Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran (34 page)

In that classroom that day, I was incredulous. I told the class that my husband and I adopted our first child. I always try to find ways to make contact with women and I hoped the story would serve as a bridge. But adoption is not widely practiced in Iran and is not usually considered a satisfactory solution to childlessness.

“Didn’t your husband want to divorce you?” one young woman asked.

Divorce just didn’t come up, I replied.

For these women, polygamy was preferable—or at least that’s what they told me, a foreigner.

“Aren’t there problems for the first wife?” I asked.

“Maybe there might be some minor problems for her,” said one thirty-two-year-old student and a mother of three children. “Maybe she’d have some psychological problems in the beginning. But they’d be minor ones. Islam takes care of it all.”

On one level, the Women’s Seminary is the old Qom. The women do not speak of ambitions to become great religious interpreters of Islam; rather, most of them are wives and mothers who live nearby and enjoy the use of the seminary’s free day-care facility for their children. “We think a woman in Islam is a tender creature, a rose flower,” the thirty-two-year-old student said. “And we should pay more attention to our roses than any other flower. The restrictions for women exist because Islam respects women.”

But I always find that if I stick around long enough, other stories eventually come out. And even here in the women’s restrictive world, there were signs of the ferment I found so evident among some of the clerics. The female seminarians were, in fact, rebels in their own way. It would have been a lot easier on their families if they stayed home. All the women spoke of wanting to get more education and paying jobs. They wanted to learn the language of Islam and Islamic law, which until then had been somewhat of a secret code understood only by men. The seminary was a ticket to economic freedom, or at least to a better life.

“I have a husband and a one-year-old daughter, but I want a career,” said one twenty-five-year-old student. “I want to do religious research, maybe work in an institute where they interpret the Koran on the Internet.”

“I want to teach religion,” said a twenty-one-year-old student who had recently married. “Islam lets me decide for myself what I want to do.”

Maybe these women had never had the chance to allow themselves the freedom to think for themselves. Maybe they were fighting to create space for themselves in a society that had defined a place for them. And maybe the city of clerics would be flexible enough to allow them that opportunity.

C H A P T E R   E L E V E N

Space for the Outsiders

O unbelievers, I will not worship what you worship

You have your religion, and I have mine

— THE KORAN, SURA 109

The Jews (may God curse them) . . . and their foreign backers are opposed

to the very foundations of Islam and wish to establish Jewish domination

throughout the world.

—AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINININ A LECTURE IN 1970

Wait today. Tomorrow I will execute all Christians who commit crimes.

—NASSEREDIN SHAH QUOTED BY AN EYEWITNESS DURING RIOTS IN 1848

I
WAS READING THE
TEHRAN TIMES
one day when I came across an article titled, “Views on Cleanliness of the People of Book.” The
TehranTimes
is a semi-official, very conservative English-language newspaper under the influence of the office of the Supreme Leader. The article, citing interpretations of the Koran by important Islamic scholars, called for tolerance, arguing that Jews and Christians are not inherently unclean, just episodically unclean. For example, the article made the point that it is perfectly acceptable for a Muslim to shake the hand of a Christian or a Jew—so long as the Muslim first covers his hand with a cloth. “But if his hand touches yours,” the scholar concluded, “wash your hand.”

I think about that article sometimes when Iranian officials tell me with pride that the Islamic Republic treats its religious minorities the same as its Muslims. Certainly Iran’s long history as the home of many non-Muslim peoples makes the country different from some of its neighbors. Shortly after the revolution, Khomeini issued a fatwa that Christians and Jews are “people of the book” and therefore worthy of respect. Article 13 of the Constitution states clearly that “Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian Iranians are the only recognized religious minorities, who, within the limits of the law, are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies, and to act according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious education.” The next article says, “All Muslims are duty-bound to treat non-Muslims in conformity with ethical norms and the principles of Islamic justice and equity, and to respect their human rights.” There are designated seats in the Parliament for representatives of religious minorities—two for Armenian Christians and one each for Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians.

But the one percent of Iranians who practice religions other than Islam are considered separate and suffer to varying degrees as a result. Iran is an
Islamic
Republic; and no matter what the laws say, some Muslim writings contend that non-Muslims are too impure for a Muslim to touch. Some of the country’s non-Muslims resign themselves to suffering, saying it is the normal condition of life; others find ways to keep up optimism and even to thrive, in spite of the strictures of the state.

There are degrees of discrimination. The Zoroastrians and the Christians suffer the least. Zoroastrianism is the ancient religion of Iran; Jesus Christ is revered as a prophet who predated Mohammad by more than six hundred years. The Jews come next. At the bottom of the scale are the Bahais, who are considered Islamic heretics and are subject to outright persecution. Yet the Islamic Republic requires young Christian, Zoroastrian, Jewish, and even Bahai men to fulfill two years of compulsory military service.

All conversion and proselytizing are banned, and from time to time evangelical Christian missionaries who sneak over the border and try to preach the Gospel have been put into prison. But sometimes I am surprised at how much tolerance there can be. Take the case of Arthur Blessitt and his crucifix. Blessitt, an American, was known as the “Sunset Boulevard Preacher” in the days when he ran an alcohol-free, all-night “nightclub for Jesus” on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. But since 1969, Arthur had been obsessed by another mission: to carry a thirteen-foot-long, forty-five-pound metal cross on wheels into every country in the world before the dawn of the year 2000. Iran was one of the last places on his list. In 1998 he brought the cross into Iran in three pieces in an oversized ski bag, assembled it and carried it, Christ-like, wherever he could. When I met up with him in Persepolis, he told me that he was not trying to convert the population; he only wanted to recall Christ’s suffering and death and have his picture taken with his cross in front of biblical sites like the tomb of Daniel, the Old Testament prophet, in the ancient city of Susa in southwestern Iran. The Iranian authorities viewed Blessitt as a curiosity, but they didn’t arrest him. Maybe it was that he was a foreigner—one with an odd mission at that—who would soon be out of the country anyway; maybe it was that some issues involving non-Muslims are nonthreatening and can be safely ignored.

For members of religious minorities living in Iran, of course, no slack is cut. These people are left to invent ways of coping with their second-class status and avoiding the impression that they threaten the regime. Some with Muslim-sounding names choose to hide their identities as they try to maneuver more easily within the Islamic system. Others insist that the differences don’t matter. Still others create two worlds—mingling in the arena of the Islamic Republic in the workplace by day and keeping with their own kind at night.

The antique shops on Ferdowsi Avenue in the heart of Tehran are owned largely by Jews and they serve all customers, just as they did in the days of the Shah. The Armenians, like other non-Muslims, are exempt from the ban on drinking alcohol and are allowed to make vodka and wine for their own personal consumption. One Armenian I know who works in an auto repair shop by day has a very lucrative side business—selling and delivering very drinkable vodka, beer, and various wines and liqueurs to non-Muslims and Muslims alike.

No matter how they feel or struggle or cope or deny, non-Muslims in Iran are different. They believe in different prophets than the Muslims do, and they worship on different days and celebrate different holidays (except for
Nowruz,
the Zoroastrian-inspired New Year that many minorities celebrate). Non-Muslims follow their own laws on marriage, divorce, and inheritance. They receive lower awards in injury and death lawsuits, but heavier punishments, than Muslims. Many members of religious minorities left Iran because of the revolution, and many of these were granted political asylum abroad after claiming religious persecution.

*    *    *

As someone who grew up Catholic, I find the statues and stained glass windows and incense and rituals of the Christian churches in Iran a familiar refuge from the omnipresence of the Islamic Republic. Armenians, by far the largest Christian group in Iran, worship in their own churches in every major Iranian city. They socialize in Armenian cultural centers, publish an Armenian-language newspaper, and run their own schools. Before the revolution, about 250,000 Armenians lived in Iran; twenty years later the number is down to fewer than 200,000. I particularly like the Saint Sarkis Church in the center of Tehran. I have no trouble finding it because it backs up against one of the last remaining anti-American murals in the capital: an American flag with skulls for the stars and missiles for the stripes and the words, “Down with U.S.A.”

Before his death in 1999, Archbishop Artak Manookian, the head of the Armenian community, readily welcomed visitors like me. A native of Beirut, he wore a full beard, flowing purple robes, and an enormous gold medallion, and asked to be called “Your Eminence.” Sitting behind an ornately carved mahogany desk, he would explain how good the Armenians have it in Iran. He spoke in Armenian, through an interpreter, or in barely understandable English. His Persian was pitiful, even though he had lived in Iran for forty years. To prove that his status was equal to that of the Muslim clerics in the eyes of the Islamic Republic, he once handed me a photocopy of a photo of himself with Ayatollah Khamenei. “We are like friends, very close,” the Archbishop insisted.

But even the churches, schools, and cultural centers aren’t complete refuges from the Islamic Republic. Next to paintings of the Christian patriarchs in the rectory’s large receiving room hang photos of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei. Muslim bureaucrats administer the Armenian schools, and Armenian literature courses require government approval. Armenian girls are required to observe Islamic dress, even inside their own schools. At one point Ataollah Mohajerani, the Minister of Islamic Guidance, tried to appear ecumenical by visiting an Armenian church ceremony in Chaldaran, a remote part of western Azerbaijan province, to commemorate the martyrdom of Saints Thaddeus and Batganius. “Today I felt as if I was praying in a mosque!” he exclaimed. He apparently thought it was a compliment.

Underpinning the Islamic Republic’s view of tolerance is a sometimes barely hidden belief that Islam is superior to other religions. During a visit to Washington to visit his son, Amir, Ayatollah Majdeddin Mahallati lectured at the National Cathedral on the meaning of Jesus Christ in Islam. He sat at a long Formica table elegantly dressed in a white robe covered by a black gauze cloak, a white turban on his head, fingering a polished carved wood cane. “There are twenty-five references to Jesus Christ as the Prophet of God in the Koran,” he said. “No one can be a Muslim and not believe in the Prophethood of Jesus Christ. I doubt you have ever heard of anyone ever being persecuted.”

One American in the audience leaned over and whispered, “He certainly got that wrong.” Over the years, the Islamic Republic has closed evangelical churches and arrested converts; evangelical pastors have been killed gangland-style. But this was a polite group and no one challenged the eminent guest. Then the ayatollah told a story about Imam Reza, the ninth-century Shiite Muslim leader: “A young man came to Imam Reza. The young man was a Muslim and he said to the Imam, ‘My mother is a Christian. How should I treat her?’ ‘You should respect her even more,’ Imam Reza replied. And that phrase encouraged the mother to become a Muslim!”

So there it was. Christians are well liked. In fact, they are so well liked that Muslims welcome their conversion. Other religions feel the same way about people they consider heathen, of course, including a number of Christian denominations. But none that I know of—except perhaps the Vatican—is currently running a government.

In Iran, the impulse to convert non-Muslims still exists. One Sunday during Lent in Tehran an Armenian Christian friend named Catherine invited me to go with her to Mass. Just as the service was ending, a tall, thin man in a suit walked up the center aisle, turned toward the congregation, and held up a framed picture. It showed a portrait of Ali, the son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Mohammad. “You must follow Imam Ali!” the man shouted. “Imam Ali is the way to salvation! Jesus Christ is not coming to save you! Convert! Convert! Let the twelfth Imam save you! Convert to Islam or go to hell!” A priest and a handful of parishioners grabbed the man and dragged him down the long aisle to the exit. But even as he was led away, he continued to shout about conversion and Imam Ali.