Portion of this article is an excerpt from soon to be released book 'First Comes the Mosque' by George H. Hassanzadeh
Are we to believe Iran who claim are so advance could not distinguish between a jet fighter and a passenger air plane, or are out of cash and barters with Russia?
At first, the government of the mullahs denied the incident, then, blamed the United States (the Trump administration), finally, the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran admitted that they have "mistakenly" shot down the Ukrainian passenger plane because they thought it was a "hostile target." Iranian Brigadier general Amir Ali Hajizadeh in an official statement said, the missile operator had acted independently and shot down the plane.
In a meeting, an Iranian shouted, the next announcement shall be "this was the 'missile operator's second day on the job."'
The relation between Iran's Arab Shiite institution and Russian goes as far back as Qajar Dynasty 1789 to 1925 and post 1979 Islamic Revolution. President Jimmy Carter wrongfully assuming Islam by definition is anti-communism thus, helping Iran's Arab Shiite clerics to achieve their goal of uprooting the secular government of the Shah, shows his lack of understanding the real relation between Iran's Shiite ulamas and the Russian.
Since the collapse of the Sassanid Dynasty at the advent of Arab Islam in 651AD, Iran was controlled by varied Turkish tribes, mogul Khans, and Arab caliphates with little or no loyalty to the land. Both Russia and Britain discovered that the Arab Shiite clerics' loyalty to the land was none, or at best, minuscule. Conversely, their effective influence over the masses was immense. Thus, they were seen as a potential aid to the strategies of both Russia and Britain, who capitalized on that windfall.
The unimpeded authority of mosques over the population was an inevitable result of conscious classification of Arab clergy as trusted holy men, adverse decisions, and submissive guidelines made by laissez-faire officials, as well as the lack of knowledge on the part of the people regarding the true role of the mosques.
Both Russia and the Great Britain engaged the Arab clerics and the Shi'a hierarchy as agents to work for them. The Arab clergies offered their services, willing to do anything for those who paid the most. They were ready to compromise the national security and interest of the Iranian nation for money, gifts, or anything of value coming their way. Clerics were routinely hired as spies to eavesdrop on influential people, government officials, kings, and their harems, as well as the "pulse of the nation," as what's going around at any given time, in society's structure. Through the mosques, mullahs were an effective medium for gathering masses demonstrating for or against any schemes that the British and the Russians were involved in.
The Russian and British each had embassies with acres of enchanting gardens and park-like orchards, and each with a secret backdoor for the Arab mullahs who surreptitiously entered each day. The mullahs would often have breakfast at one embassy, lunch at another, and dinner at the palace with the king's royal family. The "innocent" spouses of the kings would receive lavish gifts in return for spying on their husbands. The information was passed on to the embassies through the clerics. Almost every member of Nasser al-Din Shah's household (1831-1896), including his own mother Malek Jahan Khanom, Mahd-e Olia, naively spied either for Russia or the British and often were an effective instrument in the hands of clerics; the dynasty was more of a symbolic authority than one of any substance. Moreover, their rulers were vulnerable to Russian territorial expansion, Great Britain's colonial ambitions, and most of all, the Arab clerics championing their causes on behalf of their ancestral Arab homeland. The Qajar Dynasty (1785-1921) was of Turkic origin, specifically from the Qajar tribe, and they had marginal loyalty toward Iran. During Qajar Dynasty rule, the nation was officially known as the Sublime State of Iran.
Russia used the help of "readily accessible" Shiite clergies, who had already gained the confidence of the nation and its leaders in implementing their plan. Iran suffered major military defeats in going to war with Russia. Under the terms of the Treaty of Golestan in 1813, Iran recognized Russia's annexation of Georgia and surrendered to Russia most of the northern Caucasus region. Again, a few years later, the same clerics who had pretended to act on behalf of 'Islam' while transmitting information to both Russia and Britain, again used mosques as a platform and prompted Muslims to fight the infidels.
The misguided Qajar leaders fell for the Russians' calculated plot; under pressure from the Shia clerics, who were urging a war against Russia, the ill-advised, ill-equipped Iranian army went to war against the much superior and better-equipped Russian forces who were "lying in wait."
from the top of a minbar (pulpit), Shiite clerics often urged, "Each Muslim equal one hundred infidels in the battlefield. Have no fear, Imam Hussein guarantees Islam's victory over the unbelievers." From 1820 to 1828, Iran went to war with Russia, and it ended even more disastrously than the previous war. In 1828, Iran was forced to sign the Treaty of Turkmanchai, recognizing Russian sovereignty over the entire area north of the Aras River (territory encompassing present-day Armenia, Dagestan, and the Republic of Azerbaijan). The influence of the foreign nations and the use of Arab mullahs were at their zenith during the Qajar Dynasty. By1881 Russia had completed its conquest of present-day Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, bringing Russia's frontier to Iran's northeastern borders and severing historic Iranian ties to the cities of Bukhara and Samarqand. In the Caucasus, the Qajar Dynasty permanently lost the remainder of Iran's vital areas, comprising modern-day Georgia and Armenia, to the Russians. Writers, poets, and journalists of those days were lamenting the plot, the lack of patriotism, the lack of concern, on the part of the Arab Shiite institute and associated mosques, synonymous with "spy nests."
Like all Arab Shiite clerics who allied with either Russia or British, in 1907, during Iran's Constitutional Revolution, Noori joined with Russia and the backing of Russian troops, who staged a coup against the Majlis (parliament). On the request of Ayatollah Noori, on June 23, 1908, Russian Cossack Forces directed by Colonel Vladimir Liakhov (born: 1869, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, died: 1919 Batumi, Georgia), bombarded the Parliament and caused severe damage and casualties.
The lavish living style of the Qajar kings made them dependent on Russia and/or Britain. To secure their excessive lifestyle, they needed to borrow money from British or Russian banks. Russian banks would only grant loans to the Qajar kings with a stipulation that a high-ranking cleric approved the condition and the agreement of the loan. Thus, the clerics' influence on the palace would be substantial. In addition, to protect their collateral, Russia and Britain insisted that a group of clerics always accompany the king on his trips to Europe; all these manipulations were done at the expense of the helpless nation.
The Qajar government was arranged as follows:
1. The Viziers, governors-general, were appointed by the Shah and represented the Shah.
2. The "prince-governors," who were the royal family's off-spring, ruled provinces with little or no accountability.
3. Local self-governors, who had hereditary claims and ruled such as tribal Khans, district deputy governors, and Kalantars, were the supervisors of the villages and the powerful landowners.
4. Finally, the ulama, the "scholars of Islamic laws," possessed increasing power over the nation.
All positions and titles came with a price, yearly dues or gifts paid to the king's own account. While Russia bordered Iran and annexed lands to their realm with ease, the United Kingdom had different circumstances and required a different strategy. British domination of the Persian Gulf ports of Fars and Khuzestan Provinces made them independent from Tehran. In confederacy with Arab Shi'a institution, Britain did very well.
During Nasser o-Din Shah's reign, 1848-1896, Western science, technology, and educational methods were introduced into Iran and the country's modernization began. Nasser o-Din Shah tried to exploit the mutual distrust between Great Britain and Russia to preserve Iran's independence, but foreign interference, Arab Shiite Institution and territorial encroachment increased under his rule. He was not able to prevent Britain and Russia from encroaching into regions of traditional Iranian influence. In the structure of the Great Game played by the Anglo-Russian competition for authority in Central Asia, the British enlisted and armed Arabs of southern Iran to fight a war against Persians in Afghanistan. The British needed Afghanistan as a buffer state against Russian expansion toward India.
In 1856, Britain prevented Iran from reasserting control over Herat, which had been part of Iran since Safavid times but had been under non-Iranian rule since the mid-eighteenth century. Britain supported the city's incorporation into Afghanistan, a country Britain helped create in order to extend eastward the buffer between its Indian territories and Russia's expanding empire. The war of 1856 resulted in Persia withdrawing from Herat and signing a new treaty in which the Qajar regime surrendered its claims on Afghanistan, and the British withdrew from southern Persia.
These occurrences were the earliest example of Iran's expatriate Arabs helping a foreign power. The unpatriotic action of the Arab clerics and the general Arabian population along the southern part of Iran became the focus of many writers criticizing all Arab-Iranians. Taking advantage of a nation's weak government, Arabs dominated the southern part of Iran (Khuzestan) and worked diligently to annex that part to Arabia. In fact, at one time, the Southern province of Iran was called "Arabistan," or the "land of Arab."
British printed currencies were only good in Arab-occupied territory. (The author owns a bank note that says, "This legal tender is good in Bandar Abbas only.")
Iranian writer poets would lament: 'ARAB CLERICS ARE IN IRAN, NEVER OF IRAN.'
The last of these episodes was when a tribal leader by the name of Khaz'al bin Jabar al Ka'bi, or better known as Sheikh Khaz'al (1863-1936), called himself the "Amir of Sheikhdom of Mohammerah," today's Khorramshahr located in Khuzestan province. Rumor had it that in June 1897, Khaz'al killed his brother, Maz'al, and proclaimed himself as Sheikh (leader) of Banu Kaab, the absolute leader of all tribes and ruler of the Khuzestan province. Khaz'al had the support of the British. When Reza Shah came to power, one of his 1925 "Executive Orders" was to restore the old name of the province back to Khuzestan and to get rid of Khaz'al.
Reza Shah attempted to convince Khaz'al to meet with him in Tehran to discuss the situation; however, Khaz'al refused the offer and instead reinforced his army. Finally, the Shah sent a gunboat to arrest Khaz'al on his "British gift yacht" on the Karoon River. Khaz'al was disarmed and was brought to Ahvaz, the author's birthplace, and later to Tehran, the capital city.
As he promised, Reza Shah treated Khaz'al cordially, the sheikhdom was abolished, and the provincial authority took control of the region. The Islamic leaders, such as Ayatollah Kashani, Behbahani, and even Khomeini, visited Khaz'al with the hope of reviving the glorious days of occupation. Khaz'al died in 1936, a lonely man. Yet the idea of turning Iran into another Arab state did not die with Khaz'al. The eagerness of a young Khomeini and other Shiite hierarchy to help restore Khaz'al power should have alerted the concerned Iranians even back then. Nonetheless, the Shiite clerics adopted a strategy and relentlessly worked toward its success while keeping their clandestine ploy a top secret. They unremittingly worked using mosques as a scaffold, culminating in 1979, Khomeini's coup d'état, that overthrew Mohammad Reza Shah's government.
The Qajar era was also the time when the conflict began between traditional religious convictions, the teachings coming from mosques, and an age of enlightenment coming from secular Iranians visiting the Western world. It was the move to separate the mosque from the state. The modern patterns of thinking in Iran began to surface. In the clash between the mosque and the state, the mosque was always defiant of any move toward change. Books collectively written by Iranian scholars indicate the collapse of the ethical and cultural structure of Iranian society, and began with the practice of false and unscrupulous claims of Shiite ulamas.