Iranians Debate the Reality of ‘Aryan Islam’

A general view taken from Western Tehran shows a blanket of brown-white smog (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
A general view taken from Western Tehran shows a blanket of brown-white smog (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
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Iranians Debate the Reality of ‘Aryan Islam’

A general view taken from Western Tehran shows a blanket of brown-white smog (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
A general view taken from Western Tehran shows a blanket of brown-white smog (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)

It took five years to build, cost more than $10 million, used large quantities of gold, silver and ebony, and engaged over 600 of the country’s finest craftsmen. It then made a 2,000-kilometer journey to its destination, stopping in many village and towns on the way to that its sight would bestow blessings on the people. Everywhere it was accompanied by a delegation of clerics, preachers and heavily armed security men.

The “it” in question is the frame that surrounds the tomb of Salman Farsi whose shrine is located in the Salman-Pak (The Pure) just south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The shrine had suffered decades of neglect, its dome peeling off and its basic structures weakened by the elements. Today, the shrine is back to its former glory and fitted with a huge crystal chandelier and paved with fine Persian carpets.

The idea to renovate the shrine was first raised by a group of devotees in Isfahan where Salman is reputed to have spent part of his childhood in the 7th century AD.

A crowd funding scheme provided the seed money required for the project which in its latest stages also received public finance in the context of a growing trend to highlight Iran’s links with Islam from the earliest phases of that religion.

Salman the Persian was one of the earliest non-Arab converts to Islam and a prominent member of the Prophet’s entourage in Medina. He is remarkable for his abiding status as a pious and at the same time dexterous man whose military and diplomatic know-how rendered immense services to Islam in its early stages.

Born into a prominent Zoroastrian family in Kazerun, southern Iran, Salman, whose Persian name was “Ruzbeh” started his career as an officer in the Sassanid army but soon decided to give up his commission and travel “in search of the truth”. His journeys took him to Ctesiphon, then capital of the Sassanid Empire, in Mesopotamia and hence to Syria, then a province of the Byzantine Empire. It was there that he encountered the Anchorite Christians and was fascinated by the idea of prophets sent by God to guide the people. He then traveled south to the Arabian Peninsula where the Prophet of Islam had just started preaching his divine message. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Last month the official media in Tehran evoked the idea of naming November 7 as Salman Farsi Day as a means of countering the Cyrus the Great Day declared by Iranian nationalists.
However, the official news agency IRNA went even further and suggested that the government declare a Cyrus the Great Day.

Travel agencies specializing in pilgrimage to holy cities in Iraq now include a visit to Salman Farsi shrine as part of their packages.

The current new fascination that many in Iran feel for Salman is part of the movement for “Iranian Islam” which has been gaining ground in the past few years.

Iranian history in the past 15 centuries has often see-sawed between religion and nationalism. The rise of one has often been accompanied with the decline of the other and vice versa.

“Partly because of dissatisfaction with the role of (Shi’ite) clerics in politics, Iran is experiencing a growing anti-religious trend,” says Mehrangiz Bayat, a Tehran researcher.

That analysis is backed by some prominent clerics. For example, Grand Ayatollah Shubeir Zanjani, one of the top clerics in Qom, warned last week that involvement in politics had contributed to the decline of the authority and popularity of the Shi’ite clergy in Iran.

Ultra-nationalists, including pan-Iranists who dream of reviving the Sassanid Empire in one form or another, have seized the popular disaffection with the ruling clergy as template for attacking Islam as “an alien Arab religion imposed on Aryan Iranians by the sword.”

They ignore the fact that the mass of Iranians converted to Islam long after the 80-year-old Arab occupation of parts of Iran had ended.

The concept of the “Iranian” or ”Aryan Islam” has been launched to counter the claim of “alien Islam”.

Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was and remains an advocate of the concept. During his tenure he borrowed the Cyrus Cylinder, an artifact on which Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenes Empire, is supposed to have inscribed the first declaration of human rights, from the British Museum and put it on show in Tehran. The exhibit, guarded by a squadron of soldiers dressed in Achaemenian military uniforms, attracted more than five million visitors.

Ahmadinejad justified his move, which angered some mullahs, on the grounds that Cyrus is supposed to have been mentioned in the Koran ad “zul-qornayn”. (Some scholars believe the reference is to Alexander not to Cyrus!)

According to reports, which cannot be independently verified, the “brain” behind the idea of an “Aryan Islam” is an obscure cleric named Hassan Yaaqubi who, although he has never been seen or heard in public, is supposed to have authored more than 40 books.

Other clerics have tried to promote the idea of an “Aryan Islam” by claiming that Hussein Ibn Ali, son of Ali Ibn Abitaleb and Fatimah, married Bibi Shahrbanu a daughter of the last Sassanian King Yazdegerd, initiating a fusion of Islam and Iran.

“All descendants of Hussein have Iranian blood in their veins,” says Ayatollah Sobhani. “This means an unbreakable human bond exists between Islam and Iran.”

Iranian nationalists, however, reject that idea and claim that Bibi Shahrbanu, whose shrine near Tehran attracts millions of pilgrims every year had been taken a captive and never converted to Islam.

Another cleric, Ayatollah Husseini Qazwini, claims that Iran’s Islam bond was strengthened by the Twelfth Imam, known as the Hidden Mahdi al-Montazar, emerged from his Long Absence in secret and married a girl from Tehran, ensuring the continuation of the “sacred line of Ali” with generation after generation of people with “Iranian blood in their veins.”

However, the traditional Iranian conflict between nationalism and religion seems set to intensify. According to government sources, more and more Iranians now use non-Islamic names for their new-born children. That has led to a decision by the Central Registration Office at the Ministry of Interior last Thursday to toughen rules for using “non-Islamic” names.

Spokesman for the registration office Seyf-Allah Abutorabi told a press conference that the ministry would also help those who wish to replace their non-Islamic names to do so with a minimum of bureaucratic hassle.



10 Years after Europe's Migration Crisis, the Fallout Reverberates in Greece and Beyond

File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
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10 Years after Europe's Migration Crisis, the Fallout Reverberates in Greece and Beyond

File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)

Fleeing Iran with her husband and toddler, Amena Namjoyan reached a rocky beach of this eastern Greek island along with hundreds of thousands of others. For months, their arrival overwhelmed Lesbos. Boats fell apart, fishermen dove to save people from drowning, and local grandmothers bottle-fed newly arrived babies.

Namjoyan spent months in an overcrowded camp. She learned Greek. She struggled with illness and depression as her marriage collapsed. She tried to make a fresh start in Germany but eventually returned to Lesbos, the island that first embraced her. Today, she works at a restaurant, preparing Iranian dishes that locals devour, even if they struggle to pronounce the names. Her second child tells her, “‘I’m Greek.’”

“Greece is close to my culture, and I feel good here,” Namjoyan said. “I am proud of myself.”

In 2015, more than 1 million migrants and refugees arrived in Europe — the majority by sea, landing in Lesbos, where the north shore is just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Türkiye. The influx of men, women and children fleeing war and poverty sparked a humanitarian crisis that shook the European Union to its core. A decade later, the fallout still reverberates on the island and beyond.

For many, Greece was a place of transit. They continued on to northern and western Europe. Many who applied for asylum were granted international protection; thousands became European citizens. Countless more were rejected, languishing for years in migrant camps or living in the streets. Some returned to their home countries. Others were kicked out of the European Union.

For Namjoyan, Lesbos is a welcoming place — many islanders share a refugee ancestry, and it helps that she speaks their language. But migration policy in Greece, like much of Europe, has shifted toward deterrence in the decade since the crisis. Far fewer people are arriving illegally. Officials and politicians have maintained that strong borders are needed. Critics say enforcement has gone too far and violates fundamental EU rights and values.

“Migration is now at the top of the political agenda, which it didn’t use to be before 2015,” said Camille Le Coz Director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe, noting changing EU alliances. “We are seeing a shift toward the right of the political spectrum.”

A humanitarian crisis turned into a political one

In 2015, boat after boat crowded with refugees crashed onto the doorstep of Elpiniki Laoumi, who runs a fish tavern across from a Lesbos beach. She fed them, gave them water, made meals for aid organizations.

“You would look at them and think of them as your own children," said Laoumi, whose tavern walls today are decorated with thank-you notes.

From 2015 to 2016, the peak of the migration crisis, more than 1 million people entered Europe through Greece alone. The immediate humanitarian crisis — to feed, shelter and care for so many people at once — grew into a long-term political one.

Greece was reeling from a crippling economic crisis. The influx added to anger against established political parties, fueling the rise of once-fringe populist forces.

EU nations fought over sharing responsibility for asylum seekers. The bloc’s unity cracked as some member states flatly refused to take migrants. Anti-migration voices calling for closed borders became louder.

Today, illegal migration is down across Europe While illegal migration to Greece has fluctuated, numbers are nowhere near 2015-16 figures, according to the International Organization for Migration. Smugglers adapted to heightened surveillance, shifting to more dangerous routes.

Overall, irregular EU border crossings decreased by nearly 40% last year and continue to fall, according to EU border and coast guard agency Frontex.

That hasn’t stopped politicians from focusing on — and sometimes fearmongering over — migration. This month, the Dutch government collapsed after a populist far-right lawmaker withdrew his party’s ministers over migration policy.

In Greece, the new far-right migration minister has threatened rejected asylum seekers with jail time.

A few miles from where Namjoyan now lives, in a forest of pine and olive trees, is a new EU-funded migrant center. It's one of the largest in Greece and can house up to 5,000 people.

Greek officials denied an Associated Press request to visit. Its opening is blocked, for now, by court challenges.

Some locals say the remote location seems deliberate — to keep migrants out of sight and out of mind.

“We don’t believe such massive facilities are needed here. And the location is the worst possible – deep inside a forest,” said Panagiotis Christofas, mayor of Lesbos’ capital, Mytilene. “We’re against it, and I believe that’s the prevailing sentiment in our community.”

A focus on border security

For most of Europe, migration efforts focus on border security and surveillance.

The European Commission this year greenlighted the creation of “return” hubs — a euphemism for deportation centers — for rejected asylum seekers. Italy has sent unwanted migrants to its centers in Albania, even as that faces legal challenges.

Governments have resumed building walls and boosting surveillance in ways unseen since the Cold War.

In 2015, Frontex was a small administrative office in Warsaw. Now, it's the EU's biggest agency, with 10,000 armed border guards, helicopters, drones and an annual budget of over 1 billion euros.

On other issues of migration — reception, asylum and integration, for example — EU nations are largely divided.

The legacy of Lesbos

Last year, EU nations approved a migration and asylum pact laying out common rules for the bloc's 27 countries on screening, asylum, detention and deportation of people trying to enter without authorization, among other things.

“The Lesbos crisis of 2015 was, in a way, the birth certificate of the European migration and asylum policy,” Margaritis Schinas, a former European Commission vice president and a chief pact architect, told AP.

He said that after years of fruitless negotiations, he's proud of the landmark compromise.

“We didn’t have a system,” Schinas said. “Europe’s gates had been crashed."

The deal, endorsed by the United Nations refugee agency, takes effect next year. Critics say it made concessions to hardliners. Human rights organizations say it will increase detention and erode the right to seek asylum.

Some organizations also criticize the “externalization” of EU border management — agreements with countries across the Mediterranean to aggressively patrol their coasts and hold migrants back in exchange for financial assistance.

The deals have expanded, from Türkiye to the Middle East and across Africa. Human rights groups say autocratic governments are pocketing billions and often subject the displaced to appalling conditions.

Lesbos still sees some migrants arrive Lesbos' 80,000 residents look back at the 2015 crisis with mixed feelings.

Fisherman Stratos Valamios saved some children. Others drowned just beyond his reach, their bodies still warm as he carried them to shore.

“What’s changed from back then to now, 10 years on? Nothing,” he said. “What I feel is anger — that such things can happen, that babies can drown.”

Those who died crossing to Lesbos are buried in two cemeteries, their graves marked as “unknown.”

Tiny shoes and empty juice boxes with faded Turkish labels can still be found on the northern coast. So can black doughnut-shaped inner tubes, given by smugglers as crude life preservers for children. At Moria, a refugee camp destroyed by fire in 2020, children’s drawings remain on gutted building walls.

Migrants still arrive, and sometimes die, on these shores. Lesbos began to adapt to a quieter, more measured flow of newcomers.

Efi Latsoudi, who runs a network helping migrants learn Greek and find jobs, hopes Lesbos’ tradition of helping outsiders in need will outlast national policies.

“The way things are developing, it’s not friendly for newcomers to integrate into Greek society,” Latsoudi said. "We need to do something. ... I believe there is hope.”