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Navid Wahraman

Navid Wahraman

Iranian-American historian (PhD, Columbia) and journalist covering the war on Iran; host of The Colony Archive podcast.

Aug 1, 2026

2:06
So why don't you take us through the categories?
2:11
Sure, and to reiterate what you were saying, Kumars, is that we are looking at the demographic within the Western diaspora that people don't often look at.
2:24
So the liberal left diaspora, because everyone is so just amazed by the right-wing, pro-Pahlavi, pro-war diaspora, that they're forgetting that the liberal left diaspora also manufactures consent for war and sanctions on iran even if they don't intend to do so and so regarding the four categories that you mentioned i actually posted about this that it got some uh good engagement and interest and what i said is that if you look at islamic thoughts we have four categories of people we have the kofar who are the unbelievers you have the munafirun who are the hypocrites then you have the momenoon who are the believers, and the fourth category that you have in Persian and Islamic literature, such as Hafez, is also malamati.
3:13
And I'll explain what each of them are, and there is no real translation for malamati, but literally it means someone who invites blame to himself or herself.
3:24
And so the Kofar are people whose inner and outer selves match, and they don't believe.
3:32
And they outwardly and loudly say that they don't believe.
3:36
And when it comes to, if you want to apply those four analytic categories to what's happening right now with the Iran war, is that the Kofar or the unbelievers are the warring class, so the Epstein class, but also the Iranian opposition in the West that loudly and openly waves Israeli flags and advocates for war and bombing of Iran.

17 MINS LATER

20:34
What do you think when you read this piece? What was your reaction at the time, and how do you think it's aged?

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