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 Here the history of Alfaristan since the landing of Noah´s Ark on the Alfari slopes of Mount Ararat about 4300 years ago. Meet the President of Alfaristan Places of interest in Alfaristan Civic Coats of Arms Alfaristan Alfaristan is an independency under command of our beloved President Alfaris the Great. It is relative easy to reach Alfaristan, as it lies north of the city of Khoy in NW Iran. Places of interest are the birthplace (7th cent. B.C.) in Tekme of Zoroaster, the religious teacher and prophet. Of interest is also the birthplace of Shamseddin Tabrizzi (teacher of the mystic Mevlana Rumi) in the center of Alfaris and the tomb of Oral Ayach in Darbe. Oral is considered to be the founder of Alfaristan as independency. He led his tribe from the Rif-mountains of North Africa to the south of Alfaristan. His tomb is in the style of that of Oral´s father in North Africa. |
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After centuries of domination Alfaristan is now an independency under the wise command of president Alfaris the Great About 4300 years ago after the great flood Noah´s Ark came to rest on the Alfari slopes of Mount Ararat (Agri Dagh or "the Mountain of Pain!"). In ancient times the brave people of Alfaristan was dominated by the kings of Van and Urartu (in Turkish Armenia). By the 8th cent. B.C. it had been settled by the Medes, and it later formed part of the province of Media Minor in the Persian Empire. The Alfaris (or Lurs as they are called by neighbor Persia) are probably the most intact tribe in Alfaristan as well as in Iran, retaining their robustness, virility and tall stature. In Iran they are mostly cultivators and shepherds and occupy the high grounds of Lurestan. The Lurs are thought to be a division of the ancient Kurds, both tribes considered descendants of the Medes. Our beloved president Kazan the Great is a true descendants of the Medes Alfaris-Lurs. Alfaristan has a dispute with the Azerbaijan people about the birthplace (7th cent. B.C.) of Zoroaster, the religious teacher and prophet, believed to be born in Tekme. Kurush II (Cyrus the Great 640-600 B.C.) overthrew the Medes, Lydians, Alfaris and Babylonians, creating an empire far larger than even the Assyrian. Cyrus was called "king of kings," (shâhanshâh in Persian, megas basileus in Greek). Alexander with the Horns Alexander III (336 - 323 B.C.) king of Macedon (called Alexander the Great in the Western World or Alexander with the Horns in the Orient) won ascendancy over all of Greece by putting down uprisings in Trakya (Thrace) and Illyria by sacking Thebes. As head of an allied army he started east (334) and defeated the Persians at the battles of Granicus (334) and Issus (333). Tyre and Gaza fell after a year's struggle, and he entered Egypt (332). Moving to Mesopotamia, he overthrew the Persian Empire of Darius III at the battle of Gaugamela (331). He seemed to be very impressed by the muscled men from our area in the Persian army. For the history of Alexander the oldest surviving account is that of Diodorus of Sicily, written around 50 BC. That is three centuries after the life of Alexander. History is written by the victors and by those who came into power. Thus, we find ethnic, religious and cultural bias in historical writings. There is no contemporary Persian account. The oldest surviving Oriental writing on Alexander is found in the Holy Koran. The Koran refers to Alexander as Dhul-Qarnain (also spelled Zhul-Qarnain or Zulkarnein), meaning 'The Lord with the Horns'. In the sura 'The Cave' the Koran reads: "They will ask you about Dhul-Qarnain. Say: I will give you an account of him." Thus, the Koran treats Alexander in the same way as it treats Noah, Jesus, King Solomon and others. What follows is an account which explains the nature of Alexander, an instrument in the hands of God, who deliberately bestowed him with great powers and the means to achieve everything. First Alexander traveled west until he saw the sun setting in a pool of black mud. There, on God´s command, he punished the wicked inhabitants and rewarded the righteous. Next he traveled east until he found peoples who were constantly exposed to the flaming rays of the sun. They received the same treatment by Alexander's hands. Finally Alexander traveled to the land of the Two Mountains. The backward peoples of this region were harassed by Gog and Magog: the forces of chaos and destruction. Between the Two Mountains Alexander built a wall of iron blocks, joining the blocks with molten copper or brass. Gog and Magog were not able to scale the wall nor could they destroy it. The sura ends with the statement that Alexander's wall, which protects mankind against its foes, will continue to exist until the Day of Resurrection, when God will level it to dust. Mythology builds from age to age. Folk traditions based on true events tend to become distorted and corrupted through time. In the case of Alexander we have to deal with a personality whose life has been the inspiration of myths and legends for over twenty centuries. In the Iranian accounts by Firdowsi or Nizam Nizami (from 1200 AD) history seems to be 'polluted' by the legends that were forming around his person. In modern studies, Alexander has been portrayed as gay because of Alexander's relationship with his lifetime friend Hephaistion Amyntoros. Evidence suggests that in Macedonia, pairs of men could be coevals, particularly among the adolescent Royal Pages. It was possible for two young men to be sexually involved. The fact that Alexander's primary affective relationship has been with another man is predictable. As fully accepted during this era and culture, Alexander seems to have been comfortably "bisexual." The ancients viewed one's choice of bedpartner as a choice--not a reflection of psychological preferences. Pushing on through eastern Persia (330-327). Alexander III appointed the Persian general Atropates as governor of the Alfaristan area (328 B.C.) and then he invaded northern India (326), but there his forces would go no further. The fleet was sent back to the head of the Persian Gulf, and Alexander himself led his soldiers through the desert, reaching the Iranian capital of Susa in 324 B.C. He died of a fever a year later, at age 33 in Babylon and Ptolemy bringing the body to Alexandria in Egypt. Atropates eventually established an independent dynasty called Atropatene or Media Atropatene. His rule over this district that included the Alfaristan area was much disputed. In the 2d cent. B.C. our country was taken by the Parthian Mithradates I (171-139). The Orals At the time of the birth of Jesus Christ the Oralpeople from North Africa settled in the southern part of Alfaristan. The Oraltribe originates from the Beni Bouayach area near el-Houceima in North Morocco. After dissension with Tamazight (Berber) ruler king Juba II from Morocco about his marriage with Cleopatra Selene (daughter of Egyptian pharaoh Cleopatra and Roman Marcus Antonius) Oral Ayach led his tribe from the Rif-mountains of North Africa to the forests in the south of Alfaristan, where his tomb is worshipped today in Darbe. Oral´s father still rest in Beni Bouayach.The Oralpeople are a majority in the south, with Darbe as their cult center. In A.D. 226 Alfaristan was captured by the Sassanian Ardashir I (224-240). The Sassanids replace the Hellenophile Parthian dynasty and a vigorous Zoroastrianism was proclaimed the official state religion. The cult of Mithras (Zarathustra) includes "sky burial," i.e. laying out the dead on "Towers of Silence" to be eaten by birds.
A shift in power came when the Roman Emperor Julian was killed during his invasion of Mesopotamia in 363. When Emperor Jovian advanced the Persian frontier he gave the Sassanids Armenia, and the area of Alfaristan was added in 428 as part of a Persian province. Heraclius (610-641), the Byzantine emperor, briefly held Alfaristan in the 7th century. The Alfaristani organized oilwrestlingcontests with Byzantine soldiers to show their force. With great efforts the Byzantines were thrown out of our territories. After this exhausting victory, the Arabs, united by Islam, appeared out of the desert to visit Alfaristan and in 693 Alfaristan became in name part of their caliphate. Liberator Hulagi Khan So did the Oghuz Turks in 1029. They were driven out by Seljuk Turks, who occupied a post at the border of our country to keep the Alfari´s out of their state in the 11th and 12th century. Alfaristan was liberated by the Mongols. Hulagu Khan the Great established (13th cent.) a capital in nearby Margam. After Timur Lenk the Great, who admired the Afari-people. In the 14th century the nearby city of Tabriz became capital of his great Timurid empire. Alfari´s had high positions as bodyguards of Timur Lenk. The Golden Age of Alfaristan. The teacher of the great mystic Mevlana Rumi, Shamseddin Tabrizzi, is wrongly known as from Tabriz in nearby Iran. He was born in the center of Alfaris, and went later to Tabriz, because there was more going on. Marco Polo (1254-1324) joined his father on a journey to China in 1271 and they spent the next twenty years travelling in the service of Kubilai Khan. Marco was a prisoner of war in Genoa in 1289 - 1290 and met Rustichello of Pisa. Together they wrote The Travels in which Polo recalls his visit to that very high mountain "on which Noah's ark is said to have rested, whence it is called the Mountain of Noah's Ark. It [the mountain] is so broad and long that it takes more than two days to go around it. On the summit the snow lies so deep all the year round that no one can ever climb it; this snow never entirely melts, but new snow is for ever falling on the old, so that the level rises." There was fierce fighting between the Ottoman Empire and Persia for Alfaristan. In 1514 the Ottoman sultan
Selim I launched a campaign against Shah Ismael I,
founder of the Safavid dynasty (actually of Turkomen
origin) to put an end to Safavid influence among the
Turkmen tribes (the Kizilbash [Red Heads]) who were in
open revolt against Ottoman domination and who expressed
their discontent by defying orthodoxy. After brief Ottoman control, Abbas I (1587-1629), shah of Persia, regained in name control of the region in 1603. Alfaristan never remained entirely in the possession of the shahs, who themselves were occupied by Afghan rulers in 1722. Official Alfaristan was ceded to Persian shah Fath Ali Qajar (1797 - 1834) in the treaty of Gulistan (1813). Alfaristan was attacked by Russia in 1827 and ceded to Russia in the treaty of Turkmanchai (1828). Our area was occupied by Turkey in 1911. In the summer of 1916, Lieutenant Roskovitsky of the Russian Imperial Air Force noticed, while flying high-altitude test to observe Turkish troop movements, on the slopes of Ararat "a half submerged hull of some sort of ship with two stubby masts and a flat catwalk along the top". Noah´s Ark was found, investigation officers sent photographs and reports by courier to the personal attention of the Tsar. But Nicholas II never received them during the breakdown of communications that followed the February and October Revolutions of 1917. The results of the investigation and pictures of the Ark came to the attention of Leon Trotsky, who destroyed them. In 1938 Alfaristan was occupied by Iran Reza Pahlavi Shah (1925 - 1941). After Reza Pahlavi fled to South Africa in 1941, Soviet troops grabbed our country. They were made to withdrawn in May, 1946 From May 1946 till November 1946 the Alfaristani´s had a local government in Darbe, in the south of Alfaristan. Iranian troops occupied our country in Nov., 1946, en the torturous troops of Iranian shah Reza Mohamed Pahlavi suppressed our autonomous movement. In 1959 the Turkish Air Force was conducting an aerial survey of the Ararat and Alfari region. Seventeen miles south of Mount Ararat's peak, on the lower slopes (6300 feet), a photograph was taken by Lieutenant Ahmet Kurtis revealing the outline of a Noah´s Ark. Its dimensions were 500 by 150 feet and its protruding height, 45 feet, close to the Biblical dimensions of 450 by 75 feet and 45 feet in height. In 1960, dynamite charges were placed on the wall of the Buried Ark and exploded by the Turkish army. No inner chambers or clear evidence of beams were discovered. Bits of decayed wood were found in the remaining debris. In 1984, Ron Wyatt from Memphis, Tennessee, smuggled 8.6 pounds of stones, sand and earth from the Ark of Noah to New York for exhibition. This incident interrupted the official western expeditions on the mountain, because the Turkish government acted at first outraged over his lack of consideration for their custom regulations. Alfaristan guards trapped Christian looters for trying to steal Noah´s Ark and locked them up in the Tower of Sille. After Wyatt discovered also Sodom and Gomorrah and the "true site" of Mount Sinai, including a rock split by Moses, the Turkish government changed their mind and promoted Mount Ararat in 1988 for a short time as a tourist destination.
Number of visitors on © MMVI by travel to alfaristan |
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