It's a Shame

I'm now in Toronto attending a conference. Today I read in the newspaper an ad about a sellout. Being a collector of Iranian carpets myself and admiring especially tribal rugs from Iran which represent very much the old culture of the country, and having had some experience with shipments of carpets and how carpet dealers in Iran depend on this business with the West, I feel ashamed when reading the following:

SPECIAL LIQUIDATION
IRAN U.S. TRADE EMBARGO
BARGAIN IS OVER
Due to the trade embargo, a large shipment of rugs which normally would have gone to collectors in New York and L. A. has been assigned to our company to liquidate them by the way of public sale. All types (Qum pure silk, Nain, Tabriz, Kashan, Mashad, Jaipur, Bidjar, Sarough, Chubi, Zigler and many tribal pieces) and sizes from 2' x 3' to 12' x 16' and runners up to 22' long.
SALE: Sunday, July 06-2008
Every Rug from
$ 99 - $ 1500
Doors Open 2:00 p.m. sharp
Leaside Memorial Garden
1073 Millwood Rd. (Millwood & Laird)
Debit - Visa - M.C. - AMEX - Cheque - Cash Accepted

I will leave Toronto tonight, so I will not be able to bid. I can understand that the embargo is supposed to prevent business for items which might be used in the construction of nuclear weapons, for instance screws or screwdrivers. But carpets?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady Shatita

Image
In order to learn more about Shi’a Islam and the piety of ordinary people it would have been most helpful to visit at least some of the plenty of Emamzadehs (holy sites) all over Iran. So, it was a most welcome opportunity and, in fact, great honor when my Kuwaiti friends invited me to accompany them on their several bus trips in Khorasan on the occasion of their 2006 pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mashhad. Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian Empires each embraced half of the then known world when they climaxed. And even when Iran was under the reign of Seleucids, Arabs, Seljuks, or Mongols, the Iranians imprinted their lifestyle and culture on the non-welcome invaders, who in any sense immensely benefited. So, the austere new religion Islam, which replaced Iran’s state religion Zoroastrianism, was fundamentally reorganized, and, as I see it as an outsider, filled with life. The rapid and shocking decline of the Sasanid Empire at the end of a century-long fight with Byzantium, and the
Read more

Persianization

Image
Kuwait’s Arab Times had attracted my attention to Esfahan’s gorgeous Great Mosque in an article in 2003. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find so far a webpage of the article which praised the wonders of Iran’s largest mosque and one of the most significant and finest buildings of the Islamic world. I visited the site the first time at my second trip to Esfahan in late spring of 2004. I took some pictures in the vast courtyard, soaked the peaceful atmosphere there, and watched the few visitors from Iran and elsewhere. I had forgotten about the many details of the article and faintly had read some of the notes in my travel guide. My second visit in late 2007 was driven by scientific interest. I had recently posted (at Freelance ) my rather amateurish studies and thoughts about a suggested ‘conceptual breakthrough’ in Islamic architecture and art in the late 15th century, i.e., quasi-crystalline tessellations, which had led to world-wide attention due to its publication in the Science magazine
Read more

Buyid Architecture in Esfahan

Image
Older than what is now visible in Esfahan’s Great Mosque (although the first mosque there was built in the 7th century) is what has remained of the Jurjir Mosque . The fragmentary façade of the Jurjir Mosque had been discovered during restoration work at Masjed-e Hakim in 1955. The fragment had been hidden for centuries behind a mud wall. The beautiful Hakim mosque itself is a Safavid mosque from the 17th century. The Jurjir façade is the only remains of a 10th century mosque which was commissioned by the Buyid (Buwayhid) vizier Al-Sahib ibn Abbad (d. 995), a Mutazilite scholar. The Buyid Dynasty, who ruled in Iraq and Iran, effectively brought the Abbasids era in Baghdad to an end. Although the Abbasids retained the caliphate, they were deprived of all secular power. Buyids were originally Zaydi, or Fiver Shi'as. They later began to lean closer to the nowadays dominating Twelver Shi'a branch of Islam. In general tolerant in religious matters, the Buyid rulers in Baghdad even
Read more