Yesterday, Monday 3/2/15, at Breitbart.com, I published a lengthy 2-part (part 1; part 2) essay which highlighted the Shiite Islamic doctrine of “najis.” This doctrine elucidates the spiritual and physical “impurity/uncleanliness” of non-Muslims in general, and Jews in particular, being imposed to engender hatred against these “infidels.” Melded to Shiite Iran’s two other hegemonic pillars, i.e., jihadism, and Islamic Jew-hatred, this odious doctrine, “popularized” by leading Shiite legists from al-Majlisi (d. 1699), the Ayatollah Khomeini of his era, to Green Movement spiritual “inspiration,” Ayatollah Montazeri (d. December, 2009) dehumanizes and thereby legitimates the annihilation of those deemed “unclean.”
Below, in bold, are clarifying excerpts from part 2 of my 2-part (part 1 here) Breitbart my essay:
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Mohammad Baqer Majlisi (d. 1699), the highest institutionalized clerical officer under both Shah Sulayman (1666-1694) and Shah Husayn (1694-1722), is recognized as the most influential cleric of the Safavid Shiite theocracy in Persia, the Ayatollah Khomeini of his era. In his magnum opus Bihar al-anwar (“Oceans of Light”), Majlisi clarifies the two aspects of the non-Muslim’s ostensible najis, “impurity.” The first concerns “spiritual impurity” caused by “their essential nastiness, and the corruption of their beliefs.” The second aspect flows logically from the first: the concrete, physical impurity, frequently called “juridical impurity”, i.e., an impurity defined by legal prescriptions. Majlisi’s treatise, “Lightning Bolts Against the Jews,” despite its title, was actually an overall guideline to anti-dhimmi (infidels subjugated by jihad, and subjected to a pact of submission, or “dhimma”, that spares their lives) regulations for all non-Muslims within the Shiite theocracy. Al-Majlisi, in this treatise, describes the standard humiliating requisites for non-Muslims living under the Sharia, first and foremost, the blood ransom jizya poll-tax, based on Koran 9:29. He then enumerates six other restrictions relating to worship, housing, dress, transportation, and weapons (specifically, i.e., to render the dhimmis defenseless), before outlining the unique Shiite impurity or “najis” regulations, as per their “juridical impurity.” And he concludes the section of najis regulations by stating, “It would also be better if the ruler of the Muslims would establish that all infidels could not move out of their homes on days when it rains or snows because they would make Muslims impure.”
Soroudi, in her 1994 treatise on najis, observed that “the yellow, red, or orange badge of shame was used in Shiite communities as a precautionary means against accidental contact with Jews.” Below is an enumeration from the travelogue account of Israel Joseph Benjamin (1818-1864) of the major “oppressions” suffered by Persian Jews that he observed during the mid-19th century, largely “inspired” by the doctrine of najis:
-Throughout Persia the Jews are obliged to live in a part of town separated from the other inhabitants; for they are considered as unclean creatures, who bring contamination with their intercourse and presence.
-Even in the streets of their own quarter of the town they are not allowed to keep open any shop. They may only sell there spices and drugs, or carry on the trade of a jeweler, in which they have attained great perfection.
-Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity, and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans [Muslims], they are pelted by the boys and mob with stones and dirt.
-For the same reason they are forbidden to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans.
… during a Wednesday, November 20, 2013 speech before of 50,000 Basij militiamen, Khamenei proclaimed the following words, allegedly in reference to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
Is the Islamic system after a war with others? Sometimes this is heard from the enemies of Iran, such as from the sinister mouth of the unclean rabid dog of the region in the Zionist regime.
The next morning (Thursday, 11/21/13), a Twitter feed associated with Khamenei shared a photo of an Israel Defense Forces canine unit with the Ayatollah’s sentiments from Wednesday, 11/20/14, reiterated as a caption referring to The Jewish State:
Israel is the sinister, unclean, rabid dog of the region.
Khamenei’s vitriolic repetition of the words “unclean rabid dog” in reference to Netanyahu, and Israel/Jews, expose the third pillar of Iran’s hegemonic ideology: Shiite Islam’s dehumanizing concept of “najis,” or “uncleanliness/impurity” of non-Muslims in general, and Jews in particular. The late Professor Sorour Soroudi (d. 2002), who spent her youth in Iran, explained how:
Jews were frequently addressed in the streets as juhud-e-najis, ‘unclean Jew’. This is not merely an abusive address like ‘dirty Jew’, but one which signifies ritual impurity with far reaching practical implications. The other expression is sag-juhud, ‘Jew-dog’. Contrary to [the indigenous pre-Islamic faith of Persian] Zoroastrianism where dogs are cherished…in Islam dogs are in the same category as pigs and one the pollutant agents. As a result, and probably in order to spite dog-loving Zoroastrians, in Iranian Islamic culture dogs are often treated, with cruelty, and frequently harassed. Therefore, expressions such as sag-juhud and sag-armani, ‘Armenian dog’, signified both the impurity and the inferior social status of the religious minorities.
Green Movement spiritual inspiration Ayatollah Montazeri was the leading avatar of the contemporary revitalization of this odious doctrine in Iran. Professor Soroudi and Professor Eliz Sanasarian—both Iranian expatriates—have analyzed Montazeri’s views on najis, Sanasarian noting,
Montazeri saw nejasat [najis] in twelve items including blood, dogs, pigs, wine, and kafirs [i.e., primarily, non-Muslims]…A kafir’s body, including hair, nails, and body fluids was to be avoided. The purchase, sale, or receiving of meat and fat from either non-Muslim countries or a kafir were forbidden.”
Montazeri further argued that a non-Muslim’s (kafir’s) impurity was, “a political order from Islam and must be adhered to by the followers of Islam, and the goal [was] to promote general hatred toward those who are outside Muslim circles.” Such “hatred” was to assure that Muslims would not succumb to corrupt, i.e., non-Islamic thoughts. The image, below, and English translation of its Farsi caption, confirm that Montazeri personally abided this ugly doctrine: “This is Iran’s deceased Ayatollah Montazeri (d. December, 2009) in the photograph where he rejected shaking the hand of a fellow Jewish Iranian. He declined the handshake because he did not want to become dirty (najis) and his cleanliness despoiled for his ‘Salaat’ preparation (for prayer, as a Muslim), by contacting the (najis, infidel) Jew.”
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As I describe in detail in my recent book, Iran’s Final Solution For Israel, najis-inspired anti-Jewish pogroms periodically decimated the relatively small communities of Jews in theocratic Shiite Iran during the 16th through early 20th centuries. Now this Shiite Islamic animus is directed at the collective najis Jew, Israel, whose “regional filth” must be cleansed, as well as the infidel U.S., which must also be crushed over the long term, by jihad war.
