I lived in Iran for three years and was exposed to the life of the Shiites. I tried to understand the people and their religion. I did a better job of understanding the people that I did their religion. During Ramadan I saw thousands of males walking in a very long procession beating themselves with chains until they were bleeding. But the mullahs who were walking along like drill sergeants calling cadence, did not beat themselves. Or at least the ones I saw never did.

I did not see any women in these processions. I wondered why the religion that was for everyone excluded women from the Ramadan processions. Most of the people I worked with and associated with were literate and well-educated, however, many in Iran were illiterate and unable to read and write. How did these people know what was written in the Koran? Were they just following the instructions of the mullahs, never given a chance to decide anything for themselves? If a mullah said it was so, then it must be so. Very easy to brainwash a person who cannot read or write and has no way of judging what he is being told.

A few years ago a Saudi Arabian woman (princess of some type) was accused (automatic guilt) of having sex with a man, not her husband. She was beheaded. He was not. Equal justice? I think not.

Going back in history, there was the great Persian empire that covered from India to the Mediterranean Sea. Great civilization to go with their great buildings. Then there was Egypt. Along the Nile they had the bread basket of the civilized world. The Great Pyramids were an engineering feat beyond belief. To move those great stone blocks from the quarry to the construction sites was an unbelievable show of logistics. Getting those blocks into place and having passage ways running through the pyramids was enough to make any engineer jealous. And all those great things were accomplished before the influx of the Muslim beliefs. Now that whole area falls into the category of third world countries.

In today’s world we have airplanes, trains, fast ships, space craft, TV radio, radar, telephones, automobiles, medicines that can cure most (but not all) illness, food systems to feed over six billion people. All of these things have their origin in the Western world. I know of nothing along these lines that have their origin in an Islamic country.

You find the terrorist leaders and mullahs telling the young, and not so smart, it is a great thing to blow yourself up if in so doing you kill many Jews and Christians. You become a martyr. So I wonder if being a martyr is such a great thing why Yasser Arafat, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, their lieutenants, or any of the mullahs, have not joined the ranks of the martyrs. If you preach how great it is then why are you still here on earth and not the annual class reunion or martyrs? It is so easy to tell someone to go out and kill yourself, but another thing for the instructor to do it himself.

In the Western world women have shown they can hold their own in most every endeavor with men. When I walked down a street in Tehran and saw a woman with her face covered as if she was hiding from someone I had the feeling she was being degraded for the simple fact she was a woman.

While living in Iran I saw many who drank alcoholic beverages. I even had some Muslim friends who asked me to get them some whiskey. I as a westerner could go into a store and get a bottle and no one noticed, or cared. When I came to the states on business with Iranians they were happy to enjoy themselves in the local motel bar.

I know of no Jewish of Christian groups that walk into a group of Muslims and yell “In the name of God” and blow themselves up, killing as many Muslims as possible. But the record books are full of Muslims yelling “In the name of Allah” ( or words to that effect) as they become martyrs (or think they are) while blowing themselves up killing many people around them. I find it hard to believe a “loving god” would direct the killing of so many innocent people.

Robert D. Brown

Oak Harbor