Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age | Hacker News Reader

Technology of water in ancient Iran from prehistory to the Islamic Golden Age

nature.com

186 pointsbenbreen106 comments

Maybe a bit off topic but it's always strange when someone says "Islamic Golden Age" when talking about Iran. Nothing against a specific religion. It's like saying Newton's work came during Christian Golden Age in Europe. The religion had nothing to do with it. In fact, there is a book [1] (in Persian) title "Two Centuries of Silence" that talks about the significant blow to Iran's culture, literature and science after Arab invasion [2] that it took two hundred years to somehow get back on track.

[1] https://web.sas.upenn.edu/persian/2018/09/06/talk-two-centur...

[2] Since I've mentioned this, I need to add that the focus of my statement is the nature of such "invasion" and not a certain ethnicity. No malicious intent here. If you are an Arab and reading this, hello neighbors! with love from Iran :)

I think Persians of that era would not make a distinction between religious and governmental rule.

Could you please elaborate?

Persian influence was incredibly important, in fact the Islamic Golden Age is marked by Persian customs being absorbed into daily living with the establishment of the Abbasid caliphate.

So if you're feeling like it's taking value away from Persian history, instead, try to see it from the perspective that Persians are a large part of the reason why the Golden Age is even a thing :)

The other day I was watching Neil deGrasse Tyson on Joe Rogan show and he was talking about Islamic Science and how Algebra, Astronomy, etc. come from Islam. I was baffled as an Iranian. I get that there is this anti muslim rhetoric lurking around and these people are trying to fight it. I assume they are well intentioned but in doing so they are doing the same thing that they advocate against.

But I like your point of view.

Seems like a lot of reknowned arab thinkers were from the most eastern parts of the arab empire (aka persia). Al Kwarhizmi was born near what is current uzbekistan IIRC.

Ah the famous historians Neil deGrasse Tyson and Joe Rogan...

Better to head to /r/askhistorians with those kinds of questions.

How dare they, the arrogant fools, talk to each other

Surely I can also talk about aircraft design or Sanskrit, but nobody will pay attention or base their opinions on that, right?

It's difficult to separate Persian history from Islam during the Golden Age of Islam in Persia.

While intertwined, History and Religion are two different concepts. Of course one can differentiate between them.

The reason behind drawing such a distinction may be more telling, as there is a larger push in some groups to draw this distinction for the sake of harkening back to pre-Islamic Persia. But of course, modern Persia and Islam are intertwined, so usually those who wish to draw a distinction do so for political or religious bias reasons.

That's a pretty big assumption. It's natural to like your heritage and it's fine doing so while being respectful of other people's culture and heritage. I like other people to know about my culture for what it really was, what it went through and what it is right now. This is in contrast with how western media has tried to depict Iran as their political foe. Interestingly, Modern Persia and Islam (more with Islamic rulers) are at odds right now, evidenced by recent social movement and political unrest.

Right so you have a bit of an agenda here.

You want to separate the scholarship. The problem is there really isn't enough historiographical work done here to meaningfully tease out the differences. Surviving primary sources often ended up in the hands of colonial governments which are loathe to open up access today or in the hands of estates of former colonial figures where they rot in a dark room somewhere.

Another large historiographic gap in the Islamic world around this time was the lifestyle of peasants. We have records of kings and lords because of the widespread practice of autobiographies. We also know the thoughts of philosophers based on their texts. But we lack a lot of knowledge about how peasants and other commoners lived around the time. If you think about it, that's the majority of the people living at any time.

>Right so you have a bit of an agenda here.

A perfectly valid one i.e. nothing wrong with it. That is why "Historical Revisionism" (when done in the pursuit of Truth) is so very important.

> western media has tried to depict Iran as their political foe.

They are foes. Not the people, but the political regimes. Iran is pretty clear about it.

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

100%. As I said in another thread, it took many centuries for the majority of the Persians to convert to Islam. Most of the population were not even Muslim during the "Islamic Golden Age."

A good parallel is the Mughal Empire in India. The rulers where Muslim but the population was not.

True. During the Golden Age, most Persian scholars and scientists had to write their books in Arabic to preserve them in libraries. Most Persians had to choose Arabic names. That's why when people see a Persian mathematician like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi, they might think he was Arab.

Fun fact: The word "Algorithm" comes from this guy's name!

He wasn’t Persian. This is a daylight robbery from the people of Central Asia. Look at his last name. Khwarazm is in Central Asia and it has no ethnic Persians(ethnic Tajiks don’t count).

The Wikipedia page literally says he was Persian. Khwarazm was part of Persia at the time.

> The religion had nothing to do with it.

I would disagree with it.

Imagine if, Islam was opposing to the idea of science, as the largest religion of that area (which not only included Iran, but many others), what would happen? Science would have been abolished, stopped immediately. Instead, Islam encouraged people to learn more science, even greek philosophers work was translated by hiring Christian people.

On the other hand, economic and political prosperity after conquering many places helped people to calm down and focus on science, helping other people, coming up with solutions for different issues.

I think Islam had direct impact to the science of that era.

> Imagine if, Islam was opposing to the idea of science

Are you suggesting the biggest contribution was not getting in the way? I wouldn't call it a contribution.

> economic and political prosperity after conquering many places

That happened despite the invasion, not because of it. Iran was well prosperous before that and the fall of Persian empires eventually cleared the way for a destructive Mongol invasion which Iranians had held back for a long time before.

An invasion in the 7th century paved the way for the Mongol invasions over 500 years later? That’s incredible reasoning.

> Science would have been abolished, stopped immediately

Most invaders in history did not violently impose their own philosphies and idealogies on day 1. Generally you let the conquered people keep their philosophy and religions to a big extent until the population has adopted it naturally through softer means, Islam specifically has a few verses around tolerance for "people of the book". Islam for example puts higher taxes on the non-muslims and people will then naturally gravitate towards Islam. Once the population has islamized to a higher percentage the islamic ideology will be implemented more deeply.

The tax on non-Muslims was not always higher, sometimes it was lower as well.

> Imagine if, Islam was opposing to the idea of science, as the largest religion of that area (which not only included Iran, but many others), what would happen?

We don't have to imagine. A shunning of empiricism and natural philosophy is one of the reasons the Islamic Golden Age came to an end. Islam as a religion was never a monolith, and like in Christianity some movements embrace science more than others, and their rise and fall in prominence is reflected in the society.

Is it actually causational though? Or did the golden age come to an end, and the academics were ousted from power as a result?

Traditionally the age is considered to have come to an end with the Mongol Siege of Baghdad, wherein the invaders sacked the city. Baghdad was the center of learning, and the fact that scholars from all around the empire (including non-Arab, and even non-Muslim) were able to travel to and, more importantly, find institutional support in Baghdad was one of the main drivers behind the age.

But institutional support had already begun to wane as a consequence of a theological shift in Arabic Islam from Mu'tazilism to Ash'arism. Ash'arism is often described as pro-rationalism, but compared to Mu'tazilism it was a significant regression, especially in terms of the motivation for official, institutional support for the study of natural philosophy. Despite the sacking, Baghdad recovered relatively quickly, but institutional support for natural philosophy never did recover.

Work in mathematics, medicine, and natural philosophy in the Islamic world didn't end. But it found much less support, and often came from the periphery, further away from the now more theologically conservative Arab world, and fragmented. Proximity is everything, especially before the age of telecommunications. There were no fewer geniuses in the Islamic world, but now they were cut off from each other. It's much like the Dark Ages in Europe--there was no shortage of smart people doing smart things, but they lost networking benefits and enjoyed less patronage.

Applying labels is always fraught and involves compromises. "Islamic World" is well-established and generally recognised. It's also more nuanced than hot takes suggest.

Peter Adamson, host of the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast and author of the book series from the same project, devotes roughlythe first 20 minutes of his Google Talk about Islamic Philosophy to the matter of why "Islamic World" is in fact the most useful term to use, in contrast to alternatives such as "Arabic" (obviously inapplicable to Persia), "Islam" (fails to acknowledge the role of non-muslim religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, etc.).

<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=_NKi-XRZ4KI>

As Adamson notes, it would be more accurate to call mediaeval European philosophy "Christian Philosophy" than to call the philosophical tradition of south-Western and south-Central Asia "Islamic Philosophy", as effectively all mediaeval European philosophers were Christian. Adamson also notes that philosophy of the Islamic World draws heavily on Greek and Roman philosophy (largely via the Byzantine empire) as well as Indian and African philosophical traditions.

"Islamic" refers to not merely the religious foundation, but the greater cultural, political, legal (Islamic jurisprudence is a major factor and influence), etc., etc. As with many other contexts, "dominant influence" does not mean "exlusive" or even "majority", but "that which has the greatest overall impact in a specific area". (Cue numerous tedious HN discussions over questions of "monopoly" or geographic applicability of toponyms such as "Silicon Valley" (contrast "Hollywood" or "Bollywood").

Thanks for the link. I watched the first 20 minutes and will watch the rest now. It's very interesting.

A small note, popularity (being generally recognized) is not a good indicator of the validity of any view point and it certainly does not mean we cannot challenge them.

> It's also more nuanced than hot takes suggest.

I believe as an Iranian and a history enthusiast, what I expressed was one of those these nuances which is presumably being labeled as hot take, or am I mistaken and you referring to something from somewhere else?

edit: fixed typo

Adamson's work generally is excellent. I've been following the podcast for about 4--5 years now, and have worked through the entire mainline backlog (I'm now revisiting parts), though I'm still catching up on the Indian and Africana Philosophy track. Very highly recommended.

"Islamic World" replaces several earlier-prevalent terms. Again, Adamson makes the case against several proposed alternatives.

On which point, what specifically is yours?

Yes, he seems well spoken and very articulate.

While his reasoning about his world view and consequently the name of the book is sound, he is not establishing a causal relationship between religion and anything outside the realm of philosophy. He argues that this is the best common trait for philosophical work of those people in that era in the region. It's also natural that he sees everything through a philosophical lens.

> "Islamic World" replaces several earlier-prevalent terms. Again, Adamson makes the case against several proposed alternatives.

We don't have to cover it under the same _umbrella_ term. In the clip (around 11:07) he shows the slide again and says "As an American, I am a born marketer". Imagine if we were to apply the same argument with a comparable time frame (important distinction) and call him a Christian European. Maybe being good at marketing does was not one of their traits. This is the missing nuance.

> "dominant influence" does not mean "exlusive" or even "majority", but "that which has the greatest overall impact in a specific area"

The burden of proof for "high impact" is heavy. I recommend reading some of the articles by the Inarah Institute <http://inarah.net/publications> on how shaky the dominant Islamic history narrative is.

To clarify: It is unclear what the direction of the influence is. Was it Islam that impacted/influenced what happened in Persia, or was it the Persian/Syriac/Nestorian culture that created something called "Islam."

Indeed and that's what makes labels difficult.

You can make the same argument about Middle Ages Western Christian philosophy for what it's worth. While it originated in the erstwhile Roman Empire, the cultural and religious norms at the time were very much attuned to the various Germanic norms of the peoples that dominated the formerly Western Roman Empire rather than the joint Roman and Greek culture that constituted the Roman Empire during the founding of Christianity. Eastern Roman Empire viz Byzantine norms were codified in the Orthodox Church canon and philosophy in the region had a much larger overlap with "Islamic" and Greek cultures of the time.

The discovery and dating of Sana’a manuscripts to 630-650AD have debunked much of the “historical critical “ theories of Islam wrt origins of the Quran. It turns out the the traditional narratives seem to be lining up with historical evidence.

In what way, and could you point to a reference on that?

One way around the awkwardness with "Islamic world" is to use "Near East", which is used to cover the core geographic area in pre-modern times.

If you try thinking of when was a "golden age" of the Near East, it becomes evidently a less sound idea.

"Near east" suffers from the issue that it's a geographic classification rather than one encompassing both a region and a period.

It's also, of course, a relative description in that it is "near" relative to a specific presumptive geographic centre, that is, Europe.

That's not to say that the term isn't viable. But again, nuance and compromise.

"Near East" is not used in academia as simply a geographic classification. It is used among historians as a standard term for a cultural realm and a specific time frame. "Middle East" is another standard term for a more expanded realm and a different time frame. By analogy, "the West" does not connote a precise geographic territory.

I'm familiar with the term.

So far as I'm aware and some quick online checks suggest likewise[1], it largely came into widespread usage in the 20th century and tends to refer to either the Olttoman Empire or the post-WWI nation-states of the roughly from present day Turkey to Egypt to Iran. Wikipedia gives origin of the term to roughly 1855, at which point it would have referred to the Ottoman Empire, as opposed to India, China, the East Indies, and Indochina).

"Near East" has since largely been replace by "Middle East", though that term largely refers to the post World War Two states in the same region. The Wikipedia article noted here gives criticisms of the term largely along the lines I've suggested.

And I'm not aware of either term ("Near..." or "Middle...") being used to apply to the period from the 8th - 13th centuries, a/k/a the Islamic Golden Age.[2]

________________________________

Notes:

1. Largely Wikipedia and Google's Ngram Viewer: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_East> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Near+East&year...>

2. For Middle East: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East#Usage_and_criticis...> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Middle%20East&...>

3. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age>

> And I'm not aware of either term...being used to apply to the period from the 8th - 13th centuries

The Journal of Near Eastern Studies (https://www.jstor.org/journal/jneareaststud) is typical in defining its scope as the Near East, from the ancient times to pre-modern Near East. As I said, "Near East" is the standard term for referring to the history/archaeology of this cultural region in pre-modern times.

When you want to specify the pre-Islamic Near East, the standard term is "Ancient Near East", as this from the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History (https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/janeh/html?lang=en).

The Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History seeks to encourage and stimulate the study of the history of the ancient Near East, which is broadly defined to include areas from Iran to the western Anatolian coast and the Black Sea to Southern Arabia from its prehistoric foundations to the Late Antique period.

The Late Antique period is very roughly the 3rd-7th centuries.

Thanks, fair points.

Religions only tolerate progress when it does not interfere with their power. That why religions are cool with math.

Now if you go to physics and biology, oh well depending on the age you were born there is some risk of losing your head.

this is a quite Eurocentric take. In the Islamic world, the distinction was not initially science vs religion but the encroachment of philosophical rationalism on religious interpretation which was famously articulated by the Islamic scholar Al-Ghazali in his refutation of the Falasifa (called philosophers of that time but they differ from modern philosophers we mean today).

The reason it is called the Islamic golden age is because of the Islamic empire that connected the innovations of the east to the west. Muslims themselves didn't directly have any contributions other than their philosophy and attitude unleashed from a reformed Arabian expansionism. The places they touched and the bridges they made changed everyone and all of history.

The Renaissance of Europe is directly a result of the Islamic golden age. The vikings who conquered Italy sought to learn both Sicilian Arabic, and Italian causing a bridge between Europe and the middle east of North Africa.

It's going off on a tangent, but Isaac Newton was quite intertwined with Christian religion:

> In 1667, Newton became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,[11] making necessary his commitment to taking Holy Orders within seven years of completing his MA, which he did the following year. He was also required to take a vow of celibacy and recognize the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England.

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

Iran isn’t Persian only and that distinction needs to be always made. Persian as a language has been used by various people to do science and literature in, and same goes for Arabic, but they were majority neither Arabs nor Persian by ethnicity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35698118

Well, think of it as a term of art and less a description of the ground truth. We can bike shed whether it's the best description, but it's what we have.

Indeed, there are plenty of examples of similarly reductionist terms used throughout history.

For example, until recently the western world marks the era of history in which we live as existing within the reign of our Lord, Jesus Christ [0]. We have now invented a backronym to work around this unpleasant detail, but we couldn't even get so far as to switch out the letters (so as to avoid upsetting people who we know are going to keep thinking in terms of "anno domini" regardless).

There's also the related "Christendom" [1] term which was in broad usage.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christendom

I find it strange when people deny basic well known history regarding this. In fact, post Islam, Persia was at the forefront in what is known as the "Islamic Golden Age".

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

Books by the Oxford Historian Peter Frankopan are a great read if you want to learn more about this.

Water management in southeastern Spain, the Alpujarras region, is a fascinating topic.

The local communities maintain very precise irrigation ditches ("acequias de careo") midway along the mountains. During the months of rainfall and snowmelt, the water flowing along these ditches is soaked into the ground up to the point where the ditch ends because all the water has been absorbed underground.

Months later, the water from each such acequia springs out clean and fresh at a specific location further down the mountain, while the weather is dry, and can be used for irrigation at a time that would be otherwise impossible.

The absolute differences with Iran's qanats are: zero infrastructure to develop underground, as all the water circulation happens along natural underground waterways, and clean, fresh water thanks to the layers of slow ground filtration.

It is my understanding that this system was put in place during the Muslim period of the Alpujarras, based on knowledge from Middle-Eastern dynasties whose people relocated to Spain. That seems to match the "Islamic Golden Age" period described in the article

so they use the mountain as a buffer to delay flow until summer ?

And to filter the water.

And for air conditioning

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher#:~:text=A%20windca...

Glad to see ancient Iranian culture featured here. People in the west have a lot of misconceptions about Iran. Persian culture is thousands of years old.

This is so true. The original Persian culture is best preserved in India among the dwindling Parsi community. These are the original Persians who escaped to Gujarat, India during the Islamic colonization of Persia.

This isn't true at all. For hundreds of years, Parsis were almost purely culturally Gujarati. Also there's limited evidence that they "escaped", Zoroastrianism still had a large presence in Fars for a while after the Muslim conquest, and they were going to some of the largest mercantile ports in the world. Also there were lots of muslims that came from Iran to these ports as well.

I agree. Not to mention Farsi has some of the most beautiful proverbs.

And where modern Maths come from... Mosques tile embellishments are actually 2d representations of 4th dimensional math concepts...

Jeasus I have to explain this on HN?

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11235-medieval-islami...

https://muslimheritage.com/new-discoveries-in-the-islamic-co...

etc... much learning you need

I HOPE THAT YOU SUCCEED, PLEASE TELL ME WHEN YOU DOU

Just a minor pet peeve but why not keep calling the language "Persian" in English? Just how it doesn't feel entirely right to suddenly start calling Spanish "Español" in English, or Swedish as "Svenska" and so on

If they ever wanted to increase tourism, just consider:

1. Would you like to visit Persia?

2. Would you like to visit Iran?

It is so unfortunate. I am from Iran and I much prefer the current name. It's an ancient name that includes not only Persians, but also Medians, Partians, etc. Iran has been multi cultural since old times and it's nice to have an inclusive name. I believe after we throw the occupiers (mullahs) out, we have a lot of work to do.

The only weird thing with the name Iran, is that it literally means "The Land of Aryans" which got a bad rep after Nazis (rightfully so).

If you ever get a chance, read “the education of Cyrus” by Xenophon. It is so good. The way he brought together so many cultures is amazing.

It’s not just about an empire for the Persians. (But Persia is pretty good branding, that’s all)

Yes the country is for ever Iran, for all iranians of different ethnicities. The connotation in tourists's mind about "Iran" has to change, were the country to be called Persia today, it would have the same negative sound to it like Iran (arguably) does for some today. Also, most people would be able to distinguish a nazi use of the term Aryan and it's original meaning so that's really not a problem with the name Iran

I know that you're not confusing this but as some others might: Persian language is of the Persian people (although there are many non-persian L2 speakers), it should rightfully still called that and should not be confused with the (settled at this point) debate about the name of the country as a whole

My (open to correction) understanding was that "Farsi" has some use in referring to the Iranian standardization of Persian (as contrasted to Dari, its Afghani counterpart).

Both are correct. "Farsi" is actually the Arabic version of "Parsi" (meaning "Persian" in, well, Persian). As a Persian, I personally don't use "Farsi".

Do you also personally not use any Arabic derived words in Persian? Silly idea to try to remove Arabic influence on Persian.

Do you try to use Anglaise to refer to the English language? Bad idea to remove French influence on English.

Yes, it is useful when you want to contrast Iranian Persian with other varieties used in Afghanistan, Tajikistan etc., but when talking about all of them together it is confusing.

Something similar that confuses me is the recent shift from calling the river "Yangtze" in English to calling it "Yangzi".

Yangzi is the correct pinyin spelling of the syllables that "Yangtze" was meant to indicate. (Similarly, if you want to spell them in modern pinyin, you'd have Laozi instead of Lao Tzu/Tze, Sunzi instead of Sun Tzu, and of course Kongzi instead of Confucius.) But the Chinese name of the river is something completely different. What's the point of updating the spelling of the English name as if it were also the Chinese name?

Iranian culture is beautiful. Food, architecture, music, literature. All corrupted by the ayatollah and fanatic religious powers that dominate the country. It is unfair to blame the west for its misconceptions when the outward presentation of that country is currently so anti-western, corrupt, and oppressive.

They were replacing a West installed dictator... Don't know if it's entirely the Ayatollah's fault here.

It's been 44 years, I think we need to stop giving countries a pass like this, at a certain point, their destiny is their own.

The Iranian regime is absolutely brutal at repressing revolt, the revolts are also violent but of course nothing can match a state apparatus that has to shut the country to the outside world to hide the massacre; the country has been in a state of civil unrest for the better part of the past 6 years and I count the Wikipedia estimates at some 4000 dead from the response of state actors.

For all of those 44 years, the US has been continuously sanctioning, attacking, isolating, and threatening Iran.

Maybe if they didn't sponsor terrorism around the world, while oppressing their own people, they wouldn't get sanctioned? The find out part of fuck around doesn't mean they don't control their own destiny. Plenty of normal countries to look at for example.

That's a weak argument, as we (the West) sponsor many terrorist or oppressive regimes as long as it is in our economic or political interest. The US sponsored brutal and even genocidal regimes from Guatemala to Timor.

Talking about morality and "fighting terrorism and oppression" is laughable.

The Us is a terrorist supporting inhumane regime that puts a pretense of being moral on the world stage. In reality it’s a very rotten country internally and as an American I really hope we can change that but all evidence seems opposite.

You do realize that western policies to this day have emboldened the mullahs in power? These sanctions just increase their control, and US govt obviously knows it. So much border trade occurs in spite of the actions, and mullahs garner more control. Nuclear deal was another case.

Counties live in the shadow of things that happened thousands of years ago... 44 years is barely a generation.

Yeah, why haven't they overthrown a brutally repressive regime? Haven't they heard of Ghandi?

Please - don't do this. You don't know how hard it is for revolutions to succeed

There was no installation. Please stop repeating IRI's propaganda line. Iranian society was divided between nationalists, fundamentalists, and communists.

The "Ayatollah's" in fact started the mess by assassinating the previous prime minister (who is never discussed) who was also "democratically elected". This was not the first Islamist terror in Iran. Again this is before the counter-coup of '53. (Yes, the first coup detat was by the famous "democratically elected PM", Mr. Mossadeqh.)

Iran had a constitution that precisely defined the roles of the Majlis (parliament) and the monarch. This monarch was sworn in as king in the Majlis way before '53. Kindly explain how he was "installed" in '53 by the CIA.

The "Islamic Republic" is a blight in the history of Iran and Islam. Their little project of creating the Islamist Vatican is an abomination in Islam. Their ridiculous "Supreme Leader" is another abomination, both for Iran and again for Islam. Islam is the religion of deliberation of assemblies and no man is "supreme" amongst the Muslims.

> This monarch was sworn in as king in the Majlis way before ’53. Kindly explain how he was “installed” in ’53 by the CIA.

Basically, the Shah assumed direct rule in an autocoup (after a first failed autcoup) in an effort he was threatened with being deposted by the CIA into participating in, with US- and UK- and their Iranian pawns both orchestrating pro-Mossadegh anti-Shah demonstrations and violence, then pro-Communist anti-Shah anti-Mossadegh demonstrations and violence, and, ultimately, the pro-Shah military moves directed against the waves of violence and lawlessness that they themselves had sponsored.

The extent of Shah's concessions to US security concerns was allowing CIA to create monitoring stations north of Iran: listening posts. A section of the secret service in Iran (SAVAK) was specifically tasked with keeping tabs on Western intelligence in Iran. The second one, which was withdrawn after public pushback lead by Khomeini, was exempting American servicemen and workers (mostly aerospace in Isfahan) from legal jeopardy for any offences in Iran. That was rather toady.

Former enemies:

https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/q&a/ref/2.html

"Cousins":

https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/176895/SN06808.pdf

(it's a question of power asymmetries. Really did the poor Shah have any choice? Related thoughts: Is the Japanese PM "Installed" by US? Is the UK PM a "puppet" of US?)

And to be quite frank, as an Iranian born, the assertion that some American (Kermit Roosevelt) gets off the plane with a briefcase full of dollars and overnight "installs" the constitutional king of Iran is bascially a hidden insult to Iranians. What sort of a entirely pushover nation are they, these Iranians? It's a bad propaganda joke.

Secondly, the fact remains that the roughly 14 years (60s-early70s) that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, yes as an autocract oversteppingn the bounds of the constitution, ran the place, Iran experienced its singularly most spectacular years in the 20th century. And the social progress, specially women's rights, are all due to the efforts of that man and his "regime".

US has nothing to apologize to Iran about viz a vis the Shah other than backstabbing a loyal ally in a time of crisis, and actively helping to usher in an entirely alien system, the "Islamic Republic of Iran"*, to power.

US chose Islamic Fundamentalism as a stretegic tool to further its geopolitical goals, and unleashed the hords on the world. US does need to come clean about that.

* (3 lies in one name, a world record!): It is not a republic. It is not Islam. And it certainly is not Iranian.

You can’t ethically sweep the atrocities of the Shah under the rug like kashf-e-hijab, and excuse him for merely overstepping a constitution. He attacked the fabric of Iranian society and humiliated the nation for the sake of pleasing Western masters. There’s very clear reason Iran ended up the way it did, and people who have the fantasy of returning to the shah era for “women’s rights” are really not thinking logically. Actually if you think the shah forcing women to uncover and make Iranian society naked was “women’s rights”, you are severely misguided.

Your regime has raped and keeps locked up the "fabric of Iranian society". Shah was no saint but he did not evoke perception of -evil-, which your regime fully evokes.

A taste of your evil minds is the ludicrous notion that a woman choosing to not wear a piece cloth clutched between her teeth like a bit make Iranian society "naked".

And you also you have your history wrong. It was Reza Shah* that "forced" the removal of chadors. The Shah in question here made it a personal choice. The rights mentioned were the right to work, and rights relating to marriage and children.

* some background on the history here. Reza Shah famously walked into a mosque and whipped the men [read mullahs] who had insulted his wife who had visited earlier. This 'right to insult and harrass women in public' is a "right" these men take quite seriously. They never forgave him for this offence and subsequently when they seized power, they chose a "civilized and godly" expression of their displeasure by dessecrating the remains of a dead man. And then they built a toilet over it. This is the retarded gang that currently occupies Iran. As I said, a historic blight on our nation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état

Let's call it instigation.

The CIA literally admitted to master-minding and funding the coup

Weird that anyone is still in denial after that

The CIA is an intelligence agency and has no obligation to tell the truth.

Once I get a second passport I’m planning to go to Iran. I studied Farsi in college and visiting Iran has been a dream of mine for a long time. With the second passport I’m hoping it’s accepted so I can travel freely without a tour guide.

You may also enjoy Tajikestan. You should have no political restrictions to travel there.

Iranian or Persian? One is a subset of the other and the other encompasses other people who has equally contributed, if not more, to the Iranian culture. Check out Iranic people.

> Persepolis Fortification Tablets, dated back to 492–457 BC in the reign of Darius the Great, are characteristic examples of the Achaemenid records, most of which have not been translated (Root, 1997). Of the ~30,000 clay tablets (10,000 intact pieces, 10,000 more or less complete ones, and probably more than 10,000 fragments), 2100 texts were transcribed, interpreted, and published (Jones and Stolper, 2008)

This is a great example of something I wish more people knew— there exist so many historical texts that are untranslated. I work on Latin and Greek texts—I just can’t believe the stuff that has never been translated.

Another shocking historical fact: cuneiform script was first deciphered using the Behistun Inscription, which has the same text in three different languages. But then, Persian texts were completely ignored by historians and all the attention shifted to other Mesopotamian tablets.

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

That "Islamic Golden Age" is a complete misnomer. It hides the religious diversity of the geography. Many don't know that it took many centuries for the majority of the population of the Iranian plateau to convert to Islam. For a good part of what is referred to as "Islamic Golden Age" Islam was not the dominant religion.

Similar story applies to India. Up until 17th century, India was ruled by "muslim" rulers. Should all the cultural and scientific achievements of that period be attributed to "Islam?"

Islamic Golden Age I find is less about attributing results to Islam, and more just a shorthand to referring to certain parts of the world currently known as "the Islamic World". And yeah the idea is that they were Islamic at that time, and maybe that's not entirely accurate, but it's not as much "this happened specifically because of Islam".

So a useless word that could be replaced by stating the geographic name of the 'certain parts of the world' referred to. Seems like an artificial name the muddies/pollutes the topic rather than enlightens. The Spanish inquisition started in 1478, Spain threw off the muslim invaders in 1492. Should we call it the Islamic Spanish Inquisition, since Islamic is such an interchangeable term?

Sorry to be pedantic, but not up until, but from the 15th century or so (Babur) until some time in the 18th century (Battle of Plassey). And not all of India but a northern region. Indian history and geography are just too vast to be contained in simple phrases (including what I said above)

You're off by a few centuries. Even if you use the boundaries of present day India as the threshold, Muslim led empires have controlled a majority of the land and the people since at least two centuries before Babur. Nor was it restricted to just North India - the Khilji controlled almost all of South India, even beyond Madurai, as early as 1320. As the power of the Delhi Sultanate waned, its territory was snapped up by other Sultanates, with even more territory held by vassal states. By 1300 the Sultanates would hold more of modern day India than not, and would continue to do so till their consolidation by the Mughals.

Right, i had argued the same exact point here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35353914 and here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35050854 but for some reason even "educated" Muslims are not willing to think on these lines. It is time we got rid of the "Islamic Golden Age" moniker once and for all. In a way, it is what is actually holding back current day Islamic World from development since they are happy to wallow in useless self-adulation imagining their "Islamic Golden Age" which was not really theirs to begin with; thus hampering their own growth in the "Modern World".

Iran is a treasure trove of knowledge and culture, of various people. I kind of don’t blame their current rulers on some issues, especially when both of your neighbours were invaded and occupied by modern imperialist.

I found it interesting that despite the protests in the comments from users who appear to be Iranian, the authors of this paper, who decided on the use of the term "Islamic Golden Age", themselves both appear to be Iranian based on their names (Saatsaz = Watchmaker/Horologist) and the transcription style used (Rezaei).

It's the 'standard term used' so makes sense that it is used. The discussion here is does it make sense? I know that until I studied Persian history it very much alienated my thinking from that part of the world, and made me think of them as other. I was also taught the ignorance of christian thought of that period (referring to mainly the actions of Germanic groups) versus the superior enlightened 'Islamic Golden Age' that happened to leave out that many of those enlightened scholars were Christian and that their thinking was perfectly compatible with Christianity. It seems artificially divide and NOT do a pretty poor job accurately reflecting the people/scholars/scientific movement it is used to describe.

The fact that the authors are still residing within Iran may also play a role in how much they attribute to Islam.

The issue I most have with terminology like "blank's Golden Age" is that it heavily implies a complete scope of an exactly defined thing but it's often used to describe nostalgia for something ongoing - something incomplete, which it can't be bc it's scope is undefined and so no "best part" exists yet bc new parts are still coming - like "The Golden Age of Cinema" could easily be ahead of us for a stupid example that also demonstrates it's overuse and misuse.

Who knows - maybe Islam will evolve into something more commercially viable, more able to adapt Western culture, and eventually become the most dominant global religion. That all could be only a prophet away - history is full of them, we're likely due.

I know the Author doesn't think that a future golden age will happen but I don't like to count chickens.

People may disagree with when exactly was the Golden Age of the Roman Empire but it most certainly isn't a future date.

tl;dr - I dislike non-historical "golden ages"

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