S-afshar - Afshar's Itineraries
More Posts from S-afshar and Others
“The Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu was an important New Kingdom period temple structure in the West Bank of Luxor in Egypt. Aside from its size and architectural and artistic importance, the mortuary temple is probably best known as the source of inscribed reliefs depicting the advent and defeat of the Sea Peoples during the reign of Ramesses III.” [X]
Nereid
Cosmetic box in the shape of a scallop shell, second half of the 3rd century BC., silver (from "Tomba degli Ori di Canosa")
National Archaeological Museum of Taranto Inv. 22429-22430
Το Πλοίο του Σουλεϋμάν – Εισαγωγή
Stohastis Publishing House, 1993
The Ship of Suleyman – Safinah-i Sulaymani / سفینه سلیمانی Introduction of the Greek edition of The Ship of Suleyman / Book review:
https://www.academia.edu/23396049/Safina_i_Sulaymani_Shah_Sulaymans_diplomatic_missions_deeds_in_Thailand_edition_M_S_Megalommatis Αυτό το κείμενο αποτελεί την Εισαγωγή της νεοελληνικής έκδοσης του συγγραφέντος από τον Ιμπν Μουχάμαντ Ιμπραήμ κειμένου – αναφοράς για τα πεπραγμένα της αποστολής στην οποία αυτός είχε συμμετάσχει. Ο Μουχάμαντ Ράμπια Ιμπν Μουχάμαντ Ιμπραήμ (محمد ربیع بن محمد ابراهیم/Muhammad Rabi` ibn Muhammad Ibrahim) ήταν ο επίσημος σαφεβιδικός γραφέας της αυτοκρατορικής αποστολ΄ής στο Σιάμ (Ταϋλάνδη). Υπέβαλε την αναφορά του αυτή στον Σάχη Σουλεϋμάν και ακριβώς γι’ αυτό ο τίτλος κάνει λόγο για το Πλοίο του Σουλεϋμάν. Ο Σάχης Σουλευμάν βασίλευσε από το 1668 έως το 1694. Η αποστολή στο Σιάμ ανεχώρησε την 27η Ιουνίου 1685 από το Μπαντάρ Αμπάς (ένα από τα λιμάνια του Ι΄ράν στον Περσικό Κόλπο) και επέστρεψε την 14η Μαΐου 1988. Η μετάφραση έγινε από την αγγλική έκδοση του John O’Kane, The ship of Sulaiman [by ibn Muhammad Ibrahim], London, Routledge & K. Paul [1972]. Η νεοελληνική έκδοση ακολουθεί την αγγλική στην διάρθρωση του κειμένου σε εισαγωγή, τέσσερα κεφάλαια (‘μαργαριτάρια’) και επιμύθιο. Είναι αναλυτικά σχολιασμένη και επεξηγημένη από τον μεταφραστή. Κυκλοφόρησε ως βιβλίο στις εκδόσεις Στοχαστής το 1993 (368 σελίδες). Το χειρόγραφο βρίσκεται στο Βρεταννικό Μουσείο. Περισσότερα για την αγγλική έκδοση: https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/496059 Σχετικά με το θέμα (σε φαρσί): https://fa.wikifeqh.ir/سفینه_سلیمانی_(کتاب)
Εδώ μπορείτε να κατεβάσετε μία από τις ιρανικές εκδόσεις (σε φαρσί): asmaneketab.ir/product/کتاب-سفینه-سلیمانی-محمدربیع-بن-محمداب/ Εκδόσεις Στοχαστής, Αθήνα 1993 - Stohastis Publishing House, Athens 1993
Iran 2022: Typical Freemasonic-Zionist Proxy War between Ayatollahs and Protestors at the Detriment of the Average Iranians
There is nothing Islamic in the Islamic Republic of Iran except the popular religion (attested in non-Westernized people) and the historical monuments. In Iranian provinces, the Muslim faith is alive, although this is not tantamount to direct support of the Qom / Tehran-based, absurd theological regime, which wastes the national resources in counter-productive manners.
The supporters of the Ayatollahs are mainly concentrated in major cities whereby the advanced technological Westernization produces a terrible ideological clash at the detriment of all Muslims. In the same social environment live also the 'pro-Western' opponents of the Ayatollahs.
Among these three categories of people, the cultural differences are enormous, the diverse purposes are centrifugal, and the socio-behavioral systems are opposite.
I. Traditional believers in Iranian provinces
The majority of the people in the provinces, living either in the villages, the towns and the cities or as nomads, live Islam as a popular religion; they cherish the related moral values, respect their traditions, and experience spirituality as traditional component of their culture. As they are distant from the capital, governance is not their concern. They may well observe the various wrongdoings of the government, but politics is not their affair, and they cannot see a trustworthy opponent anywhere in the horizon. Their attitude is therefore clearly neutral, anything between passive acceptance and passive resistance. I would also add that they are too innocent, too naïve and too benevolent to possibly fathom how their government and regime have been maneuvered by evil foreign forces without even knowing or sensing it. All the same, these people are the true, average Iranians. I would say that they represent ca. 50% of the population.
II. 'Religious' supporters of the Ayatollahs
The people in the cities and the big cities live in great tension; the supporters of the government are very fervent, but they confuse 'theology' with 'religion' and 'politics' with 'governance'. They have lost much of the Iranian culture to the benefit of the technological modernization. They cannot experience the popular religion in the way people customarily do in villages; to them 'religion' means 'rejection of the West' and celebrating the Mawlid un-Nabi today is for them an opportunity to reject the true, existing, evil plans of several Western countries against Iran. This is absurd. Religion is all about a person's contact with God; evil governments, regimes and secret organizations have no place in Faith. You cannot possibly believe a religion only to reject somebody else – however evil he/they may truly be; such an attitude is by all means sheer madness and utter disbelief. But these people cannot see that the hate of the other cannot be possibly associated with one's faith or with an entire nation's religion. Losing their popular religion and traditional culture, they get radicalized, they mistake theology and political ideology for religion, and they become appalling to the 'Westernized' Iranians. These people make big noise, but they do not constitute more than 25% of the entire population. Their success is that they appear to have the support of the silent majority (see previous unit) and they control the totality of the dictatorial mechanisms of the state (this is not typically Iranian: anywhere the state mechanisms are dictatorial).
III. 'Pro-Western' or 'Westernized' Iranians
This population, contrarily to the aforementioned two groups, is not homogeneous. This is critically calamitous to all foreign schemes and plans of utilizing them. This very fact consists also in a major stumbling block in their path to power. However, this situation is nothing new; it became crystal clear in the last years of Reza Pahlavi's reign and in the first years of the Khomeini oligarchical rule. At the time, a sizeable part of this population allied themselves with the supporters of Khomeini. Now they don't make the same mistake again! Leftist Iranians, who studied in Paris only to become Marxist-Leninist or social democrat of ideology, royalists who wish Reza Pahlavi's son to come back and reign, Iranians who lived abroad only to be impacted enough to become anything An-Iranian (the non-Iran is a historical term that goes back to pre-Islamic times), conservative people of the old upper middle class who desire to simply look like Westerners without truly being so, and few truly marginal groups of homosexuals and atheists, materialists and nationalists can be categorized as anti-Ayatollah opposition.
When it comes to this segment of Iranian society, their only chance is to sensitize the silent majority (see Unit I) in case the radicalization of the 'religious' supporters of the regime turns out to appear like brutalization of the rest. This can bring results and this is known to all the enemies of Iran: those who appear 'friendly' nowadays (England) and those who hate the Iranian Civilization that shaped the Western world against their will (Israel) and up to the point that they need to hide it (Vatican, France).
To close this brief introduction, I must say that the fragmentation of this part of the Iranian society is not the major problem that they have. There is a very serious issue, which is not known to most of these people, and still affects them terribly. This fact has to do with their own self-identification and description as 'Pro-Western' or 'Westernized'. Although these people think that they are so, in reality they are not.
Certainly they want to remove their hijab, but they don't want homosexual marriages in Iran.
Certainly they want to have a parliamentarian political system, which looks like that of a European country; but they don't want to pass lawless laws according to which the school teachers will demand from a 'court of Justice' to separate the children from their parents because the latter did not 'explain' to them at the age of 7 that they can change their gender.
Certainly they want to have free alcohol in Iran, but they don't want prostitution, fornication, and adultery, as well as premarital and extramarital relations to be considered as 'legal' activities in Iran.
Certainly they don't want a sectarian decision-making in Iran; but this is only due to their ignorance and lack of understanding of the Western world. What difference at this point would it make to abolish a pseudo-Islamist sectarian decision-making in Iran only to replace it by a Zionist sectarian decision-making?
Who said that Iran must be governed by filthy and criminal dictators, who would 'conclude' (only because they were heavily bribed) that "Iran does not need nuclear weapons", "Russia and China are a threat", "NATO is necessary for regional security" and "UK, France, Canada, Australia, US, New Zealand, and Israel" are 'normal' states?
No one needs beasts like that in Iran!
My simple and straightforward conclusion is that, in spite of all drawbacks and serious mistakes, oversights, and wrongdoings, Iranians do not need, do not want, do not deserve, and will not approve of a regime change geared -not out of love for the (deliberately misrepresented in, and concealed from, the Western world) Iranian nation and civilization but- because of an inhuman, vicious hatred for the holy land of Iran, which proved throughout the ages to be definitely more important than the Roman Empire, let alone South Canaan (fake Israel) and South Balkans (fake Greece).
I have an advice for all Iranian protestors: go to China!
Forget UK and US! These countries are impermissible to exist and they will cease to exist.
It is on this background that I received a comment about one of my articles on Iran, which was first published in 2007. I herewith publish the comment and my response. The old article concerned the Ayatollah regime of Iran and how it functioned to the benefit of Western colonial powers; it can be found here:
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IV. A reader's comment on Western foreign involvement in Iran
Dear Shamsaddin,
With the ongoing social revolution in Iran, I also discovered the historic links between Freemasons and the Shiite clergy. I shall read your document with keen interest.
Best regards
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V. Response about the manifestations in Iran and evil agendas
Thank you for your interest and comment! Unfortunately, this article is an old publication which was first published in the American Chronicle, Buzzle and AfroArticles back in 2007, immediately reproduced in Fravahr, and later republished here. Of course, I did not change my mind over the past 15 years, but the presentation is very brief.
People did/do not understand the nature of Western colonialism and that is why great empires have been decomposed by the Western criminals. The Western world is a composite tyrannical regime ruled by elites that, while expanding worldwide and exploiting the rest of the world, fight against one another: Jesuits, Freemasons and Zionists utilize every resource (i.e. every state) available, and in the process, other countries get destroyed, dismembered and ruined.
What various establishments, empires and kingdoms outside the Western world failed to understand is the following observation. When France became the ally of the Ottoman Empire and England supported Iran, the French and the English interests were protected, whereas Iran and the Ottoman Empire got dissolved. Why? Because both alliances were a scheme and a lie!
When a secret organization like the CIA places an ignorant and worthless soldier atop of a country (like Gamal Abdel Nasser), they also manage to put next to him a driver and a cook who are their own pawns (but the worthless soldier does not know it) and they can kill the 'important person' any time they receive the order to do this.
When Napoleon sent a special envoy to the Qajar Shah to ask permission that French soldiers cross Iran to attack the English criminals in India (and prevent the then forthcoming collapse of the Mughal), the English sent their own agent who managed to poison the French envoy in a public restaurant in Esfahan.
After the English made of a soldier (Reza Khan) the king of Iran (to turn an Oriental Empire into a weak and worthless nationalistic kingdom), they
- first, gave him his ... name (the poor guy did not have a clue what Pahlevi meant),
- second, prepared the opponent of his son {Khomeini was guided by English stooges as to what to study, what to write in his thesis, and what vision of possible 'Islamic' state to compose (the ridiculous Wilayat al Faqih serves only English interests in Islamic countries)}, and
- third, corrupted his son (when he was 'studying' in Switzerland in the 1930s) so that finally he deposed the idiotic Reza Khan, and he ruled until he was deposed too.
Look at this picture! Notice the position of the legs of both persons! It is quite telling - about who the teacher/master and who the pupil/student are!
So, what you call 'social revolution in Iran' is not a social revolution, but a well-prepared (by the Zionists) operation against the pathetic gang of the Ayatollahs who operated (without knowing it) as local stooges of the English Freemasonry. In other words, it is a proxy war between the secret services of England from one side (the silly Iranian government) and from the other side (fake manifestations organized by tele-guided protestors) the secret services of Israel (anti-Netanyahu side) and one part of the US establishment (anti-Trump side).
Today's stupid Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia fail to understand that, after the abolition of the caliphate, there is no Islam. To set up an empire, Muslims do not need the Hadith and the various Madhhab. They need the Art of the Empire. Timur (Tamerlane) is far more important than prophet Muhammad today. Not in order to start fighting stupidly and idiotically (like the idiotic Islamists here and there), but to make sense of Timur's mental skills, faculties, perceptual powers and instantaneous reflexes / reactions. That's why Sharaf al Din Ali Yazdi and his Zafarnameh are more important than the Quran - not as just a reading, but to first study and understand Timur's unmatched strategic capacities and later to reproduce them within the present context against all the enemies of the Islamic world.
The war is imperial, not religious. The Western enemies of the Muslims want to
a) divert all Muslims to fake theologies that have been deliberately and systematically presented to them as 'religion' (i.e. Islam),
b) engulf them in this idiocy, and
c) utilize them for their calamitous agendas.
A fake Mahdi and a fake prophet Jesus have been produced (with microchips in their stupid heads and without knowing it) and they may 'appear' in public, if some evil agendas are successfully advanced.
Who are today's best Muslims?
Putin and Xi Jinping!
The only who block the advance of the evil Western agendas.
Extra readings:
Published before 5 years:
Published before 11 years:
Notice the Al Qaeda Homunculi, the "front office" and the "back office"!
Best wishes for Mawlid un-Nabi,
Best regards,
Shamsaddin
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Download the text in Word doc.:
The Colossi of Memnon at the necropolis of Thebes, Egypt, 1965, during the seasonal flooding of the Nile. Photo by Eliot Elisofon. (Smithsonian)
Educational-Intellectual De-Westernization for Africa: Rejection of the Colonial, Elitist, Racist and Profane European Concepts of 'University' and 'Academy'
In a previous article published under the title "Beyond Afrocentrism: Prerequisites for Somalia to lead African de-colonization and de-Westernization", I expanded on the diverse misconceptions, oversights, errors and problems that existed in the early discourses of the African Afrocentric intellectuals who wanted to liberate Africa from the colonial yoke but did not assess correctly all the levels of colonial penetration and impact, namely spiritual, religious, intellectual, educational, academic, scientific, cultural, socio-behavioral, economic, military and governmental. You can find the article's contents and links to it at the end of the present, second part of the series.
What matters mostly is not the study and the publication of Assyrian cuneiform texts, but the reestablishment of the Ancient Mesopotamian conceptual approach to Medicine as a spiritual-material scientific discipline; "a large collection of texts from the Assyrian healer Kisir-Ashur's family library forms the basis for Assyriologist Troels Pank Arbøll's new book. In the book entitled Medicine in Ancient Assur - A Microhistorical Study of the Neo-Assyrian Healer Kiṣir-Aššur, Arbøll analyses the 73 texts that the healer, and later his apprentices, scratched into clay tablets around 658 BCE. These manuscripts provide an incredibly detailed picture of the elements, which constituted this specific Mesopotamian healer’s education and practice". https://humanities.ku.dk/news/2020/new-book-provides-rare-insights-into-a-mesopotamian-medical-practitioners-education-2700-years-ago/
Contents
Introduction
I. Centers of education, science and wisdom from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Constantinople and Baghdad: total absence of the Western concept of "university"
II. The Western European concept of "university": inextricably linked to the Crusades, colonialism and totalitarianism
III. De-colonization for Africa: rejection of the colonial, elitist and racist concepts of "university" and "academy"
Introduction
As I stated in my previous article, the most erroneous aspects of the African Afrocentric intellectuals' approach were the following:
a) their underestimation of the extremely profound impact that the colonization has had on all dimensions of life in Africa,
b) their failure to identify the compact nature of the colonial system as first implemented in Western Europe, then exported worldwide via multifaceted types of colonization, and finally imposed locally by the criminal traitors and stooges of their Western masters in a most tyrannical manner, and
c) their disregard of the fact that the multilayered colonization project was carried out indeed by the colonial countries in other continents (Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc.) as well, being thus not only an African affair.
To the above, I herewith add another, most crucial, element of the worldwide colonial regime that the African Afrocentric intellectuals failed to identify:
- its indivisibility.
In fact, you cannot possibly think that it is possible to reject even one part of the evil system (example: its Eurocentric pseudo-historical dogma, the promotion of incest and pedophilia, the sophisticated diffusion of homosexuality or another part) while accepting others, namely 'high technology', 'sustainable development', 'politics', 'democracy', 'economic stability', 'human rights', etc. Of course, this relates to the element described in the aforementioned aspect b, but it is certainly very important for all Africans not to make general dreams and not to harbor delusions as regards the Western colonial system that they have to reject as the most execrable and the most criminal occurrence that brought disaster to the Black Continent (and to the rest of the world) for several centuries.
In the present article, I will however stay close to the fundamental educational-academic-intellectual aspects of colonization that African academics, intellectuals, mystics, wise elders, erudite scholars, and spiritual masters have to take into account when considering how to reject and ban from their educational and research centers the colonially imposed pseudo-education and the associated historical forgeries, such as Eurocentrism, Hellenism, Greco-Roman world, Judeo-Christian civilization, etc. In part IV of my previous article, I explained why "Afrocentrism had to encompass severe criticism and total rejection of the so-called Western Civilization". Now, I will take this issue to the next stage.
I. Centers of education, science and wisdom from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Constantinople and Baghdad: total absence of the Western concept of "university"
You cannot possibly decolonize your land and de-Westernize your national education by tolerating the existence of 'universities' on African soil or anywhere else across the Earth. Certainly, this word is alien to all Africans, because it is part of the vocabulary or the barbarian invaders (université, university, etc.), who imposed it without revealing to the African students the racist connotation, which is inherent to this word.
Actually, the central measure taken and the principal practice performed by the inhuman Western colonial masters was the materialization of the evil concept of 'university' and the establishment of such unnecessary and heinous institutions in their colonies. This totalitarian notion was devised first in Western Europe in striking contrast to all the educational, academic, scientific systems that had existed in the rest of the world.
Since times immemorial, and noticeably in Mesopotamia and Egypt before the Flood (24th – 23rd c. BCE), institutions were created to record, archive, study, comprehend, represent, preserve and propagate the spiritual or material knowledge and wisdom in all of their aspects. From the Sumerian, Akkadian and Assyrian-Babylonian Eduba (lit. 'the house where the tablets are completed') and from the Ancient Egyptian Per-Ankh (lit. 'the house of life') to the highest sacerdotal institutions accommodated in the uniquely vast temples of Assyria, Babylonia and Egypt, an undividable method of learning, exploring, assessing, and representing the spiritual and material worlds (or universes) has been attested in numerous texts and documented in the archaeological record.
About Education, Wisdom, and Scientific Research in Ancient Mesopotamia:
About Education, Wisdom, and Scientific Research in Ancient Egypt:
There was no utilitarian approach to learning, studying, exploring, comprehending, representing and propagating knowledge and wisdom; in this regard, the human effort had to fit the destination of Mankind, which was -for all civilized nations- the epitome of all eschatological expectations: the ultimate reconstitution of the original perfection of the First Man.
Learning, studying, exploring, assessing or concluding on a topic, and representing it to others were parts of every man's moral tasks and duties to maintain the Good in their lives and to unveil the Wonders of the Creation. The only benefit to be extracted from these activities was of moral and spiritual order – not material. That is why the endless effort to learn, study, explore, assess, conclude and represent had to be all-encompassing.
The same approach, attitude and mentality was attested among Cushites, Hittites, Aramaeans, Iranians, Turanians, Indians, Chinese and many other Asiatic and African nations. It continued so all the way down to Judean, Manichaean, Mazdaean, Christian, and Islamic times as attested in
a) the Iranian schools, centers of learning, research centers, and libraries of Gundishapur (located in today's Khuzestan, SW Iran), Tesifun (Ctesiphon, also known as Mahoze in Syriac Aramaic and as Al-Mada'in in Arabic; located in Central Mesopotamia), and Ras al Ayn (the ancient Assyrian city Resh-ina, which is also known as Resh Aina in Syriac Aramaic; located in North Mesopotamia);
b) the Aramaean scientific centers and schools of Urhoy (today's Urfa in SE Turkey; which is also known as Edessa of Osrhoene), Nasibina (today's Nusaybin in SE Turkey; which is also known as Nisibis), Mahoze (also known as Seleucia-Ctesiphon), and Antioch;
c) the Ptolemaic Egyptian Library of Alexandria, the Coptic school of Alexandria, and the Deir Aba Maqar (Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great) in Wadi el Natrun (west of the Nile Delta);
d) the Imperial school of the Magnaura (lit. 'the Great Hall') at Constantinople (known in Eastern Roman as Πανδιδακτήριον τῆς Μαγναύρας, i.e. 'the all topics teaching center of Magnaura');
e) the Aramaean 'Workshop of Eloquence', which is also known as the 'Rhetorical school of Gaza' (earlier representing the Gentile tradition and later promoting Christian Monophysitism);
f) the Judean Rabbinic and Talmudic schools and Houses of Learning (בי מדרשא/Be Midrash) that flourished in Syria-Palestine (Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai) and in Mesopotamia (Nehardea, Pumbedita, Mahoze, etc.); and
g) the Islamic schools (madrasas), centers of learning, research centers, observatories, and libraries of Baghdad (known as House of Wisdom - Bayt al Hikmah/بيت الحكمة), Harran (in North Mesopotamia, today's SE Turkey), al-Qarawiyyin (جامعة القرويين; in Morocco), Kairouan (جامع القيروان الأكبر; in Tunisia), Sarouyeh (سارویه; near Isfahan in Iran), Maragheh (مراغه; in NW Iran), Samarqand (in Central Asia), and the numerous Nezamiyeh (النظامیة) schools in Iran, Caucasus region, and Central Asia, to name but a few.
About Iranian, Aramaean, Judean, and Christian schools, centers of learning, research centers, and libraries:
About Islamic schools (madrasas), centers of learning, research centers, observatories, and libraries:
All these centers of learning did not develop the absurd distinction between the spiritual and material worlds that characterizes the modern 'universities' which were incepted in Western Europe. Irrespective of land, origin, language, tradition, culture and state, all these temples, schools, madrasas, observatories, and libraries included well-diversified scientific methods, cosmogonies, world perceptions, approaches to life, interpretations of facts, and considerations of data. Sexagesimal and decimal number systems were accepted and used; lunar, solar and lunisolar calendars were studied and evaluated; astronomy and astrology (very different from their modern definition and meaning which is the result of the Western pseudo-scientific trickery) were inseparable, whereas chemistry and alchemy constituted one discipline. These true and human centers of knowledge and wisdom were void of sectarianism and utilitarianism.
Viewed as moral tasks, search, exploration and study, pretty much like learning and teaching constituted inextricably religious endeavors. Furthermore, there was absolute freedom of reflection, topic conceptualization, data contextualization, text interpretation, and conclusion, because there were no diktats of theological or governmental order.
In brief, throughout World History, there were centers of learning, houses of knowledge, libraries, centers of scientific exploration, all-inclusive schools, but no 'universities'.
II. The Western European concept of "university": inextricably linked to the Crusades, colonialism and totalitarianism
Western European and North American historians attempt to expand the use of the term 'university' and cover earlier periods; this fact may have already been attested in some of the links that I included in the previous unit. However, this attempt is entirely false and absolutely propagandistic.
The malefic character of the Western European universities is not revealed only in the deliberate, absurd and fallacious separation of the spiritual sciences from the material sciences and in the subsequently enforced elimination of the spiritual universe from every attempt of exploration undertaken within the material universe. Yet, the inseparability of the two universes was the predominant concept and the guiding principle for all ancient, Judean, Christian, Manichaean, Mazdaean, and Islamic schools of learning.
One has to admit that there appears to be an exception in this rule, which applies to Western universities as regards the distinction between the spiritual and the material research; this situation is attested only in the study of Christian theology in Western European universities. However, this sector is also deprived of every dimension of spiritual exercise, practice and research, as it involves a purely rationalist and nominalist approach, which would be denounced as entirely absurd, devious and heretic by all the Fathers of the Christian Church. As a matter of fact, rationalism, nominalism and materialism are forms of faithlessness.
All the same, the most repugnant trait of the Western European universities is their totalitarian and inhuman nature. In spite of tons of literature written about the so-called 'academic freedom', the word itself, its composition and etymology, fully demonstrate that there is not and there cannot be any freedom in the Western centers of pseudo-learning, which are called 'universities'. The Latin word 'universitas' did not exist at the times of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, and the Western Roman Empire. The nonsensical term was not created in the Eastern Roman Empire where the imperial center of education, learning, and scientific research was wisely named 'Pandidakterion', i.e. 'the all topics teaching center'.
The first 'universitas' was incepted long after the anti-Constantinopolitan heretics of Rome managed to get rid of the obligation to accept as pope of Rome the person designated by the Emperor at Constantinople, which was a practice of vital importance which lasted from 537 until 752 CE.
The first 'universitas' was incepted long after the beginning of the systematic opposition that the devious, pseudo-Christian priesthood of Rome launched against the Eastern Roman Empire, by fallaciously attributing the title of Roman Emperor to the incestuous barbarian thug Charlemagne (800 CE).
Last, the first 'universitas' was incepted long after the first (Photian) schism (867 CE) and, quite interestingly, several decades after the Great Schism (1054 CE) between the Eastern Roman Empire and the deviate and evil Roman papacy.
In fact, the University of Bologna ('Universitas Bononiensis'; in Central Italy) was established in 1088 CE, only eight (8) years before the First Crusade was launched in 1096 CE.
It is necessary for all Africans to come to know the historic motto of the terrorist organization that is masqueraded behind the deceitful title "University of Bologna': "Petrus ubique pater legum Bononia mater" (: St. Peter is everywhere the father of the law, Bologna is its mother). This makes clear that these evil institutions (universities) were geared to function worldwide as centers of propagation and imposition of the lawless laws and the inhuman dogmas of the Western European barbarians.
At this point, we have to analyze the real meaning and the repugnant nature of the monstrous word. Its Latin etymology points to the noun 'universus', which is formed from 'uni-' (root of the Genitive 'unius' of the numeral 'unus', which means 'one') and from 'versus' (past participle of the Latin verb 'verto', which in the infinitive form 'vertere' means 'to turn'). Consequently, 'universus' means forcibly 'turned into one'. It goes without saying that, if the intention is to mentally-intellectually turn all the students into one, there is not and there cannot be any freedom in those malefic institutions.
'Universitas' is therefore the inauspicious location whereby 'all are turned into one', inevitably losing their identity, integrity, originality, singularity and individuality. In other words, 'universitas' was conceived as the proper word for a monstrous factory of mental, intellectual, sentimental and educational uniformity that produces copies of dehumanized beings that happen to have the same, prefabricated world views, ideas, opinions, beliefs and systematized 'knowledge'. In fact, the first 'students' of the University of Bologna were the primary industrial products in the history of mankind. Speaking about 'academic freedom' and charters like the Constitutio Habita were then merely the ramifications of an unmatched hypocrisy.
To establish a useful parallel between medieval times in Western Europe and modern times in North America, while also bridging the malefic education with the malignant governance of the Western states, I would simply point out that the evil, perverse and tyrannical institution of 'universities' definitely suits best any state and any government that would dare invent an inhumane motto like 'E pluribus unum' ('out of many, one). This is actually one of the two main mottos of the United States, and it appears on the US Great Seal. It reflects always the same sickness and the same madness of diabolical uniformity that straightforwardly contradicts every concept of Creation.
One may still wonder why, at the very beginning of the previous unit, I referred to "the racist connotation, which is inherent to" the word 'universitas'; the answer is simple. By explicitly desiring to "turn all (the students) into one", the creators of these calamitous institutions and, subsequently, all the brainless idiots, who willingly accepted to eliminate themselves spiritually and intellectually in order to become uniformed members of those 'universities', denied and rejected the existence of the 'Other', i.e. of every other culture, civilization, world conceptualization, moral system of values, governance, education, and approach to learning, knowledge and wisdom.
The evil Western structures of tyrannical pseudo-learning did not accept even the 11th c. Western European Christians and their culture an faith; they accepted only those among them, who were ready (for the material benefits that they would get instead) to undergo the necessary process of irrevocable self-effacement in order to obtain a filthy piece of paper testifying to their uniformity with the rest. Western universities are the epitome of the most inhuman form of racism that has ever existed on Earth.
As a matter of fact, there is nothing African, Asiatic, Christian, Islamic or human in a 'university'. If this statement was difficult to comprehend a few centuries or decades ago, it is nowadays fully understandable.
III. De-colonization for Africa: rejection of the colonial, elitist and racist concepts of "university" and "academy"
It is therefore crystal clear that every new university, named after the Latin example and conceived after the Western concept, only worsens the conditions of colonial servility among African, Asiatic and Latin American nations. As a matter of fact, more Western-styled 'universities' and 'academies' mean for Africa more compact subordination to, and more comprehensive dependence on, the Western colonial criminals.
It is only the result of pure naivety or compact ignorance to imagine that the severe educational-academic-intellectual damage, which was caused to all African nations by the colonial powers, will or can be remedied with some changes of names, titles, mottos and headlines or due to peremptory modifications of scientific conclusions. If I expanded on the etymology and the hidden, real meaning of the term 'universitas', it is only because I wanted to reveal its perverse nature. But merely a name change would not suffice in an African nation's effort to achieve genuine decolonization and comprehensive de-Westernization.
Universities in all the Arabic-speaking countries have been called 'Jamaet' (or Gamaet; جامعة); the noun originates from the verb 'yajmaC ' (يجمع), which means collecting or gathering (people) together. At this point, it is to be reminded that the word has great affinity with the word 'mosque' (جامع; JamaC) in Arabic. However, one has to take into consideration the fact that the mere change of name did not cause any substantive differentiation in terms of nature, structure, approach to science, methods used, and moral character of the overall educational system.
Other vicious Western terms of educational nature that should be removed from Africa, Asia and Latin America are the word 'academy' and its derivatives; this word denoted initially in Western Europe 'a society of distinguished scholars and artists or scientists'. Later, in the 16th-17th c., those societies were entirely institutionalized. For this reason, since the beginning of the 20th c., the term 'academia' was coined to describe the overall academic environment or a specific independent community active in the different fields of research and education. More recently, 'academy' ended up signifying any simple place of study or training company.
As name, nature, contents, structure and function, 'academy' is definitely profane; in its origin, it had a markedly impious character, as it was used to designate the so-called 'school of philosophy' that was set up by Plato, who vulgarized knowledge and desecrated wisdom. In fact, this philosopher did not only fail to pertinently and comprehensively study in Ancient Egypt where he sojourned (in Iwnw; Heliopolis), but he also proved to be unable to grasp that there is no knowledge and no wisdom outside the temples, which were at the time the de facto high centers of spiritual and material study, learning, research, exploration and comprehension. He therefore thought it possible for him to 'teach' (or discuss with) others despite the fact that he had not proficiently studied and adequately learned the wisdom and the spiritual potency of the Ancient Egyptian Iwnw (Heliopolitan) hierophants and high priests.
Being absolutely incompetent to become a priest of the sanctuary of Athena at the suburb 'Academia' of Athens, he gathered his group of students at a location nearby, and for this reason his 'school' was named after that neighborhood. It is noteworthy that the said suburb's name was due to a legendary figure, Akademos (Ακάδημος; Academus), who was mythologized in relation with the Theseus legends of Ancient Athens. Using the term 'school' for Plato's group of friends and followers is really abusive, because it did not constitute an accredited priestly or public establishment.
In fact, all those, absurdly eulogized, 'Platonic seminars' were informal gatherings of presumptuous, arrogant, wealthy, parasitic and idiotic persons, who thought it possible to become spiritually knowledgeable and portentous by pompously, yet nonsensically, discussing about what they could not possibly know. It goes without saying that this disgusting congregation of immoral beasts found it quite normal to possess numerous slaves (more than their family members), consciously practiced pedophilia and homosexuality, and viewed their wives as 'things' in a deprecatory manner unmatched even by the Afghan Taliban. This nauseating and execrable environment is at the origin of vicious term 'academy'. And this environment is the target of today's Western elites.
Consequently, any use of the term 'academy' constitutes a straightforward rejection of the sacerdotal, religious and spiritual dimension of knowledge and wisdom, in direct opposition to what was worldwide accepted among civilized nations with great temples throughout the history of mankind. In fact, the appearance of what is now called 'Ancient Greek Philosophy' was an exception in World History, which was due to the peripheral and marginal location of Western Anatolia and South Balkans with respect to Egypt, Cush, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Iran. In brief, the Ancient Greek philosophers (with the exception of very few who were true mystics and spiritual masters and therefore should not be categorized as 'philosophers') failed to understand that, by exploring the world only mentally and verbally (i.e. by just thinking and talking), no one can sense, describe, and represent (to others) the true nature of the worlds, namely the spiritual and the material universes.
Plato and his pupils (his 'school' or 'academy') were therefore ordinary individuals who attempted to 'prove' orally what cannot be contained in words and cannot be comprehended logically but contemplatively and transcendentally. All the Platonic concepts, notions, ideas, opinions and theories are maladroit and failed efforts to explain the Iwnw (Heliopolitan) religion of Ancient Egypt (also known among the Ancient Greeks as the 'Ennead'). But none of them was able to perform even a minor move of priestly potency or any transcendental act.
Furthermore, I have to point out that the absurd 'significance' that both, the so-called Plato's school and 'Ancient Greek Philosophy', have acquired in the West over the past few centuries is entirely due to the historical phenomenon of Renaissance that characterized 15th-16th c. Western Europe. But this is an exception even within the context of European History. Actually, the Roman ruler Sulla destroyed the Platonic Academy in 86 BCE; this was the end of the 'Academy'. Several centuries later, some intellectuals, who were indulging themselves in repetition, while calling themselves 'successors of Plato', opened (in Athens) another 'Academy', which was erroneously described by modern Western university professors as 'Neo-Platonic'. All the same, the Roman Emperor Justinian I the Great put an irrevocable end to that shame of profanity and nonsensical talking (529 CE).
The revival of the worthless institution that had remained unknown to all Christians started, quite noticeably, little time after the fall of Constantinople (1453); in 1462, the anti-Christian banker, statesman and intellectual Cosimo dei Medici established the Platonic Academy of Florence to propagate all the devilish and racist concepts of the Renaissance and praise the worthless institution that had been forgotten.
I recently explained why the Western European Renaissance and the colonial conquests are an indissoluble phenomenon of extremely racist nature; here you can find the links to my articles:
It becomes therefore crystal clear that Africa does not need any more Western-styled universities and academies; contrarily, there is an urgent need for university-level centers of knowledge and wisdom, which will overwhelmingly apply African moral concepts, values and virtues to the topics studied and explored. Learning was always an inextricably spiritual, religious, and cultural affair in Africa. No de-colonization will be effectuated prior to the reinstallation of African educational values across Africa' s schools.
Consequently, instead of uselessly spending money for the establishment of new 'universities' and 'academies', which only deepen and worsen Africa's colonization, what the Black Continent needs now is a new type of institution that will help prepare African students to study abroad in specifically selected sectors and with pre-arranged determination and approach, comprehend and reject the Western fallacy, and replace the Western-styled universities with new, genuinely African, educational institutions. Concerning this topic, I will offer few suggestions in my forthcoming article.
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Beyond Afrocentrism: Prerequisites for Somalia to lead African de-colonization and de-Westernization
Introduction
I. Decolonization and the failure of the Afrocentric Intelligentsia
II. Afrocentric African scholars should have been taken Egyptology back from the Western Orientalists and Africanists
III. Western Usurpation of African Heritage must be canceled.
IV. Afrocentrism had to encompass severe criticism and total rejection of the so-called Western Civilization
V. Afrocentrism as a form of African Isolationism drawing a line of separation between colonized nations in Africa and Asia
VI. General estimation of the human resources, the time, and the cost needed
VII. Decolonization means above all De-Anglicization and De-Francization
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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
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.
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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
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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
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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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Κατεβάστε την αναδημοσίευση σε Word doc.:
https://vk.com/doc429864789_619584124
https://www.docdroid.net/ZOuHf4E/h-zoi-sto-lorestan-kai-oi-lori-toy-mesoy-zaghroy-tis-oroseiras-poy-khorizei-irak-kai-iran-docx
https://www.slideshare.net/MuhammadShamsaddinMe/ss-250586176
https://issuu.com/megalommatis/docs/life_in_lorestan.docx
King Lear performed in the fire-damaged ruins of Teatro Municipal de Lima (c. 1999), conceived by architect Luis de Longhi
Από τον Αφρασιάμπ στον Μιρζιγιόγιεφ: το Ουζμπεκιστάν Επίκεντρο Επενδύσεων στον Νέο Δρόμο του Μεταξιού
From Afrasiab to Mirziyoyev: Uzbekistan as the Epicenter of Foreign Investment in the New Silk Road
ΑΝΑΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ ΑΝΕΝΕΡΓΟ ΜΠΛΟΓΚ “ΟΙ ΡΩΜΙΟΙ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΤΟΛΗΣ”
Το κείμενο του κ. Νίκου Μπαϋρακτάρη είχε αρχικά δημοσιευθεί την 16η Απριλίου 2019. Ο κ. Μπαϋρακτάρης παρουσιάζει στοιχεία, προσεγγίσεις και επισημάνσεις από τμήμα διάλεξής μου, η οποία δόθηκε στο Καζακστάν τον Ιανουάριο του 2019 σχετικά με τους αρχαίους και νέους Δρόμους του Μεταξιού, την Κεντρική Ασία, και την αξία της ως κομβικού σημείου της Παγκόσμιας Οικονομίας.
---------------------------
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/από-τον-αφρασιάμπ-στον-μιρζιγιόγιεφ-τ/ ===============
Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής – Greeks of the Orient
Ρωμιοσύνη, Ρωμανία, Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία
Ανάμεσα στις πέντε παλιές σοβιετικές κεντρασιατικές (Ουζμπεκιστάν, Καζακστάν, Τουρκμενιστάν, Κιργιζία και Τατζικιστάν), η χώρα των Ογούζων (Ογούζ και Ουζ) Τούρκων είναι αναμφίβολα η κεντρική δύναμη.
Χρειάστηκε να χρησιμοποιήσει όλη του την ευφυΐα ο ιδρυτής και πρώην πρόεδρος του Καζακστάν Νουρσουλτάν Ναζαρμπάγιεφ, ώστε να ανατραπεί αυτό το δεδομένο.
Ο Αφρασιάμπ σε απεικόνιση χειρογράφου
Και χρειάστηκε επίσης να ακολουθήσει τον δρόμο της απομόνωσης και της υπανάπτυξης ο επί 25 χρόνια (1991 – 2016) πρώην πρόεδρος του Ουζμπεκιστάν, Ισλάμ Καρίμοφ, ώστε να μετατραπεί το Καζακστάν στην μεγαλύτερη και πιο αναπτυγμένη κεντρασιατική οικονομία. Μετά την άνοδο του πρώην πρωθυπουργού Σεφκάτ Μιρζιγιόγιεφ (Shavkat Mirziyoyev) στην προεδρία του Ουζμπεκιστάν, η Τασκένδη άρχισε την προσπάθεια να προλάβει τον βόρειο γείτονα από κάθε άποψη.
Σεφκάτ Μιρζιγιόγιεφ
Η αλήθεια είναι ότι, αν και με μικρότερη έκταση (450000 τχ αντί 2750000 τχ), το Ουζμπεκιστάν έχει διπλάσιο πληθυσμό του Καζακστάν (35 εκ. έναντι 18 εκ.). Αυτά τα δεδομένα δεν δίνουν την πλήρη εικόνα ωστόσο.
Πρέπει να προστεθεί ότι στο Ουζμπεκιστάν οι Ουζμπέκοι αποτελούν το 84% του πληθυσμού, ενώ στο Καζακστάν οι Καζάκοι δεν ξεπερνάνε το 66% του πληθυσμού της χώρας). Το Ουζμπεκιστάν έχει σχεδόν τον ίδιο πληθυσμό με το Αφγανιστάν – το κατ’ εξοχήν παράδειγμα προς αποφυγήν στην περιοχή.
Ισλάμ Καρίμοφ: 25 χρόνια απραγίας, κεντρικού ελέγχου κι απομονωτισμού
Εξάλλου, ιστορικά, στην τεράστια έκταση από την Κασπία Θάλασσα μέχρι το Ξιάν, την πιο σημαντική αυτοκρατορική πρωτεύουσα της Κίνας, ο χώρος που επέχει σήμερα το Ουζμπεκιστάν αποτελεί τον πιο κεντρικό πολιτισμικά χώρο.
Στην επικράτεια της Τασκένδης περιλαμβάνονται εκτάσεις της Βακτριανής (που αντιστοιχεί κυρίως με το βόρειο Αφγανιστάν), της Σογδιανής, των Τοχάρων (Τούρκων γνωστών ως Γιουεζί στα κινεζικά κείμενα που έστησαν την αυτοκρατορία του Κουσάν), και της Υπερωξειανής (των εκτάσεων ανατολικά του Ώξου).
Και στα ισλαμικά χρόνια καμμιά άλλη κεντρασιατική χώρα δεν ανέπτυξε παγκοσμίως κορυφαία πολιτισμικά κέντρα τόσο σημαντικά όσο η Σαμαρκάνδη, η Μπουχάρα ή η Χίβα.
Ανάμεσα στην Κασπία και την Ανατολική Σιβηρία, το μόνο πολιτισμικό αντίβαρο στο Ουζμπεκιστάν ήταν το Ανατολικό Τουρκεστάν (δηλαδή η τεράστια βορειοδυτική επαρχία Σινκιάν της σημερινής Κίνας): οι Ουϊγούροι είναι άλλωστε το πιο κοντινό φύλο στους Ουζμπέκους, όπως η πρώτη συλλαβή των δυο εθνικών ονομάτων εμφαντικά δείχνει.
Δίπλα τους οι Τουρκμένοι ή οι Κιργίζιοι ή οι Καζάκοι δείχνουν λίγο ‘χωριάτες’.
Ακόμη και σήμερα, όπου και να βρεθεί κάποιος στην Κεντρική Ασία εκτός του Ουζμπεκιστάν, στην Αλμάτυ (την παλιά πρωτεύουσα του Καζακστάν) ή στην Νουρσουλτάν (όπως πλέον λέγεται η νέα πρωτεύουσα του Καζακστάν, γνωστή μέχρι προ τινος ως Αστάνα στα ρωσσικά και Αστανά στα καζακικά), στην Ασγκαμπάτ (Τουρκμενιστάν) ή στην Μπισκέκ (Κιργιζία), στην Ντουσαμπέ (Τατζικιστάν) ή στην Καμπούλ (Αφγανιστάν), πολιτισμός σημαίνει (ανάμεσα σε πολλά άλλα) κορυφαία μαγειρική, και αναμφίβολα όλοι θα τρέξουν σε ένα ‘ουζμπεκικό εστιατόριο’.
Και με το δίκιο τους.
Αντίθετα από το Καζακστάν που απέκτησε την νέα πρωτεύουσά του στα τέλη του 20ου αιώνα, το Ουζμπεκιστάν την απέκτησε στις αρχές του αιώνα!
Η Τασκένδη έγινε το 1918 πρωτεύουσα της Αυτόνομης ΣΣΔ του Τουρκεστάν, επειδή η Σαμαρκάνδη, αν και απείρως πιο σημαντική, είχε θεωρηθεί περισσότερο ως τόπος ισλαμικών αναμνήσεων κι αντίδρασης στο τότε νεοπαγές σοβιετικό καθεστώς.
Ό,τι ήταν η Άγκυρα για την Τουρκία του Κεμάλ Ατατούρκ, ήταν η Τασκένδη για το σοβιετικό καθεστώς.
Ωστόσο, η Τοσκέντ (Ташкент / Toshkent) έχει μια μεγάλη ιστορία και ως Λίθινος Πύργος αναφέρεται από τον Πτολεμαίο Γεωγράφο ως καθοριστικό σημείο στους αρχαίους δρόμους του Μεταξιού (και ως Turris Lapidea από τους Ρωμαίους ιστορικούς και γεωγράφους).
Οι Δρόμοι του Μεταξιού ήταν ένα περίπλοκο σύστημα εναλλακτικών δρόμων διά ξηράς και δι’ ερήμου που συνέδεαν την Μεσοποταμία με την Κίνα ακόμη και σε πρώιμες εποχές, τότε που δεν είχαν αναπτυχθεί ως πολιτισμοί οι Χιττίτες, οι Χαναανίτες κι οι Μυκηναίοι της 2ης προχριστιανικής χιλιετίας ή οι Φοίνικες, οι Έλληνες, οι Ρωμαίοι, οι Πέρσες κι οι Ινδοί της 1ης προχριστιανικής χιλιετίας.
Ευρήματα κι ανασκαφές στο Τεπέ Σιάλκ του σημερινού βόρειου Ιράν δείχνουν ότι Σουμέριοι κι Ελαμίτες της 4ης προχριστιανικής χιλιετίας και των αρχών της 3ης προχριστιανικής χιλιετίας βρίσκονταν ήδη σε ανταγωνισμό για το ποιος θα ελέγξει τον διά της Κεντρικής Ασίας δρόμο προς την Κίνα.
Ο ανταγωνισμός στο ελεύθερο εμπόριο έφερε τους πολλούς εναλλακτικούς δρόμους. Σχετικά:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tepe_Sialk
Μετά τα αχαιμενιδικά χρόνια και την σύσταση από το Ιράν της πρώτης πραγματικά αχανούς αυτοκρατορίας από τα Βαλκάνια και την Ουκρανία μέχρι το Σουδάν κι από την Μεσόγειο μέχρι τα δυτικά άκρα του Ανατολικού Τουρκεστάν και την Βόρεια Ινδία, δόθηκε η δυνατότητα για ακόμη περισσότερους εναλλακτικούς δρόμους, εφόσον για πρώτη φορά αναμείχθηκαν οι χερσαίοι Δρόμοι του Μεταξιού με τους διά ξηράς, ερήμου και θαλάσσης Δρόμους των Μπαχαρικών και των Αρωμάτων (: λιβανωτών).
Όλοι οι πολιτισμοί που αναπτύχθηκαν στην Κεντρική Ασία σχετίσθηκαν με το Εμπόριο μεταξύ Δύσης και Ανατολής, και όσο οι αιώνες κι οι χιλιετίες περνούσαν, τόσο οι δρόμοι μεγάλωναν και οι απολήξεις του εμπορίου κατέληξαν να είναι τα ευρωπαϊκά και βορειο-αφρικανικά παράλια του Ατλαντικού στην μια περίπτωση και τα κινεζικά, ινδοκινεζικά κι ινδονησιακά παράλια του Ειρηνικού στην άλλη.
Σήμερα, η νέα πολιτική ηγεσία του Ουζμπεκιστάν έχει πάρει και ήδη εφαρμόζει την απόφαση εκμετάλλευσης προς όφελος της χώρας του τεράστιου κινεζικού προγράμματος Νέοι Δρόμοι του Μεταξιού (New Silk Road), γνωστού και ως The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ή και One Belt One Road (OBOR).
Και αυτό έχει ήδη σημειωθεί από πολλούς επενδυτές σε πολλά μήκη και πλάτη της γης.
Σημειώνεται πλέον διεθνώς το Ουζμπεκιστάν ως προτιμώμενη χώρα για επενδύσεις σε πολλούς και ποικίλους τομείς.
Η επενδυτική ομάδα του σάιτ http://www.sovereignman.com μόλις σήμερα δημοσίευσε τις σχετικές δραστηριότητές της ενόψει μιας γενικώτερης στροφής των ιδρυτών και των συνεταίρων της προς την ανερχόμενη κεντρασιατική χώρα.
Δεν είναι η μόνη περίπτωση αλλά είναι ενδεικτική. Στο τέλος του κειμένου αναδημοσιεύω το σημερινό newsletter τους.
Έτσι, η εξαιρετική, φιλελεύθερη, οικονομική πολιτική του Σεφκάτ Μιρζιγιόγιεφ τον έχει μετατρέψει σε ένα νέο Αφρασιάμπ.
Αυτό το όνομα είναι το ιστορικό τουρκικό όνομα της Σαμαρκάνδης.
Αλλά είναι επίσης το όνομα του κορυφαίου Τουρανού ήρωα του ιρανικού έπους Σαχναμέ που συνέγραψε τον 10ο αιώνα ο Φερντοουσί.
Μένει να αποδειχθεί κατά πόσον θα μπορέσει ο νέος Αφρασιάμπ να φθάσει και να ξεπεράσει τον βαθμό οικονομικής ανάπτυξης και προόδου του γειτονικού Καζακστάν.
Για όσους ξέρουν την Κεντρική Ασία, όλα τα στοιχήματα είναι ανοικτά.
Τοιχογραφία από την Αφρασιάμπ στα χρόνια του Βαρχουμάν, βασιλιά της Σογδιανής γύρω στο 650 μ.Χ.
Σας προτείνω να ενημερωθείτε πριν ξαφνικά ακούσετε ότι η Τασκένδη είναι το δεύτερο κεντρασιατικό Ντουμπάι μετά την Νουρσουλτάν!
Οι εξελίξεις θα είναι τάχιστες – κάπως σαν τα κινεζικά τραίνα που θα εκμηδενίσουν την απόσταση ανάμεσα στην Κεντρική Ευρώπη και τα ασιατικά παράλια του Ειρηνικού.
Διαβάστε:
Strategic partnership between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in context of region-wide development of Central Asia
https://astanatimes.com/2019/04/strategic-partnership-between-uzbekistan-and-kazakhstan-in-context-of-region-wide-development-of-central-asia/ (του Αμπντουλαζίζ Καμίλοφ, υπουργού Εξωτερικών του Ουζμπεκιστάν / 5-4-2019)
Uzbekistan Re-Energizing as Central Asia’s Traditional Hub for the Silk Belt and Road
https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2018/07/05/uzbekistan-re-energizing-central-asias-traditional-hub-silk-belt-road/
Silk Road Fund to support Uzbek oil and gas projects
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201806/09/WS5b1bd84fa31001b82571f188.html
This is the Right Time to invest in Uzbekistan
https://www.chuhai.edu.hk/sites/default/files/MrKhamraevUZAF.pdf
Uzbekistan’s investment program for 2019 includes projects $ 16.6B
https://www.azernews.az/region/143757.html
https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2019/04/15/silk-road-development-weekly-april-15-2019/
Γενικώτερα:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbekistan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavkat_Mirziyoyev
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_Karimov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tashkent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan
http://www.uzbekembassy.in/presentation-of-the-project-on-the-great-silk-road-pearls-of-uzbekistan-in-almaty/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
Ιστορικά:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Tower_(Ptolemy)
https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/countries-alongside-silk-road-routes/uzbekistan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocharians
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuezhi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactria
https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Asia201/links201.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogdia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transoxiana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarkand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrasiyab_(Samarkand)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrasiab
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdowsi
Ταξιδιωτικά:
https://caravanistan.com/transport/train/
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Astonishing opportunities in one of the oldest cities in the world
By the time Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army conquered the city of Samarkand in 329 BC, the city had already existed for centuries.
Samarkand had been a prominent, vibrant regional capital in the Persian Empire prior to the Macedonians’ arrival.
And under Alexander the city flourished even more. He declared it one of the most majestic places he had ever been, and the city served as a critical outpost for his conquests in the region.
Even after Alexander’s death and the fall of the Macedonians, Samarkand retained its influence, serving for centuries as the epicenter of the trade between Eastern Asia and Europe.
It was conquered by a succession of Turks, Persians and Mongols before falling under the serfdom of Imperial Russia, and then the Soviet Union.
And after the fall of the USSR, Samarkand became part of Uzbekistan.
Granted, a lot of people don’t have a clue where Uzbekistan is, or much less care. But I’ll tell you– the country is on the verge of some very exciting (and rapid) changes.
Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan had been ruled by a corrupt dictator who isolated the country from the rest of the world.
(I know it’s hard to imagine a former Soviet republic being ruled by a corrupt dictator… but bear with me.)
His name was Islam Karimov. And, coincidentally, he died on September 2, 2016– exactly 25 years to the day that he initially took office as the first President of Uzbekistan in 1991.
After Karimov’s death, there was some speculation that his successor (Shavkat Mirziyoyev) would engage in the same corrupt, isolationism.
That turned out to be wrong.
President Mirziyoyev surprised everyone by establishing free-market reforms, floating the currency, and opening up the country to foreign investment.
I’ve been following the changes in the country over the past few years, and what I’m seeing is quite exciting.
Uzbekistan recently issued its first local hard currency bond – and it was multiple times oversubscribed.
So last month, I sent one of my top analysts over to the capital Tashkent to have a look at how we could get in on the ground floor of this change.
And his verdict is clear: Uzbekistan is ripe with opportunities.
The export sector is booming, due primarily to rock bottom labor costs and a government willing to play ball. So there are a lot of companies that are setting up manufacturing operations in the country.
And due to how isolated Uzbekistan had been for the past 25+ years, there are a lot of new products and services available in the local market for the first time ever.
It’s a bit like Myanmar– that country was isolated for decades, and its people had never even seen Coca Cola up until a few years ago.
Uzbekistan is in a similar position (though not as extreme), so a number of foreign products are being imported into the country and selling like hotcakes.
And for investors, valuations are quite inexpensive.
My analyst toured a number of companies (including some listed on the local stock market) and was amazed to find profitable, rapidly-growing, well-managed businesses that pay STRONG dividends that are selling for between 2-3 times their net income.
That’s practically unheard of, especially in the West where companies that lose billions of dollars each year trade for record sums.
As an example– one company my analyst looked at was in agriculture production.
Investors are currently able to buy shares at less than 3x earnings. And the company just landed a new deal with a large Russian conglomerate that will 10x their revenue over the next 12-24 months.
Buying this company at three times earnings would be an obvious bargain, especially when accounting for the immediate growth trajectory.
We aren’t just looking at public stocks and private businesses by the way. Newly built commercial real estate yields over 10% net cashflow without a penny of debt financing, there’s a lot of reason to expect prices will grow steadily for years.
There are also very compelling lending opportunities in the country.
When the government floated the currency three years ago, it led to a temporary spike in inflation.
To fight it, the Central Bank raised interest rates to 16%. And that’s where interest rates still sit today. And for businesses and individuals, borrowing rates can often reach 25%!
Naturally, the cost of borrowing money at those rates can be hard to justify for any business, so most transactions are done entirely in cash, without any debt.
Generally, the banking sector is still very underdeveloped, and financing is scarce.
That leaves a huge opportunity for outsiders to provide capital for growing businesses in the country – with sufficient downside protection.
Clearly, it is a unique idea to invest in a country undergoing potentially revolutionary positive changes. But looking at the past, countries that have taken similar steps, like Georgia, the Baltic countries, or even Singapore, have come out way ahead, and greatly rewarded early movers.
I’ll be talking a lot more about Uzbekistan, and what we find there, in the weeks and months to follow.
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/astonishing-opportunities-in-one-of-the-oldest-cities-in-the-world-24951/
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Κατεβάστε την αναδημοσίευση σε Word doc.:
https://www.slideshare.net/MuhammadShamsaddinMe/ss-250693324
https://issuu.com/megalommatis/docs/from_afrasiab_to_mirziyoyev.docx
https://vk.com/doc429864789_621500849
https://www.docdroid.net/CTdD2wM/apo-ton-afrasiamp-ston-mirzighioghief-to-oyzmpekistan-epikentro-ependyseon-ston-neo-dromo-toy-metaksiou-docx
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