The Ayatollah Begs To Differ Part 2

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 endors.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sing 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 dictators.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+vering wreck cowering by the side of the road, too afraid to force my way into a lane of an endless stream of speeding b.u.mper-to-b.u.mper 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 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 s.e.xy. 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 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 and the dispatcher. the dispatcher.

"Sure," I replied.

"Then have a seat and I'll get him." She pushed her chair back and leaned over a wooden part.i.tion. "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 part.i.tion. 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 part.i.tion.

"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 akhound-ha [mullahs] don't pray [mullahs] don't pray that that long!" She turned to me. "I'm sorry," she said. "He'll be out in a minute, I'm sure." 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 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 a.s.sured 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 gla.s.s pane, would probably not be amused by reading Lolita 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 finis.h.i.+ng 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 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 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!" 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 pa.s.sengers, was employing skillfully. Boastful exaggeration, or gholov 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 s.e.x with the other's mother and and sister to both sides' insistence that they are the other's obedient servant, or worse. 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 pa.s.sing 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. 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 pa.s.sing 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. 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 and a great center of s.h.i.+a 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 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-cla.s.s 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. 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 tw.a.n.g, 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.

A well-built young man, clean shaven and with gelled hair, entered the room in soccer gear and was introduced as the son-in-law; he sat down quietly and stared at me with a furrowed brow as if I had just arrived from Mars. His young bride, the daughter of the house, followed him in, said a quiet h.e.l.lo, and sat down on the floor next to him, also staring, but averting her eyes whenever I glanced in her direction. She switched on the old television set perched on a low table and tuned the channel to PMC, the Persian Music Channel, a satellite station beamed in from Dubai and received illegally by just about every household in Iran. PMC features nothing but Iranian pop music videos from Los Angeles, and the young woman pulled her chador tight across her cheeks as she watched other young Iranian men and women, sans chadors or scarves, s.e.xily cavorting across the Southern California desert in a vintage American convertible.

No one but me in this house seemed terribly interested in the nuclear crisis with the West that was all the news in Europe and back home in the States, and had been a major topic of conversation in middle-cla.s.s Tehran homes since I had arrived a few days before President Ahmadinejad's inauguration in 2005. Iran had just angrily rejected a European proposal to end the nuclear stalemate and was heading rapidly toward a major confrontation over its plans to restart the uranium fuel cycle, something the United States claimed would lead to nuclear-armed Ayatollahs, perhaps as frightening an image as can be planted, post-9/11, in the minds of ordinary Americans. Ahmadinejad's new hard-line government, perhaps picking up on a cue from President Bush's own lexicon, seemed to be saying, in so many words, "Bring it on" to the entire world. But in this household, there was little concern with the possibility of armed conflict. A middle-cla.s.s family, religious but educated and wise to the ways of the world, if only through their television screen, they were far more concerned with the more mundane aspects of life, even though they stubbornly continued to live in a house that should have long ago given way to a modern apartment building, with perhaps a nice penthouse for them, the owners of the land underneath.

A noise from the yard signaled the arrival of other guests; an older man and his toothless young companion carrying a heavily crumpled plastic bag pushed aside the sheet and entered the room. Grateful that I wasn't to be the sole source of amus.e.m.e.nt, I stood up as introductions were made and as the young daughter quickly fled to the safety of other rooms where strange, meaning nonfamilial, men are not allowed. The men shuffled in, the younger one saying his h.e.l.los and nodding while the older man gestured, apologizing for the lack of vocal cords, I understood. Although they had been removed recently in an operation, our host told me, the man seemed quite nonchalant about it and even accepted a cigarette proffered by his companion. He sat down on the carpet, lit his cigarette, and began to prepare for what I knew was to be the afternoon activity and part of the reason for the lifestyle of the family: smoking s.h.i.+r'e s.h.i.+r'e.

s.h.i.+r'e is made from the charred remnants of previously smoked opium and is the preferred method of drug taking among the hardest of hard-core opium addicts in Iran, who number in the hundreds of thousands. Boiling the burned opium in water, removing the sc.u.m, and then straining the gooey residue results in an opiate perhaps tens of times more potent than fresh, raw opium, itself by far the most popular drug in Iran. Always plentiful and almost a part of Iran's heritage (and widely used in the courts of previous dynasties), opium under the fanatically pro-Western and anti-traditionalist Shah was mainly used by provincial Iranians, the lower cla.s.ses, and a handful of the landed gentry who stubbornly clung to the past and the seductive habit inherited from their forefathers. The modernism the Shah promoted in the 1960s and '70s (along with a huge increase in tourist and student travel to Europe and the United States) meant that among the young at least, Western, and therefore cool, drugs such as marijuana and cocaine replaced the backward, and now plebeian, domestic high. In my maternal grandfather's house in the 1960s, as traditional a household as there could be in Tehran, I had witnessed my great-grandmother, well over ninety years old, eating, yes, eating eating, her daily dose of opium. Her dementia, quite advanced as far as I was concerned since she never seemed to recognize me, not even a few minutes after I told her whose child I was, was noticeably improved after she swallowed the little brown pellets, although I now think it may have been more because she was just too high to be a nuisance to anyone. My mother used to tell me she was taking her medicine, but I heard enough about her taryak taryak, "opium" in Farsi, to know better.

My father's father, who died quite young of a heart attack when I was in first grade abroad, was an opium user of some repute in Ardakan, the provincial village he was from: the lengthy afternoon sessions at his bagh bagh, or "garden," as grand homes (which are presumed to have extensive gardens) are known in the provinces, were attended by village notables who, like him, were landowners not in need of a day job, I later discovered. But people of my generation stayed away from opium or, if they indulged, preferred to keep it private lest they be viewed by their ganja-smoking friends as hopelessly square. The Islamic Revolution, which inverted cla.s.s distinctions and frowned upon anything Western, changed things a bit when it inadvertently caused a resurgence in the use of opium as a recreational activity, perhaps because of the ban on alcohol and the ready availability of opium (although illegal) as a subst.i.tute, but also perhaps because the old-fas.h.i.+oned, and particularly Iranian Iranian, customs were now in vogue. Drug use in general, though, has escalated dramatically since the revolution first intentionally created a modern republic without bars, pubs, or real public entertainment, and unintentionally a birthrate that has produced far more employable youths than the economy can provide jobs for. And although opium tops the list in terms of favored drugs, heroin, crack, and even crystal meth, known as sheesheh sheesheh, or "gla.s.s," are becoming commonplace among the working and middle cla.s.ses. According to the almost boastful headline in an issue of the English-language daily Iran News Iran News during my stay in 2005, "Iranians hold the 1st spot among world countries regarding narcotics consumption. Moreover, 46% of Iranians are drug addicts." Yes, "moreover," although most Iranian experts put the figure as high as 10 percent and some even at 15 percent and higher. during my stay in 2005, "Iranians hold the 1st spot among world countries regarding narcotics consumption. Moreover, 46% of Iranians are drug addicts." Yes, "moreover," although most Iranian experts put the figure as high as 10 percent and some even at 15 percent and higher.

s.h.i.+r'e is the traditionalist's hard drug, not too dissimilar from the heroin preferred in the West. Smoking it is a labor-intensive process, though: a small homemade paraffin burner is set on the floor, and the s.h.i.+r'e, a brown paste the color of a Tootsie Roll, is carefully kneaded onto the tip of a homemade pipe that looks something like an elongated kazoo. (Regular opium smokers often use beautiful pipes, sometimes made to the owner's specifications, and handsome tongs, usually in pure silver, to lift white-hot charcoal briquettes from extravagantly decorated ash pits to their pipes.) Lying on the floor, one smokes s.h.i.+r'e upside down: unless you're an expert, you need an a.s.sistant to guide the inverted pipe to the open flame. One puff and your head starts floating, pain now an adversary that appears vulnerable to conquest; two or three puffs and you experience a high that is serenely beautiful: problems fade completely away, anxiety and pain surrender, and nothing, you think, can take away the beauty. Not even a full-scale invasion by the U.S. military.

When it was my turn at the pipe, I lay down on the carpet and rested my head on a dirty pillow. The voiceless man painstakingly prepared the makes.h.i.+ft pipe by kneading and twisting a thick paste on its tip over and over, softening the s.h.i.+r'e by bringing it close to the flame and then quickly pulling it away several times. A gentle prod was my signal that the pipe was ready: I drew the smoke in short inhales until it completely filled my lungs, and then exhaled slowly. The cooler had been switched off to avoid any twentieth-century interference with the purity of the occasion, and although the heat in the room was now the equivalent of a turned-up sauna, I felt surprisingly comfortable. I begged off a third drag and instead moved away and sat up on the carpet, mumbling profuse thank-yous. I tried unsuccessfully to cross my legs, but they were happier stretched out, so I leaned on a big pillow and slowly drank a cup of tea with a few sugar cubes, sugar that I knew would be the only guarantee that I wouldn't throw up, for opium, like heroin, dramatically lowers the blood sugar level-perhaps the one side effect that can diminish the seductiveness of the drug.

The owner of the house was up next. He didn't put down the pipe until he'd taken five good hits of s.h.i.+r'e, carefully exhaling the sweet-smelling smoke in what seemed to me an impressive performance. The TV was still blaring: a long-haired young man was dancing by a tree surrounded by California blondes and Persian girls in skimpy outfits competing for his interest by swaying seductively to his song. I struggled to keep my eyes open, but my eyelids were uncooperative, the opiate seemingly having taken over some of my motor functions, so I decided to give in and quickly nodded off. Not quite asleep, but definitely not fully awake.

After a few minutes, or at least what I thought were a few minutes but could have been much more, I spoke, and with some difficulty managed to ask about the latest news. I was still curious about the reaction in this house-middle-cla.s.s, although admittedly by no means ordinary-to Iran's threat to resume its nuclear activity, but rather than offer a reply, the owner of the house quietly switched the TV to IRNN, the Iranian CNN, and left it at that. I thought that his fatalistic disinterest in the nuclear crisis, shared by many other Iranians but in his case fortified by the calming effects of the s.h.i.+r'e, could be best understood in the context of faith: "The will of Allah will prevail." The news network offered no new news, and I willingly went back to my altered state between consciousness and deep slumber. Some time later I stirred, and was politely informed by the younger man that it was again my turn at the pipe. By now the TV was back to PMC, and despite my protestations that my delicate Western const.i.tution would surely be overwhelmed by the s.h.i.+r'e, I found it hard to argue with the fact, repeatedly mentioned, that I had only taken two drags so far and a third couldn't hurt. When I finished, not one but two long drags, I again popped some sugar cubes into my mouth and slurped a fresh cup of tea. My eyes closed again involuntarily, and I only half-listened to conversations of lost business opportunities and the general state of economic affairs, which are in present-day Iran characterized by inflation, joblessness, and stagnation. Three hours a day at the s.h.i.+r'e pipe could certainly mean lost business opportunities, I thought, particularly for these men, who seemed like they could use a few extra rials, but I kept quiet. I wasn't sure I could speak coherently anyway.

The conversation continued, and the women of the house occasionally stole into the kitchen to brew a fresh pot of tea. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and when it was confirmed that there was no indoor plumbing, I went into the yard and entered the outhouse. It was exactly like the outhouse at my grandfather's house, and even the odor, a unique mixture of mud and human waste that I remembered well from my curious visits as a child, gave me a sense of nostalgia rather than disgust.

When I returned to the house after was.h.i.+ng my hands under a faucet by the pond, I could infer from the conversations all around me that another guest was due any minute. I sat down on the carpet again and lit a cigarette to keep myself awake. When the curtain was swept aside just a short while later, a tall young mullah walked into the room. He quietly removed his turban and abba abba, or "cloak," and sat down to a steaming-hot gla.s.s of tea quickly delivered by the twelve-year-old boy. My astonishment at his presence, for all the Ayatollahs agree that opium and other drugs are haram haram, "forbidden" by Islam, grew to amazement as I watched him finish his tea and go over to the pipe and burner. He calmly spent the next hour puffing away, drinking tea, fingering his beads, and occasionally answering questions of religious philosophy, none of which I fully understood. And while he was busy pontificating, the other men, one by one, took the opportunity to perform their afternoon prayers: facing Mecca, they bowed and kneeled in the cramped room, carefully avoiding my outstretched limbs, and mumbled verses from the Koran as PMC blared the latest Iranian pop hit, the cleric calmly smoked away, and I continued to struggle to stay fully awake. Eventually, though, I felt the effects of the opiate recede and I stood up to leave. Despite the protestations of my host, who with traditional Persian ta'arouf insisted I stay for dinner, I managed-after many exchanges of "I wouldn't dream of imposing," "I couldn't possibly," and "I've already been a tremendous burden on you and your family"-to say my goodbyes, a.s.suring the man that I would be back sometime to further impose on him but this evening I simply had to rush to the Shrine of Fatima for a quick zeeyarat zeeyarat, or "pilgrimage," before the night was through.2

It was my first visit to Qom and my first experience with s.h.i.+r'e, or "extreme opium," as I now think of it. When I was a child, my parents would never have thought of bringing me here, a city that had very little to offer other than religious schools, the Shrine of Fatima Masoumeh (Imam Reza's sister), and salty desert water. Back then the only tourists would have been rather pious pilgrims, and even today there are few Iranians from abroad who travel there unless it is out of pure curiosity, and many secular Iranians who live in Tehran avoid the city as if it harbors the plague. It has, however, become the de rigueur stop for foreign journalists and writers who understand not only that it is the spiritual capital of the Islamic Republic but that if s.h.i.+a Islam is woven into the body politic as well as the soul of Iran, then Qom is its weaver. Qom of course has always been the most religious city in Iran (probably more so than even Mashhad, which houses a more important s.h.i.+a shrine), and it merely took on a political significance after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 that it hadn't had in centuries. This was where Ayatollah Khomeini lived before he was sent into exile by the Shah, this is where he resided part-time on his return, and this is where many Ayatollahs, Grand and otherwise, live, teach, and pray. Qom is where legions of young would-be s.h.i.+a student clerics from around the world, talibs talibs, come to study to one day become the religious authorities that hold political and social sway over this nation and, in their dreams, over other Muslim nations too.

Some foreign and Iranian writers who visit Qom come to see and speak with dissident clerics such as Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri (once heir to Khomeini but later imprisoned for his dissent and now living quietly in a closely watched house) and Hossein (not to be confused with Ha.s.san) Khomeini, grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini who has dramatically broken with the regime (but commands little attention), for clerics who are fundamentally opposed to the political system of Iran make for good headlines, particularly for those readers who want to believe that they are not Islamophobic by nature; but the Islam of the less combative reformist clerics and certainly the more conservative ones and the legions of ordinary people who support them is what really holds sway in this nation. Yes, it's interesting that not all the religious figures in Iran are comfortable with the policies of the Islamic Republic, or even with the concept of velayat-e-faqih, and many of the disapproving mullahs are based in Qom, a city that, as a religious center of study, affords them some protection from charges of treason. But Iran, as one person told me in Tehran, has always been Islamic, if not a republic, and anyone who thinks that Islam entered politics with the 1979 revolution wasn't paying attention to the past fourteen hundred years of Persian history.

What both conservative and reform mullahs share is an understanding of that Islamic history and a strong belief in an Islamic Republic (and even Islamic democracy, however they define it), and contrary to the hopes of secularists everywhere, Islam lite, or a secular society with a nod to Islam, is not a part of anyone's vocabulary. The reform Ayatollahs and even the dissident ones are allowed a measure of freedom to say what they please partly to show off the democratic nature of Islam (and the regime) and partly because the Ayatollahs in actual power know that to mess with another Ayatollah too much, dissident, reform, or otherwise, is to mess with the stability and legitimacy of the regime, to mess with the basic precepts of s.h.i.+sm, and maybe even to mess with G.o.d. And it is Allah who rules Iran and the lives of most Iranians.

There is an overwhelming sense of s.h.i.+a Islam as soon as one enters Qom. s.h.i.+a Muslims, believing only men from the Prophet's bloodline should lead the Muslim nation, or ummah ummah, revere two martyred Imams above all the others: Ali, who was murdered, and his son Hussein, who died in battle against the prevailing rulers of Islam at Karbala in present-day Iraq. These two deaths play a central part in s.h.i.+a life, and the concept of struggle, pain, woe, and martyrdom is derived from centuries of mourning for these two souls, whose elaborately painted portraits, contrary to the common Sunni Muslim belief that depicting the human form is forbidden, adorn many a storefront, building, and private home in s.h.i.+a towns in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, but are all the more visible in a town such as Qom. Sunnis, the orthodox of Islam if you will, believe in a strict Islam that takes the Koran as the literal word of G.o.d, not to be interpreted by man, whereas s.h.i.+as, with their clergy, Ayatollahs and others, have, contrary to popular belief, a much more liberal view in that the church can interpret the Koran and the Hadiths (the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Mohammad according to witnesses and scholars who wrote them down) for the ma.s.ses who might not have the educational and religious qualifications to do so. Qom and Najaf (in Iraq) are the two towns where the clerics go to learn how how to do so. to do so.

One of the first things one notices in Qom-a dusty old city with minarets and mosques visible from a great distance-apart from the many mullahs on the streets (which one would not see in a Sunni town), is that women are barely visible. Women in Qom, unlike their counterparts in Tehran, do not strut about in colorful headscarves and the latest denim fas.h.i.+ons from Europe, nor are they seen much behind the wheels of automobiles. The women one does see in Qom seem to venture outdoors only fully enveloped in jet-black chadors, generally scurrying from one errand to another or in the company of what one must presume are their husbands.

Coming by car from Tehran on a hot summer morning, I was stuck in an unusually heavy traffic jam that allowed me much time for observation: a camel had been sacrificed on the road, its neck slit wide open and its blood staining the road a bright red, in honor of a caravan of buses taking pilgrims to Mashhad, the other great s.h.i.+a shrine, in northeast Iran. Iran's second-largest city, Mashhad is home to Fatima's brother's grave, the Imam Reza Shrine, and pilgrims regularly travel from one city to the other as part of their s.h.i.+a duties. (When Iraq is stable, and sometimes even when it's not, such as now, Najaf and Karbala, which are the other two holy s.h.i.+a cities, complete the pilgrimage set, and the truly pious shuttle between the four as often as they can.) Animal sacrifice plays a big part in Islam (more for the purpose of feeding the poor on auspicious religious occasions than for reasons of superst.i.tion), but rarely is it on such open display, even in Iran. The culture of Qom, however, is unabashedly medieval. The long line of buses, adorned with religious exhortations such as "Ya Abolfaz!" "Ya Abolfaz!" (Imam Hossein's half brother and a man known for his great strength, so invoking his name is an appeal for strength), as well as somewhat less religious slogans such as "Texas," was slowly making its way past the camel (whose flesh would later be donated to the needy), and a crowd of well-wishers had gathered to wave at the caravan. (Imam Hossein's half brother and a man known for his great strength, so invoking his name is an appeal for strength), as well as somewhat less religious slogans such as "Texas," was slowly making its way past the camel (whose flesh would later be donated to the needy), and a crowd of well-wishers had gathered to wave at the caravan.

My first stop on this, my first, trip to Qom, after tiptoeing my way through fresh camel blood, was at the office of Grand Ayatollah Hajj Sheikh Mohammad Fazel Lankarani, a frail archconservative cleric in his seventies and one of the seven Grand Ayatollahs in Iran (there are four in Iraq), a man who rarely met with Westerners (and never any writers) or even, for that matter, any Iranians who weren't his followers. (After a prolonged illness, the Ayatollah pa.s.sed away in June 2007 in, of all places, a London hospital, ironically on the very same day that Salman Rushdie was knighted by the queen. Ironic because Lankarani was one of the senior clerics who begged to differ with their government and continued to call for Rushdie's death, a duty for all Muslims, he said, even after the Iranian government, in a 1998 compromise with the British government that led to the normalization of relations, promised that it would not act upon Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa calling for the "apostate" author's murder.) Although it would seem that Lankarani would have been a strong supporter of the conservative government taking power after Khatami's retirement, he famously refused for weeks to meet with President Ahmadinejad in early 2007 while I was in Iran. It was an open secret in Tehran that Ahmadinejad, beleaguered and under fire from even his conservative base, was attempting a public meeting with the Grand Ayatollah to deflect the conventional wisdom that he had lost the support of the most senior clerics, but he had been constantly rebuffed. The reason, paradoxical as it may appear, wasn't that Ahmadinejad, religiously ultraconservative, had shown incompetence in managing the economy or that he was endangering Iran's security with his foreign policy, nor was it that he had not bettered the lives of the poor, the working cla.s.s, and the unemployed, the very base of religious support in Iran. No, the reason for dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad among some senior clerics was that he had had the audacity to interfere in an area they viewed entirely as theirs, that is, Islam.

Ahmadinejad's proclamation in 2006 that women should be allowed into soccer stadiums, a proclamation he made without consulting the clerics, was quickly overruled by them, with an unsubtle message that, as a layman, he should stay out of issues that deal with Islam, Islamic law, and Muslim rules of behavior. And prior to his proclamation on women spectators at soccer stadiums, he had said in a visit to a group of Ayatollahs in Qom immediately upon his return from the UN General a.s.sembly in 2005 that he had felt a halo over his head while he had been giving his speech and that a hidden presence had mesmerized the unblinking audience of foreign leaders, foreign ministers, and amba.s.sadors. This, to conservative Ayatollahs, amounted to blasphemy, for an ordinary man cannot presume a special closeness to G.o.d or any of the Imams, nor can he imply the presence of the Mahdi, the disappeared twelfth Imam, who will reappear and reveal himself on earth only at Armageddon, and not, presumably, at an ordinary meeting of the UN General a.s.sembly. The Ayatollahs could not abide the president's halo claim when they, "signs of G.o.d" after all, had never made such claims themselves. Needless to say, on his subsequent trip to New York, Ahmadinejad did not not sense a halo over his head, nor were the delegates mesmerized, but Lankarani and some of the other Ayatollahs were slow to forgive, and in the spring of 2007, when Ahmadinejad publicly kissed the (gloved) hand of his childhood schoolteacher, an old woman in proper hijab, conservatives once again were infuriated by his seemingly lax adherence to their strict rules of modesty. sense a halo over his head, nor were the delegates mesmerized, but Lankarani and some of the other Ayatollahs were slow to forgive, and in the spring of 2007, when Ahmadinejad publicly kissed the (gloved) hand of his childhood schoolteacher, an old woman in proper hijab, conservatives once again were infuriated by his seemingly lax adherence to their strict rules of modesty.

Lankarani's office was a converted old house with a large drawing room covered in Persian rugs but no furniture. As I sat waiting for him on the floor, I was served a continuous supply of tea and fresh watermelon slices by an old male attendant. The clock in the room was an hour behind mine. It is, I learned there, a sign of piety in Qom to reject daylight savings time. If the Ayatollahs say it's 11:00 a.m., it's 11:00 a.m., for in their world only G.o.d has the power to change time, and by the grace of Allah, I was an hour early for my appointment. An hour later the room started bustling with activity, men scurrying about, my tea gla.s.s refilled after almost every sip. The Ayatollah's nephew Javad Abutorabian, whom I'd been talking to, suddenly rose and ushered me in for my audience. The Ayatollah's room was identical to the drawing room with the exception of two chairs placed by a window in the corner: one for the Grand Ayatollah and one for his highest-ranking disciple. After a few polite pleasantries, I was formally introduced by his nephew as an Iranian writer from the United States who was looking to understand Qom and the meaning of Islam in Iranian life, although I had not actually expressed my reasons for requesting an audience in those terms.

Lankarani smiled and looked me straight in the eye. "It is very difficult," he said slowly, "to understand."

I remarked that I understood how difficult it was to understand, and after an uncomfortable silence I suggested that despite the difficulty, I'd still like to ask him some questions.

"Very difficult," he said, chuckling mischievously, "to understand," apparently amused by my naivete.

I smiled at the Ayatollah, trying to come up with some words that might break the ice, and I even thought about bringing up Salman Rushdie's name, albeit without mentioning that despite having crossed paths with him on the sidewalks of the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I had been negligent in my duty as a Muslim to kill him on the spot. But before I had a chance to form the words in my head, he turned and sternly looked at one of his aides. The meeting was over. The aide pulled me aside and explained that the Ayatollah was tired and sick, and I retreated to the drawing room, hoping I might get another chance to chat after the Ayatollah received the main group of visitors who had started gathering in the room, for Tuesdays are visiting days and noon is the appointed hour. The men-young, old, soldier, civilian-all sat cross-legged on the carpet waiting for their turn to get a glimpse of the Ayatollah. Many of these supporters had traveled from Tehran or other cities just for a chance to spend a few seconds in his presence, and they all seemed serious and eager. When the doors to the anteroom opened, the men made an orderly queue. One by one they filed into the room, kissed the Ayatollah's hand, and walked out, beaming as they left his presence.

Lankarani's followers, indeed the followers of some of the other Grand Ayatollahs in s.h.i.+a Islam, truly believe in a government of G.o.d, and G.o.d's representative, their Ayatollah, tells them how to live in G.o.d's favor. And they number in the millions, mostly across Iran and Iraq, but also in other countries of the Middle East and Asia, and they give generously to their Ayatollahs. Whether in an Islamic Republic or not, they don't stray from their Ayatollah's teachings, and their faith is inseparable from the governance of their daily lives. I was told by one of Lankarani's aides that day that approximately ten million dollars a month flows into his treasury from his supporters alone. Ten million means either a few very rich supporters or millions of poorer ones; in this case it was a combination of the two. The money was apparently spent on the numerous projects, such as building mosques (a more recent one is in Moscow) and religious schools, that the Ayatollah had going all over the world. The schools, unlike the Wahabi Sunni madra.s.sas that we hear so much about, don't preach hatred for the West or Westerners. But they do preach the supremacy of s.h.i.+a Islam and for those who believe in a theocracy, as Lankarani did, the concept of velayat-e-faqih, which means rule of the Ayatollahs.

As the Ayatollah quietly left the building, another of Lankarani's aides, sensing my disappointment, suggested that I visit his library and the nerve center of his Web operation in, appropriately, Iran's only city with fiber-optic connections. At a nicely air-conditioned building a few blocks away, a pleasant and self-taught computer-literate young man gave me a tour of the library and explained how Lankarani's Web site operated in seventeen languages, including Swahili and Burmese, for all of his followers. It was updated daily with the Ayatollah's proclamations, fatwas, or religious commands, if he'd issued any recently, and general information, but, most important, it was a place to ask questions: e-mails poured in every day in all seventeen languages and were carefully printed out, one by one, and arranged according to language in mailboxes for Lankarani's Iranian and foreign talibs (Arabic for "students," and where the word "Taliban" comes from) to translate, so that they could be answered by one of the senior staff, such as his son, but always reviewed by the Ayatollah himself. I was shown e-mails in English, translated by hand into Farsi, where the Ayatollah had crossed out an answer and written his own, to be retranslated and transmitted back electronically. Most of the questions in the e-mails I saw related to s.e.x; for example, a sixteen-year-old boy from England had written about his "friend" who had had oral s.e.x with a fourteen-year-old boy and was worried that his prayers would be nullified and that he might be punished by G.o.d. The Ayatollah's answer was refres.h.i.+ngly short and simple: repent, and don't do it again. No mention of h.o.m.os.e.xuality, no judgments-who said the conservative Ayatollahs weren't compa.s.sionate? I read the same thing, "repent," page after page, for almost without exception the questioner had committed some kind of sin, or at least thought he had, or claimed to have a "friend" who had. I looked around at the banks of computers and the dark, highly polished wooden mail slots filled with printed e-mails: Digital confession, I thought. The Vatican should get in on this.

The early evening crowd at the Shrine of Hazrat Fatima in the center of Qom was dense, as it is on every other day of the week, 365 days a year. The mosque around which the tomb is built is magnificent, and the crowd, s.h.i.+a men, women, and children from all over the world but these days including a large number of Iraqis, milled about in the courtyard, either waiting their turn to go inside, touch the tomb with their fingers, and say a few prayers or unwilling to leave quite yet after they had already done so. The truly faithful will spend hours here, sometimes days, praying inside the mosque, touching and kissing the silver and gold latticework encasing the tomb, and pausing only to shop for religious souvenirs at the hundreds of little stores that surround the shrine. Some, particularly those s.h.i.+as with a strong belief in the imminent coming of the Mahdi, the Messiah, will, particularly on Tuesdays but also on Fridays, the Muslim holiday, make a second pilgrimage to a site a few miles outside of Qom: Jamkaran.

On this Tuesday, before I drove back to Tehran, I also stopped at Jamkaran and visited the gargantuan mosque that had been built on the site of an alleged vision of the twelfth Imam, the Imam Mahdi. (In s.h.i.+a Islam, the twelfth, or last, Imam is believed to have never died, merely disappeared, and will one day reveal himself to us as the Messiah. The Muslim Muslim Messiah, that is, and according to believers Jesus Christ will appear at the same time by his side as his Messiah, that is, and according to believers Jesus Christ will appear at the same time by his side as his follower follower.) On Tuesday evenings the faithful come to Jamkaran to pray and to drop a note to the Imam in a well (near which the vision of or encounter with the "Hidden" Imam actually occurred in 974 C C.E.), asking him to solve their problems, as Tuesday is apparently the day the vision appeared and therefore the day of the week that he, although invisible, takes requests. Some also believe that he appears on Tuesdays not just to read the notes but to mingle with the crowd anonymously, which means one is subject to even more intense stares than are normal in a country of starers. (Staring is not considered bad manners by most Iranians, for anyone who ventures outside is considered to have put him-or herself in the public eye, which is partly why men, and even many women, vehemently defend a woman's obligation to cover herself and a man's obligation to dress modestly.) Tuesday nights at Jamkaran resemble a huge tailgate party where vendors set up in the parking lots and families set up picnic rugs and tens of thousands wander about the grounds as if waiting for a main event to happen, which of course never seems to. There was a long line of pedestrians making their way to the well, the holy spot, as well as busloads and carloads of people, coming from near and far, to pray and to ask a small favor of the missing Imam. As dusk turned to night, thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, prayed outside the over-flowing mosque, women separated from the men in their own special cordoned-off area, and wandered about the grounds, dropping pieces of paper into the well (the women in their own well) and partying with their families. The men's well, which I naturally went to, was crowded with all sorts of people, including Arabs in headdresses and many holding children and babies in their arms, some of whom also dropped their very own little notes into the stone well. Everyone I asked had a story about how a short note to the Imam on a Tuesday night had resulted in some kind of favorable outcome for the pet.i.tioner. The occultation of the twelfth Imam speaks as much to s.h.i.+a thought and behavior as the martyrdom of the Imams does, and salvation plays as big a part in s.h.i.+a belief as it does for evangelical Christians.

President Ahmadinejad, who had only been in office a few days the night I went to Jamkaran and is closer than one might imagine to Christian evangelicals in thought, is a big believer not just in the Hidden Imam (whom he refers to in every speech, including at the UN, pleading that he show up as soon as possible) but also in Jamkaran as the site of his coming reappearance. Since his election, Ahmadinejad has donated millions of dollars from government funds to the Jamkaran mosque, and expansion projects already started took on an added urgency during his presidency. Ahmadinejad also brought attention to a site that was little known outside devout s.h.i.+a circles, attention that is not always welcome, particularly if it comes from non-Muslims. When I was in Iran in 2007, an Italian photographer friend had just arrived on a.s.signment from Newsweek Newsweek, and he asked what he should see when he traveled to Qom. I immediately told him the highlight of a trip to Qom would be a Tuesday night romp at Jamkaran, and he followed my advice but was allowed near neither the main mosque nor the well, and was instructed not to shoot any photos in the vicinity. That Jamkaran would become a major Iranian s.h.i.+a attraction well after a revolution brought the clergy to power is unsurprising, for evenings there resemble a festive party as much as they do a religious ceremony, and the combination is irresistible to believers.

It was not always that way, and my mother, a thoroughly Westernized but pious woman who has made the hajj pilgrimage as well as visited the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad (before the revolution) and is hoping to make it to Karbala before she dies, had never heard of the place until I told her about it. The idea that the twelfth Imam might be roaming about the place on Tuesday nights seemed to her rather ridiculous, even though she believes in him and his eventual return to the realm of the living. (My cousin Fatemeh, far and away the most religious in my family and a woman whose hair I've never seen, whose hand I've never shaken, knows of Jamkaran but has never bothered to visit. She believes in the Savior, the Hidden Imam, but she comes from the educated middle cla.s.s, surrounded by many relatives who are secular and by clerics who are, like her cousin President Khatami, rather less superst.i.tious, so to her the Imam's presence at Jamkaran is a little too fanciful a notion.) Before the Ayatollahs and mullahs took over the running of the country, many of the more fanciful concepts of s.h.i.+sm were largely ignored by the ma.s.ses, religious though they might have been. The idea of a missing Messiah was just that: an idea, and one that few thought to take literally. But with encouragement from the state, no aspect of s.h.i.+a theology or mysticism is left to the imagination, and an entire generation of Iranians, certainly those from deeply religious families, has grown up with a far more literal interpretation of s.h.i.+a mythology than previously. To imagine it from an American view: it is in some ways as if evangelical Christians had had their way in the White House, in Congress, in state governments, on the Supreme Court, and in the schools for over a generation. Perhaps not a perfect a.n.a.logy, for America is far more diverse than Iran and the majority probably less religious, but an a.n.a.logy of sorts nonetheless. (The fact that little public entertainment exists in Iran might also be a contributing factor to the popularity of, and the carnival atmosphere that surrounds, a site such as Jamkaran on a Tuesday or Friday night, but one supposes that if evangelicals had their way in America, far less nonchurch entertainment might be available there as well.) One must see Qom and Jamkaran in another light too, not just as places of government-sponsored and encouraged pilgrimage, but as places of hope. The government need not make much effort to persuade an already religious populace that salvation is around the corner, that the Mahdi will solve all their problems, even if only on Tuesdays and Fridays until he decides to take the job full-time. The female cabdriver who took me to the presidential offices on a snowy morning and who braves the errant bus drivers when she drives to Jamkaran, a young widow raising two children and caring for an ailing mother and a woman who mused whether she should have immigrated to a better life, may have little else to look forward to besides salvation. A population that suffered the chaos of revolution followed quickly by a brutal eight-year war-a war that rained missiles down on Tehran and that (oh so!) unjustly killed a generation of Iran's youths-a population that struggles every day with unemployment, financial issues, rampant drug abuse, and the notion that its rights have been trampled, well, this is a population that is somewhat more susceptible to the notion that salvation might be at hand.

When I left Jamkaran in the summer of 2005, after the last evening prayer, there was still b.u.mper-to-b.u.mper 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 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 s.h.i.+a 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 s.h.i.+as 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 s.h.i.+a 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 s.h.i.+as feel 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 s.h.i.+a 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. 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 s.h.i.+a 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 s.h.i.+r'e, of course, but that wasn't the reason I returned. Well, perhaps just a small 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 inst.i.tution 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 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 inst.i.tution 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 howzehs, the s.h.i.+a 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 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 cla.s.s. "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 gla.s.s 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 s.h.i.+a Islam, and one whose views were the polar opposite of his. "In order to progress, and we must must progress, we have to constantly step on the akhounds' toes," he said. 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 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 fas.h.i.+onable, 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 cla.s.s 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. 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 fas.h.i.+onable, 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 cla.s.s 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 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 t