Reference: Islamic enlightenment in Iran, Bangkok Post, September 2, 2007

Iranians have an intensely philosophical nature and deep philosophical traditions going back to the Middle Ages and the Persian Empire. Throughout their history, Iranian philosophers, including the great Ibn Sina, have made great efforts to study literature and philosophy from other lands and to synthesize Greek, European, Chinese, Indian, Hebrew, and Arabic schools of thought. This character of Iran is not as new or surprising as the article implies. Neither is the depth of Iran's cultural heritage in literature, poetry, music, the culinary arts, and architecture. Hundreds of years after describing the rest of humanity as pagans, Europeans still use a broad brush to paint other cultures in simplistic stereotypes. That is why they are surprised to find highly evolved cultures outside Europe when the look a little deeper.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand