The lawyers is shaking in disbelief.
Lucky they don't have to pull him to break his neck and end him sooner.
Lucky he was struggling violently, because he wasn't dying soon enough.
She pulled the stool from under his feet.
"I beg you, madam I beg you let me live", he cried.
"I must see the rope around his neck, I must see the rope around his neck", she was hysterical.
"I beg you madam, I didn't mean to kill him, please pardon me. I am an orphan.", he cried.
"I don't know anything, I don't know, I don't know", she was hysterical.
"I beg you let me live", he cried.
"this is your last chance to pardon and spare his life.", said the guard.
"Please pardon him, please spare his life", chanted in unison 200 gathered outside the notorious prison.
"I know what it is to loose a child", said the mother who had watched his daughter's eye fill with blood.
"I know what it is to loose a child.", said the mother who had received her son's slashed and smashed frozen body a month ago.
"the parents of the victim have given consent to pardon", said the celebrity 5 months ago.
"I killed in self-defense, with a broken bottle, because he attacked me with a knife", had said the 17 year old boy 5 years ago.
...
YOU KNOW WHAT IS SICK??
WHAT IS SICK IS THAT THE FAMILY OF VICTIM WHO WISHED TO TAKE REVENGE WILL HAVE TO PAY HALF OF THE BLOOD MONEY OF Behnoud TO HIS FAMILY! What is sick is that if Behnoud was a woman, she would have cost less to kill. The blood money of women is only half of men. The blood money of religious minorities is only half of the Muslim ones. The blood money of BAhais and Atheists is ZILCH! Killing them opens the doors of heaven!
What is sick is that in case of Akram Mahdavi, it is cheaper to kill her, than to kill her accomplice in crime--who is a man; and therefore, because the family of victim "needs" revenge, they have chosen to kill the cheaper human, the woman!
How I dreaded my Neo-Resistance turning gory ... but I just find it hard to not scream these days ...
If this is Islam, then I will fight to get rid of it ...
CORRECTION: No it is not Islam; it is this BITCH! It's about her EGO ... not even about Islamic penal law ... Apparently the judiciary system has bee trying to get him forgiven ... the BITCH is saying she is "happy" ... FUCK!
41 comments:
Yes Naj, I agree! Anywhere and everywhere on the planet - with Iran first in line! - no more death penalties for anyone anywhere! And no more pre-medieval lawcodes -you'd find the early latin and germanic ones weirdly familiar - no more "cultural relativism" no more religious fundamentalism no more ideological fanaticism no more vendettas no more faide no more thaar no more eye-for-an-eye no more whipping no more torture no more thought-crimes no more show-trials no more thugs no more no more... ENOUGH!!
Parvati,
I am happy that the atrocity of this case, and the media attention it is getting may make other vengeful families think twice.
At least, in Iran, the family of the victim have the right to pardon. Im many places it is entirely in the state's hand. So at least in Iran, there is hope for bottom-up fixing of the system-which is how IRaian society has operated in general. Until Ahmadinejad decided to turn it to a Taliban state!
I think you've got it the wrong way round.
Blood money can be paid in lieu of a punishment. Say person X kills person Y. If it was manslaughter (as opposed to murder), then the family of Y can take blood money as a substitute for physical punishment of X.
The family of Y does not pay to have X punished, that would be illogical - people don't pay to punish a convited criminal.
If you have reason to believe you are correct in this particular case, I would be interested in sources.
Thanks
Anonymous,
I am going to speak to a lawyer in my family to be sure. What I wrote here I heard from a lawyer who was explaining the case of Akram on Radio Zamaane (Saturday).
Speaking of "logic" I presume you think that it is LOGICAL that a woman's life is worth half of a man's?!
(If you do, you remind me of an Ahmadinejadist goon by the name of Pen Name who used to visit this blog and after Ahmadinejadist atrocities disappeared.)
And we call this the 21st Century, how much lower will mankind go?
Dear Naj,
How to console you? One doesn’t know, as I e.g. don’t have to go through what you and other Iranians have to go through, me being a non-Iranian. So I am really not able or perhaps even entitled to comment on what’s happening in Iran.
- ? - ? - ? - ? - ? - ? - ? - ? - ? - ? -
When reading your text, some associations/thoughts crossed my mind,
like:
• Violence, brutality in general:
the Second World War is not that far away. Young people in the USA or in Germany have taken up arms to kill their schoolmates and teachers.
• Religion in general:
Wasn’t religion a very short time ago one of the cornerstones of the bloody fights between Catholics and Protestant in Northern Ireland?
I doubt that it is mainly a particular type of belief, denomination or creed, which makes people behave in a cruel way. Of course, religion plays a role, too, changing with history.
• Islam:
I remember that Pedestrian had translated some grand, marvelous, fantastic, impressive statements made recently by Islamic Iranian theologians; I remember the Iranian former president Khatami, an Islamic theologian, who with his limitless, open, rational thinking, not referring to and needing any particular narrow-minded creed, enchanted people everywhere – one of your readers, Mark Pyruz, quite rightly pointed out that Khatami was the “most under appreciated leader of the IRI. Big opportunities were missed during his administration. Really too bad. “ I remember the uncomparable paragon of civilized conduct, of honesty and democracy, Ajatollah Montazeri.
• Democracy, Republicanism:
It is e.g. also thanks to thinkers in the 17th/18th century like Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau that democracy developed. One of the starting points of democracy was violence.It was notions like
“HOMO HOMINI LUPUS” (a latin phrase meaning "MAN IS A WOLF TO HIS FELLOW MAN") or
“BELLUM OMNIUM CONTRA OMNES” (a Latin phrase meaning "THE WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL")
that – with Hobbes e.g. - were the starting point for the idea of a social contract. Social contract (theories) formed the theoretical basis of democracy/republicanism. According to social contract legitimate state authority must be derived from the consent of the governed The notion of the social contract implies that the people give up some rights to a government or other authority, i.e. only the state has the monopoly of violence, to punish.
Of course, it’s a poor state of things, if a state tries to burden individuals with what is the state’s principal and main duty: to impart neutral, fair justice and punishment in order to prevent private vendettas, in order to prevent this “bellum omnium contra omnes”!
I know that any attempt to console you as a compassionate Iranian citizen is/will be/sound hollow.
So: sincere apologies for my attempt/remarks !
Take care, all the best
German
No I don't think a woman's life is worth less than a man's.
As far as the blood money issue is concerned, my understanding of it is that it is used to support a family economically rather than act as a deterrence or punishment. So if a person is killed, then either the killer is punished, or the punishment is forgiven by the family of the victim. If the punishment is enacted, then it is exactly the same for both sexes, but if the punishment is forgiven, then the family of the victim, in addition to forgiving the killer, have a right to ask for some money because they may have lost an income provider. Both historically and now, men have been the primary earners for the family, so the amount that can be asked of for a man is higher than for a women (who is not required, under sharia law to provide for her family at all). But as I say, it is not a punishment, so there is no value being placed on their respective lives. Islam doesn't place a monetary value on human life, neither male nor female.
FYI, I'm not an advocate of Sharia or Islam in Iranian government, I'm only interested in this from an academic perspective.
I don't know who pen name is, and I'm not an Ahmadinejadist, nor pro-IRI nor anti-IRI, nor even Iranian.
Thanks
German,
Thank you. That I am touched by this case is not only because it has happened in Iran; but because I am unable to understand how an Iranian can do this. We have, by an large, a common set of rules and upbringings that make up our collective culture; and I am unable to understand the violence a woman is capable of--especially because this was not an attempted murder; especially because the boy was defending himself against victim's knife, especially because he was so REMORSEFUL; especially because the boy had begged her; especially because the parents had agreed to spare his life, especially because other mourning mothers were pleading ... it's the shear injustice of this which interacts with what I perceive, live, believe to be the moral character of an Iranian. I just cannot see this in the same light as the historical violence of man against man--this has happened in the country of poets, and BY A WOMAN. If a guard had killed him I would not be this devastated ... a MOTHER has killed a human ... HOW HOW HOW ...
Anonymous,
My sincere apologies. As I said, I will investigate and report back to you. I do trust the source I heard this from and I was very surprised by it this myself. But I am going to look into the details for you; just in case I have missed some nuance--if "nuance" is an applicable word here ...
German,
With all due respect for my friend's introduction of Good-Mullah Bad-Mullahs, I have to brng to your attention that
The atrocities we are talking about today have indeed taken place during the periods when many of these mullahs have had power.
Montazeri is an exception--but Montazeri is also one of those who bestowed us with this crap called "Supremacy of Jurist". What is happening with the mullahcracy is that they can no longer hide--if teh information was not disseminated as broadly as it is now, they can have very well kept their hairy heads inside the sand and acted as if nothing has happened.
Moreover, a lot of these religious leaders are THREATENED by Ahmadinejad because he is challenging their monopoly on power. This is the first time in the IRI that someone is challenging the clergy. If Ahmadinejad was a "just" man, I would have been happy with the demise of clergy, but he is not!
I am sorry, but the mullah type in Iran is fanatic by nature; and their recent statements cannot really make me change my heart about the damage they have done to Iran in the past 100 years.
I often provide my friend with alternative links to remind that not all is nice and rosy with these "opposition" clerics ... sometimes we choose to be silent--just as I chose to be silent about all these crimes in the past four years, because I had to save my country from Bush!
Dear Naj,
thank you for giving me the (highly plausible) background knowledge I am lacking in that respect.
[On the other hand, being surrounded by maniacs - normal state of affairs more or less everywhere, IF there is no death penalty involved - , in particular when living under a sort of "oligarchic tyranny", perhaps sometimes one might be glad to find one specimen of the extremely rare species of a human being endowed with reason and common sense ? I'm not sure]
"Now for something completely different" - as the Monty Python' Flying Circus-guys/lads liked to introduce their comic dramedy-parts:
I sometimes think that people lived in decisively more tolerant "political systems", could pursue their own interests or affairs and were left in peace to a(n) (unimaginable?) higher extent when living in certain periods of the times of the Roman Empire, of the Arsacid Empire, or - long before that - of the Achaemenid Empire,
than in our modern world entirely unjustifiably imagining itself to be "progressive", "modern" and just "better". -
That thought DOES NOT - of course! - HELP ANYBODY, neither you (nor me)!
[It means perhaps only, that technological progress has nothing/not much to do with moral/ethical/humane/societally rational progress/improvement/values.]
It's just - as you once quite correctly skeptically wrote - a "romantic" play of thought(s) on my part!
Thank you very much for your precious blog, in particular i.e.the "education" imparted by you)
All the best
German
Anonymous:
قانون مجازات اسلامي
ماده 209 - هرگاه مرد مسلماني عمدا" زن مسلماني را بكشد محكوم به قصاص است ليكن بايدولي زن قبل از قصاص قاتل نصف ديه مردرابه او بپردازد .
ماده 210 - هرگاه كافر ذمي عمدا" كافر ذمي ديگر را بكشد قصاص ميشود اگرچه پيرو دو دين مختلف باشند و اگر مقتول زن ذمي باشد بايد ولي او قبل از قصاص نصف ديه مرد ذمي را به قاتل بپردازد .
ماده 212 - هرگاه دو يا چند مرد مسلمان مشتركا" مرد مسلماني را بكشند ولي دم مي تواند با اذن ولي امر همه آنها را قصاص كند و در صورتي كه قاتل دو نفر باشند بايد به هر كدام از آنها نصف ديه و اگر سه نفر باشند بايد به هركدام از آنها دو ثلث ديه و اگرچهار نفر باشند بايد به هر كدام از آنها سه ربع ديه را بپردازد و به همين نسبت در افراد بيشتر .
ولي دم مي تواند برخي از شركاي در قتل را با پرداخت ديه مذكور در اين ماده قصاص نمايد و از بقيه شركاء نسبت به سهم ديه اخذ نمايد .
Anonymous:
Yes I was correct before.
The "parents" are the "owners" of the blood. If they want to take revenge, the have to pay for it ...
Women's worth is half ...
If two people have killed; then they can kill both sif they pay half-price for man, and 1/4 price for woman ...
If you want to read about this horendous law go here:
http://www.dadkhahi.net/law/Ghavanin/Ghavanin_Jazaee/gh_mojazat_eslami.htm
I apologize; I cannot translate more ... this affects me in a very non-academic way and i cannot stomach it presently.
TA
don't get too excited buddy! I think the conseratives who tink they are entitled to wiping things like a whole religion off of teh map needs to be wiped themselves as well!
I promote "education" ... not "destruction". And the soft-brained liberals, RIGHLY believe that if you provide the conditions of education then people will choose what is right!
So to summarize: I FULLY TOTALLY DISAGREE with you!
Naj, I can't speak for everybody, but personally, it's not about idolizing anybody or admiring them without remembering the context through which they developed their political identities.
It's just realizing that we come from a very complex society, where everything is layered and multi-dimensional. As one small example, we've spoken about Rafsanjani before: a vile creature by many measures, but still someone who has sacrificed himself during certain periods of our recent history. It would be easy to hate him without end, but to be fair, he has made contributions too. But if I translate his sermon/speech, does that mean i forget the grotesque shit his intelligence minister, Ali Fallahian, set about creating in the ministry - the full horrendous results of which we see today? of course not.
the death penalty for young kids was carried out even before the revolution, at least in Khuzestan it was, where my uncle has been a judge and lawyer for almost four decades now (just retiring). At times when they tried to stop it, the victims' family would sometimes get on their case.
So everything is twisted in a web of tradition, culture, religion, politics ... and the problem is that solving these quandaries also requires complex solutions that address many facets at the same time. That's what makes them so hard.
As for Khodadd88, the main point of that site was to provide "raw material" - that is, there are excellent sites which feature translations and analysis (like yours) - we thought it could be a database of translations. So it's not that we admire these folks in particular, but that the aim of the site was to translate formal documents/letters that come out of Tehran post-election.
Thanks for the link. I'll investigate it further after I learn Persian.
Dear TA,
congratulations to you for your senational discovery of the origin and source of THE EVIL, which can now with convincing certainty allocated to the religion of Islam. Thank you very much for that detection, worthy of a global Sherlock Holmes!
• German Nazi-Fascism:
The “German Christians” (“Deutsche Christen”) were a pressure group and movement within German Protestantism, aligned towards the racist, antisemitic and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism and wishing to make German Protestantism as a whole aligned towards those principles. In the church elections of November 1932, German Christians won two thirds of the vote !!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Christians#Precursors
• Slowakian Fascism:
Jozef Tiso (13 October 1887 – 18 April 1947) was a Slovak politician, who became the fascist leader of the WW II Slovak Republic, a satellite state of Nazi Germany existing between 1939 and 1945. After his study for (Catholic) priesthood, Tiso became an assistant priest in three parishes in today's Slovakia. After brief frontline service as a field curate in World War I, he was appointed as the Spiritual Director of the Catholic Episcopal Nitra seminary for theologians preparing to become priests. From 1921 to 1923, he served as the secretary to the new Slovak bishop of Nitra, Karol Kmeťko, who retained him as a Professor of Theology. Slovakia was a German puppet state. The Slovak People's Party functioned as almost the sole legal political organisation in Slovakia. The Party under Tiso's leadership aligned themselves with Nazi policy on anti-Semitic legislation in Slovakia. Under the anti-Semitic Jewish Code, Jews in Slovakia could not own any real estates or luxury goods, were excluded from public jobs and free occupations, could not participate in sport or cultural events, were excluded from secondary schools and universities, and were required to wear the star of David in public. The Slovak government consentingly cooperated with the Nazis and even somewhat helped coordinate the deportations. In fact, Hitler praised the policy concerning the Jews of Slovakia in a meeting with Tiso in the Klessheim Castle in Salzburg (Ostmark) on 22 April 1942.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jozef_Tiso
• Franquism in Spain: Franco lacked any consistent political ideology other than fierce anti-communism. He initially sought support from what he designated as National syndicalism (nacionalsindicalismo) and the Roman Catholic Church (nacionalcatolicismo). National Catholicism (nacionalcatolicismo) was part of the ideological identity of Francoism, the dictatorial regime with which Francisco Franco governed Spain between 1936 and 1975. Its most visible manifestation was the hegemony that the Catholic Church had in all aspects of public and private life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_under_Franco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacionalcatolicismo
• Military dictatorship in Argentine: The Dirty War (from roughly 1976 to 1983) of the Argentine Military dictatorship against Argentine’s population: Human rights groups estimate that over 30,000 persons became "disappeared" (i. e. arrested and secretly executed without trial) during the 1976–1983 period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War
“When a state legitimates its use of violence against its opposition with an ideology that, among other aspects, refers to the religious character of the nation, this raises questions about the relationship between church and state and between religion and violence. […] In Argentina […] the church hierarchy supported the military dictatorship. [I]n Argentina, there were close connections between the Catholic Church and the military junta, evidenced by the junta’s use of religious propaganda, describing its actions as the defence of the Catholic nation. […]”
http://www.uni-muenster.de/Religion-und-Politik/en/forschung/projekte/d10.html
So long
German
Ped,
I know that intention of Khordad88 or you or me is not idolizing. And of course who is to deny the complexity of things Iranian.
As we have spoken before; what is important is that we are collectively aiming at one goal--to elevate the conditions of life and culture in our society to where it deserves to be. The gap between intellectual richness and intellectual poverty in Iran is to be bridged. My particular beef with the clergy is that they have been the source of much superstition and retard in Iran, and speaking for myself, I am not longer giving them a second chance; I will no longer let them "lead" my country--they can join me, follow me, but they have blown up their chances as leaders and as they have HISTORICALLY proven themselves unreliable allies, then I shall keep them at an arms length.
German:
THANK YOU :)) I how TA gets your sarcasm though :)
Anonymous:
You're welcome. I have asked the Islamic studies of al University to see if a "peer reviewed" translation of the penal code is available. There is an english translation of it.
Dear Naj, dear Pedestrians
Reality is just too complex to do always detailed justice to it.
re religion :
My subjective impression is
a) that a certain religion - like e.g. Christianity or Islam - seems to dominate/is perhaps tendentially dominating society (for a certain period of time); but in reality it is forced to and has necessarily and inevitably to adapt to society and its changing values and "zeitgeist" [spirit of the times] - though this occurs rather and very slowly - if it doesn't want to sink into insignificance. This process is inexorable for any religion,
be it Christianity
[my example: the strict views of the Christian churches changed in the course of time; see the last 300 years in Western Europe e.g.; see even recent, modern times: Catholicism was forced to do so via the last "Vatican Council"],
be it Islam.
This adaptation-process is very hurtful and very tortuous, in particular for the adherents of the respective religion and leads to continuouls quarrels about "who and what is correct 'Catholicism', 'Protestantism', 'Islam'" among the 'faithful'.
b) during the whole of this adaptational process, and that is possibly always and forever, as long as religion is relevant,
religion is - sometimes/often more hurtfully and more tortuously - used as an aid or exploited for political purposes and reasons by people/politicians/parties to help to support their political, basically laicistic aims.
As these two phenomena a) and b) cannot be differentiated really, the world sometimes/often appears to be/is a monkey-cage in a zoo in which we are shut up; the residents of this huge cage look similar or alike, but their level of comprehension, reason, intelligence is - indeed !!! - highly different.
Individuals like Naj, Pedestrian [or perhaps even me] have to find ways to evade and avoid the irregular, but somehow permanent hail and stream of coconuts, flying around, with which the one or other rare - just mentioned - human beings in that cage are continuously bombarded by the overwhelming majority of their (primate) surrounding, i.e. of the primate-residents, the Baboons, the Chimpanzees and the Orang-Utans, of this cage [no insult intended!].
Thus Life seems to be very often nothing else than to find oneself wrong-footed most of the time.
Not finding it necessary that you agree, but hoping not to have insulted any animal conservationist or any society for the prevention of cruelty to animals
remains
with best wishes
German
BTW:
It is a benefit for your readers, that you (Naj and Pedestrian) don't always agree, as only thus the reader becomes familiar with complex Iran.
Your readers - evidence is the majority of the comments - will, as a rule, be able to form their own - thanks to you, complex - opinion on the topics you discuss "on your blogs".
German,
Thanks for your comment. I don't think I like the primate analogy--precisely because animals are not capable of "religion". Religion is a human craft!
I don't have any problem with people practicing some faith--I have problem when people believe in things that are of divine origin. I don't have any problem with a "religion" that is invented by humans to make them adhere to a common goal--I have problem with a religion that is practiced with the savagery of its beduin 1300 years old or Roman 2000 years old logic.
The case in Iran is very specific, it is not an existentialist issue, it is a very practical issue in my view.
And, I don't think Pedestrian and I disagree on anything--as far as I can tell. We are too in a dialogue with eachother; that is not disagreement. we dialogue about different sides of the SAME coin, sometimes, but that doesn't mean we differ.
Of course, you are right !
[independently of shades of seemingly different verbalizations for the same phenomena/situations/facts]
Liebe Naj,
Ausübung von Macht folgt Gesetzmässigkeiten -Und Macht stützt sich auf Geld. Und dieses Spiel braucht moralische und gesetzliche Leitplanken. Warum?
Im Grunde ist das Prinzip einfach. Jeder gesunde Mensch möchte leben.Um leben zu können, muss er zuerst einmal vielerlei Bedrohungen überleben. Dazu braucht er gewisse Ressourchen: Zum Beispiel physischen Schutz vor feindseligen Angriffen. Eine seine Lebensverhältnisen angepasste Aussbildung. Soziale Kompetenzen. Der junge Erwachsene muss sich im Umfeld der menschlichen Gesellschaft sicher bewegen lernen. Dabei muss er Grenzen akzeptieren. Der Mensch ist im Wettbewerb mit seinen Mitmenschen. Dies ist einerseits für seine Entwicklung notwendig, um sich zu etablieren, andererseits hat dies im Erfolgsfall auch den Nebeneffekt, dass er dadurch Einfluss, Geld und also Macht gewinnt. Die Schwelle ist erreicht, wo Geld und Macht erlangen wichtiger werden, als Arbeit am Produkt.
Und: Menschenrechte definieren und gewährleisten kann nur ein moderner, demokratisch kontrollierter Staat mit entsprechenden gesetzlichen Rahmenbedingungen.
Was sind Menschenrechte???
Wenn Menschenrechte geschützt werden sollen, ist die Kontrolle der Macht eine entscheidende Voraussetzung.
Die politische Kultur eines Staates misst sich an der ethnischen Kontrolle seiner Machtsysteme und muss in einem lebendigen politischen Prozess fotwährend entwickelt und definiert werden.
To German: great posts! I feel truly privileged to be part of the dialogue here.
And you're absolutely right that Christianity has gone through the same horrors and convulsions as Islam, also very similar divisions - still extant. There's always been a huge tug-of-war in christianity between the spirit of its Founder - as most notably expressed in the Sermon on the Mount - and the historical churches' accomodations with humanity's most vicious instincts and institutions. And the battle is by no means over yet - the way some American churches in particular have been yet-again "sanctifying" imperialism, perpetual war, torture, money-lust, capitalist exploitation etc etc is more than eloquent!
Anyway, as counterweights to your previous set of dark-side christianity-links, some luminous ones:
On the Protestant side
Niemoller's bio - from an Iranian POV, worth noting how his thinking and action evolved
Quakers
On the Catholic side
Archbishop Oscar Romero
Liberation Theology
Hans Kung
Kung's Toward a Global Ethic" declaration
Liebe Naj,
Dear Naj,
Life works out a pattern on the Tappestry of Time. The threads of hope, of love and grief, of fear and faith sublime-of happiness and bitterness of joy and misery-are stitched into the great diesign of human destiny.
Within so vast a frame, our tiny patch we cannot see. Too close we stand to trace the pattern on the tapestry.....But someday, looking from afar, perhapes we shall behold our little bit of the design; our own small thread of gold.
FRIENDSHIP
Friendship is a spark still glowing
When the fire burns low;
Friendship is a crocus showing
Through the winter snow.
Friendship is the last leaf clinging
to the naked bark;
Friedship is a cricket singing
When the night is dark.
Friendship is a footpath winding
Through a lonely place;
Friendship is a lost child finding
A familiar face.
Friendship is an old man dreaming
Of the happy past;
Friendship is a far light gleaming
on ahead at last.
Friendship is the warm rain falling
On the planted ground;
Friendship is a clear voice caling
Till a friend is found.
Dear Naj, Dear Parvati,
of course, Parvati, you are right to mention these brilliant Christian theologians who I also wholeheartedly agree with.
I am happy that they populate(d) our planet, that they exist(ed). In this crazy world, any upright and reasonable person is a precious boon !!!
One Germany-based compatriot of yours sang some years ago in a pop song of his: "Questo mondo, che si gira, è una prigione, una follía!" ["This world, turning round, is a prison, is madness!"] He ought to have been officially decorated with a medal of honour (and perhaps with the nobel prize) for only this sentence (honestly mirroring reality in my opinion).
But what else could I do in reaction to the comment by TA:
If someone possesses the preposterous ignorance/arrogance to declare the one (Islam) of two creeds as a quasi satanic phenomenon, he consequently/implicitly acquits the other creed (Christianity)on all accounts. No further comment on that!-
As to religion(s), things really were easier in most periods of the Roman times - and of course of the Achaemenid and Arsacid times:
These hundreds of Godesses and Gods, with characterics of the most human kind - to say the least - who in those times would have dared to quarrel about different religious views with that state of affairs in the face of these innumerable divine beings ? Each tree, each rivulet etc. had its own nymph or dryad. Whatever you were up to, you chose the appropriate god for your particular undertaking.
That's why I in particular like Cicero's attitude: He doesn't really seem to know, if he believes in anything, anyone, and if so - in what, in whom ? asking himself, if perhaps there is a divine principle and how it works? Like a citizen of the 21rst century. Incredibly modern and topical, this bloke.-
BTW: Things started to get difficult religiously in the Roman Empire, when Christianity became the exclusive state religion. Intolerance seemed to start. ...
In brief, Cicero definitely is my idol as to things religious.
I have written too much - apologies, apologies, apologies !!!
German
German please don't apologize and feel free to write all you want. Forgive my little knowledge and inability to give your complex writing adequate response.
Naj,
N N N N N N N N O O O O O O O O !!!!
You exceptional spirit [-goddess-]of DIALOGUE !
German
Now, we get the whole picture. Even Larijani intervened to get Behnoud off the hook.
This lady is an animal. "I'm very happy" ... What can you say to that?
Ped ...
my husband's reminding me of slaughtering sheep in weddings, funerals, religious eyds ...
we need to be ashamed of killing ... it's Islam's gift ... it's Abraham's gift of "sacrifice" ...
Ibadan why don't you Arabs keep your islam to yourselves?your daghter murdering is what Muhammad rebelled against.
Proof? Icopied 3 articles from the Islamic penal code above and gave link to official document.
Go get educated or play in your own playground.
Dear Naj,
One comment on my part as to the argumentation of your reader Ibadah.
There is one group of people populating our dear planet, i.e. some people, but not everyone, mind you (!), who are of the surprising opinion, that historical knowledge is absolutely necessary, but that historical changes as e.g. to territorial and legal rights are definitely to be accepted[, just to avoid an absurd continuous and permanent “bellum omnium contra omnes” (i.e. a continuous and permanent war of everyone against everyone)].
Others, a second group, mind you (!) – and I am not quite sure if your reader Ibadah regards himself as belonging to that category - don’t think so, and thus – (un)fortunately (?) - don’t agree:
So, logically, (if) according to the second group (including perhaps – I’m not sure – your reader Ibadah) , the Iranian people should be happy to be congratulated either
• for their King, i.e. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, who is the current King of the Saudi Arabia and Head of the House of Saud
or, alternatively
• for their new Prime Minister, who is the incumbent Prime Minister of Greece and Minister for Foreign Affairs following his party's victory in the 2009 legislative election. Papandreou has been leader of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) party since February 2004.
The reasons:
either
• The Rashidun Caliphate comprising the first four caliphs in Islam's history, was founded after Muhammad's death in 632. At its height, the borders of the Caliphate extended throughout North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Iranian highlands. Umar, also known as Umar the Great or Farooq the Great was the most powerful of the four Rashidun Caliphs and one of the most powerful and influential Muslim rulers. Under Umar the Islamic empire expanded at an unprecedented rate ruling the whole Sassanid Persian Empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashidun_Caliphate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar
or
• Alexander repeatedly defeated the Persians in battle, marched through Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Bactria and in the process he overthrew the Persian king Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great
German
:) German, I think you are stretching historicism a little out of Ibada'hs context.
I understand that perhaps as a muslim practitioner, she feels insulted by me pointing a finger at her religion. Truth is, I will have pointed my finger to ANY religion or ideology that sanctioned violence in the name of some divine purpose.
To her credit; at least she is ignorant about the discriminatory laws of Islam, because she is asking me for proof. This means she is not condoning these discriminations, and thus is challenging me for spreading falsehood. So at least she is not a discriminator (although she may be a he, it's the "h" at hte end of its name that makes me think it is a girl. Anyways, they say the proof is in the pudding! And considering how miserable muslim women are by and large all around the globe, then it is reasonable to remind her that Islam doesn't seem to have liberated muslims! By the ways I am planning to extract evidences of Islamic discrimination from Quran itself--once I get in touch with women who know Quran better than I do (like my mother!)--whom, ironically, I have seen lecture IRI's vigilantes with quran verses, informing them of their un-holy behavior! :)
Am not an Arab, oh pity, you live in prejudice. Am Singaporean, where Islam was not introduced by any army expeditions.
You say you hate Islam as it did not originate in your ancestral land. If so, we too hate you, as we Muslims, have no hate based on race and language, nativity, nationality.
Your hate against Arabs are obvious in your posts, bitch. Hide it to protect your 'liberal' image
Ibadah,
You may be singapourian, German, Srilankan, Iranians, or anything you want.
Unfortunately, you don't seem to understand "land" doesn't have anything to do with race; nor are you capable of understanding anything about cultural distinction!
Instead of answering direct questions I have put out to you, you start rampaging ...
Yes, I am AGAINST Islam's pre-historic laws; Quran has come to a CERTAIN people, through a man who has witnessed the particular suffering of HIS people ... the traveling of this religion across the globe was done in the SAME SPIRIT as Bush's "democracy-spreading" ... it was an act of colonialism.
So, I insist Quran be put in its historic context and the muslims to EVOLVE their religion into something that is deserving of human's evolution.
Dear Naj,
excuse me for commenting over-hastily, not having seen yet your fine answer with its convincing arguments to Ibadah's question! In particular I am not able to differentiate between important shades of arguments of your readers - as you do and are capable to do - , as I am not familiar with oriental and muslim culture, being a "Westerner". If I had awaited your answer , I could have saved my energy and time.
Here in Europe there are some confused individuals, called Islamists or Al-Quaida-terrorists etc., bombing trains, killing people in the name of Islam etc., because e.g. they are claiming Spain/Andalusia for a new arabic-islamic caliphate (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22687085-26040,00.html)
Next time I will be more patient and just wait a bit, thus saving unnecessary energy and time. Apologies!
Thanks for answering/reacting to your readers Ibadah and German!
Best wishes
German
German,
Muslims feel vulnerable in this world. Many muslims do not believe in these draconian sharia laws and they are caught between a stone and a hard place. Between their faith, fundamentalists who ruin their image, and "western" xenophobics like "TA" whom we addressed before.
Because these muslims are unable to mould their understanding of their religion, because they are taught that Quran is "inflexible" and god's word, then they get into these angry schizophrenic outbursts as we witnessed.
This is quite sad!
With all it's evil, at least Iran's shiism ALLOWS for re-interpretation of quran; so shiites can at least find looholes to "modernize" their faith ... but others? ...
I find the situation pathetic!
Dear Naj,
you are so right with your arguments suggested here as to this particular topic and the conclusion(s) drawn by you.
What is basically the case, BTW:
When reading your and Pedestrian's blog, one/I can't generally avoid agreeing with your ideas, statements, cultural and artistic hints, your insight and far-sightedness !!
And that is very consoling in this crazy world!
Thanks so much for your blog.
German
Postscriptum (hopefully the last one for today):
[A proportionally higher degree of]
various Germans
[than an average ratio would allow to expect]
seem to read and react to your blog. They even write to you in German.
- Perhaps it's only a - misinterpreted - coincidence and happenstance. -
If not: If I knew why, I would find out something about myself hidden to me so far.
All the best
German
German; I have no idea what the other German comment is. (And I have no idea what you mean) :)
a rough count of the comments and a rough guess which country these comments hail from, conveys the impression:
a) some/many readers/comments seem to be from the US, - no surprise, a large country, or rather a continent, with a huge number of inhabitants;
b) but some or various comments are by individuals from that (geographically and demographically) tiny country Germany -
So I wonder how come, i.e. what is it that attracts these readers/comments from Germany to your blog - in case my superficial count is not based on a purely temporary and chance coincidence - .
Don't let yourself be bothered by this my subjective trivial question/remark, honestly!
Bye and thanks so much for your patience
German
True; After the US; I get most hits from the Uk & Germany! Maybe because I have plenty of friends in those countries :)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8320937.stm
Anon
Monday, October 12, 2009 3:26:00 PM
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