Ashes & Dust ...
Let me teach you a few words in Arabic.
Ashes is "Ramad" and Dust is "Turab" which also means earth, the soil, and "Turba" may also mean tomb or more exactly the grounds where someone is buried.
Ramad and Turab is what Ramadi looks like today. Ramadi in the Anbar province.
The hated Anbar, part of the "triangle". The ever so despised Anbar by both the Americans and the Iranians.
The hatred was most evident today.
The American Forces - wait, I take that back - they are not forces, they are cowards.
The American cowards bombed Ramadi today.
Many homes were demolished. A family of thirteen was buried under the rubbles.
More than 26 civilians were killed, out of which 4 women and several children. Two infants, the youngest was 1 month old.
Men rushed to the ruins trying to rescue whatever human form they can find.
Bare hands, rugged, dust covering their faces and hair, digging and digging...
Most had nothing but a shirt on. No vest, no sweater, no nothing, just a shirt, in this bitter cold.
And I watched their feet, they were wearing plastic slippers in winter, no socks, no shoes...no nothing.
I watched even more carefully and most were very thin and looked malnourished...
They finally managed to pull the little infant out from under piles of thick bricks.
A dust covered baby with an ashen complexion and her tiny lips ripped apart.
A small piece of greyish white cloth was handed and she was wrapped in it in a tiny bundle...
Then the camera zoomed in on the eyes of the onlookers. They all had this one common, identical expression.
A kind of a hollow, lingering gaze like being here and not here.
Then the camera zoomed in even closer... and behind the hollowness in the eyes, lied the utter void, an endless void. A tunnel of despair that seemed to stretch to eternity...
A younger man, not older than 16 wept then stared back at the camera and he kept staring and I saw a lingering death about to explode, in his deep black eyes.
Meanwhile in Baghdad, a bunch of kids, not older than 13, scavenge through dumps and piles of garbage.
One is orphaned, her mother was shot in Falluja. The girl lost a finger when a metal scrap from the junk yard severed it from her small hand. The other, piles up empty cans to sell for 1 dollar a bag. Another, found 4 pieces of bread, he dusts them and keeps them for breakfast to share with the rest of his family...
A lost infant in the ashes, lost faces in the dust, a lost finger in the garbage dumps, a lost mother in the debris, a nation lost in the fire, a country lost in the greed ....and eyes lost in that endless tunnel of helplessness, anguish and despair...
Lost in the total emptiness, in the void of the living dead.
Where is Gilad Atzmon, I need him to hum something to me, I am choking with endless Grief...
You sleep well now.
Painting : Iraqi artist, Mohammed Muhraddin.
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lol - do you always keep your ass portruding in such fashion in the air?
saxophonist, not some oestrich looking dude about to take a dump in mid air...
http://www.iiop.org/index3.php?recordID=195
I would like to share a poem by Barbra LeBarbera. It not only speaks of my heart but yours Layla, and of alot of others that love and respect you. Thank you for being the True Warrior you are and for speaking the truth no matter who may object. Your the greatest!!!
-- Spirit of Today's Warrior --
Although he's traded his buckskin for a shirt and tie
He still walks proud under Grandfather's sky
Replacing bows and arrows with his skills and mind
He Protects the children, elders, and weak of the kind
He goes to war each and every day
But battles in a different way...
He walks a war path some cannot see
Battling indifference and apathy
He no longer carries a tomahawk and lance
He's sometimes dressed in a suit coat and pants...
Fighting environment's smoggy haze
He battles with new metheds and ways
Their onced carried shield has been replaced
they now carry calculators and a brief case
Quivers ans arrows are carried in hearts inside
an Ancestor's Spirits watch and guide...
Computers and technology replaced his knife
He now battles for Mother Earth and a better life
He's determined, brave and honor bound
As he faces each of this battle's round
Today's warrior comes from different tribes and clans
fighting together to save Mother Earth's land
As their battle continues fierce and long
Wakan tanka Blesses their spirits strong
He sometimes wears denim jeans of blue
Battling to maintain honor, principles and value
His story once told by the paints on his face
is now told by his spirit's heart we embrace
Each day he bravely continues this battle's toils
Principles, honor, and dignity will forever his spoils
He's the brave warrior of yesterday
Peace warrior of today,
He fights today's battles in a new way
------------------------------
Layla, you and Little Deer as well as so many others that come to your blog are all true warriors and I feel a lot of love here and again my sweet sister thank you.
I love all my brothers and sister here, keep it real and in the loop.
your brother,
Savage "American" Warrior
Bless you.
Modern-Day Iraq
This is what used to be the western part of Greater Iran. At times, it also included what is today eastern Iraq, as it is where the Sassanid capital was located (Ctesiphon). There are still cities and provinces in contemporary Iraq where the Persian names of the city are still retained. e.g. al-Anbar or Baghdad. Other cities of Iraq with originally Persian names include Nokard (نوكرد) --> al-Haditha, Budh-Aadashir --> Mausil, Suristan (سورستان) --> Kufa, Shahrban (شهربان) --> Miqdadiya, Anbar (انبار) --> Falluja, Arvandrud (اروندرود)--> Shatt al-Arab, and Asheb (آشب) --> Imadiyya. [20]
Patrick Clawson verifies this:
"Arab nationalists may seek retroactively to extend the present into the past, but this skews reality. Iranian domains once extended well into what is now Iraq. The first Sassanian capital was at Ctesiphon, 21 miles southeast of Baghdad."[21]
Even after Iraq was Arabized during the Islamic conquests of the 7th century, the Persian presence was still quite recognizeable and dominant at times, as many famous Persian Shia clerics are buried in Najaf and Karbala. At the latest, the Safavids lost control of these areas to the Ottoman Empire
Also I find it funny that you Arabs do not complain about the Ottoman empire because its long gone now, however simply for the sake of the Chavinism that was taught by the likes of Satia Al-Husri, Sami Shawkat, Michel Aflaq or Khairallah Tulfa you keep talking about a dyansty of Iran the safavids and refer to Iranians as the Safavids ,even though most Iranians do not even know you refer to them as safavids> even though Shah Abbass defeaated the Portuguesse and Brits and strengthened Iran greatly, Iranians mostly remember Nader Shah and the Zand Dyanasty, so why dont you call us Zandis or Naderis lol. I suggest the posters visit this link http://www.venusproject.com/ecs/aFarrokhArab.html
Don't count on my tears ...
The Nazi Jews who colonized Palestine had similar historical claims to our Iranian Fascists above...
Caught between the chisel and the hammer, a bunch of nazis on the one hand and a bunch of fascists on the other..and people wonder why there is no peace in the Middle East...
I want to ask you,do most iraqi christians support armed resistance and are there many christian fighters among the resistance?And do they cooperate with Sunni fighters ?
I hope that i`m wrong but sunnis look so isolated now :(
Sorry, but I refuse to reply to personal questions...
Whatever I want people to know about me, I shall reveal voluntarily but will not answer questions.
This question was not about you,i just wanted to know what christians in general think about occupation.I know about shias and sunnis but there is very little information about christians.Just wanted to know the majority of them supported occupation or not and what they think of resistance.I asked you as iraqi,sorry i didn`t want to offend you.
The second part of your question about Christians in General if they support the occupation...my answer is no. No true patriotic iraqi whatever his/her religion supports the occupation. Those who do have no true affiliations to the land of Iraq and are either affiliated culturally/ideologically/politically to the US or to Iran.
Other than it is another talented, indivdualistic projection of words.
Writings of tragedy.
Tragedy of a magnitude that I cannot fully understand.
It is a surreal feeling to me.
I only know of war what I have read in nonfictional books about the Vietnam conflict. And from what some friends I have told me about it (they served in Vietnam).
Wow. Something just hit me.
The word served.
It sounds like a command from a master to a dog.
Anyway.
Another brilliant writing Layla.
And as for refusing to answer questions I sincerely admire that. And the polite way in which you replied.
About the "drawing" at the top of the postings........I don't get it . I KIND OF see a person but.....
I like what you wrote too Warrior.
Thats my sentiment as well.
Layla your a beautifully talented and descriptive writer for those of us who follow the occupation AND the resistance.
Both home and abroad.
Keep up your good work.
And KNOW, that there ARE MANY of us, from ALL OVER the world I suppose, who just wish it were over.
We hear you.
And we do wish it would stop.
Take care, stay safe & god bless,
Ike
Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun, full name Arabic: ابو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, Abū Zayd ‘Abdu r-Raḥman bin Muḥammad bin Khaldūn al-Ḥaḍramī (May 27, 1332/732AH – March 19, 1406/808AH), was a famous historiographer and historian born in present-day Tunisia, and is sometimes viewed as one of the forerunners of modern historiography, sociology and economics. He is best known for his Muqaddimah "Prolegomenon".
On the Arab Conquests in 7th century:
Religious propaganda gives a dynasty at its beginning another power in addition to that of the group feeling it possessed as the result of the number of its supporters... This happened to the Arabs at the beginning of Islam during the Muslim conquests. The armies of the Muslims at al-Qadisiyah and at the Yarmuk numbered some 30,000 in each case, while the Persian troops at al-Qadisiyah numbered 120,000, and the troops of Heraclius, according to al-Waqidi, 400,000. Neither of the two parties was able to withstand the Arabs, who routed them and seized what they possessed. ( Muqaddimah, Translated by Franz Rosenthal, p.126, Princeton University Press, 1981.)
Ibn Khaldūn expresses a great admiration for the Persians and sedentary culture.
It is a remarkable fact that, with few exceptions, most Muslim scholars both in the religious and intellectual sciences have been non-Arabs . Thus the founders of grammar were Sibawaih and, after him, al-Farisi and az-Zajjaj. All of whom were of Persian descent. They were brought up in the Arabic language and acquired knowledge of it through their upbringing and through contact with Arabs. They invented the rules [of grammar] and made it into a discipline for later generations. Most of the hadith scholars, who preserved traditions of the Prophet for the Muslims also were Persians, or Persian in language and breeding because the discipline was widely cultivated in Iraq and regions beyond. Furthermore, all the great jurists were Persians, as is well-known. The same applies to speculative theologians and to most of the Qu'ran commentators. Only the Persians engaged in the task of preserving knowledge and writing systematic scholarly works. Thus the truth of the statement of the Prophet becomes apparent, If learning were suspended at the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it. ... The intellectual sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them. They were cultivated by Arabicized Persians, as was the case with all the crafts, as we stated at the beginning. This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries, Iraq, Khurasan and Transoxiana, retained their sedentary culture. [4] [5] (note in the Islamic literature there are two Iraq's. The Iraq-e-Ajam (Persian Iraq) and Iraq-e-Arab (Arab Iraq). The Persian Iraq mentioned by Ibn Khaldun is the historic Iraq-e-Ajam (Persian Iraq) which constitutes the triangle of Isfahan, Shiraz and Hamadan).
Richard Nelson Frye encapsulates the crisis in Arab attitudes towards the Iranians (See R.N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia, London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1989, p.236):
"Arabs no longer understand the role of Iran and the Persian language in the formation of Islamic culture. Perhaps they wish to forget the past, but in so doing they remove the bases of their own spiritual, moral and cultural being…without the heritage of the past and a healthy respect for it…there is little chance for stability and proper growth"
Long cut and paste articles will not be published here. People can google them or you can just leave a link.
I have no tears for either...they can both rot in hell as far I am concerned.
Stay Safe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqsyXdj_p_I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQg_lhlD6NI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrZTNhW44-o
When you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you
cheerio
Who is the one setting racist agendas, you or Layla?
Layla is calling for the liberation of Iraq against the Iranian and US occupation (fact). It does no good for you to bad mouth Islam or bad mouth Arabs as it does not change the facts that your government is involved in major crimes.
Either stand for justice or be silent.
I suggest you refresh your readings.
Secondly, so what whether ibn sina was originally a ajami...the centre of culture and science during the abbasid period was in Baghdad and not in Teheran or Shiraz or Isfahan...and it was thanks to Baghdad that the knowledge was later disseminated to al Andalus...
Get your historical facts right.
Ibn Sina was actually from Bukhara (present day Uzbekistan), so to call him persian is like calling anyone who lived in the ottoman empire as "turks!".
On Arabs, there is no such race technically speaking...Most of those who claim to be Arabs are of various ethnic backgrounds with the commonality that they share the same language.
The Arabic language has its roots in the Abrahamic faith and is a sister of Hebrew with many similar letters and words still in common today. The group that most developed this language was the Nabatean people who lived in the area of todays Jordan with the city of Petra as their capitol.
Layth
Ibn Sina moved to Ray, near modern Teheran and established a busy medical practice. When Ray was besieged, Ibn Sina fled to Hamadan where he cured Amir Shamsud-Dawala of colic and was made Prime Minister. A mutiny of soldiers against him caused his dismissal and imprisonment, but subsequently the Amir, being again attacked by the colic, summoned him back, apologised and reinstated him! His life at this time was very strenuous: during the day he was busy with the Amir's services, while a great deal of the night was passed in lecturing and dictating notes for his books. Students would gather in his home and read parts of his two great books, the Shifa and the Qanun, already composed.
Following the death of the Amir, Ibn Sina fled to Isfahan after a few brushes with the law, including a period in prison. He spent his final years in the services of the ruler of the city, Ala al-Daula whom he advised on scientific and literary matters and accompanied on military campaigns.
Avicenna (latinized from Arab Ibn Sina; full name Abū ‘Alī al-Husayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā al-Balkhī; Persian: ابوعلى سينا/پورسينا ; arabicized أبو علي الحسين بن عبد الله بن سينا; born 980, dead 1037) was a Persian [2][3] physician, philosopher, and a scientist.
Avicenna, whose name means "the son of Sina", was of Persian (Tājīk) ethnicity. He was born in 980 (370 AH) in Afshana near Bukhara in Persia (now part of Uzbekistan) and died in 1037 (428 AH) in Hamadan (now in Iran).[1]
I know you would love for history to have been different but Sorry Layla the arabs knew the ways of the sword and the Persians the way of the mind. that is your history read Ibn Khaldun probably the best scholar the Arabs have ever produced and see what he says about it.
It should come as no surprise that many Arabs (including high ranking statesmen and highly educated professors) now believe that the following Iranian scholars of the Islamic era to be all Arabs: Zakaria Razi "Rhazes" (860- 923 or 932, born in Rayy, near Tehran), Abu Ali Sina "Avecenna" (980 -1037, born in Afshana, near Bukhara, ancient Samanid Capital), Abu Rayhan Biruni (973 - 1043, born in Khiva, Ancient Khwarazm now modern Afghanistan), Omar Khayyam (1044-1123, born in Nishabur, Khorasan), Mohammad Khwarazmi (d. 844, born in Khiva, Ancient Khwarazm, now in Modern Afghanistan). Not a single one of these scientists hailed from an Arab-speaking region, all were born in what is now Iran or the former realms of Persian speaking world.
This has posed an awkward contradiction for pan- nationalists. Their counter to these facts, are mainly based on two premises:
(a) Men such as Biruni are claimed as Arabs simply because they had the name "Al-" attached to their last names or had Arab/Muslim names such as "Omar". This is tantamount to saying that all great people in history with Christian names such as Chris, Michael, or John have been Jews, simply because their names are Jewish. Following this logic, we then must accept Christopher Columbus (Spain), Michaelangelo (Italy), and Johanes Kepler (Denmark) as Jews. Persia accepted Islam after the 7th century AD, just as Europeans accepted Christianity in great numbers after the 3-4th centuries AD. Simply, put, nationality and religious confession are not the same thing. One does not "become" an Arab simply because one is Muslim, just as one does not "become" Jewish simply because one is Christian. Pan-Arabists have simply stretched the definition of Muslim to conveniently include those non-Arabs whom they view favorably as Arabs.
(b) All of these men (without exception) are simply argued to be the descedants of Arabs who settled in Iran after the Arab conquests. While true that Arab garrisons occupied Persia for approximately 222 years, how and when did these warriors from the tough deserts of Arabia become scholars so quickly? Persia's history and traditions of learning rival those of Greece, India and China, and like them, predates Arab civilization for thousands of years. When the Arabs erupted from their desert homes in Arabia and overthrew the Byzantine-Roman and Sassanian Persian empires, they simply inherited the rich legacy of Rome and Persia. Simply occupying another person's territory does not entitle one to their achievements - in that case Greek scholars such as Democritus
(Abdera, Ionia 460 - 370 BC), and Pythagoras
(Samos, Ionia 582 - 500 BC) are automatically Persian, simply because Achaemenid Persian garrisons ruled the Ionian Greeks (present Western Turkey) at the time. The best retort to the pan-Arabists is the aforementioned Ibn Khaldun himself, who has made clear, in no uncertain terms, of the mighty contributions that have been made by the Persians.
Many Arab nations, such as Egypt, simply avoid mentioning where the Iranian scholars were born and where they ultimately died. Many Arabs would be surprised to learn that the grave of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) is located in Hamadan, Iran.
To understand the awkwardness (and indeed irrationality) of pan-Arabism (or any form of racialism), one is compelled to also briefly learn about the true founders of the B'aath party; Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. Both were born in Damascus; Aflaq was a Greek Orthodox Christian and Bitar a Sunni Muslim. They both experienced the humiliating treatment of their country, Syria, at the hands of the French, especially during the 1925-1926 uprising. The two met as students in the University of Paris in 1929. It is unclear if they actually joined the Arab communist students in Paris at the time, but what is clear is that they formed their party on the basis of pan-Arabism, like the movements that had taken place in neighboring Iraq in the 1920s. Another influential and French (Sorbonne) educated Syrian, was Zaki al-Arsuzi. Al-Arsuzi was especially outspoken in his racism against the local Turks of Syria and especially venomous in his hatred against the Jews. To summarize, the followers of Arsuzi joined up with the Aflaq-Bitar team. Arsuzi himself intensely disliked Aflaq, which explains why he himself never joined in.
As a non-Muslim, Aflaq's interest (see photo at left) was not in the cultivation of a pan-Islamic identity, but in the promotion of pure pan-Arabism in the spirit of what he called "al-ruh al-Arabiyya" (the Arabian spirit). Faith and love for one's race is the cornerstone of pan-Arabism, as it is with any kind of racial chauvinism. That same "Arab spirit" is what Aflaq relates to "the great deeds (of the Arabs) in the past, and can continue to do so in the present". It is interesting that Aflaq also rejected those Arabs influenced or sympathetic to Western culture; exactly as Bin Laden does today.
Arab Muslims conquests] have been variously seen in Iran: by some as a blessing, the advent of the true faith, the end of the age of ignorance and heathenism; by others as a humiliating national defeat, the conquest and subjugation of the country by foreign invaders. Both perceptions are of course valid, depending on one's angle of vision... Iran was indeed Islamized, but it was not Arabized. Persians remained Persians. And after an interval of silence, Iran reemerged as a separate, different and distinctive element within Islam, eventually adding a new element even to Islam itself. Culturally, politically, and most remarkable of all even religiously, the Iranian contribution to this new Islamic civilization is of immense importance. The work of Iranians can be seen in every field of cultural endeavor, including Arabic poetry, to which poets of Iranian origin composing their poems in Arabic made a very significant contribution. In a sense, Iranian Islam is a second advent of Islam itself, a new Islam sometimes referred to as Islam-i Ajam. It was this Persian Islam, rather than the original Arab Islam, that was brought to new areas and new peoples: to the Turks, first in Central Asia and then in the Middle East in the country which came to be called Turkey, and of course to India. The Ottoman Turks brought a form of Iranian civilization to the walls of Vienna...[5]"
According to Tarikh-i Bukhara "The residents of Bukhara became Muslims. But they renounced [Islam] each time the Arabs turned back. Qutayba b. Muslim made them Muslim three times, [but] they renounced [Islam] again and became nonbelievers. The fourth time, Qutayba waged war, seized the city, and established Islam after considerable strife....They espoused Islam overtly but practiced idolatry in secret."
During the reign of the Ummayad dynasty, the Arab conquerors imposed Arabic as the primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire, displacing their indigenous languages. However, Middle Persian proved to be much more enduring. Most of the structure and vocabulary survived, evolving into the modern Persian language. However, Persian did incorporate a certain amount of Arabic vocabulary, specially as pertains to religion, as well as switching from the Pahlavi Aramaic alphabet to one based on a modified version of Arabic characters. [6]
(the Parthians) as early as 1500 B.C., influenced the Greek, redefined Judaism in the 3rd century B.C., influenced Christianity and Islam. Mithraism, which was the official religion of the Roman Empire before 350 AD, was an Iranian influence, through the Parthians. The military practices of the Iranians, the Achamenids , the Sassanids, and of the Parthians set the military standards for the known world at the time, and also for the medieval European nations, over a thousand years later.
What little is known of the Sassanids and the Achamenids, indicates that both courts had a lot of interest in the fine arts and embraced the high culture of the time (it is hard to say what they contributed since very little evidence of it, survives). What evidence does survive indicates that the art known as Christian art or the medieval art originated from the art of the Sassanid era. Hymn singing and candle light vigils made it over to Christianity from Zoroastrianism.
The Iranians were known as the inventors of civil engineering, and invented many of the techniques for building structures which survive to this day. The dome which made it into the Arab masjid and the arched support, which the Romans had not discovered, was also Iranian in origin. Evidence for other material advancements such as production of perfumes, jewelry and artifacts exist.
Evidence also exists for highly sophisticated orchestral arrangements and theater from the late Sassanid period. No books or direct evidence, from pre Islamic Iran exists, because the Arabs did not think anything outside of the word of the Koran needed to be said and destroyed all books, which were concentrated in a few literary centers (proliferation of books was not common place as the loss in the library of Alexandria proved; all the books perished without the possibility of replacements).
The height of philosophical achievement in pre Islamic Iran can be found in the teachings of Mazdak (the first socialist uprising) and Mani. Building highways and bridges and a mail courier system were Iranian, which the Romans utilized efficiently. Car and van are both derived from the Persian word caravan, which facilitated bulk movement of merchandise over an entire continent, with regular stops known as caravan sara.
The History Channel presented a documentary, recently, on this topic which I hope you watched, because it seems to me it would benefit you immensely. Here is the introduction to the program:
“The Persian Empire was one of the most mysterious civilizations in the ancient world. Persia became an empire under the Cyrus the Great, who created a policy of religious and cultural tolerance that became the hallmark of Persian rule. Engineering feats include an innovative system of water management; a cross-continent paved roadway stretching 1500 miles; a canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea; and the creation of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Mausoleum of Maussollos. The rivalry between Persia and Athens led to a 30-year war known as the Persian Wars, the outcome of which helped create the world we live in today. Peter Weller hosts.”
So you can stop flogging yourself. What little evidence there is, suggests an Iran full of culture and humanities with world wide contribution and influence. The world is discovering the contributions of the Iranians to humanity, and high time you did too.
In passing, and for historical correctness I have put the existence of culture on the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia, into perspective. The non semite Sumerian culture of 6000 years ago, probably the most advanced ever, predates the Greeks, the Egypcians and the Chinese. After moving North West from their original settlements at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, they came into contact with the semite people of Akkad . The constant wars between Sumer, Akad and non semite Elamites (Ilam; on the Iranian plateau), resulted in the destruction of the Sumerian civilization, but gave birth to the Babylonian culture.
The Indo European Hittites, from present day Turkey, took over Babylon but then it fell into the hands of the Cassites form the Iranian plateau from 1800 to about 1200 B.C. The Assyrians who had been overshadowed by Sumer and Akkad, subdued the kingdom of Babylon from about 900 B.C. The Assyrians then gave way to the Medes, the new masters of the middle East. Babylonians were not a race but a mix of peoples which included Sumerians, Akkadians, Elamites, Cassites, and Hittites.
All of that predates the Persian Empire and the Greek Civilization which you compare with Egyptian, Chinese and Babylonian civilizations. Each has its own place in history and has its share of contributions to humanity. One could not have achieved as much without exchange with the other. The value of the contribution for each civilization is the legacy it leaves behind and the world is now becoming aware of the Iranian share of it.
Your brief account of the history of Iran after Islam, is also flawed. During the Arab invasion, it was Arab racism, especially directed towards Iranians, that was rampant. Arabs considered it beneath themselves to work and all the specialized technical work of the Arab empire was assigned to Iranians. The so called Arab numerals are Persian in origin and the concept of Zero, which is now contributed to Arabs, was also a Persian invention. The Arabian, the world renowned horse, was of Iranian origin known as the Nissian horse and was bred originally by the Medes in the city of Nisa.
After Abu Muslim toppled the last of the Bani Ummayeh Khalifs and fascilitated the Bani Abbas Khalifet, Iranian influence initiated the relocation of the capital city of the Arab Empire from Damascus to an area in Iraq close to Tisphoon (the Parthian and Sassanid capital city). A city was built called Baghdad or Bagheh Dad which in Persian means The Garden of Justice. It was in this garden that most of what became known as Muslim science, philosophy and literature was developed, by Iranians.
After all the killing and the slave taking was over (Iranian men and women were being sold in the slave markets of Mecca and Damascus), whole tribes of Arabs were relocated to Iran to force the Arab culture and language on Iranians. One of the large population centers for Arabs was ironically, Qom. Within one generation, the Arabs became the new Iranians and were absorbed by the Iranian culture. So the only point you are right about is that after Islam a monolithic Iranian race did not exist anymore, but what you are wrong about, is that a multifaceted Iranian culture did survive which, btransformed the Mongols and the Turks who followed Arabs, into the new Iranians, and which is the back bone of the identity of every Iranian national, today.
This was not a new culture, invented by Reza Shah or borrowed from the West. It was purely Iranian in origin that had become de-emphasized after the enforcement of the Shiite doctrine in Iran, since the 15th century. So you can, ignorantly say that Iran became westernized in the twentieth century, or that the West became Iranized, a long time ago, and that Iran found its own identity for a brief period in the 20th century.
The Sumerians were a non-Semitic people and were at one time believed to have been invaders, as a number of linguists believed they could detect a substrate language beneath Sumerian. However, the archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the Early Ubaid period (5200-4500 BC C-14, 6090-5429 BC calBC) settlements in southern Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people who settled here farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
The challenge for any population attempting to dwell in Iraq's arid southern floodplain, where rainfall is currently less than 5 inches a year, was to manage the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to supply year-round water for farming and drinking. The Sumerian language has many terms for canals, dikes, and reservoirs. Sumerian speakers were farmers who moved down from the north after perfecting irrigation agriculture there. The Ubaid pottery of southern Mesopotamia has been connected via Choga Mami Transitional ware to the pottery of the Samarra period culture (c. 5700-4900 BC C-14, 6640-5816 BC calBC) in the north, who were the first to practice a primitive form of irrigation agriculture along the middle Tigris River and its tributaries. The connection is most clearly seen at Tell Awayli (Oueilli, Oueili) near Larsa, excavated by the French in the 1980s, where 8 levels yielded pre-Ubaid pottery resembling Samarran ware. Farming peoples spread down into southern Mesopotamia because they had developed a temple-centered social organization for mobilizing labor and technology for water control, enabling them to survive and prosper in a difficult environment.
[edit] City states
Elamite is an extinct language, which was spoken by the ancient Elamites (also known as Ilamids). Elamite was an official language of the Persian Empire from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE. The last written records in Elamite appear about the time of the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great.
Contents [hide]
1 Elamite scripts
2 Linguistic typology
3 Relations to other language families
3.1 Elamo-Dravidian versus Afro-Asiatic
4 References
5 External links
[edit] Elamite scripts
Over the centuries, three distinct Elamite scripts developed.
Proto-Elamite is the oldest known writing system from Iran. It was used during a brief period of time (ca. 3100 - 2900 BCE); clay tablets with Proto-Elamite writing have been found at different sites across Iran. The Proto-Elamite script is thought to have developed from early cuneiform (proto-cuneiform). The Proto-Elamite script consists of more than 1,000 signs and is thought to be partly logographic. Since it has not yet been deciphered, it is not known whether the language it represents is Elamite or another language. It has been suggested that some early writing systems, including Proto-Elamite, may not relate to spoken languages in the way that modern writing systems do.
Linear Elamite is a writing system from Iran attested in a few monumental inscriptions only. It is often claimed that Linear Elamite is a syllabic writing system derived from Proto-Elamite, although this cannot be proven. Linear-Elamite was used for a very brief period of time during the last quarter of the third millennium BC. Linear-Elamite has not been deciphered. Several scholars have attempted to decipher linear-Elamite, most notably Walther Hinz and Piero Meriggi.
The Elamite Cuneiform script was used from about 2500 BCE to 331 BCE, and was adapted from the Akkadian Cuneiform. The Elamite Cuneiform script consisted of about 130 symbols, far fewer than most other cuneiform scripts.
[edit] Linguistic typology
Elamite was an agglutinative language, and Elamite grammar features case agreement between nouns, called Suffixaufnahme. It also had the unusual feature of having a class of animate nouns with separate markers for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person.
[edit] Relations to other language families
Elamite is mostly thought to have no close relation to the neighboring Semitic languages, to the Indo-European languages, or to Sumerian, even though it adopted the Sumerian syllabic script.
[edit] Elamo-Dravidian versus Afro-Asiatic
There have been two promising attempts at categorization. In one, an Elamo-Dravidian language family, consisting of Elamite and the Dravidian languages, was carried from Elam to India by eastward migration; this is the view proposed by David McAlpin. In the other, proposed by Václav Blažek, Elamite is more closely related to the Afro-Asiatic languages, perhaps forming a distinct subfamily of these.
[edit] References
"We are not Arabs and did not arrive here from the Arabian peninsula and were here centuries before the Arabs arrived in the region and brought with them the Arabic languages and the religion of Islam. It is also true that we became a minority in our own homeland, it is a fact that most countries of the Middle East are ruled by the Arab majority but not all the inhabitants of these countries are Arabs. Customarily inhabitants of Persia are called Iranian and those of turkey are known as Turks but we are the more ancient people who have lived alongside these other cultures for much longer than the Kurdish and Arabs-Islamic cultures have though our history is not well known to most people."
In fact We have greatly influenced our neighboring cultures and religion, they in turn have influenced ours but we still have a separate culture and national identity which has been preserved over centuries.
Our people have been persecuted by the rising nationalism in the countries of the Middle East trying to undermine our identity but we will continue to preserve our independent national heritage.
Yes.
I know it won't end.
The enormous vatican sized "embassy" (which you hear very little of in USA) is an indication to me that USA has ulterior motives and the idea of staying indefinatley.
Still, like you, this is of little consolation for me.
The scars of war will FOREVER remain with ALL who have been involved and damaged by this occupation.
All of this also reaffirms my own beliefs in what exactly USA is doing, at home and abroad.
Working toward a one world government and turning USA into a militarized police state.
I do wish it would stop.
But if wishes came true, I suppose we would all be happier...
Reality is the world in which we must cope and conduct our lives.
God bless Layla,
Ike
Since you continue to berate these people with no reason to justify it we can all feel safe to assume that your therapy needs to be continued...
I am going to assume that you went to the pharmacy for the vitamins and medicine for your erectile dysfunction.
Now, when you take the medication for your E.D. remember that physical changes WILL occur.
But don't be afraid of your own little willie.
Go ahead and look at it, touch it, smell it.
BUT, understand Jr. that you will now need a partner, either male or female whatever your preference.
And you MUST find one because this will help you to pry yourself away from your internet pornography habit.
You MUST try to stay away from the internet pornography. It will only fuel your shame which you then turn to anger and vent it upon these nice people on this blog.
Remember this is what we are trying to cure you of.
Now again on the issue of your queen.
Jr. you CANNOT go on carrying the tremendous burdon of shame which in reality belongs to your queen, not you.
You should not punish yourself for her filthy, promiscuous actions!
It is not your fault.
You were born and raised where you are, and it is not your fault that the aristocracy there is so devient.
As you yourself said "the abyss stares back" and in this case your own personal abyss is the screen at which you stare as you write your slanderous messages to these people and as you review your pornography.
Again I am going to say that SOCIAL INTERACTION is a must for you.
You must leave your comfort zone and venture out into the world to find life beyond your computer screen!
Today I am going to suggest that you take your vitamins and your E.D. medicine and have another nice walk to the new's stand.
Get a news paper and thumb thru the ad's to try and find a nice job.
That, you see, will help you to become a productive citizen.
A garbage man perhaps?
Or a ditch digger?
I am aware that your mentality and your intelligence level limits you as to what type of job you can find.
But again, do not be too hard on yourself.
You will learn how to properly enjoy the gift of life as we continue your therapy.
That is all for today.
Ta
Pain that goes on and on and on - I share it with all of you and you are all very much in my heart and in my thoughts and prayers. Will be in touch soon.
Take care, stay safe and God bless. You too, Savage.....Will be in touch.
The sumerians contrary to what you claim were a semitic people.
Anyone who quotes Bernard Lewis as a historian is out of his mind.
Bernard lewis is not only an arch zionist, but he is also the one along with Fouad Ajami who provided the White house with "insights" as to the arab mind and the Abu Ghraib tortures were based in part on those insights provided by two staunch anti arabs...Ajami who is originally an iranian and none other than Bernard Lewis the zionist jews.
I do not take either as academic references.
You are just proving my point of persian fascism..Thank you for making my task easier.
There are ethiopians, yemenis, kurds, iraqis, syrians, egyptians,moroccans, tunisians, algerians jews in Israel...
So what you are saying does not contradict what I am saying.
as to the origins of the arabic language being an offshoot of Aramaic, some ancient history academics may disagree with that one...and some may agree..
As for Ibn Sina, it really does not matter where he emerged from, as there were no frontiers then and people were more related by faith than by nationality or origins.
I am part of a team working on an innovative web portal that's aimed at Arab women globally. With its city reports, its high end shopping and its social networking page, our portal combines several websites into one.
I'll be looking after two sections of the site... If anyone is interested, I'll share some more info? Just want to get a feel for who's out there!
Thoughts, questions, requests?
Email me at maryam.ghouth@dia-media.com