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Jailed Iranians stand by God
By Julia Duin (Contact)
There's a bookmark in my Bible that shows the winsome faces of two attractive 20-something dark-haired, brown-eyed Iranians with a kind of alluring beauty that makes Persian women some of the loveliest women on earth.
What natural beauty Maryam Rostampour, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, 30, had at the beginning of the year has certainly disappeared after a six-month stint in one of the world's worst jails. Marzieh especially suffers from back problems, an infected tooth and blinding headaches.
Members of Iran's tiny and much-persecuted Christian minority, they were arrested March 5 for "acting against state security" and "taking part in illegal gatherings" and left to rot in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. Their families have tried to bail them out, to no avail.
On Aug. 9, the two gaunt women were brought before a revolutionary court and told to recant, according to a transcript provided by the Britain-based Elam Ministries.
"You were Muslims and now you have become Christians?" the prosecutor asked them.
"We were born in Muslim families, but we were not Muslims," was the women's reply.
When he asked them whether they regretted becoming Christians, "We have no regrets," the women replied. When he told them to renounce their beliefs, "We will not deny our faith," they said.
At one point, they got into a theological debate while trying to explain how the Holy Spirit speaks to them.
"It is impossible for God to speak with humans," the prosecutor said.
"Are you questioning whether God is almighty?" Marzieh asked.
"You are not worthy for God to speak to you," the prosecutor said.
"It is God, and not you, who determines if I am worthy," Marzieh replied.
When they were told to return to prison and think over their options, "We have already done our thinking," the women said.
These women aren't the only religious minority to suffer the wrath of Iran's mullahs. Seven long-suffering Baha'is have been in Evin prison since spring 2008 on charges of "espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic republic." Their trial has been set for Oct. 18. No official charges have been filed nor have the Baha'is been given access to their lawyer, much less freed on bail.
What alarms Baha'is worldwide is that 25 years ago, members of Iran's national-level Baha'i leadership were rounded up in a similar manner, and executed. Since 1978, 219 Baha'is have died or are missing.
The local Baha'i community, which represents 3,000 people in the Washington area, is having an event to raise awareness at 7 p.m. Saturday at Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University. Speakers include actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, who appears in "The Stoning of Soraya M."; Azar Nafisi, author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran"; and Dwight Bashir, senior analyst at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Hopefully the Evin prison will, like the Bastille, be torn down some day. Or like Cape Town's infamous Robben Island - which imprisoned Nelson Mandela for 25 years - Evin will become a World Heritage Site, a place where tourists will go to remember the horrors that once happened there.
• Julia Duin's Stairway to Heaven column runs Sundays and Thursdays. Contact her at jduin@washingtontimes.com.


Praise be unto Him whose light hath risen, whose appearance hath become exalted, whose signs are promulgated and whose evidences are fulfilled. The tongue of the realities of all things hath uttered: "Glory be to my God, the El-BAHA!" Thanks for His manifest Beauty and for His Great Splendor! -- for He hath quickened mankind with the spirit of guidance and hath rendered clear the White Path of Gifts, through the arguments which are brilliant and clear to the hearts of the intelligent, and whereby these hearts are moved, enlightened, illuminated and become cognizant of the Mighty Message <1> in this Manifest Day of the Manifestation of the Honorable Station <2> when the mystery of existence flows just as do the souls in the bodies.<1 The Cause.><2 The high station mentioned in the Koran referring to the Manifestation, BAHA'U'LLAH.>

Abdu'l-Baha
Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v1, p. 78

Innerviews: Dentist grins at life "We went to Canada in '77 and arrived here in January of '78. I had to go through a cultural shock coming over here. One thing is the honesty and simplicity of the people. In those other countries, you live with so much corruption, from the milkman who delivers milk to your house that he has diluted with water to the policeman who is supposed to keep your security and have your interests in mind but takes a bribe to put you in jail whether you are at fault or not. It's a corrupt nation. It's the poverty. You have to feed your family, so you do anything to make that extra buck. "We chose Charleston because my uncle, Cyrus Mali, is a doctor from Pakistan and had gotten into the residency program at CAMC. He was the chief urology resident. He's still practicing there. We just came here to kind of get our bearings and, 30 years later, we're still here, so I am a West Virginian at heart. I went to George Washington High School, then to Marshall, and got my dentistry degree at WVU. "I chose dentistry in rebellion toward my parents. They wanted me go into medicine, and I was going to teach them that they can't tell me what to do. My father was very disappointed. I was on the waiting list for medical school, so should I go with the one that gave me entrance, or should I wait? So I took dentistry, and I haven't regretted it a second. "In 1987, when I was a third-year student, I went to Pakistan with my mom and grandmother. I'm a Baha'i by faith. In India, the Baha'i House of Worship had just been built and we wanted to go see it. It's in the form of a lotus. Lotus has many symbolic meanings in the Indian culture. We wanted to be there for the opening of the building in New Delhi. "My grandmother remembered that we have a close family friend in India. We made connections and they invited us to come. We planned to stay four days. The third day, their son proposed to me. To get to know him a little better, we ended up staying three more days. I told him I wasn't sure, that I was in America and he was in India. I told him, 'When you make it to America, give me a call.' "A month later, he was in America. He lived with my family for a month, and we got to know each other, and a month later, we were married. Met in August, married in November, and 22 years later, here we are. "In Pakistan, when we went to visit my grandmother's family, I walked into the streets and looked at the dentistry as opposed to what they were teaching me at WVU, and it was like night and day. I have a picture of a whole array of teeth where I think people would go in and try a tooth in their mouth to see if it fit. If that denture fit, that's what they would go home with. But I think that is the lower class of dentistry. "I went to the government hospitals where you pay a very minimal amount of money. There was one dentist and two technicians. The technician had taken out a slew of teeth on this patient and had let the patient go while the dentist was still analyzing the X-rays. "I saw the technician numb the patient with a needle that is not disposable. Who knows how many others it was used on or how dull or sharp it was. Normally, you give a patient a few minutes to let the numbness take effect. But before it had time, he grabbed an instrument and used it on the patient and dropped the instrument in a dish of disinfectant. The next patient was a child. The mother and father held this poor baby down. The dentist numbed him in a hurry and reached back into that disinfectant and pulled out several instruments and went to town. It was really Third World, although this was 20 years ago. "My first job was in Man. One of my instructors said, 'You are going to wear your rubber boots, aren't you? You will be stepping into a lot of you-know-what when you go there.' I don't know what he meant. It was three years of wonderful times, getting to know people in the tiny town. I think they have a population of less than 1,000. Once my husband graduated from engineering school in Morgantown, he joined me in Man. "A lot foreigners go to Man: Filipinos, Colombians, Thai, Indians. All are physicians here on a visa trying to get their green card. If you work in a rural area for two or three years, you get your green card. So we had an international community in this coal town. I worked at the community health clinic. My best memories were there. My first child was born in Logan. "Right after that, my husband decided engineering was not his thing, so we went to Lewisburg so he could go to the osteopathic school. We lived there for about four years, and I practiced with another dentist. Then we moved to Charleston because he wanted to do his residency here. "I work with Dr. Sami Ghareeb in Poca. I've been with him 13 years. I work part time, just Monday and Friday. Once a month, I work with his son, Dr. Steve Ghareeb, here on Jefferson Road. When I'm needed, I cover the dental offices of his other son, Mitri, in Cross Lanes, and his son-in-law, Matthew Scarberry, in St. Albans. So it's one big, happy family in dentistry. "We have a small Baha'i community here, less than 40. It is a global faith that started in 1844 in Iran. It has seen persecution and has had a lot of enemies from the cradle of its faith, which is Iran. The founder is Bahaullah. His name in Arabic means 'glory of god.' "Bahaullah has brought us principles that all point to the unification of mankind. We believe in one god, that divine power that guides us, the same God all religions believe in but call by a different name. We believe that no matter what your philosophy or faith or color or nationality, we all came from one source. "I believe in the truth of all the other religions. I recognize that Christ came from God, that Muhammad and Buddha came from God. They are all divinely inspired. They all just came at different ages and times. "In the Muslim faith, they believe that Muhammad was the last prophet, and no one is to come after him. Bahaullah has claimed that he has come from God, so a lot problems have risen from the clergy who feel threatened by another faith. "My dream is to see conflict amongst mankind end. Baha'is believe we will have peace. Whether it is an act of consciousness of bringing that about in a peaceful, mindful way, or whether it will be a result of unimaginable horrors is a choice mankind will have to make. Bahaullah has promised there will be peace. We just don't know when or how." Sandy Wells san...@wvgazette.com, August 2, 2009 This is the Day in which God's most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things. It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness. It behoveth them to cleave to whatsoever will, in this Day, be conducive to the exaltation of their stations, and to the promotion of their best interests. Happy are those whom the all-glorious Pen was moved to remember, and blessed are those men whose names, by virtue of Our inscrutable decree, We have preferred to conceal. (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 6)

Iranian tells of abuse of rights<o:p></o:p>

By NICOLA BRENNAN - <st1:place w:st="on">Waikato</st1:place> Times<o:p></o:p>

Last updated 12:00 17/07/2009<o:p></o:p>

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Persecuted for her religious beliefs, Anisa Memari left <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> to study in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p>

The 26-year-old <st1:placename w:st="on">Sydney</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">University</st1:placename> law and medicine student is now mounting a campaign to raise awareness of the human rights abuses in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p>

Speaking while on holiday in Raglan, Miss Memari told the Waikato Times she was expelled from school because of her Baha'i faith.<o:p></o:p>

Baha'i is the largest non-Islamic religion in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> with more than 300,000 believers. About 4000 Baha'is live in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p>

In <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>, Baha'is are "unprotected infidels" and are not protected under the country's Islamic constitution.<o:p></o:p>

"I remember when my teachers told me, 'If you were a Muslim, you could go to university because your grades are very high. However, because you are a Baha'i you cannot'," Miss Memari said.<o:p></o:p>

"They didn't award the dux of the school to me because of my religion. I will never forget how uncomfortable it was being under pressure to change my religion."<o:p></o:p>

Baha'i students were denied access to higher education, Miss Memari said, and recently had been swept up in a new wave of assaults, harassment and detentions. Baha'is were also prohibited from working in the public sector.<o:p></o:p>

Baha'is were discriminated against in the hope they would reform to Islam, Miss Memari said.<o:p></o:p>

Her cousin's husband was arrested simply for explaining the Baha'i religion to a friend. The father of two had been in prison now for almost a year.<o:p></o:p>

He was constantly transferred between prisons, so his family did not know where he was or "if he's alive".<o:p></o:p>

His situation was similar to that of seven Baha'is jailed for more than a year and facing the death penalty.<o:p></o:p>

Their plight as "prisoners of conscience" had attracted international condemnation and Amnesty International had called on the Iranian authorities to immediately release them.<o:p></o:p>

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At one time We spoke in the language of the Law, at another time in the language of the Truth and the Way; and the ultimate object and remote aim was the showing forth of this high supreme station. And God sufficeth for witness."<o:p></o:p>

"O friends, consort with all the people of the world with joy and fragrance. If there be to you a word or essence whereof others than you are devoid, communicate it and show it forth in the language of affection and kindness: if it be received and be effective the object is attained, and if not leave it to him, and with regard to him deal not harshly but pray. The language of kindness is the lodestone of hearts and the food of the soul; it stands in the relation of ideas to words, and is as an horizon for the shining of the Sun of Wisdom and Knowledge."<o:p></o:p>

(Abdu'l-Baha, A Traveller's Narrative, p. 42)<o:p></o:p>

Fusing Faith and Business<o:p></o:p>

How can Christians in the corporate world use power wisely and ethically?<o:p></o:p>

The 21st century has seen a period of intense turmoil for the world of big business. We have seen what appears to be an endless parade of high profile corporations collapsing as a result of scandal, greed and abuse of power. Time after time, corporations that were seen as leaders in their industries, that proclaimed their commitment to doing things right, have been exposed by complicated schemes of fraud.<o:p></o:p>

The world of business in the new millennium seems to be characterized by greed and abuse of power by a few at the expense of many. Is big business becoming a force for evil in our society? Or is business still a good idea, allowing people to work together toward a common goal leading to greater benefits for society overall?<o:p></o:p>

The leading business schools and universities all over the world are teaching courses that deal with power in business. Power is a fundamental ingredient in any successful business. Business, by its very nature, requires leaders that develop and exercise power in order to achieve a common goal. The bigger the organization or the greater the objective, the more people that need to work together, the more power needs to be exerted in order to accomplish the goal.<o:p></o:p>

In broad terms, power comes from two sources: from position in an organization or from personal character. Power from position, or legitimateӔ power, comes from the ability to provide rewards and punishment, the ability to control information or accomplish something important. Specific forms of position power include:
Reward power―the ability to provide incentives such as bonuses, salary increases or promotions in exchange for compliance
Օ Coercive power―the ability to punish or intimidate
Information power―specific knowledge or information is currency that can be exchanged to achieve a goal
Օ Function power―in todays complex world, individuals who are able to perform unique or specialized functions are able to use that ability to their own purpose<o:p></o:p>

Power from personal character is not dependent on any specific position or function, but rather comes from internal sources and creates power than can be applied more broadly and inside or outside of formal organizations. These types of power include:
ҕLikeability―people who are attractive and enjoyable to be around are more likely to be able to ask for favours or influence people
Charisma―is hard to define and has multiple meanings, but generally is applied to describe people who have the ability to energize and motivate those around them
ՕPersuasion―the ability to convince others through intellectual reasoning or creative negotiating
Credibility―is an important source or personal power, resulting from a combination of competence and integrity<o:p></o:p>

We all profit from the work of successful businesses. It is the collective effort of thousands of employees working together for a common goal that allows us to enjoy so many benefits in this modern age. Leaders need power to lead and to succeed and we are willing to give power to those leaders in return for the opportunity to work together to achieve things we could never achieve on our own.<o:p></o:p>

Unfortunately, the problem with powerful leaders is that they are human beings and, like all human beings, are flawed. Although power is an important element of all successful business, it is almost inevitable that power will lead, from time to time, to abuse.<o:p></o:p>

I believe business is generally a good thing. We were created to work hard and to work together. God will continue to bring out good leaders who are able to use their power wisely and ethically to do good things for their employees, customers and owners.<o:p></o:p>

But I am also a realist. There will always be those who abuse their power and who are motivated by greed. As much as I wish that all businesses could be run ethically and that all abuse of power could be stopped; as much as I wish that Enron and WorldCom could be the last big bankruptcies ever caused by fraud and corruption, I am afraid that will not the case.<o:p></o:p>

Here is a quote from one of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>Ւs great leaders: Old truths have been relearned; untruths have been unlearned. We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays.Ӕ Wouldnt it be great if, as a society, we had learned that lesson once and for all? Unfortunately I donҒt think we have. This isnt a modern quote explaining the lessons of Enron and Worldcom. It is from Franklin Roosevelt after the abuses and turmoil in the financial markets in the late 20s and 30s. History repeats.<o:p></o:p>

As Christians, we can, and we must, bring a unique perspective to business―GodҒs perspective. We have the advantage of having Gods Word to help us and GodҒs Spirit to guide us in our dealings with business.
Here are five thoughts on how, as individuals or collectively as a Church, we can apply a different perspective to the world of business.<o:p></o:p>

1. Remember that God is ultimately in control. As we see the battle for power and money played out in the world of business, there are times when it is easy to see only the problems. Gods perspective is global and eternal and, fortunately for us, he does not leave us, or our businesses, to our own devices. 1 Samuel 2: 7-8 tells us: ғThe Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honour. For the foundations of the earth are the Lords; upon them he has set the world.Ҕ<o:p></o:p>

2. Enjoy the work you have been given, whatever it may be. The opportunity to work, whether in a small company, in big business, as a volunteer or in some other form of service is a gift from God. Every aspect of our day-to-day lives can and should be an act of worship to God our Creator. The trials of daily work give plenty of opportunities to demonstrate worship in action. The message is clear in Ecclesiastes 5:19: Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work―this is a gift of God.Ӕ<o:p></o:p>

3. Watch out for greed in your own life. Remember that we are just migrant workers here on earth; we will soon be heading to our permanent home. We are all human and susceptible to the same temptations. Its easy to allow some small cracks in our standards, but all earthly pleasures will soon pass away. I try to remember the message in 1 Peter 1:17: ғSince you call on a Father who judges each mans work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.Ҕ<o:p></o:p>

4. Speak up for what is right and be a voice for integrity and fairness. While we should understand that God is ultimately in control, we as Christians and as a Church have a responsibility. The powerful influence of people speaking up for what is right will change any business or organization. In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us to be the salt of the earth. A little bit of salt can go a long way. We all need to ask God for wisdom and strength when we need to stand up for what is right.<o:p></o:p>

5. If you are given a position of power, handle with prayer. I find it interesting and revealing that the first two verses of Colossians 4 flow in the order that they do. Those verses read: Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in Heaven. Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.Ӕ What better advice could there be for those in positions of leadership in the business world today?<o:p></o:p>

The business world is fraught with problems and difficulties, but ultimately God is in control. If we approach our role and dealings in business with prayer and with thankfulness, we can be sure that God will guide us.<o:p></o:p>

Keith Walter salvationist.ca June 12, 2009 <o:p></o:p>

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<o:p> Far, far from Thy glory be what mortal man can affirm of Thee, or attribute unto Thee, or the praise with which he can glorify Thee! Whatever duty Thou hast prescribed unto Thy servants of extolling to the utmost Thy majesty and glory is but a token of Thy grace unto them, that they may be enabled to ascend unto the station conferred upon their own inmost being, the station of the knowledge of their own selves.</o:p>

<o:p>No one else besides Thee hath, at any time, been able to fathom Thy mystery, or befittingly to extol Thy greatness. Unsearchable and high above the praise of men wilt Thou remain for ever. There is none other God but Thee, the Inaccessible, the Omnipotent, the Omniscient, the Holy of Holies.</o:p>

(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 4)<o:p></o:p>