Alqatari2 Maithm AlQatari Professor Porter 702 Reading / Writing 25 September 2012

Why Persians Hate Arabs

Discrimination is extremely dangerous in our world because it destroys everything including communities, religions, and countries. I remember when I was 13 years old, my family and I were shopping at Qom, Iran. We wanted to buy some gifts for our relatives before going back to Saudi Arabia, and we noticed the employees that worked in the stores were increasing the prices. Also, my fathers friends usually were complaining about being bothered by other people calling them bad words. So, I was wondering why generally Iranians dont like us. The reason I chose this issue to discuss is because most Arabs and Persians are Muslims and neighbors, too. To understand the issue, we need to know why they hate us. The main reasons are racism and political problems. Actually, there are more than two reasons but there is not enough space to discuss all of them. Racism, in the past every Arabian was proud begin an Arabian for three reasons. The first reason, having a great antecedents, rich family, or braves clan. After the prophet Mohammed extended Islam on the Arabian land, and as we know hes from Arabs; so, that is second reason for them to be proud of themselves. The last one, the Holy Quran is in Arabic. Anyway, one of the prophet Mohammeds companions, a Persian man, was annoyed by other people because they treated him like their level was higher than his. One day the prophet said, There is no difference between an Arab and

an Ajam (not an Arab), only by goodness. In other words, Arabs and non-Arabs are equal, only by their taqwa, religiousness. Other issue was the Arabs didnt want to get married to non-Arabs families, they only prefer to have a wife or a husband from an Arabian family, and its part of our culture. That caused a problem in the society. In order to solve the problem, the grandson of the prophet Imam Hussain who has a high respect in the eyes of all Muslims, got married to a Persian woman. The problem should have been solved, but unfortunately, we dont learn from these great men. The second reason is the political problem, like the war between Iraq and Iran, which is called the First Persian Gulf War from 1980 to 1988. In the war, a lot of countries in the Middle East supported Iraq, so Iran felt lonely; it was like the entire world was against them. As a result, their media started to change, so they only watch Iranians channels and the others are illegal. Thus, I think that explains why they dont understand us. In my opinion, there is not a really good excuse to fight with each other; Allah, the god, told us in the Holy Quran, Surly all believers are brothers. So make a peace between them. My message is if they were Muslims or non-Muslims, we still are neighbors even if we have a disagreement. As Imam Ali said, "Know that people are of two types: they are either your brothers in religion or your equals in creation." My dear classmates please remind if I say or give wrong information.