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Great Mothers, Fathers, Children and GrandChildren Of Iran

 
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cyrus
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:13 am    Post subject: Great Mothers, Fathers, Children and GrandChildren Of Iran Reply with quote

Youtube Playlist: Great Helen And Abol of Tus Odyssey - Dr. Jim Bakhtiar Winner of 2006 ALL-AMERICA Alumni Award

Must Watch Video: Helen And Abol of Tus Odyssey and Great Son Dr. Jamshid Bakhtiar Winner of 2006 ALL-AMERICA FWAA Alumni Award

Great American Mother Nurse Helen of Tus: Her Odyssey from Idaho to Iran the first American to marry an Iranian in the United States

Quote:
Helen of Tus Her Odyssey from Idaho to Iran.
A true tale, the odyssey of 22-yr old adventurous American nurse who defied the norm, by marrying a 55-yr old Iranian doctor in 1927, New York. Despite her conservative Protestant upbringing in Idaho, Helen boldly moved to Iran in 1931. Incredibly, she helped open the first private hospital in Iran, as an anesthesiologist and mother of 7 children. Later Helen became a naval officer with President Truman's Point 4 program, travelling by jeep to remote villages of Iran, convincing the clergy of the need to educate women about healthcare, and journeying with the legendary Bakhtiari tribe on their annual migration through 12,000 feet snow-capped mountains. Helen born an American, raised in Idaho in-bred by the American "where there is a will-there is a way," sensed this paradigm as a calling.She applied her American values in the ancient culture of Iran, values of hard work, sacrifice, understanding, and identifying with other peoples sufferings. Helen died in 1973 and didn't live to witness the Iranian Revolution and what that would do to her two beloved homelands. Helen is buried in Tus, Iran near the tomb of the legendary Persian poet Ferdowsi.

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Great Iranian Father M.D. First Iranian Graduated From Medical School in Syracuse University, USA, Who Returned to Iran in 1931 and had become Dean of the Tehran University Medical School, is the best model of hard work, endurance, perseverance and Greatness for new generation of Iranian.
Abol Ghassem of Tus
The Epic Journey of Abol Ghassem Bakhtiar, M.D.
Quote:
A Bakhtiyari from the village of Borujen, Chahar Mahal, Persia, he was a man of great physical strength and character who struggled to obtain knowledge, loved science and poetry, a spiritual warrior of high moral character. Abol Ghassem died in 1971 at the age of 99. He is buried in Tus, Iran, because of a dream he had that one day his earth would mix with the earth of Ferdowsi, the great epic poet of Iran, and a hero would be born to save Iran.
Abol Ghassem came into the world with nothing of material value,
inheriting a Sufi cloak and a dervish bowl from his father. He evolved from a peddler, to a shopkeeper, to a tutor, to a student,to an M.D., to a hospital director, to Dean of the Tehran University Medical School, to Chief Surgeon for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. He was the first Iranian to complete medical school in the United States and return to Iran in 1931. He and his American wife, Helen Jeffreys, the first American to marry an Iranian in the United States and go to Iran, had 7 children.

=
The result of this love story is the Great Son Jamshid Bakhtiar M.D. with 1957 colorful nicknames as “The Iron Iranian” and the first Iranian All-American 2006 Award Winner


Great Son, Great Mother and Great Father wrote:
Watch Video: Former All-American college football player Dr. Jamshid Bakhtiar featured on ESPN.


1) Click Here To Order This Book From Amazon - Helen of Tus: Her Odyssey from Idaho to Iran




2) Clkick Here To Order This Book From Amazon - Abol Ghassem of Tus: The Epic Journey of Abol Ghassem Bakhtiar, M. D.



Editorial Reviews
Review


"Helen had peace of mind, lack of prejudice, and love of humanity respecting and serving her adopted land." -- Admiral Abol Ardalan, CEO, Iran Electronics Industries


"Her adventures are in the spirit of all great female adventurers, from Isek Dinesen to Freya Stark." -- Jacki Lyden, author Daughter of the Queen of Sheba and National Public Radio Senior Correspondent, winner of the Gracie Award, 2002

Description:
This is not a typical book and one should not expect to read it as such. First, the style of the book is very different than what we typically read in English, and it is only after you begin, that it's faint familiarity begins to awaken in you. Told in the naqqali (Storyteller) style, this book is structured similarly to our rich tradition of storytelling depicted in such books as the Shahnameh (Book of Kings, Ferdowsi). Second, the book is full of photos, each captioned, so you can begin to somewhat digest the book that way. Third, is to read the excerpts from the more than 300 letters, written in Helen's wonderfully American style, as a whole other way to enjoy the book. And finally there are the explained perspectives that puts everything into context and fills in the family's viewpoint as described by Helen's equally talented and inspired daughters.
It is the story of Helen Jeffreys, an American from Idaho, who came to Iran as a nurse in the thirties. Who came to raise a family, but also came to serve and love Iran beyond anything we can imagine today. The book is an assemblage, a transcript, a story taken from the letters that Helen wrote to her children during her incredible life. The family's photos and mementoes were used to bring the words to life by 2 of her daughters and Rose (Shireen). and Mary Nell (Laleh). In 1927 Helen met and married an Iranian, a dapper Abol Bakhtiar who had come to America to seek his fortune. The Wild Wild West meets the Wild Wild East.

Helen Jeffreys originally came from Idaho, of strong Scottish, Irish and English stock. Helen's family, like many steadfast American families of the time, were hardy, tried and true blue Americans, who originally came to the lands of the Nez Pierce Native Americans in Idaho, traveling along the famous Oregon Trail as pioneers. They fought in the Civil, Spanish-American, and First World wars. After World War II, Truman proposed what became known as the great "4-Point Plan", one of which intended for America to help spread technology and among other things public health know-how all over the world. A precursor to Kennedy's Peace-Corps. With her family strength fully instilled, Helen joined the Navy as a nurse under the 4-point program and took her commission to Iran with Abol. She then traveled throughout Iran's southwestern provinces bringing public health care to the famine stricken villages of Iran.

Abol came from the famous Bakhtiari tribe in southwestern Iran. The Bakhtiari were famous horsemen and considered to be the bravest fighters, staunchly opposed to any unfair rule by force, remnants of the long forgotten Persian warriors.

Imagine the courage it must have taken for Abol to make his way alone, halfway across the globe to America. Abol, although not featured in the title of the book, was no less than a truly marvelous Iranian. He worked his way from nothing to becoming an American educated physician returning to Iran to become a doctor. He climbed (literally, he once went on an expedition to climb Mt. Damavand and made it to the top 4 hours before anyone else on the team!) and worked his way to the top. The sheer determination of this man, un-dampened by anything, disallowing any doubt to creep into his path, is awe-inspiring. He is in some ways the very essence of the American Dream.

It is also a book of firsts; The first known American to marry an Iranian in the America and go to Iran. The first American Nurse to come to Iran. The first All American Iranian football hero (Helen and Abol's eldest son Jamshid). And there are many more in the book. Helen of Tus is not about the past, it's about potential. What keeps coming back to you is what a perfect example this is of how naturally cultures can in fact blend. That by interacting one can not only respect and understand another's culture, but serve to strengthen their own culture as well. In this time of US-Iran coldening of relations, tedious Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, and insignificant politicians whose greedy self serving vital interests are only in keeping cultures apart, this book is the best testament, no, proof, that dialogue is inherently good, that opening up to another culture with a pure heart is virtuous, and for lack of a better metaphor, that it makes good long term moral investment sense. With good will dividends that pay long after, generation after generation, forever.






THE BIOGRAPHY OF DR. ABOL GHASSEM BAKHTIAR (1872 – 1971)

Quote:
ESPN to feature Jamshid “Jim” Bakhtiar - All American Football Player 1957 UVA

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the proudest times for my grandparents Helen and Abol Ghassem Bakhtiar
and indeed for all of my mother’s family was when my Uncle Jamshid was named the first Iranian All-American football player back in 1957 at the University of Virginia. Jim, as he was known, was selected by Look Magazine and the Football Writers of America. He appeared on “The Perry Como Show” in New York as well as “To Tell the Truth.” He was also honored at the Washington, D.C. Touchdown club as the outstanding area college player of the year, and was chosen for the Sportsman Award for the State of Virginia through the Bedford, Virginia Athletic Club.

His All-American title made him a hero inside Iran. The summer before his senior year, a Bakhtiari Khan arranged for my uncle Jamshid to visit several sports clubs in cities around Iran. The Shah of Iran presented him with a beautiful silver bowl through his ambassador, Mr. Ali Amini, in Washington D.C.

His accomplishments in the game attracted the Voice of America that began broadcasting his games to Iran. My grandfather Abol Ghassem, an American trained physician, loved sitting by the radio in Iran to hear the outcome of his son’s games and his successes on the football team. In a letter to Jamshid, Abol wrote: “I long to see you in one of the football games when you are in actual combat. I don’t think that I could bear to sit down and watch you without running on the field to help you carry the ball. To Jamshid Bakhtiar from this side of the ocean—Rah! Rah! Rah!” (February 4, 1954)

My grandfather was so excited, proud, honored to have his son playing American football with such success. One of his games was against West Point Military Academy, where he played exceptionally well. The game was shown in between the feature films at a movie theater in the city of Abadan where my grandfather lived. While the movie clip was being shown, my grandfather got up in the middle of the theater and acknowledged Jamshid as being the player and loudly cheered him as if he was at the game.

My grandmother Helen went to visit my Uncle Jamshid in Charlottesville, VA in 1958. There, Helen was interviewed by a local radio station about her son’s accomplishments. The radio announcer, Mrs. Brown, asked my grandmother: “Your son, Jim Bakhtiar brought to us this interest in Iran. It was a happy day for the University of Virginia when he decided to come and study here and I think, Mrs. Bakhtiar, and you will appreciate this being the mother of Jim, when they began to give him the name ‘The Prince,’ that I felt that he is just tops. Would you tell us a little about him that he wouldn’t say about himself?”

Helen responded: “Well, being a mother, of course, I am very prejudiced and I could say a great deal about Jim. I happened to be in Iran when Jim was making his name in football in the States. In fact, I was in the home of some friends when I heard his voice coming over the radio, the Voice of America. Jim’s games were broadcast in Iran and there were people I met later in small villages in Iran who had heard about Jim Bakhtiar.”

Listen to a podcast with Jim Bakhtiar:



Jeff Nations wrote:


An All-American Story
Bakhtiar Uses Football to Pursue His Dream (Jan. 2007)

Source URL For Better Format

Dr. Jamshid Bakhtiar doesn’t display any trophies in his offices in Ranson, West Virginia. There are no cleats or helmets, jerseys or footballs mounted on pedestals.

The game of football was once an important part of Bakhtiar’s life, and he was good at it. As a rugged 6-foot tall, 205-pound fullback at the University of Virginia, Bakhtiar long ago etched his name into the Cavaliers’ record book and it remains there still.

From 1955 to 1957, “Jim” Bakhtiar — given such colorful nicknames as “The Iron Iranian” and “The Iranian Prince,” among others — ran roughshod over the competition in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Despite starting on both offense and defense as a fullback and linebacker, Bakhtiar completed his collegiate career as the ACC’s all-time leader in rushing yardage (2,434 yards), attempts (555) and most 100-yard games — records that stood for more than 10 years. Bakhtiar still ranks as Virginia’s sixth all-time leading rusher despite just playing three years of varsity football during one of Virginia’s leanest stretches of success.

“We just didn’t have the horsepower like Duke did,” Bakhtiar said. “We beat Carolina — Jim Tatum was coaching at that time, and we really were underdogs. We beat Virginia Tech down in the Richmond Tobacco Bowl (in 1957). I still hold the record actually, with Wali Lundy. He and I are the only Virginia backs to score four touchdowns against Virginia Tech.

“We just didn’t have enough people. I played 60 minutes every game — I mean, I never came out. We just didn’t have the number of athletes, and the University of Virginia was even harder to get into at that time in terms of their academics.”

Despite the Cavaliers’ struggles, the press took notice of Jim Bakhtiar. After gaining an ACC-high 822 yards in 1957, in his senior season, Bakhtiar was named a first-team all-American by the Football Writers Association of America. As part of that team, Bakhtiar was featured in Look Magazine and appeared on the “Perry Como Show.” He shared third-team Associated Press all-America honors with future NFL great Jim Taylor; the AP didn’t select a fullback for the first or second team that year.

A year with the Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders followed, and Bakhtiar was just as successful. He gained 991 rushing yards for Calgary and was named the team’s most outstanding player, after that he never strapped on a football helmet again.

“I went up there and did pretty well, actually,” Bakhtiar said. “But I just decided that I wanted to go to medical school, and I didn’t want to take the risk of getting hurt.”

Nearly 50 years have passed since then, but Bakhtiar added another football accolade to his resume this past December when he was named as The Football Writers 2006 All-America Alumni Award recipient.

Bakhtiar, who received the award on Dec. 9 during a ceremony in Orlando, Fla., was featured on ESPN and rubbed elbows with the likes of college coaching legend Lou Holtz and television personality Regis Philbin (who served as emcee during the banquet).

“One of the nicest things about the award was it really wasn’t for my football,” Bakhtiar said. “It was for what I did after football. If athletes can realize that there’s a whole life out there after football, and if you get locked in and think it’s only football, then I think you’re shortchanging yourself.”

– By Jeff Nations
The Martinsburg (W.Va.) Journal
reprinted with permission


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 6:25 pm    Post subject: Dr. Samuel Martin Jordan Reply with quote

Quote:

Dr. Samuel Martin Jordan (1871-1952) was an American presbyterian missionary in Persia (Iran Throughout history, Iran has been of great geostrategy importance because of its central location in Eurasia....
).


http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Samuel_M._Jordan

He is sometimes referred to as the "father of modern education in Iran," though Amir KabirAmir Kabir
*List of Prime Ministers of Iran*Military history of IranCategory:Persian peopleCategory:Qajar dynasty...
(due to his establishment of Dar ol-FonoonDar ol-Fonoon
Dar al-Funun, established 1851 was the first modern institution of higher learning in Persian Empire....
) is generally thought to be more deserving of this title, and indeed within IranIran
Throughout history, Iran has been of great geostrategy importance because of its central location in Eurasia....
, the title refers to Amir KabirAmir Kabir
*List of Prime Ministers of Iran*Military history of IranCategory:Persian peopleCategory:Qajar dynasty...
.

After graduating first from Lafayette CollegeLafayette College
Lafayette College, located in Easton, Pennsylvania, United States, in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, is an independent, undergraduate, coeducational, residential institution....
and then from the Princeton Theological SeminaryPrinceton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary is a theological seminary located in Princeton Township, New Jersey in the United States....
in 1898, he moved to TehranTehran
Tehran , population 7,160,094 , and a land area of 658 square kilometers, is the capital city of Iran and the center of Tehran Province....
and spent 43 years as a missionary in Iran. Under his direction, the establishment that later took the name of Alborz High SchoolAlborz High School
Alborz High School, is a prestigious high school located in the heart of Tehran, Iran. It is named after the Alborz mountain range north of Tehran....
was upgraded to the American College of Tehran and received a permanent charter from the Board of Regents of the State University of New YorkState University of New York
The State University of New York is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States....
in 1932. Dr. Jordan served as President of the institution from 1899 until 1940. He received the first Scientific Medal of Iran in 1940.



In appreciation of his many pioneering services to the Higher Education in IranHigher education in Iran
Iran has a large network of private, public, and state affiliated universities offering degrees in higher education. State-run universities of Iran are under the direct supervision of and....
, a boulevard in Tehran, Jordan BoulevardJordan, Tehran
Jordan is the name of a popular avenue in Tehran, Iran. It is also the name of the district which the avenue runs through in northern Tehran....
, was named after him. Although after the 1979 Iranian RevolutionIranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution was the 1979 revolution that transformed Iran from a Iranian monarchy, under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to a populist theocracy Islamic republic under the rule of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini....
this street's name was changed (to Africa), the old name is still widely used. A statue of him, perhaps the only of a Westerner in Iran at the time, which is still on display in Amirkabir University, was dedicated in Alborz High SchoolAlborz High School
Alborz High School, is a prestigious high school located in the heart of Tehran, Iran. It is named after the Alborz mountain range north of Tehran....
. Further, a theater in Tehran was named after him.

On 21 April 2005, the microtechnology pioneer Fariborz Maseeh (founder of IntelliSenseIntelliSense
IntelliSense is a feature popularized by the Microsoft Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment....
) and the Massiah Foundation pledged $2 million to create an innovative interdisciplinary research center at UC Irvine named "The Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture" that will bring together scholars in Persian history, language, culture, art and literature.

Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Biography wrote:


Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Biography

After graduating first from Lafayette College and then from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1898, Dr. Samuel M. Jordan spent 43 years as a missionary in Iran. He was the founder and president of the American College of Tehran, renamed Alborz College of Tehran. Dr. Jordan served as president of the institution from 1899- 1940 and during his period of leadership played a significant role in the growth of Alborz from an elementary school to a famous and respected college. He was well known for his dedication to expanding the size of the campus and enhancing the opportunities for the school and its students. An avid believer in the value of sports, he is credited with bringing football, volleyball, basketball and soccer to Iran. Dr. Jordan’s commitment to the academic community in Iran through his work at Alborz earned him the Iranian Decoration of the First Scientific Medal in 1940. After his retirement, Dr. Jordan made a trip to Iran on a good-will mission in 1944. A bust of him was dedicated at that time believed to be the only such bust of a Westerner in Iran. A principal street in Teheran bears his name as further recognition of his contribution to the country.


Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture, University of California, Irvine..


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:00 pm    Post subject: Helen Of Tus Reply with quote



Quote:
A true tale, the odyssey of 22-yr old adventurous American nurse who defied the norm, by marrying a 55-yr old Iranian doctor in 1927, New York. Despite her conservative Protestant upbringing in Idaho, Helen boldly moved to Iran in 1931. Incredibly, she helped open the first private hospital in Iran, as an anesthesiologist and mother of 7 children. Later Helen became a naval officer with President Truman's Point 4 program, travelling by jeep to remote villages of Iran, convincing the clergy of the need to educate women about healthcare continued...


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PostPosted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:32 am    Post subject: A Monument to an American's Selflessness in Iran Reply with quote

Davar Iran Ardalan wrote:

A Monument to an American's Selflessness in Iran
by Davar Iran Ardalan




Helen Jeffreys Bakhtiar, pictured in 1951, was a Navy lieutenant commander and went to Iran as part of a U.S. foreign aid project designed to help less-developed countries. Courtesy of Laleh Bakhtiar

Visit Source URL: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91207936&sc=emaf&sc=emaf&sc=emaf&sc=emaf&sc=emaf&sc=emaf&sc=emaf

Weekend Edition Saturday, June 7, 2008 · Imagine finding out that a nomadic tribe has named a mountain after your grandmother.

My mother and I learned just that when a relative phoned to say the storied Bakhtiari tribe had so honored my grandmother, Helen Jeffreys Bakhtiar, to commemorate her public health work there in the 1950s. It's quite a legacy for a woman born in Weiser, Idaho, at the beginning of the 20th century.

Located in the central Zagros Mountains of Iran, near the ancient city of Isfahan, the area around Kohe Helen or Helen's Mountain, is home to a wide variety of species, including brown bears, leopards, wildcats and eagles. Iranian environmentalists have marked the mountain and the surrounding forests as a protected area.

In the 1950s, Helen was a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy. She traveled to Iran to serve as a public health nurse as part of President Truman's Point Four Program. The rural improvement project sent American experts in agriculture, health and education to work in villages in less-developed countries.

Traveling by jeep to remote villages, the daughter of conservative Baptists from Boise lobbied tribal elders on the need to educate women about health care. In one instance, Helen single-handedly convinced a reluctant village cleric to allow local women to attend her prenatal class.

She also spent time in a village called Koshkerood, or "dry river." In a 1958 interview, Helen recalled, "When we finally left the village, the people said to me, 'You have given us hope.' And when our engineers put a shallow well in this village so the people would have proper drinking water, they said, 'And with water, you have given us life.'"

My grandmother worked primarily with the people of the Bakhtiari tribe in the mountains of southwestern Iran between the cities of Ahwaz and Isfahan. The Bakhtiari are made up of two main, loosely organized nomadic clans: the Chahar Lang and Haft Lang.

One of her life's highlights was accompanying the Bakhtiari on their biannual migration across snow-capped mountains and the icy waters of the Karun River to find pastures for their flocks of sheep and goats.

The Bakhtiaris first entered Helen's life when, at age 22, she defied convention and married an Iranian doctor 30 years her senior in New York City. He was born in a village in the Bakhtiari region, and when she fell in love with him she fell in love with the tribe. Four years later, in 1931, they moved to Iran and Helen helped open one of the country's first private hospitals. She worked as an anesthesiologist, and in time she became the mother of seven children.

In 1939, when the world was on the verge of war, Helen returned stateside with three of her children because it had become too dangerous for Americans in Iran. After World War II, she went back to Iran to reunite with her family but realized that she and her husband had grown apart. The couple decided that she should settle in the United States so that their children could receive an American education.

They divorced several years later. But Helen never lost her love for Iran, and by 1950, she had become involved with Point Four.

My grandmother died in 1973. She is buried in the Iranian city of Tus, near the tomb of the legendary Persian poet Ferdowsi. She didn't live to witness the Iranian Revolution or the embassy hostage-taking ordeal, but her story illustrates how one woman broke down barriers and encouraged love, understanding and mutual respect.

I've never seen the mountain that's been named after her, but now I know that somewhere in the Chahar Mahal Bakhtiari region of Iran, Mount Helen stands as a monument to my grandmother's selfless spirit.



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PostPosted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 1:06 pm    Post subject: Abol and Helen Of Tus Reply with quote

Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar wrote:














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PostPosted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:31 pm    Post subject: Abolqasem Ferdowsi: The Poet Who Rescued Iran Reply with quote

NPR By Steve Inskeep wrote:

Abolqasem Ferdowsi: The Poet Who Rescued Iran
by Steve Inskeep
Please Listen To NPR Now [7 min 46 sec]

Please Visit Source URL: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100397309&sc=emaf

Quote:

The tomb of Abolqasem Ferdowsi lies within sight of the mountains of northeastern Iran. Iranians compare him to the Greek poet Homer, author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey.



Morning Edition, February 9, 2009 · When Abolqasem Ferdowsi finished his epic poem, he wasn't shy in describing it. He ended the massive book, called the Shahnameh, with these words:


Ferdowsi wrote:
I've reached the end of this great history
And all the land will fill with talk of me
I shall not die, these seeds I've sown will save
My name and reputation from the grave
And men of sense and wisdom will proclaim
When I have gone, my praises and my fame.


Maybe he wasn't bragging, since his words came true. Iranians compare him to the Greek poet Homer. His statue gazes over the traffic in a Tehran square. The closing couplets of his great poem are chiseled into the walls of the classical tomb built to his memory in northeastern Iran. Most importantly, his book remains in many Iranian homes and hearts.

Ferdowsi mixed myth and history in the Shahnameh, known in English as the "Book of Kings." It's a chronicle of the rulers and warriors of the great Persian empire, which had come and gone long before the poet was born in 940 A.D.

It is also, however, a story of survival. Persia had been conquered, first by the Arabs who brought Islam, and later by barbarians from central Asia. Iranians say it was Ferdowsi, with a single great book, who preserved the Persian language, history and mythology from being erased.

It is a gloriously unwieldy book, suggesting a nation with so much history that one can hardly make sense of it. It differs from Homer's Iliad, which is sharply focused on a single great war, and even goes so far as to dispense with the preamble and join the battle already in progress.

The Shahnameh marches through centuries of history and myth.

Generations of kings live and die. Their greatest warriors fight, are betrayed and often rebel. Along the way, Ferdowsi records great battles and petty jealousies. He records cruelty and beauty in the same page. Find the acclaimed English translation by Dick Davis, open it at random, and you are as likely as not to find a sentence such as this: "When spring's new growth gave the plains the appearance of silk, the Turks prepared for battle."

Ferdowsi glorifies war and warriors, yet his characters rarely escape the consequences of their actions. The most famous story in the book is that of Rostam, a warrior whose bravery and skill surpass all others, and who defeats unbeatable foes, but who finds himself stuck for the night in an unfamiliar town after his horse is stolen. A woman admirer steals into his bedroom. Having conceived a son in the one-night stand, Rostam leaves in the morning, apparently without a second thought, only to encounter the youth many years later as an enemy on the field of battle. Rostam is soon in a fight to the death, unaware that he is battling his own offspring.

Late in the poem, which took him decades to write, the poet digresses from his story of kings and their courts to deliver breaking news from his own life:


Quote:
Now that I'm more than sixty-five years old,
It would be wrong of me to hope for gold.
Better to heed my own advice, and grieve
That my dear son is dead. Why did he leave?
I should have gone; but no, the young man went
And left his lifeless father to lament.


A sense of loss pervades this book, written at a time when Persia's past greatness was only a memory. That may be part of the reason that Iranians cherish the Shahnameh: They relate to its sometimes melancholy beauty.

That is the explanation given by Said Laylaz, a Tehran journalist who keeps multiple copies in his home. "For a country like Iran, which had been the dominant power in the world for 1,000 years, more than 1,000 years, this is absolutely difficult to forget," he says.

Laylaz has not forgotten. He stands up from his couch, leads the way to a bookshelf, and plucks out a red-covered volume of the Shahnameh. It falls open to the story of Rostam, the great warrior who kills an enemy, not knowing it is his son.

Quote:

The opening verses of Shahnameh appear on Ferdowsi's tomb. Known in English as the "Book of Kings," the Shahnameh mixes the myths and history of Persian rulers, and the warriors who sustained them.


Quote:

In a dimly lit space, tourists place their fingers on Ferdowsi's flat tombstone.


Quote:

Sculptures depicting some of Ferdowsi's characters line the walls of this room.


Please Visit Source URL: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100397309&sc=emaf

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 5:03 pm    Post subject: Cyrus Bakhtiar M.D. Brilliant Son of Helen and Abol Of Tus Reply with quote

Cyrus Bakhtiar M.D. Brilliant Son of Helen and Abol Of Tus

Cyrus drowned in a boating accident on the Potomac River in Washionton DC, Christmas Day, 1975.

Jahanshah Javid wrote:
Uncle Siroos
by Jahanshah Javid
03-Jan-2009
Source URL:
http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/jahanshah-javid/uncle-siroos

A nice email I received about my Uncle Siroos -- my favorite uncle. He was gentle, he was wild, he was a great athlete AND scrabble player! A total romantic. Whenever he visited Abadan, we would play tennis early in the morning. He made a grunt every time he hit the ball. Adored him -- everyone did. He drowned in the Potomac River (Washington, DC) on a stormy day trying to swim to shore when a boat he was on capsized.

Carl Buffum wrote:


Source URL: http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/jahanshah-javid/uncle-siroos
Hello, Jahanshah Javid,

It is a great surprise to stumble onto your description of your uncle and my good friend Cyrus Bakhtiar. It was in 1969 that he was serving on the clinical staff of the Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury and living alone in the nearby hills, commuting daily in his ancient yellow VW beetle with only one seat and running the local roads for miles and miles in training for the Boston Marathon. I was with him when he crossed the finish line in that race; he was living then on Peace Street in Providence, R.I., and starting to call himself "Tan" Bakhtiar.

The photo of Cyrus that you attached to your posting is the only one I have ever seen, and though it's from a few years later than I knew him, it comes with the shock of recognition and the sadness of learning of his untimely death. The last word I had from him was in 1970, saying he intended to return to Teheran and would give the large pot I made for him to his sister.

I have many memories of walking together ("walkie-talkie" was his term) among the forested hills of central Vermont. I believe I recall that he was trained as a pathologist and once contemplated doing a study of suicide leapers from the Golden Gate Bridge.

A vigorous and cheerful man, really unique--unforgettable. I'm sending your piece along to a mutual friend, Susan Tarshis, to whom he once gave a lift when she was hitching across the country--all the way to California. She'll be amazed.

Thank you sincerely, for your posting, and my very best wishes to you, nephew of Cyrus.

Carl Buffum
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 5:22 pm    Post subject: Video 5 Sokhanrani Dr. Bakhtiar be monasebat Mashrutiat Reply with quote

Video 5 Sokhanrani Dr. Bakhtiar be monasebat Mashrutiat

Sokhanrani Dr. Bakhtiar dar jashne Mashrutiat Nehzat Moghavemat Melli Iran 14 khordad 1368 (5 august 1989) dar Hamburg
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