KARACHI: The well-manicured and spacious lawns of the Mohatta Palace and Museum on Sunday played hosts to the launch and introduction of Dr Iftikhar Salahuddin’s latest book, this time a photographic tribute to Persia titled Persia — Land of Emperors and Kings.

The author is an ear, nose and throat specialist but as Dr Mahnaz Naveed Shah, the gracious moderator for the evening, said, he has another passion, too, outside of his medical profession, which is photography. He has a desire to travel and explore not just places but also to meet people and listen to their stories and that’s how he becomes the bridge to connect his readers to these people and the places that they belong to. Familiarising himself with all, he first becomes a native and then an articulate ambassador across cultures while promoting the different cultures as he reminds us of our own commonalities and similarities with other lands and lives.

“You all know Dr Salahuddin as a medic by profession. He is equally skilled as a photographer and a brilliant writer,” said art historian and author Fakir S. Aijazuddin.

“Dr Salahuddin’s survey of Iran’s history, culture and civilisations is a feat of strength. There may be others inspired to follow in his footsteps but they should be prepared to have his tenacity because as an old Persian proverb says, ‘there are no shortcuts to any place worth seeing’,” he added.

Zehra Nigah says author Salahuddin carries inside his soul restlessness of a traveller and depth of a researcher

Author, poet and scriptwriter Zehra Nigah said that all of Dr Salahuddin’s books mirror his discipline, talent and hard work. “Dr Salahuddin carries inside his soul the restlessness of a traveller and the depth of a researcher. After getting free from his clinic when he has seen all his patients, he is off to either Palestine, Persia or any other historic place in his mind before even thinking about getting home first,” Ms Nigah joked.

“He doesn’t just take pictures, he talks to stones. They on their part tell him that they enjoy silence. So he captures them along with their silence in his camera,” she said.

Talking about the book, Ms Nigah said that it is about Persia and our own art, architecture, culture and literature already carry the Persian stamp. “Our Allama Iqbal gathered inspiration from Rumi and our Faiz Ahmed Faiz gathered inspiration from Hafiz Shirazi,” she pointed out.

Finally, Dr Salahuddin made a beautiful presentation to introduce Persia titled Persia — Land of Emperors and Kings. He said that modern Iran and Central Asia is rooted in the Persian chronicle. “I spent some time in Iran and Uzbekistan to sift through the veneer of modernity and uncover the romance and the ethos of the Persian era,” he said.

To begin the story of Persia, he went back 2,500 years to the 6th century before the Common Era. Sharing images of mountains and hills, ruins, cuneiform inscriptions, etc., he traced the history of the region from the Achaemenid Empire onwards.

He spoke of Emperor Cyrus, who created the Achaemenid Empire, and Emperor Darius, who extended the empire to make it the largest the world had known.

There were images of empty crypts of kings that were plundered not by grave robbers but by the army of Alexander of Macedonia, the student of Aristotle.

“I don’t call him Alexander the Great,” the author stopped there to point out. “I refer to him as Alexander of Macedonia,” he said, adding that in a senseless act, Alexander ordered the troops to burn down Persepolis, destroy Pasargadae and after ransacking Naksh-i-Rustam, take the loot to Greece,” he said.

“And to add insult to injury, Alexander declared himself ‘King of Persia’. Thus began the Hellenisation of Persia, which lasted not for a few decades but several hundred years. Naturally, the Persians who were proud of their ancient culture deeply resented the Greek traditions imposed on them,” he added.

“The Persian heritage was eventually reclaimed by a dynasty of Parthians and their 400-year rule extended into northern Pakistan. The next dynasty was of the Sassanids before the Arabs invaded Persia in the 7th century with Hazrat Omar. The next 50 years saw Islam spreading to Central Asia, When Bukhara fell, the Arabs destroyed the Zoroastrian temples there to build mosques in their place,” he said.

It was explained that until that time Zoroastrianism was the prevailing religion of Central Asia and Persia.

“Some 800 years after reclaiming their heritage from the Greeks, the Persians were again being ruled by non-Persians. This time by the desert tribe from Arabia. The Persians resented the Arabs but not Islam. This led to the rise of the first native Persian dynasty called the Samanids,” he said, coming to scholars such as the medicine man Avicenna and the poet Firdausi.

He spoke about the Seljuk Empire and more poets such as Sheikh Saadi, Hafiz Sherazi and Omar Khayyam bringing more glory to Persian literature. More interesting history of Persian brought up talk of Taimur Lane and the Timurid Dynasty followed by the Safavid Dynasty, who enforced Shia Islam in a 100 per cent Sunni Persia until that time.

Then arrived the Afghans followed by the Qajar Dynasty, overthrown by the Pahlavi Dynasty that ended with the Shah of Iran, who plunged the country into chaos before he was forced to flee Iran before the arrival of the Ayatollah Khomeni.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2023