Avicenna along with all other "Muslim" scholars during the "Golden Age" of Islam such as Al-Khorazmi, Biruni, Raazi, Khayyam, and on and on... were all Persian!
Perspolis or "Parseh" wasn't a military compound or base alsmot no armed solders were in the compound. In facts it used as a ceremonial place for the kings as well as people from all over the empire. What Alexandre did was truly labelled him as the fist hooligans in the ancient history, he very well knows that Parseh is the hart of the Persian Empire considering its cultural influences. by destroying Parseh he wanted to end to the Persian- Language, culture influence throughout the empire however, history shows that he failed to do so!
His Dad scholar from Balkh and mom from Bukhara which makes (Khorasan) Central Asia and Capital was Balkh in Afghanistan not Iran :D which most people claim. Umesh Ambadi
Professor first of all thank you for uploading the lectures, sharing is always appreciated :) I hope you would allow me some constructive (I hope) criticism. I am not sure if that was just a joke but it is really incorrect to portray Hafiz as someone preoccupied with wine drinking. Wine is used as a metaphor, an allegory for something else. This is pointed out again and again in Sufi literature. If it was meant as a joke I am not sure the students will be able to tell...
Having listened to the last one ('French language and literature') just the other day, I was looking forward to the next one - and here it comes! Thank you.
Drinking wine is a metaphor for drinking the love of God...the wine of Hafez and Omar Khayyam refers to the true love of the Creator, not normal drinking wine. That why the poems are dedicated to the Beloved(God). If you say its the wine of drunkards you are completely misinterpreting these wonderful poets. The lecture is good but you are making drunkards from spiritual men. Be careful with your lectures, which I truly enjoy. I am persian btw.
islam got all the knowledge by the persian not the other way around.... while they were living in tents in the desert the persian lived in places .......
I don't know Professor Cecil is being humorous or really there is a misunderstanding. At Mohammad's time Muslems used to pray 5 times and 17 sets of praying a day which even now a day all of Sonni mulems( one Billion people) do it as well. However, Sheit muslems( about 300 million people) condensed these 17 sets into 3 times. It has nothing to do with ancient Iranians.
Just hope you all know that Judaism and Christianity stole most elements from eastern religions, Mesopotamian (mandanneans) and PERSIANS (Zoroastrianism).
the mongols arrived to india much before the Mughals. The Mughals arrived to india via afghanistan and western iraq, around early 1500. Approx 200 years before the arrival of Mughals, Mongol invaders fought with the muslim slave dynasty and again with Lodi dynasty in north india many times. circa approx 1221 to 1327... the mongol empire hardly existed when the Mughals rose to power in the Indian subcontinent.
The Old Testament has at least three verses referring to times of Prayers. "As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice." (Psalms 55:16-17) (PS: crying aloud apparently means praying with passion). how come u did not mention 3 times of prayers in bible?
Sufi poetry is filled with metaphors which are used for Islamic ideas. Wine is the sacred knowledge, the beloved(s) are God, the cup-bearer is the Sheikh, etc. This speaker keeps trying to separate the Sufis from their Islamic identity, Hafez, Rumi, Attar, Jami, Saadi. Islam was the greatest thing to happen to Persia.
Sure we can argue about my last sentence as it is my opinion, but everything else is true without a shadow of a doubt. Do your research. Don't take my word for it. In fact, drink the wine these poets talk about. As the Sufis say, "our way is about tasting".
in quran chap 20 verse 130.(5 times of pray) “So be patient with what they say & exalt God with praise before the rising of the sun & before its setting ; and during periods of the night, & at the ends of the day.” 1 - Before the rising of the sun (dawn) Fajr 2 - Before its setting (At its zenith, midday) Dhuhr 3 - During periods of the night (afternoon) Asr 4 - See above (evening) Maghrib 5 - At the ends of day (any time after sunset, but before midnight, [or in some cases, dawn]) Isha
Omar Khayyam was Muslim and so were many Sufis. The presenter in the video is reading Fritzgerald's translation which is a bad one. Not only did he take many liberties, parapharsing many quatrains but Fritzgerald himself called the translation a "transmogrification". This is what the translator said: _" "My translation will interest you from its form, and also in many respects in its detail: very un-literal as it is. Many quatrains_ _are mashed together: and something lost, I doubt, of Omar's simplicity, which is so much a virtue in him" (letter to E. B._ _Cowell, 9/3/58). And, "I suppose very few People have ever taken such Pains in Translation as I have: though certainly not_ _to be literal. But at all Cost, a Thing must live: with a transfusion of one’s own worse Life if one can’t retain the Original’s_ _better. Better a live Sparrow than a stuffed Eagle" (letter to E. B. Cowell, 4/27/59)."_ Omar Khayyam and Sufis in general were very much Muslim and Sufism is in fact Islamic. In fact, Islam itself is Sufism in nature. The mistake people do is take many of the symbols (like wine and women) literally and not figuratively.
They were not Muslim, that was the whole point of their philosophy. Sufism was a pantheistic, humanistic mystic tradition that goes back to long before Islam and it was revived during the Islamic era in Iran in fact as a reaction to Islam. It dates back to the Persian Empire itself and the Yavaran Movement and the time of Mazdak and Mani and their philosophy. They are still many Sufi groups living in Iran and I have talked to these people. By no stretch of imagination they could be classified as Muslim, They do not think Mohammad is a prophet, they think he is just one guy who happened to find a way to dictate his version of mystic inspiration to the masses. In their philosophy such inspirations are personal experiences that a soul must undergo through isolated contemplation. They do not find anything interesting in Quran, in fact many of them told me that they think it is a dangerous legal document. I would appreciate it if westerners would keep their orientalist " wisdom" to themselves. Your remarkable lack of knowledge about my culture is the only interesting thing about your interest in my culture.
yet we are trying to interpret words first. in a language which did not even exist back when such books were written. persian arabic or even sufi philosophy might be difficult to understand in essence. yet we figure the meaning of the words first.
The Koran! well, come put me to the test- Lovely old book in hideous error drest- Believe me, I can quote the Koran too, The unbeliever knows his Koran best. And do you think that unto such as you, A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew, God gave the secret, and denied it me?- Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.
Khayam, Hafiz and many other philosophers had moved on beyond Islam. They believed you have the God inside you. In fact the famous poem says, why are you going to Mecca when God is everywhere, inside you.
hi ,i hv been listening to your lectures and find them quite interesting,but in this lecture you hv made a very big mistake, Muslims did pray 5 times before the invasion of Persia. they were doing it in madina and 5 times of prayers are obligatory in Islam but we have 3 more prayers of day.so i guess its high time you should read about Islam with an open mind,why not start with quran,and i hope Allah will guide u too.
Wes Cecil's need to get a cheap laugh from his students at any price makes him pay a big price, which is lack of truthfulness and professionalism. He missed his calling as a standup comedian.
Mongols did not defeat themselves, even after the death of the Great Khan. They became civilized and mixed with other people. They did not destroy like that, only punished those, who did not obey.
He has almost every thing wrong in this lecture. I can not believe he has a PhD on the field. A lot of discrepancies when it comes to names, centers of powers, significance of places etc. In regards to the Sufi literature it seems he has no idea about the significance or the implied meanings of the terms such as wine, love/lover, to drink etc. His comments on the subject of lit are totally misleading and misguided. This lecture is a complete waste of time, a complete misinterpretation of the entire Civilization.
This is called dominant narrative. Even when Zorastrians write, they use the same categories for Avestan Categories, that it looks almost a semitic religion.
wow, some major factual issues i have there..first muslim prayed 5 times a day when the prophet was still alive and not cause of some zoroastrian so i would appreciate that you would focus on history and stop trying being funny while making some ditortion to islam.
This is hyped BS. That there were idol worshipers is not mentioned in Avesta. Why do Europeans historians Concoct history as they go. Put all issue sin Christian images.
and i believe if Zoroaster was praying 5 times than even better,and if christians fast or jews fast and muslims too than it proves what is the best way to live a life, it brings one closer to God.i am sure Abraham prayed too,so we never claimed islam to be a new religion ever.i hope you understand .try wathing Zakir naik on utube or try reading quran yourself may be you will find some answers yourself.no harm in giving it a go you hv read alot there is always room to learn more.bestRegards zashi
So much ignorance and distorted truths in this lecture. Dont bother wasting your time, I would recommend highly his lectures on French and Chinese literature.
Pooyan r I didn't write that the lecture is bad. However, I am of Slavic origin and have studied Chinese all life long. Listening to his lectures about Chinese and Russian literature, there were a LOT of mistakes and he is tending to have some own ideas, thus uses to distorting some facts in order to follow his own way. Anyway, the lecture is OK for those Westerners who need some introductory information on the subjects. I am expecting more from a PhD.
Avicenna along with all other "Muslim" scholars during the "Golden Age" of Islam such as Al-Khorazmi, Biruni, Raazi, Khayyam, and on and on... were all Persian!
Good lecture. Just one correction Avicenna was Persian NOT Arab!
Perspolis or "Parseh" wasn't a military compound or base alsmot no armed solders were in the compound. In facts it used as a ceremonial place for the kings as well as people from all over the empire. What Alexandre did was truly labelled him as the fist hooligans in the ancient history, he very well knows that Parseh is the hart of the Persian Empire considering its cultural influences. by destroying Parseh he wanted to end to the Persian- Language, culture influence throughout the empire however, history shows that he failed to do so!
Greatest lecture over a language i have ever heard
Indeed, Abu Ali ibn Sina known to the west as Avicenna, was a Persian Physician, born in Bukhara, then part of Persia, now in Uzbekistan. Merci.
This is interesting view of history
Avecinna was NOT Arab!!!! He was Persian!!!
Wasn't he a Tajik Afghan?
He was from Khorasan (ethnic Persians)
His Dad scholar from Balkh and mom from Bukhara which makes (Khorasan) Central Asia and Capital was Balkh in Afghanistan not Iran :D which most people claim. Umesh Ambadi
Tami S his tomb Is in hamedan Iran. He is Persian, so that's why people confuse it!!!
Wtf!!! axmadka Tajiks are persian people you moron!! Tajik means persian in Turkic language
Well presented and very entertaining. Thanks for sharing this.
that was an epic class :)
Professor first of all thank you for uploading the lectures, sharing is always appreciated :)
I hope you would allow me some constructive (I hope) criticism. I am not sure if that was just a joke but it is really incorrect to portray Hafiz as someone preoccupied with wine drinking. Wine is used as a metaphor, an allegory for something else. This is pointed out again and again in Sufi literature. If it was meant as a joke I am not sure the students will be able to tell...
Having listened to the last one ('French language and literature') just the other day, I was looking forward to the next one - and here it comes! Thank you.
Can mankind even fathom the strength of a culture that has kept itself intact after thousands of years of attacks and invasions?
Amazing. Just amazing!
Long live The GREAT FERDOWSI- SHAHNAMEH .
Excellent, thank you.
I believe that Baghdad (or Boghdat) means Given by God.
It actually means my dad gave me a bag
avicina was PERSIAN! this should be corrected!
Great lecture! Quick side note, you are butchering the name which is Shah-nam-EH not Shah-nam-ahh
Drinking wine is a metaphor for drinking the love of God...the wine of Hafez and Omar Khayyam refers to the true love of the Creator, not normal drinking wine. That why the poems are dedicated to the Beloved(God). If you say its the wine of drunkards you are completely misinterpreting these wonderful poets. The lecture is good but you are making drunkards from spiritual men. Be careful with your lectures, which I truly enjoy. I am persian btw.
Wine and opium have traveling for centuries.
I love Hafiz, Omar Khyyam and especially Rumi and many more.❤
islam got all the knowledge by the persian not the other way around.... while they were living in tents in the desert the persian lived in places .......
livioangel is why arabs destroyed persian empire
Tension And Urban Sustainability: Case Study - The Metropolis Of Mashhad, Iran
Why he gotta drop the hard i
This is not what Zorastrian texts and those who fled those Parts of India narrate.
"...our soon to be glorious exit from Afghanistan."
"...our soon to be glorious exit from Afghanistan."
Can't wait for Vince Giligan's "Sharia: A Breaking Bad Movie"
I don't know Professor Cecil is being humorous or really there is a misunderstanding. At Mohammad's time Muslems used to pray 5 times and 17 sets of praying a day which even now a day all of Sonni mulems( one Billion people) do it as well. However, Sheit muslems( about 300 million people) condensed these 17 sets into 3 times. It has nothing to do with ancient Iranians.
Did Zoroastrianism influence the early Hebrews? Is this where their monotheism comes from?
Just hope you all know that Judaism and Christianity stole most elements from eastern religions, Mesopotamian (mandanneans) and PERSIANS (Zoroastrianism).
hebrews were influvenced by zorastrians , during their captivity in Persia!
Jews were not captive in Persia, they were liberated in Babylon by Persia under Cyrus the Great.
There was no Achemanina dynasty in India. He needs to go back for his PH.D.
the mongols arrived to india much before the Mughals. The Mughals arrived to india via afghanistan and western iraq, around early 1500. Approx 200 years before the arrival of Mughals, Mongol invaders fought with the muslim slave dynasty and again with Lodi dynasty in north india many times. circa approx 1221 to 1327... the mongol empire hardly existed when the Mughals rose to power in the Indian subcontinent.
you butchered Ferdowsi and its called the book of kings
The Old Testament has at least three verses referring to times of Prayers.
"As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice." (Psalms 55:16-17) (PS: crying aloud apparently means praying with passion).
how come u did not mention 3 times of prayers in bible?
Sufi poetry is filled with metaphors which are used for Islamic ideas. Wine is the sacred knowledge, the beloved(s) are God, the cup-bearer is the Sheikh, etc. This speaker keeps trying to separate the Sufis from their Islamic identity, Hafez, Rumi, Attar, Jami, Saadi. Islam was the greatest thing to happen to Persia.
islam is like christianity in a different location ....
Bullshit.
Sure we can argue about my last sentence as it is my opinion, but everything else is true without a shadow of a doubt. Do your research. Don't take my word for it. In fact, drink the wine these poets talk about. As the Sufis say, "our way is about tasting".
Islam brought shit and violence to the world.
Just like Christianity. get your history right
in quran chap 20 verse 130.(5 times of pray)
“So be patient with what they say & exalt God with praise before the rising of the sun & before its setting ; and during periods of the night, & at the ends of the day.”
1 - Before the rising of the sun (dawn) Fajr
2 - Before its setting (At its zenith, midday) Dhuhr
3 - During periods of the night (afternoon) Asr
4 - See above (evening) Maghrib
5 - At the ends of day (any time after sunset, but before midnight, [or in some cases, dawn]) Isha
Omar Khayyam was Muslim and so were many Sufis. The presenter in the video is reading Fritzgerald's translation which is a bad one. Not only did he take many liberties, parapharsing many quatrains but Fritzgerald himself called the translation a "transmogrification".
This is what the translator said:
_" "My translation will interest you from its form, and also in many respects in its detail: very un-literal as it is. Many quatrains_ _are mashed together: and something lost, I doubt, of Omar's simplicity, which is so much a virtue in him" (letter to E. B._ _Cowell, 9/3/58). And, "I suppose very few People have ever taken such Pains in Translation as I have: though certainly not_ _to be literal. But at all Cost, a Thing must live: with a transfusion of one’s own worse Life if one can’t retain the Original’s_ _better. Better a live Sparrow than a stuffed Eagle" (letter to E. B. Cowell, 4/27/59)."_
Omar Khayyam and Sufis in general were very much Muslim and Sufism is in fact Islamic. In fact, Islam itself is Sufism in nature. The mistake people do is take many of the symbols (like wine and women) literally and not figuratively.
They were not Muslim, that was the whole point of their philosophy. Sufism was a pantheistic, humanistic mystic tradition that goes back to long before Islam and it was revived during the Islamic era in Iran in fact as a reaction to Islam. It dates back to the Persian Empire itself and the Yavaran Movement and the time of Mazdak and Mani and their philosophy. They are still many Sufi groups living in Iran and I have talked to these people. By no stretch of imagination they could be classified as Muslim, They do not think Mohammad is a prophet, they think he is just one guy who happened to find a way to dictate his version of mystic inspiration to the masses. In their philosophy such inspirations are personal experiences that a soul must undergo through isolated contemplation. They do not find anything interesting in Quran, in fact many of them told me that they think it is a dangerous legal document. I would appreciate it if westerners would keep their orientalist " wisdom" to themselves. Your remarkable lack of knowledge about my culture is the only interesting thing about your interest in my culture.
yet we are trying to interpret words first. in a language which did not even exist back when such books were written. persian arabic or even sufi philosophy might be difficult to understand in essence. yet we figure the meaning of the words first.
The Koran! well, come put me to the test-
Lovely old book in hideous error drest-
Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
The unbeliever knows his Koran best.
And do you think that unto such as you,
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
God gave the secret, and denied it me?-
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.
that must be very muslim, my @sce
Khayam, Hafiz and many other philosophers had moved on beyond Islam. They believed you have the God inside you. In fact the famous poem says, why are you going to Mecca when God is everywhere, inside you.
>"our soon to be exit from Afghanistan"
>uploaded 2013
If you only had known the truth...
hi ,i hv been listening to your lectures and find them quite interesting,but in this lecture you hv made a very big mistake, Muslims did pray 5 times before the invasion of Persia. they were doing it in madina and 5 times of prayers are obligatory in Islam but we have 3 more prayers of day.so i guess its high time you should read about Islam with an open mind,why not start with quran,and i hope Allah will guide u too.
Wes Cecil's need to get a cheap laugh from his students at any price makes him pay a big price, which is lack of truthfulness and professionalism. He missed his calling as a standup comedian.
Mongols did not defeat themselves, even after the death of the Great Khan. They became civilized and mixed with other people. They did not destroy like that, only punished those, who did not obey.
He has almost every thing wrong in this lecture. I can not believe he has a PhD on the field. A lot of discrepancies when it comes to names, centers of powers, significance of places etc. In regards to the Sufi literature it seems he has no idea about the significance or the implied meanings of the terms such as wine, love/lover, to drink etc. His comments on the subject of lit are totally misleading and misguided. This lecture is a complete waste of time, a complete misinterpretation of the entire Civilization.
This is called dominant narrative. Even when Zorastrians write, they use the same categories for Avestan Categories, that it looks almost a semitic religion.
Awghan give us fact ? what part?
wow, some major factual issues i have there..first muslim prayed 5 times a day when the prophet was still alive and not cause of some zoroastrian so i would appreciate that you would focus on history and stop trying being funny while making some ditortion to islam.
This is hyped BS. That there were idol worshipers is not mentioned in Avesta. Why do Europeans historians Concoct history as they go. Put all issue sin Christian images.
and i believe if Zoroaster was praying 5 times than even better,and if christians fast or jews fast and muslims too than it proves what is the best way to live a life, it brings one closer to God.i am sure Abraham prayed too,so we never claimed islam to be a new religion ever.i hope you understand .try wathing Zakir naik on utube or try reading quran yourself may be you will find some answers yourself.no harm in giving it a go you hv read alot there is always room to learn more.bestRegards zashi
So much ignorance and distorted truths in this lecture. Dont bother wasting your time, I would recommend highly his lectures on French and Chinese literature.
+Hamid Tajik I love the Persian language, this lecture is not a good commentary of it however.
+Pooyan r I very much prefer his other lectures, this one and the Arabic one however were sub par at best
All the lectures have many distorted truths, that's modern education.
Pooyan r I didn't write that the lecture is bad. However, I am of Slavic origin and have studied Chinese all life long. Listening to his lectures about Chinese and Russian literature, there were a LOT of mistakes and he is tending to have some own ideas, thus uses to distorting some facts in order to follow his own way. Anyway, the lecture is OK for those Westerners who need some introductory information on the subjects. I am expecting more from a PhD.