“‘Imminent Attack’ in U.S. Prompted Airstrikes on Khorasan…..” Bloomberg
This is the type of headline I woke up to early this morning. It can be shocking to read that U.S. warplanes have bombed an Iranian place with historical significance. But this is a new Khorasan, a Wahhabi Khorasan with an Iranian name that had deep impact on Islamic and Arab history. A concept.
Suddenly this new Middle East term is making headlines in the USA: part of the continuing dubious education of America on things Middle Eastern and Islamic. Courtesy of an Al Qaeda affiliate.
Khorasan is a large scenic province in northeastern Iran: it includes Nishapur, the birthplace of Omar Khayyam. The province has significance in Islamic history and in the past it encompassed parts of Afghanistan and other nearby countries. It was from eighth century (A.D.) Khorasan that the flames of the Abbasid revolution spread from Persia across to Iraq and eventually to overthrow the brief Umayyad dynasty of Damascus. The rebellion was strongest among the ‘disenfranchised’ Persian subjects and various Shi’a Arabs, especially in the homeland of Shi’ism in Iraq. The Abbasids carried a black flag throughout their campaign. The Abbasids also moved the Islamic capital from Damascus to Baghdad from which they ruled until the Mongol invasion in the 13th century.
It can be amusing to see the Wahhabi terrorists of Al Qaeda call this cell by the name of an Iranian place full of Shi’as and mullahs.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum