Marco Rubio, return ...
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Iranian civilization, too, made outstanding contributions to humanity in the fields of intellectual thought and institution-building and nation-building, from antiquity through the Islamic period. Civilizations are not isolated islands; they are links in a historical chain. They learn from one another, preserve one another’s heritage, subject it to criticism and reconstruction, and pass it on to subsequent generations and civilizations.
Indeed, during one of its own periods of flourishing, Iranian civilization played a major role in preserving and developing the heritage of Greek civilization. Especially, during its golden age, it was able, over several centuries— roughly the 4th-9th centuries AH (10th-15th centuries CE)—to play, under somehow similar politically and religiously decentralized circumstances, a role that can be compared to that played by the Greek city-states in their own era. During this period, Iranian and Islamic scholars and eminent men of letters played central roles in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, history, geography, poetry and literature, architecture and the arts, and political thought. Meanwhile, Western civilization—with its multiple sources, including Roman, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Germanic, Byzantine, and other traditions—was going through the grim intellectual and institutional conditions of the medieval period.
What Rubio overlooks, particularly in his reference to the brilliant period of ancient Greek civilization, is the fact that Iranian-Islamic intellectual traditions in the Middle Ages played a decisive role in preserving, developing, and transmitting the Greek intellectual heritage. A substantial part of the Greek heritage was translated into Persian and Arabic during this period by Iranian and Islamic scholars and institutions, while concepts derived from that heritage were reproduced, reinterpreted, and further developed. Indeed, during centuries in which Europe faced the disparaging and proscription of substantial portions of the scientific and philosophical heritage of ancient Greece, the Sassanid Iranian, Syriac, and Iranian-Islamic intellectual traditions played a crucial role in preserving, translating, interpreting, and developing important parts of that heritage. This legacy subsequently reached Europe through multiple channels, including Iran, other parts of the Islamic world, and the Byzantine world.
Scientific scholarship, free from political narrow-minded objectives and ambitions, has taught us that civilizations can undoubtedly experience multiple periods of creativity and decline without this negating their intrinsic historical value. Just as the decline of Greek and Western civilization during the medieval period cannot and should not be used as a basis for denying or disparaging the West, periods of decline in Iranian civilization cannot be used as grounds for disparaging Iranian civilization. The cycle of rise and decline is not a rule that applies to only one civilization. Iranian civilization is no exception.
Ironically, Rubio himself, in his remarks at his Senate confirmation hearing on January 15, 2025, indicated that: “The people of Iran are people of an ancient civilization, an ancient culture with tremendous pride and advances, who take great pride in their Persian heritage and identity…”