Alexander the Great as Iranian King of Kings, the fallacy of Hellenism, and the nonexistent Hellenistic Period

Pre-publication of chapter XI of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey – 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; chapters XI, XII, and XIII constitute the Part Four (Fallacies about the so-called Hellenistic Period, Alexander the Great, and the Seleucid & the Parthian Arsacid Times) of the book, which is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters. Chapter XII ‘Parthian Turan: an Anti-Persian dynasty’ has already been uploaded as partly pre-publication of the book; it is currently available online here: https://www.academia.edu/52541355/Parthian_Turan_an_Anti_Persian_dynasty

The book is written for the general readership with the intention to briefly highlight numerous distortions made by the racist, colonial academics of Western Europe and North America only with the help of absurd conceptualization and preposterous contextualization.

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When so evidently the so-called Ancient Greeks disregarded politics, philosophers, theaters and agoras, finding solace, wisdom, science and spirituality at the Island of Philae Temple of Isis, no one can further use the fallacious term ‘Hellenism’. Even if theoretically the Ancient Greeks existed as an ethnic group (which is wrong), they ended up as pilgrims in Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian and Iranian temples, because the Ancient Greek religion was a quackery and the Ancient Greek mythology was a blasphemy. No 143 Ancient Greek graffito from the First Pylon of the Temple of Isis at the Island of Philae (7 BCE); from: https://epigraphy.packhum.org/text/219643

Seleucid (312-63 BCE), Ptolemaic (305-30 BCE) and Attalid (282-133 BCE) times have also been distorted enormously by the colonial Latinists, Hellenists, and Orientalists, over the past two centuries; they deliberately undertook a systematic Hellenization of the material record, being Eurocentric in their approach, discriminatory in their efforts of representation and interpretation of the historical past, and oblivious of every text and monument that would eventually refute their preconceived falsehood.

In this case, the fabrication and propagation of the term ‘Hellenistic period’ for this part of Late Antiquity represents only a minor dimension of the colonial academics’ falsifications and a small part of the fallacious Western historiography about the topic. In fact, there was never any ‘Hellenistic period’ anytime anywhere.  

The term ‘Hellenism’ was used indeed in Ancient ‘Greek’ texts about several nations that became familiar with the disorderly Ancient Pelasgian-Philistine-Peleset (which is wrongly called ‘Greek’/’Hellenic’ by colonial academics and intellectuals) lifestyle and culture during the early periods of Late Antiquity. However, this situation was sacrilegious if evaluated on the basis of Achaean and Danaan measures and moral standards that Homer had tried to reinstate, but failed. In fact, ‘Hellenism’ was an explicit form of Anti-Achaean odium that should consequently be defined as ‘Pelasgianism’.  

The familiarization phenomenon was basically attested in the case of the Lydians, the Carians, the Lycians, and the Phrygians; to lesser extent, it concerned the Thracians, the Macedonians, the Illyrians and the Romans. But all these populations, earlier known as Lukka, Kaeftiu, Sherden and Tarwisha/Tarwiya (Troy) in the Ancient Hittite or ‘Sea Peoples’ in the Ancient Egyptian texts, were ethnically, culturally and linguistically associated with the Anti-Achaean and Anti-Danaan Pelasgians-Peleset of the 2nd millennium BCE South Balkans. It was therefore quite easy for them to assimilate with those who had been their allies in the destruction of both, the old Hittite-Achaean (wrongly called ‘Mycenaean’) alliance and the Homeric effort of an Achaean revival.

In fact, what is described as ‘Ancient Greek (or Hellenic) civilization’ by the racist historians of the West is an Anti-Achaean Pelasgian barbarism that constituted a blasphemy for all the ancient civilized nations of the Orient, including the Achaeans who are defined as the first ‘Greeks’ (Hellenes), although this sacrilegious name was abhorred by the Achaeans. During the 2nd millennium BCE, the continuous Achaean – Pelasgian clash had reflected the permanent Hittite-Lukka polarization in Western Anatolia, whereas the Hittite-Achaean alliance triggered the ominous Pelasgian-Trojan ‘conspiracy’ (to use the term employed by the Ancient Egyptian scribes of the Annals of Ramses III), since Troy was a member state of the Lukka confederacy. In short, the prevalence of Anti-Achaean Pelasgian ethos among the divergent ethnic groups of the region (Ionians, Aeolians, Danaans, Cadmeans and Dorian during the 1st millennium BCE s is what the Western historians call ‘Ancient Greece’ (Hellas).

One can easily understand Hellenism/Pelasgianism as an appalling corruption and sheer cultural degradation that was produced in Western Anatolia, the Anatolian Sea and the South Balkans, before being also diffused among the Phoenicians (notably in Cyprus, which is a Phoenician island bearing a Phoenician name) and the Jews (: the ‘cosmopolitan’ Sadducees’ of Alexandria). But this was not true for the Aramaeans, the Iranians and the Turanians, the Egyptians, the Berbers of North Africa, the Meroitic Ethiopians of Ancient Sudan, the Yemenites, and many other civilized nations. They were not ‘Hellenized’ (or Pelasgianized).

Being Hittite of etymology (Alaksandu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaksandu), the name of the Macedonian King was written in Egyptian hieroglyphics; this fact alone stands as a proof of the fact that there was no ‘Hellenization’ of the Oriental nations, but ‘Orientalization’ of the Macedonians and the so-called ‘Greeks’.

Having followed Alexander the Great and the Macedonians, the Pelasgian soldiers (called ‘Greeks’/’Hellenes’) settled in small communities in various locations of Asia and Africa; however, they were mostly reviled by the local people for their absurd way of life.

It goes without saying that, during the Late Antiquity, the term ‘Hellenism’ was never used about these small communities or colonies of Ancient Greeks/Hellenes (: in reality ‘Pelasgians’) that were established in various parts of the dissolved Iranian Empire from Cyrenaica to Bactria, because their inhabitants were already ‘Hellenes’ (Greeks).

Luxor temple; Alexander the Great praying to Amun

At this point, I must make clear that in Ancient Ionian (deliberately named ‘Greek’ by the racist scholars of the West), the nouns ending in –ismos originate from verbs that are formed with an ending in –izein (-ize in English); these forms helped describe the association with or the imitation of someone/something else. They were also used to express the meaning of becoming different from what one had originally been.

Luxor temple: Alexander the Great makes offerings to Min

So, speaking at the grammatical level, ‘Hellenizing’ can be eventually said about anyone except for Hellenes/Greeks (in reality: Pelasgians), because other people imitating the Hellenes can truly be described as ‘Hellenizing’, but the Hellenes, being already who they are, cannot ‘Hellenize’; it would sound nonsensical.

Babylonian astronomical diary written in Babylonian cuneiform (323–322 BCE) mentions the death of Alexander the Great.

IA 17FR

Imperial Aramaic administrative document from Bactria, dating back to the 7th year of Alexander’s reign (324 BCE) from the Khalili Collection; when the name of Alexander the Great is written in Cuneiform Babylonian in Babylon, the capital of his empire, in Egyptian hieroglyphic in Egypt, and in Imperial (: Achaemenid) Aramaic in Iran and Central Asia, we can understand that there was no ‘Hellenization project’ in the Macedonian king’s mind. There was nothing from the so-called Ancient Greek civilization that could possibly be taken seriously and eventually accepted by the highly civilized Asiatic and African nations that accepted Alexander as Iranian king of kings.

Similarly, other people imitating the Ancient Egyptians can indeed be described as ‘Egyptianizing’; but the Egyptians, being already who they are, cannot ‘Egyptianize’. The same is valid for all possible terms: Babylonizing, Iranizing, etc. This is necessary to have in mind, because many ignorant people with evil political motives tend to misinterpret ‘Hellenism’ and pretend that the term denoted an ideology, a national theory or a feeling of national unity; that’s totally wrong.

There was never an Ancient Greek word to describe any feeling of national unity among the Ionians, the Aeolians, the Achaeans, the Dorians, and the other anti-Pelasgian ethnic groups, because such feeling never existed, in spite of Homer’s effort to re-Achaeanize them all. The absurd term ‘Panhellenion’ was coined very late; it was first used by the paranoid Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE), who suffered from an enormous psychological complex of inferiority opposite his great, magnificent and omnipotent father, namely Emperor Trajan (98-117 CE). Being the worthless son of an illustrious and most successful father and failing to inherit the slightest portion of his predecessor’s military skills, the foolish Hadrian wanted to regroup together all the Greek-speaking slaves of the Roman Empire. That is why he fabricated the otherwise useless term; however, even the project failed. About:

https://www.persee.fr/doc/dha_0755-7256_1999_num_25_2_1540

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian#Religious_activities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhellenion

It is essential at this point to underscore two key issues; first, the term ‘Hellenistic period’ is not false only because it describes a secondary and rather marginal phenomenon that concerns only the few nations which imitated the Ancient Greek (Pelasgian) lifestyle after the end of the 4th c. BCE, but also due to the fact that, by focalizing on this event, one distorts the wider picture and definitely misrepresents the major historical developments that took place immediately after the military expedition Alexander the Great and the replacement of the Achaemenid dynasty by him on the throne of Iran.

Actually, it has to be pointed out that the brave Macedonian mystic and king did not undertake ‘many’ military campaigns and expeditions like Assurbanipal, Cyrus the Great, and Darius I the Great; simply, after defeating the ‘Greeks’, he only invaded the ailing and quasi-decomposed Iranian Empire and he tried to rule it as an Iranian king of kings.

The concept behind Alexander the Great’s attempt to supplant the Achaemenid dynasty with his own reign in Iran testifies to a very conscious and truly magnificent effort to Orientalize the Macedonians and all the adjacent nations, ‘Greeks’ included. The real nature of Alexander’s endeavor was apparently not to diffuse the barbarian ethos and the lowly culture of those, whom he had already crushed and submitted (i.e. the petty political leaders of Thebes, Corinth, Athens, Sparta and the rest of the South Balkan ordeal), but to civilize (i.e. Orientalize) the disorderly and uncivil populations of his empire’s western confines.

Alexander put an end to the nonsensical politics of the choleric demagogues and sought to impose imperial rule on those who had failed to realize that there cannot be civilization without an empire and a clear-cut Caesaropapist model of power. The historical context of his time bears therefore witness to the fact that Alexander the Great attempted to do the exact opposite of what the racist academics of England, France and America have fallaciously and persistently tried to credit him with.

Roman mural from Pompeii depicts Alexander & Barsine (Stateira), the eldest daughter of Darius, as Ares & Aphrodite in an allusion to the Susa weddings, which took place in the old Elamite and later Achaemenid capital (324 BCE) in order to formally endorse the Orientalization of Alexander’s soldiers who were married to Iranian princesses after the Achaemenid ritual and fashion. Although the historical sources state details that do not allow us to doubt about the nature of the event, the Roman artist, ca. 400 years later, clearly distorts the historical scene that he wanted to commemorate. More than 1500 years, numerous corrupt Western European painters took the distortion to a higher level.

Alexander’s exemplary substitution of Parsa (Persepolis) with Babylon as capital of Iran demonstrates that 

i. he viewed himself as an Iranian (or Oriental) king of kings (: emperor),

ii. he considered Macedonia and Greece as apparently peripheral and not central parts of the Iranian Empire (thus spearheading an overwhelming, determinant and irreversible Orientalizing process),  

iii. he adopted the Oriental imperial order, discipline and world conceptualization, thus fully rejecting the inhuman paranoia of ‘Greek politics’ and the abomination of the disreputable Athenian state,

iv. he adhered to Oriental spirituality, faith and mysticism, therefore rejecting the childish nonsense of the so-called Ancient Greek philosophers (Aristotle included), and

v. he wanted to shift (and actually he did shift) the center of the vast Empire out of Fars (Persia), thus evidently posturing as an Anti-Persian Iranian.

Second, by focalizing on this development (namely the ‘Hellenizing’ attitude of few Oriental peoples), one distorts the wider picture and definitely misrepresents the major historical developments that took place in the period between Alexander the Great’s death (323 BCE) and the Christianization of the Roman Empire (313–380 CE).

Statue of Buddha: 1st-2nd c. CE, typical sample of Gandhara Art (in today’s NW Pakistan and Eastern Afghanistan). When the descendants of some soldiers of Alexander the Great accept Buddhism as their own religion, we have a typical example of Orientalization, since people of Macedonian and/or ‘Greek’ origin accept an Oriental religion. But the racist and paranoid Western European and North American academics describe this phenomenon as ‘Greco-Buddhist art’. There is not a shred of Ancient Greek influence on Gandharan Art; it is an entirely Iranian-Indian amalgamation of patterns and styles.

Alexander medallion from Imperial Rome; if the Romans failed to found a genuine Oriental empire, this is partly due to the fact that they were unable to understand the spiritual means and motives of the Macedonian-Iranian king.

Above: Alexander (Iskander) depicted on the miniature of a 15th c. Iranian manuscript from Herat; below: Alexander sharing his throne with Queen Nushabah, from a 16th c. manuscript of Nizami Ganjavi’s Sharaf-Nama. In the pre-Christian, Christian and Islamic traditions, which are preserved thanks to the so-called Alexander Romance and many Iranian and Turanian epics, a far more original, legendary and mythical, figure of Alexander the Great stands at the epicenter of the narrative.

From the Armenian version of the Alexander Romance: details depicted in the miniature: exiled in Macedonia, the Egyptian Pharaoh Nectanebo by magic predicts the fall of Egypt to the Iranians. The Alexander Romance is a typically Oriental kind of mythical-eschatological literature that simply could not be produced by any Greek-speaking author in the Late Antiquity. The earliest editions date back to the 4th c., but it is certain that the original narratives must go back to the 3rd c. BCE. Although modern scholars believe that the original edition must have been a now lost Greek text of which we have the Latin, Syriac, Armenian and Georgian translations during the period 4th-6th c. CE, it is more probable that the original edition was in Aramaic or Pahlavi. In any case, newer editions were quite often extensions, revisions and modifications. The highly divergent text is now available in dozens of editions and copies, notably in Syriac, Armenian, Latin, Medieval Greek, Middle Persian, Hebrew, Georgian, Coptic, Ge’ez, Farsi, Arabic, Slavonic and several European languages. This narrative reflects the historical truth more accurately, but it is not easy to correctly interpret the ciphered meaning of the text. But this matter, in its entirety, only highlights the cultural Orientalization of the Macedonians and the Greeks; it also gives a blow to the racist academic dogma about the so-called ‘Hellenistic period’. There is nothing ‘Greek’ (or ‘Hellenic’ or ‘Classical’) in the Alexander Romance: it is purely Oriental. About: https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-8245;jsessionid=882E2ED330872834BEE79E9F6B01A398?rskey=AfLpXv&result=3

The rise of the Christian dogma as official (and later as the only official) religion of the Roman Empire constitutes only one late dimension of the phenomenal diffusion of Oriental cults, mysticisms, concepts of imperial rule and universalism, spiritual sciences, religions, faiths, imperial systems and practices of administration, cultures, and behavioral systems across Balkans (‘Greece’ included), Rome and Europe. This extraordinary development, which irrevocably shaped World History, took place during this period, thus making of the entire European continent a mere annex of the Oriental civilizations. 

Cleopatra VII and Caesarion depicted on the walls of the Temple of Hathor at Denderah as entirely Egyptian pharaohs

As a matter of fact, the Hellenizing attitude of few Oriental peoples was entirely overshadowed by the Orientalizing attitude of all the Western peoples (: ‘Greeks’, Romans, and all the other tribes and ethnic groups on European soil), because they all imitated -extensively, comprehensively and irrevocably- the Ancient Oriental lifestyle (: the true, historical Orientalism) and adopted Oriental concepts, principles, cults, faiths, trends and attitudes during that period (323 BCE – 380 CE). 

Minor facts, such as the diffusion of Ionian language among Lydians and the spread of ‘Ancient Greek art’ among the Carians, were deliberately focused on and strongly underscored by the racist Western academics in order to cause confusion among the average public, distort the educational system of the Western countries, and conceal the historical reality. As an academic endeavor, it was futile and puerile at the same time; actually, the so-called Ancient Greek art was not authentic, as it consisted in an interminable series of adaptations of Hittite, Assyrian and Egyptian patterns, styles, models, and concepts. Indicatively:

From Hittite Bit-Hilani’s to Ancient Greek Temple Pillars

https://blogs brown edu/arch-0760-s01-2019-spring/2019/04/14/the-bit-hilani/

Above: Bit hilani (house of pillars) Mesopotamian typology of sacred architecture (entrance to Kapara palace in Tell Halaf) in the Aleppo National Museum; below: Athens Erechtheion

We can therefore conclusively state that the principal trait of Late Antiquity (i.e. the period stretched from the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus the Great to the death of Prophet Muhammad (539 BCE-632 CE) is the fact that all the Ancient ‘Greeks’, the Romans and the Europeans adopted a great number of Oriental religions, theological doctrines, spiritual exercises, world views, esoteric mysteries, cosmogonies, cosmologies, eschatologies, cults, behavioral systems, and lifestyles.

Ancient Greeks adored Mithras, Horus, Isis, Cybele, Atargatis (‘the Syrian goddess’) and other Oriental deities, but in striking contrast, Ancient Iranians disregarded the sacrilegious Pelasgian (‘Ancient Greek’) narratives about Dionysus/Bacchus, Athena, and Pan. Ancient Greeks stopped having any interest for the lawless, immoral and absurd theories of the paranoid ‘philosopher’ Epicurus and for the shallow, pointless and confusing treatises of the spiritually underdeveloped but opinionated author Aristotle, and they started being concerned with the Chaldean Oracles, seeking magical recipes by Ostanes, and flocking to the mysteries of Ptah.

Nemrut Dagh, the peak sanctuary and mausoleum of Mithridates I of Commagene (near Adiyaman, in SE Turkey); Commagene was an Orientalistic, not ‘Hellenistic’, kingdom.

Relief from the Mithraeum of Neuenheimer (near Heidelberg): representation of the tauroctony, which was the main Mithraic myth, and of several other mythical narratives in the panels around the main theme

Bronze plate with representation of Mithraic tauroctony from Brigetio, Hungary (CIMRM 1727)

Mithraic tauroctony represented on a white marble found south of Monastero, Aquileia in 1888, now in Vienna

White marble relief with representation of the Mithraic theme of tauroctony from Walbrook, London; 180-220 CE

Zurvan represented as a lion-headed being from Ostia

Sol (Sun), Mithras, Luna (Moon), assisted by Cautes and Cautopates represented in the lower part of a two-sided relief from Fiano Romano (2nd-3rd c. CE)

Ancient Romans adored Osiris, Thot (as Hermes Trismegistus), Zervan (as Saturn), and other Oriental concepts of divinity, but in striking contrast, Ancient Egyptians did not bother at all about the insignificant myths of Juno, Venus, Mercury and Vesta. Ancient Romans stopped expressing interest for the childish sermons of their orators and for the republican nonsense of their recent past; quite contrarily and with utmost nostalgia, they were inclined to evoke their remote Antiquity in Anatolia (Aeneid).

All the other European nations of the Roman Empire acted similarly, and to this fact testify the many hundreds of Mithraea (temples of Mithra), Iseia (temples of Isis), and temples of other Oriental divinities that have been unearthed across Europe, within the Roman Empire and beyond its borders, from the Iberian Peninsula to Hungary and from England to Ukraine.

Representation of Isis on a wall painting from Pompeii

Nile god from the Isis and Serapis Temple on the Campus Martius, Rome

Pompeii: wall painting with sacred utensils necessary in the Isiac cults

Sistrum unearthed in Pompeii, currently in the Museum of Napoli (Naples); it was indispensable for the Isiac cults.

Roman buildings depicted on the Haterii tomb in Rome; the arch ‘to Isis’ is the first from the left.

Pompeii fresco with a priest dressed as Anubis and two priestesses of Isis

Roman cup for Isis cult from Pompeii

Serapeum on the Forma Urbis Romae

The Iseum (temple of Isis) at Pompeii

The extreme disgust for the disgraceful political system of Ancient Athens and the total disrespect for the worthless talks of the Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers fully characterize this period of Oriental impact on Ancient Greeks, Romans and Europeans. Such was the impact that these underdeveloped nations disappeared, because the followers of Mithra in Rome, Macedonia, Athens and Ephesus had more in common among themselves than one of them with one of his ‘compatriots’ who happened to be an adept of Isis or a devotee of Atargatis, the ‘Syrian goddess’.

Reverse of a coin of the Seleucid king Demetrius III (96-87 BCE) with fish-bodied Atargatis

This situation became then decisively important: affiliation with a mystical order eclipsed ethnic membership and clannish affiliation, at a time no patriotism could subsist anymore but no imperial doctrine and theory had yet been incepted. It is true that the formation of the Roman Empire was very different from the inception of the Oriental empires.

People realized then that politics, theater and philosophy were good for nothing, as they disoriented every human being and member of a society, and distracted all humans from the basics of human life, as these had been spelled out by all major Oriental civilizations. In terms of Eschatology and Soteriology, Ancient Greek philosophy and politics were worthless notions and apathetic practices. As such, they were duly and irreversibly rejected once for all.

The terms ‘Neo-Platonism’ and ‘Neo-Pythagoreanism’ are entirely fake; in fact, they function as a smokescreen for the Oriental spiritual schools, faiths, mysticisms, theologies and religious doctrines that the various so-called ‘Neo-Platonic’ and ‘Neo-Pythagorean’ philosophers stood for and attempted to widely popularize among their various students. The correct terms in replacement of these appellations are ‘Egyptian Heliopolitan’ and ‘Egyptian Memphitic’ respectively; this is so because both thinkers (Plato and Pythagoras) were formed after several years of studies in Egypt and they produced their theoretical systems as subsequent reflections of these two Ancient Egyptian systems of spirituality, world conceptualization, faith and theology.

However, one must never confuse between the low level of a Neo-Platonic pupil in Athens, who was limited in theorizing, and the spiritual potency of an initiate in the mysteries of Isis at the Philae Island temple.

Quite notably, if the racist academics of Western Europe and North America wanted to conceal this paramount reality, this was basically due to the crucial fact that the spiritually inexperienced Neo-Platonic pupil was indeed an Athenian (i.e. a White Guy) whereas the Isis initiate was a Blemmyan or a Nubian Black African. That’s why Hellenism is abhorrent racism.

How could one therefore describe correctly this period, efficiently replacing the fallacious term ‘Hellenistic period’?

The response is very simple: it was an ‘Orientalistic period’.

Ancient ‘Greek’ graffiti on the First Pylon of the Temple of Isis at the Island of Philae

The temple of Isis at the Island of Philae; it was the last throughout the Roman Empire to still offer cults to pre-Christian religions.

Justinian I issued a special edict to close down the Temple of Isis; part of the temple was immediately transformed into a Coptic church.

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Secular Education, Oriental Empires, Cultural Nations, Spirituality, Religion & Theology down to Renaissance – Part I

The present article consists in a brief outlook of the nature of the diverse educational systems either in the rising and falling imperial realms or in the chaotic and worthless republics that lack sanctity, legitimacy, and humanity. Here you will find its first part.

I. Education, Social Unity, and Transcendence in the Ancient Oriental Empires

In ancient times, Education was at the hands of the spiritual-sacerdotal-imperial savants and the instructors did their ingenious best to educate their pupils by making them fully aware of the Laws of the spiritual and the material universes, which were also reflected in the average culture of all the inhabitants of the ideal, paradisiacal empire that mirrored the celestial world on the surface of the Earth. There was absolutely no disconnection between the educated and the uneducated, because the latter comprehended in general -via mythical, cultural, education- what the former mastered in detail through systematic scientific exploration, archiving and education.

This was how the emerged great kingdoms and formidable empires were structured in Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria-Babylonia, Hurrians, and Elam), Kemet (Egypt), Hittite Anatolia, Cush (Ancient Sudan), Phoenicia-Carthage, Iran and Turan, China, and Indus Valley and the Deccan. There was Unity in Education, as all the people understood the supreme language of the Myth and the Symbols that exist between the spiritual and the material universes, and as a consequence, they all had the same world view, the same spirituality and culture, and the same moral standards, which defined the sanctity of their empire.

Tuthmose III of Egypt

Hattusili III of Hittite Anatolia

Tiglathpileser III of Assyria

Nabuna’id of Babylonia

Darius I of Achaemenid Iran

II. Lack of Sacerdotal and Imperial Authority in the Low Educational Systems of the Ancient Greek and Roman Barbarians

Ancient Greece and Rome, as small, divided and unsophisticated local societies, were ignorant, barbaric and marginal lands as regards the Ancient Oriental empires; there was no spirituality, no imperial tradition, no sacerdotal scholarship, and no unity of Education. There was division in society, disunity among the various tribes, and clash among the various philosophers who were educated not locally but in the great temples of Egypt, Phoenicia, Babylonia, and Iran. Ancient Greek religion was a petty version, a miserable imitation, and a pale reflection of the Ancient Oriental religions.

There was no transcendence, no contemplation, no meditation, and no sanctity in Ancient Greece; the gods of the Ancient Greeks were mere human projections onto the spiritual world, and as such they were inferior to the aspects of the Divine World, which formed the fundamental truths of the archetypal Oriental myths. Lacking spiritual authority, scientific knowledge, and moral wisdom, the Ancient Greeks became mere ‘friends of the wisdom’, which is the real meaning of the Ancient Greek word ‘philosopher’. In their otherwise worthless education, they replaced the transcendental truth with useless verbosity, the mythical symbolism with puerile anthropomorphism, the sacrosanct theatrical events with their debased public theater, and the Imperial Paradise with their Civil War.

Pericles of Athens

Julius Caesar of Rome

Cicero

III. Education and Culture in Imperial Rome: Result of an Overwhelming Orientalization

Rome became an Empire very late, and achieved a level of Orientalization too late. As a matter of fact, there was no unity in education, and consequently, there was a total disconnection between the educated and the uneducated. This is said with respect to the Romans themselves, the citizens of Rome during the times of the Res Publica (‘Republic’: 510-27 BCE). This phenomenon was the result of the formation of an elite/elitist class with increased focus on material interests, lower degree of piety, and total lack of imperial world view and tradition.

When people deliberate in public, the focus is shifted away from spirituality, moral standards, and culture to petty personal interests and elite privileges. Then, few representatives can take decisions on common issues, discord and disunity appear only to prevail across the society, while social class divisions become the reason of endless strife; the ensuing social stratification destroys or prevents unity in culture and education.

This situation became very ostensible in the early Roman imperial times, when the elite continued living influenced by the Ancient Greek social lifestyle, involving theater, philosophy, and public debates (as the Senatus had still some power), but the Romans, i.e. the average people in their outright majority, had already accepted different Oriental cults, mysteries, religions, schools of spirituality, oracles, mythical symbolisms, and dogmas of cosmogony, cosmology, apocalyptic eschatology and soteriology.

It was only normal for the old republican traditions and the useless public debates to be soon swept away by the mysteries of Mithras, Zurvan-Saturn, Isis, Horus, Osiris, Sarapis, Anubis, Sabazios, Elagabalus, Cybele, Attis, and other Oriental cults and mystical systems (Chaldeanism, Ostanism, Gnosticisms, Hermetism) to which almost all the Romans gradually adhered, abandoning their impotent ancestral divinities and seeking salvation in the dogmas of the Chaldean Aramaeans, the Egyptians, the Cushites, the Anatolians, and the Iranians.

Romans abandoned the nonsense of the political discourses, and started carrying about the mysteries of Isis, an Egyptian mythical symbol and central figure of the Ancient Egyptian Heliopolitan eschatology and soteriology.

The Coffin of Osiris was understood by the Ancient Romans as far more important (as element of contemplation and meditation) than the trivial, material debates of the Senatus. Salvation could never be offered in the useless sphere of politics, but it could be achieved within the circle of Isiac initiates.

Mithras could save a soul – but the useless politicians of Rome could not. That’s why the Ancient Greeks and Romans disregarded the nonsensical theories of the ignorant pseudo-philosopher Aristotle and abandoned the public debates of their worthless republics in order to seek salvation in the mysteries of Mithras.

The fact that Ancient Greece and Rome were flooded by Oriental religions, cults, schools of spirituality and mysticism proves the inferiority of these ancient cities-states and the primitivism of these nations vis-à-vis the Ancient Oriental civilizations.

Zervan, the Iranian god of Time, identified by the Romans of the imperial times with Saturn.

Elagabalus: the Roman Emperor who before his coronation was the high priest of the Aramaean god Elagabal, a solar divinity and hypostasis of Mithra.

There was a major difference between Trajan’s Rome from one side and from the other side Darius I the Great’s Iran, Sargon II’s Assyria, Thutmose III’s Egypt, Mursilis I’s Hittite Anatolia, Hammurapi’s Babylonia, Urukagina’s Sumer (Lagash and Girsu), and Sargon I’s Akkad: different cultural and educational systems existed across the Roman Empire at the time of its greatest expansion. I don’t mean this in terms of regional differentiation in culture and education among the various nations that lived in Anatolia, Egypt, Carthage, Numidia, Gaul and other provinces. I refer to the still existing differentiation between Roman elite culture, world view, and education from one side and from the other side the popular culture, world view, and education across the empire.

However, it was only a matter of time, and finally, the culture, the world view, and the education of the average people prevailed; they were finally imposed on the Roman elite; during the 3rd c. CE, Rome looked very much like an Oriental Empire, as the path from barbarism to civilization had been crossed. It was the time when a Roman Emperor named after the Aramaean god Elagabalus ruled the vast empire. Little time afterwards, Mithra, an Iranian god, became the supreme god of the -thus markedly Iranized- Roman Empire, as Sol Invictus.

IV. Christian Roman Empire: Doctrinal Culture for all and Doctrinal Education for few

In fact, the Christianization of the Roman Empire constituted only the last layer of its Orientalization. Divided along Christological doctrines, the Christian Roman Empire reflected Oriental empires in times of division; it looked like Egypt at the times of Akhenaten, Mesopotamia (Assyria and Babylonia) at the times of Sennacherib or Iran at the times of Cambyses. Due to the juxtaposition and the polarization around the nature and the qualities of Jesus, Christianity produced an enormous amount of theological treatises, endeavors and concerns; compared to the Ancient Oriental religions, the official version of Christianity, as practiced in the Eastern Roman Empire, looked like a merely theological system – not a ‘religion’.

Gradually but steadily, spirituality turned out to become an absurdity, ‘miracles’ became simply a matter of narrative and not of demonstration, belief was reduced to mere acceptance of doctrines interpreting the sacred texts, and people were kept far from education. It was a time of indoctrination and doctrinal culture. There was indeed unity in culture and education, pretty much like in the Ancient Oriental empires, but it hinged on theological doctrine, because official Christianity was not a religion preached by Jesus. All the same, New Rome (Nova Roma) at the times of Justinian I (527-565) looked far closer to Xerxes’ Persepolis, to Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, to Esarhaddon’s Assyria, and to Ramses III’s Thebes of Egypt than to Caesar’s Rome.

Early Christian Roman Art is full of Ancient Egyptian and Iranian symbols

Early Christian Roman Art is an Oriental Art.

Justinian I represented in the mosaic of San Vitale in Ravenna

V. Islamic Civilization: an entirely non-Arab Phenomenon

When prophet Muhammad preached Islam among an uneducated, uncultured, barbaric, and marginal tribe, namely the Arabs of Hejaz, he raised the stakes exponentially. Suffice it that you read the (written by an anonymous Alexandrian Egyptian captain and merchant of the middle of the 1st c. CE) “Periplus of the Red (or Erythraean) Sea” (par. 20) and you understand how all the civilized nations of the wider region viewed the Arabs of Hejaz. With the acceptance of Islam by the Ancient Yemenites, who were a Semitic nation totally different from and unrelated to the Arabs of Hejaz, already two years before the death of prophet Muhammad (630 CE), an important change occurred: the majority of the followers of Islam were non-Arabs.

With the early Islamic invasions, many Aramaeans of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine, many nations of the Sassanid Iranian Empire, many Copts (Egyptians), and many Berbers (from Libya and the African Atlas) accepted Islam, dramatically intensifying the fact that the Arabs constituted a minimal and unimportant part among the Muslims of the Omayyad and the Abbasid Caliphates. This generated a new socio-cultural environment from the Atlantic Ocean to the borders of China and the middle of the Subcontinent.

VI. Islamic Caliphate: Aramaean & Iranian Education, Sciences, Art, Culture, Intellectual life, and Spirituality under Arab rulers

The Islamic Civilization is an entirely non-Arab phenomenon, as it basically consists in an Aramaean & Iranian civilization with greatly diversified local traits. Within 150 years, after prophet Muhammad’s death, Aramaeans of Mesopotamia and Syria and Iranians transferred the corpus of the scientific, academic, intellectual, artistic and educational genius of the Sassanid Empire of Iran within the Islamic Caliphate.

In fact, Arabic is an Aramaean dialect written with Syriac Aramaic characters slightly deformed as cursive writing; without vocalization, almost the entire Quran can be read in Aramaic. So, Aramaeans (liberated from the yoke of the Eastern Roman Empire and unrestrained from the Constantinopolitan theological doctrine) and Iranian Mazdeists learned and used Arabic for the aforementioned purpose. In fact, the great Aramaean centers of learning, libraries and theological schools of Edessa of Osrhoene (Urfa), Nisibis (Nusaybin), Antioch (Antakya) and Seleucia-Ctesiphon (Al Mada’in) and the famous Sassanid Iranian imperial academy, university, research center, library and museum of Gundishapur, which was the world’s greatest center of learning and wisdom of the 6th c., were merged and continued in the legendary Bayt al Hikmah in Baghdad.

Aramaic Art on the walls of the Great Mosque of Damascus

Early Islamic Art is typically Aramaean.

The Great Mosque of Damascus: a masterpiece of Aramaean Art

At the beginning, Islam appeared to be one more Christological heresy, eventually a more acute form of Nestorianism. With Late Antiquity Gnostics accepting Islam, it is not bizarre why Fathers of the Christian Church, like John Damascenus, a leading Aramaean scholar, poet, and theologian from Damascus, viewed Islam as a counterfeit version of Christianity. On the other hand, this fact explains fully why the Islamic Civilization was always (until its end in 1580) the realm of Learning and Education.

John Damascenus, an Aramaean scholar and monk, Father of the Christian Church, and personal acquaintance of the Omayyad caliphs of Damascus

This fact has little to do with Quranic verses; it is mainly due to the constituent elements of the early Islamic society. When schools of faith and science, like that of the sagacious Ikhwan al-Safa (إخوان‌ الصفا) created the dynamics they did, thanks to their mystical-intellectual endeavors, scientific explorations, and educational system, it would be impossible for the Islamic Civilization not to be at the antipodes of the Christian world: a domain of Learning.

VII. Islamic Spirituality, Religion and Culture vs. Governance and Theology

As spirituality was initially limited in the circle of the descendants (Ahl al Bayt) of prophet Muhammad, notably Ali ibn abi Taleb (who was the son-in law of prophet Muhammad and the prominent figure of the Ahl al Bayt), but governance was at the hands of the enemies of Ali ibn abi Taleb, a very strange situation arose. In the deeply and irreversibly divided (Omayyad and Abbasid) caliphate, education was soon controlled by the Aramaeans and the Iranians, whereas the military started being increasingly dominated by the incoming Turanian soldiers; at the same time, spirituality and religious orthodoxy and orthopraxy remained the exclusive domain of Ahl al Bayt, notably Ja’far al-Sadiq.

The caliphs wanted to justify their unjust and illegitimate rule, while various learners and pundits decided to make distinguished careers by justifying the unjustifiable; they were therefore hired by the caliphs and appointed as religious authorities in order to ‘explain’ as ‘Islamic’ the un-Islamic or anti-Islamic deeds of those caliphs. This attitude constituted an enormous schism between the spiritual endeavors of the early Islamic community and the religious practices of the disbelieving and unfaithful rulers, thus opening the path for a fake religion adapted to immoral, illegal and evil governance. This situation was utterly rejected by many spiritual mystics and erudite Muslims, and the ensuing polarization triggered an enormous literature of jurisprudential and theological contents. So, soon Islam started being turned from a religion to a theology.

VIII. The Secular Nature of the Islamic Society, Education, Culture and Civilization

Islam preaches a secular society, and for many hundreds of years the Islamic caliphates, sultanates, khanates and emirates were prominently secular of nature. The secular nature of Islamic education, spiritual and material research, literature, sciences, intellectual life, artistic inventiveness, and mysticism is underscored by the burgeoning character of the early Islamic society in which -for many long centuries- there was absolutely no ‘sunnah’ in the way this word is used nowadays by the ignorant ‘sheikhs’ and the uneducated ‘imams’ of Madinah, Istanbul, Mekkah, Al-Azhar, Qum, etc.

The fact that “there is no compulsion in religion” (Quran, chapter al-Baqara, verse 256) implied that Shariah law was not compulsory. Actually, there was no Shariah (in the sense this word is meant now) at all in the beginning, for the very simple reason that the historical prerequisite for Shariah is a school of Islamic jurisprudence. The Divine Law demanded from humans a ‘deep understanding’ (fiqh) of the Quran and the Hadith, and this is the real word for Islamic Law even today (as concept); to implement the Divine Law in the human society, the various jurisprudential schools accepted four sources: the Quran, the Hadith (prophet Muhammad’s sermons), qiyas (analogical reasoning),and ijma (juridical consensus). This automatically terminated Islam as religion, turning it to a theology.

The secular nature of the education in the Islamic caliphates and other kingdoms was the result of the well-diversified nature of the Islamic society, which incorporated many different cultures. Prophet Muhammad’s preaching was accepted differently in various locations in Asia, Africa and Europe, as it incorporated numerous diverse local cultures and traditions; this phenomenon generated a multitude of forms of worship, schools of spirituality and mystical tradition, and perceptions of (and approaches to) the spiritual and the material worlds, which were -all- called ‘Islamic’.

Islamic science of the Abbasid times

Abbasid court

Abbasid dynasty

Bayt al Hikmah

Abbasid medicine

Ahmad ibn Musa ibn Shakir: design of a self trimming lamp

Kalila wa Dimna: an Iranian story as foundation of the Islamic Culture

This dynamic spiritual, academic, intellectual, educational, socio-behavioral, and cultural process created an unprecedentedly decentralized phenomenon of faith, life, art, intellect and genius. It was the total opposite of the very centralized Christian churches, societies, states and educational systems. In fact, Islamic education, science and intellectual life reduced Islamic theology to small and marginal circles of dogmatic and indoctrinated imams, who could not impact the advance of Islamic Civilization and sciences.

Basically, Islamic education and culture were characterized by cohesion at the local level, only when viewed independently in the different parts of the Islamic world. However, in reality, an unprecedentedly wide number of different cults, positions, practices and beliefs could effectively be labeled ‘Islamic’, because for someone to be accepted as Muslim it is actually enough to confess that there is no god except God and that Muhammad is the messenger of God (which is the Shahada, i.e. the testimony, of faith / La ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah – لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله). Islamic education revolved around the basics of the religion, before orienting students toward the two main directions: spirituality and science.

IX. Islamic Education divided between Spirituality/Sciences/Arts and Theology  

The only reactionary group of theologians, who wanted to limit education to the sphere of a dark, pseudo-Islamic theology, was the pseudo-school (madhhab) of Ahmed ibn Hanbal. However, this did not influence anyone and either in his days (mainly 9th c. CE) or later, it was not accepted as proper school of jurisprudence, but as a type of barbaric and ignorant heretics (Ahmed ibn Hanbal was also imprisoned). Notably, ibn Hanbal was rejected by Tabari, the Islamic world’s greatest historian and most erudite scholar of those days.

Only after the Crusades and due to the devastating impact that they had on the Muslims of the Eastern Mediterranean, a backward theological system demanded the end of Islamic sciences, the subordination of spirituality, genius and intellect to the villainous theological doctrine that these ignorant and idiotic people considered as ‘Islam’. This theological system is the baseless and anti-Islamic teaching of Ahmed ibn Taymiyyah, who was viewed as a heretic during his time and he was also imprisoned as impostor. His nonsensical theories ostensibly constitute a form of Christianization of Islam.

Ferdowsi: the greatest Islamic poet, intellectual and spiritual authority of all times

A page from Ferdowsi’s epic poem Shahnameh (Book of the Kings), from the copy created and majestically decorated with miniatures for Prince Baysunqur, the grandson of Timur (Tamerlane)

Mohyieldin ibn Arabi: the greatest Islamic mystic, philosopher and transcendental author of all times

The supreme opus of transcendental wisdom of all times: Mohyieldin ibn Arabi’s Al Futuhat al Makkiyah, the Meccan Illuminations

Nasir el din al Tusi: the greatest Islamic scholar, mathematician, founder of Observatory, and astronomer of all times

One page from Nasir el din al Tusi’s Zij-i ilkhani (زیجِ ایلخانی), i.e. the Ilkhanid astronomical table of stars

Timur (Tamerlane): the greatest Islamic Emperor of all times

Timur’s tomb in Samarqand

Timur’s modern statue in Tashkent

With the progression, the diffusion and the prevalence of this pathetic system, an enormous damage was caused to the Islamic Civilization; due to the erroneous education, which was impregnated by the evilness of Ahmed ibn Taymiyyah’s ideas, the Islamic sciences started being abandoned, the Islamic arts were disregarded or reduced to basic and meaningless forms, and the Islamic intellectual life was disintegrated. Even worse, Islamic spirituality was slandered as ‘black magic’, Islamic wisdom was obliterated and forgotten, and Islamic education was decreased to the level needed for imbeciles, who could not anymore comprehend the Quran in the way Muslims were able to understand their holy book two centuries earlier.

X. The divide between Islamic Spirituality/Sciences/Arts and pseudo-Islamic Theology disfigured as Shia vs. Sunni Schism

The reason for this development is the fact that Ahmed ibn Taymiyyah, following the line of Ahmed ibn Hanbal, preached that for Muslims’ education only theology mattered. This evil impostor generated a terrible divide between Islamic spirituality and theology, which lasted down to our days, but was mistakenly and viciously known as difference between ‘Shia’ and ‘Sunni’. However, this is an evil colonial lie and an Orientalist falsehood imposed on the colonial slaves of France, England and America, namely the ignorant sheikhs and pathetic imams of Islam.

In fact, there was never a historical division between ‘Shia’ and ‘Sunni’ throughout the History of Islam. The fake divide is an entirely modern, colonial fabrication, which was constructed, when ignorant and idiotic sheikhs, following the remote guidance and the evil orders of their Western masters, started presenting themselves as self-styled ‘Sunnis’. Western forgers and ignorant imams may today describe a historical war, let’s say the battle of Chaldiran (1514) between the Ottomans and the Safavid Iranians, as a fight between ‘Shia’ and ‘Sunni’, but this is entirely false.

Ottoman army

Selim I

Selim I: a great soldier, a poor strategist, and a naïve pupil of evil pseudo-Islamic theologians

The Battle of Chaldiran (1514)

Shah Isma’il Safavi, founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran that Western colonials distortedly called ‘Persia’

Isma’il Safavi, painting by the illustrious 16th c. Italian artist Cristofano dell’Altissimo (whose works are exposed at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence)

Neither Selim I nor Ismail Safavi, the Ottoman sultan and the Iranian shah, who exchanged written insults before the battle, called one another ‘Sunni’ and ‘Shia’. Neither was their difference a theological dispute. In reality, Selim I caused a terrible bloodshed (squelching the Shahqulu/Şahkulu movement) in order to impose a theological dogmatic tyranny in his pseudo-Islamic Ottoman realm, whereas Ismail Safavi established in Iran a secular education that allowed people to free pursue any walk of intellectual life that they wished, either in spirituality or in sciences, thus eliminating the tyranny of theological ignorance. The fact that these events are not portrayed in this manner in today’s educational systems of Turkey and Iran only shows how mistaken, misguided and self-disastrous these systems are. Of course, this is also true for the educational systems of all the other Muslim countries.

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