The Ayatollah Begs to Differ (19 page)

As horrific as the photographs and videos of public executions that circulated on the Web were, the majority of Iranians support the death penalty for serious crimes, although many, and particularly the reformists, believe that Sharia should be ignored (if not taken off the books) in the cases of lesser crimes (such as adultery, prostitution, and pederasty). The presidency does not control the judiciary, but under Khatami and his influence (including with the Supreme Leader) conservatives had less of a free rein to demand the imposition of the most controversial of Sharia rulings, whereas with the Ahmadinejad administration conservative judges have, to use an American expression, felt free in spending what they believe to be some of their “political capital.” Unusually, many executions in 2007 were carried out in public, on the streets and with the hangman’s noose dangling from a crane on the back of a truck and often with crowds cheering on, particularly in the cases of confessed murderers. Although Sharia deems that death must come to the condemned quickly and painlessly (and halal regulations even mandate the same for animals destined for the dinner table), Iran’s executioners do not seem to have approached hanging—which should result in the instantaneous breaking of the neck—as a mathematical challenge, for some unfortunate convicts have ended up being slowly strangled rather than hanged, either because of an inadequate drop or because the hangmen simply dispensed with the drop altogether, instead allowing the crane to lift the victims by the ropes around their necks.

But despite the arrests and despite the executions (which for those not witnessing them meant very little, since Iranians generally have hardly any sympathy for convicted criminals), Tehran’s street scenes, apart from a slight tightening of the headscarf here and there, did not visibly change much in the second year of Ahmadinejad’s “return to the values of the revolution,” and the vigilance with which authorities initially pursued their public campaign against “mal-veiling” abated somewhat in the face of other pressing issues, such as an unpopular decision to ration gasoline in order to prepare for potential future UN-or unilateral U.S.-and European-imposed sanctions (Iran needs to import gasoline because of a lack of oil-refining capacity, which it in turn blames on years of U.S. sanctions).
¹¹

Many Iranians, particularly the more secular-minded and those in the diaspora, may insist that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not represent the true Iran or Iranians, that he comes from a place few recognize. His political views may indeed be extreme, maybe more so than those of most of the people who voted for him, but the unrecognizable place he comes from is very much a part of Iran and its culture, and many Iranians can readily identify with him, even if they’re dissatisfied with his administration’s programs. It’s an Iran away from the North Tehran that Western journalists tend to focus upon, where nose jobs are few, where humility and ta’arouf share the spotlight with pride and straightforwardness, but, more important, where the all-encompassing Iranian preoccupation with haq is most conspicuous. Ahmadinejad, the commoner elevated to the ranks of the elite by his fellow common man, where he will firmly remain whether in or out of power as long as there is an Islamic Republic, may care or worry less about the trajectory of his political fortunes than other Iranian statesmen. He may also care less about his and everyone else’s worldly boss, the Supreme Leader, whoever he may be at any given time, and it perhaps matters less to him that he be right or wrong on any matter, or that history judge him kindly or harshly. He strongly believes that he stands for the haq of the people, and Ahmadinejad, like so many of his fellow citizens who can identify with him and are yearning for justice, deliverance, and their haq, will continue to proclaim himself their champion. Until, that is, the Mahdi takes over his job.

“Yeki-bood; yeki-nabood.”
A story that embodies both the Iranian obsession with haq and the imbued psychology of ta’arouf is one that may or may not be true, for there is no way of knowing, but the fact that it exists even as a story gives insight into the Iranian psyche. Ahmad Shah, the last Qajar king, of the dynasty that preceded the Pahlavis, in turn the last dynasty before the Islamic Revolution, ruled as a constitutional monarch and left the sorry state of the Iranian economy to hapless viziers to manage. (It is entirely possible that this tale was invented by family and supporters of the Qajars, who were ridiculed by the Pahlavi Shahs and the Islamic governments that followed alike.) The British, who had briefly occupied Iran during World War I and whose influence in Persia was balanced somewhat by Russia, were pressuring Iran to agree to a treaty that would in essence make Persia a British protectorate, on top of the continued concessions in oil and tobacco that they would exploit for decades longer. But the young Shah was resisting. In 1919, on a state visit to London, where he was feted by King George and Lord Curzon, who made separate flowery speeches outlining the future of Persia, he realized that however much he resisted (and his own speeches there reveal, at least in oratory, his cold attitude toward the British plan), the British would have their way, with or without him. One morning, as he was starting to shave, his manservant noticed he hadn’t put out his mirror.

“Why, your majesty, are you going to shave without a mirror?” he asked.

“Because,” Ahmad Shah replied, “I don’t want to look at my
madarghahbeh
[son-of-a-whore] face.”

Ahmad Shah was ultimately, with the help of the British, pushed aside by a military coup in 1921, self-exiled from his country in 1923, and formally deposed in 1925 (eventually dying in France in 1930). He knew, in London, that he was about to give in to the powerful British Empire because of his and his country’s weakness, and be forced to surrender Iran’s haq and honor, and little else could describe his feelings of complete humiliation. He was not, of course, a son of a whore, but if the story is true, his ta’arouf was exceptionally fitting.

VICTORY OF BLOOD OVER THE SWORD

“There was a girl, a young girl, who had already had her leg amputated because of cancer, and she lay dying in the hospital. Her doctor and nurses, who could do no more for her, asked her if she wanted or needed to talk to anyone about any worries or problems she might have. ‘I don’t even tell
God
my problems or worries,’ she replied, ‘but I do tell my
problems
about God.’ When she died, her distraught father told the doctor, who was trying to comfort him, that it was all right. ‘I was unworthy of her,’ he said, ‘so God took her back to him.’ The doctor, a secularist and not religious in any way but impressed by the power of faith, is the one who has told the story many times.” Mrs. Khatami finished speaking and looked at me with a smile, her gentle eyes wide and unblinking. She held her floral chador, one she only wears indoors, tightly under her chin with her fist. “You can’t explain it, can you?” she said. “But there is
something
about faith and religion.”

The story may be corny, I thought, even if it’s true, but there was nothing corny about Mrs. Sadoughi, as Maryam Khatami, sister of the former president Khatami, is better known. (Women in Iran keep their maiden names when they marry, including on all legal documents, and use their husband’s name only if prefaced with “Mrs.”)
“I do tell my
problems
about God.”
We were sitting in the living room of the Sadoughi house in the old part of central Yazd, the desert city smack in the middle of Iran where Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Ali Sadoughi, Maryam’s husband, is the
Imam Jomeh
, or “Friday prayers leader,” and therefore the representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in the province. It was the start of a busy week for Sadoughi, for this was the ninth day of Moharram, the first month of the Arabic calendar, Tasua, as it is known throughout the Shia world—one of the two holiest days in a holy month of mourning for the martyrdom of the Shia Imam Hossein.

Sadoughi’s son, Mohammad, was busy preparing a
ghalyoun
, or “water pipe,” for us to smoke Persian tobacco after lunch, and Maryam Khatami and I were having a conversation about the role of religion in Iranian society while her husband, sitting on a couch next to me, listened carefully, nodding his head in agreement from time to time between sips of hot tea. The old Persian doors (or French doors, in the West) of the living room opened onto a completely walled garden with a large, rectangular pond in the center, surrounded by fruit trees and mature palms, and I stared admiringly at the
badgir
, or “wind catcher,” the ancient Iranian air-conditioning system—a rectangular tower with slats at the top that “catch” a breeze and accelerate it (thus cooling the air) downward—that served to cool a large shaded patio at the end of the garden used in the summer. The mud-brick house was well over a century old and was as traditional a dwelling as one can find in Iran, albeit unlike many other old houses in that it was restored to perfection and spoke to the Sadoughis’ love of all things Persian, including the tobacco we were about to smoke (which is no longer popular, having lost ground to the Arab fruit-flavored tobaccos also found in the West and, of course, cigarettes).

Earlier that morning, I had dutifully arrived at the Hazireh Mosque in front of the Sadoughi house, a house that sits at the beginning of a maze of impossibly narrow alleys that emanate from the main Yazd thoroughfare and is distinguishable from others only by the sole Revolutionary Guard, Kalashnikov casually thrown over his shoulder, standing outside his dilapidated booth. Yazd is a traditional city, a religious city, but is also known for its particularly theatrical public ceremonies commemorating the death of Imam Hossein some fourteen hundred years ago, when the city was the site, as it still is today, of important Zoroastrian temples. Mourning death is a Yazdi specialty, even an art, and death and martyrdom are pillars of Shia Islam. Religion is, at least to me, most interesting in its extreme human expression, particularly extreme
public
expression, and few places compare to Yazd province in that expression, especially in its beauty and emotional resonance rather than what we might think of as fundamentalist character.

The mosque was already almost filled to capacity with men dressed in black; women in black chadors and young girls in black headscarves were relegated to a balcony that ran along one wall and overlooked the expansive Persian-carpeted room, a room so brightly lit by massive fluorescent fixtures that the rows of tiled columns sparkled as if they were mirrors. I was led to a bench just inside the open doors of the entrance on one side of the building where I sat down with a number of mullahs as well as Sadoughi himself, protected by Revolutionary Guards, to watch the proceedings. A path of sorts had been cleared in front of us and extended in a U shape all around the mosque to the entrance on the other side, and an officious, overweight policeman in an ill-fitting uniform stood watch, eagerly anticipating the processions soon to arrive by waving this and that person to one side or another as they entered the mosque. While we were waiting for the ceremonies to begin, we were offered small glasses of tea by an attendant who fetched them from a makeshift kitchen behind us that had been set up to provide tea to any of the hundreds of people who had come in remembrance of Imam Hossein’s martyrdom.

I looked around at all the black shirts, thankful that I’d picked one up in Tehran a few days earlier, even though the fit was questionable and the fabric better suited to a ship’s sail. I had roamed the Tehran Friday bazaar, looking for an all-black shirt that was cheap but presentable, and had settled on one for five dollars from an old vendor who insisted that it was made of cotton. “Yes, yes,” he had told me, “of course it’s cotton!” I must’ve looked unconvinced. “Made in China!” he added, as if that were a strong selling point. “If it wasn’t cotton,” he continued, “it would be shiny. See?” He was right: it wasn’t particularly shiny, but we
were
indoors. I bought it anyway, knowing full well that it couldn’t possibly be anything but 100 percent synthetic, and as I was walking away, I heard another vendor shouting,
“Bolouse-e zedeh afsordegi! Bolouse-e zedeh afsordegi!,”
which best translates as “antidepressant blouses,” a rather optimistic cry to the female customers who were, perhaps he knew better than I, after all, looking for some new clothes to lift their spirits in this, the most sullen month of the year. But as I suspected, neither the antidepressant blouses nor my black shirt could possibly deliver on their promises. In the bright and hot desert sunshine of Yazd, the shininess of my black shirt was unmistakable, as was the itch, and I suspected rash, developing around my neck as I looked left and right, awaiting with great anticipation the first of the groups of organized mourners who would be marching past me this morning.

And then I heard the drums. A slow beat, and a young man took to the microphone at a stand at the front of the room. In a mellifluous but sad voice, he started singing the praises of the Imams as the men entering the mosque in two columns, marching slowly in step, shouted out a chorus while beating their chests with their right hands in time with the beat. The men around me followed suit, albeit with less vigor, sort of a faux chest beating or really just chest tapping, and I did the same. Following the first group of men came the chain beaters. These men were silent, but each wielded a wooden-handled instrument, something like a feather duster but with metal chain links in place of feathers, and in time to the beat they raised the chains above their shoulders and brought them down on their backs. The swish-swish sound of the chains and the loud thuds they made as they connected with the men’s backs provided additional percussive accompaniment, and some of those men, mostly the younger ones with gelled hair, rolled-up sleeves, and tight jeans, beat themselves with such vigor, creating perfect arcs with chains glittering under the fierce lights, that one wondered how they managed to remain expressionless.

The previous day, at my cousin Fatemeh’s house in Ardakan, a village thirty-five miles away, I had announced that I wished to participate in the chain beating,
zanjeer-zani
, and had made a few practice swings with a set of chains that were rummaged out of a closet by a relative. They hurt. I’m sure I grimaced when they connected with my back and made facial expressions that must’ve convinced my family, deeply religious though they are, that I was suffering from a mental illness of some sort, for no sane Westernized Iranian, certainly not one who had lived abroad all his life, could possibly be interested in mourning the death of Imam Hossein with a bout of self-flagellation. In Tehran too, I had been greeted with stunned silence by the more secular Iranians when I would casually say I was going to attend Tasua and Ashura ceremonies, a silence that spoke to their inability to comprehend
why
. But in the end it was explained to me,
after
I tried using the chains, mind you, that I would be unable to actually perform anyway, as the ceremonies were carefully choreographed affairs, not unlike the various parades on Fifth Avenue in New York, and did not allow for spontaneous audience participation beyond symbolic chest beating.

The parade at the mosque continued. Different groups of men, sometimes even very young boys, were marching past me, each group headed by a flag bearer and each group stepping and self-flagellating to a different song and beat. The officious policeman, acting as traffic cop with almost as many hand and arm movements, was thoroughly enjoying himself, although it seemed that his instructions were ignored as many times as they were obeyed. Each neighborhood in Yazd, and apparently many neighborhoods in the surrounding villages, had its own
heyyat
, or “delegation,” competing, it seemed, to out-beat and out-sing the others. The Afghans came, refugees first from the Soviets and then from the Taliban who had never returned home, as did the Iraqis, presumably from the Iraqi part of town, near the main square, where they run the cigarette wholesale business and where, much to my delight, I could buy Iranian cigarettes re-smuggled back into Iran from Iraq—where the Iranian government subsidizes their distribution—at half the price of anywhere in Tehran, or about thirty-five cents a pack. Every now and then the parade would stop, someone new would take to the microphone, and the crowd of men sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room would stand and beat their chests with both arms. Arms would be raised high and then brought down, crossing each other in midair and landing heavily on either side of the chest, to a rhythm created by the singer and a chorus repeated by the men. Everyone else in the mosque beat, or in my case tapped, their hearts in time. Everyone, that is, except for the few men I noticed who answered calls on their cell phones, although one did manage to hold a conversation and beat himself at the same time. “Hey, what are you doing, Mamad?” I imagined the conversation. “Oh, nothing much, just pounding my chest.”

The women on the balcony watched, some leaning over to get a better look, and at times I felt that the men, the youths anyway, were performing for them as much as for any other reason. If they could (and if it was still legal), some of these men would have used the
ghammeh
, or “sharp dagger,” to cut their foreheads and march with blood streaming down their faces. Once a common practice, it was now forbidden by the Ayatollahs of Shia Islam.
¹
On the eve of Tasua, in a taxi from Ardakan to Yazd, a newscaster repeatedly advised his listeners (after offering them all condolences on the death of Imam Hossein) that
ghammeh-zani
, “cutting oneself with a blade,” was not only illegal but un-Islamic according to the great Ayatollahs, including Fazel Lankarani, Shirazi, Sistani (in Iraq), and the Supreme Leader himself, Khamenei. The reason, as he quoted the mullahs, was that in Islam it is haram, or “forbidden,” to harm one’s own body to the point of danger—that is, danger from death due to, in this case, a potential deadly infection. He neglected to mention the Ayatollahs’ other reason, one they all agree on and one that has a strong Shia basis: that any act that can be misunderstood, misconstrued, or simply viewed negatively by the non-Shia world must be avoided in order to protect the faith from those who might view it in a negative light or, worse, defame it. Men cutting their foreheads wide open could, one supposes, be viewed negatively by some unbelievers. The practice does continue privately, though (which is why the radio announcer felt it necessary to raise the issue), sometimes in back alleys among small groups of men who just cannot imagine that beating oneself, even shirtless to allow the skin to burst open, suffices as grief. Real men don’t just self-flagellate; they
cut
themselves.