Iranian Philosophy Quotes

And I saw it didn't matter who had loved me or who I loved. I was alone. The black oily asphalt, the slick beauty of the Iranian attendant, the thickening clouds--nothing was mine. And I understood finally, after a semester of philosophy, a thousand books of poetry, after death and childbirth and the startled cries of men who called out my name as they entered me, I finally believed I was alone, felt it in my actual, visceral heart, heard it echo like a thin bell.

And I saw it didn’t matter who had loved me or who I loved. I was alone. The black oily asphalt, the slick beauty of the Iranian attendant, the thickening clouds—nothing was mine. And I understood finally, after a semester of philosophy, a thousand books of poetry, after death and childbirth and the startled cries of men who called out my name as they entered me, I finally believed I was alone, felt it in my actual, visceral heart, heard it echo like a thin bell.

Combined with this indecision was Ahmad's sense of being intellectually incomplete; he felt he had never really read enough and never studied enough to offer a firm opinion on anything. Privately he would assure his friends that they had no idea, they could not possibly imagine, how ignorant he was. In the semipublic arena of the dowreh on Islamic philosophy that he and Ali attended, when Ahmad entered the conversation he would talk brilliantly about a subject for a few minutes, then think up objections to what he had said, then think of things he should have read before he had spoken on the subject. Then, after adding several times, "What can I say? I don't really know," he would tumble into silence and, in his good-natured way, look even more deeply oppressed than he had before he talked. It was no surprise that Ahmad published so little.

Remember, in our tradition, a mother’s scarf is passed on to her daughter.

As an Iranian woman in the West, I see and share a lot of concern about the fate of my country’s women. But I’m also disturbed at how commonly the Western people I know view female Iranians as either helpless victims or brainwashed enemies—even if they personally know vibrant, successful, multicultural Persian women. In both Iran and the West it’s still widely assumed that males have always been the authors of Iranian culture, business, law, religion, art, education, literature, agriculture, science, architecture, philosophy, social mores, and the writing of history. But of course Iranian women have always been creative, influential players in all of these fields. They’ve always had their own goals, values, passions, and accomplishments, whatever challenges they've faced, and their contributions have enriched the world. As I recall the commonly obscured female half of my heritage, I want to paint a big picture of women’s initiatives in every period of Iranian history. Of course many excellent authors and scholars have been working on that for decades, and their work has helped to dispel traditional bias. But I and my Western male co-author hope to make our own contribution. We want to link the insights and accounts of many Iranian women together, show their significance for the world, and do it through a stream of stories that people of all cultures might enjoy.

In Greek, the most significant area to which these curricula were reduced was the rudiments of Aristotelian logic. It is possible, for instance, to discern a major structural change in the medical curriculum in Alexandria toward the end of the sixth century, perhaps as a reaction to the decline of philosophical instruction in that last remaining center of Greek philosophical studies. ...The theological applications of philosophy in Greek patristic literature, by contrast, were many and longevous, though clearly harnessed to their theological, apologetic, and polemical goals rather than free philosophical discourse. In Syriac Christianity, as in Greek, there is a similar development of a logical curriculum, except that it was rather shorter: The Sasanian rulers actively endorsed a translation culture that viewed the transferral of Greek texts and ideas into Middle Persian as the “restitution” of an Iranian heritage that was allegedly pilfered by the Greeks after the campaigns of Alexander the Great.17 It was this cultural context, and the atmosphere of open debate fostered most energetically by Chosroes I Anushirwan (ruled 531–78), that must have prompted the Greek philosophers to seek refuge in his court after Justinian’s 529 edict prohibited them from teaching.

The question of Meher Baba’s background context has to date been neglected. The devotional movement associated with his name has never shown any interest in antecedents. Former biographers have exhibited an ignorance of philosophical links pertaining to the subject’s ethnic and ideational heritage. These omissions require correction, not least because of the instructive nature of the links discernible.

In Meher Baba, the investigator has the opportunity to view at close range the Iranian spirit divested of Zoroastrian and Islamic dogma and ritualism. He is as much 'Mazdakite' and Zurvanite as he is sufi; he is both ishraqi and irfani (gnostic) in affiliated perspective, and yet at the same time elusive of ready-made labels which require a deeper understanding than customarily awarded them.

For those who are pedantic about classifications, it is perhaps best to describe Meher Baba as a neo-Kaivani, just as the Kaivanis can be termed neo-ishraqi in their departure from Islamic idioms. The gnostic dynamic does not stand still in its intercultural avenues of expression, and indeed, if it does so in a mono-cultural guise, it is likely to be no longer a dynamic but merely petrified conditioning. The easiest thing for anybody to do is to repeat secondhand material; the consequence is generally unenlightened dogmatism, not to mention distortion.

They lean into each other, entwine arms and legs, innocently, affectionately, and I look at them, their identical eyes and smiles, and try to imagine the divergence of their lives. Mitra marrying at fourteen, while her cousin begins life in England. Mitra leaving school to have children while Farah studies, learns English, grows up in London, maybe goes on to university. I stare into the soft faces of those girls and try to imagine them meeting again, ten years from now. Farah will return for a visit. She will wear fashionable clothes and will wear a chaador with disdain. She will speak a refined English and will fit awkwardly into her mother tongue; it will no longer hold her. She will have developed a taste for philosophy over coffee, will have grown used to speaking her mind, will have had many friendships and a heartbreak that will have left her unsettled but independent, will have become successful, enviable. She and Mitra will gasp when they see each other after all these years. They will hug and separate and hug and separate and kiss each other on the cheek again and again. Then they will sit across from each other staring, wondering how the other one got so old. Mitra will have four children; no, five; and will wear this, them, in her face. Her arms will be thick, strong, her hands calloused, and she will cry easily, not because she is sad, but because her emotions will not live behind her mind. Farah will be shocked to see her old friend and will think it pathetic, her life, all these children, this cooking and praying and serving; this waste. The visit will be pleasant but awkward, forced in a way neither of them expected. Farah will find an excuse to spend the rest of her holiday in Tehran and will return to England without seeing Mitra again. They will be cousins always but never friends, because each will have a wisdom the other cannot understand. The girls stare at me, waiting for an answer. "Yes," I say, "You will both be happy.