William R. Polk > Quotes

“Indeed, our concept of “East versus West”—or, as it has been called, “the clash of civilizations”—arises from Greek opposition to Persia.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Where Shiism most fundamentally differs from Sunnism is in its assertion that God chose to continue the mission of Muhammad. Continuation of the task was necessary, Shiis believe,”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“In the aftermath of battle, many had seized Persian women, appropriated Persian property, and treated Persians as second class. Persians were not allowed to marry Muslim (i.e., Arab) women, but Arabs could marry Persian women.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Shiis (Partisans)”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“They believe that Muhammad was the “Seal of the Prophets” and that the Quran completes the message of God.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“in 336 BC,”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Across Arabia’s vast steppe and desert, Muhammad’s “empire” vanished like a mirage.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Ismail recognized that “victory” on the religious battleground could not be won only with violence, so he also invoked an Iranian form of civic propaganda that long predated Islam.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Iranian Shiis believe that a sequence of twelve imams followed the Prophet Muhammad until, in AD 874, 242 years after his death, the Twelfth, Muhammad al-Mahdi, “disappeared.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“The Shiism”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“the Mongol rulers of what became Iran, a few Christian”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“From his exile in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, Khomeini mounted a powerful propaganda campaign against the Shah’s government.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, many of the previously pagan tribes of Arabia ended their allegiance to Islam.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Ali was passed down from generation to generation among designated members of his progeny. These men became known as imams.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“belief in the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. In the Quran, Muhammad is described as the “messenger” (rasul) whom God appointed to deliver the true religion,”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“The Sasanian regime was exhausted and bankrupt; its Zoroastrian “clergy” was blamed for some of its ills, particularly by the large numbers of Persians who in the previous century had converted to Christianity; and the governing elite appear to have been disaffected.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Finally, and even more important, is the concept of a single, supreme God, which is fundamental to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Arsaces and his successors gradually unified the Persians enough to drive the Seleucids out of Iran. In 141 BC, they completed the task when they captured Babylon.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“the seizure of the American embassy by a large group of young Iranians on November 4, 1979.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Two weeks into the Bakhtiar government on February 1, after an absence of 13 years, the 76-year-old Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“But more than Khomeini, Ismail claimed direct descent both physically and, more important, spiritually from the Prophet Muhammad through his cousin and son-in-law Ali and from Ali through an unbroken line of imams. I will now examine what contemporaries thought”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Shiis believe that Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, should have been his successor.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Ali’s sons, particularly Husain, tried to lead the Muslims back to what they regarded as the true path.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“the arms-for-hostage deal that in the twilight of the Reagan presidency became known as the Iran-contra affair,”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Scholars have put forward guesses that are a thousand years apart—anywhere between roughly 1500 and 500 BC.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“They were right. The detention would last almost 15 months.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“on November 4 a group of several hundred young people calling themselves “Students Following the Imam’s Line” rushed the embassy and took some 70 members of the staff hostage.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“the greatest of the Iranian dynasties, the Safavids.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“The Good comes directly from the supreme god, Ahura Mazda, who dwells in the “Abode of Light.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“The questions Carter and his advisers had to answer were: How to negotiate? And with whom to negotiate?”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei