Iran Protests: Powerful Symbolism of The White Scarf And Its Connection to Legendary Hero Kaveh

When the anti-government protests erupted in Iran in late December of 2017, one image really resonated with  Iranians at home and abroad. A woman standing tall and proud with her jet black hair flowing on her shoulders waving a white scarf on a long stick. 

The photo of her quickly made rounds around the Internet and became a symbol of what many are now calling the White Revolution, but many do not talk about why it resonated so much with Iranian people and why it became such a powerful symbol.

One reason  for it is the very courage of this woman who dared to remove from her head the symbol of the oppression, a scarf that Iranian women are being forced to wear since 1979 at the pain of harassment, imprisonment, and beatings from the religious police. One woman who was  taken to the police station and beaten for her husband's alleged anti-government comments told me that she saw a pregnant woman beaten as well because she wore "too much make-up." The women of Iran carry a disproportionate burden of oppression under the current Islamic Republic. Therefore it is the women of Iran who find the most courage to stand up for their rights.

But it wasn't only her courage that lent such deep meaning to her act. it was also because it evoked an image of a very well known Persian hero of pre-Islamic history named Kaveh. His story can be found in "Shahnameh" , the longest epic poem in the world describing the history of Persia, its Kings and heroes both historical and legendary.

Kaveh was a blacksmith who led a revolution against a foreign King who became a tyrant over Persia. He put his apron on a lance, which became a symbol of his revolution, of common people rising up against foreign oppression and marching together as one to the palace. The parallels are unmistakable. I don't know if this woman consciously evoked the imagery of Kaveh when she chose to visually represent the resistance of common people, especially the women, who are the most oppressed in Iran against Islamic rule, which is foreign, to the people of Iran most of whom hold on to their long 5000 years old Persian history and culture that predates Islam.

That is why the white scarf on a stick became such powerful symbol and will continue to be. The woman who created this symbol, a young mother, was found out by the government and arrested, but other women carry on that same symbol. Each Wednesday they pose  for a picture or video with a white scarf on a stick.

So, the White Revolution continues and will continue until the yoke of Islam is broken off the Iranians' shoulders. Let us continue to support the Iranian people, especially the women of Iran in their struggle for freedom and for a better future.

Most Iranians Are Persians, Not Arabs

It is a Persian New Year right now, an ancient celebration of Spring and new life that is celebrated until this day in countries that used to belong to the ancient Persian Empire and are still influenced by its culture, that is well and alive today in Iran.

Most westerners make the mistake of thinking about Iran as an Arab country, especially since the Islamist minority had taken over the power in Iran in 1978-1979 Islamic Revolution, but the culture, art, and language of Iran are distinctly Persian, predating Islam by thousands of years.

As a matter of fact, Persia under king Cyrus the Great produced the first human rights code in history.

This empire was very different from all the others in that it was multicultural and multifaith empire. Persian kings did not destroy the cultural and religious heritage of the people they conquered, but allowed them to flourish. For example, they paid for the rebuilding of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem after it was destroyed, robbed, and desecrated by the Babylonians. For that, Persia, and especially King Cyrus has a venerated place in the Hebrew history.

And what is even more amazing is that King Cyrus was mentioned by name by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah a 100 years before he( King Cyrus) was even born! ( Isaiah 45: 1-6)
I think that this alone blew his mind away and favourably disposed him towards the Hebrews and their God who had called him in those prophetic Scriptures His "anointed shepherd."

Anyway, this tolerant and multicultural mindset is still present among the people of Iran and because of its history, besides the dominant Persian majority, there are many other ethnic minorities that live in Iran and still maintain their ethnic identity and languages, though after the Islamist takeover of Iran they have much less freedom than they had for ages before.

It is a very harsh reality for the people who are modern and cosmopolitan in nature to have to live under Shariah law, which is very foreign to them. For that reason over 6 million Iranians left Iran following the Revolution even though they still dearly love their country.

But the majority of them have to suffer in silence back in Iran because they cannot  or do not want to leave. The good news though is that most Iranians ( 70 %) are under the age of 35 and do not agree with the system they were forced to live under since their birth, so once the older generation that brought it in dies, the Islamic Revolution will die with them. It is just a matter of time.

To all those interested in knowing more about what is really happening in Iran, I recommend  reading of the book written by an Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi, "Until We Are Free." In it, she describes the story of her fight for human rights in Iran under the current regime and the persecution she and others like her faced  and are still facing as a result, especially those who are unknown and have no one to stand up for them.

Despite of all this oppression, Iran is experiencing the greatest spiritual awakening in its history with thousands of people coming to know Jesus as their King of Kings, the righteous King they always longed for, which in itself is a fulfillment of another ancient prophecy, but I will write about that next time...

Author's Note: This is a new version of an article titled "Persians, Not Arabs," that I first published on Triond back in 2006, but because the site has been taken down recently, I decided to republish it again since it generated so much interest garnishing more than 20, 000 views. I hope that this one will be equally successful. Feel free to share it with others and to comment.

ISIS Declares War On Europe

No one is actually calling it this way, but by the wave of recent suicide bombings in Turkey,

France, and today in Belgium, the infamous Islamic terror group known as ISIS, ISIL, or DAESH effectively declared war on Europe, thus spilling the violence from Middle East to the Western world.

It is clear that the politically correct approach to the problem of Islamic violence is not working. It would be wrong to go from this  into another extreme of penalizing all Muslim people for this like the American Presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, suggested when he stated that he would "ban all the Muslims from entering America," but it is clear that the authorities need to be more vigilant and the hateful ideology that is feeding this violence must be confronted, otherwise these attacks will increase in frequency and severity.

These people clearly are attacking the Western way of life and want us all to live in fear. America and Canada are not immune to this either. Both Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau need to step up the security, or North America will sooner or later suffer the same problems as Europe now does. ISIS is losing in Middle East and will try to appear stronger than it really is by attempting more attacks around the world.

As Christians, we need to in turn step up our prayers for the Muslim people. We need to pray that God would reveal the Truth to them and set them free from satanic ideas that cause them to commit these murderous acts, even if it is just one minute of your time everyday, make sure that you pray. It is an ever intensifying spiritual war that manifests itself in physical violence. Satan knows that he doesn't have much time left, so he causes unstable and desperate people to wreak havoc around the world. Pray also for wisdom for our political leaders, so that their actions or the lack of it would not make the problem worse.

Radical Islam vs. Radical Christianity

 
 












Many people around the world, including the Muslim people are horrified today when they are learning about the atrocities that radical Islamists are perpetrating on Jews, Christians, and even fellow Muslims who are not as radical as they are. It filled many people with disgust, horror, and some even with fear.

But we must remember that these people are doing all this because they are taking the teachings of their religion, especially their holy book Koran, and the commandments of their founder literally.

But what radical Christianity would really look like? What would happen if billions of followers of Jesus took His teaching, His commandments, and His life example literally and actually practiced them in their everyday lives?

In my view, it would literally turn the world up side down, in a good way. Below are excerpts from the Koran of what the Islamists were being taught by their founder:

" Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allah, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger (4) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued... O you who believe! What is the matter with you, that when you are asked to march forth in the Cause of Allah (i.e. Jihad) you cling heavily to the earth? Are you pleased with the life of this world rather than the Hereafter? But little is the enjoyment of the life of this world as compared with the Hereafter.
 If you march not forth, He will punish you with a painful torment and will replace you by another people." ( Surah 9:29, 38-39)

Now contrast this with what Jesus had taught us as His followers:

“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:32-36)

So, they were taught even threatened by their god to fight against, kill, and subdue those who are disobedient to him and this is what they are doing with unimaginable cruelty, but we were commanded to love our enemies and do good to those who hate and persecute us.

They are being guided by hatred, we must be guided by divine love, which is the only antidote to the hatred and our most powerful weapon. Radical Christianity is following the commandments of Jesus and His example of  not only not killing anyone, but being even willing to sacrifice His own life for all of us while we were still sinners.

What it would look like if we all did that? I believe that it would transform our families, communities, even entire countries For all those who wonder what it would look like in practice I recommend watching a very inspiring movie recently made by Pureflix titled, "Do you Believe?"

You can buy it on Amazon or rent it from your local movie rental store. Watch it with your family, friends, and church family and think of ways that you can all individually and together put your faith in practice, so together we can transform this world and win the battle over the souls of unbelievers around us.

The Long Term Consequences of Syrian Refugee Crisis

As Elul 29, which is today, also known as the last day of Shemitah draws to its end, the world is railing amid the Syrian refugee crisis, the greatest migration of displaced people since the second world war.

And I am sorry to say, but it will not get better. The world leaders are not dealing with the root cause of it, which is the rampage of so called Islamic State through Middle East and to be fair there isn't really that much that they can do as military options are limited due to the nature of this enemy.

ISIS militants are not any conventional army that can be fought out right and defeated by sheer military power, though western troops who are helping the Kurdish army in Iraq are keeping it from taking over all of Iraq, but it is not enough to defeat it.

The equally ruthless army of Syria's government under dictatorial regime of Bashar Assad despite of all the help they are getting from Iran and Russia are not succeeding either, barely keeping ISIS from taking over all of Syria and the fight is now that much harder since those terrorist fighters are also using chemical weapons that they either are making themselves or have stolen  from Syria.

Now enter Europe that was even before that facing economical challenges with EU countries such as Greece, Spain, and Italy being on a verge of economic collapse which were kept from the catastrophe thanks to the money flowing to them from Germany, who is now dealing with a flood of mainly Muslim refugees from the region, the number of which will probably reach close to one million by the end of this year as they are arriving at the rate of 2,000 persons a day in Greece and Turkey.

This will have huge economical and social implications because Germany alone simply does not have the money to take care of all the basic needs of these people. It will cost a lot to find them shelter, provide their food, clothing, and medical care.

Most of the refugees do not know any language other than Arabic, so it will take some time until they learn German and will be able to work and take care of themselves, and even then the jobs will not be easy to find.

And what happens when ISIS will get even stronger, with no one there to fight them? Many of those fleeing are able bodied men who could have been trained to fight, now there will be no one left to train.

What happens when countries such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia get attacked, and God forbid, their governments fall? Who will then take care of the next flood of millions of more refugees?

Then, there are social implications as well, as many Europeans are wary of accepting more Muslims into their country because of social unrest some of those who came as immigrants during the past decade or so are still causing, creating Sharia zones within European cities and harassing native nationals, sometimes even raping unveiled women and committing terrorist acts such as London subway bombing in England or Charlie Hebodo shooting in France, openly saying during public demonstrations that their aim is to take over Europe for Islam and subjugate all who live there under Islamic law.

We have already seen far right nationalists in Germany attacking refugee shelters and I am afraid there will be more violence, eventually from both sides. God only knows how it will all end, we do not know all the details, but we know from the Scripture that eventually Israel will be puled into it all and will be forced to confront the ISIS forces, especially if they attack Jordan with whom Israel has peaceful relations, which is the very reason that the terrorists want to attack Jordan, seeing its King as a traitor and if Palestinians decide to join ISIS fighters against the king of Jordan and Israel, then God will have to intervene and we know that He will win and defeat Islamic forces both as an army and as an ideology.

On the other hand, there are thousands of Muslims who are coming to Christ in Germany, Turkey, and other places where Christians reach out to them with the love of Jesus even as Christians who could not get away are being martyred daily, so amongst all this evil there is always much good that is happening. We need to pray for wisdom for our political leaders, for salvation of the Muslims even the fanatical ones, and for strength of faith for those who are laying down their lives for their faith in Jesus.

There were also clashes today between the Palestinian youth and Israeli police on the Temple Mount, which might be the beginning of a larger conflict over this holy site.

Author's note: Photo courtesy of  www.ibitimes.co.uk

Iran Deal And The Coming Ezekiel 38 War Against Israel

While President Obama tried to make this nuclear deal with Iran to prevent war, he simply paved the road for another one. But there is nothing anyone could do about it. The Bible is clear that this war will take place and therefore cannot be prevented, though it could have been delayed if Obama and his European partners have not chose the way of appeasement towards Iran.

But again perhaps they were blinded because it is supposed to happen at this juncture of world history? Either way, Iran got everything it wanted and some, but never changed its goals. Ayatollah Khamenei as well as President Rouhani saw this as a triumph of Islamic Republic over the West and told "brothers in Palestine and Lebanon" to rejoice. Now, why would Palestinians rejoice over this deal?

It is simply because it brought Iran this much closer to gaining nuclear weapon, so it could "liberate" Palestine by wiping Israel off the world's map. And they will do what they say that they will do and Israel for one knows this very well. That is why Israelis will try to stop Iran from getting the nukes on their own, if they have to.

This in turn will draw the military response not only from Iran, but also from its allies. Russia already declared that a strike on Iran is the same to them as a strike on Russia itself. Turkey under its current leadership also would join any coordinated attack against Israel and those three nations just happen to be listed in the Ezekiel 38 prophecy as part of the alliance of nations who in the last days will go to war against restored Israel.

It is very possible that we will see it unfolding very soon. Perhaps this is the war that the blood moons and the Jubilee cycle point to? I would not be surprised. If it is so, then we already know the end even before the beginning because the Scriptures clearly declare that this alliance will be supernaturally defeated by God Himself who will fight for His people like He did in the days of old.

There will be a mega earthquake and perhaps a volcanic eruption as well that will rain fiery hailstones on this army destroying it completely. The Al-Aqsa Masque will be destroyed too. God of the Bible will prove Allah a false god, thus destroying the problem of Islamic terrorism that plagues the world today and the Iranian people will take back their country that was hijacked by Islamic fanatics back in 1979.

We are living in truly amazing days!

Renewed Call To Prayer For ISIS Fighters

It is very easy to begin to resent or even hate ISIS fighters as well as their religion when we are being now daily bombarded with increasingly more revolting images of the atrocities that they commit.

Many well intentioned Christians post those pictures on their blogs and social media pages to bring awareness to how wrong it is what they are doing afraid that if Islam gains foothold in the West, then this kind of violence will reach them too, but we have way more powerful weapons at our disposal in this holy war and it is the authority that God had given us, the power of His Holy Spirit, the Blood of Jesus, the word of our testimony, the Love of God and the power of prayer.

Have you ever thought why Jesus told us to love our enemies? Why He commanded us to pray for those who hate, persecute, insult, spitefully use, rob or even kill us? Well, today it dawned on me even clearer than ever before. He did so because He wants to save them! Yes, you read right. He wants to save them because He died for them too.

We have to remember that these people as vicious as they might be are only tools in the hands of the real enemy, the demonic hordes of hell who drive them to do what they are doing and we were promised the authority over them.

Jesus said, "Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you...and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it." ( Luke 10:19 ; Mat. 16:18)

We have the power, so let us use it! Since I issued the last call to prayer for ISIS fighters on this blog earlier this year, I have heard amazing stories of salvation of those who not only used to kill Christians and other innocent people, but even enjoyed doing it, how some of the had visitations from Jesus asking them why were they killing His people and revealing the truth about Himself to them.

This happened because of our prayers. These people are all deceived poor souls desperate for salvation. They cannot conquer their own sinful nature, so they go to Syria and Iraq to fight in the "holy war" because they are brainwashed into thinking that this will assure them eternal life. let us continue to storm the gates of hell by raising our prayer for their salvation daily to heaven. Every minute of prayer counts!

Four Pale Horses And the Man Coming Out Of The Sea

This dream that I had back in December, 2010 falls into a category called in the Bible as "night visions". Whereas dreams have more fluid and dream like quality, dream visions are very clear, sometimes hard to distinguish from reality.

This dream vision was very intense. I first shared it publically on March 8, 2011 not really knowing fully what it meant. Below is an excerpt from that article with a link for those of you who would like to read the whole thing. It is very interesting in the light of what had happened in the Middle East since I had this dream vision.

"Last December, I had a very strange dream vision. There was a great dark sea before me, and along with many other people, I stood on the beach. Suddenly we saw four pale ghost-like horses galloping out of the sea.

Following these horses was a man who looked similar to the late pope, John Paul II, also coming out of the sea. We could all feel an intense sense of fear, even dread as they all appeared. I remember encouraging those around me not to be afraid and trust in God.

It was quite disturbing. I did not know what to make of it really, though from the Bible of course, I knew that “great sea,” always signifies either many nations of the world or geographic region of the Mediterranean Sea, which is the Middle East.

I shared it only with my husband and couple of friends. We prayed that if this vision was from God that He would make its meaning clear to us. From my previous experience with dreams and visions, I also know that sometimes the meanings of them become clearer as the time of their fulfillment draws near."


Read more: http://relijournal.com/christianity/the-pale-horse-of-apocalypse-unleashed/#ixzz3XiIiyKMt

Then I went on to say how a friend showed me a video clip that she saw on TV of a flare during an Egyptian revolution that took the shape of a pale horse and a death rider on it. She said it reminded her of my dream vision.

The horses of death keep galloping through the Middle East as ISIS grabs more and more territory even as the Western forces try to stop it and there is also a new "man of peace" who appeared on political as well as religious world scene in a person of pope Francis who is very often being compared to late pope John Paul II. Could he be the man from my vision?

It is quite possible as this pope is heavily involved in peace process in the Middle East. Perhaps as the violence from ISIS and other Islamic militant groups keeps spreading there and more moderate Islamic countries such as Jordan are going to be attacked or perhaps even fall to the fanatics, there will be a greater push to solve Israeli-Palestinian conflict as Islamic radicals have it as their goal to destroy Israel and reclaim their land for Islam.

This pope often said that he is against "proselytising" because he believes that everyone can be saved when he does what is "good" regardless of the religion or lack of it and the Islamists often use the argument that they have to fight for their faith because of Christians who proselytize Muslims.

Perhaps the pope would strike some sort of a deal with Muslims and the condition would be that the proselytizing efforts by Christians must stop and it will cause all Bible believing Christians who obey the call of God to share the gospel with others to be persecuted by this new world religion created by pope Francis or another man acting in the same spirit.

Future will tell, but whatever happens we must obey God rather than man.