The idea of Persia has long fascinated Western minds. From the Middle Ages on, knowledge of Persia gradually expanded as a result of increased contact through trade, travel and diplomacy. Writers in Europe, such as Goethe, Chaucer, Dante and Shakespeare, reflected this understanding in the parallels with Persian literature and shared symbolism evident in their plays, poetry and prose.

Love and devotion showcases a rich selection of manuscripts from the world-renowned collection of the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford, along with rare works from the State Library of Victoria and other Australian collections.

Two Princess: Miniature, Bodleian Collection

The exhibition celebrates the beauty of Persian manuscripts and the stories of human and divine love told through their pages from the early 11th century on.

Romantic tales were copied and sometimes reinterpreted over time, and reached far beyond the borders of Iran. The universal themes of Persian narrative and mystical poetry appealed especially to audiences in Mughal India and Ottoman Turkey, and eventually to audiences in the West. Transcending time and place, these stories continue to resonate today and to be retold through contemporary literature and popular culture.

Persian poetry from the secular tradition flourished in the princely courts of Iran, where illustrated manuscripts were crafted for elite patrons. Today, these provide viewers with the opportunity to experience examples of Persian calligraphy, illumination and miniature painting from the 13th to 18th centuries, one of the richest periods in the history of the book. Many stories from this period were embraced not only in the princely courts but in all sectors of society, told within families and at community gatherings.

Court Francais in Tehran

Just cross the road from the Avicenna bookstore in Munich, with its huge assortment of Persian literature, is the old building of the Munich University. Seventy years ago it was in the main hall of this building that the antifascist resistance group “White Rose” spread around leaflets that should reveal and condemn the nazi-crimes against the Jewish population and against political opponents of the regime. The “brave” german custodian of the university trapped Hans and Sophie Scholl and reported them to the Gestapo. This lead to the discovery of the entire group, whom the Gestapo desperately wanted to get hold of after leaflets and wall paintings claiming “Freedom”, “Down with Hitler” and “immediate end of the war” arose the weeks before.
Most members of the “White Rose” were interrogated and beheaded, after they were sentenced at the notorious “Peoples Court” (Volksgerichtshof).

Sophie Scholl (+ 22.02.1943)
Hans Scholl (+ 22.02.1943)
Christoph Probst (+ 22.02.1943)
Alexander Schmorell (+ 13.07.1943)
Willi Graf (+12.10.1943)
Kurt Huber (+ 13.07.1943)
Gisela Schertling
Katharina Schueddekopf
Traute Lafrenz

Shortly after the capture of the members of the White Rose, Leaflet No. 6 was smuggled out of Germany and later copied by the Allies and dropped from aircraft as propaganda over Nazi Germany.

At several places in Munich memorials remind people of the brave activities of the White Rose students, like a black obelisk in the Court Garden and brass copies of their leaflets placed on the square in front of the University.

Coming back to the Avicenna bookstore nearby the University building, one might see the murdered German students as brothers-and sisters-in-mind with the student rebells that shook up the streets of Tehran in 2009. Sooner or later, there also will be memorial plates in Iran, comemorating their brave standing-up against an inhuman regime.

Recently I was invited by a friend in Munich to a reading of poetry by an Iranian writer, who died much too young in 1967, only reaching 32 years of age. Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967) was exceptional among woman in modern Persian literature, since only an extremely small number of Iranian women in general have achieved anything outside of the home without dependence upon a relationship with a man or male patronage.

From the poems of Forough Farrokhzad, which Kianoosh presented this evening I remember the verses from “Another Birth”

… Life may be that cloistered moment
When my gaze comes to ruin in your pupils
Wherein there lies a feeling
Which I shall blend …

During her short life, Forough not only wrote some of the most influential, beautiful and ever-lasting poetries of modern Persian literature, but she also became a proponent of childrens right, in particular for those from the poor families. Her engagement for the children being isolated and hospitalized for leprosis laid in her honest sympathy with those who are suffering. Unlike modern celebrities, who too often present themself in public with an alibi “social” project, Foroughs activites to help the children with leprosis came from her very personal desire to make the world a little bit better.

From the movie “Moon, Sun, Flower, Play” by the German director Claus Strigel one can listen to Foroughs voice, hear how colleagues and friends remember this extraordinary woman and watch scenes from the street-battle preceding the Shahs dismissal and from the childrens leprosis hospital.

Nahid Persson-Sarvestani, a former activist of the student branch of the Tudeh party and in the late 70s among the demonstrators against Shah Reza Pahlevi, now lives in Sweden as a film-director. In her 3 parts documentary, she interviews Farah Diba, the last empress of Iran, who now lives in exil in Paris.

part 1

part 2

part 3

Farah Diba speaks with a broken voice, and Nahid Persson, although with a politically active background, seems to be more interested in the private life of the Shahs widow. The Shahbanou, however, is a professional when it comes to any media contacts. She only repeats the details of her life with the Shah, how they first met, how Reza Pahlevi asked her to become his wife – stories, she already told too often to be published in the yellow press. Sometimes, Farah Diba tries to shift the conversation more into a political and historical context, asking Mrs. Nahid Persson-Sarvestani on which side she was on during the 1979 revolution, the communists Tudeh people, or the peoples Mudjaheddin, or the violent islamists of the Fedajin. Persson apparently fears a clear confession at this point, since the blunt anti-Shah activities she was involved in prepared the ground for the most inhuman, hypocrite and stupid regimes ever seen in recent history: the so-called “Islamic Republic of Iran”.
So these two woman who 35 years ago were on opposite sites of the battle line in pre-revolutionary Iran, now find them self in exile, one in Paris the other in Stockholm, and both see with bitterness their lost dreams. If the two would be ready to give up their wounded pride, maybe they would find out how much in common they had in their youth. Both were dreaming of a modern and liberal society, with secular education, open to the rest of the world, liberated woman and social and economic prosperity. But each of the two, the aristocrats and the socialist, both were wrestling for leadership in this movement. And both were loosing everything. What arose after the Shah and his family had to leave in 1979, and the Tudeh for a short moment thought their triumph is in sight, was the worst nightmare of an extreme conservative, religious, anachronistic and brutal dictatorship of uneducated and corrupt Mullahs.
The people of Iran have to suffer since 34 years under a totalitarian regime, that tortures, rapes, kills everybody who is not following its islamic hypocrisis and dares to question the political regime of the mullahs with their basidj thugs.
It would have been nice to see in the documentary that both, Farah Diba and Mrs. Nahid Persson-Sarvestani would finally admit that the two blocks they belonged to, the progressive Tudeh party and the Shahs court, did a historical mistake by not finding a way to cooperate and anticipate how much their dreams had in common.

Thank you, Ninelia, for pointing me to this gem of political documentation.

Hello, my name is Nofretete, and I was born in Luxor in Egypt.
1912 some archeologists recovered me from this dark grave in the earth and brought me back to light. I, who together with my beloved husband Echnaton were so much fascinated by the divine nature of the sun had to spend 3400 years in the dark. When I was recovered and brought to Berlin, this not only caused a real Egyptomania and Nofretete-cult amongst the ordinary people, but the sun itself started to shine brighter and stronger for happiness to have me back.

The Egyptians were always afraid of my beauty. 3400 years ago they hated my preference of the sun against all the single, little minor gods they were worshipping. Thats why they banned my statue and burried me deep under ground. After the German archeologists under Ludwig Borchardt excavated me 100 years ago in the meter deep dust in Amarna, and brought me back to sunshine, the Egyption authorities several times attempted to get hold of me. They ordered reviews from French lawyers that should proof how the Germans had violated a contract with Egypt and insidiously betrayed them by highjacking me to Berlin. I have to admit, that my escape from Egypt to Berlin did not happened against my own will: Without exchanging words, both Borchardt and myself understood that the Berlin New Museum would provide a more adequate place for me than an Egyptian dust bin. We were afraid that in Egypt, they again would try to hide my beauty from the peoples eyes.
Now, 2012, 100 years after my rebirth, they introduce in Egypt the Sharia, ordering every woman to hide her face and her beauty. Returning to Egypt, wouldn’t they put me under a hijab or a burka, before showing me in the public ? Or will the Salafists who just occupied a couple of parlament seats and  governmental posts attack me altogether, destroy me as they did with other statues in Afghanistan and in Mali, because they fear that people will worship my beauty ?
In Berlin in the New Museum, people from all over the world come only to see me, and yes, they worship my beauty. They like me, and I like them, and therefore I will stay in Berlin forever. I am nobodies property, I belong to the entire mankind. But in Berlin they always took care of me, and I know they will do so forever. During the bombings of the 2. world war, when the entire city turned into a pile of debris, they found a safe shelter for me somewhere far away in a mountain village. They were so intrigued by Nofretete, that first  emperor Wilhelm II and later the East-German government (who lost me to West-Berlin) both ordered identical copies of my statue.
I am nobodies property, not the Germans and not the Egyptians. But I am and will stay a Berliner. The local people call me a “Berliner Göre”, and although this sounds turkish, it is their slang for “naughty little girl”. Although this of course is a (typical Berlin) understatement of my beauty, I can life with it.

Ghazal my Dear,

you might have asked why I wrote this recent critical post about an Indian guru (Yogananda), and why I suggested that a modern singer like Maryam Akhondy is a much better interprete of classical Persian poetry by Omar Khayyam. Here is an example of an original Omar Khayyam rubbayat and the silly Yogananda interpretation. Also, at the end of the post, don’t miss Nancy Sinatras song “You Only Live Twice”, and tell me if you see any similarity to Omar Khayyam.

Here is the Rubbayat No 41 from Omar Khayyam (1018-1113) Translated by E.Fitzgerald 1859)

AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light.

And here comes the

Keys To Meaning (Hic!!)  by Paramhansa Yogananda, (“Cristal Clear Publications” Hic!)

Morning — The dawn of awakening from delusive material existence.

Bowl of Night — The dark night of soul-ignorance.

Stone — Delusion-shattering acts of spiritual self-discipline.

Stars — Falsely attractive material desires.

Hunter of the East — Eastern wisdom, hunter and destroyer of delusion.

Sultan’s Turret — The kingly minaret of pride.

Noose of Light — The light of wisdom, which, like a lasso, haloes

Expanded Meaning  (For experts only !!)

Forsake delusion! Absorb into your innermost Self the calm light of wisdom.

Listen! your soul calls you to embrace a new adventure. As the sun travels from east to west across the sky, so does the light of civilization and of knowledge move across the earth. From the east comes Wisdom’s call: Awake! all you who sleep in ignorance.

What has pride brought you but melancholia and pain?—dark products of soul-ignorance. Dispel gloom forever: Abide from today onward in the light of inner peace.

What a rediculous attempt by this 20th century wanna-be spiritual leader to understand Omar Khayyams wunderful Rhubbayat. Since Yogananda has not the slightest clue of Omar Khayyams world of thoughts, his deep love for science, pure mathematics, astronomy, and his second love for wine, beauty and the attractions of woman, he can not do anything else than spoiling the clear language of Omar Khayyams rubbayat with “interpretations”.
Karl Marx, the great analytic of human society, would have called Yoganandas rediculous “Wine of the Mystic” the clearest example of “Religion as opium for the people”. But Marx died 10 years before Yogananda was born.

Omar Khayyam, this outstanding spirit of classical Persian poetry and science, did not only gave us the collections of rubbayats, but invented the binomial coefficients (important for combinatorial calculations), which in the west were attributed to B.Pascal.

Here is an interpretation of his rubbayat, that he would have definitely liked much more. It is by Nancy Sinatra, from her great song “YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE”.

In this 1967 title song for a 007 – James Bond movie one is indeed reminded of Omar Khayyams rubbayat. Read yourself, and build your own opinion. You don’t need a guru to understand this.

You Only Live Twice or so it seems,
One life for yourself and one for your dreams.
You drift through the years and life seems tame,
Till one dream appears and love is its name.

And love is a stranger who’ll beckon you on,
Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone.

This dream is for you, so pay the price.
Make one dream come true, you only live twice.

And love is a stranger who’ll beckon you on,
Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone.

Ghazal my Dear,

you might have asked why I wrote this recent critical post about an Indian guru (Yogananda), and why I suggested that a modern singer like Maryam Akhondy is a much better interprete of classical Persian poetry by Omar Khayyam. Here is an example of an original Omar Khayyam rubbayat and the silly Yogananda interpretation. Also, at the end of the post, don’t miss Nancy Sinatras song “You Only Live Twice”, and tell me if you see any similarity to Omar Khayyam.

Here is the Rubbayat No 41 from Omar Khayyam (1018-1113) Translated by E.Fitzgerald 1859)

AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light.

And here comes the

Keys To Meaning (Hic!!)  by Paramhansa Yogananda, (“Cristal Clear Publications” Hic!)

Morning — The dawn of awakening from delusive material existence.

Bowl of Night — The dark night of soul-ignorance.

Stone — Delusion-shattering acts of spiritual self-discipline.

Stars — Falsely attractive material desires.

Hunter of the East — Eastern wisdom, hunter and destroyer of delusion.

Sultan’s Turret — The kingly minaret of pride.

Noose of Light — The light of wisdom, which, like a lasso, haloes

Expanded Meaning  (For experts only !!)

Forsake delusion! Absorb into your innermost Self the calm light of wisdom.

Listen! your soul calls you to embrace a new adventure. As the sun travels from east to west across the sky, so does the light of civilization and of knowledge move across the earth. From the east comes Wisdom’s call: Awake! all you who sleep in ignorance.

What has pride brought you but melancholia and pain?—dark products of soul-ignorance. Dispel gloom forever: Abide from today onward in the light of inner peace.

What a rediculous attempt by this 20th century wanna-be spiritual leader to understand Omar Khayyams wunderful Rhubbayat. Since Yogananda has not the slightest clue of Omar Khayyams world of thoughts, his deep love for science, pure mathematics, astronomy, and his second love for wine, beauty and the attractions of woman, he can not do anything else than spoiling the clear language of Omar Khayyams rubbayat with “interpretations”.
Karl Marx, the great analytic of human society, would have called Yoganandas rediculous “Wine of the Mystic” the clearest example of “Religion as opium for the people”. But Marx died 10 years before Yogananda was born.

Omar Khayyam, this outstanding spirit of classical Persian poetry and science, did not only gave us the collections of rubbayats, but invented the binomial coefficients (important for combinatorial calculations), which in the west were attributed to B.Pascal.

Here is an interpretation of his rubbayat, that he would have definitely liked much more. It is the great song “YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE”, originally by Nancy Sinatra but this modern version by Bjoerk I like better .

In this 1967 title song for a 007 – James Bond movie one is indeed reminded of Omar Khayyams rubbayat. Read yourself, and build your own opinion. You don’t need a guru to understand this.

You Only Live Twice or so it seems,
One life for yourself and one for your dreams.
You drift through the years and life seems tame,
Till one dream appears and love is its name.

And love is a stranger who’ll beckon you on,
Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone.

This dream is for you, so pay the price.
Make one dream come true, you only live twice.

And love is a stranger who’ll beckon you on,
Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone.

Ghazal my dear,

What is age, and what is aging, if everyone uses a different measure for this. This came to my mind when I did another picture of the moon tonight. Tonight it was once again the night of the Persides meteor shower. But since nothing could top the spectacular meteor that we saw together with you at the same night in 2010, I put more attention to the moon again (1). A year ago at the same night, we have been at the Bulgarian blacksea coast, and then the Persides night fell together with the full moon. This year, however, the same day in the year (11th to 12th of August), the moon looked completely different.

Is there a final take-home message from this post for you, Ghazal ? Maybe you will find one.

Take Care my Dear

Michael

Footnotes:

(1) Surely you know that the Moon symbolizes the pure, innocent beauty in Persian classicla poetry. This is independent of the exclusive role of the Sun in ancient, pre-islamic Persian culture, philosophy and science. But because poetry is very much influenced by arabic traditions, their spiritual preference for the moon as symbol in religion and arts got access into the poetry of Hafez, Rumi, Atta and Omar Khayyun.

(2) The Persides Meteor shower lives up to its name: same as the Persian people do, it follows precisely the sun’s calender. I guess that it follows in a precise and constant time after Persian Nouruz.

(3) Initially I could not figure out, if the name of the company GLOBAL-SHINING was referring to the moon or the sun. But now that I know that it is a Hongkong based company, I guess they even mean the Shining Stars.

(4) I guess Mr. Ho wont mind having his business address published here on my blog. But it might further promoted his excellent business. Just that Tsuen Wan does not have a postcode might discourage Hongkong tourists to drop into his store and buy camera displays.

Christian faith, Shia Islam and Nazi Fascism share one common in their roots:  All three ideologies or religions are based on the myth that their founder (or at least one of their earliest believers) were killed by the enemy. Hence, all three seek for supporters who are willing to take revenge by assasinating as many as possible of the branded enemies. Orthodox christians still claim today that Jesus was killed by the Jews, and this was used as justification for pogroms against the jewish minority over centuries. For the german nazis, the death of Horst Wessel, a pimp who recruited SA thugs in gang fight and who was shot by a communists in a privat dispute was their big founding mythology.  They used this story, after adding a completely made-up political component to it, to arrest, torture and kill hundred thousands of communists in the death camps auf Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen. The third ideology in this group, Shia Islam is based on the mythology that Hussein ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad and funder of their faith lost his life in a military battle against the Umayyad Caliphs in Kufa.  According to Shia faith, Hussein died as a martyr. During the annual Ashura the shiits mourning Hussein by torturing themself, whipping iron chains over their back and riping the skin of their breast and head until blood spreads all around.  The violence, however, is not restricted to themself:  Foreigners or any non-Shia believers are recommended to stay away from the Ashura procession, since attacks against such “Kufr” (or non-believers) are considered a normal emotional outburst  of Shia islamic faith. It is also not surprising, that during the late-November 2011 attacks against the British embassy in Tehran the thugs shouted slogangs condeming all enemies of Shia islam and praising the memory of Hussein.

In all three cases, Christian faith, Nazi Fascism and Shia Islam, the believers are convinced that the death of one of their legendary funders, either killed in a military battle, sentenced to death by a court or shot dead in a gang fight, was a loss so sever that a virtually unlimitted number of the “enemies” has to be killed in revenge. Hence, an ever-lasting physical aggression against the Kafrs, the pagans, heretics or the political opponents is the conditio-sine-qua-non of religions and political ideologies who are based on a martyr founding myth.

This does not exclude other faiths or ideologies to behave aggressive from time to time. But as a natural self-protection there is always a tendency to settle an aggression. For sure, Israel is not a pacifist nation, nobody will honoustly claim that in the long-lasting tension between the jewish nation and its arab neighbours the israel army acts like a peace keeper. The difference between the jewish religion and Shia Islam or medieval  Christianity is that the thora clearly says “Eye by eye,  tooth by tooth”  (עין תּחת עין  :  ajin tachat ajin).   It warns everybody to continue an aggression, after a criminal act has been settled by an appropriate punishment.  Even the Mafia, notorious for aggresive acts of revenge against its enemies, has a certain ethic by finishing a dispute ones the “law of crime and punishment” has been settled. As compared to ideologies that are based on the mythology of an eternal burden of sin (Jews are still considered by the catholic church as murders of Jesus and should be stung with remorse), the concept of Nemesis in greek philosophy was revolutionary by stating that when an offender was righteously punished, its crime should be considered as settled and no further aggression against himself, his family, his nation or religion is justified.

Neither Shia Islam nor Nazi ideology or Christian religion have this concept of nemesis.  Aggression against all Kafr is immanent at Ashura feast. And how indifferent right-wing and nazi-supporters are in killing innocent people whom they consider un-worthy became obvious not only after the Norwegian Breivik mass-murder, but nowadays in Germany when the systematic assasination of foreigners by a self-declared “national-socialistic underground” organisation is revealed.

And christian religion ?  Sure, they more or less successfully try now to hide the historical importance of their own martyre mythology.  Now they like to make people believe that christianity was always synonymous with tolerance and pacifism. But in fact, for at least 17hundred of their highly praises 2000 years history, christianity reproduced the idea of Jesus being the victim of the evil Jews as a strong argument to gather their supporters and promote the worst crimes during the crusades.