The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

by Hooman Majd

  When I left Jamkaran in the summer of 2005, after the last evening prayer, there was still bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway leading to the site. The faithful poured in from Tehran and towns even farther away, and until the sun rose the next day, every man and woman was like a lottery ticket holder the day of a record-breaking jackpot: all winners, all equal, and all full of hope. Earlier that day, I’d picked up a few noheh CDs near the shrine in Qom, and on my way out of Jamkaran I picked up a few more from vendors lining the parking lots, at about fifty cents a pop. Noheh, the Shia religious lamentation traditionally sung a cappella on holy days of mourning, is today (at least on CDs) thoroughly modern, with a hypnotic beat provided courtesy of hundreds of young men beating their chests and flailing their backs with chains, and young male singers competing for fame as messengers of woe. Good Shias feel the pain. As I listened to the CDs in the car, I couldn’t help but empathize with that pain, a pain I had seen on the faces of some at the mosque, hoping their letters to the Hidden Imam would be answered, and on the faces of some of the men who had driven great distances to kiss the hand of their Ayatollah that morning. Just as one doesn’t have to be religious to feel and appreciate the emotion of a gospel singer, one doesn’t have to be devout to feel the emotion of Muslim religious music, and Shia chants reach into a place deep in the Iranian soul, formed by centuries of cultural DNA and the certain Persian knowledge that the world is indeed a wicked place. Or perhaps it was the blood of Mohammad and his progeny that supposedly runs through my veins, for I had, earlier in the evening in Qom, touched the mausoleum of a saint. A saint who was, after all, my ancestor.

  I found myself in Qom, at Mofid University, again in the winter of 2007. Friends in Tehran expressed surprise that I wished to return to what most secular-minded Iranians consider a symbol of backwardness: a dull, dreary, and dusty place with nothing to recommend it. They didn’t know about the shir’e, of course, but that wasn’t the reason I returned. Well, perhaps just a small part of the reason. Mofid U, “useful” or “beneficial” university as it would translate into English (and only a Persian could come up with a name as obviously practical, and as boastful, as that), was founded in 1989 by Ayatollah Abdol-Karim Mousavi Ardebili (head of the judiciary under Khomeini) as an institution dedicated to comparative studies between Islamic sciences and modern humanities, although it has expanded to offer degrees in other disciplines. It was intended as an adjunct to the howzehs, the Shia seminaries in Qom, which offer little beyond purely Islamic studies and which Ardebili believed neglected the modern sciences. Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Taghi Fazel-Meybodi, a reformist cleric and good friend of former president Khatami’s, is the director of publications at the university, and I sat in his large, somewhat untidy office on a chilly morning drinking tea poured from a large thermos. “You haven’t become a hezbollhahi, have you?” said Fazel-Meybodi with a laugh, referring, I knew, to the full beard I hadn’t had the last time I saw him in Tehran. The beard, it seemed, would always be a point of conversation for anyone who knew I didn’t live in Iran. I smiled and shook my head.

  “No, no,” I said, “it’s just nice to not shave, and people who don’t know me don’t presume I live in the West.” And then, without any prodding from me, for this was supposed to be a courtesy call and nothing more, Fazel-Meybodi launched into a critique of the Islamic Republic that, had I actually been a resident of Iran, he might not have imparted with such vigor.

  “The things that Ayatollah Khomeini was against the Shah for,” he said, “are exactly things we are doing today.” At least he said “we,” an acknowledgment that he was very much a part of the clerical ruling class. “We akhounds were against Reza Shah [the Shah’s father, who started the Pahlavi dynasty],” he continued, “but that was not entirely fair—he did some good things too.” My friend Javad, who had driven down with me from Tehran, a nephew of Grand Ayatollah Lankarani’s, looked at me with raised eyebrows as he took a sip of tea, holding the glass by his lips for a few seconds longer than necessary. I had introduced him as Lankarani’s relative, and the Hojjatoleslam knew how radical his views would be to the archconservative cleric vastly his senior, but he didn’t seem to care. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying himself, knowing that there was a chance his views would be recounted later that day to one of the most senior Ayatollahs in all of Shia Islam, and one whose views were the polar opposite of his. “In order to progress, and we must progress, we have to constantly step on the akhounds’ toes,” he said.

  “But will progress lead to a secularism of sorts?” I asked. “Surely that’s not in the cards.”

  “Secularism?” said Fazel-Meybodi, somewhat imperiously. “Iran is already becoming secular—it’s basically secular—all that’s left is the hijab!” Javad glanced at me again, but kept silent. “It’s dangerous,” continued Fazel-Meybodi, “for religion to be imposed. It’s worse for the religion.” Fazel-Meybodi seemed intent, as some of the reformist clerics are, on making an impression with someone he believed, as a writer, had some influence in the West. It has become almost fashionable, particularly since Ahmadinejad’s rise, for reformist mullahs with a sense of public relations to espouse dangerously liberal views, for while their status in the ruling class offers them some protection, their conviction that Iran is inevitably heading toward liberalization and democratization also means that they want to continue to be relevant when other clerics may no longer be. Ayatollahs Sanai and Tehrani, to one degree or another part of the reform camp, also exhibit this tendency, although Sanai will, like Fazel-Meybodi, express extreme and even confrontational views to anyone, particularly foreign, and with an eye to the Western press, who cares to pay him a visit.

  It was close to lunchtime, and I was getting hungry for chelo-kebab, white rice and lamb skewers and a national lunch dish of sorts. Javad had promised me the best of Qom, a city of akhounds, known for their discriminating palates, healthy appetites, and often portly physiques. Fazel-Meybodi, however, in the best tradition of ta’arouf, insisted that we be his guest at his home, for lunch and a rest from our travels. Traditional hospitality from the days of the caravans has not disappeared from Qom, but I politely refused, insisting that I had much business to do in the city. In the end, after some minutes of back-and-forth insistence and refusal, Meybodi relented but would not hear of us walking the university grounds to the gate: he personally drove us in his car and made us gifts of his most recent books, which he fetched from the overstuffed trunk, before we kissed each other, three times on the cheek in the Islamic manner, and managed to exit “Useful U.” Books, but regrettably no souvenir T-shirt.

  After lunch, which had lived up to expectations and which I ate in the company of the most turbans I had ever seen in one place, a handful of full black chadors scattered in their midst, I left Javad, promising a rendezvous at the shrine later that evening before our return to Tehran. I made my way to the old house in the center of town, the house where I had spent a pleasant afternoon more than a year earlier and where I had promised to return if I ever made it back to Qom. I saw the house’s owner, looking thinner than before and older than his years, on the street outside his door. “Mr. M.!” I exclaimed. “Salam!” He had been warned by telephone that I was coming to visit, but he didn’t seem to recognize me. “It’s me; Majd,” I said.

  “Oh, come in, come in! I hardly recognized you with that beard.” He opened the unlocked door and ushered me into the winter quarters of the house, across the yard from the summer quarters, where I had been the last time.

  “I just came by to say hello,” I said, “and certainly not to disturb you and your family.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said with the characteristic slow, nasal twang of an opium addict, and I noticed that he may have lost another tooth or two. “Come in and have some tea.” I entered a narrow hallway, took off my shoes, and followed Mr. M. into the living room. Similar to the summer room, it was covered with Persian carpets and pillows, but again, no furniture. He gestured for me to sit,
and then yelled for tea. His wife, who had barely spoken the last time, came rushing into the room from behind a curtain, chador flapping, and greeted me as if I were a long-lost relative.

  “How are you?” she exclaimed. “It’s so nice to see you again!”

  I stood up, mindful not to extend my hand for a shake, as this was a religious household.

  “Very well, thanks,” I replied, with my right hand over my heart in a gesture of respect.

  “Please sit down,” she said. “You’ll have some tea.” She disappeared into the kitchen and returned immediately with a teapot and glasses already filled on a small tray. I took a glass and a sugar cube and murmured my thanks. Her husband did the same, and to my surprise, unlike during my previous visit, she sat down across from me and beamed. Mr. M. meanwhile made a phone call, and from what I could gather, he was arranging for a delivery. The daughter of the house entered the room, also in a chador, said hello pleasantly, and sat next to her mother. There was no TV in this room, so she just looked at me.

  “You have a beard,” she said, as a statement rather than a question.

  “Yes, that’s right,” I replied.

  “But you live in America?”

  “Yes.” These were more words than she had spoken the entire time I’d been at the house before.

  “Where?”

  “New York.”

  “Oh my God!” she said. “I would love to go to New York!”

  “What for?” grunted her father.

  “It’s so beautiful!” she said, giving him a dirty look.

  “Well,” I said, “I see the beauty, but it’s not really that beautiful everywhere, you know.”

  “Yes, it is,” she insisted dismissively, turning to face me. “Isn’t it?” she demanded, adjusting her chador, pulling it tight under her chin.

  “What is it you think is beautiful?” asked Mr. M., drawing out the words.

  “The buildings, the modern technology, everything!”

  “I hope you’ll be able to see it someday,” I said. She lowered her eyes and fell silent. Right then her husband, the soccer-playing youth I had seen eighteen months earlier, walked in. I stood up and shook his hand. “How are you?” I asked in as friendly a tone as I could muster, even though I had sensed a little hostility from him the last time.

  “Very well,” he said, taking my hand in his. “It’s nice to see you again.” His hair was shorter than the last time and wasn’t gelled, and he had a short, uneven beard. He sat down by his wife.

  “So what are you up to these days?” I asked. “Still playing soccer?”

  “Yes, whenever I get a chance,” he replied. “But I’m doing my national service.”

  “Wow, in the army, eh?” I said.

  “No,” he said, “I signed up for the Revolutionary Guards.”

  “You can join the Sepah for your military service?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how is it?”

  “It’s easy. I just sit in an office most days, and get plenty of days off.”

  There was a knock at the door, and Mr. M. went into the hallway. He reappeared moments later with a small bag, and then stepped into the kitchen to pick up the paraffin burner and his homemade pipe. He sat down and began to prepare the shir’e.

  “So,” said the son-in-law, “what kind of guns do American soldiers carry?”

  “Gee, I’m not sure,” I said, “but I assume they’re given M16s.”

  “Wow, M16s!” He smiled, his black eyes twinkling with excitement.

  “And what do you have?” I asked, sensing he wanted to tell me.

  “Kalashnikovs,” he said, “although I’m not allowed one. I get to shoot one occasionally for target practice. They’re not bad, but they’re not M16s.”

  “Have you seen an M16?” I asked.

  “No, but friends have!” He started to absentmindedly pull the short hairs on his chin.

  “And you grew the beard for the Guards?” I asked.

  “I suppose so,” he said, “but my beard isn’t really a proper Pasdar beard. I’m not a regular, so it doesn’t really matter, as long as I don’t shave.” His father-in-law had a pipe almost ready, and he gestured for me to join him at his side.

  “I can’t smoke much,” I said. “Last time it really knocked me out.”

  “It’ll be better this time,” he said. Indeed, I thought, stretching out and resting my head on a pillow. We smoked for a couple of hours, watched by the rest of the family, who chatted endlessly about matters such as Mr. M.’s unfortunate habit, which had caused him to lose most of his assets and was about to cause him the loss of the house we were in; his siblings’ exploitation of his situation by offering to buy the property for far less than its worth; and the daughter’s attention deficit disorder, which of course they didn’t describe as such but which she oddly seemed quite proud of. Mr. M. had been a senior city government official at one time but had been dismissed following a corruption scandal, and his descent into full-time opium use had taken a greater toll on the family than I had thought the last time I saw them. But unlike working-class addicts who have in many cases ended up on the streets abandoned by their relatives, this family soldiered on, together and intact, and I could only hope that they would continue to do so.

  As we lay on the floor, I was often asked my opinion on all their family issues, and I tried to be politely noncommittal, for I found it unnerving not only to be included in what should have been private matters but also to speak on the subject of my host’s opium habit while I lay on the floor happily puffing away at his pipe. There was, much as the last time I had visited, no talk of politics or the U.S.-Iran dispute, even with a son-in-law in the Revolutionary Guards who might be called to the front lines of a war someday, for this family, like most in the middle and working classes, had bigger problems and issues to worry about. I hoped that other guests would arrive, to save me from both the uncomfortable conversation and having to, out of ta’arouf, which makes it rude and therefore impossible to do as one really wants, smoke far more than I should, but no one else showed up. I did endorse the idea of the daughter continuing her education, an endeavor she has so far found exceedingly boring, and I also seconded Mrs. M.’s entreaties to her husband not to sell the house (which despite its poor condition was actually quite lovely), at least not for a quick buck. Perhaps it was, I thought, battling my drooping eyelids after a pipe by staring at a picture of the revered Shia saint Imam Hossein on a wall next to a large poster of Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani, that I, the Iranian from foreign lands, was the perfect person for the family to air their issues in front of. I would, after all, be gone soon, possibly never to return, and none of their neighbors knew me. Me and their Ayatollah, it seemed, were the closest to therapy that this family would ever get.

  When I finally summoned the energy to stand up and excuse myself for a visit to the outhouse, I heard drumbeats coming from the street. Mr. M.’s young son, now probably thirteen or fourteen and quite a bit larger than when I’d last seen him, came running in from the hall to announce a mourning procession outside. “For whom?” I inquired.

  “Zein-ol-Abedeen-e-Beemar,” he said, “Imam Sajjad.” I must have looked puzzled, for he then added, “The fourth Imam!” He must’ve thought me a complete half-wit. Zein-ol-Abedeen (beemar means “the sickly,” for he was ill at the Battle of Karbala in 680 C.E. and unable to fight alongside his father, Hossein, the more revered Imam) had a Persian mother, the daughter of Yazdegerd, the last Sassanid Iranian king. Imam Hossein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, who married her, and his half-Iranian son, who had her as a mother, hold a special place in Iranian hearts, for they inextricably link Iran and Persian blood to the Arab religion that conquered their land. I followed the boy outside and watched the marchers, all dressed in black, some beating their chests with one hand while holding colorful banners with the other and some whipping their backs with chains to the rhythm of the drums. Another day, another procession, and even the spectators looking on se
emed weary. A few women in black chadors listlessly followed the colorful funeral-like procession, and after watching it pass the house, I went inside through the living room murmuring, “Excuse me,” and into the yard.

  A yellow cat, busily licking the lunch dishes piled up outside the kitchen entrance, froze and stared at me. “Shoo him away!” Mrs. M. shouted through the glass pane of the door. “He’s so bumptious, and we can’t seem to get rid of him.” I made a sudden movement toward the cat, and he gave me what I was sure was a disgusted look before calmly, and arrogantly, walking away. Another neighborhood laat, I thought as I made my way to the outhouse. It was getting late when I returned to the living room, and I begged my leave. Anticipating a few rounds of ta’arouf, I said that I had to make a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Fatima Masoumeh before I left Qom, and that seemed to suffice as both an excuse and a verification of my religious credentials. The daughter left the room as I kissed her father and her husband three times in the Islamic manner, and she returned quickly with a small box.

  “Here,” she said. “This is for you, from Imam Reza’s shrine in Mashhad. I picked some up when I went on pilgrimage last month.” I opened the cardboard box, and inside was a small string of prayer beads.