For an Iranian, the greater one’s belief in Islam, the less they tend to care about the Iranian identity. This is evident when Khomeini landed back to Iran after his exile in France, and said that he “felt nothing,”

and when Khamenei refers to the complex at Persepolis as the “throne of oppressors” and that Achaemenid glory is an “illusion.”

On the contrary, in Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda at best doesn’t even CARE about “Anērān”—non-Iranians, and at worst, says the enemies of IRAN are parasites that need to be exterminated.

By this point I’m sure many of you are thinking, “but Pahlevan! Many of Iran’s greatest figures have been Muslim!” And to that I’ll say definitely, BUT the vast majority of these men were at least *nominally* Sunni, and heavily infused Zoroastrianism into their (Sufi) teachings.

Examples:

Suhrewardi: known for founding the Iranian school of Illuminationism; he effectively synthesized Zoroastrianism into Islam. This guy is basically Zoroaster 2.0, hence why he was executed by Saladin. https://twitter.com/narangestan/status/1237752805970120704

Hafez: in his poetry Hafez refers to his mentor, the Pir-e Moghan, or The Elder of the Magi. At this point it could not be more obvious who he’s referring to... https://twitter.com/narangestan/status/1237870944003051521

Hassan-i Sabbah made so much shit up that at this point one cannot even call him a Muslim. Even as a Shia, he was so unorthodox to point that even the modern state of Iran would execute this man on charges of blasphemy if he lived today. https://twitter.com/narangestan/status/1289306732410408960

Fellated by Muslims everywhere, even the great Ibn Sina did not believe in Mohammad’s prohibition of alcohol https://twitter.com/narangestan/status/1275600723510730752

In essence, this thread is to cast light on how even Iran has been Muslim for well over a thousand years, it is precisely the Zoroastrian thought permeating through its seams by these great men that Iran has managed to intertwine Islam into its thread, not through fundamentalism.