“I am Cyrus. King of the world. When I entered Babylon… I did not allow anyone to terrorize the land… I kept in view the needs of people and all its sanctuaries to promote their well-being… I put an end to their misfortune. The Great God has delivered all the lands into my hand; the lands that I have made to dwell in a peaceful habitation…. . .When my soldiers in great numbers peacefully entered Babylon… I did not allow anyone to terrorize the people… I kept in view the needs of people and all its sanctuaries to promote their well-being… Freed all the slaves… I put an end to their misfortune and slavery (referring to religious minorities). The Great God has delivered all the lands into my hand; the lands that I have made to dwell in a peaceful habitation… “
"I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati's."
Jean-Paul Sartre
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My Lord, grant me success in struggling during failure, in having patience in disappointment, in going alone, in Jihad without weapons, in working without pay, in making sacrifice in silence, in having religious belief in the world, in having ideology without popular traditions, in having faith (Iman) without pretensions, non-conformity without immaturity, beauty without physical appearance, loneliness in the crowd, and loving without the beloved knowing about it.
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Islam is a religion which made its appearance in the history of mankind with the cry of “No!” from Mohammad (PBUH), the heir of Abraham, the manifestation of the religion of the Unity of God and the oneness of mankind; a “No” which begins with the cry of “Unity”, a cry which Islam reiterated when confronted with aristocracy and compromise.
Shi’ism is the Islam which differentiates itself and selects its direction in the history of Islam with the “No” of the great Ali, the heir of Mohammad and the manifestation of the Islam of Justice and Truth, a “No” which he gives to the Council for the Election of the Caliph, in answer to Abdul Rahman, who was the manifestation of Islamic aristocracy and compromise. This “No”, up until pre-Safavid times, is recognized as part of the Shi’ite movement in the history of Islam, an indication of the social and political role of a group who are the followers of Ali, known for their association with the kindness of the family of the Prophet. It is a movement based upon the Qoran and the Traditions; not the Qoran and the traditions as proclaimed by the dynasties of the Omayyids, Abbasids, Ghaznavids, Seljuks, Mongols and Timurids, but the ones proclaimed by the family of Mohammad.
Watch: Iranian new year with traditional dances of diffrent peoples of Iran with a short folkloric music
About Nowruz:
Nowrūz Persian نوروز /Kurdish نهورۆز /noʊruz/ ↔ [noʊɾuːz]; with various local pronunciations and spellings, meaning ‘New Day’)/TurkishNevruz is the traditional new year holiday celebrated by Iranian peoples, having its roots in Ancient Iran. Apart from the Iranian cultural continent (Greater Iran), the celebration has spread in many other parts of the world, including parts of Central Asia, South Asia, Northwestern China, the Crimea, and some ethnic groups in Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia.
The book of Hajj written by Dr. Ali Shariati is translated into English by Ali Behzadnia and Najla Denny. I have put it in a pdf format for download for those of you interested in Dr. Shariati’s books. I have read several books on Hajj, but Shariati’s Hajj is very different. (The free download link is at the end of this post)
In the “Preface by the Author” He writes:
As a person who is “knowledgeable about religion” and whose field of study is “the history of religions”, I reached the following conclusions as a result of my study and research of the historical evolution of each faith whereby I compared what the faiths were in the past and what they are now as well as a comparison in the differences between the “truth” and the “reality” of the faiths. My conclusion is not based on personal religious feelings nor prejudices:
If we study and evaluate the effectiveness of each religion in terms of the happiness and evolution of mankind, we will discover that there is no prophecy which is as advanced, powerful, and conscious as the prophecy of Mohammad (PBUH) (i.e. Islam and its role in man’s social progress, self-consciousness, movement, responsibility, human ambition and struggle for justice; Islam’s realism and naturalness, creativity, adaptability with scientific and financial progress and orientation toward civilization and the community).