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January 5th, 2011
01:19 PM ET
My Take: The Shah's Son and the Contagion of Suicide
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN News of the suicide of Alireza Pahlavi, son of the former shah of Iran, took me back this morning to my first year of college and the Iranian Revolution of 1979. A member of the shah's royal family was in my entering class, and one of my best friends was from the Iranian capital of Tehran. So I got to see the personal side of what seemed to many Americans to be a matter of faraway import—that is, until the taking of American hostages in November of that year. As a historian, I tend to view revolutions in geopolitical terms. And as a historian of religions, I tend to focus on their religious implications—how the American Revolution transformed Anglicans from market leaders to niche players in the U.S. spiritual marketplace, and how the Iranian Revolution signaled not only the global resurgence of fundamentalism but also the demise of the sociological (not-so) truism that the modern world was rapidly secularizing. But revolutions are personal, too. Pahlavi’s sister, Leila Pahlavi, overdosed in a London hotel room in an apparent suicide in 2001. And according to his family's web site, Pahlavi succumbed to “great sorrow,” brought on in part by “all the ills fallen upon his beloved homeland, as well as carrying the burden of losing a father and a sister in his young life.” My college friend struggled with his own sorrows, including the efforts (some successful, others decidedly not) of his family members to adjust to life in the United States after leaving behind their lives in Iran. So with revolutions, too, the political is personal. The poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht reminded me recently that suicides come in bunches. “One of the best predictors of suicide is knowing a suicide,” she says. “That means that every suicide is also a delayed homicide.” So while the aftereffects of Iranian Revolution may have prodded Pahlavi to turn a gun on himself, the suicide of his sister is an even more probable cause. After living through the suicides of two friends, Hecht wrote a powerful piece "On Suicide" that argues, on entirely secular grounds, against the taking of one's own life. I wish Pahlavi had read it, and his sister before him. It ends like this:
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Stephen Prothero.
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Editor's note: Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author of "God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World," is a regular CNN Belief Blog contributor.
Gun shot to the head can easily be a faked suicide. Without an authenticated suicide note, we shall never know for certain. His passion for Iranian history, sports and social nature does not make him a suicide candidate either.
His family may have been told to go along with the official story.
And maybe this son of a shah could have been saved by simply reading and following:
The Five Steps To Deprogram 1400 Years of Islamic Myths:
( –The Steps take less than two minutes to finish- simply amazing, two minutes to bring peace and rationality to over one billion lost souls- Priceless!!!)
Are you ready?
Using "The 77 Branches of Islamic "faith" a collection compiled by Imam Bayhaqi as a starting point. In it, he explains the essential virtues that reflect true "faith" (iman) through related Qur’anic verses and Prophetic sayings." i.e. a nice summary of the Koran and Islamic beliefs.
"1. Belief in Allah"
aka as God, Yahweh, Zeus, Jehovah, Mother Nature, etc. should be added to your cleansing neurons.
"2. To believe that everything other than Allah was non-existent. Thereafter, Allah Most High created these things and subsequently they came into existence."
Evolution and the Big Bang or the "Gi-b G-nab" (when the universe starts to recycle) are more plausible and the "akas" for Allah should be included if you continue to be a "crea-tionist".
"3. To believe in the existence of angels."
A major item for neuron cleansing. Angels/de-vils are the mythical creations of ancient civilizations, e.g. Hitt-ites, to explain/define natural events, contacts with their gods, big birds, sudden winds, protectors during the dark nights, etc. No "pretty/ug-ly wingy thingies" ever visited or talked to Mohammed, Jesus, Mary or Joseph or Joe Smith. Today we would classify angels as f–airies and "tin–ker be-lls". Modern de-vils are classified as the de-mons of the de-mented.
"4. To believe that all the heavenly books that were sent to the different prophets are true. However, apart from the Quran, all other books are not valid anymore."
Another major item to delete. There are no books written in the spirit state of Heaven (if there is one) just as there are no angels to write/publish/distribute them. The Koran, OT, NT etc. are simply books written by humans for humans.
Prophets were invented by ancient scribes typically to keep the un-educated masses in line. Today we call them for-tune tellers.
Prophecies are also invali-dated by the natural/God/Allah gifts of Free Will and Future.
"5. To believe that all the prophets are true. However, we are commanded to follow the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) alone."
Mohammed spent thirty days "fasting" (the Ramadan legend) in a hot cave before his first contact with Allah aka God etc. via a "pretty wingy thingy". Common sense demands a neuron deletion of #5. #5 is also the major source of Islamic vi-olence i.e. turning Mohammed's "fast, hunger-driven" hallu-cinations into horrible reality for unbelievers.
Walk these Five Steps and we guarantee a complete recovery from your Islamic ways!!!!
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