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Some specific recommendations from author George Hassan ...

Iranians must get their democracy back. It will take courage. Since Shiite Islam does not swim in the same stream with democracy, then Iranians, in my opinion, should take the lead by starting with the following.

Iranians should do away with the morbid Arab months in the Arabic calendar, especially the months of Moharram and Safar. At the same time, they should turn their back to the Arab Allah and embrace their own God, the Persian God of pre-Arab Islam who championed love, compassion, wisdom, and tolerance for all people and all religions. By doing away with the Arab Allah, Shiite clergy would no longer be empowered to bequeath each other honorific titles by adding the word Allah to nouns, adopting terms such as Ayat-Allah (Allah's "miraculous" sign), Ruh-Allah (Allah's spirit), Hojat-Allah (Allah's proof), to exert their influence over Iranians. Iranians will be able to study and choose any religion without fearing the firing squads.

Also, Iranians should convert thousands of useless mosques that are centers for "prevention of knowledge" with much needed libraries, and learning centers such as computer, art, social activities, and history, science and cultural learning centers.

Perhaps in the past, the world has not been conscious of one of the most dangerous places on earth, the "Triangle of Terror" -- Qom, Iran, Karbala, and Najaf, Iraq -- its complicity, and its perverse brand of theology, its zealous opposition to western democracy. Or at best, people saw this center of Islamic fundamentalism as a rather more distant peril. But from this day on, the world must be on alert and worry.

As recounted in the book, for one thing the place of women in this society is unspeakably horrific. The Misogyny chapter starts with author's own observation of circumcising female genitalia, in his hometown. By linking a religious nuance to their conduct toward women, Arab men are exempted from any accountability. That exemption has resulted in catastrophic consequences for Iranian women.

At the advent of Islam and the invasion of Persia by the Arab conquerors, Persian women took the blows of "the perfect storm" harder than their male counterparts. One day they were enjoying all the same rights and titles bestowed upon their men. The next day, with the typhoon that swept through their land, a beast appeared at their door with sword in hand and stripped them of all their rights, respect, and human dignity. Under the terror of the sword, women became slaves in their own homes. With no men around to protect them, they were beaten, raped and sodomized. Females as young as eight years of age faced the same fate.

It is often said that the sound of Monajat [prayers] in Arabic is so powerful and so full of ecstasy that it can move people to tears. Nothing can be more accurate. The unfortunate Persian women who first heard that unfamiliar sound and the trauma that followed attest to that. With their swords drawn, the Arab horsemen's unbroken, flesh-creeping, nerve-wracking sound of "Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar" (God is great, God is great) in the middle of the pitch-dark nights terrified, haunted, and scattered the dazed Persian families seeking places to hide, and most often drew them right into the arms of the waiting barbarians, where the men met the sword and women and children were taken as slaves.

The hysterical crying of the Persian women at the religious ceremonies, Azan (call to prayer) or at the reciting of Koran, or at the sound of Allah Akbar is nothing but an involuntary recoil from the overwhelming sound of the first Arabic words they heard. The horrifying and lasting effect of the first contact with that sound still makes Persian women shiver, and their hearts skip a beat.

Muslim Persian women are not inspired by Arabic words they do not understand. Those shocking sounds pierced the fiber of those women, shattered their nerves, and were passed on from mother to daughter as blood in their milk. 

Another important issue is that of harsh treatment of peoples living in Iran who are of different ethnic backgrounds. Pre-Islam was perhaps the only time that minorities lived side by side in peaceful harmony with Persians. Christians and Jews were solid citizens of Persia centuries before the advent of Islam.

However, throughout history, Shiite clerics fomented ethnic hatred. And governments, influenced by clerics, not only failed to protect minorities, they also curtailed their upward mobility and diminished their sense of belonging. They lived as tenants, never as landlords. Their Motherland held them less dear than Muslims. No matter how unyielding their patriotism, how essential their contribution to society, they were always made to feel like second-class citizens, like, "a one legged-man in an ass-kicking contest."

This book contains so many amazing vignettes illustrating these and other issues of consequence not just in Iran but worldwide today, that perhaps even the conservative reader of Iran: Harsh Arm of Islam will be entertained, if not outraged and touched.