Not denying that Sassanids were generally more tolerant than neighbouring countries of the time, however zionists completely forget about Yazdegard ii, Shapur ii, & Bahram ii
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I don't want to hijack the topic, I fully agree, "ancient Persia" is romanticized wrongly.
But those of us who do consider Iran to be more important than the islamic caliphates, and by extension, consider the muslim takeover to have been a negative - We don't argue that the kings of Iran were more tolerant or nice or this and that.
We argue that their system didn't mass slaughter, destroy, violate, and cram us Iranians into a corner in our heartlands - and abuse us for being inferior to foreigners for not speaking their language.
And our kings were a successful wall against it for a long time until they in the end, miserably failed.
If Iran would have remained free, and coverted to islam or whatever I would be fine with it, and blame ourselves for our faults. But that is not what happened. We were conquered. And conquered by bad forceful people. "God's message" did not come to us with a understanding smile and bounty. It came with fire, chains, and whips.
And whether people agree or not (feel free to argue against me on this, I would love to learn things that are not easily countered by just speaking basic facts and observations): Iran used to be toe-to-toe with the Byzantine empire; and the master of our own fate, as for our constituents and "subject nations": they were treated pretty damn well compared to how we came to be treated under arab/turk/mongol rule.
And since then - since that point in time when we were subjugated: we have been embarassingly behind. We are a side character. When we used to be the literal center of the world!
Think about that.
We went from a glorious empire (with good kings and shitty kings) who defended itself and was modern against the Byzantine/Roman empires...
To a violated and massacred collection of victim people - waiting to be abused by non Iranian leaders and hordes.
While our islamic rulers pillage our culture and pretend it is their own. (The Ottomans, Timur, even the arabs had ZERO concepts of bureaucracy - they lived in tents and maybe mudhouses in trade cities).
And they HATE us for it. Some of them are good souls and do show respect, and I appreciate them, truly. But most of them - especially their fighters, and we all know it to be true, are narcissists who hate us because our culture and civilization was far better than them. Still is. And don't even like us when we fight their battles at great detriment to our own flimsy wellbeing.
From Glorious Empire toe to toe with the every other Glorious empire that existed: from our West (Rome); to our friendly Glorious Empires to our East (China, India)
-> Into: a country today that is not allowed to have nuclear weapons, that is shooting (impressive) missiles at israel, with a people being told to dress like arabs; and not even for islam, which is the funniest part.
Meanwhile:
England (the descendants of swamp people and vikings) colonized the world, and built America (the strongest nation in the world today), the strongest economy in the world, subjugated and controlled India (and abused them greatly) and even starved us Iranians to death by the millions.
And we, the formerly glorious Empire of Iran, can just lie there and take it. We had 1300 years of islam/arab rule to benefit us and build us up, and it got us into this hole. Prove me wrong. Please, I am begging you, prove me wrong.
When England was colonizing the whole world with their selfmade strongest, brightest, free:est, and richest people, and the ottomans were ramming their small heads against the Balkans; we were just sitting in our mountains, technologically and industrially useless, wishing to one day maybe conquer small parts of india/pakistan if our (turkish) king felt like it. Where was islam for us? Where was the ummah? And don't say it wasn't "real islam" ("it wasn't real communism") - IT WAS THE ONLY ISLAM. THE ONLY ISLAM.
And whether people agree or not (feel free to argue against me on this, I would love to learn things that are not easily countered by just speaking basic facts and observations) - Lets put that to the test
"God's message" did not come to us with a understanding smile and bounty. It came with fire, chains, and whips.
Firstly the Islamisation of Iran took centuries. The process actually continued once the political authority of the Arab Abbasid Caliphate is effectively gone in the Iranian lands (around the late 9th century). If the religion was imposed on an unwilling population then we would have expected to see the Iranians revert back to Zoroastrianism en masse as they don't have their Arab overlords keeping a close eye on them and force their compliance Now you may counter that oh well the local Iranian elites who became Muslim decided to force the religion on the rural peasantry in Iran but you have a new problem. Without their Arab overlords to keep a close eye on these dynasts - what incentive do they have to believe in a foreign religion that they supposedly never really accepted? If their primary aim was to cling to power then why not revert to the religion of the rural majority and present themselves as restorers of the old Iranian religion to maintain power? Again that does not happen and we in fact see the Buyids consciously adopt the pre Islamic titles of Shahenshah alongside Islam in the form of Shi'ism.
We went from a glorious empire (with good kings and shitty kings) who defended itself and was modern against the Byzantine/Roman empires...
To a violated and massacred collection of victim people - waiting to be abused by non Iranian leaders and hordes.
Its quite ridiculous that you paint 1400 years of Iranian Islamic History as one of perpetual victimhood. The Iranian Intermezzo and the Safafivds would like to have a word with you... If you wish you can cling to that narrative of perpetual victimhood but thats says more about a defeatist mindset then it says about actual Iranian history. One can look at 1400 years of Iranian Islamic History more accurately as one of extraordinary resilience and adaptation - an Iran that survives the Arab, Turkic and Mongol invasions and keeps reasserting itself.
our culture and civilization was far better than them.
Then how were the Arabs able to conquer Iran if they were vastly inferior to your culture? The standard move is to say the Arabs were lucky because they conquered the Sassanids at the right opportunity because they fought the Byzantines and both sides were mutually exhausted. But if mutual exhaustion was the main factor in the Arab victory then why were the Arabs able to conquer the Sassanids but the Byzantines able to survive for nearly a thousand years more? Even with the exhaustion of the Sassanid state the Sassanids had vastly superior economic and human resources shouldn't they have been able to defeat the small band of Arab invaders (that you like to denigrate as inferior) without even needing the full resources of their empire? Both of these point to the fact that the Sassanid political system was rotten and dysfunctional . Does this also suggest the Byzantines had a superior political system to the Sassanids? Why couldn't the Sassanids who were far more experienced in statecraft than the Arabs with their superior ways insulate themselves from the internal problems they faced when the Arabs who were more prone to division and tribalism able to maintain a more cohesive force against the Sassanids? This again undercuts your claim of cultural superiority.
Then one can ask how were these so called inferior Arabs able to rule Persia once it was conquered? You may try to say the Arabs being unsophisticated unthinking brutes that they were heavily relied on Persian elites and local Persian administration. But the main thrust of your post claims that the Arab conquest fatally weakened Persian culture and civilisation. If you agree that the Arabs were heavily reliant on Persian administration then your claim that Persian culture was fatally weakened cannot be true. If you insist on saying the Arab conquest fatally weakened Persian culture and civilisation then you have to explain how Sassanian style Persian administration continued after the Arab conquest
So which one is it? Either Persian culture and civilisation shaped the Islamic world which makes your general claim of the Arab conquest weakening Persian culture false or the Arab conquest fatally damaged Persian culture which in this case the idea of unthinking Arabs being reliant on Persian culture completely collapses. You have basically tied yourself in a big knot
I am not an Arab nor am I Iranian. I am not even a Shia so I don't have any vested interest in supporting or defending the government of Iran but what I will not abide by is cultural chauvinism and distorting history to denigrate one group of people
Finally the rest of your post, about Iranian/arabian comparison:
How arabs were able to conquer Iran.
Iran had fought for 30 years against Byzantium. Corruption was running rampant within Iran too. Collaborators etc. who were probably promised 30 pieces of silver etc.
The arab conquest of Iran was impressive, but not that Impressive.
And I have no problems with pointing out that they were militarily stronger, and outwitted our commanders the time they attacked and won.
The main problem is what came after. Had they been kind and merciful, someone like me would have zero problems speaking their praise. After all I praise England and the West despite the horrible things they did to us - because at least there is *something* to praise in the West.
Military conquest has very little to do with inferiority/superiority of culture. It's numbers, fervor, experience, and resources to fight. (And today technology, but in those days it didn't matter as much).
50 000 arabs running at exhausted and demoralized unconsolidated Iranian soldiers whose elite fighters had all died in the Byzantine wars is not hard to imagine; and whose nobility were in shambles and constantly infighting.
Especially if the arab soldiers are all frothing at their mouth from previous victories of Muhammad uniting the arabs.
Same way Alexander, who was also a brute, conquered Iran. But in his wake, after burning down Persepolis, he left Iran in one piece at least. And did not kill our religion.
Mongols are an even better comparison that really take my counterpoint home and into the stars.
The mongols were (are) literal tentdwelling nomads. But under Genghis Khan, who was not a warrior of Allah for the record and never did the shahada, the Mongols DESTROYED China, and violated everything they touched. Even the Russians; and even the muslims.
Would you ever argue that mongolians were more cultured or had superior culture to Russia/China/Iran? no. They just had the numbers, experience, fervor, and a really damn good commander with incredibly tactics, doctrines, logistics, and a meritocratic system.
The moment their leader died, their shithole mongol empire fell apart. Until the next violent animal commander came into charge and then he died and it fell apart and so on.
Today mongolia is the dog that china and russia beat for fun whenever they feel like it. Kinda like the arabs today, but I'm not gonna throw salt in the wounds of the arabs since what is happening to the Palestinians is disgusting.
Their culture was not superior. They achieved nothing except conquest. So their culture was good at violence. Literally.
Are you saying the arabs were culturally superior because they succeeded at violence against us? Bold move, but I can't really argue against it. Yes the arab war culture was superior to us after we were exhausted after 30 years of fighting.
A man that smears diarrhea on his face and can't read, but beats you up when you are exhausted is more cultured than you I guess.
As for how they came to rule "successfully":
I'm trying not to repeat myself, so I will just say: I promise if you give me an army and put me in charge of a country for 170 years, I will be able to do literally whatever I want if I have no moral compass. I can make all of China speak Japanese (or shave their hair in a certain way out of subservience - google the "queue hairstyle"). I can make England rename London to "Little Paris".
It is not hard at all to rule masses once you subdue your enemy and eliminate and slaughter their military. But ruling for a thousand years with happy subjects is another thing entirely. Which arabs did not. As evidenced by the numerous revolts and the final result that is the muslim "ummah" of today.
With violence: If out of 500 people, 450 of them resist, I simply kill the 450. Because I have the army, and they don't. What are they gonna do about it? Kill themselves? Cry? Only violence defeats violence.
This is what the communists did in Russia by the way. A country run by aristocrats and Christians became a fullblown hellhole run by foreigners who imposed state atheism. Because the red army won and simply killed anybody it wanted, and nobody could resist (well Germany tried on their behalf, but sadly England/America had to intervene). 50 million Christians died in Russia. (number is debated, but I don't give a sh-. If you have to debate the number down from 50 million to "only" 20 million thinking it makes a point in your favour I don't really care.)
I would never do anything like this of course, because I am Iranian. But someone who isn't Iranian, like the mongol commanders who marched 2 million Iranians into the desert and slaughtered them all - those guys would.
And did.
And I can easily imagine arabs doing the same. You see what Saddam did to the Kurds? Tell me an example of Iranians ever doing something similar.
The worst thing I can imagine us doing was the SAVAK. Which is a universe away in scale.
And I forgot to address the Byzantium comparison, and the re-mention of the culture comparison.
>If Iran was superior to Arabia, how come Iran fell apart internally when the arabs attacked.
... Because timing? Yes the arabs were more organized and consolidated than Iran right when they attacked. These things happen.
And yes, the arabs perhaps had better commanders, and their soldiers might have had more fervor.
This does not count as culture to me. We can agree to disagree about this.
If a person in a suit, with a laptop, writing poetry, and who possesses a gun that has temporarily run out of ammunition gets beaten up by a muscular neanderthal with a club who suddenly appears from behind him - I am not going to say that the neanderthal has superior culture. But you do you.
As for Byzantium, I don't know much about what the arabs decided to do after they conquered the gigantic Sasan empire. I can easily imagine though that they probably spent a lot of time putting down revolts, slaughtering remainder of Iranian resistance, and trying to control as much of it as they could.
Which would give the Byzantines a lot of time - and a lot of fervor after they see what was done to Iran, to prepare a proper defense against the arab horde (sorry, civilized army). Which would prompt the the arabs to go for easier targets in the south-West. Turkey is all mountains - something Paradox games taught me with great pain. And Constantinople is very easy to defend. Something they prepared to resist Iranian attacks.
Again I am not an expert, and don't really care much about the Eastern Roman empire vs the arabs. All I know is I would have strongly preferred to be conquered by the Byzantines lol.
According to some googling: the arabs after conquering Iran had their civil war, and the Byzantines retreated back and gave up Egypt to the arabs and fortified. And the arabs got really far against the Byzantines (!!) but failed to grab Constantinople, so the greeks could easily reconsolidate their forces and wrest back control. And they did.
Also the Plague of Justinian is another interesting fact from the time which severely weakened both Iran and Byzantium before the arab hordes arrived (who lived in the desert and did not get hit very hard, because they didn't have large sprawling cities, because large cities are for uncultured losers who have mastered architecture and sewage systems.
I really don't feel like reading this because it tortures me since I have a vivid imagination and know what arabs are like. But feel free to knock yourself out, and find some traces of "superior arab culture" to showcase if you want. And I repeat: military genius/victory does not count.
If it does, then israel is quite the military genius. And has superior culture to islam.
Which I think is borderline illegal to say here lol.
And that I obviously disagree with.
.... we were. We still are, in a perpetual state of victimhood. Aren't you a historian?
Our last 100 years have been us getting played with by greater powers. (Not God).
England starved 50% of us to death. England and Russia changed our king and replaced him with his son.
England controlled and groomed our king, his son.
Today: America is finding a way to convince their people to be okay with bombing us, after already having bombed us. We have no nuclear weapons to counter theirs - meaning we are in a perpetual state of nuclear-checkmate. If they nuke us we cannot do anything to them back. Even the damn jews have nukes over us.
Prior to those 100 years, we were a backwards civilization living in the mountains doing nothing. Because oil wasn't valueable at the time, and everything valueable had already been taken from us (Iraq's lush and fertile land used to be ours).
Prior to our backwards state, we were ravaged and 90% of us died to the Mongolian invasion; and we lost our Assassin's order.
Prior to the Mongolian invasion, we were controlled mostly by turks.
And prior to that, arabs who hate us and transformed us and our culture and our religion.
Even today they hate us, and their religion is still holding us down together with them.
Our entire history is victimhood. It is not something good. Yes it is good that we are still speaking Persian and love Iran - but nothing about the source of our pride relates to islam - it is all our own people. And if you pay close attention: Everything good that comes out of Iran comes from Iranians who love Iran. Not Iranians who love islam/arabism. Our scientists, our (limited) modernization - all of it is from Iranian brilliance. That's why no other muslim nation has achieved anything like us.
Resilience is not something to be proud of either if you think about it. It is a means to an end. You should be resilient -> so that you can do something after. We are doing nothing. We are still in our punched state.
"Hey you know about the Iranian boxing champion?"
"No"
"He could take punch after punch"
"Wow, and then what?"
"Nothing, he just kept taking punches. He is still taking punches."
"... And what is he planning to do, is he gonna punch back?"
"No he is gonna keep taking punches. Because the guy who started punching told him God wants him to take punches and that he should be ashamed for thinking otherwise."
"Who started punching him?"
"A guy who hates him and that God clearly does not like."
"So he has been getting punched his entire life?"
"No, until the guy that hates him started punching him, he was doing pretty good and punching back. He was one of the world's strongest boxers. Then he got punched by some guy after having fought Muhammad Ali bin-Byzantium for 30 years and was tired out; and has just been taking punches ever since."
"Wow that is awful. He should really stop getting punched and recover"
"Now hold on, don't be a pessimist. His face kinda still looks the same though, and he can still talk."
"... Great."
Also: We have not "reasserted" ourselves.
We have only asserted ourself regionally.
But the issue is that the region is a shithole compared to the rest of the world - Europe in particular.
Denmark can probably assert itself in the middle east at this point.
israel, the goblin nation of 8 million, is literally fighting and winning against the combined forces of islam. (Yes I know without american aid they would be nothing, but... if we include America it is a nation of 308 million against 1.5 billion muslims. And it is *not* a close fight.)
The only defeat israel has taken is that people in the West are waking up to how cartoonishly evil they are lol.
I think your “we’ve only ever been victims” narrative only works because you deliberately skip over any episode where Iran is actually an agent rather than a punching bag. Between the Arab conquest and the present you have the Buyids dominating the Abbasid Caliphate and the Safavids fighting against the Ottomans at the peak of their powers on equal terms. If we look at the modern day Iran is hardly a helpless victim. Granted its constrained by US military power and sanctions but its one of the few states that can act independently of Washington and force all the major powers to factor Iran into every possible calculation which is something they would not do if Iran were a total irrelevance that they could trample on at their convenience. Also even the US with their enormous firepower would not consider a full scale invasion of Iran as a realistic option. Iran is not some helpless victim it’s a medium power that can make a superpower treat them cautiously
You said
Our scientists, our (limited) modernization - all of it is from Iranian brilliance. That's why no other muslim nation has achieved anything like us.
But those scientists, universities, and infrastructures have been produced inside a political system that defines itself as Islamic. So either:
you accept that an explicitly Islamic state can also be the framework for the achievements you’re proud of, or
you have to say the Islamic Republic is “not really Islamic”, in which case your Islam vs Iran binary collapses a or
you claim these achievements happened despite Islam and the Islamic system – in which case you’ve quietly admitted that Islam is not actually capable of stopping Iranians from achieving what you’re proud of. But if it can’t stop those achievements, the claim that “Islam is what’s holding us back” doesn’t really make sense.
If by “scientists and modernisation” you meant the pre-1979 Pahlavi era, those reforms took place in a society that was overwhelmingly Muslim, where religious norms still had real influence on people’s lives. The fact that the Pahlavi state was heavily secularising did not mean the majority of the population magically stopped being Muslim. And even though sections of the ulama opposed parts of the modernisation programme, it clearly did not follow that the Muslim masses simply obeyed them – if they had, the modernisation project could never have been implemented on the scale it was, which again undermines the whole claim of Islam holding back development and progress
In case you try to pivot to Islam is the reason Iran's development and modernisation is limited at best. You basically have said Iran should copy the west as much as possible but this argument wont save you either because firstly if you look at when did the UK become a dominant empire. This was in the 18th and 19th centuries when it was not a modern western style liberal democracy without mass education and women's political rights and operated under strict social norms. So the path towards technical and scientific progress is not marked by the ability of people to dress and sing or behave as freely as you like.
Also the US and UK's development was due to their favourable geography and historic circumstance. The UK being an island nation with a colonial empire to expropriate wealth to fund their learning institutions. The US being surrounded with weak neighbours as well as two large oceans so your proscription to simply copy the west does not make sense given their historic development
More broadly, there are plenty of developing countries today where religion is not a major force in politics, yet they remain poor or “modest” in their development. Conversely, you have Muslim-majority states like Malaysia or several Gulf monarchies which, whatever you think of their societies, clearly have high levels of material development and human development indicators. That alone undercuts the idea that Islam as such imposes some fixed ceiling on progress.
You may say Iran should be more like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as they achieved rapid development following war and colonisation. South Korea and Taiwan modernised under authoritarian regimes and were showered with generous aid and protection because the US needed their capitalist showcase states during the Cold War. Similarly Japan was able to rapidly develop as they did not need to spend resources on defence as they sat under the US security umbrella. Those countries face enormous problems of their own from collapsing birth rates to extreme work cultures.
You might now want to claim that because of Islam Iran’s technical and scientific knowledge fell behind the West in the 19th century, which is why it was dominated. I’ll happily concede the obvious descriptive point that by the 19th century Europeans had more advanced scientific knowledge than most of the Islamic world. But if you’re going to say this is because Islam carried out some Galileo-style crackdown on natural science, you need to provide evidence, not just an assertion.
From roughly the 16th century onwards, the most prestigious intellectual track in many Muslim societies was law and the religious sciences, not natural philosophy. Rulers didn’t outlaw scientific study; they simply gave far more patronage and status to jurists, so careers in the natural sciences became less attractive. Meanwhile in Europe, states, merchants and navies had strong incentives to fund natural science – better navigation, artillery, engineering – and that made those fields more rewarding. Crucially, many of those European advances built on earlier work in Islamic mathematics and astronomy.
Neither of these trajectories was inevitable. Europe itself had spent centuries focused on theology and canon law, and the Islamic world had its own period of outstanding scientific output under the very same religion you now blame – And before you pre-empt me with “they were Persian, not Islamic”, I’ll pre-empt you: they were Persian and working in an Islamic milieu. Their success shows Islam doesn’t automatically kill science; it just doesn’t fit your story.. That history undercuts any claim that “Islam” as such doomed Iran to perpetual underdevelopment. What changed were institutions, incentives and global power structures, not some timeless anti-science essence in Islam.
Response to paragraph 3-
We don't know much about the islamization of Iran, for obvious reasons. (It wasn't pretty, and the people who did it couldn't write. We are talking 170 years of arab presence before the Iranian "intermezzo"). But using my imagination very very loosely and lazily: Once the arabs showed up, angry about their brothers and soldiers who had died in the wars to claim the land - and facing guerilla resistance, they violently executed all who opposed them. Took some women slaves ("marrying them"); killed our elders and nobles who hadn't betrayed the land. Installed the collaborators, who themselves served under close arab supervision (because Persians, especially traitor Persians cannot be trusted - I agree with this decision).
They were given orders to tear down every statue and building that looked beautiful in order to punish the people of Iran, and to lower Iran's resistance and morale (and also to "destroy idols"). Then Iranians whenever they rose up, were violently put down, women taken as slaves, repeat etc.
Eventually Iran and its provinces all had an arabizing entity at the top, in every district, and this entity used his soldiers to steal wealth and forcingly convert Iran aggressively in every area of society. Children were given arab lessons, and lessons on the Quran and how amazing Muhammad was and how terrible Iranians were, and if people didn't have arabic names they couldn't get good jobs.
Being forced to pray in arabic from childhood (strategic decision by the way), and being forced to pray 5 times a day. Undoubtedly has a big effect on the lower class/stupid masses. They are literally forced to say, in arabic, 5 times a day, that "Muhammad is the prophet of God and Allah (God in arabic) is great". And they have to speak arabic. And they are not allowed to read Zoroastrian texts. (Or there is no room or motivation in their education for it).
Pretty significant psychological impact.
The Capital of Iran was destroyed and transformed into an arab version, so if anybody wanted to become an intelligentsia (doctor, teacher, researcher, middle/upperclass) they had to learn arabic and study in arabic, and write in arabic. Which is why algebra etc. are all arabic, even though the inventors clearly weren't. There weren't exactly universities spread out all over the world.
Zoroastrian people were discriminated against. Huge taxation etc.
Iran would soon become intellectually deserted as the aristocracy and people with integrity left or committed suicide after their sister was "taken as a wife/slave" etc., leaving Iran a weak and pathetic husk.
Iran became defenseless, and ready to be raped by another horde (turks).
I personally would probably kill myself the moment Iran were to be conquered by arabs or turks again. The shame is unbearable to imagine. Our beautiful girls in the hands of ISIS or Saddam again? Have you seen those filth?
Abbasid revolt happened when a Iranian muslim/nationalist, Khorasani, rose up and sought to replace the leadership with something less painfully anti-Iranian. He fought really hard, won the civil war since all of the arabs were conquering ("colonizing") in North Africa and Iberia (spreading the religion of peace).
Then after winning the war and putting in place another set of arab rulers - supposedly more tolerant ones, he was betrayed by them and literally backstabbed. Because the arabs were worried about his rising influence.
Then Iranian Intermezzo happened: with the people who really did not like the arabs in Iran, and the leaders of Iran who were seeking independence (who were arabs most of the time themselves) broke apart Iran into multiple factions. (Barbarians cannot really remain an empire for long. Arab ummah will never happen for this reason. They all want power for themselves - each leader wants to have their own kingdom, and slaves, and taxes, and military).
Iran recovered somewhat, and having lost all of its religion and identity, most Iranian nationalists (smiths, artisans etc.) born into hell that they wanted to change were segwayed into the religion of islam as their "natural state". This is where Saffarid, one of the more powerful leaders of the intermezzo literally came from. He was a coppersmith. How do you think his, a coppersmith's, upbringing was? Do you think he was given a choice of Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and islam?
Again:
After 170 years of arabs raping and dancing on the Iranians spirit and pride, the Iranian lower and middle class quite literally didn't know anything other than islam (and the upper class were all arabs/collaborators/puppets). And islam is not exactly famous for being okay with heathens or apostates.
That is how fire, whip, and death brought islam to Iran. Absolute control and barbarian masters who can kill and enslave as they want for 3 generations, 170 years, is a long time. Think: for 170 years: almost everybody is born named Muhammad or Hasan etc., all leaders are muhammad hasan etc, and if they say they don't believe in God, they get whatever punishment there is for being a heathen, which is if we are lenient in our assumptions: discrimination. 170 years of what I wrote above.
So when the chains are loosened a bit after 170 years, because the arab horde is invading Spain leaving the Eastern half somewhat free, the Iranians rise up (sign of Iranians loving arab rule clearly) - but they have no identity left other than being Iranian/Persian, and have been forcefully muslim and islam is all they know - they are "muslims" now because the only other alternative is heathen or atheist (something VERY rare at the time; and even today: The moment someone is non-muslim they RUN out of the country. Imagine how fast they ran when the arabs were ruling - if they didn't already kill themselves from having their daughter "married" away to arab soldiers).
As for the basic facts:
Iranian Intermezzo, Abbasid revolt, all happened for a reason. They were not happy about the leadership. If the leadership wasn't good at ruling, then one can imagine they probably weren't good at converting an intelligent and strong people like the Iranians either. Since islam and the leadership of islamic countries are intertwined. If there is no government to force the religion, it dies immediately. Why else are all muslim governments so oppressive and so harsh about questioning islam? Even in Iran: If I were to question islam, I am sure I would get attacked physically. I don't even want to imagine if Iran had arab soldiers patrolling the streets - how I would be treated.
But I appreciate your perspective. It just doesn't really mean much. I was looking more for evidence of kind arab leaders and kings helping us or something of the sort - if there are any. Not speculating about why it took 170 years for Iran to revolt on a large scale the moment the arab armies left the land; and why Iranians who had been suppressed heavily were converted after 170 years (3 full generations - child, parent, grandpa x3) of absolute arab dominance and discrimination.
The people who are known for having shot the baby of Hasan, and who are today sipping wine and pooping on Instagram models as the babies of Palestinians get bombed.
If you give me 170 years of full military control of Iran again, I promise I can (if I wanted to - I don't - but hypothetically speaking) literally remove every trace of islam from Iran. It is not difficult to do, though I would have to blacken my heart.
Especially if enslaving, raping, "wifing" (take the daughter from whoever I want after I kill their father), killing, tearing down buildings, selective taxation and discrimination, and full control of education - is all on the table.
Ataturk kinda did it peacefully even, within like 15 years. Turkey is barely muslim today. Add 150 years on top of that, and easy peasy. But if you have actual evidence I would love to read up on anecdotes of how Iranians documented their conversion.
"The arabs killed my father, took my sister, and slapped me across the face and called me filthy ajam for not speaking arabic, and so I saw the light of Muhammad and Allah shine upon me".
Claiming that Timur and the ottomans had no concept of bureaucracy just proves the claimants historical illiteracy. You can just say you have a very superficial understanding of history instead of writing a 10 page jumble.
I know wikipedia's sources are dubious at best, but this seems likely given he wanted to emulate shangiz khan and kinda eye opening about how civilized and good at bureaucracy Timur was, whose empire lasted 1000 years as the Iranian had; and as the Roman empire did.
(Heavy sarcasm, it of course farted itself and died moments after he died; and turk lands - not Byzantine "turk", real turk - are to this day... magnificent. Basically contenders with Germany.)
"However, after Isfahan revolted against Timur's taxes by killing the tax collectors and some of Timur's soldiers, he ordered the massacre of the city's citizens; the death toll is reckoned at between 100,000 and 200,000"
"Timur's legacy is a mixed one. While Central Asia blossomed under his reign, other places, such as Baghdad), Damascus, Delhi and other Arab, Georgian, Persian, and Indian cities were sacked and destroyed and their populations massacred."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur#Conquest_of_Persia ; 2025-12-01]
At least he made Persian the official language of the empire.
Classic Mongolian bureaucracy. Massacre cities to punish the elite.
The makers of empires. One day Mongolia will rise again and with their horses chase down america's jet planes and bring islam to Europe. God willing :praying hands emoji:
True civilization means living in tents before copying Persians that you just enslaved and massacred.
And if I sound crude and mean it is because my heart and morality is with all the innocent people of history that have suffered and died to these barbarians. So I don't care if I say some mean words about them today when they themselves don't even repent. They can eat my insults.
One massive reason why the "Arabs" (stupid way of putting), were able to succeed so quickly was because the Mesopotamia (bullied and fought over by both Byzantine and Persia) welcome them, converted to this new "strange" christian faith (that was a joke) and joined them, The Arab armies didn't need to pacify the region, but did had problems governing a region like Egypt.
Do you not see this? Am I crazy? Am I alone?
Empire to a tiny little regional power. The moment ""we"" ""converted"" to islam and islamic rule.
-A regional power that America can press 1 button and literally every human being on Iran-zamin gets vaporized in nuclear hellfire, and all we can do to retaliate is say "We launch a protest in the UN for this! America big satan!"
The UN that was founded and is run by the Europeans by the way.
That's why an uncomfortable amount of *our people* are upset with our government, and islam, and Iran's current state.
And like to look at our past, and call themselves Persia or whatever cringe word they don't even understand.
And why some of us are very aggressively, to the point of irrational hatred, opposed to arabism and resort to disgusting zionism (just because it is hurting arabs).
We need to build up, and to do that we need to know what "up" is.
To me, a secularist, "up" was Reza Shah (the first one, not his cuckold grandson). Westernization - because like it or not (Trust me, I know you don't like it), the West is ahead of us in many things. And we even recognize this, that is why we use their technology.
Let's use more though.
I think if we copy 99.99% of the West (except the obvious evils like pride parades and epstein island child sex parties), and then shave off the small things that are evil over time - we will develop far better than if we just pathetically cling to arab traditions and customs from 1400 years ago, and reluctantly build Western technology when we realize that the sword arabs used to swarm their victims isn't effective anymore, and that we do need Western ideas (like missiles). We need to jump up. Like the Chinese did (and continue to do), like the Japanese did.
At least they stood a chance against the West.
We need to merge into the West, and outperform them. Not stand on the outside and yell outside of U.N.'s corrupt windows.
The orientalism in your replies is astounding. I’m not surprised you’re a secular monarchist western wannabe lol. It’s beyond clear as day that even the blind can see you are woefully historically illiterate.
Well firstly ancient Persia had the Achaemenids and Parthians too (alongside other Iranic dynasties further east). And didn't Jalal al-Din, your(*) king (though a t-rk) that got his ar§se whipped by Chinggis Khan (Yahya Sinwar-type oopsie chain reaction by his great-uncle and father) kill like 100,000 Christians in a single day in Tbilisi alone? (let's assume it was 20 times lower than that, as is usual in old sources' exaggeration). That would likely rival in a few days alone all the Christians killed by the Sassanids (except maybe in the last Roman war). There's a reason why the Georgians and Armenians, for example (secret Mossad time travel agents?) developped a serious hatred for you, and vented their anger in Baghdad and Aleppo. Your dynasties, following your evil false prophet, the originator of an unprecedented wave of hatred, oppressed them ceaselessly for centuries and centuries. And these being older and thus forgotten is not a good excuse, since for example the Jews still remember the atrocities of the Romans against them, probably the worst before the 20th century.
(*)"your"- edit: As you're Pakistani, the endless jihad against Hindus is the same. You even name your missiles after actual mass killers of Hindus. Imagine Spain naming their machine guns after Torquemada or Pizarro. You are clearly provocative and without a shred of regret. Same for Iran with the Kheibar one, what a coincidence.
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That's like what? Only three kings? Also, it was in opposition to the Romans and because of one priest.
How long did you think Christianity had a presence?
Oh It's like no Cristian King never killed a Muslim.
I don't want to hijack the topic, I fully agree, "ancient Persia" is romanticized wrongly.
But those of us who do consider Iran to be more important than the islamic caliphates, and by extension, consider the muslim takeover to have been a negative - We don't argue that the kings of Iran were more tolerant or nice or this and that.
We argue that their system didn't mass slaughter, destroy, violate, and cram us Iranians into a corner in our heartlands - and abuse us for being inferior to foreigners for not speaking their language.
And our kings were a successful wall against it for a long time until they in the end, miserably failed.
If Iran would have remained free, and coverted to islam or whatever I would be fine with it, and blame ourselves for our faults. But that is not what happened. We were conquered. And conquered by bad forceful people. "God's message" did not come to us with a understanding smile and bounty. It came with fire, chains, and whips.
And whether people agree or not (feel free to argue against me on this, I would love to learn things that are not easily countered by just speaking basic facts and observations): Iran used to be toe-to-toe with the Byzantine empire; and the master of our own fate, as for our constituents and "subject nations": they were treated pretty damn well compared to how we came to be treated under arab/turk/mongol rule.
And since then - since that point in time when we were subjugated: we have been embarassingly behind. We are a side character. When we used to be the literal center of the world!
Think about that.
We went from a glorious empire (with good kings and shitty kings) who defended itself and was modern against the Byzantine/Roman empires...
To a violated and massacred collection of victim people - waiting to be abused by non Iranian leaders and hordes.
While our islamic rulers pillage our culture and pretend it is their own. (The Ottomans, Timur, even the arabs had ZERO concepts of bureaucracy - they lived in tents and maybe mudhouses in trade cities).
And they HATE us for it. Some of them are good souls and do show respect, and I appreciate them, truly. But most of them - especially their fighters, and we all know it to be true, are narcissists who hate us because our culture and civilization was far better than them. Still is. And don't even like us when we fight their battles at great detriment to our own flimsy wellbeing.
From Glorious Empire toe to toe with the every other Glorious empire that existed: from our West (Rome); to our friendly Glorious Empires to our East (China, India)
-> Into: a country today that is not allowed to have nuclear weapons, that is shooting (impressive) missiles at israel, with a people being told to dress like arabs; and not even for islam, which is the funniest part.
Meanwhile:
England (the descendants of swamp people and vikings) colonized the world, and built America (the strongest nation in the world today), the strongest economy in the world, subjugated and controlled India (and abused them greatly) and even starved us Iranians to death by the millions.
And we, the formerly glorious Empire of Iran, can just lie there and take it. We had 1300 years of islam/arab rule to benefit us and build us up, and it got us into this hole. Prove me wrong. Please, I am begging you, prove me wrong.
When England was colonizing the whole world with their selfmade strongest, brightest, free:est, and richest people, and the ottomans were ramming their small heads against the Balkans; we were just sitting in our mountains, technologically and industrially useless, wishing to one day maybe conquer small parts of india/pakistan if our (turkish) king felt like it. Where was islam for us? Where was the ummah? And don't say it wasn't "real islam" ("it wasn't real communism") - IT WAS THE ONLY ISLAM. THE ONLY ISLAM.
umm, both Pre islam Iran and After Islam Iran, are good some part of them are better then other,
don'tcareaboutwhatyouWrote.
And whether people agree or not (feel free to argue against me on this, I would love to learn things that are not easily countered by just speaking basic facts and observations) - Lets put that to the test
"God's message" did not come to us with a understanding smile and bounty. It came with fire, chains, and whips.
Firstly the Islamisation of Iran took centuries. The process actually continued once the political authority of the Arab Abbasid Caliphate is effectively gone in the Iranian lands (around the late 9th century). If the religion was imposed on an unwilling population then we would have expected to see the Iranians revert back to Zoroastrianism en masse as they don't have their Arab overlords keeping a close eye on them and force their compliance Now you may counter that oh well the local Iranian elites who became Muslim decided to force the religion on the rural peasantry in Iran but you have a new problem. Without their Arab overlords to keep a close eye on these dynasts - what incentive do they have to believe in a foreign religion that they supposedly never really accepted? If their primary aim was to cling to power then why not revert to the religion of the rural majority and present themselves as restorers of the old Iranian religion to maintain power? Again that does not happen and we in fact see the Buyids consciously adopt the pre Islamic titles of Shahenshah alongside Islam in the form of Shi'ism.
We went from a glorious empire (with good kings and shitty kings) who defended itself and was modern against the Byzantine/Roman empires...
To a violated and massacred collection of victim people - waiting to be abused by non Iranian leaders and hordes.
Its quite ridiculous that you paint 1400 years of Iranian Islamic History as one of perpetual victimhood. The Iranian Intermezzo and the Safafivds would like to have a word with you... If you wish you can cling to that narrative of perpetual victimhood but thats says more about a defeatist mindset then it says about actual Iranian history. One can look at 1400 years of Iranian Islamic History more accurately as one of extraordinary resilience and adaptation - an Iran that survives the Arab, Turkic and Mongol invasions and keeps reasserting itself.
our culture and civilization was far better than them.
Then how were the Arabs able to conquer Iran if they were vastly inferior to your culture? The standard move is to say the Arabs were lucky because they conquered the Sassanids at the right opportunity because they fought the Byzantines and both sides were mutually exhausted. But if mutual exhaustion was the main factor in the Arab victory then why were the Arabs able to conquer the Sassanids but the Byzantines able to survive for nearly a thousand years more? Even with the exhaustion of the Sassanid state the Sassanids had vastly superior economic and human resources shouldn't they have been able to defeat the small band of Arab invaders (that you like to denigrate as inferior) without even needing the full resources of their empire? Both of these point to the fact that the Sassanid political system was rotten and dysfunctional . Does this also suggest the Byzantines had a superior political system to the Sassanids? Why couldn't the Sassanids who were far more experienced in statecraft than the Arabs with their superior ways insulate themselves from the internal problems they faced when the Arabs who were more prone to division and tribalism able to maintain a more cohesive force against the Sassanids? This again undercuts your claim of cultural superiority.
Then one can ask how were these so called inferior Arabs able to rule Persia once it was conquered? You may try to say the Arabs being unsophisticated unthinking brutes that they were heavily relied on Persian elites and local Persian administration. But the main thrust of your post claims that the Arab conquest fatally weakened Persian culture and civilisation. If you agree that the Arabs were heavily reliant on Persian administration then your claim that Persian culture was fatally weakened cannot be true. If you insist on saying the Arab conquest fatally weakened Persian culture and civilisation then you have to explain how Sassanian style Persian administration continued after the Arab conquest
So which one is it? Either Persian culture and civilisation shaped the Islamic world which makes your general claim of the Arab conquest weakening Persian culture false or the Arab conquest fatally damaged Persian culture which in this case the idea of unthinking Arabs being reliant on Persian culture completely collapses. You have basically tied yourself in a big knot
I am not an Arab nor am I Iranian. I am not even a Shia so I don't have any vested interest in supporting or defending the government of Iran but what I will not abide by is cultural chauvinism and distorting history to denigrate one group of people
Finally the rest of your post, about Iranian/arabian comparison:
How arabs were able to conquer Iran.
Iran had fought for 30 years against Byzantium. Corruption was running rampant within Iran too. Collaborators etc. who were probably promised 30 pieces of silver etc.
The arab conquest of Iran was impressive, but not that Impressive.
And I have no problems with pointing out that they were militarily stronger, and outwitted our commanders the time they attacked and won.
The main problem is what came after. Had they been kind and merciful, someone like me would have zero problems speaking their praise. After all I praise England and the West despite the horrible things they did to us - because at least there is *something* to praise in the West.
Military conquest has very little to do with inferiority/superiority of culture. It's numbers, fervor, experience, and resources to fight. (And today technology, but in those days it didn't matter as much).
50 000 arabs running at exhausted and demoralized unconsolidated Iranian soldiers whose elite fighters had all died in the Byzantine wars is not hard to imagine; and whose nobility were in shambles and constantly infighting.
Especially if the arab soldiers are all frothing at their mouth from previous victories of Muhammad uniting the arabs.
Same way Alexander, who was also a brute, conquered Iran. But in his wake, after burning down Persepolis, he left Iran in one piece at least. And did not kill our religion.
Mongols are an even better comparison that really take my counterpoint home and into the stars.
The mongols were (are) literal tentdwelling nomads. But under Genghis Khan, who was not a warrior of Allah for the record and never did the shahada, the Mongols DESTROYED China, and violated everything they touched. Even the Russians; and even the muslims.
Would you ever argue that mongolians were more cultured or had superior culture to Russia/China/Iran? no. They just had the numbers, experience, fervor, and a really damn good commander with incredibly tactics, doctrines, logistics, and a meritocratic system.
The moment their leader died, their shithole mongol empire fell apart. Until the next violent animal commander came into charge and then he died and it fell apart and so on.
Today mongolia is the dog that china and russia beat for fun whenever they feel like it. Kinda like the arabs today, but I'm not gonna throw salt in the wounds of the arabs since what is happening to the Palestinians is disgusting.
Their culture was not superior. They achieved nothing except conquest. So their culture was good at violence. Literally.
Are you saying the arabs were culturally superior because they succeeded at violence against us? Bold move, but I can't really argue against it. Yes the arab war culture was superior to us after we were exhausted after 30 years of fighting.
A man that smears diarrhea on his face and can't read, but beats you up when you are exhausted is more cultured than you I guess.
As for how they came to rule "successfully":
I'm trying not to repeat myself, so I will just say: I promise if you give me an army and put me in charge of a country for 170 years, I will be able to do literally whatever I want if I have no moral compass. I can make all of China speak Japanese (or shave their hair in a certain way out of subservience - google the "queue hairstyle"). I can make England rename London to "Little Paris".
It is not hard at all to rule masses once you subdue your enemy and eliminate and slaughter their military. But ruling for a thousand years with happy subjects is another thing entirely. Which arabs did not. As evidenced by the numerous revolts and the final result that is the muslim "ummah" of today.
With violence: If out of 500 people, 450 of them resist, I simply kill the 450. Because I have the army, and they don't. What are they gonna do about it? Kill themselves? Cry? Only violence defeats violence.
This is what the communists did in Russia by the way. A country run by aristocrats and Christians became a fullblown hellhole run by foreigners who imposed state atheism. Because the red army won and simply killed anybody it wanted, and nobody could resist (well Germany tried on their behalf, but sadly England/America had to intervene). 50 million Christians died in Russia. (number is debated, but I don't give a sh-. If you have to debate the number down from 50 million to "only" 20 million thinking it makes a point in your favour I don't really care.)
I would never do anything like this of course, because I am Iranian. But someone who isn't Iranian, like the mongol commanders who marched 2 million Iranians into the desert and slaughtered them all - those guys would.
And did.
And I can easily imagine arabs doing the same. You see what Saddam did to the Kurds? Tell me an example of Iranians ever doing something similar.
The worst thing I can imagine us doing was the SAVAK. Which is a universe away in scale.
And I forgot to address the Byzantium comparison, and the re-mention of the culture comparison.
>If Iran was superior to Arabia, how come Iran fell apart internally when the arabs attacked.
... Because timing? Yes the arabs were more organized and consolidated than Iran right when they attacked. These things happen.
And yes, the arabs perhaps had better commanders, and their soldiers might have had more fervor.
This does not count as culture to me. We can agree to disagree about this.
If a person in a suit, with a laptop, writing poetry, and who possesses a gun that has temporarily run out of ammunition gets beaten up by a muscular neanderthal with a club who suddenly appears from behind him - I am not going to say that the neanderthal has superior culture. But you do you.
As for Byzantium, I don't know much about what the arabs decided to do after they conquered the gigantic Sasan empire. I can easily imagine though that they probably spent a lot of time putting down revolts, slaughtering remainder of Iranian resistance, and trying to control as much of it as they could.
Which would give the Byzantines a lot of time - and a lot of fervor after they see what was done to Iran, to prepare a proper defense against the arab horde (sorry, civilized army). Which would prompt the the arabs to go for easier targets in the south-West. Turkey is all mountains - something Paradox games taught me with great pain. And Constantinople is very easy to defend. Something they prepared to resist Iranian attacks.
Again I am not an expert, and don't really care much about the Eastern Roman empire vs the arabs. All I know is I would have strongly preferred to be conquered by the Byzantines lol.
According to some googling: the arabs after conquering Iran had their civil war, and the Byzantines retreated back and gave up Egypt to the arabs and fortified. And the arabs got really far against the Byzantines (!!) but failed to grab Constantinople, so the greeks could easily reconsolidate their forces and wrest back control. And they did.
Also the Plague of Justinian is another interesting fact from the time which severely weakened both Iran and Byzantium before the arab hordes arrived (who lived in the desert and did not get hit very hard, because they didn't have large sprawling cities, because large cities are for uncultured losers who have mastered architecture and sewage systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashidun_Caliphate#Military_expansion
I really don't feel like reading this because it tortures me since I have a vivid imagination and know what arabs are like. But feel free to knock yourself out, and find some traces of "superior arab culture" to showcase if you want. And I repeat: military genius/victory does not count.
If it does, then israel is quite the military genius. And has superior culture to islam.
Which I think is borderline illegal to say here lol.
And that I obviously disagree with.
Response to p5:
.... we were. We still are, in a perpetual state of victimhood. Aren't you a historian?
Our last 100 years have been us getting played with by greater powers. (Not God).
England starved 50% of us to death. England and Russia changed our king and replaced him with his son.
England controlled and groomed our king, his son.
Today: America is finding a way to convince their people to be okay with bombing us, after already having bombed us. We have no nuclear weapons to counter theirs - meaning we are in a perpetual state of nuclear-checkmate. If they nuke us we cannot do anything to them back. Even the damn jews have nukes over us.
Prior to those 100 years, we were a backwards civilization living in the mountains doing nothing. Because oil wasn't valueable at the time, and everything valueable had already been taken from us (Iraq's lush and fertile land used to be ours).
Prior to our backwards state, we were ravaged and 90% of us died to the Mongolian invasion; and we lost our Assassin's order.
Prior to the Mongolian invasion, we were controlled mostly by turks.
And prior to that, arabs who hate us and transformed us and our culture and our religion.
Even today they hate us, and their religion is still holding us down together with them.
Our entire history is victimhood. It is not something good. Yes it is good that we are still speaking Persian and love Iran - but nothing about the source of our pride relates to islam - it is all our own people. And if you pay close attention: Everything good that comes out of Iran comes from Iranians who love Iran. Not Iranians who love islam/arabism. Our scientists, our (limited) modernization - all of it is from Iranian brilliance. That's why no other muslim nation has achieved anything like us.
Resilience is not something to be proud of either if you think about it. It is a means to an end. You should be resilient -> so that you can do something after. We are doing nothing. We are still in our punched state.
"Hey you know about the Iranian boxing champion?"
"No"
"He could take punch after punch"
"Wow, and then what?"
"Nothing, he just kept taking punches. He is still taking punches."
"... And what is he planning to do, is he gonna punch back?"
"No he is gonna keep taking punches. Because the guy who started punching told him God wants him to take punches and that he should be ashamed for thinking otherwise."
"Who started punching him?"
"A guy who hates him and that God clearly does not like."
"So he has been getting punched his entire life?"
"No, until the guy that hates him started punching him, he was doing pretty good and punching back. He was one of the world's strongest boxers. Then he got punched by some guy after having fought Muhammad Ali bin-Byzantium for 30 years and was tired out; and has just been taking punches ever since."
"Wow that is awful. He should really stop getting punched and recover"
"Now hold on, don't be a pessimist. His face kinda still looks the same though, and he can still talk."
"... Great."
Also: We have not "reasserted" ourselves.
We have only asserted ourself regionally.
But the issue is that the region is a shithole compared to the rest of the world - Europe in particular.
Denmark can probably assert itself in the middle east at this point.
israel, the goblin nation of 8 million, is literally fighting and winning against the combined forces of islam. (Yes I know without american aid they would be nothing, but... if we include America it is a nation of 308 million against 1.5 billion muslims. And it is *not* a close fight.)
The only defeat israel has taken is that people in the West are waking up to how cartoonishly evil they are lol.
I think your “we’ve only ever been victims” narrative only works because you deliberately skip over any episode where Iran is actually an agent rather than a punching bag. Between the Arab conquest and the present you have the Buyids dominating the Abbasid Caliphate and the Safavids fighting against the Ottomans at the peak of their powers on equal terms. If we look at the modern day Iran is hardly a helpless victim. Granted its constrained by US military power and sanctions but its one of the few states that can act independently of Washington and force all the major powers to factor Iran into every possible calculation which is something they would not do if Iran were a total irrelevance that they could trample on at their convenience. Also even the US with their enormous firepower would not consider a full scale invasion of Iran as a realistic option. Iran is not some helpless victim it’s a medium power that can make a superpower treat them cautiously
You said
Our scientists, our (limited) modernization - all of it is from Iranian brilliance. That's why no other muslim nation has achieved anything like us.
But those scientists, universities, and infrastructures have been produced inside a political system that defines itself as Islamic. So either:
you accept that an explicitly Islamic state can also be the framework for the achievements you’re proud of, or
you have to say the Islamic Republic is “not really Islamic”, in which case your Islam vs Iran binary collapses a or
you claim these achievements happened despite Islam and the Islamic system – in which case you’ve quietly admitted that Islam is not actually capable of stopping Iranians from achieving what you’re proud of. But if it can’t stop those achievements, the claim that “Islam is what’s holding us back” doesn’t really make sense.
If by “scientists and modernisation” you meant the pre-1979 Pahlavi era, those reforms took place in a society that was overwhelmingly Muslim, where religious norms still had real influence on people’s lives. The fact that the Pahlavi state was heavily secularising did not mean the majority of the population magically stopped being Muslim. And even though sections of the ulama opposed parts of the modernisation programme, it clearly did not follow that the Muslim masses simply obeyed them – if they had, the modernisation project could never have been implemented on the scale it was, which again undermines the whole claim of Islam holding back development and progress
In case you try to pivot to Islam is the reason Iran's development and modernisation is limited at best. You basically have said Iran should copy the west as much as possible but this argument wont save you either because firstly if you look at when did the UK become a dominant empire. This was in the 18th and 19th centuries when it was not a modern western style liberal democracy without mass education and women's political rights and operated under strict social norms. So the path towards technical and scientific progress is not marked by the ability of people to dress and sing or behave as freely as you like.
Also the US and UK's development was due to their favourable geography and historic circumstance. The UK being an island nation with a colonial empire to expropriate wealth to fund their learning institutions. The US being surrounded with weak neighbours as well as two large oceans so your proscription to simply copy the west does not make sense given their historic development
More broadly, there are plenty of developing countries today where religion is not a major force in politics, yet they remain poor or “modest” in their development. Conversely, you have Muslim-majority states like Malaysia or several Gulf monarchies which, whatever you think of their societies, clearly have high levels of material development and human development indicators. That alone undercuts the idea that Islam as such imposes some fixed ceiling on progress.
You may say Iran should be more like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as they achieved rapid development following war and colonisation. South Korea and Taiwan modernised under authoritarian regimes and were showered with generous aid and protection because the US needed their capitalist showcase states during the Cold War. Similarly Japan was able to rapidly develop as they did not need to spend resources on defence as they sat under the US security umbrella. Those countries face enormous problems of their own from collapsing birth rates to extreme work cultures.
You might now want to claim that because of Islam Iran’s technical and scientific knowledge fell behind the West in the 19th century, which is why it was dominated. I’ll happily concede the obvious descriptive point that by the 19th century Europeans had more advanced scientific knowledge than most of the Islamic world. But if you’re going to say this is because Islam carried out some Galileo-style crackdown on natural science, you need to provide evidence, not just an assertion.
From roughly the 16th century onwards, the most prestigious intellectual track in many Muslim societies was law and the religious sciences, not natural philosophy. Rulers didn’t outlaw scientific study; they simply gave far more patronage and status to jurists, so careers in the natural sciences became less attractive. Meanwhile in Europe, states, merchants and navies had strong incentives to fund natural science – better navigation, artillery, engineering – and that made those fields more rewarding. Crucially, many of those European advances built on earlier work in Islamic mathematics and astronomy.
Neither of these trajectories was inevitable. Europe itself had spent centuries focused on theology and canon law, and the Islamic world had its own period of outstanding scientific output under the very same religion you now blame – And before you pre-empt me with “they were Persian, not Islamic”, I’ll pre-empt you: they were Persian and working in an Islamic milieu. Their success shows Islam doesn’t automatically kill science; it just doesn’t fit your story.. That history undercuts any claim that “Islam” as such doomed Iran to perpetual underdevelopment. What changed were institutions, incentives and global power structures, not some timeless anti-science essence in Islam.
Response to paragraph 3-
We don't know much about the islamization of Iran, for obvious reasons. (It wasn't pretty, and the people who did it couldn't write. We are talking 170 years of arab presence before the Iranian "intermezzo"). But using my imagination very very loosely and lazily: Once the arabs showed up, angry about their brothers and soldiers who had died in the wars to claim the land - and facing guerilla resistance, they violently executed all who opposed them. Took some women slaves ("marrying them"); killed our elders and nobles who hadn't betrayed the land. Installed the collaborators, who themselves served under close arab supervision (because Persians, especially traitor Persians cannot be trusted - I agree with this decision).
They were given orders to tear down every statue and building that looked beautiful in order to punish the people of Iran, and to lower Iran's resistance and morale (and also to "destroy idols"). Then Iranians whenever they rose up, were violently put down, women taken as slaves, repeat etc.
Eventually Iran and its provinces all had an arabizing entity at the top, in every district, and this entity used his soldiers to steal wealth and forcingly convert Iran aggressively in every area of society. Children were given arab lessons, and lessons on the Quran and how amazing Muhammad was and how terrible Iranians were, and if people didn't have arabic names they couldn't get good jobs.
Being forced to pray in arabic from childhood (strategic decision by the way), and being forced to pray 5 times a day. Undoubtedly has a big effect on the lower class/stupid masses. They are literally forced to say, in arabic, 5 times a day, that "Muhammad is the prophet of God and Allah (God in arabic) is great". And they have to speak arabic. And they are not allowed to read Zoroastrian texts. (Or there is no room or motivation in their education for it).
Pretty significant psychological impact.
The Capital of Iran was destroyed and transformed into an arab version, so if anybody wanted to become an intelligentsia (doctor, teacher, researcher, middle/upperclass) they had to learn arabic and study in arabic, and write in arabic. Which is why algebra etc. are all arabic, even though the inventors clearly weren't. There weren't exactly universities spread out all over the world.
Zoroastrian people were discriminated against. Huge taxation etc.
Iran would soon become intellectually deserted as the aristocracy and people with integrity left or committed suicide after their sister was "taken as a wife/slave" etc., leaving Iran a weak and pathetic husk.
Iran became defenseless, and ready to be raped by another horde (turks).
I personally would probably kill myself the moment Iran were to be conquered by arabs or turks again. The shame is unbearable to imagine. Our beautiful girls in the hands of ISIS or Saddam again? Have you seen those filth?
Abbasid revolt happened when a Iranian muslim/nationalist, Khorasani, rose up and sought to replace the leadership with something less painfully anti-Iranian. He fought really hard, won the civil war since all of the arabs were conquering ("colonizing") in North Africa and Iberia (spreading the religion of peace).
Then after winning the war and putting in place another set of arab rulers - supposedly more tolerant ones, he was betrayed by them and literally backstabbed. Because the arabs were worried about his rising influence.
Then Iranian Intermezzo happened: with the people who really did not like the arabs in Iran, and the leaders of Iran who were seeking independence (who were arabs most of the time themselves) broke apart Iran into multiple factions. (Barbarians cannot really remain an empire for long. Arab ummah will never happen for this reason. They all want power for themselves - each leader wants to have their own kingdom, and slaves, and taxes, and military).
Iran recovered somewhat, and having lost all of its religion and identity, most Iranian nationalists (smiths, artisans etc.) born into hell that they wanted to change were segwayed into the religion of islam as their "natural state". This is where Saffarid, one of the more powerful leaders of the intermezzo literally came from. He was a coppersmith. How do you think his, a coppersmith's, upbringing was? Do you think he was given a choice of Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and islam?
Again:
After 170 years of arabs raping and dancing on the Iranians spirit and pride, the Iranian lower and middle class quite literally didn't know anything other than islam (and the upper class were all arabs/collaborators/puppets). And islam is not exactly famous for being okay with heathens or apostates.
That is how fire, whip, and death brought islam to Iran. Absolute control and barbarian masters who can kill and enslave as they want for 3 generations, 170 years, is a long time. Think: for 170 years: almost everybody is born named Muhammad or Hasan etc., all leaders are muhammad hasan etc, and if they say they don't believe in God, they get whatever punishment there is for being a heathen, which is if we are lenient in our assumptions: discrimination. 170 years of what I wrote above.
So when the chains are loosened a bit after 170 years, because the arab horde is invading Spain leaving the Eastern half somewhat free, the Iranians rise up (sign of Iranians loving arab rule clearly) - but they have no identity left other than being Iranian/Persian, and have been forcefully muslim and islam is all they know - they are "muslims" now because the only other alternative is heathen or atheist (something VERY rare at the time; and even today: The moment someone is non-muslim they RUN out of the country. Imagine how fast they ran when the arabs were ruling - if they didn't already kill themselves from having their daughter "married" away to arab soldiers).
As for the basic facts:
Iranian Intermezzo, Abbasid revolt, all happened for a reason. They were not happy about the leadership. If the leadership wasn't good at ruling, then one can imagine they probably weren't good at converting an intelligent and strong people like the Iranians either. Since islam and the leadership of islamic countries are intertwined. If there is no government to force the religion, it dies immediately. Why else are all muslim governments so oppressive and so harsh about questioning islam? Even in Iran: If I were to question islam, I am sure I would get attacked physically. I don't even want to imagine if Iran had arab soldiers patrolling the streets - how I would be treated.
But I appreciate your perspective. It just doesn't really mean much. I was looking more for evidence of kind arab leaders and kings helping us or something of the sort - if there are any. Not speculating about why it took 170 years for Iran to revolt on a large scale the moment the arab armies left the land; and why Iranians who had been suppressed heavily were converted after 170 years (3 full generations - child, parent, grandpa x3) of absolute arab dominance and discrimination.
The people who are known for having shot the baby of Hasan, and who are today sipping wine and pooping on Instagram models as the babies of Palestinians get bombed.
If you give me 170 years of full military control of Iran again, I promise I can (if I wanted to - I don't - but hypothetically speaking) literally remove every trace of islam from Iran. It is not difficult to do, though I would have to blacken my heart.
Especially if enslaving, raping, "wifing" (take the daughter from whoever I want after I kill their father), killing, tearing down buildings, selective taxation and discrimination, and full control of education - is all on the table.
Ataturk kinda did it peacefully even, within like 15 years. Turkey is barely muslim today. Add 150 years on top of that, and easy peasy. But if you have actual evidence I would love to read up on anecdotes of how Iranians documented their conversion.
"The arabs killed my father, took my sister, and slapped me across the face and called me filthy ajam for not speaking arabic, and so I saw the light of Muhammad and Allah shine upon me".
Claiming that Timur and the ottomans had no concept of bureaucracy just proves the claimants historical illiteracy. You can just say you have a very superficial understanding of history instead of writing a 10 page jumble.
I know wikipedia's sources are dubious at best, but this seems likely given he wanted to emulate shangiz khan and kinda eye opening about how civilized and good at bureaucracy Timur was, whose empire lasted 1000 years as the Iranian had; and as the Roman empire did.
(Heavy sarcasm, it of course farted itself and died moments after he died; and turk lands - not Byzantine "turk", real turk - are to this day... magnificent. Basically contenders with Germany.)
"However, after Isfahan revolted against Timur's taxes by killing the tax collectors and some of Timur's soldiers, he ordered the massacre of the city's citizens; the death toll is reckoned at between 100,000 and 200,000"
"Timur's legacy is a mixed one. While Central Asia blossomed under his reign, other places, such as Baghdad), Damascus, Delhi and other Arab, Georgian, Persian, and Indian cities were sacked and destroyed and their populations massacred."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur#Conquest_of_Persia ; 2025-12-01]
At least he made Persian the official language of the empire.
Classic Mongolian bureaucracy. Massacre cities to punish the elite.
The makers of empires. One day Mongolia will rise again and with their horses chase down america's jet planes and bring islam to Europe. God willing :praying hands emoji:
True civilization means living in tents before copying Persians that you just enslaved and massacred.
And if I sound crude and mean it is because my heart and morality is with all the innocent people of history that have suffered and died to these barbarians. So I don't care if I say some mean words about them today when they themselves don't even repent. They can eat my insults.
That has absolutely nothing to do with bureaucracy….
Your ilk is so annoying, did the Chinese copy Persian bureaucracy too?
One massive reason why the "Arabs" (stupid way of putting), were able to succeed so quickly was because the Mesopotamia (bullied and fought over by both Byzantine and Persia) welcome them, converted to this new "strange" christian faith (that was a joke) and joined them, The Arab armies didn't need to pacify the region, but did had problems governing a region like Egypt.
Do you not see this? Am I crazy? Am I alone?
Empire to a tiny little regional power. The moment ""we"" ""converted"" to islam and islamic rule.
-A regional power that America can press 1 button and literally every human being on Iran-zamin gets vaporized in nuclear hellfire, and all we can do to retaliate is say "We launch a protest in the UN for this! America big satan!"
The UN that was founded and is run by the Europeans by the way.
That's why an uncomfortable amount of *our people* are upset with our government, and islam, and Iran's current state.
And like to look at our past, and call themselves Persia or whatever cringe word they don't even understand.
And why some of us are very aggressively, to the point of irrational hatred, opposed to arabism and resort to disgusting zionism (just because it is hurting arabs).
We need to build up, and to do that we need to know what "up" is.
To me, a secularist, "up" was Reza Shah (the first one, not his cuckold grandson). Westernization - because like it or not (Trust me, I know you don't like it), the West is ahead of us in many things. And we even recognize this, that is why we use their technology.
Let's use more though.
I think if we copy 99.99% of the West (except the obvious evils like pride parades and epstein island child sex parties), and then shave off the small things that are evil over time - we will develop far better than if we just pathetically cling to arab traditions and customs from 1400 years ago, and reluctantly build Western technology when we realize that the sword arabs used to swarm their victims isn't effective anymore, and that we do need Western ideas (like missiles). We need to jump up. Like the Chinese did (and continue to do), like the Japanese did.
At least they stood a chance against the West.
We need to merge into the West, and outperform them. Not stand on the outside and yell outside of U.N.'s corrupt windows.
The orientalism in your replies is astounding. I’m not surprised you’re a secular monarchist western wannabe lol. It’s beyond clear as day that even the blind can see you are woefully historically illiterate.
Well firstly ancient Persia had the Achaemenids and Parthians too (alongside other Iranic dynasties further east). And didn't Jalal al-Din, your(*) king (though a t-rk) that got his ar§se whipped by Chinggis Khan (Yahya Sinwar-type oopsie chain reaction by his great-uncle and father) kill like 100,000 Christians in a single day in Tbilisi alone? (let's assume it was 20 times lower than that, as is usual in old sources' exaggeration). That would likely rival in a few days alone all the Christians killed by the Sassanids (except maybe in the last Roman war). There's a reason why the Georgians and Armenians, for example (secret Mossad time travel agents?) developped a serious hatred for you, and vented their anger in Baghdad and Aleppo. Your dynasties, following your evil false prophet, the originator of an unprecedented wave of hatred, oppressed them ceaselessly for centuries and centuries. And these being older and thus forgotten is not a good excuse, since for example the Jews still remember the atrocities of the Romans against them, probably the worst before the 20th century.
(*)"your"- edit: As you're Pakistani, the endless jihad against Hindus is the same. You even name your missiles after actual mass killers of Hindus. Imagine Spain naming their machine guns after Torquemada or Pizarro. You are clearly provocative and without a shred of regret. Same for Iran with the Kheibar one, what a coincidence.
whats the last time you took a shower?