Cyrus and equality between all people can be deduced from the way his conquered people spoke of him. I'm not giving any more links lest they be perceived as biased, but you could try wikipedia too, or google Cyrus and see.
His own nation, the Iranians, regarded him as "The Father", the Babylonians as "The Liberator", the Greeks as the "Law-Giver", and the Jews as the "Anointed of the Lord".
Why such praise from so many conquered people rather than apostasy Wars?
The Jews hated the Romans who later conquered them, as did the Greeks conquered by the Romans.
That's a spin put on by your pro-Shah anti-Islam site. Shah might've been Pro Iran's ancient history, but the claim of his being anti Islam is again a spin by the Ayatollahcracy. The worst stuff he did was changing the Calendar to the ancient one, from the Islamic one.
Pray tell me, if the Shah was anti Islamic, who is pro Islamic? Ayatollah Khomeini who said that the best time for a girl to get married is when she can have her first menstruation in her husband's house, and reduced the girl's age of marriage to nine? How about your Mullah Krekar, who would stone unmarried women after burying them to the neck, should they be caught having sex? The Shah
had identified himself with Islam, only with an interpretation of Islam which takes into account contemporary human rights, as well as the Iranians rich past.
I've read in Naipaul's works that Islam needs people to forget their past, claim it as worthless. Maybe it comes from Islam's origins, the past of the Jews and Pagans erased who became the first Muslims, and tainted as jahiliyya. Subsequently, every other people who became Muslim would likely look on their pasts as jahiliyya too.
Whether you like or dislike the Ancient Persian Empire,
it was at one time, the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. The Persian Empire was the conqueror of Egypt, rival of Greece and undefeated by Rome. Its as legitimate a source for the Iranian people to take pride in, even if they don't become Zoroastrian again. Arid Arabia, with only the hajj as its achievement, or Shia Islam, as distinct from and rival to Sunni Islam needn't be the fount for all Iranians' sense of self, you know. Of course, the Saudis came into the full glare of history only with Islam and with their pasts tainted and gods destroyed, they can't look at any other past.
But for Iranians, their ancient history could as well have consolidated them further into an Empire. Sigh! As it happens, whether Iran, or Afghanistan's Bamiyan Buddhas, the past's achievements have to be tainted or erased, at the altar of the new source of all encompassing Muslim identity-Islam.
Topic: Rational discourse is not as useful as you think