Salmiya

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 ...

Today, on the Day of Ashura, grieving for Imam Husayn culminates in Iran and other Shi’a communities with bloody rites. I have reported about the sad events in Karbala in 61 AH elsewhere on this blog . The first ten days of Muharram people in Iran prepare for the holiday. Black flags and banners with Abol Fas, Husayn, Ali are sold, and stalls in the bazaar decorated for the mourning. Religious songs proclaiming ‘Ya Husayn!’ were heard everywhere. I attended several Hosseiniyehs , one on my trip to Nain. In Esfahan, every night, in a tent people gathered in front of the Masjed Shah. Interesting, but plenty of basij and hundreds chador -wearing women created an atmosphere of, in fact, subliminal menace. These events were completely organized, plenty of buses took the participants later home. Last Friday, nation-wide demonstrations against the incredible atrocities of Israel to the people in the Gaza strip reached Esfahan with almost a thousand basij and pasdaran entering the maidaan...

Participants at the latest Doha Debate on April 29th, 2008 have strongly defended Islam's image after repeated accusations that it had been damaged by the Sunni-Shia conflict in Iraq. The motion that the Sunni-Shia conflict is damaging Islam’s reputation as a religion of peace was defeated by 61%-39%. From the Doha Debate webpage: In a series of robust exchanges, there was strong disagreement about the effects of violence between Islam's two largest denominations. Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan, said recent polls showed that Americans believed Islam contained more violent extremists than other religions and sectarian fighting must have contributed to that impression. “People in the United States are beginning to see Muslims as inherently violent,” he said. This perception, he argued, enabled the major powers to exploit Islam's splits “and embark on a policy of divide and rule.” Seconding the motion, General Ali Shukri, an adviser to the late K...