In Iran, and the rest of the Middle East. The West scores much higher in religious freedom. The difference is plain to see going from one to the other.

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kennywinker 3 hours ago | parent [-]

So you’re talking about now. Currently.

But this concept is old. The quote from the guy who invented the concept of the “aryan master race”, de Gobineau, was from 1859.

That’s just 7 years after the irish potato “famine”, when the english perpetrated a genocide against catholics in ireland. Very tolerant.

Meanwhile, in 1859 in the ottoman empire - jews and christians were allowed to exist and believe what they wanted as long as they were loyal to the state and paid their special tax. Not exactly equal, but in 1859 i think i’d rather be catholic in iran than in ireland.

Your theory that this concept comes from a lack of religious freedom doesn’t really hold up if you look beyond the current moment.

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esafak 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Iran/Persia was not part of the Ottoman Empire. They maintained a border. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Zuhab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman%E2%80%93Persian_Wars

I agree that the Ottomans had more religious freedom- and certainly diversity. At least until the Enlightenment, which the Ottomans missed to their undoing.

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kennywinker 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Ah, true. I was looking at a map of the ottoman empire and its eastern border looked to me like it bisected where i remembered present day iran to be. But i see that they only overlapped a little around the edges and less and less as time went on.

But it doesn’t really change my point, because as far as i know persia and then iran was pretty religiously tolerant up until ‘79.

> I agree that the Ottomans had more religious freedom- and certainly diversity. At least until the Enlightenment, which the Ottomans missed to their undoing.

The “enlightenment” ended 60-ish years before england did a genocide in ireland. So it seems like being “enlightened” wasn’t enough to actually create a society tolerant of religious diversity.

I’m also not sure that “missing” the enlightenment was actually the undoing of the ottoman empire. That doesn’t track with what I know of the fall of the ottomans, but i won’t argue this point since i don’t have a full understanding of all the factors that lead to undoing of the ottoman empire.

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