12: Iran

The Problem With the Islamic Apocalypse According to certain hadiths, the apocalypse will come in stages. In the first, the world will be filled with injustice, and Muslims will be oppressed. Then two saviors will arise: “the awaited one,” or Mahdi, a divinely guided caliph who will unite and empower Muslims, followed by a bygone prophet who will come back to earth to support the Mahdi and defeat evil. This prophet will not be Muhammad, as one could have expected, but Jesus, praised in the Quran as the Messiah and the “Word of God.” ....... Many Christians also await the Second Coming of Jesus, so this might sound to them like good news. But Islamic literature seems to suggest that Jesus will return to abolish Christianity and confirm the truth of Islam. A much-quoted hadith, to which the Dabiq headline was alluding, says, “The Son of Mary will soon descend among you as a just ruler; he will break the cross and kill the swine.” The usual interpretation of this prophecy is that when Jesus comes back, he will put an end to his own worship, symbolized by the cross, and re-establish the dietary laws that Christianity abandoned but Jews and Muslims still observe. .......... According to a 2012 poll by the Pew Research Center, half of Muslims or more in nine Muslim-majority countries believe that the coming of the Mahdi is “imminent,” and could happen in their lifetime. ........ When recent history and current events are seen as best explained by prophecies, it becomes difficult to analyze them. Take, for example, the main quandary of the Muslim world for the past two centuries: Why have we moved so far backward compared with the West? The apocalyptic narrative, revived since the 1980s by popular Islamic writers such as the Egyptian Said Ayyub and many of his followers, states that this happened because of the forces of “Dajjal” — Islam’s version of the Antichrist. ........ If the Dajjal is to blame for the Muslim world’s bleak situation, then only divinely guided saviors can find a way out. This belief discourages pursuing the real solutions to the gap between the Islamic world and the West: science, economic development and liberal democracy. .......... The 19th-century Islamic scholar Muhammad Abduh, for example, argued that Jesus’s Second Coming was a metaphor for reform within Islam. Just like the conservative Jews at the time of Jesus, Abduh observed, conservative Muslims of today are often too rigid with the letter of the law, but unmindful of its spirit and the moral purposes. Abduh argued that Muslims need a “Messiah-oriented renewal” focusing on “mercy, love and peace.” His vision was focused not on “breaking the cross,” but on repairing the crescent. .......... it makes a great difference whether the believers’ purpose is to self-righteously sharpen their blades against others, or to humbly educate and enlighten themselves.

The Muslims Who Inspired Spinoza, Locke and Defoe A novel written by a 12th-century Arab writer about a boy alone on an island influenced the Daniel Defoe classic ‘Robinson Crusoe.’ ........ Millions of Christian, Jewish and Muslim readers across the world have read that famed tale of the man stranded alone on an island: “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe, the 18th-century British pamphleteer, political activist and novelist. ........ Few know that in 1708, 11 years before Defoe wrote his celebrated novel, Simon Ockley, an Orientalist scholar at Cambridge University, translated and published a 12th-century Arabic novel, “Hayy ibn Yaqzan,” or “Alive, the Son of Awake,” by Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Tufayl, an Andalusian-Arab polymath. Writing about the influence of Ibn Tufayl’s novel on Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe,” Martin Wainwright, a former Guardian editor, remarked, “Tufayl’s footprints mark the great classic.” ......... the teachings of reason and religion are compatible and complementary. ....... Religion was a path to truth, but it was not the only path. Man was blessed with divine revelation, and with reason and conscience from within. People could be wise and virtuous without religion or a different religion. ......... The translations of “Hayy ibn Yaqzan” in early modern Europe — by Edward Pococke Jr. into Latin in 1671, by George Keith into English in 1674, by Simon Ockley into English in 1708 — sold widely. Among the admirers of Ibn Tufayl’s work were the Enlightenment philosophers Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and John Locke, who were trying to advance a sense of human dignity in a Christendom long tormented by religious wars and sectarian persecutions. ............ the Quaker doctrine that every human being had an “inward light” — regardless of faith, gender or race. ......... That humanist theology would have profound political consequences, making Quakers, in a few centuries, leaders in world-changing campaigns: abolition of slavery, emancipation of women and other worthy causes. ........... Ibn Tufayl, who served as a minister in the court of an Almohad caliph of Islamic Spain, commissioned Ibn Rushd to write commentaries on ancient Greek philosophy, which became the main source for the European rediscovery of the Greeks ......... What is less known is that Ibn Rushd also sought to harmonize his philosophical insights with Islamic law — the Shariah. At the core of his effort was the vision of Ibn Tufayl’s philosophical novel: Religion and reason were both independent sources of wisdom. Religion had its written laws, while reason had its unwritten laws — the universal principles of justice, mercy or thankfulness. When there was a conflict between these two, Ibn Rushd argued, written laws of religion should be reinterpreted because they were inevitably bound with context. ......... Ibn Rushd applied this vision to the debate on jihad, criticizing the militant Muslims of his time who called for jihad “until they uproot and destroy entirely whoever disagrees with them.” He saw that position as reflecting “ignorance on their part of the intention of the legislator,” or God, who could not have reasonably willed “the great harm” of war. .......... He did his best to advance the most women-friendly views in Islamic jurisprudence: Women had the right to refuse polygamy, enjoy an equal right to divorce, avoid the face veil and become judges. ....... Ibn Rushd’s other key contribution to modern Europe was his call for open debate, where views are freely expressed and rationally measured. “You should always, when presenting a philosophical argument, cite the views of your opponents,” he wrote. “Failure to do so is an implicit acknowledgment of the weakness of your own case.” ........... Ibn Rushd’s insight was picked up by the Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague in the 17th century, John Milton and John Stuart Mill. ............ The way forward for the Islamic world lies in reconciling faith and reason.

Ukraine Strikes More Boldly, Seeing Little Room for Russia to Escalate The third apparent drone attack in two days on a Russian air base indicates a new phase of the war for Ukraine as it develops longer-range weapons. ....... After nine months of Russian bombardment of their towns and cities, Ukrainians cheered the taste of payback and the demonstration that their side could now reach deep into Russia, theoretically capable of hitting Moscow if it chose. The assaults also showed millions of Russians for the first time that they, too, might be vulnerable. ....... there is a widespread sense among officials and civilians that, short of nuclear escalation, there is little more Russia can do to Ukraine in retaliation that it is not already doing, with its waves of strikes on the country’s energy grid and other infrastructure. ......... “the understandings of Russians that they are invincible and cannot be reached in Russia is not going to be there.” ............ Kyiv has sought since early in the war to take the fighting to Russia. Within a month of the invasion in February, the Ukrainian military staged a helicopter assault on fuel depots in Russia, prompting the first Russian air raid alarm since World War II. Explosions at ammunition warehouses, railroad bridges, fuel depots and military bases inside Russia and Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine followed. But those attacks were launched at fairly close range, no more than a few dozen miles. ........ it can fly at 600 miles per hour at low altitudes, much like some cruise missiles, making it difficult to detect and shoot down. ........ The United States and other NATO countries have consistently declined to provide Kyiv with Western weapons that could reach targets far into Moscow’s territory, like the ATACMS missile, which has a range of up to 190 miles, with much higher speed and more explosive power than a drone. The allies have also been unwilling to provide Ukraine with the modern Western tanks and fighter jets it has requested. ............. Russian threats to ratchet up the war, particularly with nuclear weapons, have rung increasingly hollow. World leaders friendly to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, including President Xi Jinping of China and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, have warned against it

The Question Is No Longer Whether Iranians Will Topple the Ayatollah The protests in Iran now in their third month are a historic battle pitting two powerful and irreconcilable forces: a predominantly young and modern population, proud of their 2,500-year-old civilization and desperate for change, versus an aging and isolated theocratic regime, committed to preserving its power and steeped in 43 years of brutality. ........ the dictator’s dilemma: If he doesn’t offer his people the prospect for change the protests will continue, but if he does, he risks appearing weak and emboldening protesters. ........... Although Iranian opposition to the regime is unarmed, unorganized and leaderless, the protests continue despite a violent crackdown by the regime. More than 18,000 protesters have been arrested, more than 475 have been killed and 11 people have been sentenced to death so far. ........... Videos of young Iranians flipping turbans off the heads of unsuspecting Shiite clerics are popular on social media. ........ Symbols of the government are routinely defaced and set on fire, including, according to social media reports, the ancestral home of the revolution’s father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Laborers, bazaar merchants and petrochemical workers have gone on intermittent strikes, reminiscent of the tactics that helped topple Iran’s monarchy in 1979. .......... As Alexis de Tocqueville put it, “The most perilous moment for a bad government is one when it seeks to mend its ways.” ......... Iranians will not be placated merely with the freedom of dress, but will be emboldened to demand all the freedoms denied to them in a theocracy — including the freedom to drink, eat, read, love, watch, listen and, above all, say what they want. .......... “The collapse of the hijab is the collapse of the flag of the Islamic Republic,” said Hossein Jalali, a clerical ally of Mr. Khamenei and a member of the Cultural Commission of the Iranian Parliament. “Head scarves will return to women’s heads in two weeks,” he declared, and women who refuse to comply could have their bank accounts frozen. ......... Would the Iranian security forces want to continue killing Iranians to preserve the rule of an unpopular, ailing octogenarian cleric who is reportedly hoping to bequeath power to Mojtaba Khamenei, his equally unpopular son? .......... The internal deliberations of Iran’s security services remain a black box. But it is likely that like the Tunisian and Egyptian militaries in 2011 some of them have begun to contemplate whether cutting loose the dictator might preserve their own interests. .......... the paradox of revolutionary movements is they are not viable until they attract a critical mass of supporters, yet to attract a critical mass of supporters they must be perceived as viable. .......... The faces of this movement are not ideologues or intellectuals, but athletes, musicians and ordinary people, especially women and ethnic minorities, who have shown uncommon courage. Their slogans are patriotic and progressive — “We will not leave Iran, we will reclaim Iran,” and “Women, Life, Freedom.” ........ Senior American and Israeli intelligence officials have recently stated they don’t believe Iran’s protests constitute a serious threat to the regime. But history has repeatedly illustrated that no intelligence service, political science theory, or algorithm can accurately predict the timing and outcome of popular uprisings: The C.I.A. assessed in August 1978, less than six months before the toppling of Iran’s monarchy, that Iran wasn’t even in a “pre-revolutionary situation.” .......... not even the protagonists themselves — in this case the Iranian people and regime — can anticipate how they will behave as this drama unfolds. ........ While the Islamic Republic sought to subdue Iranian culture, it is Iranian culture and patriotism that is threatening to undo the Islamic Republic.......... Four decades of the Islamic Republic’s hard power will ultimately be defeated by two millennium of Iranian cultural soft power. The question is no longer about whether this will happen, but when. History has taught us that there is an inverse relationship between the courage of an opposition and the resolve of a regime, and authoritarian collapse often goes from inconceivable to inevitable in days.

Great article by @ksadjadpour https://t.co/YKjss54KUS

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) December 12, 2022