Shias - Zoroastrian Hindus

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Shias - Zoroastrian Hindus
OP - June 29, 2012, 11:13 AM

A Sunni anti-Shia polemic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWxQ_U-vREI&list=UUTKJPTDP5gzqJ_VO-9f5FvA&index=1&feature=plcp

Claims that Shias conflate the name of Ali with Allah as if they are one and the same - which is 'shirk' and 'polytheism'

Is there substance to this?

I read a comment once somewhere can't remember where exactly, that Persian Shiasm is an act of rebellion against the Arab invasion and hegemony of Arab Sunni Islam.

Culturally Persia had a very diverse cultural, spiritual heritage - could this be pre-Islamic plural Persian impulses kicking against the Arab faith?

Having said that, Shia Islam is just as capable of bigoted, intolerant, fanatical, anti-humane beliefs as Sunni Islam is.

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
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Re: Shias - Zoroastrian Hindus
Reply #1 - June 29, 2012, 12:17 PM

Certainly, the Shias of Kufa to whom the Abbasids owed their rise to power were thought to have some very unorthodox beliefs - metempsychosis, for one thing (a Greek idea, to be sure, but then the Sassanids could hardly have obliterated every Greek idea, even if they are associated with a revival of all things Persian..)

Some faintly relevant heresiography of early Shi'is can be found here.

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Re: Shias - Zoroastrian Hindus
Reply #2 - June 29, 2012, 12:41 PM

Cheers - good stuff

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
God is Love.
Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.
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Re: Shias - Zoroastrian Hindus
Reply #3 - June 29, 2012, 03:05 PM

It never seizes to amaze me how much adherents of a religion can fight among themselves over what seems to me to be all shear nonsense without any evidence to back any of it up in the first place.

It is the same thing with the various Christian sects arguing endlessly over the nature of the "Trinity". To think that thousands and thousands of "learned" people have dedicated their lives to arguing about this mumbo-jumbo for thousands of years, what wasted lives.

It is interesting to me that the maker of the video has tried to associate Shia Islam with Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Zoroastrianism. Because I thought that Iran only became the home of Shia Islam in the modern age.

I am not an expert so correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the original power house of the Shias was North Africa (under the Fatimids of Egypt and Libya). It was not until the Safavids came to power in Persia in the 16th Century that Shia Islam began to be institutionalized there. So how could Shia Islam be an off-shoot of those Eastern faiths when it did not develop in those Eastern areas anyway?
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Re: Shias - Zoroastrian Hindus
Reply #4 - June 29, 2012, 05:41 PM

Quote from: Tonyt on June 29, 2012, 03:05 PM
I am not an expert so correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the original power house of the Shias was North Africa (under the Fatimids of Egypt and Libya). It was not until the Safavids came to power in Persia in the 16th Century that Shia Islam began to be institutionalized there. So how could Shia Islam be an off-shoot of those Eastern faiths when it did not develop in those Eastern areas anyway?

Shi'ism's roots are mainly in modern-day Iraq (which in turn accounts for a large chunk of the old Sassanid empire). They were a persecuted minority in the region for a very long time, but the loss of Abbasid power (and, finally, the Mongol invasions) would make it possible for Shi'ism to flourish. The Zaidi Buwayhid dynasty that took Baghdad from the Abbasids (while nominally pledging allegiance to the Caliph) is a good pre-Mongol example. Post-Mongol invasion, local Shia dynasties would form in Iran - the Ilkhanids didn't feel the need to stomp on Shi'is - but it wasn't until Shah Ismail made conversion to (twelver) Shi'ism compulsory on pain of death after conquering Iran that Iran had anything resembling a Shia majority.

In short - Shi'ism never left the area, but it wasn't the officially mandated religion of a powerful ruler thereabouts until the Safavids turned up.

_{edit: Corrected ambiguous sentence.}

Before it gets too late, you will find escape.
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