The outbreak of battle between Iran and the United States and Israel has sparked a wide variety of feedback on social media and social gatherings. Because of the suddenness of the placement and lack of expertise of this a part of the sector, Iran used to be integrated within the record of Arab international locations, whilst indignant voices call for that or not it’s known as Persia, as a result of that used to be the title of the rustic earlier than Islamization.
Pierre Villard stated that historical past “must teach us, above all, to read newspapers.” On this case, it’s price the use of the tragic global context to query the myths about this Islamic nation whose life dates again many centuries.
Quilt of Samarkand via Amin Maalouf. Editorial Alliance
In Samarkand (1988), the Lebanese creator Amin Maalouf makes use of a misplaced manuscript of the Rubaˁiiiat (“quartet”) of ˁUmar Jaiyām (d. 1123) to glue two classes of Iranian historical past. The primary section narrates the lifetime of this private Muslim highbrow within the carrier of Vizier Nizam al-Muluk and Sultans Alp Arslan and Malik Shah. The second one makes a speciality of makes an attempt to democratize the Asian nation between 1909 and 1911 within the shadow of the UK and Russia, powers that divided the rustic and didn’t wish to lose their affect in it.
Fable and reminiscence of pre-Islamic Persia
Like others earlier than him, on the finish of the eleventh century Nizam al-Muluk seemed to the Sasanian length (224-651) looking for to create his personal identification that mixed Islamic and pre-Islamic components. We owe nearly the entirety we all know in regards to the Iranian Empire to this motion of “Iranization” of Islam. Named Eranshahr, it refers back to the territory occupied via present-day Iraq and Iran earlier than the Muslim Arabs conquered it between 634 and 651 AD.
We don’t keep any authentic literary texts from the Sasanian length. But if the population of Persia rejected Arabic as a result of, in comparison to their very own custom, it used to be noticed as backward and nugatory, the Abbasid caliphs, the second one dynasty of Islam (750-1258), didn’t hesitate to turn into Iranian. Subsequently, they made up our minds to mimic the courtly tactics of the shahansh, “kings of kings”, who occupied the middle of the political group because of a type of divine grace handed from father to son and possessed handiest via the rulers of the empire.
Then started the method of translating texts from the traditional custom into Arabic, performed via Islamized Persians, who translated the writings created within the Indo-Eu language, Farsi, right into a Semitic language: Arabic.
The worth that the pre-Islamic previous nonetheless has for Iranians is indicated via the truth that their nationwide tune is the Shaname (“Book of Kings”), written in Persian round 1010 via Ferdosi. In his verses, he appears to be like again at the historical past of Eranshahr, by which delusion and fact combine.
Unique myths
After the so-called Twelve Day Battle (June 12-24, 2025), the Ayatollahs grew to become to bas-reliefs of Naqsh-e Rustam or the legendary Arash the Sagittarius as a part of their propaganda in opposition to the Israelis and American citizens.
Each components have a powerful symbolic load. Naksh-e Rustam represents the instant by which the Roman emperor Valerian acknowledges the victory of the Sasanian ruler Shapur I in 260 AD.
Statue of Arash the Archer, Sariyazd, Yazd Province, Iran. ninara/Wikimedia Commons, CC BI-SA
For its section, the determine of Arash the Sagittarius belongs to Persian mythology. Legend has it that Arash, the most productive archer within the Iranian military, used to be selected to respond to a problem set via the victorious king of Turan (Iran’s everlasting enemies): shoot an arrow to mark the border anyplace it caught. From the sacred mountain of Irivoht, Arash drew his bow like by no means earlier than and the projectile flew for weeks, carried via the wind, embedding itself within the trunk of the biggest walnut tree on this planet, at the banks of the Amu Darya River. After they went to search for Arash, he disappeared; no longer a hint remained. The archer sacrificed himself for his other people and his frame used to be the territory he introduced to his countrymen.
Those symbols, like all weapon, have a double edge, on this case within the type of inner propaganda. Those are icons that, at the one hand, the theocratic regime rejects, as a result of they constitute values conventional of a time that Islamic custom considers “ignorance”. Then again, there are tales and characters which might be a part of pop culture. Ayatollahs, interrogated internally, use them to get nearer to a inhabitants this is an increasing number of far away from the regime.
Demonstrators who took to the streets between December 2025 and January 2026 chanting “Long live the Shah” are evidence of his standard affect. A line of continuity used to be established within the collective creativeness between the legendary occasions of Arash the Sagittarius and the monarchy, passing throughout the Sassanid generation and the Perso-Muslim flourishing of Shubiya (a cultural motion to reclaim what used to be Iranian from what used to be Arab). Not easy the go back of the king and the tip of the Islamic republic, they intend to go back to glad Arcadia.
Nostalgia continues to be at the identical web page
Now, as in Sept. 11. century, nostalgia for a meant golden age belongs to a category that occupies a subordinate place. The pre-Islamic length turns into a time we wish to go back to as a result of it’s related to cultural, financial and political splendor, when Iran’s affect went from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic.
Zoroastrianism used to be then the professional Sasanian faith. His fans, along side Christians and Jews, have been allowed to care for their ideals in change for paying the jizya, a capitation. If truth be told, Judaism, Christianity and Islam inherited their dualistic personality (ideas of excellent and evil).
Reduction at Naksh-e Rostam positioned in Persepolis, Iran. This carving depicts the well-known scene by which the Roman emperor Valerian kneels earlier than Shapur I and asks for mercy. Diego Delso, delso.photograph, CC BI-SA
Descendants of the Sasanian aristocracy noticed this actual fee as an embarrassment. Subsequently, the elites made up our minds to transform to Islam to keep their standing. They most commonly leaned against Shiism, the department that defends the legacy of ˁAli and his sons, al-Hasan and al-Husain, son-in-law and grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
Alternatively, someway the Arab invaders have been ultimately defeated via the defeated Iranians: the Persian way of living used to be a lot more sexy because of the opulence of the Sasanian court docket. There have been many rigorists who criticized what they thought to be to be an over the top style for this dolce vita.
Students of Islamic legislation additionally left out that the development of the caliph as a political and spiritual authority used to be a replica of the location of shahansh, “king of kings.” This resulted in Islam changing into a copycat of Zoroastrianism because the state faith of the empire. A confessional device can be established, which might persecute concepts thought to be opposite to the professional line. The perception of purity and impurity in Islam derives from the affect of Zoroastrian converts, the ones monks who retained their weight in society even if they deserted their historical religion two centuries after the conquest.
The pre-Islamic previous is built-in into the identification of present Iranians as considered one of their two souls. Two souls which might be, now and then, in opposition, however which don’t seem to be understood in isolation. Islam isn’t a homogenous block and it adopts its personal paperwork in each territory. Gala’s like Nowruz live on as a result of they’ve been taken over via Islam, on this case Iranian, which supplies them a constitution.
Briefly, the flame of Eranshahr has no longer been extinguished.
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