Christianity In Persia And The Status Of Non Muslims In Iran

Writing on an often overlooked section of contemporary Persian culture, A. Christian van Gorder provides a comprehensive and readable introduction to the experience of Christians and other non-Muslims in Iran throughout history and into the present day. Van Gorder gives a fascinating account of the history of Christianity in Persia. By debunking the common misconceptions and stereotypes driven by recent political events and the media, he shows the current relationship that the Muslim majority in Iran has developed with people of other faiths. Book jacket.

When it was originally published this book broke new ground in presenting one continuous narrative of the history of Christians in Persia from the second century A.D to the 1970s. The material gathered here was previously only to be found in obscure books, manuscripts and foreign periodicals. Christians in Persia shows the intricate history of the period concerned; the personalities of the rulers and the ruled; the difficult task of the missionaries; their successes and failures and the consequences of their efforts. All this is related to the wider history of the country and to the expansion of Christianity in the East.

Iran is home to approximately 70.5 million people who are ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse. The central authority is dominated by Persians who constitute 51% of Iran¿s population. Iranians speak diverse Indo-Iranian, Semitic, Armenian, and Turkic languages. The state religion is Shia, Islam. Contents of this report: (1) Recent Developments; (2) Background; (3) Persian Dominance; (4) Under the Islamic Regime: History of Ethnic Grievances; Ethnic Unrest; (5) Major Ethnic Minority Groups: Azeris; Kurds; Arabs; Baluchis; (6) Religious Minority Groups: Sunni Muslims; Baha¿is; Christians; Jews; (7) Reaction to the Status of Minorities; (8) International Rights Groups. Map and table.

Examines Iran's Armenian community, shedding light on Muslim-Christian relations in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

Eliz Sanasarian's book explores the political and ideological relationship between non-Muslim religious minorities in Iran and the state during the formative years of the Islamic Republic to the present day. Her analysis is based on a detailed examination of the history and experiences of the Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Jews, Zoroastrians, Bahais and Iranian Christians, and describes how these communities have responded to state policies regarding minorities. Many of her findings are constructed out of personal interviews with members of these communities. While the book is essentially an empirical study, it also highlights more general questions associated with exclusion and marginalization and the role of the state in defining these boundaries. This is an important and original book which will make a significant contribution to the literature on minorities and to the workings of the Islamic Republic.

What is the Legal Status of non-Muslims in a Muslim Context? Are they yet regarded as the People of the Book (ahl al-Dhimma) or as the citizens like Muslims?

Although today the region is mostly identified with Islam, it has been home to many other great cultures, and the civilization of the Islamic world is itself indebted to the various peoples that the Arabs subdued in the 7th and 8th centuries. Far from fading away after the Arab conquest, the inhabitants of the Iranian plateau and of Mesopotamia were central players in the lives of their regions. However, the magnitude of their contribution to the emergence of the early Islamic world has hitherto been neglected. In this fascinating and groundbreaking study, Khanbaghi offers a comprehensive discussion of those groups that resisted assimilation to the new Islamic order yet continued to participate actively in the socio-political life of their homeland. He concentrates on Iran, which due to its complex religious history offers unique opportunities for the study of non-Muslim communities, specifically of Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians.Aptin Khanbaghi has written an important and fascinating book which aims to present a thorough evaluation of the historical contributions made by religious minorities - Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians - to the societal and cultural physiognomy of the lands of Iran in pre-modern and early modern times. His general perspective and his broad treatment of the topic are quite new, while his use of sources and of the secondary literature is genuinely impressive. The Fire, the Star and the Cross makes a very significant and original contribution to our knowledge and understanding of Iranian history and civilization during an era when the foundations were laid for the emerging modern Iranian state.'BERT G FRAGNER, Director of the Institute of Iranian Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna

Focused on the work of the renegade missionary 'Ali Quli Jadid al-Islam (d. 1734), this book contributes to ongoing debates on the nature of confessionalism, interreligious encounters, and cultural translation in early modern Muslim empires.