The New York Sun, in an article describing the inability to confirm the Iranian implementation of a special badge, notes the lower status of non-Muslims in Iran:
Iran's constitution already carves out special status for non-Muslims. For example, it prohibits non-Muslims from obtaining senior posts in either the army or government. A national ordinance made into law in 2000 and 2001 requires all non-Muslim butchers, grocers, and purveyors of food to post a form in the window of their place of business warning Muslims they do not share their faith. At the time the code was defended in order to enforce Islamic dietary law. Muslims in Iran officially enjoy preference over non-Muslims in terms of admission to universities and colleges.On the history of the yellow badge in Iran, an article for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, quotes Professor Amnon Netzer of the Hebrew University that a yellow badge was enforced in Iran on many occasions:
Sometimes it wasn't really yellow, it was red. And we don't know precisely its beginning. But some of the poems of the classical period [mention the ribbon], and these [poems] more or less belong to sometime before the invasion of the Mongols into Iran. We know, more or less, that the last period [in which] this patch was worn by the Jews by force was at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th.In Badging Infidels in Iran, Andrew Boston--author of The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims--writes a long piece on the equally long history of Iranian treatment of non-Muslims, noting that Shiite Islam in Iran contains within it a hatred for non-Muslims in general and Jews in particular:
Visceral, even annihilationist animus towards Jews is a deep-rooted phenomenon in Shi’ite Iran, hardly unique to the contemporary post-Khomeini Shi’ite theocracy, including the current regime of Ayatollah Khameini and President Ahmadinejad...These Shi’ite clerics emphasized the notion of the ritual uncleanliness (najis) of Jews, in particular, but also Christians, Zoroastrians, and others, as the cornerstone of inter-confessional relationships toward non-Muslims.Boston quotes Anthropology Professor Laurence Loeb, who during the early 1970's studied and lived in the Jewish community of Southern Iran. Loeb writes about the Shiite belief in the impurity of non-Muslims and its connection to wearing a badge, a:
Professor Loeb emphasizes, “Fear of pollution by Jews led to great excesses and peculiar behavior by Muslims.”badge of shame [as] an identifying symbol which marked someone as a najis Jew and thus to be avoided. From the reign of Abbas I [1587-1629] until the 1920s, all Jews were required to display the badge
An example of those excesses are found in the writings of Mohammad Baqer Al-Majlisi, an influential Shiite cleric during the 17th century. Al-Majlisi describes the requirements of non-Muslims, such as the blood ransom jizya, a poll-tax, based on Qur’an 9:29, as well as other restrictions in the areas of worship, housing, dress, transportation, and weapons (which according to Boston were intended to render the dhimmis defenseless).
Al-Majlisi describes the extent of the impurity regulations:
And, that they should not enter the pool while a Muslim is bathing at the public baths…It is also incumbent upon Muslims that they should not accept from them victuals with which they had come into contact, such as distillates, which cannot be purified. In something can be purified, such as clothes, if they are dry, they can be accepted, they are clean. But if they [the dhimmis] had come into contact with those cloths in moisture they should be rinsed with water after being obtained. As for hide, or that which has been made of hide such as shoes and boots, and meat, whose religious cleanliness and lawfulness are conditional on the animal’s being slaughtered [according to the Shari’a], these may not be taken from them. Similarly, liquids that have been preserved in skins, such as oils, grape syrup, [fruit] juices, myrobalan, and the like, if they have been put in skin containers or water skins, these should [also] not be accepted from them…It would also be better if the ruler of the Muslims would establish that all infidels could not move out of their homes on days when it rains or snows because they would make Muslims impure.Along the same lines, Boston quotes the late Persian Jewish scholar Sarah (Sorour) Soroudia on the prohibition of non-Muslims being outside in the rain--Soroudia notes that the regulation was enforced in Jewish communities in Iran as late as 1923
In closing his article, Boston again quotes from Professor Loeb, who wrote in 1976:
Despite the favorable attitude of the government and the relative prosperity of the Jewish community, all Iranian Jews acknowledge the precarious nature of the present situation. There are still sporadic outbreaks against them because the Muslim clergy constantly berates Jews, inciting the masses who make no effort to hide their animosity towards the Jew. Most Jews express the belief that it is only the personal strength and goodwill of the Shah that protects them: that plus God’s intervention! If either should fail…This is in contrast to Meir Javdanfar, an Israeli Middle East expert who was born and raised in Tehran, and was among those quoted that the report about Iran reinstituting a yellow badge for the Jews was false. In that article Javdanfar was quoted as saying:
"Nowhere in the law is there any talk of Jews and Christians having to wear different colours. I've checked it with sources both inside Iran and outside."Contrary to Javdanfar's assurances, historically there is an awful lot that the Iranian government--and general population--will stand for.
"The Iranian people would never stand for it. The Iranian government wouldn't be stupid enough to do it."
- See also Iran Wants To Renew The Yellow Badge Enforced Under Islam and Nazis
- See also Report About Iranian Yellow Badge May Be Incorrect
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