 24. News Network International Staff. “Prominent Church Leaders Slain” in Christianity Today. Volume 38, number 9, August 15, 1994, page 54. 25. Bradley, 174. 26. Bradley, 174. 27. Baumann, Dan. Imprisoned in Iran: Love’s Victory over Fear. Seattle, Washington: Youth With A Mission Publications, 2000. 28. Eighty-six other Assemblies of God pastors and lay pastors had been arrested at the same conference, but only Pourmand was not released from custody. From an article by Compass Direct titled “Lay Pastor May Face Martyrdom: Convert from Islam Is Accused of Evangelizing Muslims” in Christianity Today. Volume 49, number 6, June 2005, page 21. 29. Companjen, 90. 30. Sellers, Jeff M. “Iran: Hiding from the Religious Police” in Christianity Today. Volume 46, number 3, March 11, 2002, page 70. 31. Holliday, Stacey. “CWA Says Iranian President’s Speech Was a Slap in the Face of Americans.” In the Christian Newswire. September 8, 2006. www .cwfa.org. 32. Sellers, Jeff M. “Out of Control Clerics” in Christianity Today. Volume 48, number 7, July 2004, page 50. 33. Quoted in Sellers, 70. 34. Quoted in Sellers, 70. The radioactive materials, according to Sellers, were detected when one of the victims had an X-ray while receiving treatment for his symptoms. 35. Price, 333.
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36. News Network International.”Protestants Live with Fear, Insecurity” in Christianity Today. Volume 39, number 2. February 6, 1995, page 58. 37. It is claimed that on April 12, 2001, an Iranian Evangelical fled to the United Kingdom because of threats to his life for his proselytizing efforts. This same man, still in hiding, has received death threats in the United Kingdom. He has continued his proselytizing efforts to Persians in hotels in the United Kingdom, according to Orba, J.G. (Violence against Christians in the Year 2001. S’-Hertogensbosch, the Netherlands: Aid to the Church in Need, 2002, page 103). 38. Erdbrink, Thomas, and Karin Brulliard. “Some in Iran Decry U.S. Zeal for Country’s non-Muslims” in the Washington Post, March 2, 2008, A1: “Christians and Zoroastrians leave because of unemployment, the bad economy, but these problems affect all Iranians” said Yonathan Betkolia, an Assyrian Christian leader and member of Iran’s parliament who holds the United States responsible for his community’s decline. “They have given all those green cards to our people. Their only goal is to propagate the idea that Iran is mistreating its minorities.”
In this same article Betkolia also said of his life in Iran: “We are freer in Iran than our Muslim brothers. We can drink. Our boys and girls can mingle in our clubs freely and we can dance and sing.” Kurosh Niknam, who is a Zoroastrian parliament member, expressed the same idea: “The migration is a big, big problem for all non-Muslim minorities in Iran. I wish everybody would come back to Iran, but I guess they won’t. It looks like there will be no Zoroastrians left in this country in thirty years.” The United States gave 3.4 million dollars in 2007 to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) to assist non-Muslim minorities in leaving Iran. The U.S. State Department lists 2,842 Jews who left Iran for the United States under the HIAS program since 1997, along with eighteen thousand other non-Muslim minority Iranians who have been helped by the program. There are ten thousand applicants waiting in Iran. Of the claim that some are simply going for economic reasons, a member of the U.S. State Department that works with HIAS said in this article, The fact is that this regime treats its religious minorities very poorly. It has acted viciously toward some of them. For Christians, and others, it’s a lower grade of persecution. They’re treated like third-class citizens day in and day out. If you are not a Shi’ite you are going to face severe discrimination. Maybe people grow accustomed to it and may learn to live with it. But to say they’re living an okay life and they’re just economic refugees is ridiculous. (March 2, 2008)
39. On August 25, 2007, an Armenian Christian Fred Babkhanian was prosecuted for overstaying his visa by the West Bengal Police in Calcutta and was ordered to be deported to Iran. He has already been imprisoned for two years in India. He is appealing this verdict because he is stating that his life would be endangered if he returned to Iran (Bhadra Sinha, Hindustan Times, August 25, 2007). 40. Martyn, Howard. “Iranian Christians Flee Persecution” in the Christian Century. Volume 106, number 15, May 3, 1989, page 462.
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41. There are countless incidents of Iranian Christians in Europe and North America who are illegal aliens and often face deportation. I will cite only one illustrative example here: Zohreh Khanali, age twenty-seven, and her husband Vahid, thirty-eight, risk being deported from the United Kingdom while their two children—Parisa, age six, and Mobina, age six months—will be allowed to stay in the Manchester area. Their case is under appeal. 42. Motlagh, Jason. “Iran May Force Color-ID’s on Jews, Others” in UPI: United Press International News Release. May 19, 2006 (May 20, 2006), page 1. 43. Motlagh, 1. Even though the number of Jews in Iran is quite small, it still may be the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside of Israel itself. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has lobbied the United Nations to put pressure on the Iranian government not to go through with issuing these identification badges. This petition was sent to the attention of U.N. Human Rights Special Rapporteur Asma Jahangir. 44. Tom Clark (CTV Television report of December 26, 2007) claims that forty Iranian Jews were secretly airlifted from Iran and brought to Israel. There is no substantiation of this claim from Israel, and Iran denies this story. Janis Mackey Frayer, the CTV reporter, claims that in 2007 over two hundred Iranian Jews resettled in Israel and received funding for their resettlement by an Evangelical Christian charity. 45. Lawrence, 90. 46. Motlagh, 1. 47. Quoted in Jelinek, Pauline, “U.S. Urged on Religious Persecution,” in The Associated Press. September 7, 2000. secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/ statements/2000/ps00901.html See also the article by George Gedda for the Associated Press titled “Seven Countries Said to Be Severe Violators of Religious Freedom,” October 6, 1999.
9
Conclusion—The Future of Christian and Muslim Relations in Iran
Having drunk entire seas, we remain quite surprised that our lips remain just as dry as the shore. When we continue to seek out the sea and dip our lips again there, we do not realize that our lips are the shore and we ourselves are the sea. Farid al-din Attar, Manteq al-tayr, The Conference of Birds Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the longer you’ve been here, the more you understand Iran. Most of our intelligence reporting has been wrong all along and not just since the Revolution: Yours will be too. None of us understand the Iranians. Asian diplomat quoted by Robin Wright1 A deep well is not dug with a tiny needle. Armenian proverb
There is always hope for positive change. In recent years, some of the intransigence between Muslims and Christians in many differing contexts has eased. Since 9/11, Christians and Muslims worldwide are launching increasing efforts to understand each other and appreciate interreligious differences. Do these same efforts affect Iranian religious minorities in their relations with the Shi’ite majority authorities? What is the future of Christianity in Iran? What interpretation of Islam regarding nonMuslims will the people of Iran pursue in future interactions?2 There have been a few specific efforts on the part of the present Iranian regime to reach out and make symbolic statements of support 237
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for Christians who reside in the country. In 1982, it has already been noted, the government issued a Christmas postage stamp which bore the inscription in English (interestingly) “Glorification of Christ’s Birth.”3 Such a largely symbolic act may bespeak a genuine desire on the part of some Iranian officials to build their nation around political, and not religious, identities. Shortly after the Islamic revolution of 1979, foreign missionaries were forced to leave the country. The end of the colonial era, and neoorientalist assumptions among non-Persian missionaries, provided an ideal opportunity for improved Christian and Muslim relations in Iran. Old parochial and condescending mindsets were no longer a factor because indigenous Persian Christians, unlike foreign missionaries, were thoroughly Persian as well as Christian. Orientalist-thinking Western missionaries spoke of loving Persian, Armenian, and Assyrian Christians and of respecting Persian Muslims individually and personally in ethical terms, while judging these religions and cultures negatively and in generalized terms. The Anglican Mary Bird, for example, spoke of her “lovely Persian friends” as “thirsty, perishing people” who lived enslaved within a “dark land.”4 Edward Said comments on this schizophrenia by saying that Westerners learned to “separate a general apprehension for the Orient from the specific experience of it while allowing them to coexist.”5 On the other hand, the story of Christian mission in Persia is not simply, or even remotely, only a story of coercion or manipulation as some postimperialist scholarship suggests which categorically views missionary work in terms of its links with political power and economic hierarchy. Christianity, in the rich tapestry of its long history, has never been only a Western religion.6 It is multinational and international in its adapted expressions, scope, and influence. The wide-ranging message of Christianity captured the attention and imagination of some and provided an alternative to Persians, historically tolerant and passionate about their faith. Those who are self-hypnotized by their negative attitudes toward Victorian-era missionaries (products of their own age and assumptions) should not overstate their overall importance. It should not be forgotten that Persian Christians made the faith of the “Son of the Carpenter” something uniquely Persian throughout the centuries. To suggest that Christianity cannot be inherently or intrinsically Persian is its own arrogant and neo-paternal gloss over the multivalent story of two millennia of Christianity among the people of Persia. In the absence of any significant Western Christian missionary presence in Iran, Middle Eastern Christians will play an increasingly
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meaningful role in serving the Persian church and linking Persian Christians with Christians worldwide.7 One of the most positive contexts for interfaith activities between Iran and Christians around the world has probably come through the efforts of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC).8 In recent years, the Fellowship of Middle Eastern Evangelical Churches (FMEEC) has also worked alongside the MECC in promoting interfaith initiatives.9 The MECC was founded in May 1974 in Nicosia, Cyprus, with the goal of building unity and mutual support for all Christians throughout the Middle East. One of its primary objectives is serving Middle Eastern Christian youth, because these young people face unique pressures as minority groups within their various countries. The MECC organizes prayer meetings, conferences, service projects, and educational programs to foster this intention. The hope is to connect young people with the lands of their ethnic heritages and, in so doing, discourage continued mass emigration of Christians from the Middle East. Another focus of the MECC is to foster social justice concerns—such as human rights and women’s issues—and deal both with providing emergency relief in times of crisis and the ongoing pain of the demanding status of refugees in the region. One of the ways which the MECC has encouraged the exploration of women’s issues is through staffing many of their principal positions with women.10 The MECC is committed to bringing all denominations of Christians together for mutual edification and encouragement. Bailey and Bailey call the MECC “the most inclusive ecumenical body in the world,” and the network continues to build sturdy bridges of mutuality across cavernous chasms of ancient doubts and persistent fears.11 The MECC has coordinated its initiatives with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Organization of Islamic Culture and Communication (OICC) to explore ways to improve interrelationships and to enhance the situation for minority Christians who live in Iran. One of the results of its efforts was the convocation of a conference in 1996 which explored possible avenues for interfaith partnerships in addressing human rights concerns. Iranian culture is legendary for its commitment to hospitality, rather than hostility, and Christians worldwide who reach out to Iranians will find this to be true. Sectarian fears or media-driven pasquinades rooted in politically shifting sands should not determine how Christians worldwide relate to Iranians, both Muslim and Christian. One goal of Muslim and Christian dialogue should be to transition from assertive and critical polemics towards a more sensitive witness of both the Christian and Muslim faiths in the respectful conversations of
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shared lives. It is, as never before, a matter of survival for Christians in Iran to learn more about Islam—not to convert Muslims so much as to become more aware of what they share in common with their Muslim neighbors. Middle Eastern Muslims would also benefit from such an attitude of genuine engagement and inquiry. Christians should speak to Muslims in a bolder way, even though they are a minority, and should initiate conversations with Muslims where it is safe to speak openly about the ways in which Christian and Muslim history and cultural development have affected our present interfaith interactions. Miroslav Volf describes this process of encouraging Christians to speak with a distinctly Christian voice which will “engage in cracking the husk of difference that distinguishes the Christian faith from other religions and displaying the kernel which unites it with them. Whoever speaks authentically in a Christian voice will end up agreeing with representatives of other religions provided they do the same.”12 This does not suggest a unity in terms of theological convictions but only a unity in terms of our shared interrelational commitments. While we may have divergent views about God, we share, in the words of Monseigneur Rossano, a common “bond of brotherhood upon which is based a similar vision of man.”13 Conversations should be built upon the nurture of dignity and mutuality and not digress into shrill, confrontational theological argumentation. There is a long history of such unproductive interfaith rhetoric where the Christian values of gentle neighborliness are often drowned out by the ear-splitting shrieks of reckless assertions rooted in quicksand certitudes. Such certitudes are found in the Muslim as well as in the Christian view of the other. One of the most basic hopes of Shi’a Islam is the establishment of an ideal political state for Muslims. This means that the presence of non-Muslim minorities is only a temporary, preapocalyptic necessity. Ultimately, all Christians will see the blindness of their ways and will convert to the truth of Islam when the Prophet Jesus returns to the earth and publicly pledges his allegiance to the Prophet Muhammad.14 This is the foundational fact which should be taken into account when talking about the mindsets which relate to the promotion of Muslim and Christian mutuality in Iran present and future. Christians in Iran face unique challenges that no other Christians in the world experience in quite the same way. The perceived theological divide between Christians and Shi’a Islam, which is wide, is only one component of that equation. Models of interaction which
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may work in another context may not succeed inside Iran. Reliance on theological argumentation and apologetics, given such a gap, has often replaced calm and productive discussions on exigent differences and similarities. A tone of ultimacy and reductionistic assertion seems to lurk in the shadows behind almost every conversation. In many of these interactions, political concerns, central in Iran, are not even addressed. This is not to suggest that theological conversations should not proceed between Muslims and Christians in Iran: They should. Barbara Roggema states, Probably the most important objection of Muslims to Christianity is that Christians, contrary to what they themselves claim, are not true monotheists. Because of their belief in the Trinity, Christians have constantly been accused of attributing partners to God, of being associators (mushrikun). It is well known that a large part of Christian apologetics vis-à-vis Islam is devoted to the defence against this accusation.15
Muslims in Iran have a long history of sometimes “mocking Christian doctrines and dismissing them as unconsidered, unfounded, and inconsistent.”16 There often seems to be, in the discouraging view of David Thomas, a “complete failure in communications” between Muslims and Christians.17 There are instances, however, even in modern Iran, where Christians and Muslims are forging ties of respectful communications. The Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and the Imam Khomeini Institute (IMI) in Qom, the most religious city in Iran, has been progressing on a constructive partnership in interfaith dialogue in recent years. In 1990, the MCC was extensively involved in a relief effort following a devastating earthquake in Iran. This first step in intercultural relations based on concerned social justice partnerships led to further interfaith contacts. The next agreement was that two Iranian doctoral students would study at the Toronto School of Theology and that a Mennonite couple would live, study, and teach in Qom.18 Since that time, a number of Muslim and Christian conferences have been established between these two organizations which have focused on such issues as “Revelation and Authority” and “Muslims, Christians, and the Challenge of Modernity.”19 These gatherings were arranged with the support and direction of Ayatollah Mesbah, of the Council of Experts. He addressed the colloquium in Qom and called on both Christians and Muslims to confront the increasing trend of
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secularization in our changing world. One participant in both conferences noted, Most remarkable in the course of the dialogue was the respect which both sides showed toward each others’ texts. One wise, senior Muslim scholar, Professor Twofiqi, who has been teaching Christianity to Muslims for forty years in Iran, referred to Jesus as our Lord Jesus Christ on a number of occasions. Twofiqi’s expression did not imply the divinity of Jesus but represents the respect Muslims have for Jesus as a great prophet.20
These interactions show promise when both communities of uncompromised faith are respectful, consistent, and calmly willing to listen to each other instead of lambasting each other with dismissive assertiveness. One observer stated, Apparent throughout the visits and theological discussions was the growing level of trust between our two communities of learning. Pivotal to this trust is the sincerity of dialogue, the common search for truth, and the firm conviction on both sides that the life of the intellect ought not to be separated from devotion, piety, and moral integrity.21
German theologian Hans Kung claims that foundational to interfaith dialogue should be a posture of genuine humility and reposeful openness “which combines human sympathy as well as theological empathy.”22 George Braswell, a pioneer Southern Baptist missionary to Iran, wrote that the most prescient dialogue that Christians can have relating to Muslims will be the ways that they relate to Muslims on an ethical and moral level. He cited the encounter in the thirteenth century between the formidable Muslim general Saladin and St. Francis of Assisi, a humble and poor Christian friar. Even though they did not speak the same language, Saladin was deeply touched by the deportment and character of St. Francis. Braswell reports that Saladin vowed, “If I ever meet a second Christian like you, I would be willing to be baptized. But that will not happen.”23 A sagacious commitment to family, community concern, friendship, and an attitude of mutual respect will swing open wide doors of fruitful interaction not accessible, or even imaginable, through strident diatribes that benefit no one but the speaker.24 Christians worldwide were able to express their concern for the people of Iran when another devastating earthquake struck the city of Bam on December 26, 2003.25 An unimaginable thirty-four thousand
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people died buried under the rubble, and another thirty thousand people were injured. The Iranian government waived all visa restrictions so that any aid agency which wanted could come into the country and aid the victims. Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, and others responded to this urgent plea for help. John Schenk of World Vision, a Christian relief organization, recounted, “Ideologies and politics have not been part of the discussions. It’s about the shock they’ve suffered and what motivates us to help.”26 Another Christian had a slightly different perspective. Clive Calver, the president of World Relief, explained: “The church has something to offer that is more valuable than food or blankets. We can pray in the name of Jesus.”27 Such a horrific human tragedy, however, should never be seen as a crass opportunity to seize any measure of sectarian advantage. New ways of engagement between Christians and Muslims should be emboldened in Iran. Instead of repeatedly slamming our heads against dogmatic walls of swaggering debate, during which people are rarely open to learn or respectfully interact, Christians and Muslims should first seek to find ways in which partnerships can naturally emerge for social justice or for shared civic goals that might have internationalized ramifications. Muslims and Christians in Iran may find common ground for discussions by focusing on social justice issues which both faith communities must address. One is the question of rights and status of women in modern Iranian society. There is a public willingness on the part of Iranian Muslims to tackle these issues as exemplified by the founding of the University of Teheran’s Center for Women’s Studies and many other initiatives. The Iranian Constitution professes that women should enjoy equal rights with men in Iran.28 A lawyer and activist, Shirin Ebadi, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her exertions in inspiring the deliberate advance of women’s rights in Iran. People of faith should join together to discuss the present and historical role of women in religion and society. Interfaith partnerships might be a creative way to improve the plight of all women, Muslim and non-Muslim, within Iran.29 Sexist customs and habits are deeply ingrained in many cultures and religions in our world (as well as other similarities and differences), and this may provide a sturdy platform to begin to establish interfaith social justice partnerships. Interfaith conversations of gender justice issues have the potential to animate discussions on unexpected issues. Unlike Christianity, for example, the Muslim heaven is not asexual.30 There are also historical realities that will have to be faced when working on interfaith gender justice concerns. As is true in the Christian
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world, the development of Islamic law in Iran has often been marked by laws, such as those which relate to divorce, which have clearly favored the prerogatives of men over the rights of women.31 Islam also has a number of textual resources that encourage men to show deference to women, and early Islamic history is filled with accounts of several women who were “extremely powerful politically, economically, and religiously.”32 Shi’a Islam seeks to protect women by condemning fornication, adultery, and by allowing for “temporary marriages” (mot’a) for widows and divorcees as ways to further protect these marginalized women in society.33 Early Islam, it is claimed, improved the lot of Arab women who, previously, had existed as unpaid domestic servants— virtual slaves who lived only to gratify their husbands’ sexual desires and to bear children. Shi’a Islam, some suggest, began in the home of Fatimah, and her intercession is invoked today in the holy city of Qom. These tolerant historical views seem to contrast with recent comments made by Hojatolislam Seyyed Ahmad Elmalhoda (April 10, 2008), who claimed that “unveiled women turn men into beasts” and that women are “a source of all that is bad in society.”34 Social justice challenges relating to the environment also could generate potentially unifying discourses.35 Both the Holy Qur’an and the Holy Bible call upon believers to respect the earth and to be faithful stewards of its limited natural resources. These pressing duties are incumbent as never before as our shared environmental resources become increasingly precious and as our environmental problems become dramatically more pronounced. First steps together on such social justice issues might be a way to build interfaith trust-capital and facilitate other discussions over other concerns which, in the past, have often met with intractability from one community or the other. In spite of these hopeful examples, the harsh and unavoidable fact is that political realities in Iran will dramatically affect the tenor of all Muslim and Christian interactions for the foreseeable future. The Islamic revolution of 1979 was not, in the foreboding warnings of Ayatollah Khomeini “about the price of watermelons,” but it was a “sea-change, a sudden wrenching shift, realignment in the human geography of the Muslim world.”36 Once again, the overarching supremacy of Islam triumphant was framed in a political context. This affects all Muslims, Shi’ite and Sunni, as well as all non-Muslims, in profound ways. The reassertion of the insurrection in Iran is that the faith of Islam is the only way in which social societies can be vitally transformed from grim present realities to bright God-given promise. Non-Muslims do not fit into this universal equation as equals in any ultimate sense. Their presence is an undeniable and inevitable hin-
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drance which will be, gradually but certainly, overcome by the truth and will of Almighty God. The future of Iranian political and religious attitudes remains uncertain. The initial goal of fomenting Islamic revolution worldwide may survive to some degree, but modern Iranian politicians seem to be much more concerned about fostering stability and securing their own fragile political authority. In the two decades since Khomeini’s death, the Islamic Republic of Iran has managed, for the most part, to hold to that course. It remains to be seen, however, if Khomeini’s “Islamic vision in its purest form is incompatible with some of Iran’s historical and cultural characteristics” such as intercultural toleration, intellectual openness, and interrelational hospitality.37 Leaders can use the status of minority religious groups in the country either as a political football to curry favor with intolerant fanatics who long for the eventual day when all Iranians will be devoted Muslims or as a way to communicate to the larger world community a degree of tolerance for difference and for human rights. The immediate successor to Khomeini, Ayatollah Khamenei, led a harsh crackdown on intellectuals and writers. He purged “pro-Western faculty members” during the 1995–1996 academic school years, and the internationally renowned author Sa’idi-Siranji was imprisoned and died mysteriously in detainment during November 1994.38 The elections of 1997 and 1998 brought to the Iranian government officials who seemed open to encouraging such dialogues at the international level. President Mohammad Khatami launched a series of dialogues with church dignitaries including the pope (1999), the archbishop of Canterbury (2006), and the dean of the Washington National Cathedral (2006). In 1999, Khatami commenced the International Centre for Dialogue among Civilizations in response to the premonitions of Samuel Huffington that the world was undergoing an emerging clash of civilizations. Khatami’s vice president, ’Ali Abtahi, also inaugurated the Institute for Interreligious Dialogue in Iran (2001). Mohammad Khatami claimed to be a leader who would advocate for “pragmatism, toleration, and temperance.”39 The West had a golden opportunity to take advantage of this relatively moderate posture but chose instead to let this chance slip through its grasp. Another poignant moment for potential bridge-building came after the attacks of 9/11, when the avenues of Teheran were filled with well-wishers of the victims of the United States, bearing signs with such messages as “Today we are all Americans.” The Iranian government also gave significant help to the allied coalition forces against the Taliban in Afghanistan and even helped broker a peace agreement.
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These overtures were unilaterally dismissed by George Bush’s “Axis of Evil” pronouncement (January 2002) and the Bush administration’s rejection of an offer, via the Swiss government, for a bilateral agreement which may have helped resolve the nuclear issue and thus improve arctic relations between Israel and Iran. This unresolved nuclear crisis continues to loom large on the international stage. Iran’s political and military activities inside Lebanon and the present war with Iraq (especially in Iran’s often-misunderstood relationship with Iraqi’s Arab Shi’ites) are additional sources for recent tensions between the United States and Iran.40 No matter how extensive actual Iranian involvement is in Iraq, there is tremendous support for continued efforts to oppose American involvement in Iraq. Professor Mohammadi Esfahani explains: “Let people say Iran will continue to support Arab Shi’a resistance groups to fight Americans in Iraq. I say it and I am sure it is true. Iran has the right to defend itself and it is the right of the Iraqi people to defend themselves against American occupiers. America is an intruder and we people of the region must help each other.”41 Even though President Khatami pushed for openness, at the grassroots level, there has been little noticeable improvement in the interfaith tensions between Christians, Baha’is, and Jews with Iran’s Muslims. Khatami never once considered easing the draconian punishments for apostates from Islam, and during his administration, with or without his consent, a rash of political killings took place.42 Iran remained an often dangerous place to be a Baha’i, an evangelistic Christian preaching to Muslims, or a public activist for human rights. Under the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tensions between Muslims and people of other faiths have become even more pronounced. Reportedly, Ahmadinejad is from a small religious sect which believes that the end of the world is near and that its coming should be advanced. The Mahdi, it is believed by Ahmadinejad, will come at the darkest hour of human history, and the faithful followers of the Mahdi should not be afraid to generate a temporary global military crisis in order to usher in the ultimate salvation and unity that God will bestow on humanity through the Mahdi. Changes are gradually taking place in modern Iran today and sweeping and unpredictable protest movements pose a significant possible threat to the status quo. Presently, there seem to be increasing internal crackdowns on any and all perceived enemies of the state, and “the government often seems to be mounting a campaign against its own people.”43 President Ahmadinejad’s government is more conservative than Khatami’s leadership, but it probably also has far less
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popular support.44 The riots after the sham elections of June 2009 reconfirm this view. It is possible that pressure from President Barack Hussein Obama’s administration will change the situation. In spite of these changes, the mullahs who ultimately rule Iran continue to seem unwilling to support Muslim-Christian interactions in anything approaching equitable respect. It is possible, however, for whatever reason, that Iran may make some efforts, even symbolically, to reach out to non-Muslims within the country and to people of faith outside of Iran. Any initiative of such a nature by a president must be seen in light of the fact that his ability to bring change is directly related to the support of the Supreme Leader and the Religious Council of the Guardians of the Faith. This is sometimes overlooked in some Western predictions about present or future political posturing. In 2007, President Ahmadinejad made a public effort to reach out to North American Christians. When Ahmadinejad visited the United States, he was roundly criticized in his introduction to a forum he participated in at Columbia University by Lee Bollinger, president of the university.45 In contrast to the Columbia University incident, on September 27, 2007, Ahmadinejad was introduced by Albert Lobe of the Mennonite Central Committee (at a chapel opposite the United Nations) by saying, “We mean to extend to you the hospitality which a head of state deserves.”46 Ahmadinejad, the religious president of a religious nation, relishes speaking on religious topics. He spoke to 140 religious Christian leaders in a meeting sponsored by the Mennonite Central Committee and Quakers, which had been requested by Iranian officials. Jewish groups and clergy members had been invited but refused to participate because of Ahmadinejad’s virulent anti-Jewish statements and his denials of the Holocaust. Mary Ellen McNish, general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, lamented, “My heart was broken that there was so little support from other religions to be here. If we don’t walk down this path of dialogue, we’re going to end up in a conflagration.”47 Evangelicals in modern Iran are increasingly meeting in small house group fellowships where they are free to meet without any need to seek approval for buildings or for their programs. Because many of these underground groups seek to guard their privacy there is often scant information about their size or about their programs. Many of these groups are growing at a remarkable pace, and one of the major criticisms of Evangelicals in Iran is that they continue to be actively involved in proselytization efforts among Muslims. The problem is that Evangelicals feel that this is a basic commandment of scripture
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that should be obeyed by those who follow Christ. It is part of their religious belief as Christians that they are obligated to share their faith with those who have not accepted the message of Christ. Both Christians and Muslims may feel obliged to communicate their missionary message as part of being obedient to its mandates. St. Paul described it as a duty (1 Corinthians 9:16, 19–23), but, in spite of widespread comments to the contrary, the fulfilling of this command need not result in an acrimonious or confrontational attack of the faith of others presented in an adversarial manner. Should not efforts to share one’s faith with others be protected as part of a person’s basic human rights? This question is especially prescient because both Islam and Christianity teach that every follower should unashamedly bear witness to their faith. Further, both traditions remind their followers to be tolerant of others because only God knows what is best for His creation and God alone, and no human agent can deliver to another person God’s free gift of eternal salvation. What seems certain is that the one true God is not glorified by smug and dismissive aspersions against either Muslims or Christians. Positive Iranian Muslim and Christian interactions will hopefully increase in the future, and the motivation behind such interactions should be transparent. This will be a gradual and difficult work after centuries of mistrust and misunderstanding between adherents of these two religions. Instead of relating to each other as “competitors,” Braswell calls Muslims and Christians from a battle of words to a “religion of life, of caring, of personal integrity and community ties” which he calls the “language of relationships.”48 Education through direct personal encounters that fosters mutuality seems to be the best hope for progress. Persian Christians know their country and the faith of Iran as do no others. They are patriotic and love their nation, and rightfully so. Their direct experience with their Muslim neighbors is a valuable resource for the body of Christ worldwide that is just now, in many instances, coming to engage the House of Islam. Perhaps Persian Christians can become a positive, firsthand resource to help adherents of global Christianity gain a more appreciative and nuanced view of Shi’a Islam. This would be helpful because so much of the modern Western media seems to present unilateral and aggressive voices from Iran as representative of the millions of Shi’ites. Such one-dimensional caricaturizations only reinforce the ideas of those who are increasingly seeking to stir up sentiments of Islamaphobia in the West. Both Sunni and Shi’ite Islam historically have included a freedomloving social justice tradition which provides a critical restraint on eco-
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nomic and political tyrants “and their rampant lust for power.”49 The Prophet Muhammad exclaimed, “The most precious martyr in my ummah is he who rebels against a tyrannical leader.”50 Those who describe themselves as democratic revolutionary reformers may actually only be anti-democratic ideologues who are blind themselves and seek to blind others. The Holy Qur’an, however, is a light “made for illuminating and not for blinding people.”51 The Holy Qur’an offers a “steep path of ascent” (Q. 90:12–17) for those who would work to change society for the good. Shi’a Islam has a unique additional commitment to social justice in the doctrinal emphasis on the return of the Mahdi, who will introduce “a better world and a more equitable social order.”52 These aspirations for social justice can easily be affirmed by Christians who are willing to create strong partnerships for civic progress with their Muslim neighbors. Muslims who are willing to recognize these same aspirations within the Christian tradition can also seek, from their position of a majority status within Iran, to enlist Christians (and other non-Muslims) in the steady promotion of social justice. At the grassroots level, and in small rural villages through the centuries, Muslims and Christians in Persia have usually found ways to work beside each other and to respect each other. They have often found creative, quiet pathways to solve their differences away from the bold spotlights of outside religious or political influences. It is also probably true that around the world, most common villagers simply believe what their religious leaders tell them—whether it is that hell was made for Christians or that Christians are also good people who can enjoy God’s many rich blessings. Many Muslims assume that “the Christians will become Muslims sooner than the others” and that our theological differences are relatively minor and need not be accentuated.53 In this research, I have tried to put myself in the shoes of Persian Christians who have been consistently marginalized for their faith. It is impossible to imagine the unique struggles and challenges that they have faced on a daily basis for such a long period of time. It is important to remember that Christians have never once been a majority of the population in Persia. The greatest extent of their influence in Persian culture was probably never more than 10 or 15 percent of the entire population. It has always been an uphill climb for Christians as a minority community who have often faced daunting difficulties. The Anglican Bishop Hasan Dehqani-Tafti decided to title a book about his life after a line from the Persian poet Shams al-din Muhammad Hafez (1325–1390). The line, from a poem titled
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“Love’s Awakening,” exclaimed, “Love seemed at first an easy thing, But Ah! The hard awakening!” The love affair that Christians in Iran have had with their own nation (and its people) has been marked by an often hard awakening of adversity which has often called for an increasingly passionate commitment to loving both God and one’s fellow humanity. It is easy to celebrate a love affair with the colorful and dedicated Christians of Iran. They are a faithful community of believers who share a rich, amazing history and who face tremendous obstacles in their present situation. While few people even realize that Christianity still exists in Iran, those of us who have met these Christians face to face will never forget how they have warmly touched our lives. Their fidelity to their faith is beyond question, and such a sturdy loyalty springs to life in every generation in the midst of seemingly dark and even hopeless political and social contexts. The Christian church is a church of all nations and a church for all nations. As Bishop Hasan Dehqani-Tafti reminds us, “The concept of a multinational and multiracial Christian community was too precious to be sacrificed” or replaced by a purely national church.54 A Persian Christianity without any connection to Christians worldwide is not possible on either the theological or theoretical level because Christians wherever they find themselves are inexorably linked together in one shared communion of faith which invariably transcends all cultural and national identities. The Christian worshipping community worldwide is also often a missionary church which seeks to reach beyond confining borders in seeking to include all of God’s children in a joyful embrace of freeing grace and divine mercy. The challenge is to transplant the initial differences of the church into an experience of Christianity which becomes increasingly local and progressively rooted in the specificity of a given context. This task is expressed theologically in the Christian doctrine of the incarnation of Christ, born in the middle of drab and daily commonness. From an unassuming, ramshackle stable in Bethlehem at the heart of the Middle East, the Christian faith has reached into both impoverished hovels and lavish mansions around the world. Christianity took root in the East, and wise men from Persia were the first to offer gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the newborn Christ. “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia” were some of the first believers to celebrate the birthday of the Christian church on Pentecost (Acts 2:9). The history of Christian and Muslim relations in Iran is often an emotive story of persecution which brings with it, inherently, the
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inevitable desire to leave for an easier life far away from such suffocating and seemingly intractable problems. The exodus of the church from Iran, and an Iranian church in exile, is a major issue for modern Persian Christianity. It is not appropriate to judge individuals and the decisions they make, but Christianity does provide its followers with a conviction that remaining rooted in a difficult situation can often be more redemptive than fleeing to fight another day. Bishop Kenneth Cragg thinks that the Christian gospels show that redemption is to be found within suffering when what “Dostoyevsky calls a god-bearing people whose response to evil lay in their will to transmute it into a good result.”55 Armenians, Assyrians, and Persian converts from Islam to Christianity in Persia have faced centuries of mind-boggling oppression and have carried this cross of love within their heart. Those who have left have continued to support those who have stayed, and those who have stayed have remained loyal to their Persian cultural heritage and their sense of solidarity with all Persians—Muslim and non-Muslim. These facts are why the multifaceted account of Christian and Muslim interaction in Persia cannot be called a tragedy. In spite of all odds, and in defiance of human logic, the Christian church in Iran has survived. It has survived simply because some Persian Christians have chosen, against their own self-interests, to stay in Iran. It has survived because Iranian Christians who have physically left the country have chosen to keep their hearts firmly tethered to their motherland. Iranian Christians are living proof that “the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4) can be worshipped in even the most demanding of situations of stressful exile or brittle persecution. Mostly, the commitment of Iranian Christians is also a revelation, to both Persians and non-Persians, about something that is at the heart of the best expressions of a pilgrim Christianity throughout time. Bishop Hasan Dehqani-Tafti wrote that as a Christian he always felt that he lived as a foreigner within his own country. His life is the poignant account of an outsider within his own society who has never been granted access into the warm embrace of widespread acceptance. It was from this vantage point that the bishop reflected on another outsider who was scorned and continued to love: The heart of Christianity is the cross of Jesus Christ: but this cross is often hidden in the clouds of hatred, suspicion, hardness of heart and pride, which prevailed in the world among the sons of men. To dispel these clouds, and disclose the real cross, calls for more than preaching and teaching. It demands the bearing of the cross in daily life. This is
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Christians and Muslims worldwide should call on the Islamic Republic of Iran to ensure the human rights of all of its citizens. Forward-looking Christians and Muslims together should speak for those Baha’is (and marginalized Jews and Evangelicals) who still live within Iran and who are treated as “unprotected infidels who have no legal rights.”57 Kit Bigelow warns that “the elimination of the Baha’i[s] is explicit government policy”58 in Iran. There are probably still about forty thousand Baha’is remaining in Iran, although their leaders continue to disappear, and they continue to be falsely accused of activities such as drug-running, sexual malpractice, or treason, although their religion clearly prohibits all three. The Baha’is are accused of sexual malpractice because their marriages are not recognized, and all children born to them are considered illegitimate. Sometimes, in order to survive, the Baha’is have presented themselves as Christians or as Jews as a way to avoid detection and opprobrium.59 No person should have to hide their faith convictions simply to survive, and, because of this, all people of faith and goodwill should unite to assist the Baha’i community of Iran in their seemingly quixotic search for peace and social justice. Of this ongoing human rights struggle for religious freedom, Paul Marshall explains that, in order for change to come, pressure needs to be intense, continuous, persistent, focused, and intelligent. There are people now, as I write, as you read, who are being imprisoned, raped, sold into slavery, and tortured to death. . . . It is no mercy to spare the feelings of others by allowing the suffering of millions to pass by in silence. It is no humility to accept the death of others. It is no love to be quiet in the face of oppression. We may indeed be called to turn the other cheek in attacks on ourselves. We have no such call in attacks on others.60
The presence of Persian Christians throughout two millennia speaks of a noble and dedicated character and of an unshakeable faith. Icons, sermons, writings, and thorough scholarship have all been shared in hopes of educating future generations, and the Persian church has carried on from mother to daughter and from father to son. Esteemed Christian scholars have always been honored guests in Muslim courts throughout Persian history. Christians have been allowed to continue to worship God in Iran because their Muslim neighbors, those closest to them, were certain that their Christian faith was genuine and that their moral character was honorable. The haunting
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beauty of worship among these Christians, Persians, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, and others causes observers to bow in humble gratitude. These ancient wellsprings of traditions can provide nurture to modern Christians worldwide, and, while we may not be conversant in their various languages or understand their liturgies, I hope that all of us will quietly listen and willingly learn from the example of their steady devotion. A prayer has been passed down to us through the generations, first recited by Hovhannes Garnetsi, a thirteenth-century Armenian monk. It is a simple prayer for pilgrims that expresses my hopes for all who love Persia—Muslim, Jewish, Baha’i, Zoroastrian, or Christian—and who pray for peace among all of us: Now I pray to you, Lord, lead my companions and me to travel in peace on the long journey before us. For you are our way and our truth and our life. May all that we do bring glory and worship to you, now and always, and unto the ages and ages of men. Amen.61
NOTES 1. Wright, 21. 2. There are a number of passages in the Holy Qur’an, rooted in specific circumstances, which throughout the history of Islamic theological discussion have been variously interpreted in different ways. Surah 2:256 and Surah 109:6 are two passages which seem to suggest that God calls Muslims to accept and embrace other “People of the Book.” In contrast, Surah 5:54 (and other passages) seem to suggest that Muslims and non-Muslims should not be friends with each other. 3. Bailey and Bailey, 161. 4. Francis-Dehqani, 106. Kenneth Cracknell looks at this distinction between the land and the people extensively in his research on the 1910 World Missions Conference held in Edinburg in his book, cited in the bibliography, titled Justice, Courtesy, and Love: Theologians and Missionaries Encountering the World’s Religions, 1846–1914. London: Epworth Press, 1995, pages 202–19, 285. The entire point of the missionaries was initiated on unexamined cultural attitudes that they held which were rooted in theological assumptions about the need and distress of those dying souls that they were living among combined with their confidence that they had superior knowledge and the only truth about God. The high rates of illiteracy and extensive poverty of the Persian context, contrasted by what these missionaries had known in England, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, or Australia, only underscored and deepened this sense of conceit framed as sympathy, Christian charity, and compassion for those “sheep without a shepherd.” Christians were convinced, in the words of Francis-Dehqani, that the Christian gospel alone could “lay the
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foundation for the formation of a new spiritual and physical community. As providers of the Christian message, the missionaries were convinced that they possessed the solutions necessary to ensure a positive future for the people of Iran. Their motivation was, by and large, genuine, as was their desire to alleviate suffering. However, the figurative generalizations to which they clung in order to express their ideas, together with their deeply embedded assumptions of superiority, meant that a patronizing tone remained inescapable” (113). 5. Quoted in Francis-Dehqani, 106. 6. One might just as easily argue that Christianity (given the transformations that took place in Judaism while in Persia to embrace notions such as heaven and hell and angels and devils and an afterlife) is a derivative of Zoroastrianism, and, in this sense, all Christians and Jews are actually children of Zoroaster as much as they are children of Abraham. 7. Some have argued that the expulsion of Christian missionaries in China paved the way for the Chinese Christian faith to flourish in a way that it had not been able to while it had been so closely connected to Western leadership and educational and ecclesiastical institutions. Philip Jenkins reports that the People’s Republic of China, completely free of authorized foreign missionaries, now has one of the largest Christian communities worldwide. 8. The MECC has its headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, but also has regional offices in Limassol, Cyprus; Cairo, Egypt; Amman, Jordan; Dubai, the United Arab Emirates; and Jerusalem. The main contact number for the MECC is c/o The General Secretary, Deeb Building, Makhoul Street, P. O. Box 5376, Beirut, Lebanon. The MECC telephone number is 961-1353-938 and their fax number is 961134-4894. The email contact address is
[email protected] and the website is www.mechurches.org. 9. The FMEEC and the MECC are complimentary organizations. The contact address for the Fellowship of Middle Eastern Evangelical Churches is the Ayia Napa Conference Center, P.O. Box 30048, 5340 Ayia Napa, Cyprus, and their email address is
[email protected]. The leadership of the organization is under a general secretary who, in 2003, was Ms. Rosangela Jarjour. 10. Kimball, 46. Kimball also hopefully notes that “increasingly, churches are appointing women as their representatives to ecumenical committees” (46). This challenges deeply ingrained traditions that would assign all leadership roles to men. It is hoped that future generations of Christians can challenge traditional patterns of leadership structures, which are usually maledominated. 11. Bailey and Bailey, 25. 12. Miroslav Volf, “Living with the ‘Other’” in Muslim and Christian Reflections on Peace: Divine and Human Dimensions, edited by J. Dudley Woodberry, Osman Zumrut and Mustafa Koylu. Lanham, Maryland: University Press in America, 2005, pages 3–4. 13. Fitzgerald, Michael L., and Jean-Marie Gaudeul, “A Roman Catholic Response to Schlorff,” in Missiology: An International Review, Volume XI, number 2, April 1983, page 23. The entire quote reads that Muslim and Christian dialogue starts from “the recognition of a spiritual bond which unites
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Christianity to Islam. Submission to the same personal God establishes a bond of brotherhood upon which is based a similar vision of man, the foundations of ethics and a joint mission for the service of man and the glory of God.” Mgr. Rossano made these comments while serving as the Vatican secretariat for non-Christians. Interfaith tensions often arise when they are rooted in theological differences instead of intercultural and ethical, moral relational considerations—what Catholicism calls “the dialogue of life.” 14. Van Gorder, A. Christian. No God But God: A Path to Muslim-Christian Dialogue on God’s Nature. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2003, page 140: “Christ will castigate Christians and affirm the truth of Islam by leading a struggle (jihad) against infidels and polytheists. Jesus will be the last prophet because He was raised from the earth without being crucified. In the end times, He is finally able to marry, reign as a king, and then die a natural death.” See also Van Gorder, 74. 15. Roggema, Barbara, chapter “Muslims as Crypto-Idolaters—A Theme in the Christian Portrayal of Islam in the Near East” in Thomas, ed., Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule, 2. 16. David Thomas, “Early Muslim Responses to Christianity, “in Thomas, ed., Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule, 231. 17. Thomas, 235. He concludes his book by saying this research has shown a “huge gulf” that lay between Muslims and Christians in the early Islamic period. There is no evidence at all that any Muslims reacted positively to Christian attempts to explain their doctrines, or thought them anything but flawed and misguided. From early times they appear to have followed the lead given by the Qur’an in regarding Christianity as aberrant, and with increasing knowledge and understanding of Christian doctrines they were able to mobilize arguments to give vivid expression to this attitude by exposing the logical flaws in their opponents’ formulations. Muslims throughout the early ‘Abbasid era almost unanimously regarded Christian doctrines as deficient and inferior to their own. The impatience that we have identified in some of their approaches is symptomatic of this attitude, and suggests that relations between theological practitioners were never cooperative and possibly never cordial. . . . So it is a gloomy picture, of misunderstanding and failure to understand on the side of Muslims, together with inability and maybe reluctance to explain on the part of Christians. It causes one to wonder exactly how understanding can be improved, and it warns present day practitioners in dialogue that preliminary requirements include patience, readiness to learn and comprehend, and maybe not a little humility. (Thomas, 253–54)
18. The first two Mennonites to go to Qom and study at the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute were Matthew and Laurie Pierce, and the first two Iranian doctoral students to travel to Toronto with this exchange program were Mohammad Farimani and Yousef Daneshvar. The Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre (TMTC) oversees the academic side of the program in Toronto. From an article entitled, “Revelation, Reason, and Authority: Shi’ite Muslim-Mennonite Christian Dialogue in Iran” a joint news release by Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute (Qom) and
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the Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre, in “Appendix F” of Anabaptists Meeting Muslims: A Calling for Presence in the Way of Christ. Krabill, James, David W. Shenk, and Linford Stutzman, editors. Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 2005, page 493. 19. The seminar “Revelation and Authority” was held in Qom on February 15 and 16, 2004. It was hosted by Professor Aboulhassan Haghani of IKI. Mennonite scholars who participated included David Shenk, Jon Hoover, and Roy Hange. The first seminar between the two groups was called “Muslims, Christians and the Challenges of Modernity” from October 24–26, 2002, in Toronto. Mennonite scholars who participated in the Toronto conference included A. James Reimer, Lydia Harder, Phil Enns, Susan Harrison, Ed Martin, and Matthew and Laurie Pierce, who then moved to Qom. The scholars from the Imam Khomeini Institute who went to Toronto included Dr. Legenhausen, Dr. Twofiqi, Dr. Shomali, Dr. Sajedi, Dr. Shameli, Dr. Fanaei, Dr. Namazi, and Professor Haghani, as well as the two doctoral candidates already studying in Toronto. The Iranian trip included tourist visits to Isfahan and Teheran and the Toronto trip included visits to Niagara Falls and an Old Order Mennonite farm. Details about this first program can be found in the Conrad Grebel Review (Fall 2003) (Krabill, Shenk, and Stutzman, 494). 20. Krabill, Shenk, and Stutzman, 495. 21. Krabill, Shenk, and Stutzman, 496. The participant, A. James Reiner, went on to say the second phase of our discourse has reinforced these initial impressions. We sense a growing spirit of community and solidarity between us as we together search for truth and greater faithfulness and righteousness. There are, of course, some serious theological differences, but we believe that before we dwell on these we need to develop a spirit of trust between us. We sincerely hope that our exchange and community of trust that we have already developed may continue to grow and be a sign of hope for much greater mutual understanding between our two traditions and also between our countries. (Krabill, Shenk, and Stutzman, 496)
22. Kung, Hans, “A Christian Scholar’s Dialogue with Muslims” in The Christian Century. Volume 102, number 30. October 9, 1985 (890–94), page 893. 23. Braswell, 174. Braswell goes on to describe another incident where a Franciscan friar came with Spanish Conquistadors to Peru and offered the defeated Incan king the choice between conversion and death. When the king objected, Braswell continues, then his hands were cut off. Once again he was asked to convert by the friar, who said, “Be baptized and you will go to heaven.” The king replied, “No, for if I went to heaven then I might meet a second Christian like you” (Braswell, 174). 24. Braswell describes his own relational experiences as follows: In my years of living in Iran, I shall never forget my frequent visits to the small mosque in downtown Teheran. The young Ayatollah would lead the small group of diverse men, some garbage collectors and other white-collar workers sitting side by side in their prayers. Then, after a brief sermon, there would be much tea-drinking,
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exchange of gossip and newsworthy items, and dialogue with me about matters of faith. We sat on heavily trodden Persian carpets in a circle of friendship. Muslims in worship and prayer cared for me and I for them. (Braswell, 174)
25. The city of Bam is 630 miles southwest of Teheran. 26. Quoted in Kennedy, 19. Ken Isaacs, director of projects for Samaritan’s Purse, was present in Iran after the earthquake. He said, “The heart of our ministry is sharing the mandates of Christ. But this is an Islamic society. We’re not preaching” (quoted in Kennedy). 27. Kennedy, 19. In the same article Clive Calver also said, “Evangelicals moved out of their safety zones after the earthquakes. With people of this spiritual caliber, nothing will stand in the way of their being faithful to the Lord Jesus.” 28. Articles 20 and 21 provide the clearest statements about the rights of women in Iran. 29. Jews and Christians must begin conversations about women’s issues by taking a look at what the Bible says about such issues in ways which can easily be seen as discriminatory against women. Genesis 2:18 says that God creates women to be helpers for men, since there was no “suitable helper” among the animal kingdom. Genesis 3:16 quotes God telling Eve that Adam will “rule over” her and wives are told to be “submissive to their husbands as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22–24, see also 1 Peter 3:1–2). 30. Richards (150) describes Paradise: “It is filled with doe-eyed houris of modest gaze, eternally young, nubile virgins as beautiful as rubies and coral, cloistered in pavilions, and purified (i.e., ready for love) at all times.” Some Muslims have suggested that the term “houris” might actually mean “grapes,” and not “virgins.” 31. For an extensive examination of this question, consult the article “Autonomy and Equal Right to Divorce with Specific Reference to Shi’i Fiqh and the Iranian Legal System” in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, volume 17, number 3, July 2006, pages 281–94. In this article it is explained that a man, but not a woman, can simply pronounce the divorce in the presence of two male witnesses because “they consider divorce a unilateral privilege of the husband without the obligation to provide any justification” (281). This approach may contradict the statement in the Holy Qur’an which encourages members of the wife’s family to participate in the possibility of developing a reconciliation between two spouses (Surah 4:35). The larger principle is that all deeds among Muslims should be “conducted with fairness” (Surah 57:25). 32. Kazemzadeh, 101. Kazemzadeh also quotes one Islamic motto which says of the Prophet Muhammad’s favorite wife ‘Ayesha: “Take half of your religion from ‘Ayesha.” Other important women in early Islam include Fatimah, the Prophet’s favorite daughter, who was also active in politics, and Zahra, the Prophet’s granddaughter, who spoke up assertively for the cause of her brother Husayn to become caliph. 33. Critics cite that women have inferior legal status where one man counts as two women as court witnesses and relating to shares in a parent’s inheritance. Questions are raised about the cultural practice of female circumcision
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and the ease of divorce for men compared to women. The idea of a “temporary marriage” or a “marriage of pleasure” probably predates Islamic Persia and may have related to the needs of warriors or business travelers to relieve sexual stress. It is only officially practiced in Iran. The theory is that people should enjoy, and not restrict, sexual gratification but that such acts should protect the woman in the event that a pregnancy results from the union. The registrations also help eliminate the prospect of sexual abuse. Regulations about temporary marriages are set out in the Iranian Civil Code of 1985 (Articles 1075, 1076, 1095, 1097, and 1113). These marriages speak to the realism of Islam in recognizing human frailty. There is a brief waiting period before each marriage, and the duration of the wedding is arranged in advance. Temporary marriages can also be unconsummated, which is basically a way to allow a man and a woman to spend time together alone without public censure. Some people even pay famous people or holy people to agree to temporary marriages with their daughters. Critics call this sanctioned prostitution: “Free love is offered by women who rent themselves to good Muslims while at the same time imparting to their trade an extremely conventional and religiously licit air: they exercise it in the sanctuaries (for purposes of soliciting), clad in black chador, in exchange for money and repeatedly” (Richards, 163). In an article in the International Herald Tribune, April 16, 2008 (page 2), “Between Matrimony and Something Else” by Daniel Williams, twenty-four-year-old Firaz of Beirut explained simply, “I had sexual desires and was looking for a girl. Pleasure marriage is a way I could feel good about it. We all meet and sometimes we want to touch.” 34. “Top Shi’a Cleric Says Unveiled Women Turn Men into Beasts” in Adrikronos. Mashad, Iran. April 10, 2008. www.adrkronos.com/AKI/English/ Politics/. 35. Teheran has one of the worst air-quality rankings of any city in the world. 36. Reed, Fred A. Persian Postcards: Iran after Khomeini. Vancouver, British Columbia: Talon Books, 1994, page 283. 37. Hunter, Shireen. Iran after Khomeini. New York: Praeger Publishing, 1992, page 1. 38. This attack against intellectuals was inaugurated after 134 of Iran’s leading thinkers issued an open declaration that denounced “certain individuals, institutions, and groups related to the government for using arbitrary interpretations of art to vilify, humiliate and threaten writers. Affirming that our collective presence is the guarantee of our individual independence” the authors asserted that “defending the human and civil rights of every writer is the professional duty of all writers.” Sa’idi-Siranji was not a signatory to this document. In April 2008, the Baluchi journalist Yaghoob Mirnehad had been sentenced to death after being arrested in May 2007. Brumberg, Daniel. Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, page 195. 39. Moslem, 1. Khatami replaced rhetoric that called the United States “the great Satan” although this rhetoric has returned under Ahmadinejad. Khatami
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sought to normalize Iran’s relationships gradually with the outside world which had been seen, previously, in such a confrontational light. 40. Shi’ites in Iraq have shown little public or historic enthusiasm for Iranian political religion. There is a long animosity between the Arab Shi’ites of Iraq and the Persian Shi’ites of Iran. Iraqi Shi’ites such as Moqtada al-Sadr and Al-Sistani want only an independent role away from Iranian influence. Increasing attacks, however, may push Shi’ites into the willing arms of Iranians who wish to be seen as protectors for their fellow Shi’ites. The Shi’ism of Iraq, rooted in the holy cities of Najaf, Karbala, and Sammara, is completely independent from Iranian Shi’ism and has been so since 1921. It would seem that Iraqi Shi’ites, perhaps because of the eight-year war with Iran or perhaps because of the Arab-Persian divide, do not trust Iranians. The 2007 talks between Iran and the United States are also looked on with suspicion by Iraqis. 41. “Iranians Back War Against US” by Nizar Latif in the Emirates Today. October 19, 2006, page 20. 42. When Khatami was challenged on these facts, he would often argue that Western critics were guilty of hypocrisy on these issues. Hans Kung observed: “Khatami argued that it is hypocritical of Western politicians, particularly those in the United States, to become excited over the violations of human rights in Iran, which in the aftermath of the Islamic revolution and in the midst of war finds itself in a transitional phase” (Kung, Hans, “A Christian Scholar’s Dialogue with Muslims,” in The Christian Century. Volume 102, number 30, October 9, 1985, page 891). 43. “The Only Iran War Is Within Iran” in The Christian Science Monitor. December 20, 2007, editorial, page 8. 44. The election of 2005 was probably not free and fair. In the first round of voting, Ahmadinejad received only 6 percent of the votes cast. In the run-off election he received about 60 percent of the vote of a 60 percent turnout. Some people voted for him because, for the first time, they had the opportunity to vote for someone who was not a mullah. 45. Lee Bollinger began his introduction to President Ahmadinejad by saying that his views on the Holocaust “were either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated” (Goodstein, Laurie, “Ahmadenijad Meets Clerics, and Decibels Drop a Notch” in the New York Times. September 27, 2007, A6. www.nytimes.com). 46. Goodstein, 6. Panelists included the Reverend Drew Christiansen, a Roman Catholic and editor of America, a Jesuit weekly; Karen Hamilton, the general secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches; the Reverend Chris Ferguson, representing the World Council of Churches at the United Nations; and Glen Stassen, a professor of Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. 47. Goodstein, 6. Malcolm I. Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations related to Goodstein in a telephone interview: “They’re not going to convince him. Their very presence there gives him respectability.”
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48. Braswell, George W., Jr. “Christianity Encounters Islam: Iran and Beyond.” In Missiology: An International Review. Volume XI, number 2, April 1983, page 175. In this same article Braswell writes, “I have come to believe that in this encounter there is no room for warfare, hostility, death, and fulminating harangues. Encounters are hellish among religions when they hurl bombs and bombast at one another. Encounters are holy when the sacredness of personality and human integrity are affirmed and safeguarded” (181). 49. Dallmayr, Fred, “An Islamic Reformation? Some Afterthoughts” in An Islamic Reformation? Browers, Michaelle, and Charles Kurzman, editors. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2004, page 183. 50. Mohaddessin, Mohammad. Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat. Washington, D.C.: Seven Locks Press, 1993, page 6. 51. Dallmayr, in Browers and Kurzman (183). 52. Turner, Colin. Islam without Allah? The Rise of Religious Externalism in Safavid Iran. London: Curzon Press, 2000, page 191. 53. Loeffler, Reinhold. Islam in Practice: Religious Beliefs in a Persian Village. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1988, page 50. 54. Bishop Hasan Dehqani-Tafti quoted in Wessels (182). Bishop DehqaniTafti goes on to say in this same quote, “I knew that one day we might have to pay heavily for this, and indeed we have done so; but is it possible to achieve anything sublime without sacrifice?” 55. Cragg, 275. 56. Bishop Hasan Dehqani-Tafti quoted in Wessels (180). 57. “The Plight of Religious Minorities” in the CQ: Congressional Quarterly Review Congressional Testimony. June 30, 2006 (July 5, 2006). www .congressionalquarterly. Kit Bigelow, the source of this quote, is the director of the Office of External Affairs of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’i. Since 1980, Baha’is have not been able to hold elected office and are barred from institutions of higher education. The Baha’is are also legally denied the right to inherit property or worship collectively. 58. “The Plight of Religious Minorities” cited in the previous endnote. 59. This practice has gone on for many years. As early as the end of the nineteenth century, members of the Baha’i Faith were entering Christian communities and presenting themselves as Christians in order to avoid persecution. In some instances, they propagated their faith even while they were in these churches. A similar pattern of “infiltration” was taking place through recent decades in the Jewish community of Iran. 60. Marshall, 231. 61. Marsh, Richard, editor. Prayers from the East: Traditions of Eastern Christianity. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2004, page 16. St. Hovhannes Garnetsi was born in Garni, north of Yerevan in Armenia, which is the home of Baylor University scholar Artyom Tonoyan.
Appendix I
International Organizations Confronting Religious Persecution (2009)
ADVOCATES INTERNATIONAL 7002-C Little River Turnpike Annandale, VA 22003 Phone: 703-658-0070; Fax: 703-658-0077 Email:
[email protected]
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL U.S. Office: 322 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10001 Phone: 212-807-8400; Fax: 212-9895473 www.amnesty.org Email:
[email protected]
CARDINAL KUNG FOUNDATION P.O. Box 8086, Ridgeway Center Stamford, CT 06905 Phone: 203-329-9712; Fax 203-329-8415
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CHRISTIAN LIFE COMMISSION OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION 901 Commerce, Suite 550 Nashville, TN 37203-3696 CHRISTIAN SOLIDARITY INTERNATIONAL U.S. Office: 1101 17th Street NW, Suite 607 Washington, D.C. 20036 Phone: 540-636-8907 Email:
[email protected] COALITION FOR THE DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS UNDER ISLAMIZATION 231 East Carroll Macomb, IL 61455 Phone: 309-833-4249 COMPASS DIRECT NEWS SERVICE P.O. Box 27250 Santa Ana, CA 92799 FREEDOM HOUSE’S PUEBLA PROGRAM ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 1319 18th Street NW, Second Floor Washington, D.C. 20036 Phone: 202-296-5101; Fax 202-296-5078 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 485 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10017-6104 Phone: 212-972-8400; Fax: 212-972-0905 www.gopher://gopher.humanrights.org:5000/11/int/hrw Email:
[email protected]
ORGANIZATIONS CONFRONTING RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION (2009)
INSTITUTE ON RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY 1521 16th Street NW, Suite 300 Washington D.C. 20036 Phone: 202-986-1440; Fax: 202-986-3159
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN 2020 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, #941 Washington, D.C. 20006 Phone: 301-989-1708; Fax: 301-989-1709 www:http://esoptron.umd.edu/icc/ics.html Email:
[email protected]
IRANIAN CHRISTIANS INTERNATIONAL P.O. Box 25607 Colorado Springs, CO 80936 Phone: 719-596-0010; Fax: 719-574-1141
JUBILEE CAMPAIGN U.S. Office: 9689-C Main Street Fairfax, VA 22031 Phone: 703-503-0791; Fax: 703-503-0792 Email: ann.buwalda2gen.org
MIDDLE EAST CONCERN P.O. Box 295 Macomb, IL 61455
OPEN DOORS INTERNATIONAL Australia P.O. Box 53, Seaforth, NSW 2092, Australia
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Canada P.O. Box 597, Streetsville, Ontario, L5M 2CI, Canada Netherlands Postbus 47, 3850 AA Ermelo, the Netherlands New Zealand P.O. Box 27-630, Mt. Roskill, Auckland, 1030, New Zealand South Africa Box 990099, Kibler Park 2053, Johannesburg, South Africa United Kingdom and Ireland P.O. Box 6, Witney, Oxfordshire, OX8 7SP, England United States P.O. Box 27001 Santa Ana, CA 92799 Phone: 714-531-6000
THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE P.O. Box 7482 Charlottesville, VA 22906-7482 Phone: 804-978-3888; Fax: 804-978-1789 www.rutherford.org Email:
[email protected]
VOICE OF THE MARTYRS P.O. Box 443 Bartlesville, OK 74005 Phone: 918-337-8015; Fax: 918-337-9287 www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/vom/vom.html Email:
[email protected]
ORGANIZATIONS CONFRONTING RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION (2009)
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WORLD EVANGELICAL FELLOWSHIP RELIGIOUS LIBERTY COMMISSION U.S. Office (International Office is in Singapore) 2309 139th Street SE Mill Creek, WA 98012 Phone: 206-742-7923 www.xc.crg/wef/wefintro Email: WEF NA2XC.org Those who want to contact Iran directly, a signatory to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights can write to Hojjatoleslam Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President Dr. Ali Shariati Avenue c/o the Islamic Republican Party Teheran, Iran Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei, Spiritual Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Or write Shoshtari Mohammad Esmail, Minister of Justice c/o The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran Thunstr. 68, 3006 Berne, Switzerland Fax: 011-41.31.351.5652 Those who want to contact the United States directly and encourage human rights for religious minorities in Iran can contact The Secretary of State, Department of State 2201 C Street NW, Suite 7276 Washington, D.C. 20520. Those who want to contact the United Kingdom directly and encourage human rights for religious minorities in Iran can contact The Foreign Secretary London England, the United Kingdom
Appendix II
Statements from the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights was prepared by an Islamic Council in Paris and ratified on September 19, 1981. It is not binding to any state but it does reflect the views of many Muslims worldwide. It is included in this context to encourage both Muslims and non-Muslims to strive for social justice. Selections that relate to the rights of religious minorities are cited by A. G. Noorani in Islam and Jihad: Prejudice versus Reality (London: Zed Books, 2003), 133–44.
II. RIGHT TO FREEDOM b. Every individual and every people has the inalienable right to freedom in all its forms—physical, cultural, economic, and political— and shall be entitled to struggle by all available means against any infringement or abrogation of this right; and every oppressed individual or people has a legitimate claim to the support of other individuals and/or peoples in such a struggle.
IV. RIGHT TO JUSTICE a. Every person has the right to be treated in accordance with the Law, and only in accordance with the Law. b. Every person has not only the right but also the obligation to protest against injustice; to have recourse to remedies provided by the Law in respect of any unwarranted personal injury or loss; to selfdefense against any charges that are preferred against him and to
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obtain fair adjudication before an independent judicial tribunal in any dispute with public authorities or any other person. c. It is the right and duty of every person to defend the rights of any other person and the community in general (Hisbah).
VII. RIGHT TO PROTECTION AGAINST TORTURE No person shall be subjected to torture in mind or body, or degraded, or threatened with injury either to himself or to anyone related to or held dear by him, or forcibly made to confess a crime, or forced to consent to an act injurious to his interests.
X. RIGHTS OF MINORITIES a. The Qur’anic principle “There is no compulsion in religion” shall govern the religious rights of non-Muslim minorities. b. In a Muslim country religious minorities shall have the choice to be governed in respect of their civil and personal matters by Islamic Law, or by their own laws.
XII. RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF BELIEF, THOUGHT, AND SPEECH a. Every person has the right to express his thoughts and beliefs so long as he remains within the limits proscribed by the Law. No one, however, is entitled to disseminate falsehood or to circulate reports which may outrage public decency, or to indulge in slander, innuendo, or to cast defamatory aspersions on other persons. b. Pursuit of knowledge and truth is not only a right, but a duty, of every Muslim. c. It is the right and duty of every Muslim to protest and strive (within the limits set out by the Law) against oppression even if it involves challenging the highest authority. d. There shall be no bar on the dissemination of information provided it does not endanger the security of the society or the state and is confined within the limits imposed by the Law. e. No one shall hold in contempt or ridicule the religious beliefs of others or incite public hostility against them; respect for the religious feelings of others is obligatory on all Muslims.
UNIVERSAL ISLAMIC DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
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XIII. RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF RELIGION Every person has the right to freedom of conscience and worship in accordance with his religious beliefs.
XIV. RIGHT TO FREE ASSOCIATION a. Every person is entitled to participate individually and collectively in the religious, social, cultural and political life of his community and to establish institutions and agencies meant to enjoin what is right (ma’roof) and to prevent what is wrong (munkar).
Appendix III
Timeline of Persian History
3000–2000 B.C.E. 2000–700 B.C.E. 728–550 B.C.E. 550–330 B.C.E. 305–125 B.C.E. 247 B.C.E.–228 C.E. 224–651 224–241 310–379 399–420 531–579 651–945 821–873
Predynastic Period dominated by Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians. Elamite Periods. The capital city of Susa is in modern Khuzistan. The Medes, who were an ancient Indo-Iranian tribe, ruled a vast empire. The Achaemenids form the first major Iranian dynasty founded by Persians. The Greeks under Alexander and the Seleucids ruled Persia. Parthians (also called Arcasids) created an empire in Persia. The Sasanians organized a national state that competed with Rome. Artaxerxes (Ardrashir) I is proclaimed the first Sasanian ruler. Shapur II is first Persian king to persecute Christians (beginning 339). Yazdigerd II is very tolerant of Christians and recognized their status. Chosroes I persecuted Christians from 540 to 545; otherwise tolerant. Arab rulers, first the Ummayads and then Abbasids, ruled from Baghdad. The Tahirids created an autonomous Iran, breaking Baghdad rule.
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873–999 999–1055 994–1030 1045–1217 1221–1383 1383–1501 1501–1722 1736–1747 1750–1779 1796–1925 1925–1979 1979 (January 16) 1979 (February 1) 1979 (April 1) 1979 (November 4) 1980 (January) 1980 (September) 1981 1982 1985 1988 (July) 1989
The Saffarids further weakened control of the Caliphate over Persia. The Buyids—Persians who occupied Baghdad and promoted Shi’ism. The Ghazanids, originally slaves in Central Asia, replaced the Samanids. Seljuk (Saljuq), or Oghuz Turks, occupied central and western Iran. Mongol/Ilkhanid Dynasties had a dramatic impact on Iran’s ethnicities. Timurids and Turkmenistan developed a Turco-Persian cultural mix. Safavids of Turkmen combined with Persian ancestry consolidated power. Afshars, a Turkic group, moved into Iran and briefly gained power. Zands, a Luri tribe, were the first Persians to reestablish control from Turks. The Qajar Dynasty was formed by Turkmen who became Persianized. The Pahlavi Dynasty founded modern Iran. Shah forced into exile. Interim government led by Shapour Bakhtiyar. Khomeini returns from fifteen-year exile. Interim government ends. Islamic Republic of Iran proclaimed, led by Ayatollah Khomeini. Fifty-two Americans taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy, held for 444 days. Abolhasan Bani-Sadr elected first president; impeached by December. Iraq invades Iran; former shah of Iran dies in exile in Egypt. Khameni elected third president of Iran. Iran sends Revolutionary Guards to Bekka Valley, Lebanon, in war against Israel. Khameni is reelected president of Iran. Iran accepts cease fire with Iraq brokered by the United Nations in Geneva. Ayatollah Khomeini issues fatwa against Salman Rushdie; Khomeini dies in June.
TIMELINE OF PERSIAN HISTORY
1989 1995 1997 1999 2002 2003 2005 2008 2009
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Ayatollah Khameni becomes supreme leader and Rafsanjani becomes president. United States imposes trade sanctions against Iran as alleged sponsor of terror. Moderate clergyman Mohammad Khatami elected president by 70 percent landslide. Student-led pro-democracy movement is brutally repressed by government. George Bush declares that Iran, Iraq, and North Korea form an “axis of evil.” Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Iranian woman Shirin Ebadi. Conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad elected president of Iran. Conservatives supporting Ahmadinejad’s policies win mandate in elections. Ahmadinejad reelected in disputed elections; widespread protests follow.
Appendix IV
Chronological List of Rulers in Iran
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.
Predynastic Period (3000–2000 B.C.E.) Elamite Period (2000–700 B.C.E.) Medes (728–550 B.C.E.) Achaemenids (Iranian) (550–330 B.C.E.) Alexander and the Seleucids (Greek) (305–125 B.C.E.) Parthians (Arcasids) (247 B.C.E.–228 C.E.) Sasanians (Iranian) (224–651 C.E.) Arab Dynasties (Arab) (651–945) Tahirids (Iranian) (821–873) Saffarids (Iranian) (867–903) Samanids (Iranian) (873–999) Buyids (Iranian) (945–1055) Ghaznavids (Turkic) (994–1030) Seljuks (Turkic) (1045–1217) Mongol/Ilkhanid Dynasties (Turkicized Mongols) (1221–1338) Timurids and Turkmen (Turkic) (1383–1501) Safavids (Turkic) (1501–1722) Afshars (Turkic) (1736–1747) Zands (Iranian-Luri) (1750–1779) Qajar Dynasty (Turkmen) (1796–1925) Pahlavi (Iranian) (1925–1979) The Islamic Republic of Iran (Iranian) (1979–present)
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Appendix V
Ethnic and Religious Groups in Iran (1999)
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Arabs (Arabic): Sunni and Shi’ite religion (615,000) Azeri Turks (Turkic): Shi’ite (8.8–10 million) Baluchis (Iranian): Sunni (4–8 million) Kurds (Kurdish): Mixed Sunni, Sufi, Shi’a (4–8 million) Lurs (Luri): Shi’ite (300,000–600,000) Persian (Iranian): Shi’ite (41–45 million) Shahsevan (Turkic): Shi’ites (310,000) Turkmen (Turkic): Sunni (1.2 million a year)
*Source: Massoume Price, Iran’s Diverse Peoples (2005), 347–48
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Appendix VI
Non-Muslim Religious Minorities
1. Armenian Christians: 1970 (250,000); 1999 (150,000–200,000) 2. Assyrian and Chaldean Christians: 1970 (30,000); 1999 (16,000– 18,000) 3. Baha’is: 1970 (150,000–300,000); 1999 (Not Available) 4. Jews: 1970 (80,000); 1999 (20,000–30,000) 5. Zoroastrians: 1970(30,000–35,000); 1999 (50,000) *Source: Massoume Price, Iran’s Diverse Peoples (2005), 349
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Glossary
ARABIC AND PERSIAN TERMS Non-Arabic and non-English terms are so noted. Ahura Mazda: The supreme god of the ancient Persians and the most important deity in Persia until the conquest of Islam. His name means Wise Lord or Lord of Wisdom. He is the deity at the center of the monotheistic faith of Zoroastrianism. Akhbar (Arabic—Akbar, Persian singular, khabar): Traditions recorded by the imams, also known as hadith. Akhbaris (Persian plural—Akhbariyyah): Traditional school in Twelver Shi’ite jurisprudence which refrains from using ijtihad. Akhund (Persian): A low-ranking cleric; in the village, it is synonymous with mullah. ‘Alam (Persian): Banner carried in ritual demonstrations for the mourning of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn. ‘Alavis (Persian, also ‘Alawi, ‘Alawiyun): Term generally applied to all Shi’ites, but more specifically to a religious community of several thousand located in Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey who would seem to some to have greater veneration for ‘Ali than for the Prophet Muhammad. ‘Alids: Descendants of Hasan and Husayn, the sons of ‘Ali and Fatimah who claimed the exclusive right to the Caliphate. Allah: (Literally, God) Name for the one and only omnipresent, just, and merciful God. Apostasy (Arabic, Irtidad): Leaving the faith of Islam; it is forbidden in Islamic law.
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Ashura: From the Arabic word for ten, it refers to the tenth day of the lunar Islamic month of Moharram, which is an ancient Jewish celebration. Ashura is commemorated by the Shi’ites as the day their leader, the grandson of the Prophet, Imam Husayn, was killed at Karbala in 680/681. It is a solemn day of mourning. Avesta: The sacred literature of ancient and modern Zoroastrianism. It is written in two dialects, Older and Younger Avestan. It consists of seventy-two chapters of liturgy. The oldest part of the collection, chapters 28–53, is called the Gathas. Ayatollah (Persian): Literally, sign or miracle of God. Title given to the most eminent Twelver Shi’ite legal experts. Shi’ite mujtahids (jurists) in Iran first used it in the fourteenth century and adopted the term during the Qajar Dynasty (1779–1924) (Arab-speaking Shi’ites use the title “imam”). The term has been used since the nineteenth century more specifically for senior clerics within Shi’ite Islam. Since the 1979 revolution, the term is used as an honorary title for the highest ranking religious scholar-jurists. Azeri: A relatively new term to describe both a language and a people group that live in modern-day Azerbaijan and in northern Iran. They are a group of Turkic speakers. The Bab (Persian): Title of varied application in Shi’ism, also given to Sufi shaykhs. Sayyid ‘Ali Muhammad (1820–1850), a native of Shiraz, proclaimed himself the Bab, (“the gateway”) to the truth, and the initiator of a new prophetic age. Celebrated by the Baha’is. Bid’ah: Literally, innovation or deviation from Islamic tradition. Anything that is new and contradicts the Holy Qur’an and hadith is a sinful innovation. Chardor or Chador (Persian): Literally, tent or portable dwelling. Also the traditional garment covering a woman from head to toe. In some Muslim countries this is obligatory. Farsi term referring to an allencompassing shapeless cloth for women that covers head to toe and only leaves face and hands uncovered. See also Hijab. Concealment (Arabic, Taqiyyah): In Shi’ite Islam, discretion, dissimilation, or concealment (taqiyyah, or kitman) is permitted under compulsion, threat, or fear of injury. The Holy Qur’an allows denial of faith as long as one believes in one’s heart (Q. 16:106). Concubinage: As a result of war, slavery existed and women were part of the spoils. Concubinage was inferred as permissible on the basis of Qur’an 23:5–6 Dar al-Harb: Literally, Abode of War; part of the world where Islam does not prevail.
GLOSSARY
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Dar al-Islam: Literally, Abode of Islam; defines that part of the world ruled by a Muslim and where the edicts of Islam have been fully promulgated. Darwish (Persian, Darvish, Dervish): From the word for poor which refers to the member of a Sufi brotherhood; in English, dervish. One who renounces worldly goods for the sake of a mystical contemplation of existence and compassion for others. Dasta (Persian): The procession of flagellants for the mourning ritual during Ashura. Da’wah: Literally, call. Appeal to conversion by missionary activity instead of jihad. Day of Judgment: Muslims believe in the resurrection of the body and the Day of Judgment when God will reward or punish men according to their deeds. Qur’an 18:49. Dhikr (Persian Zikr): Literally, remembrance. In Sufism, dhikr is the remembrance of God, his commands, death, and the Day of Judgment. Dhimmi: Jews and Christians living in lands under the caliphate and retaining their non-Muslim religious status in exchange for payment of a poll tax. Diwan (Persian): Persian for an anthology, financial register, or government department. Du’a: The prayer of the heart. Can also refer to any individual, informal prayer offered on special occasions, e.g., at the birth of a child or visit to a grave. Eid: Celebration or feast. Faqih: A jurist (pl. fuqaha), interpreter of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). The fuqaha function as judges, jurist consuls, and muftis, giving legal opinions (fatwahs). Fatwah (Fatwa; Persian, Fatva or Fetva): Authoritative religious decree pronounced by a mojtahed. Can also be a formal legal opinion by a mufti, or canon lawyer, in answer to a question of a judge, kadhi, or private individual. Famous fatwahs from Iran were the prohibition of smoking and the fatwah issued by Khomeini (1989) demanding the execution of Salman Rushdie for blasphemy as a result of The Satanic Verses. Its adherence is mandatory to that cleric’s followers but not necessarily to other Muslims. Feqh (Arabic, Fiqh): Practical jurisprudence or understanding (comprehension). The science of knowledge and interpretation of law, both civil and religious, it encompasses all branches of Islamic studies. Ghufaylah: Name in Persian of a special prayer for the forgiveness of sins.
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GLOSSARY
Ghusl: Persian term for religiously prescribed ablutions, e.g., after sexual intercourse. Greater Occultation (Persian, Kobra): The permanent withdrawal into hiding by the Twelfth Imam of the Shi’ites. At first the Hidden Imam communicated to his followers through letters (between 874 and 941) in a period known as the “minor occultation” (Persian, qeyba al-soqra). In a final letter, the Twelfth Imam declared in 941 that he would return “after a long time has passed” to usher in an era of perfect peace and justice. Hadd (Persian, Hudd): Mandatory punishments imposed in classical Islamic law in cases of adultery, fornication, and false accusation of adultery, as well as for theft, highway robbery, apostasy, and drunkenness. Hadith: Traditions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. It has been defined as “the story of a particular occurrence.” Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca, the fifth pillar of Islam; a pilgrim is a hajji. Halal: Religiously lawful. Contrasted by something which is haram; unlawful. Haram: Religiously unlawful. Contrasted by something this is halal, or lawful. Hazrat (Persian): Literally, Excellency; an honorific title. Hidden Imam: Twelfth Shi’ite Imam, Muhammad al-Muntazar who disappeared in 878 and is believed to be in occultation and expected to return at the end of time. During the first stage, the Lesser Occultation (878–940), the Hidden Imam was represented by four intermediaries who had the authority to speak on his behalf. Hijab (Persian, Hejab): Literally, cover or veil. One of a number of terms for the veil and the seclusion of women. Can also simply be the term used to describe the covering of women. A long veil that covers from head to foot is also called a chador. A simple wide scarf that only covers the head is called a rusari or a maqne’a if it refers to headgear that is tied under the chin and covers the shoulders revealing only the middle of the face. Houri: A beautiful, paradisiacal virgin. Hujjatoleslam (Persian): Literally, the Proof of Islam. It is used today by the Shi’ites to refer to a mid-ranking cleric, below ayatollah. Husayniyyah: Special site for ritual commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn. Husayniyyahs exist in every Shi’ite community in Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon and, with different names, also in Bahrain, Oman, and India. These practices spread throughout the Shi’ite world and are a common feature in every community.
GLOSSARY
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Iblis: Devil (shaytan) and a fallen angel (or rebellious jinn) who refused to bow before Adam and tempted Eve to eat from the tree of immortality; therefore, was expelled from paradise and given the power to lead astray all who are not true servants of God. Ijtihad (Persian, Ejtehad): Literally, exertion or independent judgment in the interpretation of Islamic law that is practiced by a mojtahed to clarify religious law through using the principles of jurisprudence (osul al-feqh). The effort of interpretation and the exercise of personal reasoning and private judgment or “informed opinion” (ra’y) and reasoning by analogy (qiyas) in questions of shariah not expressly explained in the Holy Qur’an and hadith. An example of this is the prohibition of all intoxicants, not just wine, mentioned in the Qur’an. Shi’ites have always accepted the ijtihad of the qualified doctors (mojtahed). Imam (Persian, Emam): Leader who stands in front (amama) of the congregation at prayer. He “who is in the forefront” and serves as a guide (notably for prayer). In Iran the term Emam Jom’a is used to specify the official leader of the Friday prayers and sermons as appointed by local religious authorities. If the person is only leading prayers and not also leading the sermon (khotba) the title Emame Jama’at is sometimes employed. Shi’ites use the term for the descendents of Ali and Fatimah whom they consider the rightful successors to the Prophet Muhammad. Shi’ites are divided between those who accept, respectively, Zayd, the son of ‘Ali (d. 740), the Fifth Imam; Isma’il (d. 760), the Seventh Imam; and Muhammad al-Muntazar (disappeared 878), the Twelfth Imam. The Twelver Shi’ites (or Imamis) believe that Muhammad al-Muntazar, who disappeared as an infant, went into occultation and will return as the Messiah (mahdi) on the Day of Judgment. The term Imam was also given by Shi’ites to the Ayatollah Khomeini. Imamzadeh (Persian, Emamzada): Close relative of one of the Shi’ite Imams; venerated as local saints. Their mausoleums are centers of local pilgrimage. Imam Ghaybat: Hidden Imam. In Persian known as Emam-Qeybat. Jihad (Persian, Jehad): Literally, striving. An “effort in the way of God,” was originally an obligation to wage war against unbelievers until they accepted Islam or submitted to Islamic rule. A Muslim who dies in jihad is a martyr (shahid) and enters paradise. Jizya, Jizyah: Poll tax levied formerly on non-Muslim monotheists who were possessors of a scripture, the Peoples of the Book (ahl alkitab, e.g. Christians and Jews).
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GLOSSARY
Kalam: Scholastic theology of Islam (from kalam, speech; the Word of God). Khalifah: Office of the Khalifah (caliph): literally, deputy (of God’s Prophet). Khangah (Persian): Meeting place for members of a Sufi order. Kufr, al- : Literally, unbeliever. A kufr (or kafir) is an infidel, one who denies the existence of God or gives partners to God (a polytheist). Madrassah: Literally, place of study. General name for the secondary school that functions as a theological seminary, law school, and a mosque that trains religious functionaries in Islamic sciences and law. Mahdi, al- : Literally, the guide who will appear at the end of time to fight against evil, restores justice, and unifies the world under Islam before the advent of the Day of Judgment. A title, first attributed to Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, a son of ‘Ali, and later part of the doctrine of the Hidden Imam (Imam Mahdi) of the Twelver Shi’ites. Maktab: Islamic elementary school. Marja-i Taqlid: Highest rank among Iranian ulema; source of Imitation. Martyr: Arabic, shahid. Originally, a person who is killed in a holy war (jihad) against unbelievers or in performing a religious duty. Masjid (French, Mosque): A place where one prostrates oneself (sajadah) five times a day in prayer. The masjid has been a center for social and political life. It is a court of law, a center of education, and a place where social services are provided to the poor. Muezzin (Persian, Mu’adhdhin): Islamic functionary who delivers the call for prayer from either a minaret or at the door of a mosque. Mufti: Arabic term for an Islamic legal officer; legal adviser to the ruler. Muharram (Persian, Moharram): The first month in the Arabic lunar calendar when Imam Husayn was killed in 680 in Karbala by his rival, King Yazid, the son of the founder of the Umayyad Dynasty. This is a month of fasting and mourning. Shi’ites are not supposed to wage war in this month. On the ninth and tenth day of this month Shi’ites commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Husayn. Mujtahid (Persian, Mojtahed): Shi’ite theologian authorized to carry out ijtahad (ejtehad). “One who strives.” The permission to teach is a license called an ejaza. This license can be given either by a community of scholars or by a master scholar who has judged that a cleric has finished his studies and is now able to serve in a teaching role.
GLOSSARY
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Mustadh’afun (Persian, Mostazafun): A name given to the class of “downtrodden, meek, and poor” in Iran to show the regime’s sympathy for those who had suffered hardships during the Pahlavi regime. Nahj al-Balaghah: Collection of sayings and sermons of Imam ‘Ali. Nawruz (Persian): New Year’s Day of the Persian calendar (March 21). Pahlavi: Both a language and a script for writing, it was the language of Persia between the third century B.C.E. until the ninth century C.E. when it was replaced by an Arabic script of the Persian, Farsi language. The last dynasty adopted this term to describe its rule. Pan-Islamism: Concept of political unification of the Islamic world. The idea was propounded by Sayyid Jamal al-Din Afghani and Muhammad Abdu in the nineteenth century. Pasdaran: Persian term for the Revolutionary Guards, organized like a regular army in support of the Iranian revolution. They organized komitehs to fight counterrevolutionary forces throughout Iran. The Guardians provided a check on the power of the regular army, operating under the ministry of defense. People of the Book: People of the Book (ahl al-kitab, also called dhimmis) are adherents of monotheistic religions with revealed scriptures such as Christians and Jews. Pishani nivisht (Persian): (or: sar nivisht) Destiny; literally, “written on the forehead.” Polygamy: Permitted in Islam, the Qur’an limited previously unlimited polygamy to a maximum of four wives. The Qur’an says, “Marry women of your choice, two, three, or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or that which your hand possesses [a slave]” (Q. 4:3). Qadhi (Persian, Kazi): Literally, judge. A person chosen by community to apply Islamic principles to life’s challenges. Selection is based on education, integrity, wisdom, and insight. Qotb: Mystical pole in Sufism. Qur’an (French, Koran): Sacred book of Islam, containing God’s direct revelations through the Prophet Muhammad. According to dogma, it is the uncreated word of God. Ramadan (Persian, Ramzan): Month in Muslim calendar when Muhammad received revelations and the month when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. Rowza-khani (Persian): A meeting in which a preacher recounts, chants, and sings about the martyrdom of one of the Twelve Imams. The name derives from the collection of stories called the Rowzat al-Shohada written about 1502 by Va’ez al-Kashefi, who
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GLOSSARY
was a Sufi of the Naqshandi order in the northeastern Khorasan region of Persia. Sayyid (Persian, Sayyed): Patrilineal descendant of Muhammad through ‘Ali and Fatima. Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enqetab-e Eslami (Persian): Corps of the Guardians of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, created in 1979. Shah (Persian): Farsi term meaning king. In this book, the term “the shah” usually refers to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was the last Pahlavi monarch overthrown in 1979. Shahnameh (Persian): The Persian Book of Kings, which is a translation and compilation of pre-Islamic stories of Persian myth, legend, history, and culture. It was written in the New Persian language of the tenth century by Firdusi, of Tus in Khorostan. It may have saved the Persian language from extinction and has greatly influenced later writers. Shans (Persian): Literally, good fortune. Shariah (Arabic, also Shari’a, and Shari’): From shar, “the path leading to the water hole” is God-given and a prescription for the right life in this world and for salvation in the world to come. The Holy Qur’an is the basis of law for all Muslims, although various sects hold different interpretations. When no conclusive guidance was found in the Holy Qur’an, the hadith and sunnah of the Prophet were consulted. There are six correct books of Sunni traditions, compiled by al-Bukhari, Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Abu Daud al-Sijistani, Muhammad ibn Isa al-Tirmidhi, Abu ‘Abd Allah Ibn Maja, and Ahmad al-Nasa‘i. Shi’ites of the Twelver Usuli school of jurisprudence find their sources of law in the Holy Qur’an and the traditions (sunnah), the statements, deeds, and tacit consent of the Prophet and the imams, as well as the consensus (ijma’) of the Shi’ite jurists, and the application of reason (‘aql). In the absence of the Hidden Imam, the qualified scholars (mujtahid) of the Twelver Shi’ites are permitted to legislate on the basis of ijtihad. Shaykh (English, Sheikh): Literally, Old Man. In pre-Islamic times the title of a Bedouin chief who earned dignity through bravery, generosity, and leadership of his tribe in warfare. Shaykhis (Shaykhiyyah): Shi‘ite movement founded by Ahmad alAhsa’i (1753–1826) that had syncretistic features and therefore aroused the hostility of the ulama. Shi’a (or Shi’i): Shi’ite community. From the word party. The supporters of ‘Ali Ibn Abu Talib to succeed the Prophet Muhammad was called the Party of ‘Ali (shi‘at‘ali). The party eventually developed into the Shi’a sect of Islam.
GLOSSARY
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Shi’ism: Sect of the partisans of ‘Ali developed a doctrinal basis only gradually. The party began as an Arab political movement strongly supported by non-Arab converts. Shirk: Literally, polytheism. It is an unforgivable sin. Islam espouses a strict monotheism that rejects “giving partners to God.” Simband (Persian): Written prayer to protect wheat fields against pests. Siqa (Persian, Sigeh): Literally means to bind. It refers to the binding of one man to one woman for a designated period of time in a temporary marriage. The term can also be used to describe a woman who chooses to marry in this way. Sirat: Narrow bridge across Hell which souls must cross, according to hadith. Sufi, Sufism : Member (mutasawwif) of one of the Sufi orders, a devotee of a mystical “path” (tariqa) or discipline of esoteric teachings introduced by a series of initiations. Sunni, Sunnites: Sunnis are called the “people of custom and community” (ahl al-sunnah wa ‘l-jama‘a) and who comprise about 80 percent of the Muslim population. They recognize the caliphs as the true heirs to Muhammad. Supreme Spiritual Leader: The highest position in the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The leader can veto any other decision made in any part of the government. The only two to hold this position to date are Khomeini and Khamenei. Surah: Chapter of the Qur’an. There are 114 chapters arranged according to length, beginning with the longest, except for the Fatiha, “Opener,” which is short. Taliban: Neo-fundamentalist movement recruited from students (talib, pl. tullab) of schools and masjids, who were organized into a military force and captured Afghanistan. Taqlid: Following a senior religious authority in matters of Islamic law. Ta’asob: Literally, fanaticism. A person who is a fanatic is viewed favorably because they have a strongly motivated commitment. Tasannon, Tasavvof, Tashayyo (Persian): Terms sometimes used in Iran to describe various kinds of Muslims. Tassanon refers to Sunni Muslims, Tasavvof refers to Sufi Muslims, and Tashayyo refers to Shi’ite Muslims. Tawhid: Doctrine of the unity of God, a strict monotheism; to give partners to God is an unforgivable sin. Ta’ziyah (Persian): Shi’ite passion play commemorating the events at Karbala. Tekiya (Persian): Literally meaning place. A place or a special building where the mourning of Imam Husayn is celebrated.
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Turkmen: A tribal community of Oghuz origin who began coming to Iran in the eighth century. Today, there are more than two million Turkmen living in Iran. They usually live in northern Iran on the border with Turkmenistan. They speak a number of dialects. ‘Ulema (Arabic—Ulama): Collective term for the doctors of Islamic sciences. An ‘alim (pl. ‘ulema) is “one who possesses the quality of ‘ilm, knowledge or learning, of the Islamic traditions and the resultant canon law and theology.” An ‘alim is the product of a religious institution of higher education. Term for mid-ranking to high ranking clerics. Ummah (Persian, Omma or Oumma): Medina community that included Muslims and Jews, but was subsequently the term for the Islamic community, the Islamic nation. The term is used generally to refer to the transnational community of all true believers. Usili School (Usuliyah): One of two schools of jurisprudence in Twelver Shi’ism, the Usilis are the “followers of principles” and the Akhbaris (Akhbariyah) the “followers of tradition.” First taught by Agha Muhammad Baqir Vahid Bihbihani (1705–1803), the Usili branch gained dominance in Iran in the nineteenth century and led to the centralization of the religious establishment as the representatives of the Hidden Imam. It also justified the use of ijtihad by learned Mujtahid. Velayat e-Faqih (Persian): Mandate, of the highest ranking cleric, to lead on behalf of the Hidden Imam. This doctrine was first taught by Khomeini in a lecture in Najaf (1969). It is enshrined in the fundamentalist constitution in Iran in 1979. The guardian of Islamic law who occupies this position is called Vali Faqih, the Supreme Leader. Zakat: Legal alms that all Shi’ite Muslims have to pay once a year at the same time as the khoms, which is the annual taxation on excess revenue (one-fifth) and discovered profits (treasures or inheritances) which pays for the clergy and their expenses. These funds are collected by an authorized tax agent known as the marja’ al-taqlid. Ziyarat (Persian): A visit or a pilgrimage to a mausoleum of a martyred relative of one of the Imams of Shi’a Islam.
NAMES AND EVENTS ‘Abbasid Caliphate (749–1258). The dynasty that succeeded the Umayyad Caliphate. The revolution to destroy the Umayyads was led by the Khorasanian leader Abu Muslim (d. 755). He captured
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Merv in 747. The third and last caliphate, originating from the family of Muhammad’s uncle; the Abbasid capital was Baghdad, 750–1258. Abu Bakr (573–634). First of the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs and father of ‘Aisha. Abu Muslim (d. 755): Son of a Persian slave woman, he was born at Marw (or near Isfahan) and raised in Kufah. He conducted pro‘Abbasid propaganda and headed the Khorasanian forces, which brought the ‘Abbasids to power. Abu Nuwas (753–813/15): His name means Father of the Lock of Hair. A native of Khuristan, Iran, Abu Nuwas was educated in Basra and Kufah in Islamic studies and lived with Bedouins to acquire a command of pure Arabic. Agha Khan: Imam of the Nizari branch of the Isma’ilis. Iranian Qajar rulers at times bestowed this title on notables. In 1818 Fath ‘Ali Shah gave the title Agha Khan I to Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali Shah Mahallati (1800–1881), governor of Kerman province. He fled Iran after an unsuccessful revolt in 1841 and settled in Bombay. Ahmadis (Arabic and Urdu—Amadiyyah): Messianic movement in modern Islam, which originated in British India. It is named after its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (c. 1839–1908) of Qadian, Punjab, who declared himself the “Renewer of Faith” in 1882. ‘Aisha (Ayesha, 613–678): Also known as the Mother of the Believers (Imm al-Mu’minin), the favorite wife of the Prophet Muhammad and daughter of Abu Bakr. ‘Ali Ibn Abu Talib (r. 656-661): The fourth of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and the first imam of Shi’ite Islam. He was a cousin of Muhammad and his son-in-law, after his marriage to Fatimah. First convert after Khadijah, Muhammad’s wife. The partisans of ‘Ali (shi’atu ‘ali) maintained that ‘Ali had a divine right to succession, to be continued through his sons Hasan and Husayn (Hussein), and repudiated the first three Sunni Caliphs as usurpers. ‘Ali moved his capital to Kufah. He was assassinated by a Kharijite during morning prayer in 661. His tomb in Najaf, in present-day Iraq, is one of the most important places of Shi’ite pilgrimage. He is considered by the Shi’a (along with his descendants) to be the only legitimate ruler of the Muslim world. Amir al-Mu’minin: Popular shrine in south Iran; according to tradition, a sister of the Eighth Imam is buried there. Anahita: Ancient Persian goddess associated with waters and fertility and the patron of both women and warriors. Her name literally means “the immaculate one.” She was particularly popularized by Zoroastrian magi in the Achamenid Era.
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Ansari, Abd Allah Al-(1005–1089): Islamic theologian, commentator on the Qur’an, mystic from Herat, and author of a commentary on Sufi theory. He wrote both in Arabic and Persian; his Arabic collection is said to contain more than six thousand couplets, and his Persian poetry is said to amount to about fourteen thousand verses. He went blind toward the end of his life; his tomb is in Gazargah, near Heart, amid ruins from the Timurid period. Assembly of Constitutional Experts: A body of eighty-three individuals charged by the Revolutionary Council to draft a constitution for the Islamic Republic of Iran. The assembly was dominated by clergy and laid the foundation for the theocratic government of Iran, establishing the supremacy of the “Guardianship of the Jurist” (vilayat-I faqih). Babwayhi, Ibn (Babuyah), 923–991: Famed Shi’ite scholar, jurist, and collector of hadith. Author of one of the Shi’ite Four Books of hadith (kutub al-arba‘a), he was the last prominent member of the Shi’ite traditionalist school of Qom. Badr, Battle of: First military victory of the Muslim community of Medina against a superior force of Meccans. Baghawi, Husayn Al- (d. 1130 or 1136): A Shafi’ite traditionalist and commentator on the Qur’an, he is the author of a collection of Hadith, titled Masabih al-Sunnah, which has been translated into English by James Robson and published in four volumes. Baghawi was born near Herat, in present-day Afghanistan. Baha’i: Follower of Baha Allah, leader of the main branch of the Babi sect. See also Bab. Bani Sadr: He is a liberal Muslim politician. Became the first elected president of Iran in January 1980. Resisted Khomeini’s moves to impose extremist dictatorship. Bani Sadr lost the power struggle to Khomeini and the fundamentalists in the coup of June 1981. Basij (Persian): Iran’s volunteer militia, mobilized during the Iran-Iraq War and later used by the conservative establishment to enforce order and ideological orthodoxy. Its members are known as basijis. Bihbahani, Vahid (Unique One): Muhammad Baqir ibn Muhammad Akmal, also known as Murawwij and Ustad-i Akbar, b. 1706, Isfahan. After completing his studies, he returned to Bihbahan (Isfahan) where he remained for thirty years before moving to Karbala in 1746. He was responsible for the Usili victory over the Akhbari position and for defining the Usili system of jurisprudence and the role of the mujtahid. Burujirdi, Ayatollah: Husayn ibn ‘Ali Tabataba’i Burujirdi. b. 1875, Burujird. Studied at Isfahan. Moved to Qom in Muharram December
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1944–January 1945. He became sole marja’ in 1947 on the death of Ayatollah Qummi. Buyid (Buwayhid) Dynasty (932–1062): A Persian dynasty from Dailam on the southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea that ruled over Iran and Iraq from 932–1062. It was a pro-Shi’ite dynasty and had a great influence over the caliphs at Baghdad. Farabi, Abu Nasr Muhammad Al- (ca. 870–950): One of the greatest Muslim philosophers who published in the fields of logic, politics, ethics, natural science, psychology, mathematics, music theory, and other subjects. He was of Turkic origin, born in Farab, Turkestan, and studied in Baghdad and other cities of the Islamic world and finally settled in Aleppo, Syria. Fars, Parsua (Persian): The ancient province in the south inhabited by Persians and the region where the terms “Persia” and “Farsi” originate from. Fatimah: Muhammad’s daughter, the mother of Hasan, Husayn, and Zaynab; wife of ‘Ali. Fida’iyan-I Islam (Fida’iyyun or Fedayeen): Shi‘ite religio-political movement founded in 1945 in Teheran by Sayyid Mustafa Navvab Safavi (1923–1956). The Fida’iyan (Devotees) was a radical movement that wanted to establish a government guided by Islamic law. Its violence led to increased suppression by the state, but many of its demands were realized after the Islamic revolution of 1979. A Fida’iyan is one who is a “self-sacrificer” (singular is fedai). Fida’iyan-I Khalq: Literally, Devotees of the People. A movement of university students and intellectuals founded in 1970 by the merger of two leftist groups, which started guerrilla activities against the regime of the shah of Iran. Fivers: Shi’ite followers of the Fifth Imam Zayd ibn ‘Ali (ca. 698–740). See Zayids. Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad Al- (1058–1111): Jurist of the Shafi’ite school, philosopher, theologian, mystic, and one of Islam’s most influential thinkers. He was born at Tus, near the present city of Mashhad in eastern Iran, and educated in Nishapur. He was instrumental in reconciling Sufism with orthodox Islam. Guardian Council: Established in Iran in 1979, a council of twelve guardians was set up to pass on the legitimacy of all laws and regulations of government. Six of the members were jurists, appointed by Ayatollah Khomeini and, subsequently, by a Leadership Council, and six were nominated by the head of the judiciary and approved by parliament for a six-year term. The Council has the authority to veto legislation seen as unconstitutional or un-
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Islamic. It is dominated by conservatives appointed by the supreme clerical leader. Hafez: Popular poet of Shiraz, 1326–1389 C.E. Hajjah, Muslim ibn Al (820–875): Scholar from Nishapur who compiled one of the six canonical hadith collections. It is similar to alBukhara’s Sahih and carries the same title. Hallaj, Husayn ibn Mansur al- (857–922): Persian Sufi poet who was born in Tus and executed as a heretic. Hamas: Acronym for a Palestinian Islamist revivalist movement, the Movement of Islamic Resistance (Harakat al-Muqawamah alIslamiyah). Hasan: Elder son of ‘Ali and Fatimah. Hilli, ‘Allamah ibn al-Mutahhar al- (1250–1325): Islamic jurist of the Twelver Shi‘ite school, known as The Wise Man of Hilli. Born in Hilli, Iraq, and educated in Baghdad, he became famous for his works on grammar, logic, Hadith, Tafsir (commentary on the Qur’an), and biography. His treatise on the al-Bab al-Hadi ‘Ashar (Principles of Shi’ite theology) is still used by Shi’ites today. Hilli is buried in Mashhad. Hindi, Fadil-i: (Literally, The Distinguished One), Baha’u’d-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan Isfahani, born in 1652, Isfahan. While young, lived for a time in India and hence acquired the designation “Hindi.” Although some accounts state that he died before the fall of Isfahan to the Afghans in 1722, most agree that he witnessed this event. Hezbollah (Arabic, Hizb Allah): Literally, The Party of Allah, a term which was adopted by Shi’ite Islamist parties in Iran and Lebanon. In Iran, Hezbollah rose as a revolutionary movement in the late 1970s when it contributed to the downfall of the shah and became a vanguard of the Islamic Republican Party. Hujjatiyah Society: Shi’ite religio-political school founded in the early 1950s by Shaykh Mahmud Halabi in Mashhad. The society organized campaigns of intimidation of Baha’is as heretics, and, after the Iranian revolution, was suspected of rejecting the rule of the Ayatollah Khomeini. It was, therefore, forced to suspend its activities. Hulagu (1217–1265): Grandson of the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan and founder of the Ilkhanid Dynasty of Iran. He invaded Iran and captured the fortress of Alamut of the Assassins in 1256 and captured Baghdad in 1258. Husayn (Persian, Hoseyn): Younger son of ‘Ali and Fatimah. Idrisid Dynasty (788–985): First Shi‘ite dynasty in Islamic history, founded by Idris ibn Abdullah (died 793), a grandson of Hasan, the son of ‘Ali.
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Iran National Front (INF): Founded in 1949. It is the largest and oldest pro-democracy organization in Iran. It is a coalition of several groups, the largest being the Liberal Democratic and Social Democratic. The INF advocates civil liberties, multiparty democracy, non-aligned foreign policy, nonviolence, a mixed economy, juridical equality for men and women, and separation of religion and state. Isfahani, Abu Nu’im Al- (948–1038): Shafi‘ite jurist and mystic of Isfahan, who wrote the Hilyat al-Awliyah (the Jewel of the Saints), a biographical dictionary of Sufism. Isfani, Sayyid Abu’l-Hasan: ibn Muhammad Musawi Isfahani Najaft. Born 1867 in a village near Isfahan. Studied in Isfahan. After deaths of Na’ini and ‘Iraqi, he became sole marja’ of the Shi’ite world. Islamic Jihad: Pro-Iranian Shi’ite group, founded in Lebanon in 1982. Islamic Republic of Iran: Established in 1979 when a national revolt resulted in the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy. Islamic Republican Party (IRP): Established in 1979 after the revolution by the clerical supporters of Khomeini. It was the main fundamentalist party advocating a totalitarian rule by fundamentalist clerics. Opposed democracy as a Western concept alien to Islam. Isma’il: (died 760) Son of the Sixth Imam, Ja’far al-Sadiq, Imam of the Isma’ilis, or Sevener Shi’ites. Isma’ilis: Shi’ite sect that recognizes Isma’il, the eldest son of Ja’far al Sadiq, as the Seventh and last Imam; therefore, they are also called the Seveners (sab’iya). Currently most are followers of the Agha Khan and are scattered throughout the world. Ja’fari: Refered to the Sixth Imam, Ja’far al-Sadeq. It is also the name of the judicial school of Twelver Shi’ites. Jama’at i-Islami: Name of a Pakistani political organization founded by Maulana Abu’l-‘Ala Maududi (1903–1979) in 1941 that advocates the establishment of an Islamic state patterned after the early Islamic community. It is pan-Islamic in nature and looks at the Muslim community as one nation (ummah) and rejects nationalism as contrary to Islam. Jesus (Arabic, Isa): Christians claim Jesus to be the Son of God who died for the sins of the world and rose again from the dead. Jesus is recognized in Islam as a prophet (19:30, 34), messenger (4:171), messiah, and the only creature, besides Adam, who has no father (3:52, 59). He is an apostle, but not God (5:72). Many Persian and Arab Christians reject the name Isa. Karbala: Located in modern-day Iraq, it was the scene of Imam Husayn’s martyrdom by the Sunni Caliph, Yazid. Karbala remains a powerful force in the Shi’ite imagination.
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Khadijah (d. 619): First wife of the Prophet Muhammad. Ibn Khaldun, ‘abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad (1332–1406): Arab philosopher of history and sometimes called the Father of Sociology, born in Tunis where he worked as a secretary. In Fez, he was appointed a chief judge. In Oran, he wrote the Muqaddima (Prolegomena), the introduction to his book on the origins of the Arabs, Berbers, and Persians. Khamenei, Ayatollah Sayyid ali-Husayni (b. 1939): Elected as a spiritual leader of Iran, after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. He was born in Mashhad and educated in Qom, where he was a student of Khomeini. He became identified with the “statist wing” of the fundamentalist elites who took over Iran in 1979. His sudden promotion to the status of an ayatollah still rankles some clerics. Khamenei became president of Iran in 1981 and was reelected in 1985 until he succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. Khamenei is said to be relatively moderate, but he has never enjoyed the power or charisma of his predecessor. Kharijites (Khawarij): Originally followers of Caliph ‘Ali who deserted him when he agreed to arbitration in the dispute with Mu’awiyah at Adhruh. They went out (yakhraju) from ‘Ali’s camp (hence their name) at Kufah and settled at Harura. They turned against ‘Ali and became a source of rebellions during the Umayyad and early ‘Abbasid periods. The Kharijites found their supporters primarily among the reciters (qurra’) of the Qur’an, the newly converted, as well as among Arab nomadic tribes that did not benefit from the early conquests. Khatami, Hojjatoleslam Mohammad (1943– ): Son of a prominent cleric from the central province of Yazd, he augmented his clerical education with the study of philosophy. He served as minister of culture and Islamic guidance for a decade but was forced out by conservatives alarmed at his liberal policies on art and culture. The most influential modernist theologian in Iran, he was imprisoned for eighteen months for declaring that the Islamic Republic was no better than the monarchy under the shah. He is a sharp critic of clerical rule for its failure to create a true Islamic republic. His essays and academic writings are particularly popular in the seminaries and on university campuses. He was elected president by a landslide (69 percent) in May 1997 on a reformist platform and reelected in 2001, also by a large margin. Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah Al-Musavi Al (1900–1989): Born in Khomeyn, a town about 270 kilometers south of Teheran, Khomeini received a traditional madrassah education until 1922. In 1944, he
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published a book titled Kashf al-Asrar (Discovery of Secrets) in which he condemned the government of Rida Shah, stated that a monarchy should be limited by the provisions of the shariah as interpreted by mujtahids, and hinted that government by mujtahids was preferable. During the leadership of Ayatollah Burujirdi, Khomeini remained quiet politically (in keeping with Burujirdi’s leadership). But from about 1960 onwards, when Burujirdi himself took a more politically active line (and particularly after Burujirdi’s death), Khomeini’s lectures at Qom on ethics began to be openly critical of the government. He was arrested January 25, 1963; June 5, 1963; and November 5, 1963; arrested and exiled to Bursa, Turkey, in November 1964. In the Constitution inaugurated in December of 1979, he became the Rahbar (Leader) of the Revolution. After living in Qom on his return, he moved to Jamaran, near Teheran. Khwansari, Ayatollah: Hajj Sayyid Ahmad ibn Yusuf Musawi Khwansari; born 1891. He was a teacher in Qom. In 1950, he was persuaded to move to Tehran and teach there. After Burujirdi’s death he became the main marja’ for Teheran. He moved back to Qom after the 1979 revolution. He died January 19, 1985, in Teheran. Kurds, Kurdistan (Carduchi, Cyrth): In Iran, the Kurds live in the northwest bordering Iraq. There are also a large number of Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, Russia, Syria, and spread throughout many other countries of the world. They speak two main languages. Lazarists: A congregation of secular priests with religious vows founded by St. Vincent de Paul in France in the early seventeenth century. They carried out charity work in Iran. Ibn Majah, Abu Abdullah Muhammad (824–886): Persian from the town of Qazwin. He was a famous traditionalist and compiler of the Kitab al-Sunnan (Book of Traditions). Majles/Majlis (Persian): A term used in Iran to refer to parliamentary assembly. The formal name was Majles Shoray Melli (National Consultative Assembly) and it was created after the 1905–1906 Constitutional Revolution. After the fundamentalists took over in 1979, the name was changed to Majles Shoray Islami (Islamic Consultative Assembly). Manichaeism: Gnostic religion named after its messenger Mani (216– 277) that emerged in Mesopotamia and quickly spread to North Africa and East Asia. Mani proclaimed the dualism of lightness and darkness, and body and spirit. It is considered by some to be a synthesis of Babylonian folklore, Buddhist ethics, and Christian and Jewish teachings.
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Mashad (Meshed): Tomb of a saint; a place of martyrdom, which emanates from the spiritual power of the saint and is visited by pilgrims. Also the name of a city in eastern Iran where the Eighth Imam ‘Ali ibn Musa al-Ridha (Reza) is buried. It is an important shrine of the Twelver Shi’ites in Iran after Karbala, where Imam Husayn was martyred in 680, and Najaf, where Imam ‘Ali was buried. In 1911, Russian troops, trying to restore Muhammad Ali (1907–1909) to the Qajar throne, bombarded the city and damaged the golden dome of the shrine. Mazdakites: Followers of Mazdak who founded a socially radical religious sect that challenged both the Zoroastrian elite and the social doctrines of the Sasanian Era. The sect is often described as a form of proto-Communism for its views on land ownership. Medes: An ancient Indo-Iranian tribal group that became the first Iranian rulers of Mesopotamia as well as Azerbaijan and Kurdistan. They later joined with the Persians. Mesopotamia: The word means Between the Two Rivers and refers to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq; called “the Cradle of Civilization.” Mithra: An ancient Indo-Iranian deity who received significant worship by Mithradites in early Persian history. Inside Zoroastrian tradition, Mithra was seen as the deity protector and the guardian of the country and the god of loyalty. The term today in Iran refers to love and kindness and is often ascribed as a woman’s name. Mongol Invasion: Mongol invaders of the Islamic world who wreaked destruction. According to some sources, the ‘Abbasid caliph sought the help of Chingiz Khan against the neighboring state of the Khwarizm shahs, and, for a short time, Baghdad was safe. But after the death of Chingiz (1241), his grandson Hulagu moved west. He defeated the Isma’ili assassins (1258), captured Baghdad, and established the Ilkhanid dynasty, which ruled the Middle East from 1256 to 1353. Montazeri, Husayn ‘Ali (1921– ): He was born in Najafabad, Iran, and educated in Isfahan and Qom, where he was a student of Khomeini. In the 1960s, he taught at Qom and became involved in anti-government agitation. Jailed in 1975–1978, he was appointed khatib of Qom by Khomeini and given a seat on the Revolutionary Council in 1979. Chairman of the Assembly of Experts of the Iranian revolutionary government and nominated as a successor to Ayatollah Khomeini. He fell from grace, however, in 1989, after challenging the authoritarian practices of the clerical regime. He came to regret his own role in establishing the absolute authority of the clergy, and his later writings on the subject became a rallying point for many of
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Iran’s modernist thinkers. He is Iran’s leading dissident cleric, and has been under house arrest since 1997. Mossadeq (Mossadegh, Musaddiq), Dr. Mohammad: Iranian Nationalist Front (INF) prime minister overthrown by CIA-led coup in 1953. He died in 1967 under house arrest at a family estate at Ahmadabad. The anniversary of his death is a key date for Iran’s nationalist movement which considers him one of Iran’s greatest advocates of democracy. Mu’awiyah: opponent of ‘Ali; founder of the Umayyad dynasty that controlled the caliphate, 661–750 C.E. Mujahidin-I Islam: Religio-political movement founded by Ayatollah Abu ‘l-Qasim Kashani in 1945. It called for the elimination of secular laws and the establishment of an Islamic state with enforcement of the shariah. It also demanded the adoption of a clerical council (as provided for in the Iranian Constitution of 1906) which would ensure the compatibility of all legislation with Islamic law. Kashani was banished to Lebanon in 1949 and his movement was superseded by other similar groups. Mujahidin-I Khalq: Iranian religio-political movement founded in 1965 by Sa’id Muhsin and Muhammad Hanif Nezhad that demanded the establishment of a classless society by combating imperialism, capitalism, dictatorship, and conservative clericalism. The movement turned increasingly Marxist. Muntazar, Muhammad Al-: The Twelfth Imam, who disappeared in 878 and is believed to have commenced a period of occultation to return at the end of time as the Mahdi. Muqaffa, ibn-Al (720–750): Literally, the one with the withered hand. A Zoroastrian born in Fars, Persia, who adopted Islam and served as secretary to the ‘Abbasid caliphs al-Saffah and al-Mansur. He introduced Persian themes into Arabic literature and translated from Persian into Arabic the famous collection of fables, Kalilah wa-Dimnah, Khwoda-i-namah (The Book of Kings), and a number of other works. Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin): Religio-political organization founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna. It is the first Islamic revivalist movement in modern times and it inspired subsequent Islamist groups in Egypt and elsewhere. Nestorians, Nestorianism: The followers of the Christian theologian Nestorius, a fifth-century Patriarch from Constantinople. Nestorians believed in the doctrine that Christ had two separate natures (a human nature and a divine nature). They faced persecution for this belief which forced them toward Persia and Central Asia.
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Nezam-e-Tawhid (Persian): Literally, Order of Divine Unity. Nihavand, the Battle of (640): Al-Nu’man ibn Muqarrin defeated a Sasanian army under Firuzan, which led to the collapse of the Sasanid dynasty. Both generals died in the battle. It was the last great battle of the Persians, and, three years later, the Arabs reached the Oxus (Amu Dariyah) River and the Indian border. Nizaris (Nizariyyah): Branch of Isma’ilis who gave allegiance to Nizar, son of the Fatimid Caliph Mustansir (died 1094), and his descendents. Ottoman Empire (1350–1918): After the end of the Seljuk Dynasty the Ottomans absorbed all neighboring states and captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman Empire was a major enemy of various Persian kings. PMOI: Other acronyms include MKO (Mojahedin Khalq Organization), MEK (Mojahedin e-Khalq). Also referred to as Mojahedin or Iranian Mojahedin. It was founded in Iran in 1965. Its ideology was called Jam’e bi-Tabagheh Towhidi (Divine Classless Society), which combined a Maoist version of communism with Islam. Qadisiyah, Battle of (637): Battle near the present city of Najaf where the Muslim Sa’d ibn abi Waqqas conquered the Persian general Rustam and won control of Iraq. Qajar Dynasty: A Turkmen group of Oghuz ancestry that ruled Persia from 1796–1925. Qom (Qumm): One of the holy places of Twelver Shi’ism located south of Teheran. Some 400 Emam Zadeh (descendents of Shi’ite imams) are said to be buried there, including Fatima (d. 816), sister of the Eighth Imam Ali al-Ridha. Her shrine is a celebrated sanctuary and an object of pilgrimage and it is visited prior to visiting the holy places of Mashad and Karbala. Iran’s largest theological college, the Fayziyyah, was opened in 1920. Qom and Mashad are the only shrine cities readily available to Iranian pilgrims. Ayatollah Khomeini taught in Qom, and the city became his headquarters after the revolution. It has continued to be the seat of the highest Shi’ite clergy. Qummi, Ayatollah Sayyid Aqa Hasan: ibn Husayn Tabatab’i, born 1911. Studied at Mashad beginning in 1929 and at Isfahan beginning in 1931. He returned to Mashad and lived there until 1935 when he left Iran with his father in protest at Reza Shah’s actions relating to the abolition of the veil and the mixing of the genders in the schools. Beginning in 1963 he lived for a few years near Teheran. Finally, he returned to Mashad, where, after the death of Milani, he became the senior ayatollah.
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Qoratt al-Ayin: This woman was a legendary Baha’i leader who was murdered in the early 1850s. She was married to a clergyman and left to husband and family the fight for the Baha’i cause. She is also known as Tahireh or the “pure One.” She was known for once removing her veil in a meeting of leaders that showed the liberation of women. Qutb, Sayyid (1906–1966): Writer and leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) and one of the founding fathers of the modern Islamist movement. Rawdhah Khani (Ruzehkhani): Ritual commemorating the martyrdom of Husayn, the son of Caliph ‘Ali, in which Shi’ites reenact the events of 680. Razi, Abu Bakr Al- (865–925): Persian physician, philosopher, and universal thinker from Rayy in present-day Iran, known in the medieval West as Rhazes. He published works on various diseases and their symptoms which were translated into Latin, Greek, and modern Western languages. His first medical book, dedicated to the Samanid Prince al-Mansur (kitab al-mansuri), established him as a medical authority. Reza Shah, Mohammad Pahlavi: The last Iranian shah and son of Reza Shah, he was put on the throne by the World War II Allies in 1941. He alienated the population by aligning himself too closely with U.S. military and business interests. Unable or unwilling to unleash his armed forces against growing popular unrest, he fled Teheran in disgrace on January 16, 1979. He died in Egypt the next year Ridha, ‘Ali Al-Reza (765–818): The eighth of the Twelver Shi’ite imams. He resided in Medina and went to Baghdad at the request of the ‘Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun in 817. Rumi, Jallal al-din, Maulwani (1207–1273): Considered by many the greatest of all mystical Sufi poets, called Shaykh al-Akbar, the Great Master (or Mawlana), by his supporters. Born in Balkh, in presentday Afghanistan, he moved with his father to Konya in Turkey, called Rum at the time; hence his name Rumi. Sa’di: Popular poet of Shiraz, Iran, who lived from 1184 to 1292. Sadiq, Jafar Al- (699?–765): Sixth Shi’ite Imam and founder of the Ja’farite school of jurisprudence of Twelver Shi’ism. He lived in Medina where two of his students, Malik ibn Anas and Abu Hanifa, became founders of Sunni schools of law. He appointed his son Isma’il to be the Seventh Imam, but subsequently chose another son, Musa al-Kazim. 28 Safar: Day on which the martyrdom of Imam Hasan is commemorated in Iran.
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Safavid Dynasty (1501–1732): Dynasty named after Shaykh Safi al-Din (d. 1334), a Sufi saint, who established the Safavid order in Ardabil, northwestern Iran. An Afghan army defeated the Safavids in the battle of Gulnabad in 1722. Samanid Dynasty (819–1005): Dynasty named after its eponymic ancestor Saman that reached its greatest extent under Nasr II ibn Ahmad (913–943) and included eastern Iran, Transoxania, and presentday Afghanistan. Virtually independent of the ‘Abbasid caliphs, the Samanids defeated the Saffarids and captured ‘Amr ibn Layth (died 901). They established their capital at Bukhara, one of the great centers of Islamic civilization. Shariati, ‘Ali (1933-1977): Iranian social and religious critic who provided the radical interpretation of Islam for the revolution. Born in Mazin, a village near Mashad, and educated in Islamic studies in Mashad, he worked as a teacher and in the 1950s became a political activist, supporting the Mossadeq government. His potent mix of religion and rebellion captured a large following among Iran’s educated youth. He was subject to persecution by the shah’s secret police, which saw him, incorrectly, as a leading figure in the armed People’s Mohajedin Militia. He went into self-exile in England and died there in 1977. To this day, many Iranians blame the shah’s agents for his death. Shariatmadari, Ayatollah Muhammad Kazim (1903–1986): Senior religious leader in Iran and celebrated authority in his native Azerbaijan. Born in Tabriz of an Azari (Turkish) family, he was educated in Najaf and Qom. He was the founder of the Dar at-Tabligh Islami (House of Islamic Propagation), which specializes in teaching students, especially foreigners, at Qom using modern educational methods, as well as distributing Shi’ite literature throughout the world. He was the administrator of the Madrasa Fatima in Qom. He was formally stripped of his rank of Ayatu’llah al-‘Uzma after the discovery (April 1982) of a plot against Khomeini which he was said to support. ibn Sina, Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn ‘abd Allah (Avicenna) (980–1037): Born near Bukhara of Persian parents, Ibn Sina traveled to study with famous doctors. “At the age of ten years, he was a perfect master of the Holy Qur’an and general literature, and had attained a certain degree of information in dogmatic theology, the Indian calculus (arithmetic), and algebra. . . . In the sixteenth year of his age, physicians of the highest eminence came to read under his tuition the works which treat of the different branches of medicine and learn from him those modes of treatment which he had discovered by his
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practice” (Ibn Khallikan I, 440). Known in the West as Avicenna, he was a philosopher, physician, and author of the al-qanun fi tibb (Canon of Medicine) which made him famous in Europe. Sulayman (Suleiman, Solomon): Wise Jewish King mentioned in the Bible and Qur’an. Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir Al- (839–923): Scholar from Tabaristan, Iran, whose Annals of Prophets and Kings (tarikh al-rusul wa’l-muluk) is a history of the world from its creation to the tenth century. Timur-lang (Timur, Tamerlane, 1306–1405): The “Lame Timur” was a military genius and the last of the great nomadic conquerors. He was born of humble origin in Kesh, a town near Samarkand in presentday Uzbekistan. He claimed descent from the family of Chingiz Khan, but his real link to the family was his marriage to a Mongol noblewoman. He carried a number of titles and proclaimed himself Sultan in 1388. He was called the Lame Timur because he was disabled on the right hand and foot; an infirmity he suffered in war, or according to some sources, while stealing sheep. Tudeh: Iran’s Communist Party (until the collapse of the USSR). It was the most organized resistance party in Iran in the 1940s and 1950s against the Shah. Tusi, Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan al- (995–1067): Shi’ite theologian and compiler of one of the four Shi’ite canonical works on hadith (traditions of the Prophet). Tusi, Khwaja Nasir Al-Din Al- (1201–1274): Muhammad ibn Muhammad, also known as Muhaqqiq Tusi. Shi’ite philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician born in Tus (eleventh of Jamadi). After the fall of Baghdad in 1258, he devoted his attention to building an astronomical observatory at Maragha. He was probably an Isma’ili who collaborated with the Mongols and worked for Hulagu Khan, founder of the Ilkhanid dynasty (1256–1353). He was a prolific writer but his greatest contribution to Shi’a Islam was his development of Shi’ite kalam (theology) rooted in philosophical paradigms. Twelver Shi’ites: Also called Imamis, or Ja’faris, and in Arabic Ithna ‘Ashariyyah; they recognize the Twelfth Imam as the last imam in descent from ‘Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. Yazid: Second caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty and a leading opponent of Husayn. Yazdi, Sayyid Muhammad Kazim (ibn ‘Abdu’l-‘Azim Tabatab’i Yazdi Najafi): Born about 1831 in Kasnu near Yazd. He began to teach at Najaf after the death of Shirazi and became sole marja’ after the death of Akhund Khurasani in 1911. Unlike most of the other Iraqi
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ulema, he was opposed to the Constitutional Movement in Iran. He lived in Huwaysh where he died on 28 Rajab 1919. He is buried in Najaf. Yazdi, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah: Leading ideologue of the conservative clerical establishment, he rose to prominence only with the ascension of Khamenei to the post of supreme leader. A bitter foe of the reformed clerics, he once decreed, “If anyone tells you he has a different interpretation of Islam, sock him in the mouth.” His Haqqani School (Qom) graduates hard-line clerics to staff the judiciary and other Iranian agencies. Yazidi: A minor religious group in Iran, Iraq, and Syria which mixes Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Manichaeism. There are over one hundred thousand Yazidis. Zahirites (Zahiriyyah): School of jurisprudence, founded by Dawud al-Isfahani (d. 884), which demands an exoteric interpretation of the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah. Zamakshari, Mahmud al- (1075–1144): Theologian and philologist of Persian origin, who was born at Zamakhshar and died at Korkanj in Transcaspia. Zayd Ibn ‘Ali (698–740): Grandson of Husayn and imam of the Zaydiyyah (or Fiver) Shi’ites. He fought the Umayyads but was defeated and killed in 740. Zayidis (Zayidiyyah): Term for the Fivers—the followers of Zayd ibn ‘Ali (d. 740), the Fifth Shi’ite Imam. They are closest to Sunni Islam and recognize the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah as the bases of their theology. They claim to have superior doctrinal knowledge. Zayn al-‘Abidin (658–712?): Son of Husayn ibn ‘Ali and Sulafa, the daughter of Yazdigerd III, the last Sasanian ruler. He is the fourth of the Shi’ite imams. Zaynab: Daughter of ‘Ali, sister of Husayn, and revered as a popular saint in Iran. Zoroaster, Zarathustra, Zardosht: Various names ascribed to an ancient Iranian prophet and scribe who collected writings and is sometimes mistakenly considered the founder of the religion now known as Zoroastrianism but called by Zoroastrians “the good religion.” Little is known of the actual date or the location of his birth.
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Index
Abbas, Shah, 60–61, 85n58, 85n62, 86n65, 123, 152n15 Abbasid, 50–52, 102, 110, 125 Abraham, 12, 36n7, 180, 216n27, 254n6 Achamenian, 7, 8, 17n22, 17n27, 38n31, 47, 203 Afghans, 6, 64, 87n83 Afghanistan, 9, 24, 37n18, 222, 245 Africa/Africans, 3, 77, 78n6, 79n10, 122 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 5, 175, 185, 195n68, 229, 231, 246–47, 259n45 Ahura Mazda, 21–22, 36n2, 36n5, 37n13, 203 Akbar the Great, 40 Alborz College, 142, 147, 163n108, 165n133 Alexander the Great, 9, 18n32, 18n34, 18n36, 38n30 Alexander, E. W., 132 Algar, Hamid, 197 ’Ali, ibn Abu Talib, 101–4, 183 America/American, 4, 14n3, 14n4, 39, 69, 73, 77, 79n16, 91n104, 94n125, 132, 135–36, 139, 142, 144–45, 147, 148, 159n72, 159n74, 162nn99–100, 162n103, 163n109, 166n142, 170–71, 173, 186n7,
189n25, 190n29, 197n93, 200, 202, 210, 213n8, 230–31, 235n38, 246, 247, 259n42 Anabaptists, 208 Anderson, Rufus, 127 Anglicans, 12, 122, 131, 133–35, 145–47, 153nn20–22, 158nn64– 66, 166, 171, 180–82, 193n53, 196nn78–79, 208–9, 217n34, 217n39 Antioch, 29, 37n24, 42n53 Aphrahat, 29, 41n47 Arab(s), 4, 6, 10, 14nn4–5, 43n71, 45n89, 47–48, 50, 52, 53, 58, 78n2, 78n5, 80n18, 80n23, 83n47, 84n51, 110, 115n28, 203, 214n19, 259n40 Arabia (Saudi), 16n19, 19n42, 115n13, 172, 189n24, 192n43 Arabic, 44n80, 80, 122, 152n16, 205, 215n24 Arafat, Yassir, 187n8 Aristotle, 9 Armenia, 42n58, 55, 85nn61–63, 180, 202, 214nn12–13, 214nn16–17, 230, 260n61 Armenian, 4, 8, 10, 25, 30, 34, 44n77, 52, 53, 60–68, 72, 75, 78n6, 84n57, 86n65, 86n68, 87n78, 95n133, 123, 125, 127–31, 321
322
INDEX
133, 135, 141, 145, 151n9, 152nn16–18, 154n34, 156n52, 158n66, 163n115, 164n123, 176, 179–80, 183, 193n48, 193n53, 195n68, 195nn71–72, 196n85, 199, 201–7, 212, 213n7, 214nn12–13, 214nn16–17, 216n26, 219–20, 224, 233n6, 235n39, 237–38, 251, 253 Artaxerxes, 8 ’Ashura, 170 Asia, 3, 64 Asoka, 24 Assembly of Experts, 175–76, 187n9 Assembly of God, 145–46, 164n123, 184, 208–9, 217n35, 220–24, 227 Assyrian Christians (Church), 34, 62, 71–72, 125, 127–28, 131, 133, 135–36, 139–40, 142, 143, 155n41, 163n115, 166n142, 176, 180, 193n53, 200–202, 207–9, 212, 229, 235nn38–39, 238, 251, 253 Assyrian Empire, 6 Astrakhan, 60, 122, 166n142, 227 Ataturk, Kemal, 73, 92n116 Attar, Farid al-din, 107, 199, 237 Augustine, Saint, 27, 39nn37–38 Australia, 90, 157n60, 210, 231, 253 Azerbaijan/Azerbaijanis, 4, 18n32, 57–58, 61, 80n17, 81n30, 83nn47– 48, 88n85, 90n101, 108, 122, 128, 160n79, 186n6 BCMS, 148, 166nn136–37 BFBS, 150 BMMF, 149 Babylon, 9, 52, 205 Babylonian Empire, 6, 205 Badal, Benjamin, 150 Badger, George, 130 Badr, Battle of, 103 Baghdad, 50, 52–53, 56, 91n102, 110, 123, 164n120, 205, 216 Baha’i(s), 11, 69–71, 75, 90n97, 90nn99–100, 95n134, 128, 176–77, 182–83, 185, 193n50, 194n54, 229, 231, 246, 252, 260n57
Baha’u’llah, 70, 90nn101–2, 90n104 Bahrain, 113n13 Bahram V, 32 Baku, 186n6 Baluchis, 4, 193, 258n38 Bam earthquake, 96n135, 149, 242; location of, 257n25 Ban-Sadr, President, 187 Baptist, 122, 146, 148, 151n5, 242 Bardaisan, 25 Bar Sabbae, Simon, 31 Basel Mission, 122, 138 Baskerville, Howard, 71, 91n108 Basmajis, 190, 228 Bassett, James, 141 Bauman, Dan, 227 Bayazid of Bistam, 106, 117n38 Baylor University, 188n15, 260n61 Bazargan, Mehdi, 172, 185n1 Beach, H. P., 142 Bengali, 12 Benjamin, Samuel Green Wheeler, 139, 162n100 Bird, Mary, 132, 156n55, 158n63, 238 Bliss, Mark, 145–46, 165n126 Bohlin, John, 164n123 Bradford (England), 191n41 Bradley, Mark, 138, 163n109, 164n123, 220, 233 Braswell, George, 148, 181, 242, 256nn23–24, 260n48 Brazil/Brazilian, 79n16, 171 Britain/British, 59, 65–66, 71, 73, 79n10, 84n53, 94n25, 125–27, 129, 131–32, 144, 147, 166n142, 174, 213n8, 235n37 Browne, W. H., 135, 159n71 Bruce, Robert, 130–31, 156nn43–44, 167 Buddhism/Buddhist, 24, 28, 37n17, 37n19, 49, 79n11; Ghazan Kahn and, 79n12 Bukhara, 87n82, 89n96 Burton, Richard, 16n19 Bush, George H. W., 246
INDEX Buyid, 53 Byzantium/Byzantine, 10, 34–35, 40n44, 43n65, 47, 50, 52, 200, 203–4 CIA, 74 CMJ, 155n41 Cambridge University, 122 Cambyses, 7 Canada/Canadian, 12, 90n99, 213n8, 231, 253n4 Canning, William, 153n22 Capuchin, 61, 67, 84n57 Carey, William, 122, 151n5 Carmelites, 60–61, 84n57, 152n15 Carr, Donald, 132, 156n54 Carter, Jimmy, 14n4, 170 Caspian Sea, 3, 7, 222 Catchatoor, Haizak, 145, 164n123 Catchatoor, Hrand, 145, 164n123 Catholicism/Catholic, 60–62, 66–68, 84n57, 88n87, 100, 121, 125, 136, 145, 150, 152n14, 152n16, 179, 205, 208, 216nn26–27, 243, 254n13 Caucuses, 3, 6, 78n6, 122, 127, 129 Central Asia, 3, 6, 23, 28, 34, 40n39, 44n75, 52–53, 55–58, 83n43, 87n82, 103, 127 Chaldean, 4, 10, 67, 180, 200–201, 205, 219 Chehabi, H. E., 126 Chezaud, Father Aime, 68 China, 3, 16n19, 23, 27, 33, 37n20, 44n75, 193, 232n1, 254n7 Chosroes I, 35 Chosroes II, 35, 45n89 Christmas, 183, 197n91, 238 Christoffel, Ernst Jakob, 144–45, 196n78 Chrysostom, John, Saint, 24–25 Church Missionary Society (CMS), 122, 130–34, 146, 157n60 Clement of Alexandria, 25 Cochran, Joseph, 138, 161n93 Coleman, John, 134, 182
323
Congregationalists, 136 Constantine, 31 Constitution of Iran (1979), 177–78, 191n34, 192n46, 194nn64–65 Cragg, Kenneth, 206, 215n25, 251 Curtin, Andrew, 139 Curzon, Lord, 69, 90 Cyprus, 181, 213n8, 217n35, 226, 254nn8–9 Cyrus, 7–8, 17n26, 18n31, 22, 96n135, 97n145 Cyril, 29, 41n51, 44n77 Daniel, 8 Darius, 7, 202 Danish cartoons, 5 Davis, H. G. O., 136 Dehqani-Tafti, Hasan, 118n44, 128, 132, 134, 159n68, 171, 181, 196n77, 249–51, 260n54 Dhaka, 191n41 Dibaj, Mehdi, 209, 220–25, 228, 233n16 Dominican Fathers, 54, 61, 67, 88n90, 136, 205 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 251 Dunsterville, Lionel Charles, 201 Edinburg University, 156n53 Edinburg Missionary Society, 122, 124 Elam/Elamites, 6, 24, 210, 250 Elam Ministries, 209 Egypt, 16n19, 41n48, 77, 105, 116n31, 151n2, 254n8 England/English, 60, 69, 118n41, 118nn43–44, 124, 126, 129–30, 133, 137, 145, 151nn5–6, 157n56, 157n60, 181, 191n41, 194n65, 195n66, 196n77, 238, 253n4 Esposito, John, 13 Esther, Queen, 8, 17nn26–27, 18n28 Europe/European, 11, 16n19, 39n38, 61, 64, 66, 71, 76–77, 83n42, 89n96, 92n112, 126–27, 163n113, 164n120, 230, 236n41
324
INDEX
Evangelical, 199, 206–9, 219–28, 235n37, 247, 252 Ezra, 8 Fars, 7, 38n31 Fatamids, 105, 116n31, 116n33 Fath Ali Shah, 65, 124 Firdausi, 5, 36 Fischel, Walter, 28, 40 Fiske, Fidelia, 137, 161n85 Fitzgerald, Edward, 106 Foltz, Richard, 36, 110 Fortescue, Adrian, 22, 25, 31 France/French, 60, 65, 67, 72, 88n84, 88nn87–89, 120, 125, 172, 189n22, 231 Franciscan Order, 54, 205 Francis-Dehqani, Guli, 133 Galitzin, Boris, 166n142 Guardian Council, 174–75, 247 Genghis Khan, 83n43 Georgia, 55, 62, 78n6, 86nn68–69, 87n82, 129 Germany/German, 15n13, 16n17, 74, 94n125, 122, 143–45, 154n37, 156n44, 164n118, 166n142, 197n101 al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad, 21, 108–9, 116n34, 120n62 Ghotzbadeh, Sadegh, 178 Glen, William, 124, 166n142 Gnosticism/Gnostic, 26, 105 Gorgan, 221, 227 Grant, Ashael, 137–38, 159n77, 161n78, 161n80 Greece/Greek, 7–8, 19n42, 23, 26, 37n24, 51, 61, 108, 205 Gregory the Illuminator, 61, 85n60, 215n20 Gregory XVI, 67, 88n87 Guilaume, Alfred, 182 Haas, Fredrick, 136, 156n44 Hafez, 16n17, 106–7, 109, 118n42, 249
Hallaj, Mansur, 106, 117n38 Hamadan, 7, 17n27, 40n43, 55, 63, 69, 72, 89n93, 132, 141, 154n37, 155n41, 159n72 Haman, 8 Harms, Hanni, 143–45 Harms, Theodor, 143–45 Hasan of Basra, 106 Hawkes, James, 132, 141, 163 Herat, 9, 56–57, 83n44 Hiba, 30 Hoecher, C. F. W., 121 Holland, 60 Holocaust, 5 Hoover, Jon, 256n19 Hormuz, 60 Hovsepian, Takoosh, 225 Hovsepian Mehr, Haik, 165n126, 209, 220–26, 228 Husayn, Imam, 100, 101, 103, 104, 113n10, 113n12, 114n17, 115n23, 115nn25–26, 169, 257n32 Hussein, Saddam, 38n32, 197n93, 200 ICF, 201 ICI, 210, 229 India, 3, 4, 7, 16n19, 25, 34, 36n5, 51, 79n11, 87n77, 87n83, 88n84, 122, 129–30, 148, 151n2, 151n6, 152n14, 154n34, 156n43, 156nn51–52, 156n55, 164n120, 166n137, 166n140, 189n18, 222 Indonesia, 39, 232n1 Iran Air Flight 655, 189n25 Iranian Bible Society, 226 Iran-Iraq War, 5, 17, 116n29, 172, 183–84, 188n14, 189n25, 197n93, 205, 230 Iraq, 6, 25–26, 33, 38n25, 38n32, 59, 67, 91n102, 95n134, 116n31, 172, 183, 185n1, 188n14, 197n93, 201, 213n8, 230, 232n1, 246 Ireland, 88, 130, 166, 253n4 Isfahan, 14n3, 51–53, 56, 60–62, 67, 78n6, 84n52, 84n57, 85n62,
INDEX 89n96, 93n117, 129–30, 134, 138, 145, 151n13, 152n15, 156n54, 158n66, 181–82, 193n50, 198n102, 204 Isma’ili, 28, 104–5, 113n13, 114n17, 116nn30–31, 116n33, 182 Israel, 71, 76–77, 84n56, 96nn139– 40, 130, 159n77, 171, 183, 231, 236nn43–44 Istanbul, 23–29, 91n102, 216n26 Italy/Italian, 88n90 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 75 Jenkins, Philip, 254n7 Jerome, 38n27 Jerusalem, 8, 17n26, 80n17, 88n88, 141, 158n67, 254n8 Jesuits, 84n57, 205, 259n46 Jesus Christ, 25, 27, 39n34, 39n38, 41n51, 44n77, 103, 109, 118n44, 131, 179, 183, 201, 207, 223, 240, 242, 255n14, 257n27 Jew/Jewish, 4, 8–9, 11, 17nn26–27, 18n29, 25–26, 28, 32–33, 37n24, 38n25, 38n31, 41n59, 51–52, 55, 57, 59, 64, 68–69, 75–76, 80n17, 81n31, 82nn36–37, 82n39, 86n65, 89n93, 89nn95–96, 90n97, 96nn136–40, 100, 111, 128–30, 142, 152n16, 154n37, 155n41, 158n66, 175–78, 180, 182–83, 185, 194n65, 196n81, 197n89, 230–32, 235n38, 236nn43–44, 246–47, 252, 254n6, 257n29, 259n47 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali, 113n13 jizya, 49, 80n20 Johannes, Kasha Pera, 143–44 John of Damascus, 79n13 John of Persia, 29 John Paul II, 179, 195n69, 202 Jordan, 38n32 Jordan, S. M., 140, 142, 163n109 Josephus, 38n25 Judaism. See Jew/Jewish
325
Julfa (New), 62–64, 84n57, 85n62, 122, 124, 130–32, 152n17, 158n66, 159n72, 204, 206 Kane, J. Herbert, 149, 158n67 Karbala, 83n50, 87n81, 90n101, 101, 104, 115n22, 172 Karun River, 3 Kerman, 79n16, 89n93, 155, 158n64, 159n72, 182, 190 Kermanshah, 132, 139, 148, 155n41, 159n72, 166n138 Khamenei, Ayatollah, 111, 184, 197n101 Kharg Island, 26 Khatami, Mohammad, 185, 191n41, 229, 234n23, 245–46, 258n39, 259n42 Khayyam, Omar, 106 Khomeini, Ayatollah, 14n4, 76–77, 109, 111, 115n26, 169–72, 174–85, 185n1, 185n3, 185n7, 187n9, 188n15, 188n17, 189n18, 189nn21–22, 189nn24–25, 191n35, 191n41, 192nn42–46, 196n81, 196n86, 197n93, 197nn98–99, 222, 244–45 Khuzistan, 4, 88n90, 92n109, 115n28 Kimball, Charles, 203 Kirkuk, 33, 43n47 Kung, Hans, 242, 256, 259 Kurdistan/Kurd, 4, 8, 10, 18n31, 54, 62, 65, 71–72, 81n30, 94n127 Larabee, Benjamin, 140, 162n103, 166n142 Latourette, Kenneth Scott, 63 Lawrence, Bruce, 231 Lazarists, 67–68, 88n88 Lebanon, 59, 113n13, 172, 200, 204, 216n26, 222, 254n8 Leonidas, 7 Lewis, Bernard, 102 Longenecker, Rhonda, 149, 241 Longenecker, Wil, 149, 241
326
INDEX
MCC, 241, 247 MECC, 201, 207, 239, 254n89 Magi, 24, 79n15 Mahdi, Imam, 103 Malcolm, John, 122–23, 151n6 Malecki, Abbas, 3 Malech, George, 144 Mandeans, 212n2 Mani, 27, 39n33 Manicheanism/Manichean, 26–28, 39n38, 40n39, 52, 81n31, 105 Marshall, Paul, 252 Martyn, Henry, 122–25, 130, 132, 150, 151n6, 151n9, 151n13, 153nn20–22, 155n39, 156n43, 156n52, 166n142 Mashad, 63, 67–69, 92n116, 93n118, 104, 110, 116n29, 159n72, 162n104, 184–85, 187n10, 196n85, 226, 233 Massarrat, Mohssen, 6 Mazdakites, 26, 28 Mazdeans, 9 Mennonites, 255n18 Merrick, James, 138 Mesopotamia, 8, 16n19, 19n38 Michaelian, Tateos, 164, 226, 228 Middle East, 3, 35, 47, 77, 205–7, 217n35, 236n43, 238, 250 Miller, William McElwee, 141 Millspaugh, Arthur, 165 Mohammad Reza Shah, 74–77, 93n126, 134, 147, 165n129, 170, 186n7, 188n14, 195n72 Mongol/Mongolian, 6, 34, 44n75, 49, 54, 56, 82n33, 87n77, 107 Monophysites, 30 Montazeri, Ayatollah, 189n24 Moravians, 121 Mordecai, 96n135 Mormon, 75, 96n135, 243 Mosul, 137, 155, 160 Mossadeq, Mohammad, 74, 95n131, 147, 165n131, 166n137, 187n8, 234n23
Muhammad, Prophet, 5, 27, 47, 78n2, 84n51, 99–100, 103, 105, 113n10, 172, 189n18, 192n43, 222, 240, 247, 257n32 Muharram, 104 NECC, 141, 149 NCRI, 175, 193n47 Nadir, Shah, 64–65, 68, 87n77, 122– 23, 152nn16–17 Najaf, 59, 87n81, 101, 104, 172, 185n1, 187n9 Nehemiah, 8 Neill, Stephen, 29 Nestorius, 41n50, 44n77, 201 Nestorianism/Nestorian, 29–30, 33–34, 38n31, 41n48, 42n53, 44n75, 44n79, 45n84, 50, 54–55, 62, 71, 135–40, 142–43, 155n141, 159n71, 156n77, 160n79, 162n96, 200–202, 212, 213nn7–8 Netherlands, 19n41 Neusner, Jacob, 31, 33 New Zealand, 131, 156n51, 210, 217n38 Nicholls, Aidan, 13 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 23 Nishapur, 34, 55, 82n34, 93n117, 106–7 Nixon, Richard, 14n4 North America(n), 11, 126–27, 136, 145, 147, 230, 236n41 Nozad, 140, 163n105 Nurbaksh, Javad, 109 Obama, Barack, 247 Oxford University, 152, 166n142 Open Doors International, 178, 184, 195n66, 223, 233n16 Operation Ajax, 74 Operation Mobilization, 149 Orthodox, Russian/Greek, 61, 127, 142–43, 150, 197n91, 199–200, 204–5, 212n4, 215nn23–24,
INDEX Ottoman Empire, 58–59, 63, 83n47, 88n86 Ousley, Sir Gore, 124, 151n6, 166n142 PMOI, 175, 192–93 Pahlavi, 72–73, 94n121, 120n120, 146 Pakistan, 174, 196, 230–31 Palestine/Palestinian, 77, 96n136, 183, 195n69 Paradise, 19n42, 104, 257 Paris, 75, 84n56, 95n131, 97n149, 189n21 Parsees, 79n16, 142 Parthian, 9, 19n37, 24–26, 28, 30 Pasargadae, 9 Pentecost, 10, 11, 24 Pentecostal, 145–46, 165n126, 184, 208, 219–21, 224, 233n6 “People of the Book,” 49, 51, 79n9, 253n2 Persepolis, 7, 9, 26, 84n57, 93n117, 97n145 Persian Gulf, 3, 48, 140 Philadelphia Pentecostal Church, 145, 164n123 Philip II, 9 Polo, Marco, 34, 105, 116n31 Potter, J. L., 140 Portugal, 88 Pourmand, Hamid, 227, 234n28 Presbyterian, 71, 135, 137–42, 161n85, 162n96, 165n128, 165n133, 166n142, 207–8, 226 Price, Massoume, 3–4, 38n25, 63, 92n112, 96n139, 176, 178, 200 Purim, 17n26 Qajar Empire, 15n16, 59, 64–69, 71– 72, 85n59, 87nn81–82, 92n111, 107, 123, 125–29, 134, 139–40, 146–47, 154n34 Qazin, 70, 195n72 Qazzaq, Jalil, 132–33, 157
327
Qom, 104, 110, 115n28, 170, 172, 174, 187n9, 192n44, 241, 244 Qur’an, 49, 51, 79n11, 80n19, 99, 102–3, 106–7, 146, 175, 179, 183, 192n43, 192n45, 196n81, 215n24, 244, 249, 253n2, 255n17, 257n31 Qutb, Sayyid, 182, 196n86 Rafsanjani, Ayatollah, 184, 197n101, 233n18 Reagan, Ronald, 173 Resht, 139, 233n5 Reza, Imam, 101, 104, 185, 226 Reza Shah, 72–74, 92n114, 92n116, 93n118–19, 94n122, 94n126, 95n128, 146, 187n9 Rome/Roman, 8, 10, 28, 31, 33, 35, 37n24, 40n44, 43n65, 43n74, 52– 53, 62, 205, 215n20, 215nn23–25 Roosevelt, Theodore, 95n132, 140 Rostam, 5, 16n18 Roxana, 9 Rueffer, Johannes, 121, 151n2 Rumi, Jallal al-din, 106, 109 Russia/Russian, 60, 65–66, 71–73, 77, 85n61, 87n82, 94n125, 94n127, 127, 142–44, 154n34, 159n75, 163n113, 166n142, 200, 214n9 Rushdie, Salman, 174, 191n41, 192n43, 197n99 SAVAK, 76, 97nn143–44, 135, 194n55 Saadi of Shiraz, 106–7, 123 Sa’eed Kurdistani, 132, 145, 157n56 Saberi, Roxana, 19n45 Safavid Empire, 52, 57–64, 83nn48– 50, 84n51, 85n59, 86n68, 104, 115n22, 204 Saladin, 54 Salamis, 7 Salehi, M. M., 3, 14n8 Samanid, 53, 81n26 Samarkand, 16n9, 56–57, 89n96, 204
328
INDEX
Samson (Semsoun), 25 Sasanian Empire, 16n9, 26–31, 33– 35, 36n2, 47–50, 52, 78n2, 81n26, 84n51, 93n119, 110, 201, 203 Satan, 8, 18n29, 190 Satanic Verses, 174, 192n43 Seleucos Nicator, 9 Seljuk, 52–54, 81n28, 103, 116n31 Serampore College, 122, 124 shariah (Islamic law), 96n142, 177, 191nn35–37, 194nn64–65, 220, 244 Shariati, ’Ali, 83n50, 112, 197n86 Shapur II, 31–32, 40n42 Shenk, David, 256n21 Shiraz, 40n43, 57, 69–70, 84n57, 88n90, 90n101, 106, 122–23, 129, 134, 151n9, 151nn12–13, 153nn20–22, 155n39, 155n41, 158n65, 171, 177, 180, 183, 193n50, 198n102, 233n5 Shrushkan, 63–64 Silk Road, 3, 5, 17n26, 28, 64 Sohrab, 5, 16n18 Soodmand, Pastor, 221, 233nn6–7 South Africa, 74 Soviet Union, 75, 94n127, 95n133, 162n102, 185n1 Spain, 51, 84 St. Clair-Tisdall, William, 132, 156nn52–53, 158n61 Stuart, Edward Craig, 131, 156n51 Sufism/Sufi, 105–9, 112, 119n47, 119n49, 122, 133, 231 Susa, 6–7, 9, 17n26 Sweden, 38n32 Switzerland, 95 Syria/Syrian, 9, 38n32, 59, 62, 83n44, 105 Tabriz, 54–55, 67–69, 84n57, 89n91, 91n108, 122, 131, 136, 139, 141, 144, 151n13, 154n34, 159n72, 162n100, 164n120, 170 Tatian the Assyrian, 25, 38n27 Tajikistan, 24
Taliban, 37n18, 245 Tamil, 44n80 Teheran, 10, 14n3, 19n41, 56, 65, 67, 75, 79n10, 79n16, 84n56, 87n77, 87n79, 91n102, 94n122, 96nn135– 36, 96n139, 115, 126, 132, 135, 138–42, 148–49, 151n13, 153n22, 155n41, 157n57, 163n109, 164n123, 165n126, 170–74, 176, 178, 181, 188n15, 190n29, 190n33, 194n65, 195n69, 206–8, 220–21, 224–25, 228, 233n17, 243, 256n19, 256n24, 257n25, 258n35 Thermopylae, 7 Thomas, Apostle, 25, 160n79, 201 Tibet, 34, 44n75 Timur, 56–57, 83nn42–43 Timurid, 83n44 Tonoyan, Artyom Henrik, 260 TransWorld Radio, 149 Turkey/Turkish, 3, 7, 16n19, 26, 40n39, 65, 76, 71–73, 78n3, 81n28, 83n47, 85n61, 92n116, 103, 122, 136, 139, 143, 159n70, 171, 201, 207, 210, 230 Turkmenistan/Turkmen, 6, 24, 34, 42n53, 57, 89n96, 227, 230 Umar II, 50, 52, 178 Ummayad Caliphate, 47, 49, 102, 110, 117n35 Uniates, 62, 215 United States. See America/ American Urmiah, 34, 57, 67, 71–72, 89n96, 128–30, 135–38, 140–46, 154n37, 161nn84–85, 161n89, 161n93, 162n96, 162n102, 163n115, 165n128, 166n142, 201 Uzbekistan, 24, 83n43, 129, 232n1 Volf, Miraslov, 240 Waddell, Jean, 181 Wahhabi Muslims, 113n13 Ward, Henry, 148
INDEX Wesley, John, 122 Wesleyan Holiness Church, 145 Wharton, John, 145 Whelock, Abraham, 152n14 Wilberforce, William, 156n55 Wilde, Oscar, 37n12 Wisard, J. G., 141 Wolff, Joseph, 129, 155nn38–40 World Council of Churches, 141, 216n28, 239, 259n46 World War I, 66, 71–72, 88n85, 128, 141, 201–202 World War II, 74–75, 95n133, 96n138, 144, 147–48, 157n60, 158n64, 166n140, 186n6 Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, 149 Xerxes, 7 Yazd, 80, 122, 132, 155n41, 166n137, 170, 177
329
Yazdigerd I, 17n26, 32, 43n71 Yazdigerd II, 17n26, 33 Yazdigerd III, 43n71, 78n2 Yazid, Abu, 106 Yazidi, 81n31 Yerevan, 85n61, 195n68, 215, 260 Youth With A Mission, 227 Yusefi, Muhammad, 227–28 Zand, 59, 65 Zargos Mountains, 3, 17n21 Zionism/Zionist, 183, 197n89, 231 Zoroaster, 22–23, 36nn6–8, 254 Zoroastrian, 9–11, 18, 21–30, 32–33, 35, 42n56, 42n59, 43n71, 45n88, 48–49, 51, 59, 73, 79nn7–9, 79nn15–16, 81n27, 81n31, 83n52, 94n121, 108, 119n49, 122, 133, 175–76, 180, 193n50, 194n65, 196n81, 203, 210, 212n2, 231–32, 235n38, 254n6
