In continuation to the last post, below are the few interesting facts I learned while reading the book.
Guardian Council (the body that ensures the principles of Islam are adhered to by the Majles and also vets candidates running for election, theoretically on their Islamic qualifications),
Just for my memory I have noted down the Presidents and Supreme Leaders:
Supreme Leader of Iran (Rahbar) :
Ayatollah Ruhollah Mousavi KhomeinI (1979-89)
Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khamenei (1989-Present)
Supreme Leader has direct responsibility for foreign policy, which cannot be conducted without his direct involvement and approval
President of Iran
Abulhassan Banisadr (1980-81) (impeached)
Mohammad-Ali Rajai (1981-81) (assassinated)
Ali Hoseyni Khamenei (1981-85-89)
Akbar Rafsanjani (1989-93-97)
Mohammad Khatami (1997-01-05)
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-09-Present)
Shir’e: “Shir’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 scum, 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. A small homemade paraffin burner is set on the floor, and the shir’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 shir’e upside down: unless you’re an expert, you need an assistant 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.”
Women in Iran keep their maiden names when they marry, including on all legal documents, and use their husband’s name only if prefaced with “Mrs.”
Imam Jomeh: Mullah who conducts Friday prayers
Moharram: the first month of the Arabic calendar,
Tasua: one of the two holiest days in a holy month of mourning for the martyrdom of the Shia Imam Hossein. Other being Ashura, is the actual day of Imam Hossein’s martyrdom. During Ashura week, it is customary for families with means to provide free food in their neighborhood, not just for the poor, but for anyone who wishes to indulge,
Zanjeer-Zani: chest beating.
Ghammeh-Zani, “cutting oneself with a blade,”
In Islam it is haram, or “forbidden,” to harm one’s own body to the point of danger—that is, danger from death due to, in this case, a potential deadly infection. He neglected to mention the Ayatollahs’ other reason, one they all agree on and one that has a strong Shia basis: that any act that can be misunderstood, misconstrued, or simply viewed negatively by the non-Shia world must be avoided in order to protect the faith from those who might view it in a negative light or, worse, defame it.
Rosehs is a sort of passion play, actually a passion play monologue; the story of Hossein’s martyrdom (or the martyrdom of other saints) is recited by a mullah who is an accomplished actor and who deftly manipulates the audience into tears simply by telling them of the injustice of it all.
Old joke in Iran about Moharram:
A foreigner, it seems, arrives in Iran during Moharram and is witness to the multitude of public grieving ceremonies, the crying, the chest beating, and of course the black flags adorning almost every building and house. “What’s happened?” he asks an Iranian. “We’re mourning Hossein’s death” is the reply. “Oh,” says the foreigner, “I’m so sorry. When did he die?” “Fourteen hundred years ago,” says the Iranian. “Boy,” says the foreigner, “news sure travels slow around these parts!”
Kalashnikov Vs M-16: Iranian soldiers use AK-47 and 56 while US army mostly uses the M series, specially the M-16s.
Mr Majd talked to one of the Republican guard and he wished that he’ll get his hands on the M-1’s one day.
Why superbikes are banned in Iran: “Non-suicide operations were often carried out by men who fled as passengers on the backs of motorcycles, the most powerful of which were banned as a result and the reason that today still no motorcycle with an engine larger than 150 cc can be bought in Iran.”
Controversy regarding Khomeini: “Khomeini wasn’t even Persian, his paternal grandfather was an Indian who immigrated to Iran (to the town of Khomein) in the early nineteenth century”
Controversy regarding the flag
After the islamic revolution of 1979, Khomeini changed the national flag of Iran.
Old flag from Shah’s regime vs New flag
Some of the people couldn’t understand so as to why the Supreme Leader has chosen a Sikh religious symbol for Iran’s National Flag. On the left is the “Sign of Khalsa (Khanda)”, of the Sikh religion, and on the right is the Iranian flag if it is replaced with that Sign.
As per Islamist Shariyat Laws, A man would not shake the hand of a woman not his wife, sister, or daughter (mahram to men in Islam, which means women who can be uncovered and one can physically touch, while all other women, even cousins and aunts, are namahram, and therefore even their hair mustn’t be seen).
Noheh, the Shia religious lamentation traditionally sung a cappella on holy days of mourning.
You can watch the Channel 2 broadcast of official Roseh and then you’ll understand Shia psyche a little better.
There’s so much abut Iran which I would like to know but I have started my next book, Guns of August which is too infectious, so I’ve to move on
But if any of you want to dig more : here is some raw material:
1953 Coupe by CIA: Mossadeq nationalized the Iranian oil industry, in effect demanding their right to the profits from their own oil, the British responded publicly, and at the UN no less, that Iran’s exercise of its right was a “threat to the security of the world,” words that have been repeated by the United States in response to Iran exercising its right, haq, as far as Iranians are concerned, to produce nuclear fuel.
1979 Islamic Revolution
1981-88 Iran-Iraq war
US shot down Iran Air flight 655
US Hostage situation
The Trial of Khosro Golsorkhi
Sanctions UN Security Council resolution of December 2006
Succession of Grand Ayatollah for Supreme Leader
What is Uranium Enrichment and why US doesn’t want Iran to pursue it.
Role of Jimmy Carter
Check Khosro Golsorkhi and Keramat Daneshian
Check Akbar Ganji
Check Shirin Ebadi
The Islamic Revolution
US Conflicts
MEK: Mujahedin-e-Khalq Check their origin and what was their purpose
Its leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi,
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