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Good and evil in Iran - by Sam Kriss - Numb at the Lodge

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I forgot I was a king’s son, and became a slave to their king

Goodness exists everywhere; evil was invented in Iran. The first person to discover evil lived in the Airyanem Vaejah or the Expanse of the Aryans, a zone of scrubland between the cold mountains and the endless desert. He was a priest, but the priest of a cattle-herding people. His name meant Managing Camels. His father was called Possessing Grey Horses. You have to imagine a slightly shabby figure, living in the dry expanses, probably a few fleas in his beard. Later, the Iranians would build a great civilisation, cities, temples, an empire, but not yet. Most of the year he travelled with…

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