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Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

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Re: Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

#61

Post by afwf1 »

factorialboy wrote: post #3
ginger2016 wrote: post #2

Glad to see ancient Iranian culture featured here. People in the west have a lot of misconceptions about Iran. Persian culture is thousands of years old.

This is so true. The original Persian culture is best preserved in India among the dwindling Parsi community. These are the original Persians who escaped to Gujarat, India during the Islamic colonization of Persia.

This isn't true at all. For hundreds of years, Parsis were almost purely culturally Gujarati. Also there's limited evidence that they "escaped", Zoroastrianism still had a large presence in Fars for a while after the Muslim conquest, and they were going to some of the largest mercantile ports in the world. Also there were lots of muslims that came from Iran to these ports as well.

Re: Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

#62

Post by ybinator604g3 »

throwaw12 wrote: post #42
ybinator604g3 wrote: post #20

Maybe a bit off topic but it's always strange when someone says "Islamic Golden Age" when talking about Iran. Nothing against a specific religion. It's like saying Newton's work came during Christian Golden Age in Europe. The religion had nothing to do with it. In fact, there is a book [1] (in Persian) title "Two Centuries of Silence" that talks about the significant blow to Iran's culture, literature and science aft…

> The religion had nothing to do with it. I would disagree with it. Imagine if, Islam was opposing to the idea of science, as the largest religion of that area (which not only included Iran, but many others), what would happen? Science would have been abolished, stopped immediately. Instead, Islam encouraged people to learn more science, even greek philosophers work was translated by hiring Christian people. On the o…

> Imagine if, Islam was opposing to the idea of science

Are you suggesting the biggest contribution was not getting in the way? I wouldn't call it a contribution.

> economic and political prosperity after conquering many places

That happened despite the invasion, not because of it. Iran was well prosperous before that and the fall of Persian empires eventually cleared the way for a destructive Mongol invasion which Iranians had held back for a long time before.

Re: Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

#63

Post by erenyeager »

whatever1 wrote: post #47
ybinator604g3 wrote: post #20

Maybe a bit off topic but it's always strange when someone says "Islamic Golden Age" when talking about Iran. Nothing against a specific religion. It's like saying Newton's work came during Christian Golden Age in Europe. The religion had nothing to do with it. In fact, there is a book [1] (in Persian) title "Two Centuries of Silence" that talks about the significant blow to Iran's culture, literature and science aft…

Religions only tolerate progress when it does not interfere with their power. That why religions are cool with math. Now if you go to physics and biology, oh well depending on the age you were born there is some risk of losing your head.

this is a quite Eurocentric take. In the Islamic world, the distinction was not initially science vs religion but the encroachment of philosophical rationalism on religious interpretation which was famously articulated by the Islamic scholar Al-Ghazali in his refutation of the Falasifa (called philosophers of that time but they differ from modern philosophers we mean today).

Re: Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

#64

Post by erenyeager »

voz_ wrote: post #40
user982 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all of those 44 years, the US has been continuously sanctioning, attacking, isolating, and threatening Iran.

Maybe if they didn't sponsor terrorism around the world, while oppressing their own people, they wouldn't get sanctioned? The find out part of fuck around doesn't mean they don't control their own destiny. Plenty of normal countries to look at for example.

The Us is a terrorist supporting inhumane regime that puts a pretense of being moral on the world stage. In reality it’s a very rotten country internally and as an American I really hope we can change that but all evidence seems opposite.

Re: Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

#65

Post by erenyeager »

eternalban wrote: post #25
dragonwriter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This monarch was sworn in as king in the Majlis way before ’53. Kindly explain how he was “installed” in ’53 by the CIA. Basically, the Shah assumed direct rule in an autocoup (after a first failed autcoup) in an effort he was threatened with being deposted by the CIA into participating in, with US- and UK- and their Iranian pawns both orchestrating pro-Mossadegh anti-Shah demonstrations and violence, then pro-Comm…

The extent of Shah's concessions to US security concerns was allowing CIA to create monitoring stations north of Iran: listening posts. A section of the secret service in Iran (SAVAK) was specifically tasked with keeping tabs on Western intelligence in Iran. The second one, which was withdrawn after public pushback lead by Khomeini, was exempting American servicemen and workers (mostly aerospace in Isfahan) from lega…

You can’t ethically sweep the atrocities of the Shah under the rug like kashf-e-hijab, and excuse him for merely overstepping a constitution. He attacked the fabric of Iranian society and humiliated the nation for the sake of pleasing Western masters. There’s very clear reason Iran ended up the way it did, and people who have the fantasy of returning to the shah era for “women’s rights” are really not thinking logically. Actually if you think the shah forcing women to uncover and make Iranian society naked was “women’s rights”, you are severely misguided.

Re: Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

#66

Post by ybinator604g3 »

erenyeager wrote: post #60
ybinator604g3 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While intertwined, History and Religion are two different concepts. Of course one can differentiate between them.

The reason behind drawing such a distinction may be more telling, as there is a larger push in some groups to draw this distinction for the sake of harkening back to pre-Islamic Persia. But of course, modern Persia and Islam are intertwined, so usually those who wish to draw a distinction do so for political or religious bias reasons.

That's a pretty big assumption. It's natural to like your heritage and it's fine doing so while being respectful of other people's culture and heritage. I like other people to know about my culture for what it really was, what it went through and what it is right now. This is in contrast with how western media has tried to depict Iran as their political foe. Interestingly, Modern Persia and Islam (more with Islamic rulers) are at odds right now, evidenced by recent social movement and political unrest.

Re: Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

#67

Post by erenyeager »

behnamoh wrote: post #34
InitialLastName wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My (open to correction) understanding was that "Farsi" has some use in referring to the Iranian standardization of Persian (as contrasted to Dari, its Afghani counterpart).

Both are correct. "Farsi" is actually the Arabic version of "Parsi" (meaning "Persian" in, well, Persian). As a Persian, I personally don't use "Farsi".

Do you also personally not use any Arabic derived words in Persian? Silly idea to try to remove Arabic influence on Persian.

Re: Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

#68

Post by Nathanba »

throwaw12 wrote: post #42
ybinator604g3 wrote: post #20

Maybe a bit off topic but it's always strange when someone says "Islamic Golden Age" when talking about Iran. Nothing against a specific religion. It's like saying Newton's work came during Christian Golden Age in Europe. The religion had nothing to do with it. In fact, there is a book [1] (in Persian) title "Two Centuries of Silence" that talks about the significant blow to Iran's culture, literature and science aft…

> The religion had nothing to do with it. I would disagree with it. Imagine if, Islam was opposing to the idea of science, as the largest religion of that area (which not only included Iran, but many others), what would happen? Science would have been abolished, stopped immediately. Instead, Islam encouraged people to learn more science, even greek philosophers work was translated by hiring Christian people. On the o…

> Science would have been abolished, stopped immediately

Most invaders in history did not violently impose their own philosphies and idealogies on day 1. Generally you let the conquered people keep their philosophy and religions to a big extent until the population has adopted it naturally through softer means, Islam specifically has a few verses around tolerance for "people of the book". Islam for example puts higher taxes on the non-muslims and people will then naturally gravitate towards Islam. Once the population has islamized to a higher percentage the islamic ideology will be implemented more deeply.

Re: Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

#69

Post by falaki »

dredmorbius wrote: post #45
ybinator604g3 wrote: post #20

Maybe a bit off topic but it's always strange when someone says "Islamic Golden Age" when talking about Iran. Nothing against a specific religion. It's like saying Newton's work came during Christian Golden Age in Europe. The religion had nothing to do with it. In fact, there is a book [1] (in Persian) title "Two Centuries of Silence" that talks about the significant blow to Iran's culture, literature and science aft…

Applying labels is always fraught and involves compromises. "Islamic World" is well-established and generally recognised. It's also more nuanced than hot takes suggest. Peter Adamson, host of the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast and author of the book series from the same project, devotes roughlythe first 20 minutes of his Google Talk about Islamic Philosophy to the matter of why "Islamic World" is in f…

> "dominant influence" does not mean "exlusive" or even "majority", but "that which has the greatest overall impact in a specific area"

The burden of proof for "high impact" is heavy. I recommend reading some of the articles by the Inarah Institute http://inarah.net/publications> on how shaky the dominant Islamic history narrative is.

To clarify: It is unclear what the direction of the influence is. Was it Islam that impacted/influenced what happened in Persia, or was it the Persian/Syriac/Nestorian culture that created something called "Islam."

Re: Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

#70

Post by wahern »

throwaw12 wrote: post #42
ybinator604g3 wrote: post #20

Maybe a bit off topic but it's always strange when someone says "Islamic Golden Age" when talking about Iran. Nothing against a specific religion. It's like saying Newton's work came during Christian Golden Age in Europe. The religion had nothing to do with it. In fact, there is a book [1] (in Persian) title "Two Centuries of Silence" that talks about the significant blow to Iran's culture, literature and science aft…

> The religion had nothing to do with it. I would disagree with it. Imagine if, Islam was opposing to the idea of science, as the largest religion of that area (which not only included Iran, but many others), what would happen? Science would have been abolished, stopped immediately. Instead, Islam encouraged people to learn more science, even greek philosophers work was translated by hiring Christian people. On the o…

> Imagine if, Islam was opposing to the idea of science, as the largest religion of that area (which not only included Iran, but many others), what would happen?

We don't have to imagine. A shunning of empiricism and natural philosophy is one of the reasons the Islamic Golden Age came to an end. Islam as a religion was never a monolith, and like in Christianity some movements embrace science more than others, and their rise and fall in prominence is reflected in the society.

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