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Imprisoned Iranian Ayatollah Offers Hanukkah Greetings to Jews
Weekly Standard ^ | Dec. 11, 2010 | Stephen Schwartz

Posted on 12/11/2010 7:00:37 PM PST by nuconvert

The name of Iranian ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi is little known outside his own country, which is unfortunate. Ayatollah Boroujerdi has been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since 2006.

Boroujerdi, aged 50, is an heir to a distinguished Shia clerical family. He was born in Tehran and educated in the Shia religious center of Qom. Like his father, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Ali Kazemeyni Boroujerdi (1924-2002), Boroujerdi preaches the pre-Khomeini interpretation of Iranian Shiism, which calls for religion to be kept apart from politics. His health has been badly affected by the conditions of his imprisonment, yet he has continued, from his cell, to denounce the regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Unlike the competing clerics who challenged the ruling duo in last year’s challenged balloting, Boroujerdi has become a consistent champion of secularism. He has declared, “the regime is adamant that either people adhere to political Islam or be jailed, exiled or killed. Its behavior is no different from that of Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar.”

(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Israel; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: ayatollahboroujerdi; boroujerdi; hannukah; hanukkah; iran; israel; jews; religion; stephenschwartz; waronterror
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To: nuconvert; All

Very wise sounding for someone that is the product of Islamic education.

He seems to understand a principle concerning belief. You cannot force anyone to believe anything. You can only prescribe or proscribe behavior, and not that easily. Oh yes, at the point of the sword you can make someone “say” they believe (or don’t) something, but you can’t change what they really believe inwardly.

Beliefs (any beliefs) are personal and cannot be coherced.

Now what I’m about to write is NOT a slam on Roman Catholics.....When Constantine turned Christian, eventually “Christianity” was made the state religion of Rome. This filled the “churches” with many, many people that didn’t trully believe...they just wanted to get along or advance. It was the worst thing that ever happened in Christian history. It laid the ground work for the horrors done in the name of Christ in later years.


21 posted on 12/12/2010 3:12:07 PM PST by Sola Veritas (Trying to speak truth - not always with the best grammar or spelling)
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To: MplsSteve
I hope you’re right. I also hope that many members of the Basij are hanging right alongside the mullahs.

It will be a bloody civil war. The Basij tend to be recruited from among the rural poor. Being a thug enforcer is all they know how to do. They have no skills that would allow them to exist in a free Iran at their current standard of living, and will fight to preserve their positions.

22 posted on 12/12/2010 3:13:51 PM PST by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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To: FARS

>>”Grand Ayatollah Montazeri was ousted from succeeding Khomeini for this reason”<<<

As you know, Montazeri studied under Khomeini for years before Khomeini took power in Iran in 1979 with the help of Montazeri.

Montazeri wasn’t ousted during at least first 6 yrs after Khomeini took power. Montazeri actually supported Khomeinist regime until he was so-called ‘ousted’ a couple of yrs before Khomeini died, and was put under ‘house arrest’ .. wow! how sad ... Montazeri was ousted because it was all a political struggle between the two factions of the same ISLAMIC REGIME.

These are facts, and you know it. Whether you want to spin it that way or not that is you choice.

As for Boroujerdi, too bad. I hope he is released, but he should know his kind & his religion/sect.

My memory is very refreshed. Perhaps we should refresh our collective memory about those innumerable Iranians, who have died, precisely, because some rather remember & justify the actions of some idiot such as Montazeri or even Boroujerdi over others.

Am truly sorry FARS, but I expected something more impartial & accurate from you, not the usual mainstream pro (reformist) IRI spin.


23 posted on 12/12/2010 3:15:19 PM PST by odds
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To: odds

IIRC, Boroujerdi’s father had the same secularist views, and was also a confidant of the Shah. The Shah would be driven to Qom to meet with the elder Boroujerdi.


24 posted on 12/12/2010 4:03:03 PM PST by Fred Hayek (FUBO! I salute you with the soles of my shoes.)
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To: Fred Hayek

>>>”IIRC, Boroujerdi’s father had the same secularist views,<<<

The Constitution of Iran during the late Shah specified the Shia (twelvers) Islam (Jafari school of theology). Specifically, the Monarch & the heir to the throne had to be Shia Moslems.

The Constitution of Iran became even more Islamic, per above, after the Shah was overthrown in 1979 (when Khomeini took power) - more Islamic laws have been since enforced.

Notable is that the much vaunted & admired “Grand Ayatollah Montazeri” actually wrote the Islamic Constitution of Iran after the Shah was overthrown, and when Khomeini took over.

Whatever Boroujerdi or his father was teaching for their ‘secularist views’ to the Shah didn’t work. It was all pie-in-the-sky.

The late Shah of Iran has been buried in Egypt since his death in 1980.


25 posted on 12/12/2010 5:57:13 PM PST by odds
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To: FARS

Thanks for the ping!


26 posted on 12/12/2010 7:05:33 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: odds; All; Spunky; ~Kim4VRWC's~; 1035rep; 2ndDivisionVet; 4woodenboats; 5Madman2; ...

Pro-reformist? Me? IRI spin?? Where did you get that? There are no more fervent an anti-Islamic Iran regime proponents than Alan and myself. However, there are repentents, like Montazeri and Boroujerdi (the latter, already an Ayatollah, never supported Khomeini) who turned against Khomeini as his weirdness turned ever more rapacious. And ruled by ignorance as does Obama.

That does not mean I forget and forgive, specially when Rafsanjani, Moussavi, Khatami and Karoobi etc., and their Green movement were all part of the Khomeini administration and all have rivers of blood on their hands.

Montazeri recanted and was set aside and basically lived thereafter under house arrest.

I was a witness to and reported the moment by moment seizure of Boroujerdi when he rose in opposition to the regime and tried to overthrow it.

Does not make him a good guy but he is less bad and when he and Montazeri realized what a huge Obama type mistake they had made, tried to take steps to correct it.

I look forward to all Iran’s street lamp posts being “trimmed” (like our Xmas trees) with mullah decorations hung by their necks including Boroujerdi but in a balanced analysis, I woud have a twinge of momentary sadness to see Boroujerdi strung up. Mostly because of his father being a fairly honorable supporter of the monarchy. As are Alan and I.

And the enemy of my enemy is philosophically my ally if not really my friend and deserves a modicum of pragmatic support.

I’m delighted by your fervor and fully support it but in a pragmatic world we have to find allies where we can - even within the hated Mojaheddin to achieve the overthrow of the mullahs we need.

You will agree that politics make strange bedfellows and like the matter of Mojaheddin, they are allies till the primary mission is accomplished and then need to be removed in phase two. Off the face of the earth if need be.

For now,like with Boroujerdi, they are a catspaw for the greater need, not a solution in themselves.

Nothing even handed or reformist about my attitudes or opinions about the clerics - only in the phrasing for practical reasons. I lost dozens of high ranking, close friends during the revolution while I was still trapped inside Iran, but as the Persians say there are times to stealthily cut off someone’s head with soft cotton wool.

cheers


27 posted on 12/12/2010 10:45:12 PM PST by FARS (Be healthy, happy and thrive)
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To: nuconvert

This is news? I don’t really care what the Muzzies do or not. THey all can take a long walk off a short pier.Who wants relations with the idiots?

And who cares who is in jail or not, and what they say? The whole country needs a shellacking, after what they have done to the whole world for the last 30 years.

Eff them royally!


28 posted on 12/13/2010 12:24:53 AM PST by Candor7 (Obama . fascist info..http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/brack_obama_ipthe_quintessentia_1.html)
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To: Candor7; nuconvert
"This is news? I don’t really care what the Muzzies do or not. THey all can take a long walk off a short pier.Who wants relations with the idiots?

And who cares who is in jail or not, and what they say? The whole country needs a shellacking, after what they have done to the whole world for the last 30 years.

Eff them royally!"

Astounding! And not in a good way.

29 posted on 12/13/2010 6:33:35 AM PST by Valin
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To: FARS

Thanks for the ping!


30 posted on 12/13/2010 7:05:27 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Valin
small minds

31 posted on 12/13/2010 7:42:59 AM PST by nuconvert ( Khomeini promised change too // Hail, Chairman O)
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To: nuconvert

I really don’t understand Candor7’s kind of thinking...and I use the word thinking in the loosest sense of the word in this case


32 posted on 12/13/2010 1:50:52 PM PST by Valin
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To: Valin; nuconvert

Yes, and wahts more I do not think the bashibazooks should have a damn bit if inluence over any domestic policy. Who in hell do they think they are?

This is America, and I’ll be damned before any one of them gets to tell me that they do not need to take off a veil for a security photo due to religious reasons, for example.Political correctess is not the basis for any public policy, empirical evidence and history is..logic.

I have no intenton of having a relatonship of any sort with any muslim, unless it be on an adversarial basis.This is their community attitude, and they will have it back 10 fold.The can take their fascist political correctness and trade it in for the freedoms enjoyed by any American, or get the hell out.Thay means joining in completely with America and her culture and observing their religion within their own homes and churches. Thats where it stays, or it dies, and some of them along with it IMHO if necessary.

Welcome to the melting pot. THe pluralistic society of liberal fascism is dead, it will die so hard it will never return, rejected and unmourned by a united nation of free people.

The taqiya of wishing happy hannukah from prison is a poor joke. Who gives a $hit? About 200 million of us don’t.They play bleeding heart leftists and their media synchophants like fiddles.


33 posted on 12/13/2010 4:07:03 PM PST by Candor7 (Obama . fascist info..http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/brack_obama_ipthe _quintessentia_1.html)
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To: FARS

I think you have had a very interesting life FARS.
Merry Christmas to you.


34 posted on 12/13/2010 5:02:12 PM PST by potlatch ( Life must be lived forward but can only be seen looking backward. - Soren Kierkegaard)
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To: Sola Veritas; All

When Constantine decided to use Christianity for the unity of the state, he told the Christians to get their act together and decide exactly what Christianity actually was. Thus we had the Council of Nicea and one set of theological interpretation decided on and all others declared as heracies. Oh, how many millions of disenting Christians have been murdered because of Constantine’s decision? Thankfully we have the First Amendment.


35 posted on 12/14/2010 1:38:23 AM PST by gleeaikin
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To: FARS

Here are two Kind prayers for Montazeri & those others who ‘recanted’, or who will eventually recant.

The first one in Persian:

Ghoor baabaash.

The second, in English, I really couldn’t post!


36 posted on 12/16/2010 3:52:17 AM PST by odds
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