Persian Philosopher
I attended another class at Oasis today. Today's class, taught by Kambiz Zarrabi, was on the subject of "From the Crusades Against the Infidels to the Crusade Against Terrorism". Mr. Zarrabi, a native of Iran who was educated at UCLA, started his lecture by pointing out that, apart from the reference to warfare, the English word 'crusade' has exactly the same meaning as the Arabic word 'jihad'.
I won't attempt to rehash the lecture, nor will I go into Mr. Zarrabi's qualifications, which I consider adequate. I learned that he has been writing for an Iranian Web publication and that several of his articles are available for you to read and, hopefully, enjoy. In roughly chronological order, for this month they are: "Iran's Future: The Relevant and the Irrelevant?", "Reality Versus Opinion: The Rooster's Tail" and "From Omar Khayyam to Hefaz of Shiraz". I had to search out those articles from the thousands on the news site because the link I was given, supposedly pointing to all of the works by this same author, didn't work.
One thing you must understand in reading these articles: they are written from the point of view of an anthropologist examining the cultures involved and attempting to avoid any value judgements. Nevertheless, a few pointed jabs are included to spice things up.
Comments (3)
I will have to come back and check out those articles. Thanks for posting the links.
He seems a bit bitter. Of course all nations of the world don't have to worry about terrorism. He didn't quite think that one through. The nations exporting terror are not targets of terror until they export it. On the other hand, there are all kinds of terror perpetrated by the big powers every day. *sigh*
The love of money . . .
Those are interesting articles, particularly the latter two. Your principal link needs to be fixed, though.
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