by Hooman Majd
With the very best of the military equipment that Iran possesses in their arsenal (including the mid-and long-range missiles that the army does not possess), with powerful interests in the economy, and with unrivaled career opportunities (virtually the entire top echelon of the Iranian political structure, nonclerical, is filled with former Revolutionary Guards, who seem in this respect to function almost as the Iranian version of the École Nationale), the Sepah-e Pasdaran have every incentive to maintain the political system of their nation, the velayat-e-faqih, at all costs, which of course by definition requires a valih-e-faqih: the Supreme Leader.
The Supreme Leader theoretically wields the kind of political power that would be the envy of any pope (well, perhaps with the exception of the Borgia popes Callistus and Alexander). The Sepah report directly to him, but he is also commander in chief of the regular armed forces. He also has direct responsibility for foreign policy, which cannot be conducted without his direct involvement and approval (he even has his own private foreign policy team, which includes two former foreign ministers), but although he is smart enough to stay above the fray of domestic politics, leaving it to the parliament, the judiciary (which he also directly controls), and the president, he can at any time of his choosing inject himself into the process and “correct” a flawed policy or decision. He also, importantly as far as a nervous West is concerned, controls Iran’s nuclear program, as an issue of national security, and has the final say on all matters relating to it. But perhaps the greatest perk of his office, one that would certainly be the envy of the Borgias, is that he can, under the authority of no less a being than God, lie. (Presidents Nixon, Clinton, and Bush, to name just a few, might have wished they were born Shia.)
Shia Islam, which is by its nature political, allows for taghiyeh, or “dissimulation,” which was viewed as essential in the early days of the split from mainstream Sunni Islam, to protect a minority who were in very real danger of losing their lives as heretics. Although taghiyeh is also accepted by some Sunnis in its strict interpretation, and is theoretically supposed to be lying only for the purpose of concealing one’s religion to avoid death, as with other concepts Shia and Iranian (and one cannot separate the two) there is some latitude in its interpretation. A Grand Ayatollah can rule on its permissibility, and the Supreme Leader of Iran is, conveniently, a Grand Ayatollah. Is it to protect one’s own individual life, or is it, if you are a religious leader, to protect your larger Shia community from demise? If it is the latter, then the Ayatollah may lie in virtually any instance and claim taghiyeh if and when necessary. He hasn’t done so as yet (at least not to anyone’s knowledge), and neither did Ayatollah Khomeini, but it must give great comfort to know that one can, and that the explanation will be accepted by one’s people.
Still, despite all the political power the Supreme Leader wields, and despite his religious authority as one among a handful of senior Ayatollahs in Shia Islam, he is decidedly not infallible in the eyes of pious Shias who choose, as they are quite free to, their very own marja-e-taghlid, or “source of emulation,” from among those Ayatollahs. In 1979, when the word “Ayatollah” entered our dictionaries, Khomeini, the first Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, was viewed by many (if not most) Shias as a well-established marja whose thoughts, at least in the religious realm, carried great weight, if not total infallibility. (His photos still adorn many a Hezbollah supporter’s home and office in Beirut.) If the clerical hierarchy of Shia Islam were more like that of the Catholic Church, similar though it is in some respects, Khomeini would have undoubtedly been elected the Shia pope. That cannot be said of Ali Khamenei, and furthermore it is unlikely to be true of the next or future Supreme Leader either. The Assembly of Experts, which is charged with electing the Supreme Leader (it also has the power to impeach, if necessary), is a body whose members are elected by the regular citizens of Iran (unlike the appointed College of Cardinals), and the members are more often concerned with who can most effectively preserve the clerics’ domination of Iranian politics and power than with whoever has the highest religious authority. It is a sensitive and intricate balancing act, for the religious credentials must certainly be such that the Revolutionary Guards and other religiously minded Iranians will accept his Islamic “guidance,” but he must also ensure that the Guards’ loyalty to the office remains, as the Guards’ power grows with every new missile and every new oil contract, both religious and political. It is easy to understand why so many Iranians were captivated by the question of who that person might be.
In a country where there are dozens of daily newspapers and weekly periodicals, only some of which are state controlled, news of the Supreme Leader was scarce in the winter of 2007. It is an unwritten rule of Iranian public discourse that no one is above criticism except the Supreme Leader and the velayat-e-faqih, and since any mention of the Supreme Leader that isn’t completely innocuous can be viewed as critique if the judiciary so decides, no one in the media wished to risk arrest or closure of a paper by mentioning the rumors of his impending or actual death. (Television and radio, which are state owned, had no news of him to report either.) Which of course only fueled those rumors further, to the point where finally Ayatollah Khamenei was forced to publicly issue a statement denying his own death. “Enemies of the Islamic system,” he said, “fabricated various rumors about death and health to demoralize the Iranian nation.” (Some viewed the statement, along with photos of a visibly weak Leader, as a less-than-ringing endorsement of his health.) He was right about a demoralized nation, but he got the reason wrong, if he even believed it himself (since he can’t read about his own person in the papers, it is up to his aides to tell him of such rumors if they believe they are getting out of hand). No one I spoke to, not even ardent supporters of velayat-e-faqih, seemed particularly upset by the rumors, but they were all quite demoralized by UN sanctions, the state of the economy, and the possibility of war with the United States, all of which was blamed on the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Perhaps it is just that the Supreme Leader does the job of deflecting discontent and blame away from his office so well that the idea of his passing has impact mostly, or only, to the extent that the people wonder if his successor will utilize more or less of his power in setting the government straight.
The Supreme Leader and his predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, in separate photos but always side by side, stare down from the walls of every government office and even some businesses. Photos of the president, whoever he is at any given time, are rarely seen anywhere. Unlike in dictatorships elsewhere, the Supreme Leader’s likeness need not be displayed in the private sector and often isn’t; as such, if you’re looking at Khomeini and Khamenei, you are probably somewhere in velayat-e-faqih territory.
The car-hire office in the neighborhood where I stay is no exception. I found myself there, in the winter of the “big” rumor and continuing rumors of war, looking to hire a car to take me to Qom, the religious capital of Iran. There are virtually no self-drive rental cars in Iran; otherwise I would have taken great pleasure in matching my New York City driving skills against Tehran’s impossible drivers’, although I would have undoubtedly ended up a shivering wreck cowering by the side of the road, too afraid to force my way into a lane of an endless stream of speeding bumper-to-bumper cars. Without credit cards (U.S. sanctions make them impossible to administer by Iranian banks) the car-rental business is probably untenable, but I suspect that the absence of an Iranian version of Hertz has more to do with Iranian logic than with credit cards. A logic that dictates that if you need a car, then you buy one or borrow one from friends or family; if you can’t afford it and no friends or family will lend you one, then why should a rental business trust you with theirs? At any rate, renting a car would be prohibitively expensive in a country where there are plenty of underemployed people willing to give you a ride for a pittance, let alone the thousands of licensed cabs and car service companies for whom no trip, however long, is too daunting.
It was
mid-afternoon at the car-hire office and what I thought would be a quiet time. I actually needed the car for the following morning, but I thought a long trip might require some advance notice. The receptionist was standing, busy answering the two phones on her desk plus her cell phone, which she had to fish out of her handbag every few minutes, so I waited and stared at the Ayatollahs. I stared not because I was fascinated by their photos, the same photos that greet you at Mehrabad Airport and all over town, but because I didn’t want to stare at her. She was wearing a black hijab, every single strand of hair tucked away out of sight, and an ankle-length black outfit cut far more stylishly, probably by herself, than the shapeless ones I’d seen on the streets outside. Her pale face, bright pink lipstick, and heavily mascaraed eyes under perfectly plucked eyebrows contrasted sharply with the black cloth enveloping her, as well as with the photos of the bearded men I was looking at. She was probably no more than twenty-two—tall, thin, and with long slender fingers that held the two phone receivers. She was, dare I say it, very sexy. When she hung up the phones, she sat down and looked at me inquisitively. “Yes?” she said.
“I need a car to take me to Qom tomorrow. A good car.”3
“Okay,” she said. “Where do you want to be picked up?”
“Just up the street, number 95. Or I can come here.”
She studied me for a few seconds. “I’ll get you someone nice,” she said. “Mr. Arab. He drives a Peugeot. Do you want to meet him now?” I realized then that she was the receptionist and the dispatcher.
“Sure,” I replied.
“Then have a seat and I’ll get him.” She pushed her chair back and leaned over a wooden partition. “Mr. Arab!” she shouted. “Come to the front!”
She turned back to answer the ringing phones. I waited patiently while she answered phones, plugged her cell phone charger into the wall, and occasionally shouted an order to one of the drivers on the other side of the partition. She glanced at me from time to time, but I tried to avoid eye contact, looking up instead at the photos of the Supreme Guides. “Mr. Arab!” she shouted whenever her eyes fell on me. “Where is he?” she finally said to a driver who stepped into the reception area. He shrugged his shoulders, quietly said he didn’t know, and picked up one of the chits she had signed and walked outside to the street. “Where is Mr. Arab?” she yelled angrily across the partition.
“He’s praying,” a disembodied voice answered meekly.
“Praying?” snorted the receptionist derisively, standing up. “Mr. Arab!” she yelled again. “Come on, even the akhound-ha [mullahs] don’t pray that long!” She turned to me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He’ll be out in a minute, I’m sure.”
A few minutes later Mr. Arab showed up, apologetic and humble. “This is Mr. Arab,” said the dispatcher huffily. “I told the gentleman that you were nice,” she said to him with a tiny hint of sarcasm. She went back to her phones while I arranged an early morning pickup with the driver, a middle-aged man with a quiet demeanor who assured me that he would be on time, perhaps sensing that I had my doubts about someone who had made me wait and had ignored the dispatcher’s frequent shouts. He gave me his cell phone number, just in case, he said, and I walked out, muttering a goodbye to the young woman, who nodded vigorously without looking up at me. This one, I thought as I watched her barking out orders to the much older men through the glass pane, would probably not be amused by reading Lolita. In Tehran, or otherwise.
The following morning Mr. Arab was on time. We were to pick up a friend who was going to come with me to Qom, and I tried to make small talk in the heavy Tehran traffic. Small talk has a way of ending up with politics in Iran, and Mr. Arab wasted no time in getting to the subject, starting with the economy and finishing by declaring that Ahmadinejad was ineffective in his dealings with foreigners, which only contributed to the danger of war and the bad state of the economy. Rafsanjani, in his mind, would have been much better. “You see,” he said, “Hashemi [as Rafsanjani is referred to in Iran] cuts throats with cotton.” He turned and looked at me. “With cotton! So that even the victim doesn’t know his throat’s been cut!” I laughed, nodding my head in agreement. “There wouldn’t be any talk of war with Hashemi,” he continued, then paused for a moment. “With cotton,” he repeated with obvious admiration. For a while after we picked up my friend, J. I’ll call him, Mr. Arab fell silent. He listened to our conversation and glanced in the rearview mirror, trying, I believe, to figure us out. J. and I of course talked politics, and from the conversation it must have been clear to Mr. Arab that J. was closely connected to one of the hard-line conservative Ayatollahs in Qom. What he couldn’t tell was that J. is actually quite liberal himself, for, although religious, he has no patience for intolerance and couldn’t care less about imposing Islamic values on anyone. Talk turned to war, and J. was adamant that the United States would never attack Iran. This, apparently, was the cue that Mr. Arab was waiting for.
“Never,” he said, glancing in his mirror.
“You don’t think so, huh?” I asked.
“They wouldn’t dare!” he replied, perhaps emboldened by J.’s nods. “No matter what anyone thinks of the government, the United States knows that if it attacks, everyone will defend Iran.”
“Yes,” said J. “It would be madness.”
“If America attacks,” continued Mr. Arab, “every Iranian will take up arms and fight to the death.” He was getting excited. “I will take up arms,” he declared. “I’m almost sixty, but I’ll definitely fight.”
“Everyone will,” said J., egging him on.
“Yes! I’ll fight, my children will fight, the old men will fight. America isn’t stupid.”
“I understand,” I said. “But…”
“You’ll fight,” said Mr. Arab, interrupting me. “Everyone!”
“But…” I started again.
“What do they think, the Americans? I’ll take up arms and fight them to the last breath,” he exclaimed with braggadocio, a true Iranian art if there ever was one, and one that this taxi driver, perhaps mindful of his bearded passengers, was employing skillfully. Boastful exaggeration, or gholov, is almost a national trait in a people that has long suffered from deep superiority/inferiority complexes. It alternates and contrasts nicely with the other great national trait, ta’arouf, the exaggerated politesse, modesty, and self-deprecation that Iranians seem to be born with the use of. It is why some fights in Iran will go very quickly from two parties declaring emphatically that they have had sex with the other’s mother and sister to both sides’ insistence that they are the other’s obedient servant, or worse.
“Baleh!” said J., “yes!” taking a long drag of one of the many cigarettes he had been chain-smoking since he got in the car. The driver momentarily turned around and looked at us. We were passing the heavily fortified Parchin military complex outside of Tehran, a munitions site that is suspected by the West as secretly developing nuclear weaponry. I wondered what Mr. Arab made of us, two bearded men on their way to Qom in the back of his car, one with close connections to the center of religious power. We hadn’t broached the subject of the Supreme Leader’s health yet, but I felt it was time and I’d had enough of war talk. I wanted to talk to J. about it anyway, and see what he thought of all the rumors now that it was certain that Khamenei was not dead.
“What about the Rahbar?” I asked him. “Do you think he’s on his last legs?”
“Na baba,” interrupted Mr. Arab, glancing at me in his mirror. “All this talk…He’s not young, of course.” J. nodded, fumbling for another cigarette.
“So you think he’s fine?” I asked.
“Sure,” said Mr. Arab, with a dismissive wave of the hand. “He just has a cold.”
“Yes,” repeated J., holding a lighter to the cigarette between his lips. “It happens. The Ayatollah has a cold.”
IF IT’S TUESDAY, THIS MUST BE QOM
On an insufferably hot August afternoon in Qom, the desert town a couple of hours south of Tehran an
d a great center of Shia learning, I was sitting on the Persian-carpeted floor of the living room of a decrepit old house within a walled garden, a yard really, staring at the stained sheet hung from a rail that served as the summer door while the women—covered head to toe in the cloth known as the chador—served hot tea to the men and an air conditioner, or cooler, as the water-operated ones are known in Iran, struggled noisily to make the room bearable. Typical of old homes, nowadays almost exclusively working-class if in poorer neighborhoods (which this was not), the small pond in the yard outside was surrounded by clotheslines, an illegal satellite dish, and an outhouse.1 Yes, a still-functioning outhouse, and one that reminded me of my grandfather’s house in Tehran, where the outhouse stood its ground (and was used by the occupants) long after a Western toilet was installed inside for the benefit of the offspring visiting from abroad.
The owner of the house, a fifty-something man with a slow, nasal twang, missing his front teeth, and extraordinarily polite (other than when he ordered his wife or daughter to bring more tea or his twelve-year-old son to run out and buy some cold drinks), seemingly had nothing to do all day but hang out and play host to anyone who bothered to drop by. I had never met any of the residents of this house: I had come knocking through an introduction, and my back was self-consciously stiff.