Israel intelligence helped US kill Soleimani

They all ripped them stories from the same Sumerian mythology. You name Ishmael and Isaac. Both are associated with Abraham. Abraham who came from Ur. Ur was a massive Sumerian city near present day Bagdad. Take a hint!

There is a discussion around what city that's named Ur in the bible could be a different city in reality. But none doubt it was in western Iraq far away from present day Israel. Mohammed really didn't need to go to the land of Canaan to learn the teaching of the Jews to come up with something of his own. He was in the middle of the same Sumerian mythology.

 

Was that the 6 day war that the jews bombed a ship from the US and simply got away with it?
Are you not aware that the US was the 1st country to recognize Israel, just a few hours after the Jews declared the state of Israel into existence?

 

Christian countries outvote the Muslim ones by 2 to 1. Muslim countries have no veto power.
You're just talking total nonsense.

You understand absolutely nothing about the right of self determination. The right states that people, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity, have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no interference.

The people in Mandatory of Palestine did not choose.
Foreign countries made that choice and ignored them,
thrashing THEIR RIGHT TO CHOOSE.

There was a racial declaration made by all Arabs on what to do with the Jews? When was that poll taken?
We both know it did not happen. Jews just attacked civilian Arabs as if they were enemy combatants.

It still says that Jews
- were ordered to kill all males. That it did not happen, does not mean the genocidal order wasn't made.
- Jews broadcast that all women and children must leave. You acknowledge the population got slashed to only 7%.
- Jews systematically destroyed civilian houses of Arabs so they could not return.

You fail to point out and quote exactly where this is Arab propaganda from my source and not true.
Your claim of Jihadi propaganda is fake. Your ranting total nonsense.

 

Sure, and Russia under Stalin supported the creation of the state of Israel.
For America recognition was one thing, support was another.
I recall that Israel tried on various occasions to shoot down American spy
planes over its nuclear facilities.
And of course, without Stalin the Jews would have lost the War of 1948,
they supplied the arms the Americans would give.

 

Certainly, Abraham came out of Sumer. He lived for a while in Syria before going into
Canaan and even Egypt. But Ur, Syria, Canaan or Egypt have no claim to the story of
Abraham. In fact the term "Hebrew" was coined for this group of people who "crossed
over" the Euphrates.
However, the account of Genesis creation has a strong Sumerian content to it.

 

They blew up a military ship with everybody in it,... and got away with it, and received aid.
They only objected, with Russia, about their invasion of Egypt.
You can't even sell that as they were neutral towards Israel.
Being the 1st country to recognize Israel, is a very powerful symbolic thing.

 

Oh good lord. here you go and admit that the torah has a strong Sumerian content.
While Islam was also created right next to where the Sumerian mythology was booming like crazy.
It's just ill will to refuse to connect the dots.

 

Abraham brought with him early Genesis.
But it says that God called Abraham OUT from his home, family and kindred.
Two reasons - to get Abraham away from the false religion of his culture and
to show him a land God had promised his descendants.
Yes, early Islam was in the region of Sumer - but that accounts for nothing.
Canaan was even closer to Abraham and look how God saw THEM.

If you want to give credibility to Islam then give credibility to Mormonism
as well - it's "founded" on Abrahamic tradition, but instead of Mohammed
we have the prophet Joseph Smith. As far as I can tell, both are false
prophets who have deluded a lot of people.

 

purity is not at issue. In today's parlance, Jesus was a dissident...definitely not a purist. That does not change the fact that he was born and lived in the east, and it was from the East that he gave his directive on separation of church and state.

If Jewish and Christian thought is corrupted by Western thought by did God tell Mohammed

Surah 21:7
And We sent not before you, [O Muhammad], except men to whom We revealed [the message], so ask the people of the message if you do not know.

Surah 29:46
And do not argue with the People of the Scripture .. say, "We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you. And our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him."

And evidently, God has no problem with separation of church and state:

Romans13:1
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Indeed. See Romans 13:1 above.

It seem that Jesus was stating that the law belongs to (Rome) but
souls belong to God.

 

You're deflecting. The point is, that Abraham came from a place infested with Sumerian mythology.
A mythology that has a lot of similarities with the Jewish faith.
A mythology that has a lot of similarities with Islam.

it accounts for everything.

Not relevant. If he lived in the Sumer region, means he knew Sumerian mythology.

 

But, the erudite scholars on this forum will tell you that what Abraham didn't get from
Sumer he got from Canaan. Our scholars don't believe the Egypt captivity story so they
can't make the case that Moses borrowed from Egypt. They would - if they could.

The place means nothing. God got Abraham AWAY FROM SUMER AND HARAN
(present day Turkey) where he had lived.
Note - GOT AWAY FROM. Not, was embedded in.

The only bit of old Mesopotamia in the bible was the first creation account in Genesis.
The God of Abraham doesn't fit into any picture of the gods of Sumer that I know of.
Certainly the gods of war, conquest, power and sex that Mohammed loved were
present in that old culture.

 

@Iranian Monitor
Forgive me. I got interrupted and did not proofread my post. A couple of corrections for clarification, if you don't mind.

1. If God thought that Jewish and Christian thought was corrupted by Western thought why did God tell Mohammed

2. It would seem that Jesus was stating that the law/state was an earthly device belonging to (Rome/etc) but matters of religion belong to God.

My apologies for the mess

 

I don't know what "God" thinks. I don't know what "God" told the prophet Mohammad. I am not religious in the scriptural sense. And I agree that 'purity' isn't the issue, in any case, but as a general theme, I believe the historical record would show the sharp break between 'religious' and 'secular' thought to be a western phenomenon. I can expand even further on that if you wish, but ultimately historical facts can be fitted in different narratives, using different facts and 'factoids'. The narrative that I find giving us the best understanding of the issues relating to Shia Islam is the one I am trying to build.

In this regard, let me also add a few general points before (at some point) getting into the political theory and philosophy that I subscribe to. The latter something that still requires certain other themes to be further developed and which is why I have been reluctant to address still. I will do so, but in due course, as the issues and narratives I am presenting help build up to it in a way that I find informative of the underlying theories.

On 'scripture' itself, let me add the following "bullet points" for now:

1- Until more recent times, the overwhelming majority of people were illiterate. Even when they rallied behind 'scripture', it was not based on any literal reading of it. It would be based on something akin to rallying behind the flag, whether of "Islam", "Shia Iran", or as a vehicle in the mythology between "good and evil", "justice" against "tyranny" etc. This was even more true in non-Arab speaking lands such as Iran, where people (even illiterate ones) ultimately could recite the poetry of Iran's national epic, the Shahnameh, and the poetry of Hafez and Mowlana (Rumi) and others, and have some understanding of it, but if the few verses of the "Koran" which they might have recited was mostly unintelligible to them.

2- In classical Islamic philosophy, spearheaded by Persian rationalist philosophers such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the overriding attitude was to prove the existence of "God" and basically treat scripture and its details as "folklore" handed down to the masses to guide them in language and allegories they could understand. In modern parlance, the idea was something akin to the following: in the same way that a physicist cannot be expected to explain the theory of gravity to a child except by simplifying the issue and telling the child stories that try to get into the essence of the issue, there is no way "God" could ever impart 'truth' to any human, much less an Arab living in the Arabian peninsula, in a way that would be comprehensible to him and, even more so, in a way that would be comprehensible to those who were supposed to receive his message.

3- The anti-rationalist strain in Islamic thought, attributed to another Muslim jurist and philosopher of Persian descent, namely Ghazali, from his responses which sought to prove the limits of reason and the philosophical approach to finding 'truths" (similar to what Descartes would develop many centuries later), while exaggerated and unfair to Ghazali and his thoughts, nonetheless had some influence to take religion towards scripture and away from the philosophical approach of Avicenna and company. That was the case everywhere, except in Iran and, in time, in Shia Islamic theology and philosophy. In Iran, the attempt to reach divine truth by rationalist thought (as well as other, non-scriptural, methodologies) remained the cornerstone of Iranian philosophical thought. And the cornerstone of Shia jurisprudential thought as well. (Hence, the different attitudes towards "Ijtihad" as one example).

4- The basic idea within major strands of even Shia clerical thought (even if opposite strands existed and do exist even now), predating westernization, viewed the approach to epistemology and divine laws and truths as follows: a preacher who is being trained to preach for the masses, and who himself hasn't attained the education and training to become a "mujtahid" but is supposed to engage in "taghlid" (copying of others), would and should use allegories and the mythology of scripture and other such things to butrress the main themes developed by Shia Islamic scholars who have attained the position to be able to engage in in "independent thought", but a true understanding of God and his design and intent for man-kind isn't going to be found in any of these kind of sources.

My own view, in any case, of religion isn't at all based on any scripture. I have outlined my own philosophy in one of my earlier messages and that my philosophical approach. And that is my underlying approach to even presuming to understand God's will or intentions.

 

Neither am I. But that's never stopped me from reading, even outright studying, and trusting in my ability to reason and discern.

Does the Iranian process towards giving only those who have attained a certain level of education, and peer review, preclude you from an exchange on scripture? Because I do not buy that you have not read, understood, and formulated thought, on the words of Muhammad...even if not those of the Jewish patriarchs in the old testament, or Jesus in the new testament.

I do not agree with the characterization of a break between "religious" and "secular", at least not as far as it applies to America. The US has traditionally been a very religious country, with a large majority claiming some sort of religious adherence. we have become a much more decadent society of late. My elders lamented the loss of our isolationism after two world wars, and rubbing elbows with all those godless Europeans. LOL

At any rate, IMHO the correct term would be separation of church and state, not absence of religion vs state religion.

And while the concept was born in the east, there can be no doubt that it found legs in the West, thanks to Martin Luther and the printing press.

Illiteracy, yes; but isn't/wasn't there also a problem of language?

I have always been told that I couldn't understand the Quran because I don't read Arabic. I've seen videos of madrasas where young children in all parts of the world are memorizing Arabic. Have they been taught Arabic or are they reciting from rote? I assume this is not an issue now in Iran? Since at least the 16th century?

Sorry to distract you with these questions, but if not now, when? Fret not, I am listening.

... And then you answered my question. LOL

oh I definitely think I'm getting that.

You spend a great deal of time speaking of philosophy/philosophers, something I've never really heard from Arabs with whom I've had exchanges. Poetry, yes; philosophy, not so much.

 

Sure, but I am not going to focus much time on scripture, except for reasons other than understanding "God's will". On the latter issue, I am with those in the Iranian philosophical tradition (and they have others in opposite of them) who basically don't find scripture the true source of knowledge on the issue. They include, inter alia, the classical rational Persian Muslim philosophers such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna), people within Iran's sufi mystic tradition as represented by poets such as Hafez and Mowlana (Rumi). People like Islamic philosophers such as Sohrovardi, Mulla Sadra down to even Ayatollah Khomeini! (Ayatollah Khomeini, while less agnostic on scripture than some others in this tradition, was ultimately philosophically from a tradition that didn't find truth in literal reading of scripture).

That is not really the reason. But I like the Shia methodology as a protection against any strain of "evangelical" thought in Islam. Last thing I like to see is an Iranian version of "Wahhabis" running around trying to read scripture literally. Simply put, I prefer that "Islamic doctrine" be developed based on other things and not scripture. In fact, the "Islamic" label to me mainly a cultural artifact to help preserve and build on the scholarship under this label.

Lets say I am more 'acquianted' with the Koran (and other scriptures you allude to) than having either memorized the Koran by heart (which was a tradition in medieval Islamic history in Iran and elsewhere for 'scholars') or being all that articulate or experts in every verse and sura in the Koran. I have, to be sure, at one point or another, skimmed through much of the Koran. (And I have done the same with other scriptures as well).

I don't disagree with your characterization of the US. As I mentioned, the 'sharp break' actually manifested itself more clearly in the wake of the French revolution and, more generally, in continental European thought. Otherwise, besides the US and its "separation of church and state" doctrine, in Britain, you not only didn't have such a sharp break, but you even had and have an official church!

Separation of "church and state" is something that is fine for the US. It is not a model I would want for Iran. If there is a "western model" that fits Iran's tradition the best, it would be more akin to the model in Britain. Except, our monarch would not be "hereditary" but instead a philosopher king selected by an elected "Assembly of Experts". And there would be no real "head" of Iran's "official church", namely he Shia clerical establishment, but they would instead by an academic like institution with a hierarchy but quite a few "professors" (Ayatollahs) with divergent view of things. The "monarch's role" (Supreme Leader) would be to insure the preservation of the system and its ideological goal especially to preserve Iran's independence politically, culturally and economically, as well as to prevent material interests to dominate (as opposed to being properly represented) within the representative institutions of government.

This is, in actuality, not far from what Iran has.

The protestant revolt against the Catholic church was understandable in the context of western civilization history. Unlike the Shia Church, the Catholic church (and its infallible Pope) didn't have within its institutions, the necessary heterogeneity and competition for 'dogma' to be sufficiently challenged. But if the protestant reformation helped undercut the tyranny of the Catholic Church, it also helped create the phenomenon we see in the West of Bible stumping preachers and evangelicals interpreting scripture literally and making it a vehicle to serve all sorts of interests (many diametrically opposed to one another, to be sure, but including both pro and anti slavery movements, both imperialist and anti imperialist movements, etc). I am not interested in seeing "evangelical' type movements in Iran. Within Islam, the Wahhabis can monopolize that department for all I care, as long as they leave Iran out of it!

Ultimately, my own preference is for IRAN to learn from all that is worth learning around it, but for no one to dictate to Iran anything. Not politically, not geopolitically, not economically, not culturally. For Iran to be in such a position will take a long time and we are at the beginning of an enterprise that is in its early stages and might fail because it has powerful enemies. But Iran has stood up to powerful enemies before and I have faith it will be able to do so now as well. Maybe bend occasionally, but eventually, to preserve a culture and heritage that is a lot more profound, and a lot more absorbing (even for those who aren't from the same culture but get acquainted enough with it, visiting Iran) than many realize.

 

There are, of course, much better accounts about Iran than the one below by Nicolas Pelham, who was spent some time in jail and detention and several weeks trapped in Iran as allegations against him were being "investigated" by Iran's revolutionary guards. But I just finished reading this piece and while there is much that I don't agree with, there was a good bit that reflects Iran the way I see it. Some of it relevant to the discussion about religion we are having here.

It is a very very long, feature, article, much of it discussing the details of his detention and interrogation, but the excerpts that I would highlight (as imparting the most accurate impressions of Iran) are the ones below.

https://www.1843magazine.com/features/trapped-in-iran
NICOLAS PELHAM | FEBRUARY/MARCH 2020

 

Arabs use their political power to get support from "Christian" countries and that is countered bu US political power, US boycott vs. Arab boycott. no matter what boycott - it means NOTHING.

You understand absolutely nothing about the right of self determination. there were TWO ppl in mandatory Palestine and each was given the right of self determination, the land was to be divided, they were NEVER considered one ppl.
The Arabs could have chosen a country but they chose war to dominate the Jewish part.

I know it DID happen and you need to learn more about your heroes :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_..._response_to_the_U.N_partition_resolution.png

It was Jewish propaganda to scare off the Arabs - that's what your source say (did you even read it ?)
I does mean such an order was not given and the fact so many turned to Israeli citizens also means exactly that

 

First thing......kindly calm down.....neither of us is in any position to do anything but discuss...so let's keep it civil,

It started in Homes march 2011 - was the US in on it in any way ? no
desertions, foreign powers and all that started around 2012 ? that's between 6-12 months of killing civilians - not Jihadists and no "US spies".
The Syrian ppl that fought Assad at the beginning were not Jihadists and got NO support, they DID join later on Jihadists but by that time the US did noy supply them weapons, from what I remember in those years ISIS got its weapons from these sources:
Defeated Iraqi army - particular from taking Mosul
Qatar and others maybe KSA
What those FSA brought with them and one or two missed drops by US
Selling oil to some countries some say Turkey - I have no idea.

I see nothing here to suggest ISIS was a US proxy

 

no idea why you posted this - I have not been uncalm nor uncivil to you ?

It started in Homes march 2011 - was the US in on it in any way ? no
desertions, foreign powers and all that started around 2012 ? that's between 6-12 months of killing civilians - not Jihadists and no "US spies".
The Syrian ppl that fought Assad at the beginning were not Jihadists and got NO support, they DID join later on Jihadists but by that time the US did noy supply them weapons, from what I remember in those years ISIS got its weapons from these sources:
Defeated Iraqi army - particular from taking Mosul
Qatar and others maybe KSA
What those FSA brought with them and one or two missed drops by US
Selling oil to some countries some say Turkey - I have no idea.

I see nothing here to suggest ISIS was a US proxy

1) you post no links to support your claims
2) It is a fact that we continued to supply arms to "the rebels" for many years after the moderates were gone.
3) The war had been going for near 3 years by the time our dog in Syria went off its leash and went into Iraq.
4) the soldiers fighting for the FSA were radical Islamists - including Al Nusra and ISIS.
5) you willfully ignore the links I provided which refute your claims.

Here is what Rand Paul had to say on CNN's Sunday Morning Program "State of the Union" - in 2014.

http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2...-my-son-into-that-mess-on-the-crisis-in-iraq/

So is Rand Paul - member of the armed services committee - lying or are you misinformed ?
Was Joe Biden lying in 2014 when he said "no moderate rebels" or are you misinformed ?
Was the Defense Intelligence Agency Lying in 2012 when it stated "no moderate rebels" or are you misinformed.

Are the 13 bipartisan co-sponsors of the "Stop Arming Terrorist Act" lying - or are you misinformed ?

 

Much of what we've covered reminds me of the work of Dr Patricia Crone.

After taking the forprøve, or preliminary exam, at University of Copenhagen, she went to Paris to learn French...In 1974 she earned her PhD at the University of London, where she was a senior research fellow at the Warburg Institute ..at King's College London she followed a course in medieval European history, especially church-state relations..In 1977, Crone became a University Lecturer in Islamic history and a fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. Crone became Assistant University Lecturer in Islamic studies and fellow of Gonville and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1990...She served as University Lecturer in Islamic studies from 1992 to 1994, and as Reader in Islamic history from 1994-97. In 1997, she was appointed to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where she was named as Andrew W. Mellon Professor..From 2002 until her death in 2015, she was a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Social Evolution & History... She reads and writes 15 dead languages. Beginning as a scholar of early military and economic history of the Middle East, Crone's later career focused mainly on "the Qur’an and the cultural and religious traditions of Iraq, Iran, and the formerly Iranian part of Central Asia".

In this video, she speaks to the subject title, then moves into her field, history. She never leaves Iran's influence out of the equation.

I would not expect you to find new information here, rather I thought you might be interested in how it's being taught in the West.

I made yet another search tolocate a video from 79 in the early days of the Revolution. That video has long since been scrubbed.
It was shot in a town square, I assume in Tehran. Everyone was reading the newspaper, and posters. The video is centered on 4 women. They were speaking in excitedly in English and Farsi. It was the day that the edict came down that women must wear chadors. They were clearly shocked, even appalled.

So I could not find that vid, but happened to notice another. I wouldn't have clicked on it but it is by an Iranian, and I am conversing with an Iranian. I don't know what I expected (by it's title) but found something akin to what I'd been seeking.

His personal religious story was not of interest to me however what was is that the speaker was a student in 79. I could not discern whether he was among the students who took hostages. He speaks of this time period and his experiences with Hezbollah. This he relates before moving on to religious matters. I sincerely hope this vid does not offend you, I only post it because it speaks for his perspective on that particular time period.

 

Excellent lecture. I didn't know about her, but she was obviously erudite and enlightened. (Too bad she is no longer with us). The problem, however, is that erudite scholarship isn't what is propagated as 'education' for the masses in western societies. Otherwise, there are other erudite western scholars whose works do shed light on the other issues I have been talking about as well.

I just listened to the first few second and found the guy (if not "literally", than "spiritually") representative of the "MEK" type cult which, in concert with certain powerful special interest groups in the US, are expert at utter nonsense, propaganda and lies. Maybe I should have listened further, but when a lecture begins with a total lie and fabrication, it is not going to make me want to waste the rest of my time listening to it.

 

I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that acronym.

As I said, my only interest was his experience during/following the Revolution. But, I realize that you are probably not of an age to have been a witness to those events.

 

You can learn about the group here.

To be clear, I didn't mean the guy was literally a member of the MEK. He appeared, instead, to be a 'convert' to evangelical Christianity, but working with the same folks the MEK is working with now.

The MEK is prominent these days in feeding stories about Iran through FOX and company. The group used to be on the list of 'terrorist groups' designated by the US, but since the MEK has changed their patrons (they used to work with Saddam before he was ousted by the US), they have come out of the US 'terrorism list" and have found new foreign patrons in the Israelis and US neocon circles. They are truly a hated cult within Iran (by practically everyone in Iran), but well financed by their foreign sponsors and given visibility at such. They operate these days under the so-called umbrella banner "National Council of Resistance", although -- despite US neocon effort -- the only other 'opposition' groups working with them under their so-called 'umbrella' are small separatist groups such as the Ahwaz Arab and some wings of the larger Kurdish groups working against the regime in Iran.

I am actually old enough to remember the Iranian revolution first hand. I was a teenager when the revolution erupted and led my family to emigrate to the US. Who you listen to is your preoperative, of course, but the first few seconds of his comments left everything he else the guy has to say clearly out of the range of reality about Iran. Even at the height of Iran's revolutionary zeal, no one was being indoctrinated in killing Christians and Jews! That was preposterous. To be sure, the early years of the revolution involved what you find in other revolutions which also have their "reign of terror' or Thermidorian reaction. But the few second I heard the guy speaking made me think the rest of his comments will be absurd too.

Besides, while I can fully appreciate those who ascribe to secularist westernized ideologies and why they would choose that, I am not really all that interested in someone who wants to trade Iran's traditions with Christian evangelical thought. No disrespect intended, but that is simply not even remotely comprehensible to me except as a self serving exercise by some very alienated or deluded people.

 

I certainly hope that you do not think that was my intention in posting the video!! I tried to make it clear that it was not.

I myself only listened to that portion which pertained to his experiences with the revolution; once he veered off into religious matters, I was done. I have no idea if he expressed "missionary" intentions towards Iran.

So...an old geezer such as myself, eh?

Then let me ask you, can you confirm or deny the reaction of some Iranians as expressed in the video that I was actually looking for? People seemed genuinely surprised/dismayed by the new cultural directives such as the enforcement of wearing chadors?

 

No, don't worry, I just expressed my reaction to the first few seconds I heard from that video.

The best book to tell you about Iran, written not long after the revolution, to explain its history, intellectual currents and the issues that led to the revolution, would be Professor Roy Mottahadeh's book, "The Mantle of the Prophet". Rated as among the top 75 books written in the 20th century, the book had rightly earned effusive praise from folks of very different political persuasion, including:
https://www.amazon.com/Mantle-Prophet-Roy-Mottahedeh/dp/1851686169

I wouldn't go that far I am probably a few years younger than you. You were in college at the time of the Iranian revolution; I was barely in high school.