Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms

Title: Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms – Journeys into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East

Author: Gerard Russell

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2014 (First)

ISBN: 9781471114700

Pages: 367

The Middle East is one of the earliest centres of ancient human civilizations. Stretching from Iran to Egypt, it brackets the Persian, Babylonian, Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations. Religion accompanies high culture and the number of independent pagan religions that flourished in the area run into the hundreds. Polytheism is inherently tolerant as it is always easy to accommodate one more god into the pantheon as the kith and kin of one already there. As the monotheistic Semitic religions grew in influence, Paganism began its retreat from the cities of high cultures into remote desert oases or hardy mountain fastnesses. A significant event in their downturn was the closure of Plato’s Academy in 529 CE by the Byzantine emperor Justinian, which threw out the pagan philosophers who resided there. Curiously, this date is traditionally taken as marking the beginning of the Dark Ages. With the advent of Islam in the next few centuries, most of the people converted to it – either through peaceful means or forced. However, a few of those groups clung to their faith in the face of great oppression and survived to this day. Even now, the persecution against them has not fully abated. The Islamic State in Syria and Iraq massacred the Yazidis and took their women as sex slaves in 2016. The Coptic Christians in Egypt are still at the receiving end of a brutal ethnic cleansing instituted by the proscribed Muslim Brotherhood. Pakistan – though not exactly located geographically in the Middle East, yet do so culturally – indulges in its own series of elimination of the minorities through suicide blasts, mob violence and strict imposition of blasphemy laws. This book painstakingly finds the exotic religions by assiduously locating their practitioners and celebrates their heritage and traditions. A first step in toleration is the knowledge of the beliefs, customs and rituals of those religions and this book greatly contributes to it. Gerard Russell is a British diplomat and author who spent 14 years representing Britain in the Middle East. Unlike Britishers in general, Russell is a polyglot fluent in Arabic, Farsi and Dari languages, which readily opened many doors for him while researching this book.

The tome, split into seven chapters, describes the history, traditions and present life of the Yazidis, Mandaeans, Zoroastrians, Druze, Samaritans, Copts and Kalasha, dwelling in the Middle East. Braving severe persecution from mainstream Semitic religions, these held on to remote or impenetrable places, often under the veil of a strict code of secrecy. Some of these religions are Gnostic, in the sense that they instructed their followers to punish or subordinate the body so that the mind can be made free for speculating on the true nature of god and the world. These faiths were more sophisticated than pre-Christian European religions. A part of the blame for failing to survive must be put on these religions too, as it keeps the believers away from the tenets of the religion, which is known only to the priests and teachers of law. This makes the lay followers at a loss to explain to others what they believe in and the significance of the arcane rituals. Their only response in such cases is the self-defeating admission that these practices were handed over to them from great antiquity and hence they still follow it with diffidence. All kinds of strange customs are employed. The Manichees are vegetarians and they were widespread in Central Asia at one time. The Yazidis and Mandaeans still employ a rudimentary caste system that is still seen in India.

Russell narrates the brutal way in which Islamic societies treated their minorities. The Koran recognized the ‘People of the Book’ – Jews, Christians and Sabians – and offered protection to them. But, the polytheists were outside this protective umbrella and had to choose between forced conversion and death. Even the Jews and Christians who were given the pitiable status of Dhimmis were second- or third-rate citizens of the society. They were not allowed to serve in the military and were denied the right to testify against a Muslim in front of a judge. They also had to pay the hated poll tax of Jizya. Whatever tolerance the minorities obtained came under the rule of tyrants and dictators like Saddam Hussein, Shah Reza Pahlavi or Hosni Mubarak who ruled with an iron hand whose might was directed more at the majority. Jews once constituted a third of the population of Baghdad, but is now totally eliminated or converted. So much for tolerance! Purges continued even in modern times. In 1941, 700 Jews were killed in a single day. Islamic regimes are notorious for their shameless ruses to convert people to their religion. Iranian law allows converted Zoroastrians a greater share in the inheritance of their parents at the expense of the siblings. Among the seven communities detailed in the book, the Lebanese Druze are slightly better off, as Lebanon is still not fully dominated by the Muslims. Reading this book, we get a chilling realization that had the state of Israel was not formed in 1948, Jews also would’ve featured as one of the chapters in this book!

It is futile and pointless to repeat again and again the coldblooded handling meted out to the religious minorities living amidst Islamic societies, but there’s a clear need to showcase them in detail to underline the depths to which religious bigotry can degrade an individual who is otherwise a decent guy. In Baghdad, the Mandaeans are the victims of a kind of untouchability. The book states that in Suq al-Shuyukh area, there are restaurants that refuse to serve Mandaeans because they are believed to pollute the utensils they eat with (p.42). They are subjected to forced conversion, kidnapping and murder. Between 2003 and 2011, as many as 175 were murdered, 275 kidnapped and hundreds converted from this community which number only a few thousand souls (p.44). Even before the ISIS came on the scene, the Yazidis were targeted at the drop of a hat. In Qahtaniya in 2007, coordinated suicide truck bombs left 800 Yazidis dead in the most gruesome terror attack in the world after 9/11. The reason was an issue of an interreligious love marriage among them. A Yazidi woman who wanted to marry a Muslim man was killed by her relatives to protect their ‘honour’. Rumours spread that she had converted and the Jihadis decided to teach the entire community a lesson in savagery. The Samaritans of Palestine fare no better. In Nablus, the old laws required them to wear bells around the neck when venturing outside their homes and banned them from riding horses. In an emergency, they could drive mules! The Copts in Egypt have a miserable episode to tell of their lives. A German monk reported in 1672 that the Copts were so fearful from continued tyrannies that at the least noise, they trembled like leaves (p.233). Sufis, often trumpeted as the embodiment of syncretism, turned bigots when a chance presented itself. It was a Sufi mystic who smashed the Sphinx’s nose in the fourteenth century in Egypt, enraged by the local peasants making offering to it as a god. The Kalasha people of Chitral valley in Pakistan are hounded by Pakistani tourists in the expectation that because Kalasha women did not wear veils and were not Muslims, they’d be available for sex. Russell mentions a Pakistani survey conducted as recently as 2010, in which 76 per cent of the respondents thought abandoning Islam merited the death penalty. Even just a rumour that a person has left Islam can spark mob violence and lynching in Pakistan.

Indians would be astonished at the similarities the religious symbols of the Yazidis share with Hinduism. They revere Melek Taoos, the peacock angel, whose depiction has a strong affinity to that of god Murugan in India who rides on a peacock. Taoos is identified with Azazeel or Iblis, which in the tradition of Abrahamic religions stand for the devil. Consequently, they are called ‘devil worshippers’. Incidentally, the Yazidis adore the sun too and employ a hierarchical caste system.

The book contains a good number of pictures depicting some of the rituals, customs and notable points in the daily life of the adherents of these disappearing religions. The author has travelled widely in the region collecting data for this book, which doubles as a nice travelogue of some of the not-so-easily accessible places. Russell muses on the future of these religions which appear to be very bleak in the Middle East. The minorities continue to live there with the feeling that they are not wanted in those societies. However, he falls short of identifying the real reason – religious fanaticism and notions of Islamic superiority over all other religions. Instead he blames the foreign policy of Western powers such as the US and UK. They infuriate the Jihadis who in turn vent their impotent rage on their neighbours who belong to minority sects, and the author accepts this as the most natural thing in the world! However, it is heartening to note that almost 90 per cent of those people had now emigrated to the West and are leading peaceful and prosperous lives there.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star