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Comment by scottshea | Hacker News Reader

On more than one occasion I have lamented the issues with traveling to Iran (as an American). There is so much history there that is fascinating.

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The modern-day tensions are frustrating for many reasons. I always feel like Persia is an under-discussed historical civilization in pop culture, and I think that's due to modern perceptions, too much baggage associated with the region. I might be imagining it, but when people talk about the great empires, it's always Rome, Egypt, China, the Mongols... the first Persian empire controlled up to half the world's population at its height, and is one of the really fundamental civilizations of human history.

It may also have something to do with the fact that the Persian empires were a constant enemy of the progenitors of Western civilization: Greece and Rome. They were an existential threat to Greece, blocked the expansion of Rome, and obstructed the trade routes to China and India.

The most significant mentions in the Western canon primarily have to do with the Greco-Persian Wars. As much of European understanding of that time period is filtered through Greek and Roman sources, we hear more about their conquests than their failures.

I'm reading _Religions of Iran_[1] right now and getting a lot out of it. I think the reason Iran doesn't get talked about is simply because it's too complex and it doesn't boil down nicely. In addition to Zoroastrianism (the surviving type seems to be an entirely different branch from the one that was at one point a state religion), there have been huge numbers of Jews, Christians and Buddhists(!), to say nothing about religions that appeared and disappeared (Mithraism, Manichaeism) and tiny religions that were once larger (Mandaenism) or little ethnic religions that still exist in small pockets (Yezidism, etc.) Sometimes, the rulers were religiously tolerant; other times they were not. Even when they were not, they document their difficulties homogenizing the population; Iranians are apparently private enough about these things that they can exist as undercurrents for hundreds of years or longer. This, on top of the fact that there have been several Iranian empires over the millenia.

The author of the book is surprised it hasn't been studied in more depth, and I agree with him. It's a very interesting place.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Religions-Iran-Prehistory-Richard-Fol...

I'm Persian, but I received most of my education in the U.S, and I cannot recall the Persian Empire ever getting mentioned in history classes. Literally, everything else around Iran was mentioned. History is written by the victors.

History is written by the historians we choose to read. I learned the name of many Persian cities from the first few centuries AD by reading Gibbon on how Justin the Apostate got himself (and many others) killed trying to conquer Persia.

The contest which the west "won" is to have its own historians read. But (unlike India) Persia seems to have a well recorded history which we could be studying better.

BTW: What is the attitude of the modern Iranian authorities to the history of pre-islamic Iran? I recently saw a news reel of nationalists celebrating at the tomb of one of the ancient kings -- but it said the government discourages that sort of thing.

I agree, indeed we choose our own sources. However, the sentiment of my statement was to point out that it is peculiar that an empire as vast and influential as the Persian Empire is not treated like the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians in mainstream history education.

Modern Iranians are to be blamed as well. Study of history is mostly overlooked. Archeological investigations are not funded. Part of it general mismanagement that applies to everything else. But the ideological regime in Iran is not keen about uncovering new historical facts that may alter its version of history.

"...Gibbon on how Justin the Apostate got himself..."

Julian the Apostate.

This really depends on your state and on how textbooks are chosen. My middle school (California pre-CORE) petitioned the State Board of Education and was allowed to use a previously unapproved world history textbook that gave equal coverage to the Persian Empire up to the point we stopped in class. World history in my high school also devoted many chapters to it as did US history, although much less for the latter. (We covered each chapter linearly until we ran out of time in the school year but I dont know if thats what most schools do)

For better or worse, state and local governments have a lot of influence on the textbooks and curriculum. Unfortunately cost seems to be the main driving factor for most textbook selections which means that only the bare minimum beyond western historical canon is covered.

At a minimum, Persia's status as an ancient superpower tends to get a lot of mention in Western Civilization courses, as a frequent adversary of the Greek states if nothing else.

You can see many tourists in Tehran and other cities of Iran. I don't think foreigners have much trouble traveling to this historical country anymore, esp. since most things (accommodation, transportation, food, and Persian souvenirs!) cost much less than they do in France, Italy, etc.

I just don't understand the reason for all this hatred toward Iran and Persians. Not saying that Persian Empires were all nice to other nations, but seriously, remember what Mongols did to the middle Asia and you can understand the difference between a well-cultured society and a vicious, barbaric one...

What did Persians do to deserve this much hatred? After all, they did not burn black people alive in Africa just like the Spanish did.

Hmm. I agree that the hatred towards Iran and Persians is horrible, and I love the Iranian people. And I agree that everything is inexpensive, and that it is a fantastic place to travel to. I'll definitely be going back.

But traveling there is actually somewhat difficult. Information online about the visa process is very hard to come by. Embassies will give you conflicting answers, and the Iranian embassy in the Hague hung up on me twice. I just came back from a visit to Iran and I have to say that seeing westerners is a rare sight, even in Tehran. Excluding Tehran Khomeini airport (where I saw maybe 10 western tourists), I can count the number of westerners I saw - the entire time I was there - on one hand.

Iran definitely doesn't have "many tourists" - they have fewer than Kazakhstan according to official figures. And the majority of these tourists are Iranian in some way, which is probably because you need an invitation from an Iranian to enter the country, and because if you don't speak Persian (or have a Iranian friend to accompany you) you're SOL.

Well, from an American perspective, a "well-cultured society" does not invade another's embassy and take hostages. No matter how adversarial a relationship becomes, diplomats and embassy/consulate staffers have always been considered off limits, as long as they depart promptly and peaceably if diplomatic relations are severed (or individuals if declared persona non grata). Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, safety of diplomatic personnel was respected between adversaries

This is a bit dated now (but I imagine that most of the travel barriers into Iran for Americans still apply), but the film "In the Footsteps of Marco Polo"[0] has an interesting firsthand account of two Americans seeking to retrace Marco Polo's route (including Iranian territory) by ground and sea travel alone. Their added adventure in seeking visas from IRI consulates makes for an interesting story in itself (to say any more would be a spoiler). It's well worth watching. For Americans: it often pops up on local PBS affiliates.

[0] http://www.wliw.org/marcopolo/

In general, those Americans who have toured Iran by whatever mechanism seem to report nothing but positive experiences with the Iranian people. (Rick Steves had a few segments on travel in Iran, for example). And again, see the Marco Polo film before I babble more and spoil it.

>What did Persians do to deserve this much hatred?

Not do as they were told and overthrew the western approved dictator (very basically).

Pissed off the USA.

He'll, take a look at how Americans treat Cuba.... They pointed some soviet misses at us.... Once.

True. But it has a lot to do with Islam which insists on keeping things exactly same as they were 1400 years ago and also insists on maintain distance from all other cultures.

I wish all people people such as Muslims of middle east, Christians of Europe/USA, Hindus and other Pagans of east etc. would look a bit deeper into their history and realize how much similar we have been instead only focusing on relatively modern superficial religious differences.

You need to look deeper than that, I'm afraid. When you actually look closely, Islam is simply used as a tool by those in power to keep their citizens, who are usually followers of the religion, in check.

A few popular examples:

* Controlling the masses by claiming that the royal family shares the Prophet's bloodline, making the king literally of "superior" blood (Jordan). Just to clarify, this is absolute nonsense: the Prophet himself disallowed this.

* Maintaining the most important spiritual site of the religion (Saudi Arabia).

* Commanding the people to follow their leader because he is the religion's "chosen one" (Iran).

Ironically, some dictatorships are now moving away from using Islam as a tool because it starts to overlap with current extremist ideologies, especially now that ISIS is a huge threat in the region. The focus is now on the "wisdom of the rulers" and their "generosity" towards their subjects. Examples of such countries include the UAE, Kuwait, and Egypt.

In summary, it's not that Islam wants to keep things the same, but rather that the rulers who use Islam to keep themselves in power want to keep in all under control.

Islam works just as brutally even when it is not enforced by someone in power. For example in suburbans Muslim dominated parts of Indian cities, some streets of London etc. The only place where I see muslims being able to live peacefully and shed their Islamic beliefs is in USA where the law is applied uniformly and state does not feel the need to create a "safe space" for Muslims.

That's a lot of anecdotal evidence, and it doesn't properly discredit my claim in my opinion.

> an under-discussed historical civilization in pop culture

Considering the current cultural and political climate, that's probably for the best. Remember "300"?

Even by Hollywood standards, that's a pretty blatant and awful piece of hate propaganda.

'300' is an exaggeration based on Herodotus' account of the events thousands of years ago. Nearly our entire understanding of the Persian wars comes from ancient Greek propaganda.

A big part of the reason that the Achaemanid empire doesn't get the coverage that Western civilizations get is that we simply don't have the same quality of sources. The Greeks have folks like Herodotus and Thucydides who filled their histories so much detail and characterization that their stories are actually fun to read, whereas what we have from the Persians are mostly their official records which very dry by comparison. If you want to find out about the life Alcibiades, there are a ton of sources that give you all sorts of details about life and character of the man. If you want to find out about Cyrus the Great however, there is much less to go on.

It's because of religion.

The Christians "won" the war in the Middle East and Africa, and so they rewrote history to not focus as much on any of the great empires of the region. To add to your examples, the Ethiopian Empire and the Ottoman Empire are also constantly glossed over in history classes.

The latter is basically summarized to: imperial concubines, Armenian genocide, fought with the Axis powers in WWI, lost WWI, joined the light by shedding the religion and culture we don't like. The 800 years before that are simply irrelevant, I guess?

Let's not even mention the "gap" - the jump from the Greek/Romans to the Renaissance - in philosophy and science when Europe (i.e., Christians) was stuck in the dark ages. It's logical I guess; if the Christians weren't inventing shit, who else was?

I am not against Christians or Christianity - on the contrary, I deeply respect the religion. But this is the unfortunate reality of how religion has functioned throughout history. And please don't attempt the "no religion = no problems" spiel.

This is a common take on the issue but there is a lot wrong with it. The biggest reason that the Western understanding of Islamic history is so poor is because there was comparatively little contact between the West and Islam for hundreds of years. Yeah, the library at Baghdad was cultural treasure, but the West didn't have access to it. There was basically an Iron Curtain along the Mediterranean and only a limited amount of trade crossed it. They didn't rewrite the history books, they simply didn't have access in the first place. If you were to read history books from the time period by Islamic scholars, they would seem equally skewed but in the other direction.

Your argument breaks down once you consider contemporary mainstream world history books. It is completely understandable that Western scholars of antiquity didn't write much about Eastern cultures, but it is inexcusable if modern texts only gloss over the history of the Middle East; from the texts I've read, I think that this is unfortunately the case.

It is in fact rewriting if you don't focus on the impact other cultures had on the history of civilization because you've been at war with their religion for over a thousand years. It becomes even worse, and extremely xenophobic in my opinion, when you disregard the work of scientists who followed said religion. Oh, but isn't science above religion? Isn't the pursuit of knowledge the purest form of thought? Big words, not much to back them. This is in my view the worst kind of revisionism there is.

"Your argument breaks down once you consider contemporary mainstream world history books."

Not really. Most historians base their history books on those who came before them. The majority of texts available to western scholars are older western texts. Bear in mind that there is a big language barrier. Historical imbalances will persist without an attempt to counter them.

The study of the middle eastern history/culture used to be a special field of study called 'orientalism' and required scholars to learn middle eastern and asiatic languages to make any of the history available in the west.

In the 70's, traditional orientalist scholars came under fire for being overly western centric in their coverage and for exotifying their subjects, (mainly by Edward Said) but I think that sort of thing is almost inevitable when you are writing about someone else's history. If you are not a Turk, you'll have a harder time thinking from the perspective of the Turks.

"It becomes even worse, and extremely xenophobic in my opinion, when you disregard the work of scientists who followed said religion."

Most of the work of scientists and scholars from the Golden Age of Islam was unavailable in the West until much later so while much of it predated later Western developments, the later developments were still independent. Scholars such as Averroes and Avicenna on the other hand, who were very influential in the west, generally aren't ignored and haven't been. Religious scholars from the middle ages regularly cited Averroes and reference him in their work.

> Not really. Most historians base their history books on those who came before them. [...] Historical imbalances will persist without an attempt to counter them.

This is exactly where the problem is, but I do agree that the language is probably the primary issue.

> Most of the work of scientists and scholars from the Golden Age of Islam was unavailable in the West until much later so while much of it predated later Western developments, the later developments were still independent.

Firstly, their work was unavailable, but now it is available, and yet you don't see mainstream books on the history of science adding this newfound information in. By now, science historians probably know about the well-known Islamic scholars, which is why my theory is that they are willfully ignoring such work because of cultural, ideological, and religious differences.

Secondly, your point about later developments being independent is debatable. There are a number of prominent Muslim historians who argue that early Renaissance scientists used translated works from Muslim scholars without proper attribution. One such example is that Ibn al-Shatir's (https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ibn_al-Shatir) mathematics was used by Copernicus.

"Firstly, their work was unavailable, but now it is available, and yet you don't see mainstream books on the history of science adding this newfound information in."

Really? I don't think I've ever come across a book on the subject that didn't source well known borrowings like Arabic numerals or Algebra correctly.

Other things like the Ibn al-Shatir example seems more speculative to me. Yes, it's possible that that 15th century Polish mathematician had access to a 14th century Arab astronomer's work, but as far as I know, there is no evidence for it aside from a similarity in the work. Considering that Calculus was invented independently by two entirely separate people it doesn't seem unlikely that Copernicus's model was independent. I'd like to know if there were any translations of Ibn al-Shatir's work in Latin, German, or Greek available at the time of Copernicus and in Poland. It would be easier to make a judgement in that case.

But that's also beside the point with Copernicus. The reason we remember Copernicus at all is not for the most of the small innovations he made over the Ptolemaic model, whether he borrowed them from Ibn al-Shatir or not, but for the reason that he placed the Sun at the center of his model. That's not something that he borrowed from Ibn al-Shatir because Ibn al-Shatir was a geocentrist. So, whether not Copernicus borrowed from this specific Arab astronomer isn't all that important in this case.

Perhaps there are other, more important, influences and I don't know about them because they aren't in the history books I've read, but I haven't seen evidence of this.

> The latter is basically summarized to: imperial concubines, Armenian genocide, fought with the Axis powers in WWI, lost WWI, joined the light by shedding the religion and culture we don't like. The 800 years before that are simply irrelevant, I guess?

Maybe in America, here in Eastern Europe everybody knows that the few preceding centuries was "bloody wars with those obnoxious Turks" ;) About their Middle Eastern and African conquest less is known but that's because we have had our own wars here in Europe and nobody cared, at least outside of the former colonial powers.

That's definitely true. Many Eastern European countries were directly affected by the Ottoman Empire, so that would make sense. I guess that's the case in any school curicculum, but my issue is more with "World History" books that should be titled "Western World History" instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Byzantine_inventions

Wow, you've basically destroyed my entire argument!

Jokes aside, for those of you who take things a tad too literally, what I mean is that Europe was in the dark ages relative to a number of civilizations outside of Europe.

What an underwhelming list by the way. I expected more from the Byzantines to be honest.

In principle Byzantine was Europe at the time.

More interestingly, Byzantine fell because of Christian invented artillery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orban

I think your population estimate is far from accurate the Americas had a large population during that time period. Let alone most of Africa, China, etc.

One major consideration many of the worlds population centers from that time period are now under the ocean.

> many of the worlds population centers from that time period are now under the ocean

Wikipedia lists the Persian Empire from 550 BC to 651 AD. What are the population centers from that time which are now under the ocean?

I was not clear.

I don't mean that the sea levels rose during that time period. Rather they had been rising up to 8,000 years ago. Which exaggerates the exponential population growth.

Recent estimates put world population around 300 million people in year 0. And then rapidly scale back 10,000 BC. However, estimates put the Aboriginal population at 300-750k before European colonization with a mostly hunter gather lifestyle on mostly marginal land. Which suggests possibly much higher global populations 10,000 years ago, and a higher global population around year 0 for the rest of the world.

PS: New estimates also put native Hawaiian population at 700,000 before cook, though this includes some farming. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/18/398578801/...

>...it's always Rome, Egypt, China, the Mongols...

Some of that boils down to how much we know about them. The Romans and the Chinese wrote everything down, and you can learn a lot about a people from diaries and bills of lading.

Gore Vidal wrote Creation as penned by the Persian ambassador in Athens in the 5th century BC.

Highly amusing. Seen from that viewpoint, the Greeks were just a bunch of pirates and cattle raiders on the edges of real civilization.

This article shows a very good overview of the region in ancient times:

https://medium.com/@writingben/when-roman-barbarians-met-the...

Indeed. I visited Persepolis a few years back during the summer. Mind you, that's a place with 2500 years of history, and there were maybe 4-5 other people there in that giant historic place, visiting?

There were only 2 guards covering the whole place, and anyone could just come, break and take a piece and leave (and many do sadly).

It's just a sad state of affairs. The Louvre has a few pieces [0] and you can see how much better they are kept than the real place in Iran [1]

And that's just one example. Iran is full of history and beautiful places, but we sadly get so little touristic revenue do to how badly kept it all is and our government...

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Immortel...

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/2009-11-...

When I was young kid in Iran, there was a TV show made about the police chasing after a stolen piece of the Persepolis. The thieves were planning to sell it on the black market.

I watched the show every night, because I had visited Persepolis a few months earlier during a family vacation. Even at that age (4 or 5), I thought it was strange that there were essentially no guards or apparent supervision. I believe the tomb of Xerxes has a similar vibe.

There is going to be more tourism in Iran after the lifting of sanctions from Europeans, so this situation will definitely change for the better.

Agreed, I never really was interested in the history of the region until listening to Dan Carlin's latest series on the Assyrian and Persian Empires. Pretty crazy to think of Herodotus seeing ruins of the Assyrian's and viewing it as ancient history himself in his time (~450 BC).

Link to the podcast the interested: http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings/

Dan Carlin is fun to listen to but he is pretty narrative driven and loves certain aspect and themes. If people want to listen to something podcast like, that is more detailed and accurate, I would highly suggest The Great Courses on this subject. Here are the ones that I think are relevant:

- The Persian Empire

- History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective

- Greek and Persian Wars

- Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Empire

- Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age

Link: https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/ or http://www.thegreatcourses.com/

Can't believe I've never heard of this before. Here's another page with more info: http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/The_Red_Snake_Th...

The article mentions that parts of it are still visible from the air, but looking at google maps it's difficult to tell the difference between canals and ridges.

Same here! The weird thing is I didn't even receive my education in the US. I studied in India and we covered many world civilizations, including Iran to a certain degree. I guess this really is a forgotten wall.

I've tried a couple of times to start learning Farsi, in hopes of visiting someday, but laziness wins out every time.

You don't need to learn Farsi to go there. Many people know enough English words to help you around. Most of the youth were taught some English in high school and college, and many of them can speak fluently and even understand you completely.

Plus, the best way to learn Farsi is to be in the environment that speaks it. You'll be surprised how fast it is to pick up.

European and Asian tourists are abundant and common place. If they can do it, so can you :)

Hmm. I'm an American/European that just visited Iran and I partly disagree. Traveling around, the vast majority of people I met knew practically no English. I could count the number of other Westerners I saw on one hand. Two of them I saw at Tehran Khomeini as I was arriving; they had just been denied a visa. A lot of younger people understood me decently well, but almost anyone over 25 needed translation. Nobody was near fluent, although their English was very impressive given that they never had a chance to practice it.

I encourage everyone I know to visit - it's seriously one of the most beautiful places on Earth, the people are very friendly and the food is amazing - but language will always be a problem, and you will be the only Westerner most places you go. One example of how rare Europeans are is that I had several people come up to me and ask to take a picture with me, or called me "beautiful", and when I was out walking there were several people who semi-discreetly took photos of me. I don't mind, but it all goes to show that Iran is definitely not full of Europeans. The other tourists I saw were Asian, or had Iranian family.

And yep, being in Iran is great for learning Farsi. I don't intend to become fluent but I do know maybe 100 words after staying with an Iranian family for a few days.

tl;dr Visit Iran, it's amazing, but don't think it's full of Europeans, and plan before you go.

I'm glad you enjoyed your time there. Did you visit Isfahan by any chance?

It isn't very hard to go to Iran as an American. The only thing is you need to travel with a guide at all times, which can run you between $50-$150/day. Added expense? Certainly. But it is quite doable, especially if you consider how cheap everything else is relative to say, vacationing in France or Italy.

You can also easily go with a private tour group if that's your thing.

Unfortunately, going with a tour guide or a group of Americans completely changes what you see. I am an American and Dutch citizen and elected to travel on my Dutch passport. Some Iranian friends showed me around, and the experience I had was the best of my life - and definitely not something you could get with a group.

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