Iran and the Arabs

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Feb 8, 2010 at 14:35

Hi Sudad and very interesting remarks indeed

I read with interest the recent article by Dr Daniel Pipes advising the US to bomb the nuclear facilities of Iran to protect the US and its allies.The Iranian threat towards Israel and Western interests has its transcultural aspects that are misunderstood in the West.

I very much agree with you

The Persians, unlike the Arabs, have their own national and ethnic identity.

This is very true and i would add the Persians never liked the Arabs

These two dimensions were further reinforced by the adoption by the Iranians of Shi'a Islam which has become gradually inseparable in Arab perception from the Safavid imperial aspirations.

I see the adoption of Shi3a islam by the Persians as another way for the Persians to distance themselves from the Arabs and their form of islam

The Middle East has become polarised into a Sunni or orthodox Muslim world, and a Shiite Persian one.

As expected

The Persian attempt to use the Arab Israeli conflict to dominate the Arab and Islamic World would never succeed as the Shi'a are often viewed as heretics who were allies of the Tatars and the Crusaders.

I think that the arabs just regard shi3a Islam as hartaqa or as heretics and no more

Furthermore the Shi'a themselves do not consider Jerusalem as a sacred place unlike the Sunni Muslims,

This is very true

and it is fact that its prominence in Islamic History was fabricated at the time when the Umayyad dynasty were unable to control Mecca and Medina for almost a decade in the 7th Century.

You are very correct and the site of al-masjad al-aqsa could have been the cutlic center of Islam and the destination for al-hajj.

For the readers: The Quranic story of al-isra' wa al-mi3raj which has no meaning without reading quranic tafseer where we are toldthat it is supposed to be the story of Muhammad's trip from Mecca to Jerusalem but fixing Jerusalem as the site of Muhammad's destination is circa 10th century and not any earlier and the ancient ulama the likes of Tabari had no clue what this Quranic allusion was all about.

As for the story of Omar al-Faruq (read this as Omar the redeemer) who enters Jerusalem riding a donkey (straight from the lore of the Jewish people or al-isra'iliyyat and the the messiah entering Jerusalem) is no more than another qissa (story of fiction) that never happened.

As for the Umayyads the chances are they never knew or cared to know anything about their prophet and they liked to have the capital of their empire in Syria with all the wine and the dancing girls than to live in drab and distant Mecca

Hence the Arabs and Sunni Muslims do not believe the Iranian Rhetoric about Jerusalem and the cry for the Palestinians, and to them it is a tactic to gain influence in an Arab World which lacks the ethnic and national homogeneity of the Iranians.

I really disagree with you. The Arabs view iran as no more than another Muslim country and that in due time the Persians will see the light and become Sunni like them

The aspirations of Iran to possess a nuclear bomb are real, and it is needed to balance the Sunni bomb already in existence in a more volatile place (i.e.Pakistan). It would provide the muscle needed to control and regain the lost land of the Safavid Empire.

It very well could be true

I think that Israel has a good understanding of the dynamics controlling their Arab and Muslim neighbours, and probably would not wait for Barack Obama to deliver the strike needed with the blessings of the Arabs and Sunni Muslims. However I also believe that Israel is fully aware that the Iranian threat is more directed towards the Arabs and Sunni Muslims, and if a job were needed they would execute it better than the Obama administration.

Very interesting

Sudad Jawad Al Timimi, MD

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