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  1. US Mass Media entrap the US into disastrous Middle Eastern policies By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis A preposterous case of unprecedented falsification of Ancient, Islamic and Modern History published in the New York Times will procreate further Middle Eastern Dramas! The present criticism concerns an article that was published before a month in the New York Times, and more particularly the feature “Turkey Allows a First New Year for a Tiny Minority” (on April 4, 2005) by Katherine Zoepf (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/international/europe/04turkey.html). The article in question intended to highlight some of the significant changes that have taken place in Turkey over the past two years within the context of the overall modernization and democratization of the country of Mustafa Kemal Pasa Ataturk, a name that is oddly absent in this feature. ATATURK and Modern Turkey: common target of Ossama Bin Laden and Nicolas Sarkozy, a French Minister. At this initial point, we have to specify that the founder of Modern Turkey has long been the principal target of fanatic and ignorant sheikhs of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other backward and undemocratic countries, the likes of Metwali Shaarawi and Gad el Haq Ali Gad el Haq, who posthumously found disciples and followers in the persons of Ossama Bin Laden and Nicolas Sarkozy, the vociferously anti-Turkish French minister. It is true that at the times of Mustafa Kemal Pasa Ataturk, the 20s and the 30s of last century, nationalism was running high everywhere, being sometimes diverted to extremes. It is also true that, in his effort to forge a modern state, Ataturk disregarded the real historical fact that Turkey was (and still is) a country where, except Turks, other peoples live as well, notably the Kurds, the Aramaeans, the Arabic speaking populations of Hatay, and last but not least the Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities. Turkey: the Search for Diachronically Multi-Cultural Anatolia The Search for the Soul of Anatolia (Anadolu in Turkish - from the Greek word Anatoli that stands for East/Orient and was earlier designating the Eastern territories of the Eastern Roman and the Ottoman empires) was a strong trend indeed in the 20s, the 30s and the 40s. The advancing decipherments of the Hittite, the Hatti, the Luwian, the Sumerian, and the Urartaic (Pre-Armenian, once also called Vanic from the Van Lake periphery) fascinated and motivated the freshly westernized Turks of those days. Hittit Bank and Sumer Bank are just two indications of a deep concern for the four millennia long History of Anatolia/Turkey. It is essential to notice that, proceeding in this way, Turkey entered into the chorus of the modern, highly civilized and educated countries for which Historical Continuity and Self-Knowledge is the Key for Progress in every sense. Without a strong commitment to National Historical Research, and without conceptualizing Historical Knowledge into the spheres of Modern Education, Culture, Behavioural System, and Political Life, a country remains always a backward third-world country easy for colonial manipulation of any form. This became very well understood in Turkey 75 years ago, whereas it is not yet an issue in any Arabic speaking country or in other colonized parts of Asia and Africa. The Search for the Infinite, Three-Continental, Turkic Cultural Milieu Along with the Search for the Soul of Anatolia, came to surface the Search for the Soul of Turkish/Turkic Three-Continental Milieu, that vast circumference where various Turkic languages and cultures were developed from Anatolia to China, from Persia to India, and from African Egypt to Russia and Eastern parts of Europe. It is impossible to forget in this regard the Mongol rulers of China, the Mogul dynasty of India, the contribution of Turkic speaking military elites into the formation of Urdu (official language of modern Pakistan, and vehicle of communication for dozens of millions of Indian Muslims), the Turkic speaking royal and principal dynasties of Iran, Mesopotamia, Egypt (the Mamelouks – for 200 years before the arrival of the Ottomans in 1517), the Tatars, the Huns, etc. It is true that the Turkic axis prevailed to some extent over the Anatolian axis, but this was never determinant and definite in Turkey, where both searches were peacefully accommodated. Turkish politicians, ideologists, intellectuals, authors, and erudite scholars were always free to opt for the orientation they thought it better expresses the Unique Multi-Variety of the Country – Melting Pot at the Crossroads between East and West. The Greeks, the Armenians, and the Kurds With the Armenians finding a national homeland within the then risen Soviet Union, with the Greeks gone (after the 1920-22 War and the Exchange of Populations in 1925 – which was something that Eleutherios Venizelos asked and Ismet Inonu agreed on), and with the Kurds incorporated either through hundreds of thousands of mixed marriages (f.i. the late President Turgut Ozal’s mother was of Kurdish origin) or through the authoritative term (Daglarin Turkleri: Turks of the mountains!), several Anatolian aspects of Culture and History were weakened and/or undermined. Of course, this was prejudicial to the Anatolian multicultural treasure, but it was only understandable after the traumatic Armenian affair (when a people of the Ottoman empire, the Armenians, worked as Fifth Phalange for the sake of a traditional enemy, Russia), and the fratricide wars with Greece (that resulted in the breaking of hundreds of thousands of families that were half Greek and half Turkish – since these terms at those days designated simply the Christian and the Muslim parts of the same, amalgamated, people). As far as the Kurds are concerned, one has to bear in mind that Kurdology came to surface as another academic discipline within the sphere of the Orientalism and the Humanities, as late as the 1980s, and the treasures of Kurdish Culture, the Sheref Nameh, the Great Historical Epics of the Kurdish History, and the Mashaf-e Ras, the Holy Book of the Yezidi Kurds, were not known, let alone studied and scholarly / intellectually assessed, in the 1920s and 30s, when Vassilii Nikitin was a pioneer researcher in this field. And what about the Aramaeans? Having faced terrible hardships before and during World War One, having been decimated at Kutshanus, nearby Hakkari, in the mountains at the north of Mosul that are part of modern Turkey, and having been classified as just ‘Christians’ (so closely but erroneously assimilated with the Greeks and the Armenians), they faced the difficult times of Rigid Secularism, like many traditionalist Muslims in 1930 Turkey or the majority of the Catholic Christians in 1793 France. Some Aramaeans left for Iran, where historical Aramaean communities had settled even before the arrival of Islam, especially in Urumiyeh and in Ahvaz. Others left for Europe and America. It would not make sense to move to French mandate Syria and/or English mandate Iraq, where local Aramaeans were already oppressed by the persisting Islamic fanaticism and by the rising, totalitarian ideology of Pan-Arabism that was criminally and idiotically sponsored by France. Pan-Arabism: a criminal, totalitarian ideology – tool of Colonial Powers This bogus-ideology is criminal in its conception because it does not emanate from a rather correct assessment and understanding of History (as in the case of Russian, Slavic, Iranian, Italian, German nationalisms, to mention but a few) but it is based on a total falsification of the History of the Middle East. It aims at deforming the Aramaic identity of all the Arabic speaking populations of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the Emirates for later political manipulations and machinations initiated by France and England. Pan-Arabism is also an idiotic theoretical fabrication of the French. Mixed with Islamic fanaticism and extremism that prevailed under the form of Wahhabi barbarism (being of course totally un-Islamic and anti-Islamic, if Islam is to be considered according to the theoretical understanding of Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, Mohyieldin Ibn al Arabi, Ibn Battuta, and other leading erudite scholars of the Islamic Lights), Pan-Arabism can generate hundreds of millions of Ossama Bin Ladens that will have no difficulty to blow up the Louvre next time; suffice it that an ingenious leader says a few ‘proper’ sentences to manipulate them better than France and England did. For the persistence of Colonial structures in the Arabic speaking part of the Middle East, it is essential that Pan-Arabism remains unchallenged. This is of course an oxymoron, in the light of the aforementioned, but the French apprentice magicians of the Sorbonne, the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, and the College de France proved to be a total failure, as Edouard Said demonstrated in his celebrated criticism, ‘Orientalism’, a must in the related bibliography. The Colonial Scheme Against the Aramaeans For the persistence of Colonial structures in the Arabic speaking part of the Middle East, it is essential that a) confusion, lack of national historical and cultural identity, c) absolute ignorance of and total disconnection from the great Aramaic, 3 millennia long, past, d) national and political division, e) lack of national unity, and f) lack of democratic system prevail among the Aramaeans, who are dispersed in the aforementioned 11 (eleven) Middle Eastern countries. The Colonial Scheme Against the Universal Dimensions of the History of the Aramaeans For the persistence of Colonial structures in the Arabic speaking part of the Middle East, it is also essential that modern Aramaeans, either they speak Aramaic or Arabic, are faced with a definite lack of multicultural approaches in conceptualizing their uniquely rich National History that encompasses • the Ancient Aramaic kingdoms, • the Assyrian – Babylonian cultural heritage, • the internationalization of Aramaic in the times of Arsacid Iran (250 BCE – 224 CE), when Aramaic was adopted as scripture in Iran, India and Central Asia, • the various Aramaic cultures of the Late Antiquity, as attested at Palmyra (Tadmor), Edessa of Osrhoene, Nisibis, Hatra, Rekem (Petra), Margdis, Doura Europos, Qumran, etc, be they Jewish, Mithraist, Gnosticist, Manicheist, Chaldaean, or Christian, • the various para-Aramaic cultures of the Late Antiquity, from Africa (Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt) to Central Asia (Bactriana, Sogdiana, Transoxiana), India and China, where Aramaic communities diffused Knowledge, Culture, Science, Philosophy and Trade, • Jesus Himself, as an Aramaic native speaker, • the greatest moments of Christianity, Christian History, Theology, and Christology, from the Diatessaron Gospel of Tatianus, to Ephraim Syrus, Nestorius, Abdisho, and so many others who remain cautiously hidden far from the ‘lights’ of the supposedly unbiased European universities, and out of the pages of World History Manuals and Textbooks meant for European Secondary Education, • the greatest moments of Islam as Culture, Civilization, Lights, Science, Arts and Letters in Umayyad Damascus, Abbasid Baghdad, and elsewhere (without the Aramaeans’ conversion into Islam, Prophet Muhammad’s Preaching would have been limited in Arabia and Yemen), and – last but not least – • the most pioneering moments of Christian expansion in Yemen, India, Central Asia and China, before the diffusion of Islam. Here we have to say that these heroic Arameans, who diffused Christianity to the four corners of the Earth, did not need to kill any local people while preaching Christianity, which is of course the opposite to what happened to millions of native Americans and Africans, who were ‘lucky enough’ to fall into the ‘benevolent’ hands the ‘civilised’ Christians, namely the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch, and the English ….. Advanced Colonial French Scheme: Diffusion of a False Name (‘Assyrian’) as Supposedly National Name of the Aramaeans Working out its colonial schemes (with the well-known results), France had to divide the Aramaeans in a way to prevent them from National Awakening. The work implied the diffusion of a false national name among several communities of Aramaeans. The false name was that of a great ancient people that was already extinct before 2600 years, namely the Assyrians. It is true that the Ancient Aramaeans, although frequently decimated by the Emperors of Nineveh (Mosul), Assyria (Qalat Sherqat), Kalhou (Nimrud) and Dur Sarrukin (the four various Assyrian capitals), adopted many elements of Assyrian and Babylonian Cultural Heritage. The same concerns however the Ancient Hebrews and the Judeans, the Anatolians, the Phoenicians, the Persians, and the Greeks as well. It is true that, due to the Sumerians and the Akkadians / Assyrians – Babylonians, Mesopotamia has been the Cradle of the World Civilization. But the Aramaeans, who already outnumbered the Assyrians at the times of Assurbanipal, did not ‘become’ Assyrians! How would a modern Iranian function, believing he/she is not Iranian but … Sumerian? The dimensions of the misleading predicament are easily understood. And the practice has been attested in various other cases of colonial diffusion of false identity! Not necessarily only in the Third World, but also in Europe. France is already a bogus name, reflecting the imposition of a minority, the Franks, over the Gallic majority…. America’s Dilemma: the Founding Fathers’ Principles or Colonial French tactics? America is a new power in this part of the world; the US is a new power altogether. Emanating from the War of Independence, bringing forth New Lights and Great Principles, modeled after a specific universal role envisioned by the Founding Fathers, America fought repeatedly against Colonialism. The fight took place at various levels, economic, political, and military. It is probably high time for America to understand that the Cultural War again Colonialism has not taken place so far, and that without it the US has no chance to change the Middle East and other unfortunate parts of the world as drastically as it wants, and as it is needed. The victory cannot be over the Effect, namely the Islamic Extremism, but over the Cause, i.e. the Cultural Colonialism. The enemy cannot be the gun, but the military headquarters that sent to the warfront the soldier with that gun. The danger for the US does not come from Ossama Bin Laden, but from Colonial France (military headquarters) and from the mixture of Pan-Arabism with the Islamic Extremism (soldier). By searching for Ossama Bin Laden, the US searches nothing. This is a point that must be widely understood in America, and in Europe, where the US still has many friends, as it does in several parts of the world. America must reach these unknown friends, and to do so America must cast away ignorant people, who jeopardize American interests by openly adopting Colonial policies, as the aforementioned, that directly harm America too. Lies contained in the New York Times bogus-report In the feature published in the New York Times, the name of ‘Assyrians’ was used throughout the text, and various false stories were added. Under a correct title, Turkey’s process of modernization and democratization, a false context presented to American readership an unbelievable amount of lies. • It is a lie that anybody in Midyat calls the Syriac - Aramaic population as ‘Assyrian’. • It is a lie that these Aramaeans call themselves as ‘Assyrians’. • It is a lie that they use the name ‘Akitu’ for ‘New Year’s Day’. • It is a lie that the word Akitu is part of the Syriac - Aramaic vocabulary. Actually it was never attested in any Aramaic text of all times. • It is a lie that the word Akitu was known to anybody allover the world before the decipherment of the Ancient Assyrian – Babylonian Cuneiform by Henry Creswick Rawlinson in the 1860s. • It is a lie that Akitu signified ‘New Year’s Day’ for anyone except the Ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, who are totally unrelated to modern Aramaeans. • It is a lie that the article in question is a ‘report’. A report can never be the narration of inexistent things, the mention of unused names, and the quotation of unsaid sentences. The article is an idiotic fabrication of an ignorant American, who helps promote the Colonial French policies against the Aramaeans in the Middle East, and consequently damages any chance America has in the region. It is truly shocking to see an American diffuse the Anti-Aramaic Colonial French policies concerning an area France failed to do so! The only cases of Aramaeans, who felt victims of the Colonial French propaganda and of the French policy of ‘Assyrianization’ of the Aramaeans and of obliteration of their Universal History, are some Aramaeans of Iraq and Iran. At the end of the present refutation of the bogus-report, I paste the integral text of the criticized article. Wherever one finds the name ‘Assyrian’, one must read ‘Aramaean’. INVITATION TO A PUBLIC DEBATE As a Historian and Orientalist, who visited repeatedly the beautiful town of Midyat, and the entire area of Tur Abdin in Southeastern Turkey, and published numerous features, scholarly articles, entries to encyclopedias, and books about the area, the History of the Aramaeans, and the History of the Ancient Assyrians (of whom modern Aramaeans are totally irrelevant, despite the French forgery), I invite the author, Ms. Katherine Zoepf, and three representatives of the Aramaeans (not ‘Assyrians’) of Midyat (on whom she and I will agree), to a public debate to be held anywhere either physically or electronically. If she does not answer and/or present her excuses, she automatically corroborates my points and arguments about her anti-American forgery. At the end of argumentation, I am left with just one personal question: - Why is the hatred of the Western Colonial Powers so deep against the Aramaeans, the people who still speak and write the language that was native to Jesus, and to all the Jews of His era?
  2. The Falsehood of Pan-Arabism: a Progenitor of Wars and Tyrants. The deep and hidden reason of the tyrannical oppression practiced throughout the Middle East is the imposition by France and England of pan-Arabic nationalist cliques that intend to dictatorially arabize the various peoples of the Middle East, who are all not Arabs. By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis, Orientalist To start with basic, we should stress the point that among the member-states of the so-called Arab League there is not a single one inhabited by Arab population. In this regard, the simple and single historical truth in this is that there are no Arabs at all. There are only Arabic-speaking peoples having striking dissimilarities one from another, and they all have different past, different cultural backgrounds, different social and behavioural systems, different orientations and archetypes. Only failure is guaranteed in any attempt to shape up a union among these so disparate elements and peoples. We have all attested numerous similar examples of disunion, mutual disparagement and unprecedented co-vilification so paradigmatically performed by the uneducated and uncultured leaders of the Arab League. The mistake was to view all that as fratricidal situation, whereas it is not, since they are very disparate and divergent from one another. It is only the paranoiac and contra-natural regrouping named Arab League that, by creating the shock of bringing together elements that just cannot be together, generates the unpleasant atmosphere in which all these funny and clownish leaders are engulfed, without knowing why this happens to them! So pathetically ignorant they are. If this concerned only these grotesque characters of the present day political Commedia dell Arte, the problem would be limited, and no one would need to discuss and tackle it. But the West and the rest of the World is found involved in this situation one way or another, because of the interconnections existing since the Colonial times. The Middle East affects the entire world. And if this absolute and fundamental historical reality is not widely assessed and understood first, nothing good can come out of the Middle East, and its extremist frenzy. If the Middle Eastern peoples are not Arabs, what are they? The real, true but hidden Face of the Middle East. In reality, the Lebanese are Phoenicians, who got hellenized and aramaized in Late Antiquity. Arabic speaking Syrians and Iraqis are Aramaeans. So are the Palestinians and the Kuwaitis, as well as the Emirates and the Qataris, who have certainly been intermixed with Persians. Egyptians are Copts, native Egyptians, descendants of the people of Ancient Egypt in their amalgamations with the numerous foreigners, who passed by the valley of the Nile: Aramaeans, Phoenicians, Yemenis, Greeks, Meroitic Sudanese, Romans, and others. Sudanese are descendants of the ancient Meroites and the Nubians. Libyans and the people of the Maghreb are descendants of the Khammitic peoples of the great Atlas, Berbers, in their genuine fusion with Carthaginians and Romans. And finally Yemenis are Yemenis, descendants of the ancient states of Saba, Qataban, Himyar, Hadramout and other; they are closer to Abyssinians (mistakenly called Ethiopians) than to the Arabs of Hedjaz. Islamization: the reason of the (linguistic but not racial) Arabization All these peoples, by accepting Islam, sooner or later, started becoming arabized, but this happened at a linguistic, not at a racial, ethnic level. And we know only too well that the Arabs of the times of the Prophet were not numerous at all. One generation later, when let us say Islamic armies were reaching Carthage in todays Tunisia, Central Asia and the Indus valley, the Muslim fighters were speaking Arabic but among them Arabs were already a minority. Aramaeans from Damascus and Ctesiphon, Egyptians from Alexandria, Yemenis from Muza and Persians from Praaspa were already a majority among them! They learnt the language of Quran, but they did not and could not change their racial and ethnic origin. The Copts (Christians) of Egypt, and the Assyrians and Chaldaeans of Iraq and Iran are very good examples that show very well what happened: those who remained Christians preserved initially their language (Coptic and Aramaic Syriac), and lost it gradually in later dates. Among the people who accepted Islam in the early period, only Persians preserved their language. This is not strange, since the great cultural phenomenon of Ferdowsi gives us an insightful understanding of the subject. If Copts and Aramaeans had not been christened, and if they had kept a national traditional historical record of their glorious past, they would have resulted into a different perception of Islam, preserving their original languages and developing epics similar to Shahnameh. Colonial practice and diffusion of Pan-arabism Because this did not happen, we attest nowadays the current situation, but this does not involve that these peoples are Arabs, or that a kind of union can be based on falsely perceived history, and tons of misinformation and disinformation due to colonial powers diplomacy. Mainly France and England became the centers of emanation of a falsely conceived and inaccurately studied pan-Arabism, since they focused their educational academic cultural ideological policies on issues related to their strategic efforts to bring down the Ottoman Empire, Safevid Iran, and Mughal India. The term inaccurately studied is employed because this falsehood created problems worse than those it was supposed to solve, even if we limit the discussion to the Western world, since Islamic Terrorism is a later result of the earlier ideological developments in the area of the Middle East. It is from the Western European universities, political parties and demented ateliers of all sorts that nationalism emanated. And as such, it caused serious problems to peoples of the East and the West, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and others. The confusion spread throughout the territories of the Ottoman Empire finds its equivalent in the disaster of the Irish, the Scots, the Corsicans and the Celts of Brittany. Actually, it leads to nowhere. Earlier one understands this, sooner one escapes from the traps that led millions to wars and disaster. Of course, the Colonial Scheme was not meant only against the Ottoman Empire. It did aim at creating an entire situation in which it would be sure that no powerful successive state form would ever rise in its stead! In this way, the colonial powers shaped the problematic Middle East of the 20s, the 30s, the 50s and the 60s that we all know; an area of total confusion and impotence. An area, from which the Western powers would extract oil and other resources in a most profitable way that at the same time would help them impose themselves as undisputable powers over the rest of the world. Following the results of the WW I America joined the two colonial powers that achieved a multi-targeted miracle: 1. they destroyed the Ottoman empire 2. they made sure that no power rises in its stead in the Middle East and 3. they kept rival Germany and Russia far from it! Impossibility of an Arab nationalism In the sense that never Indians will be able to express Chinese nationalism (!), and never Spaniards will be able to express Portuguese nationalism, never will a. the Copts of Egypt (all the population is Coptic, Egyptian properly speaking, not only the Christians, those who are called Copts) call them just Egyptians if you want b. the Aramaeans of Iraq, Syria, Jordan (I mean again the entire population of these countries, not just the Christains), of Iran (the so-called Arabs of Khuzestan are just Aramaeans), of Turkey (Turkish, Kurdish or Arabic speaking populations of Antakya, Gaziantep, Kahraman Marash, Urfa/Edessa, Diyarbakir/Amida, Mardin/Margdis, Nusaybin, Hasankeyf, Siirt and Cizre) and of Lebanon (here I limit it to the inlanders) c. the Berbers of Lybia, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco (again I do not mean the Kabylians in Algeria, who openly declare their Berberic/Khammitic identity, but the entire population of all these countries) d. the Nubians (belonging to the so-called Nilo-Saharic group of languages and races) of Egypt and the Sudan (another terribly oppressed minority), who live between Luqsor in Egypt and Karima in Sudan e. the Meroites of Sudan, who live either nubianized in the north of Karima or arabized between Karima and Malakal in Central Sudan, being the descendants of the ancient Khammitic population of the historical Sudanese states Kush (800 525), Meroe (450 BCE 350 CE) and (Christian) Makkuria (450 1150) f. the Yemenites and the Omanis, who are certainly Semites but closer to the Abyssinians than to Arabs (their extensively recorded on epigraphic monuments ancient language gave birth to Gueze, the official and religious language of Axumite Abyssinia, and has been preserved until now in some parts of Hadramawt and at the island of Sokotra) and last but not the least g. the Palestinians, the Kuwaitis, the Qataris, the Emiratis and the Bahrainis, who all are arabized Aramaeans, be able to express such a thing as Arabic nationalism. The strength of survival in numbers was more considerable in the case of the Nubian and the Berberic than for Syriac, Yemenite or even Coptic. The latter went silent just 150 years ago. At the times of Champollion, Coptic was still mother tongue to a few thousands of Christian Egyptians. But yet, Coptic is the religious language in use for the Christians in Egypt, and many hundreds of thousands learn it in the religious schools. To this - necessarily summarized presentation - there can be only a counter-argument: Several scholars have indeed pretended that Arabs, going outside the Arabic peninsula at the very Dawn of the Islamic Era. finally settled and definitely intermingled with local populations from Iran and Oman to Morocco, in a way that we could admit a certain . arabization at the racial, not only the linguistic, level. The Aramaization of the Middle East during the Late Antiquity: a real racial intermingling. This would be an entire aberration. Of course, any ization can eventually take place at the level of race, not only language, culture or religion! The case of the Aramaization of Babylonia and Elam (a long procedure that took place from the 6th to the 1st century BCE) is quite indicative! But there were numerous Aramaic populations transported by the Assyrian emperors of the 8th and the 7th centuries there, or had settled because of their own choice. Elamites were exterminated by Assurbanipal at 640 BCE, and the decapitated Babylonians started being outnumbered by the continuously arriving in the Mesopotamian South Aramaeans! But nothing similar happened during the early Islamic times! At the times of the Prophet, all the Arabs of Hedjaz did not outnumber the population of just one big Aramaic, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Abyssinian, Berberic, Meroitic or Yemeni city like Tadmor, Syene (Aswan), Istakhr, Corinth, Mediolanum (Milano), Axum, Carthage, Dongola Agouza or Aden! So, there cannot be discussion about numbers, the real Arabs went lost among the multitude of the early Muslims, already before the year 30 of Hegira! What most of the modern Western (in their great numbers Colonial) historians failed to see, focus and understand is that already during the life time of the Prophet Yemenites accepted Alis preaching in Yemen at 630 CE. In great numbers! Along with them, Persian soldiers and colonizers, since Yemen belonged to the Sassanid Empire. Islamic, not Arab invasions So, to rtepeat what we earlier stated, when the first Islamic armies were fighting at Yarmouk (636) and were reaching Jerusalem and Damascus (638), there was a sizeable non-Arabic part among them! And we know only too well that these armies were not so numerous! When, a few years later, Islamic armies were reaching Nihavent (641) and Alexandria (642), already more than half of them were not Arabs! When Islamic armies attacked Constantinople (677) and reached Gibraltar, Arabs were already insignificant portion among them. Early Islam was not culturally Arabic: on the contrary, Islam de-arabized the then Arabs of Hedjaz. This reality shaped the world, and it was widely accepted among early Muslims in the first centuries of Islam. It was not limited at the racial level whatsoever! It was then accepted as encompassing all levels: cultural, literary, philosophical, religious, scientific, artistic. The great movement of Shuubiyeh precisely stressed the point that the contribution of the Arabs was just. nothing! And the Shuubiyeh were correct! Not only they knew more than the modern XIXth century scholars but they did not have back mind schemes and hidden plans! Nothing from all the aspects of the Islamic civilization is Arabic, except the language! Art, philosophy, sciences, literature, knowledge, wisdom, technology, administration, army, navy, religion, theology: nothing in early Islam is Arabic. Perhaps this is the most correct summary of the case: by accepting the prophet Muhammad, 7th century Arabs were des-arabized once and forever! In the sense that all that was genuinely Arabic before Muhammad with his preaching took a definite end! Different type of Islamization: the Persians preserved Persian, but other peoples got linguistically arabized. An effort of analysis. The different approaches to the phenomenon of the adhesion to Islam consist in a certainly large truly speaking a vast, subject. We currently know many details, but until now scholars did not focus on a comparative, eventually interdisciplinary, approach. Turks accepted Islam late, in Central Asia, and through the Persians. The main issue focalizes on the difference between a. the Persians from one side and b. the Aramaeans (the many Aramaic speaking peoples that consisted in the outright majority of the areas belonging to todays SE Turkey, SW Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Emirates, Bahrain, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and N NE E Arabia) and the Egyptians from the other side. The main distinction between the two groups at the very moment of the beginning of the Islamization procedure was the fact that - all the Egyptians and the great majority of the Aramaeans belonged to various Christian denominations, with the minority of the Aramaeans practicing Manichaeism and other Late Antiquity forms of Gnosticisms (of which originate both the Mandaean and the Yazidi Kurdish minorities of present day Iraq), but - the outright majority of the Iranians were following various religious systems that almost all were derivatives of Zoroaterianism (namely Mithraism, Mazdakism, Zervanism, Gayomardism) turning around the Court derivative of Zoroasterianism, i.e. Mazdaism that was deeply involved in shaping a national nationalistic political ideology that could not find its counterpart among any christianized people and/or state. Whereas Mazdaisms approaches to the diachronic role of Iran were shared by Iranian Mithraists, Mazdakists, Zervanists, Gayomardists, and eventually Iranians following other religious systems (Manicheism, Nestorian Christianity, Buddhism), Christianized populations of the Roman Empire, Aramaeans, Egyptians, Greeks, Armenians, Romans and others were involved in terrible Christological divisions, debates, confrontations, and polarizations. They had all rejected political ideologies related to their pre-Christian religions, cults, ideologies, and philosophies, adopting the Christian Roman ideology of Urbi et Orbi, a kind of early internationalism bringing nations together to the trinity god of that religion. The case of the Egyptians was particularly hard, since terrible hatred against the Pharaonic past of the country was diffused among the darkened minds of the fanatic, christianized masses, leading therefore to total disrespect for their own identity, culture and past. Briefly, the ideological issues that were by then prevailing among the Aramaeans were the division between Nestorians (who rejected Jesus divine nature) and Monophysites (who rejected Jesus human nature), and the common rejection of Constantinople Christianity (that was refuting both, Nestorianism and Monophysitism, accepting Jesus double nature). The issues among the Egyptians were the fights between the outright Coptic Monophysitic majority and the sizable Greek majority that was following Constantinople Christianity, as well as the anti-Jewish stand of the Christians that created serious problems wherever Jews formed a sizable minority. Similar to their attitude of forgetting their mother language because of their adhesion to Islam, one can find later among Greeks, who by accepting Islam went through linguistic turcization. There was no apparent reason for them to preserve Greek (as for the Arameans Aramaic, and for the Egyptians Coptic), in the way Persian was preserved among Iranians. As far as the Yemenites are concerned, it seems that Monophysitic or pro-Constantinople Christianity (supported by and collaborating with Axumite Abyssinian King Kaleb, who invaded Yemen to help the Eastern Roman Empire in its fight against the Sassanid Empire of Iran) was so insignificant (whereas the majority was versed either in older forms of Yemenite religion, or in Nestorianism and Judaism), that the overwhelming acceptance of Islam came as a natural result to earlier developments. Peace depends only on the extinction of the falsehood Pan-Arabism. This effort for analysis consists in just some introductory thoughts regarding the perplex phenomenon of Islamization, but again the subject is vast, and mostly unstudied. However, this events implications in the present day politics are so deep that never peace in the Middle East will be achieved, before an earlier understanding and a final outmaneuvering of the aforementioned situation be reached and undertaken! Arabic nationalism must be extinguished, the Arab League must be dissolved, Syriac, Berberic, Nubian, Yemenite and Coptic must be taught in the schools, primary and secondary, in parallel with Arabic and Kurdish! Not only minorities, but the entire population of the Middle East must be taught the correct language in the primary and secondary education. This is the only way to Peace in the Middle East.
  3. The Future of Iraq is in NATO Progress and Development in the Middle East hinge on an ultimate annihilation of the Colonial infrastructure set up by France and England By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis As we all know in a few days the American presence will recede in Iraq, leaving space for the new Iraqi administration to show up. What are the challenges this group of new people will face? How could one help the first non Colonial government of Iraq set up a new infrastructure in all sorts of fields, going from Security and Interior to Education, and from Development to Foreign Policy? France attempts to block the progress of Iraq This question should be the only thought and care of the important powers and factors involved in the recent developments in the Old Land of Mesopotamia that led to the dethroning the uncultured, uncivilized, barbaric regime of a nauseating dictator, who would still enjoy power, if we were to pay more attention to the ludicrous idiocies Jacques Chirac unashamedly was diffusing to the four corners of the Universe! However, the French President is still idiotically around and, in his appropriate style of Don Quichotte, friendly predisposed to all the remaining ruthless dictators of the world, will attempt another pathetic lecture about the ‘need’ for Iraq to be outside the NATO’s domain of influence and area of activity. Why all this anti-democratic hysteria of Jacques Chirac, who recently said that Iraq needs not ‘Missionaries of Democracy’? There is no point of counter-attacking and asking the mentally unbalanced and old President of an ailing country ‘whom then does Iraq need, Saddam Hussein?’. Pathetically, Chirac would not answer… It is not a big deal; we can use History and Political Sciences to easily grasp what stands against the Neo-Nazist attitude of the French president. In reality, France is afraid that this is the end of an entire situation going back to Napoleon and the French Imperial dreams he elaborated and diffused among his compatriots, who are still of fond of the Corsican officer. The paranoiac arguments of the French pro-dictatorial diplomacy However, it would be interesting, before exploring the reasons of this unprecedented attitude, to examine the validity of arguments advanced by the French diplomacy in its support of the French Don Chiracotte! French diplomats say that NATO is viewed in the Middle East as ‘an alliance of armies of the Christian West’. This is unbelievable! So blind and mentally impotent are the French? Staying first close to the facts, one should remind them that Turkey has been a fully accredited NATO member state for more than 50 years, and was always committed to both, the political and the military activities of the alliance. Not like France and ‘General’ de Gaulle’s ‘grandiose’ but lonely moving out of the military part of the Pact! Turkey is NATO member and Muslim How NATO is ‘an alliance of armies of the Christian West’, since Turkey is one of the top NATO armies, being a 99.5% Muslim country? Perhaps, Chirac will try to say that Islamic extremists do not consider the modern secular state of Turkey as ‘fully Islamic’! Well, thank God that Turkey displeases the barbaric beggars of Egypt, the criminals of Sudan, the thieves of Syria (get out of Lebanon now, guys!), and the uncivilized, Terrorism funding, bogus princes and tent-‘kings’ of Saudi Arabia! Being rejected by the analphabetic masses of these dysfunctional states, Turkey gains a greater credit and an increased reputation among the civilized peoples of our world. But what happened to Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and all the French philosophers of the Lumieres? How great a pleasure they must feel watching such a disgusting pro-dictatorial degradation of their country’s foreign policy in which the arguments of barbaric and fanaticized masses, as well as of the world’s most anti-human terrorists, are being adopted by the successors of Talleyrand… Chirac’s mouth pronounces the discourse of Ossama bin Laden And Andre Malraux, the famous idealist, philosopher and Human Rights fighter, who risked his life in Spain against Franco in the middle 30s, would he accept this squalor of Jacques Chirac? What Jean Paul Sartre would say for this unmatched disgrace of his country? Would there be one, just one, French politician after WWII, from Mendes France to the communist Marchais, and from Michel Debre to Francois Mitterrand, who would accept their country at a level that can only match that of the pro-Nazist inclinations of Petain in occupied WWII France? When did a French politician and statesman make his the words of barbaric and criminal terrorists? Muslims consist in a sizeable part of the Western countries Speaking further on about this issue, one has to notice that, beyond Turkey’s participation in the NATO, there is a great number of Muslims in all the other NATO countries, starting from Germany (even Turkish origin members of the Parliament) and France (where the majority of the local population in some villages is already Muslim), and ending with the USA and Canada. Taking these figures into consideration, one cannot call the Western European and Northern American countries as truly a ‘Christian Club’. Not a single logical Middle Easterner considers NATO as ‘Crusaders’. Second ‘argument’ of the Chirac anti-NATO and anti-Iraq hysteria is that Nato in Iraq would remind these masses of the Crusaders! Well, this is another argument of Ossama bin Laden that execrable Chirac dares to adopt and further diffuse! But it is just rubbish! Except the extremist and fanaticized masses, no other Middle Easterner would ever consider NATO’s presence in Iraq as the 21st century Crusaders! Except, Chirac wants to diffuse even more this concept among them in order to radicalize them up to the level of forming an anti-American alliance with Ossama bin Laden! Many Iraqis wish a very strong presence of NATO in Iraq. Truly speaking, what happens in Iraq, and what the average Iraqi wishes id diametrically opposed to the paranoiac assumptions of the French diplomacy. There are many in the Middle East, who would love to see ‘Crusaders’ arrive from the West! Of course, here ‘Crusaders’ stands for generals and statesmen, intellectuals and academia, businessmen, and international cooperation based on a) Human Rights, Democracy, c) Respect for Minority Rights, d) Effort for Progress and Emancipation, e) Collapse of the Colonial Nightmare and f) Deletion of the related literature of Falsehood. Limiting the subject within Iraq itself, I intend to focus, underscore and highlight those who want truly to see Western Crusaders arriving in Iraq, contradicting both, 1) the American hesitation to go ahead with a very daring and far-reaching program, and 2) the ferocious French opposition to any effort for human improvement in Iraq. Criminal France hides and censors Iraqi minorities in order to preserve its false myth of an Arabic Iraq inimical to the USA. These minorities wish the arrival of Western Crusaders in present day Iraq: · the Mandaeans. A religious minority that consists in the only survival of the Gnosticisms of the Late Antiquity. They exclusively live in Iraq, and speak Syriac, the latest form of Aramaic. · The Yazidis. This is a Kurdish religious minority living in the surroundings of Mosul, and generally speaking in Northern Iraq. Being an interesting subject for the History of Religions, they consist in a unique amalgamation of Gnosticist and Islamic elements. They have their own holy book, Maskhaf-e Ras (the Holy Black Book), and they have been long persecuted by the barbaric and bloody killers of the Wahhabi group as ‘Satano-latrous’. · The Ahl-e Haq religious minority of the Kurds. · The Christians of Iraq, either Nestorian or Monophysitic, who consist in a very large minority, and speak Syriac (Aramaic), like the Mandaeans. · The Turks / Turkomans of Iraq, another sizable minority of Iraq. · The Armenian, Circassian, and Persian minorities. · The various Kurdish minorities (the use of Plural is due to the fact that they consist in many groups, speak different languages, etc) One should stress at this point that the aforementioned minorities mount up to 40% of the entire Iraqi population, since there are only two groups unmentioned, namely a) the Sunnite Arabic-speaking group that does not exceed 10% of the entire population, and had been transformed into a terrorizing tool in the hands of the former dictator, who belonged to and was supported by that group, bestowing all sorts of privileges upon the group members, and the Shia Arabic-speaking group that consists in the largest of the Iraqi ethnic – religious entities, representing half of the country’s population. There is still a group of Iraqis that may wish to see Western Crusaders arriving in Iraq; these people are · Shia or Sunni Iraqis, who want to live in a Western style, and reject the idea of installing an old and obsolete religious rule and system in their society. At this moment one should stress the point that under the previous dictator, there was no theocratic system imposed in Iraq, and several aspects of Western daily life habits, free contact between girls and boys, use of alcohol, etc were prevailing – in striking contrast with backward and obscurantist Egypt, or evil Saudi Arabia. The American administration should highlight, regroup and base its policy in Iraq on the aforementioned multi-partite, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural majority, disarming and ultimately disabling the uneducated and fanaticized Iraqis from damaging the process of nation-building that will certainly take long. If France cares about avoiding the Clash of Civilizations, France must allow Muslim girls wear the Islamic veil in the French schools. The correct answer to the French perverted insistence on keeping NATO far from Iraq is: - How a country that prohibits Muslim girls to wear hedjab (the Islamic veil) in the schools, displays such an unusual care for what the Islamic extremists and terrorists are going to think for the arrival of NATO in Iraq? Ultimately, the presence of NATO in Iraq is not going to add to the ‘Clash of Civilization’ theory, despite the falsely announced French fear! Quite contrarily, it is going to annul this perspective, by contributing to the establishment of a Western democratic country - second to Turkey in the Middle East - that will precipitate radical changes among its neighbors. And this is certainly what France is mostly afraid of. Soon after the imposition of civil order, Iraq should enter NATO. France could then go; it would not matter, since France and Iraq have approximately the same size; especially if we do not count Corsica for France.
  4. The Six Stars of the Orient - A Cultural and Historical Itinerary in South-Eastern Turkey by Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis Published in Greek, in 1994 (DOMOS Publishing House, Athens - Greece), 240 p., the book consists in a very unusual Itinerary linking History, History of Religions, description of monuments and archeological places with personal tourist experience, as well as with transcendental contacts the author seems to have had while traveling in, studying and exploring the area of todays South-Eastern Turkey in the middle and late 80s. This unusual and odd travel guide book presents six cities and/or provinces of Eastern Turkey, namely Urfa (Edessa of Osrhoene), Commagene, Amida (Diyarbakir), Mardin (Margdis), Nisibis (Nusaybin) and Thospitis (Van), at two levels, present time (middle to late 80s to be precise) and Antiquity, covering the real, daily and physical, as well as the transcendental levels of existence, of understanding and of events, in all aspects of human achievements carried out in that area, from architecture to government and from thought to faith, en passant by the activities and the works of some Grand Masters of the Intuition and the Initiation; reference is also made to part of these works that seem to have taken place under the surface of the Earth, which is presumably inhabited in its inner parts, according to the author. In the Preface, the author attempts to familiarize with the area of Eastern Turkey his average Greek readers, who have been accustomed with political conflicts between Greece and Turkey for decades, and were led to a status of ignorance about their neighboring country. Yet, many Greeks have been born in Turkey and, surprisingly but truly, Turkish was for many decades the first foreign language in Greece, much more practiced than French or English. This was due to the fact that the exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece in 1925 drove to Greece more than 1.5 million Christians of Anatolia, who were all fluent in Turkish, since Turkish was the state language, the school medium and/or the mother's tongue for these people, whereas their knowledge of Greek before their arrival in Greece was questionable. The mention of similar issues may make now this book look political of content, but it has nothing to do with politics whatsoever. From the very beginning of the first chapter the average reader may realise this very easily. 1. Edessa of Osrhoene Edessa of Osrhoene, today's Urfa in South - Eastern Turkey, is the central point of the first chapter. Already we discover there all the fundamental characteristics and the major trends of Megalommatis' itineraries. After describing monuments and archeological remains, he gives a great part of consideration and effort to present in a very vivid way several, selected moments of the Edessene past, i.e. various glorious pages of the history of Edessa of Osrhoene, as well as and the entire province of Harran. The picture of the rival, Egyptian and Babylonian, armies of Nechao and Nebukadnezzar observing each other from the opposite river shores of Euphrates at Karkhemish is very strong and rich. Certainly, the greater area of Harran was the cross point par excellence between Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia and Anatolia for thousands of years.! Megalommatis refers to Harran and its monuments, moving throughout History, from Abraham's crossing to the Islamic times. Extremely fascinating are the details offered about the Sabians, the astrosymbolists of Sumatar. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis considers them as initiated experts in subjects related to the End of Time, and to the arrival of the Messiah. He states that they seem to have been recently dispersed in order to pursue their positively evaluated work during his lifetime. The question therefore comes to the average reader: are we living at the times of the Messiah? 2. Commagene The second chapter concerns Commagene, and within this long presentation of the small Anatolian state that was ultimately annexed to the Roman Empire, Megalommatis dedicates a lot of pages to his philosophical, ideological, historical and esoteric approach to the raison d etre of the monumental and superb site of Nemrut Dagh, i.e. the famous and sublime "Ierothesion Koryfes" (peak sanctuary) of the Commagene kingdom. A very unusual comparative approach is extensively discussed here with regard to Nemrut Dagh and Takht - e Suleyman, the presumably "rival" holy place in Persia. Out of the former emanated an iconolatrous polytheism, whereas the latter emitted an aniconic monotheism, and for this reason was always revered by the monotheistic Sassanid Iranian court as the holiest place throughout Iran. Before comparing the quintessence of both sanctuaries ideologies and the functionality of the two different systems at the social level of the average believers, Megalommatis, who had already published numerous academic contributions with respect to Mithraism, goes through a vast analysis of the historical and ideological, artistic and philosophical background of Mithraism, the system that prevailed in Commagene. The historical background of the polytheistic Mithraic opposition to the monotheistic Zoroasterian orthodoxy of the Achaemenid Persian court is presented by Megalommatis in a meticulous way, and the same analytical method is used by him in making a synthesis of historical and philosophical understanding with regard to the Arsacid and the Sassanid times in Iran. All this gives already the impression of how important the Persian radiation and influence throughout the Greco-Roman world has been, since Mithraism was not only diffused among Greeks and Romans, but also became the official religion of the Roman Empire itself. Even more surprising is the way Megalommatis attempts to make of all this stuff an important component of our lives today; the end of the chapter, bringing the subject at a rather ethical philosophical level, he offers an excellent advise for anyone of us, namely to kill our inner Commagene. It is obvious that Commagene becomes like this a synonym for pessimism, deviation, devastation or negative spirit. 3. Amida In the books third chapter Megalommatis presents Amida, the present day city of Diyarbakir, the great Kurdish capital of Turkey. Very interesting visions from Daniel's book of prophecy are to be met here, since the river Tigris is considered as the common vehicle of intuitive ideas and powerful images of the End of Time. A striking juxtaposition between Edessa and Amida leads the reader to the fundamental characteristics of the nature and to the basic aspects of the souls of these two cities. Edessa is presented as the city of the family life calmness next to the blessed waters of the lake, whereas Amida is depicted as the city of the sexual passions and pleasures in the bars and the brothels next to the virulent flow of the most aggressive river, Tigris. Even more fascinating pages are dedicated to a symbolic description of the initiation the author had in the historical and esoteric mysteries of Amida, at the Mansion of the Amidian Black Lady and Diachronic Mistress. This Domus seems to be an Amidian permanent atelier of the Oriental Free Masonry, where she apparently had difficult exercises adjusted to the author. She then offered him answers to many historical questions of his Diyarbakir is the correct place to speak extensively about Kurds. That is why in this chapter Megalommatis presents in a very literary way the Ancient, the Islamic and the Modern History of Kurds, adding much insightful information about the Yezidis, a Kurdish religious minority living mostly around Mosul, in Northern Iraq, and believing in a Gnosticist - Manicheist religious system that absorbed many elements from Islam, preserving however its genuine character, autonomy and Holy Book, the renowned Mashaf-e Ras, the Black Holy Book, to which Megalommatis also refers, including also a few excerpts. The vision of the Sublime Nineveh, as the ultimate capital of the Kurds, heralding the Celestial Jerusalem, closes the chapter. 4. Nisibis The great caravan city center of Philosophy, Theology and Ideology, Nisibis Nusaybin, comes next! It is an excellent occasion for the author to offer us a deep understanding and a theoretical diagram regarding the most famous and the most controversial Gnosticist system of the Late Antiquity, i.e. Manicheism, the system set up by Mani to which so extensively Islamic historians like Tabari referred (Manawiyah). This presentation takes the form of a rather imaginative discussion the author, being now depicted as a member of an old times caravan, had had with a very particular traveler, the Manichaeist Magician and philosopher Bardesan. The ideological extrapolation helps the reader to understand not only the basic concepts and the real dimensions of the system established by Mani, but also to get historical viewpoints over this philosophy and religion, as well as the theoretical refutations of Mani, as compiled by high priests and philosophers of rather Iranian Mazdeist background. Of no lesser interest are the strong, vivid and colourful descriptions and images Megalommatis offers his readers; the meticulous portrait of the Manicheist Bardesan itself, including his turban, his aura and his eyes, is closer to painting than to literature. A good knowledge of the Manicheist temples frescos of Turfan (at the Central Asiatic deserts of Eastern Turkestan or Sin Kiang, actually in the North - Western Chinese province) seems to have served here as source of inspiration for Megalommatis. All this happens, as if we have been transported to past times, and more precisely in the era of the Sassanid Empire. All the important monuments of Nusaybin, Mar Augen and the Tur Abdin area are referred to and described, and after this passage, Megalommatis attempts to offer to the average reader the opportunity of another transfer in time, in this case through a discussion with a Yemenite merchant, Daud Reydan, who visits us here, at Nisibis, by means of a phenomenal mirage! 5. Mardin As a matter of fact, the fifth chapter of the book focuses on Mardin, Margdis. After a historical spectrum and an attractive narration of the architectural scenery, the old and aristocratic houses of the Mardenes, their schools, mosques and castles, Megalommatis refers to the Assyrian days of glory of that city, Marida, as well as to the Assyrian excellence in underground construction and building. The most fascinating part of the chapter follows, and the author refers to an unusual experience of initiation he had in one of the Mardene mansions, from where he seems to have had access to deeply hewn underground corridors, as well as to landscapes of a hollow Earth, a notion that we meet in Jules Verne and in Umberto Eco! Megalommatis places all his experience under the auspices, the theoretical ideological coverage and emblem of Sin, the Moon symbol of the Assyrian Sargonid monotheism. Symbolic bas-reliefs related to the ancient Assyrian concepts of Ishtar or Adad were reportedly met in those odd corridors as well. The author advanced further; then, after describing his thoughts about and approach to long underground corridors that lead to faraway places, being built by the monotheistic Assyrians and the polytheistic Babylonians (both acting always in the sense of outmaneuvering the adversary's work), he proceeds by narrating a great vision he had had. A dark circle, containing the faces of leading Monophysitic theologians and clergy, and more particularly those of Peter the Gnafeus, Severus and Jacob the Baradaius, and a golden like, bright, circle encompassing the faces of the Nestorian vanguard, Narses, Yihiba and Barsuma, the son of Fasting, seemed to be in a terrible clash. This fighting rays vision ends with the encounter the author had with a centuries old Wise Man, who introduced himself as follows: "Abdisho, Holy of Knowledge of the Great Assyrian Church of the Orient, Seal of Knowledge of Jesus, Augustus Fighter, Treasurer of the Wisdom of Nestorius and of Theodorus of Mopsuestia, High Judge of the Balance of Barsuma, Grand Master of the Drishane Class of Errants, Follower of the Preaching of the Great Grand Master Sergius Bahira, who taught the Truth to Muhammad of the Arabs, Afraat Speeches Memorizing Award, Member of the Natar Kurshia, Interpreter of Nuhara Tismshatha and Humble Soldier of Jesus and the Prophets against the Society of Evil". Even more intriguing are the historical references Abdisho pointed out to the author. In a way of narrating the Monophysite Nestorian conflict that shaped all major developments within the Oriental Christianity, Abdisho seems to describe details and give explanations about all the important intellectual, ideological and cultural developments in the History of Christianity at the East: Tatianus, Bardesan, the rise of the Sassanids in Iran, and its impact on the Oriental Christianity, the ideological and religious systems of the Sassanid Iran, Afraat and his fight against Manicheism, Shapur's effort to consolidate Mazdeism and his double fight against Manicheism and Oriental Christianity, the opposition between Dabisho and Far Boht, the persecutions of the Oriental Christians by Yazdgerd II, details from the Chronicle of the Karkha of Bet Selok, the great work of Nestorius, the Bet Lapat synod, and the continuation of Nestorius' work by Barsuma. All is narrated, as if lived by a person contemporaneous of the aforementioned events and developments, who was deeply involved in all these issues. The overall scenery is narrated in very vivid and literarily great terms. 6. Thospitis / Van The last chapter of the book covers Thospitis, Van as is called the lake city at the easternmost confines of Modern Turkey, not far from the borders with Persia and Iraq. The chapter also relates to the famous Hakkari province, which is superb in terms of natural environment, high rocky mountains, narrow passages, cold water rivers, great caverns, wild forests and, generally speaking, inhospitable frontier zone. The chapter actually starts with a very strong and a most fascinating picture, a narration of Assyrian soldiers attending Assurbanipal's fight against lions in what can be an early November freezing and glacial morning in that area that the Assyrians had called Hubushkia. These are very unusual passages for what is known as Modern Greek literature; the text is full of intriguing archaic words and outbursts a very striking atmosphere. Later on, Megalommatis mentions his own personal experience and wintertime traveling adventures he had in the area; then we find references to Prophet Jeremiah's passing by that area during his trip from the Holy Land to an island at the Western confines of the world! The Eighth military and cultural Campaign of Sargon of Assyria, the departure of the Assyrians and the ten tribes of Israel, and their way through that area to the Eastern, the Northern and ultimately the Western part of Europe, the Kurdish and the "Assyrian" Aramaic Nestorian presence (the Kutshanus Patriarchate), the importance of the area for the Great Powers during World War I, and their involvement in the then terrible local developments cover consequently many pages. A great part of narration refers to the final expedition of Heraclius (that started from Trabzon) against Iran's Khusraw Parvez. After a very detailed location of Heraclius' points of passing, Megalommatis draws the conclusion that even the boldest attempt must leave the area of Hakkari aside; so inhospitable and dangerous it is! A far-reaching personal experience of the author has been intermingled with another historical event that may have happened in this very area during the past, and more precisely in the Sassanid times. Details of the Zaradosht teachings, a balanced system that tried to pull Manicheists back to the Mazdaism and to the Sassanid Court official version of Zoroasterianism, as well as several other crucial points of the Sassanid era are given through a very fascinating interlocution the author may have had with Ulughash, an Iranian scribe of the days of Varahran II. Then, we are led to Hosap, Cavustepe and other important archaeological places of the area, always with historical and modern bibliographical references. At the end, we reach Van, the Assyrian Tushpa, capital of the pre-Armenian kingdom of Urartu that consists in a great period of Anatolian History during the fist pre-Christian millennium. In this regard, the author takes a clear pro-Ottoman position and criticizes the political errors of the Armenians, who attempted to betray their country (i.e. the Ottoman Empire), and then were kicked out from their homes, since they were living in a militarily sensitive zone nearby the receding Ottoman front to the Tzarist Russian armies. In their way through Kurdish villages, thousands of Armenians have been slaughtered, but this cannot be called genocide, it is not the fault or the crime of the Ottomans, it is only the consequence of the way the Armenian populations of the Ottoman Empire became a tool at the hands of an enemy, i. e. Tzarist Russia. Then comes the most beautiful part of the chapter, a conversation the author had with an Old Wise Man within a huge pearl at the bottom of the Thospitis Lake. The Wise Man initiated him in the Universalist and Pacificist Dream of Sammurammat, the famous Assyrian Queen, rather known as Semiramis within Western literatures environment thanks to Herodotus. In this part of the book, we come to meet an entire course of History of Religions, a full revelation of the Assyrian Monotheism, and a complete analysis of the Assyrian mythical symbols. The author closes the chapter with a reference to the European peoples, whom he identifies as the descendants of the Assyrians and the Ten Tribes of Israel, stating that nowadays the real Orient is in the Occident! The chapter closes with the verses: And until the Orient returns to the East, whatever I liked more in Thospitis, was Hakkari. As Epilogue Megalommatis mentions details of his initiation in the Order of the Kurds Quattuor Coronati, plus terms of the Order, and the importance of the year 2005 for the Order. Maps and Vocabulary complete this great book.
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