20 Μαρτίου 1739: Ο Τουρκμένος Ναντέρ Σάχης του Ιράν καταλαμβάνει

Image of the Milky Way over the Temple of Karnak in Egypt.

~ Clay bulla with impression of a stamp seal depicting the Persian king spearing a Greek hoplite.

Place of origin: Near Eastern, Iranian

Culture: Persian

Period: Achaemenid

Date: 550–331 B.C.

Medium: Clay

carmen de los mártires in granada, spain ⋅ ph. iharvera 

Χούνζα, Μπαλτί, Ισλάμ, Βουδισμός, οι Στρατιώτες του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου κι οι Δρόμοι του Μεταξιού, των Μπαχαρικών και των Λιβανωτών

Hunza Valley, Baltistan, Islam, Buddhism, Alexander the Great's soldiers, and the Silk-, Spice-, and Incense Roads

ΑΝΑΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ ΑΝΕΝΕΡΓΟ ΜΠΛΟΓΚ “ΟΙ ΡΩΜΙΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ”

Το κείμενο του κ. Νίκου Μπαϋρακτάρη είχε αρχικά δημοσιευθεί την 8η Μαΐου 2019.

Ο κ. Μπαϋρακτάρης ανασυνθέτει υλικό από πρότερες δημοσιεύσεις μου για τους Δρόμους του Μεταξιού και στοιχεία από ομιλία μου σχετικά με τους Δρόμους των Λιβανωτών και των Μπαχαρικών ανάμεσα στο Κέρας της Αφρικής και την Κεντρική Ασία, την οποία έδωσα στο Καζακστάν τον Ιανουάριο του 2018.

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https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/05/08/χούνζα-μπαλτί-ισλάμ-βουδισμός-οι-στρ/ ==================

Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής – Greeks of the Orient

Ρωμιοσύνη, Ρωμανία, Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία

Κοντά στα σύνορα με την Κίνα, στο βόρειο άκρο του Πακιστάν και τριγύρω από το Γκιλγκίτ, πολλές μικρές κοιλάδες κατοικούνται από διαφορετικά μικρά έθνη με μεγάλη Ιστορία και μεγαλύτερο ηρωϊσμό.

Οι Δρόμοι του Μεταξιού, των Μπαχαρικών και των Λιβανωτών δεν περνούσαν πάντοτε από εδώ. Στην εντελώς αρχική τους μορφή, οι εμπορικοί δρόμοι ξεκινούσαν από την Μεσοποταμία και κατέληγαν στην Κίνα και στην Ινδία: επρόκειτο για διαφορετικούς δρόμους.

Και η Μεσοποταμία, αν και μακρύτερα, ήταν πολύ πιο νωρίς συνδεδεμένη με την Κίνα, επειδή πολιτισμός στην Ινδία (ακόμη κι ο πρώιμος, μη ινδοευρωπαϊκός ‘πολιτισμός της Κοιλάδας του Ινδού’) είναι μία πολύ καθυστερημένη περίπτωση, αν πάρουμε ως μέτρα και σταθμά την Σουμέρ, το Ελάμ, την Ακκάδ, την Ασσυρία και την Βαβυλώνα.

Επίσης, στην αρχική μορφή των εμπορικών δρόμων, το Μετάξι δεν ήταν ένα από τα προϊόντα. Αλλά πολύτιμοι λίθοι, σπάνια ορυκτά, μπαχαρικά και λιβανωτά ήταν πάντοτε στο επίκεντρο του εμπορικού ενδιαφέροντος.

Η πραγματική ‘επανάσταση’ στους εμπορικούς δρόμους ανάμεσα στην Μεσοποταμία, την Κίνα και την Ινδία έγινε στα αχαιμενιδικά χρόνια (550-330 π.Χ.) και κυρίως χάρη στην τεράστια σημασία που έδωσαν οι πρώτοι σάχηδες του Ιράν να εγκαθιδρύσουν ένα πολύ σύνθετο σύστημα αυτοκρατορικών οδών, πολύ καλά οργανωμένων, επιμελημένων και προστατευμένων, διά ξηράς, ερήμου και θαλάσσης.

Το μεγάλο αυτό συγκοινωνιακό και εμπορικό δίκτυο προσέφερε πολλές εναλλακτικές δυνατότητες: αντί να στείλουν προϊόντα, αποστολές, στρατό, κοκ από την Αίγυπτο (ιρανική αχαιμενιδική σατραπεία) διά ξηράς στο Φαρς (κεντρική επαρχία του Ιράν), δηλαδή μέσω Παλαιστίνης, Συρίας, Μεσοποταμίας και Ελυμαΐδας (: Νότιας Υπερτιγριανής), μπορούσαν να τα στείλουν από τα αιγυπτιακά λιμάνια της Ερυθράς Θαλάσσης στον Περσικό Κόλπο.

Ο Δαρείος Α’, προνοητικός, άνοιξε εκ νέου την από αιώνες κλεισμένη, αρχαία διώρυγα του Σουέζ, η οποία ήταν ολότελα διαφορετικής κατεύθυνσης από την σύγχρονη (δηλαδή από τα δυτικά προς τα ανατολικά) και συνέδεε τον Νείλο (από την περιοχή περίπου του σημερινού Καΐρου) με την Ερυθρά Θάλασσα.

Κάτι ακόμη πιο σημαντικό που επιτεύχθηκε από την αχαιμενιδική ιρανική εμπορική και συγκοινωνιακή κοσμογονία ήταν το γεγονός ότι διαφορετικοί εμπορικοί δρόμοι αλληλεξαρτήθηκαν για πρώτη φορά, έτσι καθιστώντας γνωστά σε πολύ μακρινά σημεία πολλά προϊόντα μέχρι τότε άγνωστα.

Το εμπόριο μεταξύ Μεσοποταμίας και Κίνας, ή Μεσοποταμίας και Ινδίας (: Κοιλάδας του Ινδού) ανάγεται εύκολα στην 3η προχριστιανική χιλιετία στα τέλη της οποίας βλέπουμε ένα πλήθος διαδοχικών αρχαιολογικών χώρων να χαράσσουν μια γραμμή που μέσω Κεντρικής Ασίας συνέδεε την κοιλάδα των Διδύμων Ποταμών (Τίγρη κι Ευφράτη) με την κοιλάδα του Κίτρινου Ποταμού. Αλλά η Αίγυπτος ελάχιστα επωφελήθηκε των ασσυροβαβυλωνιακών εμπορικών δρόμων κι ανταλλαγών.

Από την άλλη, η Αίγυπτος είχε ήδη από τα τέλη της 3ης προχριστιανικής χιλιετίας διαμορφώσει ένα μεγάλο εμπορικό δίκτυο διά του Αρχαίου Βασιλείου του Κους (: Αιθιοπίας, δηλαδή του σημερινού Σουδάν) με την Σαχάρα, διά της Λιβύης με τον Άτλαντα, και διά της Ερυθράς Θαλάσσης με το ανεξάρτητο σομαλικό βασίλειο του Πουντ στην ανατολική ακτή της Αφρικής πέρα από το Κέρας της Αφρικής. Αλλά η Ασσυρία κι η Βαβυλώνα ελάχιστα επωφελήθηκαν των αιγυπτιακών εμπορικών δρόμων κι ανταλλαγών.

Όμως στα αχαιμενιδικά χρόνια, όλα αυτά τα εμπορικά δίκτυα αναμείχθηκαν και αλληλοσυνδέθηκαν σε ένα μείζον εμπορικό και συγκοινωνιακό δίκτυο από τον Αφρικανικό Άτλαντα μέχρι τα ανατολικά παράλια της Ασίας.

Η πρώτη παγκοσμιοποίηση ήταν γεγονός.

Ήταν απλώς θέμα χρόνου πάνω στους εμπορικούς δρόμους αυτούς να μην μετακινούνται μόνον προϊόντα αλλά επίσης γραφές, γλώσσες, θρησκείες, λατρείες, πίστεις, κοσμογονίες, θεουργίες, μυστήρια και μυστικά κυκλώματα.

Μια πρώιμη μετακίνηση ήταν αυτή του εκδιωκόμενου από την Βόρεια Ινδία Βουδισμού προς τις ανατολικές επαρχίες του αχαιμενιδικού Ιράν ήδη τον 6ο – 5ο προχριστιανικό αιώνα.

Σ’ αυτό βοήθησε πολύ η θρησκευτική ανοχή που επικρατούσε στην αχανή αυτοκρατορία που ξεκινούσε από τα σύνορα της Ινδίας με το Πακιστάν κι έφθανε στο Αιγαίο, ενώ είχε συνενώσει όλες τις εκτάσεις από το Ουζμπεκιστάν και την νότια Ουκρανία μέχρι το Σουδάν και το Ομάν.

Από το ανατολικό αχαιμενιδικό Ιράν (δηλαδή τις εκτάσεις των σημερινών Πακιστάν, Αφγανιστάν κι Ουζμπεκιστάν), ο Βουδισμός διαδόθηκε αργότερα προς την Κεντρική Ασία κι έγινε μια από τις πολλές θρησκείες που πολλά τουρανικά έθνη αποδέχθηκαν. Από εκτάσεις της Κεντρικής Ασίας (του σημερινού Καζακστάν και Ανατολικού Τουρκεστάν, δηλαδή της βορειοδυτικής επαρχίας Σινκιάν της Κίνας) διαδόθηκε αργότερα ο βουδισμός στην καθαυτό Κίνα.

Το ίδιο εμπορικό δίκτυο συνέχισε να λειτουργεί μετά την εκ μέρους του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου κατάληψη της αχαιμενιδικής αυτοκρατορίας και ανάληψη καθηκόντων σάχη και συνεπώς εγγυητή και συνεχιστή της αυτοκρατορικής παράδοσης.

Το ίδιο συνέβηκε και στα χρόνια των Επιγόνων παρά τους διάφορους πολέμους που οι ίδιοι δεν έπαυσαν να κάνουν.

Με τους Αραμαίους να ελέγχουν το διά ξηράς και δι’ ερήμου εμπόριο και με τους Υεμενίτες (οργανωμένους στα ανεξάρτητα και πολύ εύπορα βασίλεια Καταμπάν, Χιμυάρ, Σαβά και Χαντραμάουντ) να ασκούν μια σχεδόν αποκλειστική θαλασσοκρατορία στην Ερυθρά Θάλασσα και στον Ινδικό Ωκεανό (μέχρι την Ινδοκίνα και την Ινδονησία), η αλληλεξάρτηση των συμβαλλομένων μερών εντάθηκε.

Η σύσταση από Χαλδαίους Αραμαίους εμπόρους της Γέρρας, της πόλης με τα αλάτινα τείχη, στα δυτικά παράλια των συγχρόνων Εμιράτων, δυτικά του Αμπού Δάμπι, ήταν ένα κοσμοϊστορικό γεγονός.

Οι Χαλδαίοι έμποροι που ίδρυσαν την μεγαλύτερη εμπορική πόλη του κόσμου ανατολικά της Αλεξάνδρειας ήξεραν πάρα πολύ καλά τι έκαναν: εκμεταλλευόμενοι την σχετική αδυναμία του παρθικού αρσακιδικού κράτους του Ιράν βρήκαν ένα κομβικό σημείο από όπου περνούσε ένα μεγάλο τμήμα του εμπορίου μεταξύ Δύσης κι Ανατολής και θεμελίωσαν εκεί μια πόλη-εμπορείο που μπορούσε να θησαυρίσει και από το εμπόριο μεταξύ Νότου και Βορρά.

Η Γέρρα – στην οποία αναφέρονται ο Πτολεμαίος Γεωγράφος, ο Στράβων κι ο Πλίνιος – προσέφερε στην Κίνα ανατολικό αφρικανικό εμπόρευμα το οποίο, αντί να περιπλέει την Ινδία και την Νότια Ασία, διοχετευόταν από την Υεμένη στα νότια παράλια του Περσικού Κόλπου κι από κει προς την Κεντρική Ασία, εκτός των συνόρων του Ιράν έτσι αποφεύγοντας δασμούς.

Με τον τρόπο αυτό όμως ενισχύθηκαν φυγόκεντρες τάσεις στο Ιράν και συστάθηκαν ανατολικά ιρανικά και τουρανικά κράτη, όπως το ινδοπαρθικό κράτος με πρωτεύουσα την Μινναγάρ και επίνειο το Βαρβαρικόν (κοντά στο σημερινό Καράτσι) και το Κουσάν με πρωτεύουσα την Καπίτσα (κοντά στην Καμπούλ) που ήταν τρόπον τινά μια συνέχεια του βασιλείου της Βακτριανής.

Τότε ανοίχθηκε για πρώτη φορά (κατά τον πρώτο προχριστιανικό αιώνα) ο εμπορικός δρόμος που συνέδεε την Κοιλάδα του Ινδού με την Γιαρκάντ και το Χοτάν στα νότια άκρα του Ανατολικού Τουρκεστάν.

Φυσικό ήταν να ακολουθήσει ένα νέο στάδιο διάδοσης του Βουδισμού από τις ανατολικές ιρανικές επαρχίες (ή αυτονομημένα βασίλεια) προς την Κεντρική Ασία και αυτό να ακολουθήσει τον νέο αυτό δρόμο. Λίγο αργότερα, από κει (όπως και από αλλού) θα περνούσαν ο Μανιχεϊσμός και το Ισλάμ.

Ανάμεσα στους Χούνζα σήμερα έχει επικρατήσει το Ισλάμ αλλά ανάμεσα στους Μπουρούσο του Μπαλτιστάν υπάρχουν ακόμη βουδιστές.

Ο εξισλαμισμός των Μπαλτί ήταν υπόθεση 15ου – 16ου αιώνα. Όμως οι Χούνζα αποδέχθηκαν το Ισλάμ νωρίτερα. Αλλά το αίμα των απογόνων των στρατιωτών του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου έβραζε στις φλέβες τους μέχρι πρόσφατα.

Αν και ελάχιστοι τον αριθμό, πριν από 400 χρόνια οι Μιρ (ισλαμικός περσικός τίτλος κατ’ αποκοπήν από το αραβικό εμίρ/εμίρης) των Χούνζα αναγνώριζαν το μικροσκοπικό κράτος τους και την Κίνα ως τα ισχυρώτερα κράτη στον κόσμο!

Η διασπορά των απογόνων των Επιγόνων ήταν μεγάλη αλλά μετά από αρκετές γενεές, είτε είχαν αποδεχθεί τον Βουδισμό, είτε πίστευαν σε διάφορες μορφές ανατολικών Μιθραϊσμών, είτε είχαν ασπασθεί τον αρσακιδικό ζενδισμό (που ήταν μια ηθική ερμηνεία της ζωροαστρικής μεταφυσικής), όλοι τους αποτελούσαν τμήμα των ανατολικών πολιτισμών, παιδείας και παραδόσεων.

Η φυλετική αναγωγή τους στους στρατιώτες του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου δεν είχε κανένα ρατσιστικό ή εθνικιστικό χαρακτήρα επειδή δεν υπήρχε κάτι τέτοιο στην Αρχαιότητα.

Ήταν θέμα ηθικής, πολιτισμικής κι εσχατολογικής διάστασης γι’ αυτούς και οι στρατιωτικές επιτυχίες του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου ήταν ένα ολότελα ασήμαντο σημείο αναφοράς μπροστά στο ψυχικό έργο του και στον μυθικό, μεσσιανικό κι αποκαλυπτικό συμβολισμό του έργου του.

Ήταν συνεπώς φυσιολογικό για τους τελευταίους ελληνόφωνους απογόνους των Επιγόνων να αναμειχθούν με διαφορετικά κατά τόπους έθνη, επειδή η φυλετική – εθνική υπόστασή τους ήταν για τους ίδιους ολότελα ασήμαντη μπροστά στην ένταξή τους σε ένα Θείο Έργο ψυχικών διαστάσεων και κοσμοϊστορικής σημασίας που είχαν ήδη επιτελέσει οι πρόγονοί τους μαζί με τον Μεγάλο Αλέξανδρο – ένα έργο-προτύπωση του Έργου του Μεγάλου Βασιλέα (Αποκάλυψη ΙΔ’ 14) στο Πλήρωμα του Χρόνου.

Αυτό το Έργο πρώτος κατέγραψε σε ελληνικά στον Βίο Αλεξάνδρου ο ανώνυμος συγγραφέας που αποκαλείται Ψευδο-Καλλισθένης επειδή δεν σχετίζεται με τον γνωστό ιστορικό.

Για τους τελευταίους ελληνόφωνους απογόνους των Επιγόνων η Μόνη Αλήθεια κι Αξία στα ανθρώπινα πράγματα ήταν ο Μύθος – κι όχι ο σατανικός κι απάνθρωπος ‘Λόγος’.

Κι έτσι στον Μύθο αποτυπώθηκε όλη η ουσία του κορυφαίου έργου του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου που μόνον σημερινοί κρετίνοι ψάχνουν να βρουν σε ‘στρατιωτικές κατακτήσεις’ και σε ψέμματα περί ‘εκπολιτισμού άλλων εθνών’.

Μυούμενος ο Αλέξανδρος σε ανατολικά μυστήρια, στην Αίγυπτο, στην Περσία, και στην Βαβυλώνα, εκπολιτίσθηκε ο ίδιος κι έγινε Μεγάλος.

Και γι αυτό σήμερα βρίσκουμε την αναφορά στους στρατιώτες του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου σε πολλά και διαφορετικά έθνη που μιλάνε ολότελα διαφορετικές γλώσσες και πιστεύουν ολοσχερώς αντίθετες θρησκείες, και όμως θεωρούν εαυτούς απογόνους των στρατιωτών του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου. Οι Καλάς και οι Χούνζα του βόρειου Πακιστάν είναι μόνον ένα μικρό παράδειγμα. Θα χρειαζόταν μια ολόκληρη εγκυκλοπαίδεια για να καταγραφούν μικρές και μεταξύ τους διαφορετικές πληθυσμιακές ενότητες που ανάγουν την καταγωγή τους στους στρατιώτες του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου.

Σημεία της ορεινής γης των Χούνζα και των Μπαλτί

Δείτε το βίντεο:

Форт Балтит в долине Хунзы: маленький Тибет на севере Пакистана

https://ok.ru/video/1362004609645

Baltit Fort in Hunza Valley: a Small Tibet in Northern Pakistan

https://vk.com/video434648441_456240158

Κάστρο Μπαλτίτ στην Κοιλάδα Χούνζα: ένα Μικρό Θιβέτ στο Βόρειο Πακιστάν

Περισσότερα:

Baltit Fort is situated in Karimabad, once was capital of the state of Hunza, now Tehsil Headquarter of District Gilgit. It is approached by Karakuram Highway from Gilgit, the capital of Northern Areas, Pakistan. The Baltit Fort stands on a artificially flattened spur below the Ulter Glacier. Strategically located with a commanding view of the Hunza Valley and its tributaries, its inhabitants controlled the seasonal trans-Karakuram trade between south and Central Asia. The Baltit Fort is rectangular in plan with three floors and stands on a high stone plinth Fig-I. Whilts the ground floor consist mainly of storage chambers, the first floor is oriented around as open hall.

A staircase leads to the second floor which was mainly used during the winter months and contains an audience hall, guest room, dining hall, kitchen and servants quarters. A further staircases leads up to the third floor, which is partly open to the elements and contains the summer dining room, audience chamber, bedroom and reception hall. Inhabited by the Mir, or ruler of Hunza until 1945.

The conservation work carried out in the 1990 indicated that the core of the structures, a single defensive timber and stone tower, had been built in the eight century A.D. This tower was augmented by additional towers and linked by a single story construction consisting of small rooms and sub-surface storage chambers. The complex was then later expanded by the addition of a second, and then a third floor. The structure’s stone walls, built in an area of frequent seismic movements, were provided with a traditional internal framework of timber for greater stabilisation. https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1882/

Also: Baltit Fort (Urdu: قلعہ بلتت) is a fort in the Hunza valley, near the town of Karimabad, in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of northern Pakistan. Founded in the 8th CE, it has been on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative list since 2004. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltit_Fort and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cultural_heritage_sites_in_Gilgit-Baltistan

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Σχετικά με τους Χούνζα και τους Μπαλτί:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunza_Valley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_of_Hunza

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunza_(princely_state)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burushaski

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burusho_people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltistan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balti_people

Σχετικά με την διάδοση του Βουδισμού στο Πακιστάν, Ιράν, Κεντρική Ασία και Κίνα:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Pakistan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargah_Buddha

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondrani

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Central_Asia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmaguptaka

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandh%C4%81ran_Buddhist_texts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarvastivada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulasarvastivada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_transmission_of_Buddhism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_transmission_of_Buddhism#Central_Asian_missionaries

https://studybuddhism.com/en/tibetan-buddhism/about-buddhism/the-world-of-buddhism/spread-of-buddhism-in-asia

http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/artl/buddhism.shtml

http://www.silk-road.com/artl/buddhism.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Iran

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/buddhism-i

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137022943_2

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According to a Buddhist legend preserved in Pali (an ancient Prakrit language, derived from Sanskrit, which is the scriptural and liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism), the first instance of Buddhism entering Iran seems to have been during the life of the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni (roughly 5/6th century BCE.

The legend speaks of two Merchant brothers from Bactria (modern day Afghanistan) who visited the Buddha in his eighth week of enlightenment, became his disciples and then returned to Balkh (major city of Bactria) to build temples dedicated to him.

Whatever the historical validity of this story, there is strong evidence to show that Balkh did become a major Buddhist region and remained so up until the Arab Muslim invasion of the 7th century.

http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions/non-iranian/buddhism_iran.htm

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Κατεβάστε την αναδημοσίευση σε Word doc.:

https://www.slideshare.net/MuhammadShamsaddinMe/ss-250645898

https://issuu.com/megalommatis/docs/hunza_balti_islam_buddhism_alexander_the_great

https://vk.com/doc429864789_620740190

https://www.docdroid.net/9CAJCUX/xounza-mpalti-islam-boydismos-oi-stratiwtes-toy-meghaloy-aleksandroy-ki-oi-dromoi-toy-metaksiou-docx

The goddess Selket (with a scorpion upon her head) and queen Nefertari in the distance, depicted within the Tomb of Nefertari, Valley of the Queens.

World Politics as Black & White: Iran and Israel or how people fall victims of delusions intentionally projected on them   

Мировая политика как черное и белое: Иран и Израиль, или как люди становятся жертвами намеренно проецируемых на них заблуждений

To a previous text of mine about Iran, an apparently pro-Iranian and pro-Palestinian reader reacted expressing his fervent support for Iran; however, when it comes to modern states, governments, non-governmental organizations, companies and conglomerates, as well as international bodies, any blind support is totally wrong, misleading and destructive. It actually prevents people from accurately assessing the situation in each and every point. Even worse, when the absurd consideration and the erroneous evaluation of a state is laced with an equally false demonization of the opponent, then people enter into the vast realm of the unreal, the fictional, and the delusional.

Darius I the Great (522-486 BCE) of the Achaemenid dynasty, Khosrow (Chosroes) I (531-579 CE) of the Sassanid dynasty, Adud al-Dawla (949–983) of the Buyid dynasty, and Tahmasp I (1524-1576) of the Safavid dynasty in the dates of their reigns; neither the ayatollahs nor the leader of the self-styled National Council of Iran Reza 'Pahlavi' can represent the colossal historical and cultural heritage of 3000 years of Iranian History. All the same, all the Iranians together and their military commanders in charge of the administration can certainly afford the task.

Содержание

Введение

I. Каждый сектантский подход и каждая сектантская мысль являются порочной ошибкой и нетерпимым поступком

II. Политическая ситуация и международные отношения не определяют природу режимов, правительств и государств

III. Когда дело касается мировых дел, не существует шахматной доски с «черными» и «белыми» клетками

IV. Все СМИ сообщают одну и ту же ложь, меняя только «шахматные наборы»

V. Достоинство иранцев и палестинцев является наиболее спорным вопросом

VI. Вера в обещания, данные врагами, замаскированными под друзей, может оказаться смертельной

VII. Военные и фермеры против королевской семьи и аятолл

VIII. Нет никакой разницы между Ираном и Египтом, когда дело доходит до раболепия по отношению к крупным колониальным схемам

Contents

Introduction

I. Every sectarian approach and every sectarian thought are a vicious mistake and an intolerable act.

II. Political situations and international relations do not define the nature of regimes, governments, and states.

III. When it comes to world affairs, there is no such thing as a chessboard with "black" and "white" squares.

IV. All mass media report the same lies, changing only the «chess sets».

V. The dignity of the Iranians and the Palestinians is a most controversial subject.

VI. Believing promises given by enemies disguised as friends may be lethal.

VII. Military and farmers against the royals and the ayatollahs

VIII. There is no difference between Iran and Egypt when it comes to servility toward major colonial schemes.

Introduction

When it comes to humans, human societies, and states, there is nothing as mistaken as a "black & white" contrast; the people, who intentionally adopt and propagate such an erroneous approach, stance and attitude, become inevitably integral part of the problem they intend to discuss, because they thoughtlessly victimize themselves. Quite unfortunately, all regimes, establishments and states have gone astray and all will be duly, terribly and inescapably punished; in this case, as usual, the exceptions confirm the rule. What follows is my response to the reader's comment that I republish first.  

Mauro Meneghin

Your comment against Ayatollah Khomeini appears unclear and not justified. I'm not an expert on the history by any means, but I now see that Ayatollah Khomeini is standing up with honour to defend the sovereignty and dignity of Iran and of the Palestinians. Ayatollah Khomeini is a wise man who uses reason and moderation in his decisions, and his religious approach serves well to provide moral guidance.

If you dislike him, I wonder if maybe it's due to envy because Egypt is a puppet of the US, but instead, Iran is still a sovereign country with honour.

My response

Thank you for your comment that gives me the opportunity to clarify several issues, which trouble and confuse billions of people today. I am sure that you misread and misunderstood my brief text, but this is the least.

I realize that your approach to events is essentially a Manichaean aberration, which divides everything into "good" and "evil" or "black and white"; quite unfortunately, this categorization does not exist. It is an inconsistent and absurd falsehood that has been systematically spread and dexterously imposed worldwide by all ruling elites, secret societies, governments, states, regimes, establishments, and international bodies. They all need you and me (and all the rest) to be stupid enough to believe that some "good guys" combat "the evil ones". This never happens. And anyone who adopts this false and disastrous approach is genuinely incapacitated to ever understand what happens.

An even worse version of this fallacy is the story of "peoples" fighting against "cruel elites" or "poor people" standing up against the "world Mafia of money"; for the purpose of confusing, deceiving and deluding all the people across the Earth, several subliminally strong terms are created, but they are all nonsensical, fallacious and harmful for the average people. It is essential for everyone not to be caught in the malicious process, because its end will be the destruction of the Mankind.

As a matter of fact, few people escape from this mental, intellectual, educational and academic delusion, which is certainly worse than any pandemic. This is so because by means of a technically Manichaean conceptualization, people are fooled, fail to understand what happens around them, and are therefore easily, complementarily and comprehensively controlled by all the forces, which -while fighting against one another- need exactly to spiritually, mentally and intellectually enslave and utilize the masses by reducing them to "followers", "admirers", "supporters", "adepts" or even "party members" and by canceling the enormous potentialities that the non-deceived and non-deluded people have.   

You say that Ayatollah Khomeini "is standing" and that he "is wise"! Odd! Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989! I am afraid that you confusingly thought that I referred to Ayatollah Khamenei, who is currently the imam of Iran. You did not realize that the reference that I made in my text is about the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and not the current imam.

In addition, you speak about "defending the sovereignty" of a country, but this is totally unrelated to the theological concept that Ayatollah Khomeini developed and which I denounced, stating that the notion of "Wilayat al faqih" (conventionally translated as "Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist", in other words, the regime of the ayatollahs) is historically rejected as nonexistent throughout the History of Iran, and the History of Islamic states.

All the same, beyond this rather minor issue, in your comment, I find a most misleading approach that turns every person to a victim of one of this world's major forces and backstage societies. These historical orders have nothing to do with states and do not care at all about countries; they only use governments and international bodies, by incessantly placing their stooges in positions that enable them to duly implement the agendas of their superiors.

So, the main part of my response will revolve around the following points:

I. Every sectarian approach and every sectarian thought are a vicious mistake and an intolerable act.

When it comes to faithful people, it is even worse; any sectarian approach is a grave sin. It greatly damages the person (or government or state) that happens to be foolish enough to believe that their choice is perfect and that the opposite is evil. All people who think that what they like is "good" and what they reject is "bad" are so idiotic that they -in and by themselves- justify the agendas of secret organizations that intend to eliminate the major part of Mankind.

To make things clear, I herewith define sectarianism as an egoistic, partial, narrow-minded, deliberately subjective, and therefore always wrong adherence to a specific idea, thought, opinion, concept, notion, ideology, political ideology, conviction, philosophy, theology, cult, belief, religion or system of values; sectarianism is a very immoral attitude, behavior and model of life anytime anywhere and under any circumstances whatsoever. This is so because it always constitutes a abhorrent sin and a calamitous transgression not to consider another person's, group's, society's, people's or nation's rights, values and standpoints.

Detrimental to anyone against whom it is expressed, a sectarian predisposition automatically prompts support, at least partly, for the concept or idea that is rejected by a sectarian person. Sectarianism is disastrous to everyone who happens to be too weak and too erroneous to avoid succumbing to its attraction; this abhorrent stance discredits every sectarian thinker or activist, religious leader or statesman, rendering him untrustworthy, intransigent and fanatic.

The only possible remedy to sectarianism (within the mind of every sectarian) is a reconsideration and a systematic, forcefully implemented at the personal level, effort to evaluate the other's (any other person's, group's, society's, people's or nation's as per occasion) measures, standards, rights, needs, and values objectively, impartially and neutrally.

At the level of international relations, an abhorrent example of sectarianism (noticed during the past few days) is the attitude of Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and many other states in the region toward the Bedouin citizens of Israel. For reasons particular to them, this ethnic group decided to accept the existence of the Zionist state. All the same, many of them have been mistreated by the Israeli authorities on many occasions. Few days ago, around 50 Bedouin families in Israel were left without homes, because the respective authorities demolished their illegally built edifices.

Yet, building structures wherever they find it opportune has been very common to nomads since time immemorial all over the Earth. However, none of the supposedly "good" states, which care for "justice" and fight for the "rights" of the Palestinians, did not champion the rightful cause of the Bedouins, because they are not their "political tool". About:

Authorities level 47 illegal homes in Bedouin village, leaving hundreds homeless

timesofisrael.com

Authorities level 47 illegal homes in Bedouin village, leaving hundreds homeless

Government yet to start construction on alternative housing, and residents object to moving to new neighborhood due to threats from rival fa

This fact fully demonstrates that Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and many other states in the region are as criminal, heinous, vicious and unacceptable structures as Israel. Any person and any state that is characterized by sectarianism are totally untrustworthy and genuinely dangerous for the society or the international community (if we ever accept that such notion exists!).

II. Political situations and international relations do not define the nature of regimes, governments, and states.

There is no doubt that the Palestinian nation has been a long time victim of the cruel colonial plans, deeds and practices of England, before being targeted with genocide by the anti-Jewish, Zionist state. But by supporting the Palestinians, Iran (or any other state) does not get the nature of its regime approved; these issues are very different from, and totally unrelated to, one another.

The nature of the Islamic regime of Iran is entirely fraudulent; it is viciously anti-Iranian and even worse, it contradicts all historical standards of Islamic states that existed throughout Iran since the 7th–9th c. CE. Khomeini's absurdity of Wilayat al faqih is a preposterous, colonial novelty masterminded by the English colonials, who invited the young Ruhollah Khomeini to Iraq in the 1930s for studies and managed to aptly guide him as to how to invent a counterfeit concept that is tantamount to Sunnitization of Iran.

As a matter of fact, this deceitful theory consists in a form of political islam, which is a colonial fallacy invented by 19th c. colonial Orientalists as a tool first against the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran. Political islam is the worst enemy of the Islamic world, because Islam has nothing to do with the filthy world of politics, and there had never been 'politics' in any Islamic state.  

By acting as per the needs of the apostate Freemasonic lodge of England, which attempts to destroy the (also fake) state of Israel (by means of an alliance with the Jesuits, the Anti-Christian pope Francis I, and a degenerate Zionist synagogue), Iran became the tool of the most ferociously anti-Islamic forces. In any case, since Day 1, the detrimentally anti-Iranian regime of the Ayatollahs has proved to be a useful plaything for the most perverse forces of financial globalism. It must therefore be replaced as soon as possible.  

III. When it comes to world affairs, there is no such thing as a chessboard with "black" and "white" squares.

The world is not divided into "good" ones and "bad" ones; Zbigniew Brzezinski's 'The Grand Chessboard' is a fraud. It consists in a historical falsification, a political aberration, and a technically Manichaean delusion. Most of the naïve people who read it did not understand that its purpose was mainly to fool eventually all the readers by projecting onto their minds deliberately invented fallacies. No assertion made in the book is correct. The proof of what I am saying at this point has been available online for many years ever since the notorious and very much publicized meeting between the fraudulent author and the Russian intellectual Alexander Dugin took place in 2005.

"The meeting had been set with a photo-prop of a chessboard placed between Brzezinski and Dugin (to promote Brzezinski’s book). This arrangement with a chessboard prompted Dugin to ask whether Brzezinski considered Chess to be a game meant for two: “No, Zbig shot back: It is a game for one. Once a chess piece is moved; you turn the board around, and you move the other side’s chess pieces. There is ‘no other’ in this game”, Brzezinski insisted".

Strategic cultural fond, https://dzen.ru/a/YkLt_-d9BHIRxNMi

This story tells us something simple; the chessboard exists only if you are naïve enough to accept that it does. In other words, it is a nonexistent reality or, if you prefer, a delusion structured in lines that lead to destruction those who admit that they exist.

IV. All mass media report the same lies, changing only the «chess sets».

In Gaza and elsewhere, the mass media systematic falsehood makes everyone believe that "innocent people" are murdered by "cruel rulers"; this is a central part of the confusion spread in order to drive Mankind to extinction. In fact, there are cruel acts perpetrated by all, but there are no "innocent" or "good" or "enlightened" rulers in today's world. Consequently, this evaluation is extended to governments, states, and international bodies.

The same is valid for peoples, ethno religious groups, and nations indeed. Within the colonial and postcolonial context of the last five centuries, no people and no nation managed to preserve their cultural integrity and national identity; only very few subjugated nations, which are located in remote regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America that are lacking technological infrastructure, make an exception.

Before the colonization process started (in different times from continent to continent and from land to land), all different nations were in variant forms of decay; and during the colonization period, all the peoples and ethnic groups underwent a severe process of Westernization. Because of these facts, one should not exempt peoples from being held to account for their contribution to the onerous and troublesome situation in which they find themselves nowadays.

For this reason, all the news, the reports, the editorials and the fact files published here and there are practically speaking identical; what the Iranian mass media report as news on Israel is equivalent to what the Israeli mass media propagate about Iran and Hamas.

V. The dignity of the Iranians and the Palestinians is a most controversial subject.

In fact, the dignity of every nation hinges on the morality, the dexterity and the ability of their elites and rulers. Many nations have been dishonored, subsequently destroyed, and ultimately vanished because of their immoral and incompetent elites. At the very beginning of every case of decay, there is always immorality – evaluated as per the local standards and values.

When the ignorance of the elites and the rulers, their inability to cope with rivals, and their naivety turns them to mere tools in the hands of the enemies of their enemies, then you can expect the worst! This is so because only strong nations attack enemies directly; on the contrary, weak, vile and perfidious nations that cannot attack directly their enemies search always for fools able to do the job for them. In fact, the nations, which are governed by idiots believing that "the enemy of my enemy can be my friend", risk being disintegrated.

Unfortunately, Iran became -gradually and secretively- the ally of England against Israel; UK-based Muslims are in their majority fake, because they fall into the traps of the English secret services, namely the fallacy of multiculturalism, the fraud of political islam, and the false promises that the colonial statesmen, diplomats and academics often make to their forthcoming victims.

And this is exactly what happened to the Islamic Republic of Iran because the ill-fated state has become the tool of the anti-Israeli, Zionist-Jesuit establishment of the UK and the US. In fact, Iran and Israel have nothing to divide and do not need to be enemies; the silly, anti-Israeli stance of the unrepresentative, religious Iranian authorities caused only harm to their country and people. This becomes evident, if one takes into account the fact that, if tomorrow Israel collapses, Iran will gain practically speaking nothing.

The true forces that clash in the Middle East and in other parts of the world are:

a) the anti-Israeli, globalist, Zionist-Jesuit establishment represented by Vatican, the 'deep state' in the US, President Biden, many EU figureheads that are in striking contrast with earlier European statesmen, former UK premier Boris Johnson, the so-called Neo-cons, the Israeli Left, and -last but not the least- the majority of the top IT companies in the US;

and

b) the pro-Israeli, Freemasonic-Zionist establishment represented by major Oil companies worldwide, former US President Trump, the US Pentagon, few EU figureheads after the end of the tenures of Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, notably Victor Orban and Marine Le Pen, Xi Jinping's China, Naredra Modi's India, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli non-religious Right, Elon Musk, and -last but not the least- Putin's Russia.  

There are also other major forces and influential societies that I don't mention at this point, but they either side with one of two establishments or stay neutral or inactive to some extent.

Opposite such forces, the Islamic Republic of Iran is an infinitesimal quantity. What naïve people fail to grasp is that, if Iran proved to be able to survive, this is due to the fact that the anti-Israeli, globalist, Zionist-Jesuit establishment made it known to the countries that dealt, cooperated and allied with Iran that they do not mind if they do so to some extent. Iran is a useful instrument to them. Therefore, there is no 'bravery' involved, and the Iranian rulers are typically immoral, cynical and hypocritical - just like their 'enemies'.

In addition, it would be definitely foolish and totally misleading for anyone to eventually imagine (let alone conclude) that sizeable organizations and international bodies can possibly be impenetrable and therefore utilized exclusively by one of the aforementioned two establishments; it is totally inconsiderate to believe that for instance BRICS+, as a group of states, acts as a tool for the interests of only the pro-Israeli, Freemasonic-Zionist establishment. As a matter of fact, the original concept of BRIC is known to have been credited to a major globalist thinker, Jim O'Neill who back in 2001 was chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

The bottom line is that, under current circumstances, the dignity of the Iranians and the Palestinians is none, because both nations have been fooled by their corrupt elites and leaders. It is very sad, but it is like this, and the same is valid for most of the peoples and the nations across the Earth.

VI. Believing promises given by enemies disguised as friends may be lethal.

Hamas and Gazan Palestinians are in exactly in the same position as the foolish Ukrainians who believed the mendacious discourses of Boris Johnson and every other English governmental and diplomatic filth, only to ruin their own country. Stupid Poles, silly Czechs, and the worthless Baltic elites are about to commit the same lethal error.

As a matter of fact, Iran is not a sovereign state, but a tool of UK's Foreign Office. Iran's dignity has therefore been ridiculed due to impermissible policies that Iran pursued at the international level only for the sake of the English globalist agenda. Crypto-Jesuits, like the former Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, the notorious Mohammad Javad Zarif, also known as "Boris Johnson's Filipina", infiltrated the Iranian state, killing gallant but unfortunate military and paramilitary officers, who were honest enough not to grasp the filth of Iranian politics.

Only idiots may believe that Sardar (General) Qasem Soleimani (1957-2020) was assassinated by the Americans (3 January 2020) without consent from the ruling ayatollahs whose vengeance against the abhorrent assassination was evidently too pale, too insipid, and too timid. The pathetic theologians, who are genuinely unable to run a government, may have been frightened due to false data 'leaked' to them, as per which Soleimani had been about to undertake a regime change, supplanting the worthless religious dogmatists with military pragmatists. This shows the extent of incapacity that typifies the Islamic Republic, which is a shame for Iran's three millennia long History.

Similar disaster befell on the Palestinians of Gaza. Having known that Hamas was openly and repeatedly supported by Benjamin Netanyahu, Gazans are now being punished for not reacting against the shame of their leadership. Every Palestinian knew very well that Hamas took control of Gaza only with the help of Netanyahu; it would therefore be foolish for any Palestinian to imagine that this deeply immoral act would not lead to an unsurpassed disaster. This is what truly happens now.

While two million people in Gaza lost their properties and currently live in tents, facing starvation, death, and exile, the disreputable Hamas leaders rejoice the lavish environment of their fabulous villas in Qatar. Nice resistance indeed! One should be mentally degenerate and morally dead in order not to understand that it is all an entire theater played at the detriment of all the populations of Palestine irrespective of state, religion, ethnic origin, and ancestry.

VII. Military and farmers against the royals and the ayatollahs

There is certainly a medication to the very preoccupying, current situation in Iran, but by definition it cannot be the son of the last shah of Iran. It is known to all that the family of Mohammad Reza lived in France and America, i.e. in states that were historical enemies of the Iranian Empire. By so doing, they discredited themselves to the eyes of the average Iranians.

Even worse, the infamous claimant to the throne Reza 'Pahlavi' irreparably stigmatized himself as an Iranian and Muslim renegade by shamelessly making known the following: "Just as I defend the rights of every Iranian, I am proud to stand up for the rights of the Iranian LGBTQ community". https://twitter.com/PahlaviReza/status/1723830025374351830

In fact, pretty much like the Islamic Republic of Iran has been a Western colonial forgery that tarnishes indeed 14 centuries of Islamic faith, culture and civilization in Iran, the ill-fated Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979) was a colonial trick that besmirched 2500 years of Iranian History. The pseudo-kingdom utilized the country's pre-Islamic past in order to fool the masses and to introduce Western concepts and behaviors, instead of aptly modernizing the country and duly empowering its infrastructure while preserving the traditional culture and revivifying the historical heritage after the example of Kemal Ataturk in Turkey.

Even worse, the pseudo-religious regime put in place an alien system, the pseudo-Shia "Islamic republic", which functioned as the ultimate colonial instrument geared for the replacement of the Islamic Iranian culture with a Sunni-styled political activism.  

Because of the aforementioned situations, Iran's survival will be guaranteed only by a transient military regime that will reflect in the governance of Iran the values, the traditional culture, the historical heritage, the social order of the rural areas, and the provincial particularities or localisms. In its practices, Iran's forthcoming military establishment should combine tolerance for the Westernized Iranian Diaspora, vision for Iran's role in the world, and absence of religious ideology. After extensive consultations, numerous conferences, public debates, and active participation of people from all the walks of life, a series of referenda will help bring forth a totally new form of governance fully supported by all the people of Iran.

Meanwhile, the transient military regime of Iran will have to make it clear to every Iranian that there cannot be national sovereignty without a deeply decolonized and de-Westernized national education which must be based on truthful evaluation and accurate representation of the nation's historical past and heritage. It is degenerate, despicable and ridiculous for the anti-Iranian and pseudo-Islamic regime of the ignorant and illiterate ayatollahs to pretend that they defend the rights of the Palestinians without first protecting the majestic past of Iran from all the Western academic distortions, Orientalist denigrations, colonial historiographical clichés, constant references to fallacious sources (such as Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, etc.), and the bogus-scholarly interpretational schemes, divides, and cases of foremost anti-Iranian and anti-Oriental racism due to inferior 'Ancient Greek' authors, the likes of Aeschylus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and others.

Instead of mobilizing the entire world against the colonial forgeries of Hellenism, Classicism, Greco-Roman civilization, Judeo-Christian heritage, as per which the world is divided into two parts, namely "the Civilized West" and the "Barbarian Orient", the silly ayatollahs played the game of the English and the French colonials.

Without rejecting the present world order, which is based on the so-called Western European Renaissance and the ensued fallacies, the useless Islamic Republic played exactly the role ascribed to them by the Western colonizers; they became part of the problems that the Anglo-Saxon racists created in the Middle East.   

VIII. There is no difference between Iran and Egypt when it comes to servility toward major colonial schemes.

I don't understand why you mention Egypt in the last sentence of your comment. All countries in the region are subservient to their Western colonial masters; there is no difference. Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc. are all controlled by the colonial countries, England, France, America and their satellites. All these so-called regional powerhouses have no proper national education, no decolonized and de-Westernized universities, no true national identity, and no cultural integrity. It is therefore totally absurd to supposedly fight for independence without a strong feeling of historicity that permeates the education and the entire society.

The same is also valid for the Palestinians, who never undertook a nation building process, simply because this was not the priority of their treacherous leaders who wanted to make money with their bogus-resistance against Israel. Otherwise, all Palestinians would be proud to know that their presence in Palestine antedates that of the Ancient Hebrews and that their ancestors came from Crete, Western Anatolia, and the South Balkans during the Sea Peoples Invasions. In fact, because of the ineptitude of their leaders, Palestinians remain a populace without true national consciousness.

Iran and Egypt are exactly at the same level in this regard. Just like Tehran, Cairo has always been, under khedivial, royal, military and republican administration, a docile and servile capital filled with empty words, useless threats, angry jargons, and unrealistic purposes. Irrevocably fooled with the nothingness of Pan-Arabism and the worthlessness of political islam, the Egyptian academic, intellectual, religious, military, economic and political elites never imagined that their foremost task would be to denounce at the international level and to eliminate at the local level the colonial forgeries of Hellenism, Classicism, Greco-Roman civilization, Judeo-Christian heritage, as per which the world is divided into two parts, namely "the Civilized West" and the "Barbarian Orient",

Actually, such things would be too difficult for theologically indoctrinated morons like Khomeini and uneducated fools like Gamal Abdel Nasser to comprehend.  

As you see, you don't need to be Egyptian in order to reject the fallacious notions advanced by Ayatollah Khomeini. You need to be Iranian. 

After all, why should a historian side with one or another state, when both fail to defend their historical heritage, national dignity, and cultural integrity?

To conclude I would say that a honest historian cannot possibly allow himself to be caught up in the fight among the Jesuits, the Freemasons, and the Zionists; even more so in the under-covered conflict between the UK and Israel, and in the clashes of their respective instruments, i.e. the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hamas.

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So, I saw this image on Facebook, and it was supposedly showing what Queen Nefertiti would have looked like in real life:

Now, I thought this AI generated garbage was just truly terrible on a number of levels; first off, she looks wayyyyyy too modern - her makeup is very “Hollywood glamour”, she looks airbrushed and de-aged, and as far as I’m aware, Ancient Egyptians didn’t have mascara, glitter-based eyeshadows and lip gloss. Secondly, her features are exceptionally whitewashed in every sense - this is pretty standard for AI as racial bias is prevalent in feeding AI algorithms, but I genuinely thought a depiction of such a known individual would not exhibit such euro-centric features. Thirdly, the outfit was massively desaturated and didn’t take pigment loss into consideration, and while I *do* like the look of the neck attire, it's not at all accurate (plus, again, AI confusion on the detailing is evident).

So, this inspired me to alter the image on the left to be more accurate based off the sculpture’s features. I looked into Ancient Egyptian makeup and looked at references for kohl eyeliner and clay-based facial pigment (rouge was used on cheeks, charcoal-based powder/paste was used to darken and elongate eyebrows), and I looked at pre-existing images of Nefertiti (namely other reconstructions). While doing this, I found photos of a 3D scanned sculpture made by scientists at the University of Bristol and chose to collage the neck jewellery over the painting (and edited the lighting and shadows as best as I could).

Something I see a lot of in facial recreations of mummies is maintaining the elongated and skinny facial features as seen on preserved bodies - however, fat, muscle and cartilage shrink/disappear post mortem, regardless of preservation quality; Queen Nefertiti had art created of her in life, and these pieces are invaluable to developing an accurate portrayal of her, whether stylistic or realistic in nature.

And hey, while I don't think my adjustments are perfect (especially the neck area), I *do* believe it is a huge improvement to the original image I chose to work on top of.

I really liked working on this project for the last few days, and I think I may continue to work on it further to perfect it. But, until then, I hope you enjoy!

Remember, likes don't help artists but reblogs do!

A satirical papyrus showing a lady mouse being served wine by a cat while another cat dresses her hair, a third cares for her baby, and a fourth fans her. The mice have hilarious huge, round ears.

Where: Egyptian Museum Cairo

When: New Kingdom

Best Wishes Eid al Adha 2022 & Ahmed Yasavi's Diwan-i Hikmet

Счастливого Курбан-Байрам!

Kurban Bayramı kutlu olsun!

Ciidul-Adxa Wanaagsan!

Құрбан айт мерекесі құтты болсын!

!   قۇربان ھېيت مۇبارەك بولسۇن

курбон хайит муборак !

Gurban baýramyňyz gutly bolsun!

!   عید قربان مبارک

Корбан бәйрәме белән!

!  عید الاضحی مبارک ہو

Иди Курбон муборак!

!   عيد الأضحى السعيد

Die besten Glückwünsche zu Eid al-Adha!

Joyeux Aïd el-Adha!

Орозо айт майрамыңыздар менен!

Gëzuar Kurban Bajramin!

Best wishes for a happy Eid al Adha!

Shamsaddin

==================================== 

Long before ….

Nezami Ganjavi (1141-1209)

long before ….

Muhi el-din ibn Arabi (1165-1240)

long before ….

Jalal al-din Rumi (1207-1273),

Haji Bektash Veli (1209-1271),

Safi-ad-din Ardabili (1252-1334),

Amir Khusraw (1253-1325),

and

Kemal Khujandi (1321-1400)

…….................... there was Ahmed Yasavi.

Ahmed Yasavi (1093-1166); one of the greatest mystics of the Turanian world at the crossroads between Tengrism and Islam

Divan-i Ḥikmet (the Book of Wisdom, Chagatai Turkic with Kipchak elements: ديوان حكمت); acknowledged as the Turkic Quran – pretty much like the illustrious Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, which is known as the Iranian Quran.

Ahmed Yasavi Mausoleum in Turkistan, Kazakhstan; built like the Arystan Bab Mausoleum (in honor of another 12th c mystic) by Timur (Tamerlane), the Islamic World Greatest Conqueror and Emperor in the late 13th c.

The Incredible Story of Divan-i Ḥikmet

"Divan-i Ḥikmet" is not only a monument of the religious Sufi literature; it is one of the most ancient monuments written in the Turkic language. Many researchers of the Turkic culture consider that it may be referred to the Karakhanid literature tradition. The sources of these poems are found also in the shaman songs of the Turkic nomads. The language of the monument contains the Kipchak elements. The famous "Divan-i Ḥikmet" is the common heritage of the Turkic people; the poems were handed down by word of mouth, from generation to generation, called upon people to honesty, justice, friendliness and patience.

The historic papers testify to the fact that "Ḥikmet" have been re-written many a time, edited, revised. The manuscripts of "Divan-i Ḥikmet" are kept mainly in the libraries of Tashkent, St. Petersburg, and Istanbul. In the depository of the St. Petersburg department of the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences there are 23 lists of "Divan-i Ḥikmet" that are referred to the XVIII-XIX centuries. The Tashkent lists are kept in the collection of manuscripts belonging to the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, in the Institute of Manuscripts (56 copies). These copies are mainly referred to the XIX century.

In addition to the manuscripts in Kazan city the poems of Hojja Ahmed Yasavi were published in the Arab graphic. The most complete edition contains 149 "Ḥikmets" of 1896, 1905. Currently "Ḥikmets" are survived in many lists. At different periods the scientists investigated life and creative work of Hojja Ahmed Yasavi, devoted articles to the genial poet and philosopher. During recent decades "Divan-i Ḥikmet" were re-edited several times both in our country and abroad.

This work summarizes the main provisions of the Yasavi Tarika (mystical school). Ḥikmets preached Islam and contributed to further dissemination of Islam among people. Turkic speaking nations named "Divan-i Ḥikmet" as "Korani Turki" as notably they grasped Koran through "Ḥikmets" of Hojja Ahmed Yasavi, so Turks began to name Hojja Ahmed as "Hazret Sultan" - "Holy Sultan", and Turkistan as the second Mecca.

Ḥikmets of Hojja Ahmed Yasavi both preached Islam and called upon Turkic nations to a spiritual unity, sovereignty, stipulated for all necessary conditions to achieve these aims.

---------------

Hojja Ahmed Yasavi (died 1166) was a philosopher, Sufi mystic, and the earliest known poet to write in a Turkic dialect. He was born in the city of Isfijab (present-day Sayram, in Kazakhstan) but lived most of his life in Turkestan (also in southern Kazakhstan). He was a student of Arslan Baba, a well-known preacher of Islam. At a time when Farsi dominated literature and public life, Hojja Ahmed Yasavi wrote in his native Old Turkic (Chagatai) language. Yasavi's Divan-i Ḥikmet (Book of wisdom) is not just a religious relic of Sufi literature; it is also one of the oldest written works in the Turkic language. Yasavi begins with many elements of the shamanistic songs of Turkic nomads, then endows his poems, like all Sufi poetry, with many-layered meanings from the simple to the esoteric and infuses them with the spirit of Islam. Experts have suggested that the Divan has links to both the Chinese-influenced Karakhanid literary tradition and to the literature of the Kipchak of the Eurasian steppe. Divan-i Ḥikmet was long handed down by word of mouth. The printed edition presented here was published in 1904 by the Lithographic Printing House of the Kazan Imperial University. Kazan University was founded by Tsar Alexander I in 1804 and became the premier center for oriental studies in the Russian Empire.

----------------------

Selected Verses from Divan-i Ḥikmet in English Translation

For Muslims, my sagacity will be a teacher;

Whoever one may be, he must worship God.

My sagacious words speak only to those who understand.

Praising with prayers, immerse yourself in the Mercy of Allah.

Saying "Bismillahi ...", I will begin to say sagacious words,

distributing utterances like jewels and diamonds to students;

With tension in the soul, with grief in the heart, and with blood in my breath,

I open the pages of the legends "the Notebook of the Sledge".

I bless you all, who are thirsty for truth, unity,

and sincere conversations with kindred spirits.

May I be blessed (to meet) with the unfortunate and the destitute!

May I avoid those who are satiated with life or satisfied with themselves!

Wherever you see downcast leprous people, be gentle!

If such an unfortunate person is ignorant, share the secret knowledge with him,

in order to be closer to the Almighty on the Day of Judgment!

I ran away from the arrogant, the self-assured, and the proud people.

The Prophet knew the destitute, the unfortunate, and the orphaned people.

That night, he went out in the Miʿraj (Celestial Journey) to see (the Truth).

Ask, and sympathize with, the disadvantaged!

And I, too, decided to travel in the footsteps of the unfortunate.

If you are intelligent and wise, take care of the poor!

Like Mustafa (: prophet Muhammad), gather and take care of orphans everywhere!

From the greedy and mean, stay away!

Save yourself and become like a full-flowing river!

Turned into a callous, evil-tongued, and insidious being,

the false scholar, even when reading the Quran, does not do any good deed.

I have no fortune to allow to be wasted;

Fearing the wrath of God (lit. 'the wrath of Truth'), I am burning (although) without fire.

Pleasing the defenseless, the destitute and the orphans,

give (them what they need), respect them, and lighten their souls!

You will earn bread with hard work; with pure soul (true) humans come;

having heard these words from the Almighty, I convey them to you.

If one man does follow the tradition and does not believe, he will perish;

from callous and evil-tongued people Allah turns away;

in the Name of Allah, the Hell is prepared for them.

Having heard these words from the Blood of Allah (: Imam Hussein), I convey them to you.

Having adopted the rules of the tradition, I became a true believer;

having descended under the Earth alone, I received an insight;

I saw a lot of worshipers of the Lord and I understood;

I cut off sinful joys and pleasures - with a dagger.

Sinful feelings led people astray and destroyed them;

they forced people to put on airs in front of the common people, and then humiliated them.

They (: sinful feelings) did not allow people to read prayers and spells; people with sinful feelings made friends with the demons.

I forced myself to move away, piercing my flesh with the tip of a dagger (metaphorically said about the author's effort to move away from sinful feelings).

Those who are thirsty for radiant glory are mediocre slaves;

(contrarily,) the innocent people force themselves to behave humbly;

tombs of saints, verses of the Quran, hadiths are nonsense for those thirsty for glory.

Therefore, I drown myself in inescapable heavy grief (for the ignorant people).

In the spacious gardens of love for the Most High,

I want to be the nightingale that sings its sad songs at dawn;

In those hours, I want to see the radiant appearance

of my Allah, with the eyes of my heart.

Let the heart feed on love!

The body will be covered with clothes of happiness (: those suitable for prayers).

With the strength of love, I want to levitate,

and like a bird to descend on the branch of consciousness.

Until you taste the nectar of love,

until you put on the clothes of lovers (: those suitable for prayers),

until you gather faith and worship into one,

you will not be able to see the Divine Face of the Creator.

Help all people! Work like a slave!

Do good to unfortunate people!

If (Islamic times') scholars come, greet them with reverence while standing!

From mean people, there is no help.

The prophet always helped the poor and the crippled.

When you see the unfortunate, tears of sympathy (have to) flow.

It always hurts to see destitute and disabled people.

The handicapped persons' gratitude (for those who help them) is the highest recognition.

If you are a true believer, follow the path of the prophet to Allah!

If you hear their names, worship and praise them!

Try the fate of the destitute and unfortunate! Learn from them!

Become a support for the unfortunate and disabled! Understand them!

Oh, my Merciful Creator! Put me on the right path!

Enlighten me with your Mercy and Love!

Guide your erring servants on the right path!

This path is not possible without You.

To preach the Divine, a teacher is needed.

To this teacher, a reliable student is needed.

Working hard, they should earn the highest gratitude.

Such loving and devoted people will be marked by the Almighty.

People, who are in love with the Creator, have achieved their dreams.

Look! Do not disgrace yourself pretending to be in love!

Across the bridge named Sira ('life paradigm' of prophet Muhammad), which is thinner

and sharper than a sword's blade, liars will not pass into the Hereafter.

If you're in love (with God), love like this!

With the strength of your love, let the perfume reach people!

As soon as he hears the Name of Allah, he is ready for anything;

such a lover does not need earthly things.

------------------

Download the text as Word doc.:

academia.edu

Best Wishes Eid al Adha 2022 & Ahmed Yasavi's Diwan-i Hikmet

Long before …. Nezami Ganjavi (1141-1209) long before …. Muhi el-din ibn Arabi (1165-1240) long before …. Jalal al-din Rumi (1207-1273), Haj

Η Ζωή στο Λορεστάν και οι Λορί του Μέσου Ζάγρου, της Οροσειράς που χωρίζει Ιράκ και Ιράν

Η Ζωή στο Λορεστάν και οι Λορί του Μέσου Ζάγρου, της Οροσειράς που χωρίζει Ιράκ και Ιράν

Life in Luristan, and the Luris of Middle Zagros, the Mountains that separate Iraq and Iran

ΑΝΑΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ ΑΝΕΝΕΡΓΟ ΜΠΛΟΓΚ “ΟΙ ΡΩΜΙΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ”

Το κείμενο του κ. Νίκου Μπαϋρακτάρη είχε αρχικά δημοσιευθεί την 26 Αυγούστου 2019.

Αναπαράγοντας στοιχεία από ομιλία μου στο Καζακστάν τον Ιανουάριο του 2019, ο κ. Μπαϋρακτάρης αποδεικνύει με το εκλαϊκευτικό κείμενό του αυτό ότι, αρκεί να παρουσιάσει αντικειμενικά και συστηματικά κάποιος τους κατά τόπους λαούς και έθνη του Ζάγρου, του Αντιταύρου, της βόρειας Μεσοποταμίας και της ανατολικής Ανατολίας (Doğu Anadolu), για να αποδείξει αυτόματα ότι δεν υπάρχουν "Κούρδοι" αλλά πολλά και μεταξύ τους πολύ διαφορετικά έθνη, τα οποία παρουσιάζονται διεθνώς ως δήθεν ένα - μόνον από τους άθλιους πολιτικούς και ακαδημαϊκούς γκάνγκστερς των αποικιοκρατικών χωρών (Γαλλία, Αγγλία, ΗΠΑ, Καναδάς, Αυστραλία, Ολλανδία, Ισραήλ) και τα κατά τόπους όργανά τους, με σκοπό την δημιουργία ενός ψευδοκράτους μέσα στο οποίο τα διαφορετικά μεταξύ τους αυτά έθνη θα σφάζονται εσαεί και μάλιστα χειρότερα από οπουδήποτε αλλού.

---------------------------

https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/08/26/η-ζωή-στο-λορεστάν-και-οι-λορί-του-μέσου/ ============

Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής – Greeks of the Orient

Ρωμιοσύνη, Ρωμανία, Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία

Μια περιοχή που αξίζει να περιηγηθείτε από χωριό σε χωριό για ένα μήνα τουλάχιστον και να γνωρίσετε από κοντά τα ήθη και τα έθιμα, τις παραδόσεις και τις δοξασίες των γηγενών Λορί είναι το Λορεστάν, μια ορεινή επαρχία του δυτικού Ιράν σχεδόν πάνω στα σύνορα με το Ιράκ.

Στα λαγκάδια θα είστε στα 700-1200 μ και οι βουνοκορφές τριγύρω θα ξεπερνούν τα 2500-3500 μ.

Οι Λορί είναι ένα αρχαίο ιρανικό φύλο που διατήρησε πάντοτε την ιδιαιτερότητά του και την ταυτότητά του μέσα στο Ιράν, ζώντας κοντά στους Λακί και στους Μπαχτιαρί (ακόμη πιο νοτιοανατολικά στον Ζάγρο), στους Πέρσες (στα νότια τμήματα του ιρανικού οροπεδίου), στους Φαΐλι και στους Γκοράνι (πιο βόρεια στον Ζάγρο), στους Αζέρους (στα βόρεια-βορειοδυτικά τμήματα του ιρανικού οροπεδίου), στους Τουρκμένους και στα άλλα έθνη του Ιράν.

Κατοίκηση στα σημεία αυτά πάει πολύ παλιά λόγω της σχετικής εγγύτητας με την Μεσοποταμία, όπου ξεκίνησε ο ανθρώπινος πολιτισμός.

Με το που κατεβεί κάποιος από τα βουνά προς την πεδιάδα στα δυτικά βρίσκεται στην Κεντρική Μεσοποταμία. Τα χάλκινα αγάλματα του Λορεστάν (πρώτο μισό της πρώτης προχριστιανικής χιλιετίας) αποτελούν κεντρικό κεφάλαιο της Προϊστορίας της ευρύτερης περιοχής.

Οι Λορί (ή και Λουρί) είναι στην πλειοψηφία τους σιίτες μουσουλμάνοι αλλά στο Λορεστάν (ή και Λουριστάν) υπάρχουν και πιστοί άλλων θρησκειών, όπως οι Γιαρσανί (επίσης γνωστοί και ως Αχλ-ε Χακ), μια από τις πολλές θρησκείες του ευρύτερου χώρου ανάμεσα στην Ανατολική Μεσόγειο και την Κεντρική Ασία που είναι άγνωστες στον περισσότερο κόσμο.

Οι Λορί έχουν τρομερή προσήλωση στις παραδόσεις τους και ακόμη και ανάμεσα στους σιίτες Λορί κυριαρχούν προϊσλαμικές δοξασίες που δημιουργούν συχνά-πυκνά πρόβλημα στις άτεγκτες κι αλύγιστες ηγεσίες των θρησκευτικών ηγετών του Ιράν.

Δεν κάνω λόγο για την Ισλαμική Δημοκρατία που εγκαινιάστηκε το 1979 με την αποχώρηση του ψευτο-σάχη και την επιστροφή του Χομεϊνί.

Ήδη στις αρχές του 19ου αιώνα, στα χρόνια δηλαδή της τουρκμενικής δυναστείας Κατζάρ του Ιράν, οι Λορί είχαν τόσο απομακρυνθεί από την σιιτική ισλαμική ορθοδοξία που οι ιρανικές αρχές ζήτησαν από τους Οθωμανούς να στείλουν από την Κερμπαλά της Νότιας Μεσοποταμίας (καίριο σιιτικό ιερό) ένα θεολόγο για να …. κηρύξει το (σιιτικό) Ισλάμ στους Λορί!!!

Χορός ντασμάλ-μπαζί στο Μαμασανί

Η ζωή των Λορί είναι ταυτισμένη με τον ετήσιο κύκλο και συνυφασμένη με την εναλλαγή των εποχών: οι γεωργικές και κτηνοτροφικές απασχολήσεις τηρούνται κατά τον πατροπαράδοτο τρόπο και κανένας νεωτερισμός δεν μπαίνει στα χωριά των Λορί όπου ο παγερός χειμώνας σημαίνει ζωή γύρω από την εστία, αφηγήσεις παραμυθιών για τα παιδιά, και για τους μεγαλύτερους διάβασμα του Κορανίου (ή διάβασμα του Καλάμ-ε Σαραν-ντζάν / کلام سرانجام για τους Γιαρσανί).

Οι Λορί δεν έχουν καμμιά διάθεση για να αποσχισθούν ή να σχηματίσουν ένα ανεξάρτητο κράτος παρά τις επίμονες προσπάθειες της ΣΙΑ, της Μοσάντ του Ισραήλ και άλλων μυστικών υπηρεσιών να τους πείσουν ότι είναι ‘Κούρδοι’ και ότι πρέπει να έχουν ‘το δικό τους κράτος’.

Ούτε οι Λορί, ούτε οι Λακί, ούτε οι Γιαρσανί, ούτε οι Γκοράνι δέχονται το ψεύτικο παραμύθι των ‘Κούρδων’, ενός ψευτο-έθνους παρασκευασμένου από μυστικές υπηρεσίες χωρών που μισούν την ευρύτερη περιοχή και θέλουν να την βουλιάξουν σε ατελείωτους πολέμους.

Πως οι Λορί καταλαβαίνουν ότι δεν πρέπει να πιστέψουν τα λόγια των άθλιων τεράτων του Ισραήλ, των ΗΠΑ, της Αγγλίας και της Γαλλίας;

Πως οι Λορί θυμούνται ότι στα αραβικά η λέξη Ακράντ στον πληθυντικό (: ‘Κούρδοι’) δεν σημαίνει ένα συγκεκριμένο έθνος αλλά πολλά και διαφορετικά έθνη που κατοικούν στα βουνά (‘Τζεμπάλ’);

Γιατί οι Σοράνι της Σουλεϋμανίγιε (στο Ιράκ) και οι Κουρμάντζι του Ντιγιάρμπακιρ (στην Τουρκία) ξέχασαν τις αλήθειες που ξέρουν, κατανοούν και τηρούν ακόμη οι Λορί, κι έτσι οι ηγεσίες τους ξεπουλήθηκαν στους εγκληματίες σατανιστές της Δύσης;

Η απάντηση σε όλα αυτά τα ερωτήματα είναι μία και απλή. Δεν έχει να κάνει με την πολιτική, γιατί πολιτική δεν υπάρχει: είναι ένα ψέμμα που οι προπαγανδιστές του εμφανίζουν ως τάχα πραγματικό, ενώ στην πραγματικότητα αυτό που αποκαλείται ‘πολιτική’ είναι η υλοποίηση μιας πρότερον ανύπαρκτης διαστροφής που την υλοποιούν μόνον τα θύματά της, δηλαδή οι ανεγκέφαλοι που αποδέχονται το ψέμμα.

Στο Λορεστάν δεν υπάρχει καμμιά πολιτική κι οι Λορί δεν θέλουν καμμιά πολιτική.

Ποια είναι η απάντηση;

Η ζωή στο χωριό και κοντά στην φύση, χωρίς τον σύγχρονο ανθρωποκτονικό ‘τεχνολογικό πολιτισμό’ είναι υγεία για το σώμα και το μυαλό.

Οπότε, οι χωρικοί κι οι αγρότες του Λορεστάν, επειδή είναι υγιείς, αντιλαμβάνονται τι είναι αλήθεια και τι είναι ψέμμα πολύ πιο εύκολα από ένα άρρωστο, σάπιο κάτοικο μεγαλουπόλεων.

Το πιθανώτερο να σας συμβεί, αν ζείτε σε μια μεγαλούπολη, είναι να πιστέψετε τα ψέμματα που σας λένε και να δείτε τον κόσμο και την ζωή πολύ στραβά, την Ιστορία ανάποδα και με ρατσιστικούς φακούς, και την καθημερινότητα ως την ‘ζωή εν τάφω’ που ζείτε εκεί.

Τα δηλητήρια που τρώτε και πίνετε στις μεγαλουπόλεις, ο μολυσμένος αέρας που αναπνέετε, κι η αποκοπή σας από την φύση αποτελούν πιστοποιητικό αποβλάκωσης και προσαρμογής στα ψέμματα που σας λένε όλοι εκεί.

Αν θα πηγαίνατε να ζήσετε στο Λορεστάν, θα ήταν ο πιο άφθαστος Παράδεισος για σας.

Δείτε το βίντεο:

Лурестан, Луры и их традиционная музыка – Luristan, Luris and their Traditional Music

https://www.ok.ru/video/1488355527277

Лурестан, Луры, их музыка и повседневная жизнь

https://vk.com/video434648441_456240280

Luristan, Luris and their Traditional Music – Λορεστάν, οι Λορί και η Παραδοσιακή Μουσική τους

——————————————

Αρχαιότητες του πρώτου μισού της πρώτης προχριστιανικής χιλιετίας από το Λορεστάν

Οι χρυσές προσωπίδες του Σπηλαίου Καλμακαρέχ, όχι μακριά από την πόλη Πολ-ε Ντοχτάρ, στο Λορεστάν

————————————————-

Διαβάστε:

Luristan

v. Religion, Rituals, and Popular Beliefs

The official religion

Since the accession of the first Safavid shah (1502), the official religion in Iran has been the Eṯnā-ʿašariya (Twelver) Shiʿism, one of the two main branches of Islam. A noteworthy point in this context is that the Lur society has been living within the framework of Islam, but under conditions and circumstances that encouraged rather than restricted a free display of popular traditions, such as the cult of local shrines, emāmzādas (descendants of the Shiʿite imams), and other sects, especially the Ahl-e Ḥaqq, as well as many aspects of supernaturalism.

In areas where people did not speak or understand Arabic, or were mostly illiterate, as among the nomads of Luristan, the declaration of faith and especially performance of different prayers, were bound to take on a much more ritualistic value. Here, the need for oral interpretation and explanation of the orthodox faith was necessary if a completely unrestricted and free display of the popular beliefs and customs were to be avoided.

Thus, at the beginning of the 19th century during the governorship of Prince Moḥammad-ʿAli Mirzā, the Lurs had gone so far astray from the orthodox path that a preacher of the higher religious classes, a mojtahed, was brought in from Karbala in order to “convert” the tribes back to Islam (cf. Rabino, p. 24; Minorsky, 1978, p. 823).

It is uncertain to what degree this attempt was successful, but it is known that there was not normally any direct, authoritative, and powerful institution which could secure and defend the official and orthodox faith and conceptions in Luristan.

Almost all the writers who have dealt with this theme, except Cecil John Edmonds (1922, p. 341), are unanimous in the view that the Lurs, although outwardly professing Islam, have had only a faint idea of the orthodox religion and to a large degree have been indifferent to the Islamic doctrines, while at the same time they have indulged in superstitious rites and have deep veneration for local pirs (spiritual masters) and prophets.

Consequently, it is difficult to describe the impact of religion on the nomadic society of Luristan, where religious notions had become an integral part of life to such an extent that life itself, especially the modus vivendi of the nomads, was one big, yearly, revolving ritual, spaced by recurring seasons, migrations, births, festivals, and deaths.

What a spectator might want to call the “religious” aspects had simply ceased to be perceived as anything separate or to hold any aspect of apartness for the nomads, a circumstance, which also means that any specific questions about “religion” are poorly understood, because religion in Luristan was an unconsciously integrated part of the cycle of life (Demant Mortensen, 2010, p. 12 ff.).

Ahl-e Ḥaqq

Although most Lurs officially adhere to Twelver Shiʿism, with a sprinkling of Sunni Muslims, some adherents of the Ahl-e Ḥaqq (People of the [absolute] Truth) sect are found among the Lur and the Kurdish populations. Ahl-e Ḥaqq are often referred to in the literature as ʿAli-Elāhi or ʿAli-Allāhi (Minorsky, 1964, p. 306) and as having their roots in the heartland of Luristan.

There has been no central, uniform organization and no canonical scripture among the Ahl-e Ḥaqq, which has been traced within numerous tribal, ethnic, religious, and social groups. The cradle of the sect is definitely the area occupied by the Gurānis, which is now divided between the Iraqi and the Iranian Kurdistan, and also including some tribes of northern Luristan, for instance, the Delfān (Minorsky, 1964, p. 314; Halm, p. 635).

Some authors refer to the Selsela and Delfān groups as originally being ʿAli-Elāhis, but also to the Sagvand and Pāpi tribes as being followers of this “secret religion” (Field, I, pp. 173-84; Minorsky, 1978, p. 823). In this context it is interesting that one of the subtribes of the Delfān confederation, the Chuwari, mentioned by Rawlinson (p. 107) as spending the winters in Holaylān and Kuhdašt and the summers in the plain of Ḵāva, is described by Freya Stark as “heretics”: “…these are Ali-Ilahis” (Stark, 1947, p. 34).

The religious literature of the sect is mainly written in Gurāni, and two important shrines of the sect, the tombs of Bābā Yādgār in Zohab and of Solṭān Esḥāq (Sahhāk, Ṣohāk) in Perdivar, are both located in Gurān territory. The central dogma of the Ahl-e Ḥaqq is the belief in seven successive manifestations or incarnations of the divinity.

These incarnations are compared to garments put on by the godhead (cf. the table in Minorsky, 1964, p. 307). The legends about Shah Ḵošin (or Bābā Ḵošin), one of the seven incarnations of the divinity (haftvāna), take place in Luristan and seem to represent an early phase in the development of the doctrine. Each manifestation is accompanied by a retinue of four helper angels. The name of one of those is Bābā Bozorg.

Another of the angels of Bābā Ḵošin is the local saint and Sufi poet of Hamadan, Bābā Ṭāher. Apart from the “Four Angels,” several other groups of saints are worshipped by Ahl-e Ḥaqq (Minorsky, 1964, pp. 306-16; Edmonds, 1969, pp. 89-101; Gabriel, pp. 125-28; Halm, pp. 635-37; see Ṣafizāda, pp. 17-18, 65-68, 74-78, 85-86, 101-15, 127-32).

The sect of the Ahl-e Ḥaqq was originally referred to by the European travelers of the 19th century and first of all by John Kinneir (p. 141). He reports with alacrity the information he has received about nocturnal festivals in the course of which “the garments of the fair sex” at a certain point are thrown into a heap and jumbled together.

This done, the lights are put out and the clothes distributed among the men present. The candles are then re-lighted. He explains that it is a rule of the society “that the lady must patiently submit to the embrace of the person who has become possessed of her dress, whether father, son, husband, or brother.”

When the lights have been put out once again, “the whole of the licentious tribe pass the remainder of the night in the indulgence of the most promiscuous lust.” Obviously, a scandalous and exiting account like this was bound to create some interest at the time. Henry Rawlinson was the first to pass on somewhat more reliable information (Rawlinson, pp. 52-95, 110), and as the regiment he commanded on the march from Zohab was in fact Gurāni, most of his men in all probability were adherents of Ahl-e Ḥaqq.

An especially noteworthy ceremony or institution is an initiation rite called sar-sepordan (the entrustment of the head; total commitment), in which the neophyte links himself to a spiritual master (pir). As a sign of this, a nutmeg is broken as a substitute for the head (Ṣafizāda, pp. 19-20).

Other sacrifices, raw and cooked, bloody and bloodless, derived from dervish practices also occur, and during these sessions burning coals are sometimes handled and stepped upon. Rites of the Ahl-e Ḥaqq also include assemblies (jam) with women participation, in which music is played and could easily account for the extraordinary interpretation brought forward by Kinneir (quoted above), and also for the nickname of “extinguishers of light” (čerāḡ söndüren) given by outsiders to the adherents of the sect (Minorsky, 1964, pp. 308-9).

The religion of the shrine

In an article concerned with the function of religion in (contemporary) Iranian society, Brian Spooner has made a useful distinction between what he calls “the religion of the mosque” and “the religion of the shrine” (Spooner, 1963, pp. 83-95). “The religion of the mosque” roughly corresponds to the official, literate religion, whereas “the religion of the shrine” is characterized by a hierarchy from the ordinary person through holy men, the imāms, and prophets, to God.

In rural districts like Luristan, where “the religion of the shrine” was practiced, a mollā (cleric) or a ṭalaba (theological student) might pay a visit during the months of special religious significance. If there was no resident mollā, there might be a dervish, a doʿānevis or Qorʾānḵˇān. There is often something mysterious about a dervish that seems to attract the attention of ordinary men, but a dervish has no specific religious function in the society.

The doʿānevis writes doʿās (invocation to God), which are a very popular commodity in rural Persia; and the Qorʾānḵvān, although often illiterate, is able to chant passages from the Qur’an at funerals; he also sometimes washes the dead (Spooner, 1963, p. 85).

Among the nomads and in the villages there are often quasi-religious persons or individuals attributed with certain religious qualities; they are either the descendants of the Prophet (sayyed) or people with the epithet Ḥāji, Karbalāʾi, or Mašhadi, signifying persons who have completed the pilgrimage to Mecca, Karbala, or Mashhad.

The presence of such persons among the tribes of Luristan is attested by the inscriptions at tombstones from cemeteries in northern Luristan (Demant Mortensen, 2010, pp. 93 ff.). The descendants of the Prophet have no special religious function, but their sheer presence is a reminder of Moḥammad, to whom they are considered to be nearer and dearer than ordinary people, and thus they are also a memento of Islam in general.

Moreover, they are believed to possess at least a minimum of baraka (blessing, divine grace), and they may be preferred by ordinary people for ceremonies intended to ward off the evil eye in which there is a widespread belief in most of the Near East (Donaldson, pp. 117 ff.; Kriss and Kriss-Heinrich, II, passim; Spooner, 1976, pp. 76-84).

It goes almost without saying that Moḥammad and his descendants are believed to be especially endowed with baraka, and they may in their turn communicate some of it to ordinary people. A special feature is that baraka does not cease to exist or to be active at the death of a person. On the contrary, to deceased persons is attributed a very powerful baraka. This may help to explain the great significance placed by the Shiʿites on the pilgrimage to tombs and emamzādas and the extraordinary measures taken to be buried near a holy tomb (Demant Mortensen, 1993, pp. 121, 125).

Shrines and emāmzādas

Until recently there were no mosques in Luristan outside the few towns (cf. the distribution map in Kleiss, opp. p. 66). On the other hand, the tombs of local pirs and saints, the emāmzādas, are frequently seen in the landscape. They are the focus of a lot of attention and also of pilgrimage. The word emāmzāda may signify an individual as well as the shrine dedicated to him, in the same way as pir or piri (elder or holy) may be used about a person or his tomb.

The actual structure of a shrine, whether of an emāmzāda or otherwise, may range in size from anything comparable to a tiny house to a larger mosque. It is often square, whitewashed, with a domed roof and with or without a courtyard and a cemetery around it. In the center of the building is the tomb or cenotaph, as the case may be, which is the focal point of attention. It represents the deceased person and is considered full of his baraka.

A number of shrines and emāmzādas are mentioned in the literature, but often just in passing (e.g., by Rawlinson; Stein; Edmonds, 1969; Minorsky, 1978; Haerinck and Overlaet; Demant Mortensen, 2010). The better known include Emāmzāda Šāhzāda Aḥmad, Emāmzāda Šāhzāda Moḥammed (or Solṭān Maḥmud), and Emāmzāda Solṭān Ebrāhim (or Bābā Bozorg), all alleged to be brothers of the eighth Imam (cf. Demant Mortensen, 2010, p. 21, n. 29; personal information from Khan ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Pur Abuḵadora, Hulian, 1974).

According to Rawlinson, they are all included among the Haft-tan “Seven [dervishes]” by the Ahl-e Ḥaqq, and that is why they are of great sanctity (Rawlinson, p. 95; Edmonds, 1969, p. 89; Ṣafizāda, pp. 144-45, 147-48, 203-4).

Emāmzāda Šāhzāda Aḥmad is situated in Bālā Gariva, about 60 km south of Khorramabad, midway between Khorramabad and Dezful. Referring to this shrine, Edmonds recalls that one day he had a visit by four men wearing red turbans.

A red turban is unique in Persia, at least in the western and central provinces, and is worn only by the guardians of Šāhzāda Aḥmad, the holiest shrine in Bālā Gariva (Demant Mottensen, 1993, Pl. 6.58; Izadpanāh, pp. 16-18). The red-turbaned guardians are known as the pāpi, but do not seem to be connected with the tribe of the same name (Edmonds, 1969, p. 354); however, Carl Feilberg, who has made a special study of this particular tribe, has several interesting and curious details to add (Feilberg, pp. 144-53).

For instance, he states that there are no adherents of the Ahl-e Ḥaqq among the Pāpi, “who find them very bad mannered” (Feilberg, pp. 152-53). Minorsky, on the contrary, states that the Sagvand and Pāpi tribes are the followers of this “secret religion” (Minorsky, 1978, p. 823). Feilberg also mentions the red turbans of the guardians and supplies the information that a visit to the Emāmzāda Šāhzāda Aḥmad is known to be particularly helpful to infertile women.

Not far from Emāmzāda Šāhzāda Aḥmad was another shrine, the Emāmzāda Pir Mār (Saint Snake) also of great sanctity. The saint was supposed to have been able to cure the bite of all venomous snakes, a power his descendants apparently had inherited (Rawlinson, p. 96).

The Emāmzāda Šāhzāda Moḥammad in the Holaylān valley is mentioned by Edmonds (1922, p. 451) as being a “pretentious building” with a great reputation for sanctity in the district and having a colony of sayyeds living in tents and huts around it. Various notables have contributed various parts, such as the bath and a golden ball over the dome.

Aurel Stein (p. 242) refers to it as “the conspicuous new shrine marking the supposed resting place of Imamzadeh Shah-zadeh Muhammad, a much frequented place for pilgrimage for Lurs, with a clusted of Saiyid’s dwellings” (cf. also Edelberg, p. 379; Demant Mortensen, 1993, pp. 128-29, Pls. 6.59-61).

The shrine of Solṭān Ebrāhim, worshipped throughout Luristan under the name of Bābā Bozorg, is mentioned by Rawlinson (p. 100), who says that the tomb is situated on the northeastern face of the plain of Ḵāwa. He adds that this is “the most holy spot in Luristan; for the common Lurs have no idea of religion farther than the worship of this their national saint.” Stein (p. 302) confirms the position and calls it a “much frequented place for pilgrimage” (see also Izadpanāh, pp. 310-11 and Pls. 28-29 on pp. 344-45).

The person said to be buried in an emāmzāda is often of a rather nebulous origin or descent, and quite often the same person is said to be buried, and is worshipped, in several different places.

One example of this is in Luristan near Širvān, where the tomb of ʿAbbās b. ʿAli, the half brother of the Shiʿite Imams Ḥasan and Ḥosayn, is considered to be of great sanctity and receives much attention. People from all over Luristan go here on pilgrimage, although ʿAbbās b. ʿAli also is supposed to be buried at Karbala in Iraq (Rawlinson, p. 56).

The most important point is, however, that it is advisable to visit these graves, because honoring an emāmzāda almost amounts to honoring the Imam himself, which by implication ultimately means honoring God, and this will hopefully lead to His intercession on the Day of Judgement.

In many cases the purpose of a visit to a shrine or an emāmzāda is to ask the granting of certain wishes or requests. The means of obtaining this goal are various and ingenious. Like the Kaʿba in Mecca, the tomb will often be covered by a cloth or surrounded by a latticework, which will be kissed. This is considered as a way of mollifying the emāmzāda and is not just a pious gesture.

It is important to get in contact with the baraka of the person resting there. This may be achieved by touching something in the place, by rubbing oneself with the oil that has been deposited as a gift by previous pilgrims and has now accumulated some of the baraka, or by leaving behind one’s rosary (tasbiḥ) to be charged with baraka and collected at a later time.

When visiting an emāmzāda, it is not unusual to bring along presents, for example, candles, oil, foodstuffs, or even live animals to be sacrificed on the spot. What was originally intended as a votive offering—to the holy personage supposedly interred there—at the present time more often ends up as a present for the warden of the place. In any case, it has now become more customary not to bring anything until the wish has been fulfilled.

This rather pragmatic change from “I offer Thee this, and please may I have” to “If You grant me this, I will give You that” attitude, secures a minimum of waste and disappointment on both sides (Demant Mortensen, 2010, p. 21).

In Luristan people also seek out the shrines and emāmzādas for a number of other reasons, including oath-taking in legal cases, seeking cures for ailments, both physical and mental (Fazel, p. 234), pilgrimage, and the festivities at the end of Ramazan, the ʿid al-feṭr, and the processions and performances of the passion play (taʿzia) during the first ten days of Moḥarram in commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Ḥosayn and his family at Karbala in 680 CE (cf. Chelkowsky; Demant Mortensen, 1991).

Moḥarram processions and the taʿzia

In Iran, Moḥarram processions and recitations existed side by side for about 250 years, and both became more and more complex and refined, until the middle of the 18th century, by which time they were fused (Chelkowski, pp. 4 ff.). The result was a new dramatic form called taʿzia-ḵvāni or just taʿzia, in which the siege of Karbala was still the core, but as time went by, separate plays around individual heroes were also developed.

The taʿzia thus is a compromise between the moving procession and the stationary recitation, and as such it was first staged at open squares or street intersections but soon moved into the courtyards of bazaars, caravansaries, emāmzādas, or even private houses.

Each of the first ten days of Moḥarram featured its own special event commemorating the suffering of Imam Ḥosayn and his party, culminating with the big processions of the 10th of Moḥarram, the Āšurāʾ, as a conclusion (see, e.g., Massé, pp. 122 ff., tr. pp. 117 ff.).

An Āšurāʾ procession might consist of several groups following hard on the heels of each other and all acting some part of the tragedy at Karbala. For example, riderless, saddled horses illustrate in the funeral procession the horses of the martyrs who are now dead.

In the case of only one riderless horse in the procession, it signifies Imam Ḥosayn’s horse (Ḏu’l-janāḥ). Often there will be fastened to the saddle some objects emblematical of Imam Ḥosayn (e.g., see Kippenberg, figs. 1-4). When the riderless horses are brought forward in the funeral procession, it is a sign that the illustrious owners are now dead, and a great moan from the crowd watching goes up in the air.

There may be flags carried along, with the names of Ḥosayn and other martyrs embroidered on them, and banners (ʿalam) representing in the towns different quarters or guilds, and in the country different emāmzādas. There may also be long sticks or poles (kotol) hung with pieces of cloth and surmounted by a metal hand (panja).

The open hand (which is identified by the Sunnites as the hand of Fāṭema and is used as an amulet to ward off the evil eye) bears a quite different meaning for the Shiʿites. In the Moḥarram processions, it commemorates the fact that at Karbala Ḥosayn and his companions were prevented from drawing water, and when ʿAbbās, Ḥosayn’s half brother, tried to fetch some water from the river, his hands were cut off by the enemy. ʿAbbās then tried to hold the gourd between his teeth, but it was immediately pierced by an arrow.

Everybody gets the message instantly when the water-sellers at the Moḥarram processions carry a gourd and cry: “Drink to the memory of the martyr of Karbala!” Many other incidents were commemorated in this way, and groups representing the martyrs with, for example, limbs amputated, an axe sunk into the body, arrows sticking out everywhere, all combine to create the most perfect illusion of reality.

Usually there would be a man or a boy disguised as a lion, covering the supposed body of Imam Ḥosayn in the procession or at the taʿzia, and representing the miraculous lion that is reported to have kept watch on Imam Ḥosayn’s body and protected it from further profanation after the massacre at Karbala (see below).

Around 1930 the taʿzia was banned by the government for socio-political reasons, but, a renewed interest in it was raised during the post-World War II period (Chelkowsky, pp.. 262 ff.). It lived on in distant villages and isolated areas such as Luristan, but due to the lack of written sources it is not possible to know with any certainty to what extent the Moḥarram rites were celebrated in Luristan over the last 200 years.

However, a few people who have been in Luristan for longer periods of time have left descriptions that might suggest that the tradition was kept alive all along. For instance, Arnold Wilson relates how the evenings during a stay with a local khan were spent, listening to a blind storyteller, who was an inexhaustible source of local politics and history, Lur songs, and extracts from the Šāh-nāma of Ferdowsi, holding the listeners around the fire spellbound for hours by the dramatic modulations of his voice (Wilson, pp. 63-65).

He was succeeded by a sayyed, who first conducted the assembly in prayer and then followed with “a prose narrative of the sad fate of the patron saint of Persia, the martyred Husain, which reduced many of the audience to genuine tears, though it is not yet the month (Muharram) in which his death is called to mind” (Wilson, p. 64).

Carl Feilberg (pp. 144-46) remarks that there is a queer, agitated feeling in the air during Moḥarram, which is more noticeable or conspicuous since there are not many signs of religious fanaticism, but rather a certain degree of tolerance. On the occasion of the “Ḥosayn festival, mollās bring forth banners (ʿalam) from an emāmzāda.

The people circle around the banners, the poles of which are covered in red cloth, while they sing and beat their breast three times, and take their heads in their hands repeatedly. Someone reads the story of Ḥosayn from one end to the other, if possible every hour of the day. A man with a sword is excited to the point of cutting his head. Pieces of cloth are hanging down from banners. Every time someone pays a few coins to the mollā, he receives a shred of the cloth.”

Another observation was made inside the Emāmzāda Šāhzāda Moḥammad in the Holaylān Valley in 1963 (Demant Mortensen, 2010, p. 29). People had come from far away and assembled in the courtyard of the emāmzāda, where on the 8th day of Moḥarram a taʿzia was being performed for hours on end, continuing into the night of the Āšurāʾ. Earlier a procession of flagellants went across the valley floor, from tent camp to tent camp, which at that time of the year (June) was spread over the plain.

These few examples will suffice to show how important aspects of the religion were being taught by illustration and performance among the nomadic population of Luristan. The mental images evoked at a Moḥarram procession, at a rawża-ḵvāni (mourning ritual commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Ḥosayn) or a taʿzia performance are so strong and potent that this kind of “illiterate religion,” as it might conveniently be termed, adds another dimension to the metaphor phrased by Umberto Eco that “images are the literature of the lay-men” (Eco, p. 41).

Nomadic cemeteries with pictorial stelae and tombstones

The nomadic cemeteries of Luristan are nearly all placed near shrines or along old migratory routes. Their inscribed and decorated tombstones and stelae turn them into an important source for the mapping of tribal migrations during the 19th and early 20th century and for our understanding of certain aspects of the religious beliefs and ritual actions of the nomads.

Allusions to the tombstones of Luristan and the motifs they represent include incidental observations by travelers passing through the country in the 19th and early 20th century (e.g., Rawlinson, pp. 53, 57-58; Herzfeld, p. 59; Stark, 1932, p. 504). The topic has later been dealt with by Feilberg (pp. 137-41, figs. 128-31), Wilhelm Eilers, Jørgen Meldgaard, Clare Goff, Leon Vanden Berghe (pp. 19-20 and Pl. VII, figs. 1-2), and Houchang Pourkarim (pp. 54-57, photograph on p. 25). Starting during 1974-77, an extensive, systematic study of nomadic cemeteries in northern Luristan was carried out by a member of the Danish Archaeological Expedition (Demant Mortensen, 1983, 1991, 1996, and 2010).

It seems that most of the nomadic cemeteries in northern Luristan, along with the tribes that they represent, can be traced back to the late 18th or early 19th century.

The earliest known nomadic tombstone, dated 1209/1794, is in the cemetery of Kazābād in the Holaylān valley (Demant Mortensen 2010, p. 167). In a historical context, the emergence of the tombstones coincide with the withdrawal of the viceroy governor (wāli) and his retinue from Khorramabad into Pošt-e Kuh in 1796, a move that was occasioned by the attempt of the first Qajar shah to reduce and weaken his power and authority.

By the end of the 1920s and the early 1930s, there is a dramatic decline in the number of nomadic cemeteries, a picture clearly reflecting the drastic changes forced upon the nomads of Luristan by the policy of Reżā Shah (r. 1924-41). Starting early in the 1920s, Reżā Shah and his army attempted forcibly to “civilize” (taḵta-qāpu), that is, to disarm and settle, the nomadic tribes throughout the country.

By the mid-1930s this policy had resulted in an economic, social, and cultural breakdown of the old tribal structures of Luristan and in a partial cessation of nomadic migrations and of memorial stelae and obelisks at the cemeteries. The latest known pictorial stele, dated 1354/1935, has been registered at the cemetery of Pela Kabud in the Holaylān valley (Demant Mortensen, 2010, pp. 73, 148, fig. 98).

At the cemeteries the graves were usually marked by a horizontal tombstone lying within the frame of stones marking the outline of the grave. In addition, an obelisk or a stele depicting in lively scenes animals and human beings was sometimes erected at the head of the grave (e.g., see Demant Mortensen, 1993, pp. 134, 138, Pls. 6.64, 6.66).

These extraordinary pictorial stones, unique in an Islamic context, were carved and used by the nomads. Like the horizontal tombstones, they were erected for men as well as for women, although more frequently for the men.

The flat-lying gravestones bear an inscription stating the name of the deceased, the name of his or her father, and the name of the tribe to which he or she belonged. The time of death is always mentioned by year, according to the Islamic lunar calendar, and occasionally also by month.

The rank or title of the deceased may also be recorded. In rare cases, a few lines from a poem may be incised along the edge of the tombstone, but apparently never a quotation from the Qurʾan. This would be inappropriate, since people might step on the stones, and sheep and goats and other animals crossing a cemetery might soil the tombstones.

At the base of the stone there is nearly always a field with pictorial symbols that are characteristic of men and women respectively. With unfailing certainty they will indicate whether the deceased was a woman or a man. In the case of women, the symbols will include a comb, a mirror, and a pair of scissors, a symbol designating a carpet, and in a few cases a kohl-pin.

On a man’s tombstone is most often depicted a prayer stone, a string of prayer beads, a washing-set consisting of a ewer and a bowl, and a man’s comb, characterized by its half-circular shape. It appears that the symbols characterizing a woman on the gravestone to all intents and purposes reflect her profane, daily life.

In contrast to this a man is characterized on the gravestones with symbols full of religious connotations meant to turn the thought towards his pious purity: a washing-set, a rosary, and a prayer stone. This emphasis upon the religious aspects of life depicted on the men’s tombstones in a subtle and subconscious way perhaps reflected the Lur’s conception of the role and status in real life, where the men were the external providers and protectors, while the women lived in the private sphere.

Obviously, there is a great difference but it does not follow automatically that there was an evaluation in terms of status attached to the different roles within the tribal community. Wilson (p. 156), who lived a long time among the Lurs, wrote a eulogy of the Lur women, who bear the burden of the day in most senses of the phrase, in the following words. “without a wife a man is as helpless and useless as half a pair of anything else— and [he] knows it.”

In some cases a panel with an enigmatic geometric figure may be found on the gravestones, interspaced usually between the fourth and the fifth line of the inscription. It shows a cross on a square background with a kind of step design on both sides, opening up into tiny “channels” leading out from or into the center. The simplest interpretation of this motif is that it is a purely decorative element.

There is, however, one other possibility: the central motifs are almost identical to the central motifs in the great Persian garden carpets from the 17th and 18th centuries, and to similar motifs seen in many Caucasian carpets and tribal rugs. It is a characteristic feature of these carpet designs that the design is geometrical and that there are channels leading out of, or into, the central motif, precisely as in the medial panels of the gravestones.

In the carpets these channels and pools symbolize the water channels in a garden, or by extension the Garden of Paradise (bāḡ-e behešt). The connection between real, geometrical garden plans, their reproduction in carpets, and the religious conceptions about the Garden of Paradise has often been demonstrated.

Against this background and in a religious context, at nomadic cemeteries, it has been suggested that the geometric motifs of the middle panels on the tombstones, like the central figures of the garden carpets, not only fulfill a decorative purpose, but also contain symbolic connotations, which among the nomads of Luristan would direct the mind towards the Garden of Paradise (Demant Mortensen, 1996, pp. 176-78).

The stelae, which sometimes were erected at the head of the grave, usually have pictures on both sides, showing distinctly different themes. One side, facing the grave, shows scenes from the life of the deceased. A typical motif at a woman’s stele would be a vertical loom with a half-finished carpet, surrounded by two or three women each with a weft-beater in her hand.

The men’s stelae would show a mounted horseman with a small shield over his shoulder, with a lance or gun in his hand and his sword attached to the characteristic high wooden saddle. The rider is often engaged in a hunt, accompanied by two or three tribesmen, each carrying a gun with a fixed bayonet.

The other side of the stelae shows a similar picture, but with marked differences in content. Here the representation is a reflection of rituals associated with death and burial. The horse is rider-less, and it is clearly tethered with a mallet at the head and at the hind leg. The weapons of the deceased, a gun, a sword, and a shield, are tied to the high wooden saddle. Below this scene three women are shown, their arms resting on each other’s shoulders.

The women are probably shown as participants in the funeral procession or doing čupi dance. Singing, wailing, and dancing were practiced by mourning women as part of the burial rites in Luristan throughout the 19th and most of the 20th century. An emotional incident reflecting these rituals is reported by Freya Stark, who in 1931 spent some time in the plains of Ḵāva and Delfān.

She relates how Yusof Khan, a young leader of the Nur-ʿAlis “beloved by all the northern Lurs was taken and executed in Hamadan; his followers, including my guide, lifted his body from the cemetery and brought it to Kermanshah, and then carried it with high wailing dirges four days’ journey to its burial-place at Hulailan” (Stark, 1947, pp. 27-32).

The picture of a riderless horse seems to reflect an old Iranian tradition where the horse of the deceased was brought along in the funerary procession to the cemetery, with the deceased’s turban, his sword, bow and arrows, lance, and in general anything that might serve to identify his standing and strength.

To lead a horse after the hearse or bier at a funeral seems to have been, if not a universal habit, at least a widespread custom also known from Luristan, a reflection, perhaps, of a belief in an afterlife in which the deceased will need the horse and the weapons that he used to have in his life on earth (cf., e.g., Tavernier, p. 722; Quenstedt, pp. 254-56; Demant Mortensen, 2010, pp. 84 ff.).

There is, however, another possible explanation for the riderless horse as it appears on the Luristani stelae. An underlying meaning of the motif might be that the representation of a riderless, equipped horse on the tombstone in the same way as Imam Ḥosayn’s horse is represented in the ʿĀšurāʾ processions during Moḥarram reminds the passer-by of Imam Ḥosayn’s martyrdom, and thus his attentions would automatically be focused on the Day of Judgement and on pious hopes for the afterlife (Demant Mortensen, 1991, pp. 85-86).

As a derivation of this, the intended message could also have been that the person interred in the tomb had been of a pious observation. This seems to be quite a probable explanation and association with the nomadic setting in Luristan in the 19th and early 20th century, as it is indirectly testified by the elegies sung by the wives of the Wāli Ḥosaynqoli Khan on the occasion of his death, ca. 1900 (cf. Mann, pp. 145-52).

Supernatural powers

Apart from the more or less orthodox religious notions, there seems to be a widespread belief in supernatural beings in Iran (cf. e.g., Donaldson, passim; Massé, pp. 351-68). There are, however, considerable regional variations in their occurrence, form, and attributes, and a supernatural being reported in one area may be unknown in another. As far as Luristan is concerned, the most extensive information on this topic has been provided by Amanolahi-Baharvand (pp. 142-78).

According to this source, the Baharvand, and probably a major part of the nomadic tribes of Luristan, have had a dualistic concept of the soul and body. Without the soul the body was nothing, and the soul could leave the body at will, in the form of a flying insect, like a mosquito, with the nose as a passage. It was believed that, when a person is asleep, his soul is out, and when it returns to the body, the person awakes.

It was also believed that everybody has an identical spiritual being in the sky. When someone dies, the soul enters this being or spirit, which descends from heaven into the grave. When the spirit has entered the grave, it will, together with the soul, find the way to the eternal world. On the way, there is a bridge, narrower than a hair, which has to be crossed. When the spirits reach the bridge, they will be met by the sheep that were sacrificed in this world, and these will be ready to carry them across the bridge.

The good ones will have no trouble getting across the bridge, but the bad ones will have serious problems. On the other side of the bridge is the gate to the eternal world, and after Judgement the righteous will go to Paradise, while the wicked are sent to Hell. It was, moreover, believed that the coming of the Mahdi would mean an end to both of these worlds, because it would mean the creation of a completely new universe with freedom and justice for everyone (Amanolahi-Baharvand, p. 148).

This somewhat diverging version of the official eschatology existed alongside a belief in several kinds of personified supernatural beings to which human emotions and feelings were attributed. Above all there is God (Ḵodā), followed by various religious personalities such as ʿAli, Moḥammad, the Imams and emāmzādas, and the local saints and prophets in Luristan. ʿAli is the strongest of all, almost comparable to God, and certainly greater than Moḥammad (Amanolahi-Baharvand, p. 150).

The belief in predestination stems from the concept that God determines the destiny of every human being and all other creatures of the universe, so everything that happens is the will of God. He is the absolute ruler and owner of the universe. He can make people sick, poor, rich, crippled, and blind. He is omniscient and omnipresent, and He has it in His power to destroy everything in an instant if He so wishes.

Although supernatural power or ability is attributed to God and all prophets and Islamic saints, they are in a different category from the other supernatural beings. God is held responsible for death and disease as well as for everything else.

But there is nevertheless, at the same time, a distinction made between natural and supernatural causes of such misfortunes. This seemingly contradictory, and totally irreconcilable, assertion will just have to be accepted, in the same way as those diseases and misfortunes that cannot immediately be understood are attributed to supernatural forces (cf. Amanolahi-Baharvand, pp. 150 ff.).

Dangerous supernatural beings include malakat, which is a local derivation from Arabic, meaning angels (e.g., malak al-mawt, the Angel of Death, often used in the Qurʾanic vocabulary). The Luri concept is somewhat different. It was believed that malakats have all the characteristics of human beings, except that they are invisible and also have the power to change form.

This means that they can and will turn themselves into, for example, a human being, a cat, or a piece of wood. They never die, and they may be found in many places, such as ruins, mountains, and dark corners. They were feared because it was believed that they had the power to make people ill or insane. Sometimes they fell in love with a woman and caused her to behave abnormally.

The malakat might take a person and replace him with an identical malakat. The same might happen with a corpse, so if a body remained unburied overnight, it had to be guarded every minute. If someone is behaving crazily, it is believed that she or he might be possessed by a malakat, and a mollā (cleric) may try to capture it by torturing the afflicted person and thus drive it away (Amanolahi-Baharvand, p. 154).

Other groups of dangerous supernatural beings include the ḡuls and the divs (demons). In folktales the div is described as looking more or less like a human being, only larger and with the capacity of changing its form; it sleeps most of the time, and is often found at the bottom of wells.

Among the Baharvand in Luristan, it is believed that the div no longer exists, but that it has been replaced by another type of demon, which is extremely dangerous. This is a human-like creature, which may inflict injuries and illnesses resulting in death upon a person. In these cases it is beyond the powers of a sayyed or a mollā to help.

The Tofangči (rifleman) is the name given to an invisible hunter with male characteristics. If sudden unexpected deaths take place, it is believed to have been caused by the Tofangči, and if any of the herds were struck, the nomads would immediately migrate to another campsite.

Yāl, otherwise referred to as āl (cf. Donaldson, pp. 28-31; Massé, pp. 44, 356, tr., p. 348), is a supernatural being with the attributes of a female, a kind of witch, often described as four-footed, and with a tail. She is very dangerous for women in labor and is wont to snatch away babies. In Luristan she is known to have only two legs and no tail, but she is very tall and has large teeth. If a woman is attacked by yāl, a yāl-catcher will beat her with a stick in order to tell where the yāl is, and a sheep will be killed and its liver and heart taken to her.

To counterbalance the feared influence of all the malevolent, supernatural demons there is also a belief in a few benevolent creatures. For instance every person is believed to have a baḵt (lit. fate), which is the supernatural guardian of every individual (Donaldson, pp. 175-76).

The baḵt is supposed to be identical with its owner, and it protects his land and property. If someone’s baḵt is active, everything is prosperous for the whole family, the herds increase, and so on; but a baḵt may fall asleep, in which case it takes the form of an animal. If that should happen, all sorts of misery starts, and it is almost impossible to find and wake up the baḵt. If a man is unlucky and, for instance, is losing herds or even children, he may say that his baḵt has fallen asleep.

Another well-known group is the fairies (pari), who are the most beautiful of all supernatural beings and look just like humans. They may marry among themselves and have a social organization and even a king of their own, Šāh-pario, but they may also marry human beings. If this happens, it must be kept a secret; otherwise, the pari will escape.

Many people claim to have seen the paris dancing and singing, and it is possible to capture them when they are bathing in a river, but one must be very quick, jump into the river, and insert a needle into the hair of the pari before she becomes invisible. When the needle is inserted in the hair, the pari becomes the wife of the captor and will always be near him, but at the same time invisible to others. It is possible for such couples to have children, but they are also invisible, except for the father (Amanolahi-Baharvand, pp. 158-60).

It is in the same somewhat shady and ill-defined border area between religion, superstition, and folklore that one may find some impersonal, supernatural forces at work. They might for the sake of clarity be divided into “powers” and “matters” of supernatural character. The supernatural “powers” reckoned with in Luristan include baraka, bahra, rišarr and časm-e bad (Amanolahi-Baharvand, pp. 160 ff.).

Baraka, or blessing, has already been described above, and bahra has something of the same inherited quality. A person could have the bahra, that is the property or capacity of hunting or capturing certain personified, supernatural beings, or curing disorders caused by these. In that case he will nearly always be successful in these matters. Like baraka, it is a good quality, which cannot be used against other people.

The words riḵayr and rišarr are combinations of Luri and Arabic, and they signify a good or benevolent face and an evil face, respectively. Thus it is believed that some people have a “good face” (riḵayr) and they will cause prosperity wherever they appear; on the other hand, if someone on a journey sees an “evil face” (rišarr), he will worry that the journey will be fruitless or even dangerous (Demant Mortensen, 2010, pp. 20-21, 36).

This idea seems to be closely related to the notion of the bad or evil eye, in which there is a widespread belief in most of the Near East. Three main types of evil eyes are recognized in Luristan: čašm-e šur (“envious eye,” lit: “salty eye,” normally permanent), čašme-e nāpāk (“dirty eye,” normally temporary), and čašme-e bad (“bad eye,” normally momentary).

It is a problem that a person with an evil eye may unintentionally cause danger and disaster. The number of causes and cures enumerated, and the amount of time spent in anxiety, fear, and inconvenience caused by this belief is quite striking. Supernatural power may also be obtained through certain acts either of piety or of ceremonial sacrifice of animals.

Certain sayyeds were believed to have obtained supernatural power, partly through their descent from the Prophet, and partly through their own acts. Those who had obtained this status were regarded as next to holy, and with a supernatural power to cure both physical and mental illnesses. People would make an oath by the turban of such a person, or by his copy of the Qurʾan, which was believed to be much more powerful than an ordinary copy (Demant Mortensen, 2010, pp. 36-37).

This is leading to the other category of supernatural forces, that of “matter” or “substance.”

The Qur’an itself is believed to possess enormous supernatural forces, which would keep at bay the many malevolent supernatural beings, and also illnesses.

Objects related to emāmzādas, especially pieces of cloth from banners (ʿalam), protected the bearer from snake bites, harmful supernatural beings, and other dangerous creatures, and every year during Moḥarram the guardians literally took their ʿalams to pieces and distributed them among the people, who would sew them on to their clothing.

Also some trees were regarded as sacred and invested with supernatural power, possibly a concept of pre-Islamic origin.

Often, but not always, they are found close to a shrine, such as the Emāmzāda Šāhzāda Moḥammad in the Holaylān valley (Stein, p. 242).

Hundreds and hundreds of pieces of cloth may be seen hanging on such trees “in greater profusion than leaves” as de Bode puts it (I, p. 283), each representing a vow or wish uttered.

While others might silently wish upon a falling star, these rags of cloth each denote a “visible wish” as it were (Demant Mortensen, 1993, pp. 122-23, Pls. 6.56-57).

In order to remain on friendly terms with the personified supernatural beings surrounding them, and at the same time to protect themselves from all the malevolent powers lurking everywhere, the Lurs employ a complex set of ancient local ceremonies and adapted Islamic rituals, which are almost impossible to disentangle.

Most of the nomads in Luristan would have only a superficial knowledge of Islam, and many religious acts are mixed with older traditions, the origin of which remains obscure.

Sacrifices are normally made either to Imam ʿAli or to the local shrine or emāmzāda, but not directly to God.

Sacrifices are made for different purposes; for instance, at the birth of a first child (son), or people make a vow that they will make a sacrifice if a wish be realized, or if they recover from an illness.

A special kind of animal sacrifice is performed when a person dies (ʿaqiqa). The animal has to be a sheep and more than six months old.

An Arabic formula is whispered in its ear before it is killed. Then it has to be boiled, and the bones buried unbroken. None of the immediate family of the deceased can take part in this meal, as it is believed that the deceased in the next world will be carried across the bridge by the sheep to the gates of the eternal world. In Luristan a special offering (alafa) is also made to the dead annually a few days before the New Year (Nowruz).

The offering consists of sweetmeat (ḥalwā) and bread, and during the preparation of these foodstuffs the names of those deceased in whose memory the meals are being prepared must be mentioned, and they will then receive the sacrifice (Amonolahi-Baharvand, pp. 170-76; Demant Mortensen, 2010, pp. 36-37).

Epilogue

Fredrik Barth (p. 146), following his description of some ceremonies, rituals, games, and beliefs among the Bāṣeri tribe in Fars, reaches the following conclusion about religion: “In general, I feel that the above attempt at an exhaustive description of the ceremonies and explicit practices of the Basseri reveals a ritual life of unusual poverty.”

The same verdict has been passed by almost everybody who has expressed an opinion on this matter as far as the Lurs are concerned. It is hoped, however, that the observations in the preceding pages might help to build a case for the opposite opinion. There was no ritual or religious poverty among the Lurs; on the contrary, the atmosphere was positively crowded with images of supernatural and other beings. The belief in them reflects truly religious notions, although these do not always conform to official doctrines.

Όλες τις βιβλιογραφικές παραπομπές μπορείτε να βρείτε εδώ:

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/luristan-05-religion-beliefs

Περισσότερα:

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/luristan-04-origin-nomadism

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bronzes-of-luristan

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/luristan-bronzes-i-the-field-research-

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/luristan-bronzes-ii-chronology

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Лурестан

http://etnolog.ru/people.php?id=LURY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luristan_bronze

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorestan_Province

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luri_language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luri_music

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