While most
of the Middle East region has been risking life and limb for the sake of a democratic
future, in Iran, different factions in the regime have been busy debating the
virtues of the ancient Persian King Cyrus the Great. Neither side brings any
new historical insight, but it hasn't been an exercise in mere navel-gazing --
in Iran, debates on ancient history have been a high-stakes affair. Today, the
question is whether the Islamic Republic should pay closer attention to the country's
pre-Islamic Iranian heritage; the answers recently offered by President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad threaten the collapse of the current regime.
The
dispute itself is nothing new. For decades, if not centuries, the twin enigmas
of Iran's identity and the nature of Islam in Iran have bedeviled Iranian
scholars and politicians alike. Iranian identity is bifurcated, split between
the pre-Islamic traditions of Zoroastrian and Manichean millennium before
Islam, and the Islam-influenced developments of the last 1,300 years.
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