Alevism and Baktashis Traditions

Alevism is a number of sufi orders with close common shares with Twelver Shia Islam. The most important order of Alevis are Baktashi order (Baktashiyeh). One of the old orders where safavism which is also know as Kizilbash orders that they found the united Iran (Persia) after 9 houndred years and the essental political and religious bases of the present Iran can be rooted to Safavid and the kizilbash movement.

The baktashis are less known in Iran and after decline of ottoman they moved their headquarter from east Anatolia to Tirana in Albania. However their traditional music is still strongly found in East Turkey and it is a major component of mystic ( from sufism) traditional music of the middle east.

Here I put some link on the founder of Baktashiyeh Hajj Baktahs Wali who was originally from khorasan and he moved exactly during the same period as Rumi (Balkhi)'s family to minor asia and for the same reason (Mongol catastrophic Invasion of Persia).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajji_Bektash_Wali

Also a typical alevi baktahsi music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frPg2ugRdq0

Bedbug

Bedbug is becoming a nightmare in big cities in North America. The growth rate of this insect has been increased in five times during past few years. The biggest source of infection is first luggage and suitcases coming back home after travel and second is the used furniture.

Some recommendations to avoid the infection is:

1) Washing the cloth in the suitcase immediately after arrival at home in the hottest possible water and drying for at least 20 minutes.

2) Vacuuming out the suitcases

3) Isolating the suitcases after arrival and before vacuumin out and washing the cloths

4) Being concerned on purchasing used furniture and avoid used matresses at all costs.

A discussion on the necessity of oriental studies with a local view

I just found a very interesting lecture on some issues related to the relation of modern science and traditions by a world well-known traditionalist , Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr. He believes that understanding eastern issues through solely western views is not appropriate as we conclude about our inside through a mirror picture, which is in some cases are the old picrure and it is not correctly updated. He gives examples of how the Greek knowledge introduced to Middle easterns during the Islamic Golden Age and how they made everything local.

Here is the link, which is a lecture given at MIT some time ago :

http://web.mit.edu/mitmsa/www/NewSite/libstuff/nasr/nasrspeech1.html

More details on the biography of Prof. Nasr as a predominant Iranian philosopher and an international icon in Islamic studies can be found at:

http://www.nasrfoundation.org/bios.html

Re-examining of Mongol invasion of Iran

I found an interesting link by a famous Iranian mathematician who tries to model the decline of the Persian culture after Mongol invasion. He is Prof. Abbas Edalat from Imperial College , UK. He will give his presentation at IPM (Institute for studies in theoretical physics and mathematics) in Tehran, Iran. Here is an abstract of this presentation, which gives some idea. I found it interesting although, modelling social phenomena with only mathematical tools can be inadequate in many cases :

http://www.ipm.ac.ir/edalat2.pdf

Roman-Persian wars

Roman-Persian wars took about 700 years and it affects the middle east region. Both sides were not able to gain decisive victory so in long time their boarders were unchanged. The last Roman-Persian war started in 602 AD and took 26 years until 628 AD. The rapid Persian gains and Preaching to the greatest extent of the Persian empire was responded by progressive victories of Romans and pushing back Persians to their lands and following them to their capital Ctesphone. The final stage of this war showed that the Persian Sasanid armywas no longer able to concentrate and resist and was loosing its competence. This was finally approved during the Islamic conquest of Iran where Persian outnumbered army was not able to fight against moslem arab light cavalaries and they lost a big territory in Iraq only 9 months with a catastrophic loss of soldiers and heavy cavalaries.

Here is a link on Roman-Persian wars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman-Persian_Wars

Who is the logo designer of Iran Air (Homa)

Only a tiny percents of experts in Graphics in Iran know who the logo designer of Iran Air is. A documentation on the history of graphics by M. Momayyez also indicates a wrong history of the logo of the flag carrier of Iran. Here is an interview with the logo designer:

http://www.rasm.ir/default.asp?Aid=2200

Biofuels bad or good

I just found a very interesting Q & A website on Biofuels. This shows some bad aspects of the production of biofuels and the efficiency of such fuels. This website is developed by Prof. Tad Patzek from UC Berkeley (currently the chairman at the department of petroleum engineering at U of Texas at Austin; number one petroleum school in the United States).

I have seen more evidences on inefficiency of the production and use of biofuels. I believe the solution is still responsibly use of fossil fuels:

Here are the links:

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/QAarchive2007.htm

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/qatop.htm

Ibn Khaldun - The father of the philosophy of history

Abdurahman Ibn Khaldun is one of the last scholars of the Golden Islamic Age and certainly the last in the North Africa and Andalus region before the end of the Islamic Golden age in the fourteenth century. He was born in 1332 AD in Tunisia from an Andalusian family from Sevile which was forced to migrate from Sevile after Reconquista in Spain. He studied in Fez ( a famous school in North africa during medivals) and lived in Tunisia for a long time and finally moved to Cairo in Egypt and died in 1406 AD. He lived in a critical period of the Middle east and north africa history when the Mongol invasion destroyed Persia and Baghdad and the islamic intelectualism was declining as a result of the cultural deterioration by the destructive Mongol invasions. This deterioration was accelerated by the invasion of Timurlane (Teimur ). At the same time the Reconquista in Spain and Portugal was completed and most of Andalus (Spain) except the Kingdam of Granada was captured by the christian kingdom of castile ( They re-took Spain and established Spian in the present cultural atmosphere).

The situation led him to think more deeply on the historical events and the reason that a culture decline. His methodology is completely extraordinary during his life and is completel close to the methodology of some europian philosophers and thinkers in 18th and 19th century including Hagel. His work " Introduction = Al Mudaddimah " is a master peice in the old sociology and the philosophy of history, politics and economics. He used the dynasties in North Africa and Middle east as samples and categorized the reasons that a cultural rises and declines. His book has a review on different ancient cultures including persians.

Another work is the book Assabiayah = " ties". He invistagte the history of moor and arab tribes in North Africa and try to conclude the factors in their political deterioration and try to model the similar cultures in the world at his time.

It sounds interesting to manetion a small part of his book " Introduction" on Persians as he extensvely admired the Persian culture and he name some facts that the Prsian cultural at his time was declining ( For a while the scholar centre of the Islamic world was moved from the east Islamic territory including Persia and Baghdad to the west such as Cairo and Tunisia and Morocco"

" On Persians :

"It is a remarkable fact that, with few exceptions, most Muslim scholars both in the religious and intellectual sciences have been non-Arabs."

"Hadith of Persians and belief":

"Thus the founders of grammar were Sibawaih and after him, al-Farisi and Az-Zajjaj. All of them were of Persian descent…they invented rules of (Arabic) grammar…great jurists were Persians… only the Persians engaged in the task of preserving knowledge and writing systematic scholarly works. Thus the truth of the statement of the prophet becomes apparent, "If learning were suspended in the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it"…The intellectual sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them…as was the case with all crafts…This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries, Iraq, Khorasan and Transoxiana, retained their sedentary culture."

Here are some links on Ibn Khaldun :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah