Wafat of Hazrat Fatimah Ma'soumah (saa)

The Answers

Anyone who has converted to Islam knows about The Questions. The Questions are the questions that everyone asks, all the time. (I can now say from experience that they ask in any country you go to, from Mexico to Iran) I have at times tossed around the idea of printing a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) to hand out when people start asking me the same set of questions three or four times a day, but I dropped the idea when I heard that someone else here had actually done it.

I -- as well as anyone else who has come to Islam from another ideology -- have answered these questions for many, many years. However, I had to come to Iran to actually finally come up with some foolproof, unarguable answers to them.

(Feel free to use them yourself. However, keep in mind that they must be delivered in a polite tone and with an innocent expression)

Q: Who was it who led you to Islam?
A: Rasul Allah.
Q: Who do you have in Iran?
A: God
Q: What is your real name?
A: Steve.
Q: I didn't quite get it the first time I asked, or the second, but exactly what did your parents think when you became Muslim?
A: In Nahj Al-Balaghah, Amir Al-Mu'mineen (as) advises us not to focus on the past, nor the future, but on the present.
Q: Were you Shi'a when you were born?
A: Before we were sent to this world, God created our souls and then instructed them about the wilayah. We all then gave bay'ah to Amir Al-Mu'mineen (as) and the rest of the Imams from Ahl Al-Bayt (as).
(That one is a particular conversation stopper)

There are more but they have slipped my mind... I will add once my memory improves :)

My First Demonstration

As religious students, we were all encouraged to attend the local hijab demonstration. Unlike most times, when we are discouarged from or simply not allowed to leave the religious school, they actually brought buses so as many students could go as possible. I am somewhat ashamed that my reasons for going were somewhat less than pure -- quite frankly, I just wanted to get out; and also, I was curious. So, clad in a black chador, black scarf, and black manto, I boarded the bus with the other (mostly Iranian) students.

The bus took us to the main masjid where they give the Friday prayers. As we entered the masjid, men served us small plastic glasses of Iranian lemonade and offered us packages of cookies. I thought the hospitality was a nice touch. As we were seated, women in black chadors with sashes and featherdusters lined the area, creating a semicircle behind us. Overall, the masjid was about three quarters full. The women -- all wearing black chadors, black scarves, and black mantos -- listened with varying degrees of attention as a lady giving a speech reminded us that hijab really was wajib and cautioned us against giving into our baser desires by talking to unrelated men. During the speech, the women around me began adjusting their chadors as a television crew filmed both the speech and the audience. Periodically, the women behind me would chant (somewhat wanly), "Allahu akbar, Khamene'i rahbar, death to the enemies of wilayat al-faqih." I thought we would also have to chant "Death to America" like they do at the Friday prayers, but I guess America wasn't the focus of the demonstration. After listening to the speeches for a while, I began to examine the package of cookies, and after deciphering the ingredients in Farsi and discussing the contents wtih my neighbor, I was somewhat disappointed to learn that I couldn't eat them (see the April archives about my allergies). Afterwards, a man came up front and began reciting azaa for Hazrat Fatimah Masoumah (saa); that part I liked.

After a reminder that we were supposed to march silently, we crowded back out of the masjid into the street (Iranians aren't big on lines; they tend to move in large bunches). As we marched mostly silently behind big banners about hijab, scores of religious scholars and women in black chadors (occasionally with a bit of hair peeking out) lined the street and stared. I felt that perhaps I shouldn't be in a hijab demonstration after all since I was at the time cursing my chador which was blowing every which way and hoping no one could hear me. As we walked, I struck up a (quiet) conversation with one of the girls next to me. I asked her why they were having a hijab demonstration in Qom since everyone here already wears chadors. She said that, unlike in prior times, women nowdays have started to wear colored scarves and pants and sweaters under their chadors instead of mantos. I suggested that since most women in Qom already knew that they had to wear hijab, rather than simply telling them again that they had to wear proper hijab, they should investigate the roots of the social change and address them directly. She said the reason was obvious why women in Qom were not covering properly -- the people were being brainwashed by Western movies. I pointed out that most girls I know were pressured to adorn themselves by family, friends, fiancees, and husbands, and not Jurassic Park, but she insisted it was the movies

Finally, we halted in a big square, and a man began giving a speech from a rooftop. At that point, I realized that we were about 10 feet away from the local women's Internet cafe (where I am now), and I began begging my friend to come with me. (Yes, I know it's pathetic, but we don't get many opportunities to go online here. If they restricted us less, I wouldn't be trying to skip out of things) However, unfortunately there was no time, because we had to go to a memories service for a friend of mine who had passed away, so we inconspicuously slipped away from the crowd of women, bought some juice, and went to go console the family of the deceased.

Cool Stuff

The owner of the sodas said I did a very nice job arranging them. :)

Just because America happens to be the consumerism capital of the world does not mean that you can find everything you ever wanted there. Here are some of the notable items for sale that I have found on my travels. (Note that my choices are somewhat woman-centric -- but, heck, I'm a woman)

Iraq:

Since I last visited Iraq during the time of the economic sanctions (funny how so many people seem convinced that Bush really had the well-being of Iraq in mind when he invaded, and yet they seem to forget that the American-imposed economic sanctions on Iraq killed millions of Iraqis -- mostly children -- through starvation and disease), I was stunned to see the large variety of consumer goods available -- albeit for a price -- ranging from the pleasantly familiar (Neutrogena face soap) to the really unnecessary (a cymbal-clapping Santa Claus). Here are my personal three favorites:

1. Karbala Cola. Perhaps I've been to one too many majaalis, but the words "Karbala" and "Cola" just do not seem to fit together to me. Add that to the fact that I am constantly lecturing people back home about the evils of soda, and I was completely perplexed. But I chalked it up to an improvement in the local economy, although my friend swore that it was because soda was banned from the general public during the time of Saddam -- even though I remember seeing them selling it then. Despite my abhorrence of soda, I did take a sip, and it was quite good. If you get tired of Karbala Cola, there is also "Forat Orange" and "Karbala-Up" (that last one does not sound very appetizing).
2. Nice hijabs. A friend of mine once said that Iraq may be suffering from wars and poverty, but at least it has nice hijabs. She was right. They do.
3. Queen size footless tights. I was walking down the street in the backroads of Karbala when I came across a vendor selling queen size footless tights. I guess women wear them under their dresses. That's something that you can't find in the US; believe me, I've tried.

Now, Syria:

1. A three-bladed vegetable chopper. Just outside of sites frequented by visiting Iranians, you will find scores of men with neatly arranged piles of cilantro and carrots hawking three-bladed vegetable choppers. The way it works is that there are three wheels, and you roll them over the vegetables, resulting in perfectly chopped salads and greens. Undoubtedly they were reaching out to the Iranian population on the assumption that they would think, "This would really cut down on the amount of time that it takes to make ghormeh sabzi!" They thought right, because I too fell prey to this marketing ploy as I was hauling a big bag of sabzi down the street and thinking about all the hours it would take me to chop it. 50 liras later (about US $1.00), my vegetable chopper and I were in the kitchen.
2. Fresh-baked bread. Not just bread, but from the local bakery, you can buy fresh manaish, fataayir, and other savory pastries for only 5 liras (US $.010). They have every flavor you could want, ranging from za'tar and cheese to meat and spinach and even (yuck) that disgusting-looking stuff they have in Lebanon called "sujuk".
3. Hijab plastics. Ever get tired of your scarf bunching up? You put the hijab plastic in front, and it keeps it nice and flat. Very practical, very effective. 10 liras (about US $0.20)

Of course, they have all the usual items too, such as rugs and collectibles and the other items that you usually associate with the Middle East, but these were some of my own personal favorites.

Ma'a Salamah, Syria

Sorry for not taking more pictures... I ment to spend my last day in Syria taking pictures, but I got sidetracked. However, here is a strictly against-the-rules picture of the inside of Sayyida Zaynab.

I got on the IranAir flight from Damascus with a mixture of satisfaction and sadness. After all the effort it took me to acquire a visa, I actually enjoyed the surprised glances from the border guards ("You're American? And you're going to IRAN?"), and I sat through the various sorts of bureaucracy at Iranian customs with a smirk. But I felt sad to be leaving all of the wonderful people I had met in Syria. On my last day at the hawzah, the women had all gotten together and taken money from their pockets and offered it to me. I was speechless. I absolutley positively did not want to accept (especially since most of them are much poorer than I am), but they insisted. That truly is the akhlaq of the Prophet of Allah. And then, as I was leaving, my downstairs neighbor -- who is so shy that he always used to ask permission to speak to me -- pulled out a hundred dollar bill and told me that life was hard in Iran and I should take it. That I managed to refuse, saying that rather than giving me money, he should pray for me.

(He's single by the way. I tried to find a nice girl in America who wanted to marry him, but no one seemed interested. Well, if anyone would like to marry an extremely polite, kind, thoughtful, and not bad-looking man from Karbala -- 33 years old, degree in electrical engineering, descendant of Imam Husain (as) -- email me, and I'll see what I can do)

What do I miss in Syria? I miss the hospitality and helpfulness that even strangers showed. I miss the openness in conversation where no question was too personal. I miss being able to talk to anyone -- man or woman -- and not having people think that I was after the man. And of course I miss being able to sit in Sayyida Zaynab. But now I am in Qom Al-Muqddasah. I am grateful to God to have reached my destination, and I will let you know where I go from here.