I heard a new word on TV!

homicide bombing: (haw - me - side) n. Bombing with the intention to kill. Antonym: demolition bombing (mining, construction). Usage: "A homicide bombing in Baghdad killed 12."

There IS No Place Like Home, Right?

So I'm back in America, the "Great Satan" or the "Land of the Free", take your pick. But although I was gone for a very short time, all does not appear to be well in the home of the brave.

The first problem that, honestly, I've been seeing is the F.B.I. (OK, arrest me now for blogging what the F.B.I. does. I don't think it's illegal) Before I left, I heard about one or two "suspected terrorists" who were getting their medical degrees or something being interrogated. These days, it's my friends! (My friend said that her teenage rebel was proud of her that she finally got arrested for the first time) The Shi'a just don't seem to be on the "good list" any more. Apparently someone in the department misplaced the memo that says "Shi'a are archenemies of Al-Qaeda because Al-Qaeda kills them" and thinks that we are going to launch bombs. Sorry, it's Al-Qaeda (if Al-Qaeda even exists, which I have always doubted it does) that has nothing better to do except play chemistry; we have Molla Bassem to keep us busy.

The second problem is propaganda! It seems like every day someone at the local paper manages to pair "Islam" with words like "anger" and "rage" (as well as odd photo ops from Pakistan). I understand there are some serious issues brewing in the Islamic world, but do we ever hear about "Catholic rage"? "Buddhist rage?" "Hindu rage" for that matter? And the convert stories. Before I left, I had never ever heard of an American Muslim convert making national attention. Now, people are asking me if I knew the American Al-Qaeda guy who lived down the way.

And the third problem is, quite frankly, stares. Now, coming from Iran, I'm quite used to stares. EVERYONE stares in Iran. But since, in Iran, everyone stares at everyone, it's not a big deal. Here, everyone is staring at me! The first day I came back, this lady with an unplaceable foreign accent stomped up to me, chided, "Dress like an American," and then stomped away. This didn't happen before! Even after 9/11, the most that happened is that some lady gave me a hug in the grocery store and told me she hoped I was all right.

As they say, you can never go home again.

There's No Place Like Home

Although my experience in Qom hadn't been anything that I had expected, I felt sad as I made my last trip to Tehran. I thought about the friends I had met there who now would be like ghosts, locked behind an inaccessible border. I thought about Hazrat Ma'soumah, and how the 3rd of Sha'ban -- the birthday of Imam Husain -- had been the perfect day to say goodbye. And I also thought about the driver, and wondered if I should talk to him so he wouldn't fall asleep.

In no time, we reached the new, shining Imam Khomeini airport, where it seemed that all the goodwill in Iran was concentrated. A smiling (yes, smiling) lady waved me through customs, and the airline employee decided he did not need to charge me for both of my overweight suitcases. As I sat at a Starbucks-like coffee shop where people were eating "Islamic ham", I thought of the adage that people will rise to their surroundings, and wondered what would happen to morale in the rest of Iran if it were similarly prosperous.

Of course, the Imam Khomeini Airport was nothing compared to my first stop, Dubai. Not only was the Dubai-an desert infinitely more compelling than the dry, dead Qom desert, but, most importantly, in Dubai, they had FOOD. LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF FOOD. Fruit juice in season. Fruit juice out of season. And consumer goods! All available at a moment's grasp -- if, that is, you weren't like me and weren't hauling around a wad of tomans.

I knew we were en route to the U.S., though, when the security kicked in. "Ma'am, we'll have to confiscate that toothpaste," a gruff, burly man said, and I prided myself on the fact that I was able to hide my chapstick. (So much for their newfound strict security) My real reception, however, was yet to come:

Dude in Uniform: Where're you coming from?
Amina: (standing in line marked "Citizens") Iran.
Dude: And?
Amina: Yeah, uh, Syria.
Dude: And?
Amina: Like, yeah, Lebanon--
Dude: (turning passport over) Is that Iraq, ma'am?

(Line progresses)

Elderly White Man with Big Glasses: Welcome home!
Amina: Thanks!
Elderly Man: That way.

(Amina waits as the majority of the passengers dispel, except for two other Shi'a ladies in hijab. Of course, no one would ever accuse anyone of religious profiiling)

Friendly Asian Lady: Ma'am, lift your suitcases onto the belt.
Amina: (looks around for some men who feel sorry for the woman travelling alone and feel the need to help in order to prove their masculinity. Unfortunately, they seem to all have been left behind in the Middle East) They're kind of heavy.
Friendly Lady: I can help. (They heave the overweight suitcases onto the conveyor belt) How long were you in Iran?
Amina: A few months.
Friendly Lady: But your visa is only for one month.
Amina: Really?
Friendly Lady: What were you doing in Iran, ma'am.
Amina: Studying.
Friendly Lady: (suspiciously) Religion?
Amina: No. Persian. I'm a Middle Eastern Studies major!
(Incidentally, that was the right answer. Amina's friend who answered "religion" got held 10 hours)
Friendly Lady: If you were studying Persian, then what are these books for?
Amina: It's history. I LOVE history. And cooking. Ever had "Zucchini, a Tomato, and a Potato"?
Friendly Lady: Turn on your camera please.
Amina: Can't.
Friendly Lady: Why not?
Amina: It's broken.
(Again, another right answer, since, as a rule, broken electronics do not get confiscated, and my friend who turned on her computer never got it back)
Friendly Lady: (making a piles of CD's labelled "Bassem Al-Karbala'i") What's on ALL of these CD's?
Amina: Songs.
Friendly Lady: (in slight disbelief) Songs.
(Incidentally, the third right answer, since my friend also lost all her CD's)
Amina: You know, poetry, singing. Traditional music.
Friendly Lady: I get it.
Amina: (thinking, "No you don't!")

(Meanwhile, across the way, another smaller but no less valuable pile of media is accumulating)

Guard: (holding up CD labelled "Bassem Al-Karbala'i") These are songs too?
Shi'a Lady: Uh, sure.
Guard: (squinting at CD) What is this "Thaqalayn"?
Shi'a Lady: Um.... (leaning over) Pssst! What's Thaqalayn?
Amina: A production company.
Shi'a Lady: Yeah, a production company....

(Meanwhile, Friendly Asian Lady has been busy piling something other than CD's onto the conveyor belt)

Amina: Hey! Can't you search those IN the suitcase?
Friendly Lady: Sorry, ma'am.
Amina: Just... put them under the X-ray machine or something. I mean, they're just, you know....
Friendly Lady: Is this a religious issue?
Amina: (glancing furtively at Shi'a youth, who fortunately has his back turned) It's embarrassing!
Friendly Lady: (obliges and puts the bag of unmentionables under the X-ray machine) All right. (conspiratorially) Did you MEET anyone in Iran?
(Yes, wallah, she said that)
Amina: I met LOTS of people. They're really friendly over there.
Friendly Lady: That's not--

(Friendly Lady begins pulling papers)

Friendly Lady: Does Imam Husain live in Iran?
Amina: No.
Friendly Lady: (unfolds a minute scrap of paper) Who is this "Mollana Nasser Biria"?
Amina: Um.... (Friendly Lady waits) Well....
Friendly Lady: (to Guard) Google this.
(Guard proceeds to Google "Mollana Nasser Biria" and reads about the Muslim Congress Conference)
Amina: (under her breath) Google him all you want, he's in Iran

(Meanwhile, the Shi'a Ladies are holding their own)

Big Man: You were in Iran.
Baby: Waaah!
Shi'a Lady #2: Yes.
Big Man: Why were you in Iran?
Toddler: Mommy!
Baby: Waah!

(And next to me)

Guard: (also pulling the papers) Who's this.
Shi'a Lady: My husband.
Guard: I've seen him before.
Shi'a Lady: I don't know.
Guard: Is he popular?
Shi'a Lady: I don't know.
Amina: (thinking, "She's GOOD.")

(Eventually, the Shi'a ladies and their children are waved away, and it's just me. Alone in America)

Guard: (still googling) Interesting, very interesting. (Closes window -- that's the computer window, mind you)
Friendly Lady: I guess you can go.
Amina: (eyes piles of formerly carefully packed stuff everywhere) Thanks.

So here I am! On the bright side, being unemployed and at home, I've had a lot of time to update my other websites. So be sure to check out the new material at:

http://englishnohas.tripod.com (see the stuff Friendly Lady read in my suitcase)
- and -
http://karbalaplay.tripod.com (my tribute to my true beloved)

Amina out!

I'm Being Exported!!

But as the Governator says, "I'LL BE BACK!"

It's Cooking Time!

Seeing as we just don't have the opportunity to go outside and purchase ingredients, we've been putting together dishes these days that rival my cooking adventures my first years at Berkeley ("No, the ketchup goes IN the Ramen noodles"). Here are some of my discoveries that actually taste good:

Zucchini with a Tomato and a Potato

Italian cuisine... hawzah style

You will need:
3 zucchinis
A tomato
You guessed it... a potato
Salt
Oil (NOT the sheep fat they sell at the butcher's)
A pot
A metal spoon
A knife

1. Wash the zucchinis but do NOT under ANY circumstances peel them. You don't want to lose any of that zucchini goodness, do you? But do peel the potato. No civilized person wants potato skins in their food. Cube the zucchini, potato, and tomato.
2. Sautee the potato in the oil. (This part will require the metal spoon. If, like me, your metal spoon was stolen again during suhur by someone who clearly missed the "Thou shalt not steal" lesson in ahkam class, you will need to aquire one in the next couple minutes. Be sure not to repay evil with evil and snatch another one, or your food will become haram -- unless of course it is your friend's friend's roommate's spoon, in which case it becomes halal by transmutation; or unless it really really looks like your own spoon, in which case God is forgiving) Sautee the potato well, because this will be the only flavor the food will have.
3. Add the tomato. Sautee the tomato extra well so that no one can tell that there should have been more than one tomato in this dish.
4. Add the zucchini and a bit of water (the drinking kind, not the tap kind). Boil.
5. While the zucchini is cooking, smash the potato bits with a metal spoon. This will give the food a thickish consistency and leave the conissuer to wonder what other delights might have been pureed into the broth.
6. And finally, eat.


Apple Turnovers

When I was teaching Little House on the Prairie, I remember scoffing at the simplicity of the prairie-life recipies such as "Fried Apples" that were included in the teacher's sourcebook. No more.

You will need:
2 cans of Iranian canned apples (like the kind my friend gave me when I was sick)
2 pieces of lavash bread
Sugar or other sweetener
Lemon juice
Oil
Salt
A metal plate
A metal spoon (that darn spoon again)
A knife
A can opener

1. Once you have been able to find it, use the can opener to open the cans of apples. Then, obsessively wash all of the liquid off of the apples since you are paranoid about whatever else happens to have been in the can and because your friend who isn't allergic to anything else gets allergic recations to canned apples.
2. Finely chop the apples on the metal plate. Add the sugar, a splash of lemon juice, and the salt (the salt is actually very important here because it brings out the sweetness of the apples). Cook for a while until any remaining liquid evaporates.
3. Remove the apples from the plate. (This will probably entail putting them back in the can, but oh well) Pour a fine layer of oil (OIL, NOT sheep fat or vegetable ghee) onto the plate. Add one piece of lavash, the apples, and another piece of lavash. Cook at medium heat until the bottom is brown (think tah digh here).
4. While cooking, rescue a styrofoam container from the trash (what a waste). Wash it exceedingly well until you can't ever tell it contained Pakistani food.
5. Flip the apple turnover. If you are like 90% of the population, the lavash will tear as you flip it, but just try to pretend like it didn't happen. Continue cooking until the other side browns.
6. Slide the contents into the styrofoam. The shape should mask any holes.
7. Eat. When done, toss the styrofoam back into the trash again.


Grilled Dates with Panir

This one is my specialty.

You will need:
2 pieces of lavash (getting a pattern here?)
Dates
Panir
Oil
A metal plate
Salt
Optional: Honey

1. As in the Apple Turnover, cover the bottom of the plate with oil. Add 1 piece of lavash. Top with some pitted dates, crumbled panir, the optional honey, and a dash of salt. Then add the second piece of lavash.
2. Fry. While frying, continually squash the lavash with the spoon; remember, "thin is in."
3. When brown and crunchy (not smoking), flip and fry some more. Note: if you do not have a spoon, or potholders, break off bits of the lavash and use them to insulate yourself from the heat. Then, when you are done, you can eat them too.


Huevos Con Frijoles

For some reason, a lot of my food of late has been taking on a Mexican flair. It must have something to do with someone I used to live with....

This is a deluxe dish, requiring many ingredients.

You will need:
A can of Khorak Lubiya Chiti (a.k.a. "Beans")
An egg
Really hot green peppers
A cooked, cubed zucchini
Oil (Yes, oil)
Salt
A pot or metal plate
A spoon
A can opener

1. Finely chop the green peppers. Test them to see if they are actually really hot. (How will you know? Trust me, you will)
2. Fry the green peppers in the oil. Then, add the Khorak Lubiya Chiti and zucchini and refry. Bludgeon the zucchini while refrying so no one who has a vegetable aversion would ever imagine there was zucchini in it.
3. Now, fry the egg next to the beans. It should be roughly yellow in color.

You could eat this with lavash, but I'm sick of it, so I ate it by itself.


Peas and Honey

Exactly what it sounds like.

You will need:
Peas
Honey
(No spoon this time)

1. Mix

Enjoy!!!

Meet Your Neighbors

There are a lot of ways to meet your neighbors -- at the market, at the mosque, or at the cops. But one of the best ways to get a true cross-section of your neighbors -- independent of origin, creed, or thought -- is at the hospital.

The sun had long since set when my friend came down with a fever of astronomical proportions as well as devilish hives, so she and I and an older lady hit a taxi and made for a nighttime clinic. Straight away, we entered what I would call the "Injection Room", because everyone in there was getting an injection. And then we froze in the middle of the room, transfixed. One of the patients was screaming her head off, calling out for everyone from her mother to Imam Husain, and we weren't quite sure what was wrong with her.

A nurse took us out of our reverie and led my friend to a bed, where she hooked her up to her serum (this was a bring-your-own medicine clinic) and left her to drip. I surveyed the nondescript room and realized that being in the hospital in Iran was way different than being in the hospital in America. In America, they do everything they can to keep the patients separate. Here -- like so many other things -- it was more of a social experience. "What's wrong with her?" "Will she get better?" And, of course, "Salaam alaikum!!! How are you??? So good to see you!!!!!" (Small world, eh) Another lady chided the screaming woman, "Quit that wailing, and quiet down now." While I had hitherto been somewhat put off by the local habit of telling whoever is doing something out of the norm to STOP doing it in the most demeaning of ways, I detected an undercurrent of concern behind the lady's words, and I began to look at my neighbors differently.

As we waited (drip... drip... drip... there were 1,000 mL to drip), I realized something else. Incapacitated or otherwise, these women were stylish. I don't know how they did it, but all of the women there (except for this sedate lady) were wearing the most classy mantos, "in" pants, and vogue chadors. They even had elaborate make-up jobs and impeccable hairdos (except for the screaming lady, but that was probably because she was grabbing at her head). I wondered if I would look so together in a medical emergency.

As another 50 mL dripped, I began to get bored (even my friend was bored), so I wandered out to the waiting room. There, everyone -- men, women, friends, relatives, employees -- was literally glued to the TV set, which was showing the hit miniseries Nargis. Since, having missed the first few episodes, I wasn't quite sure what Nargis was about, I tried to ask the lady next to me, but I was met with a chorus of "SSSSSSSHHHHHH!!!" I did however glean that it was about some boy who wanted to marry some girl but his dad wouldn't let him.

With some sympathy for the poor guy, I left the roomful of zombies and returned to the drip. The lady had stopped yelling and was asleep. My friend's fever and hives had subsided too. And then the bill came. When I saw it, I almost had to be admitted to the hospital. Weren't there supposed to be some more zeroes??? Granted, this clinic lacked some amenities that hospitals have back home (such as changing the sheets between patients), but surely sheet-changing can't be on the level of powers of ten. We paid the (to my American eyes) measly bill, and then made our way back.

The next morning, I woke up with a fever that, in my imagination, rivaled our daytime temperature. "Why don't you go to the doctor?" someone asked.

Visions of soaring medical bills, inscrutable deductibles, and overpriced pharmaceuticals danced in my head. "Nah, I'm not that sick," I said.

"You Americans," she laughed. "You never want to go to the doctor."

She had a point.

Lost in Translation

I was burning the midnight oil when the call came urgently asking me to come to Tehran in the morning and translate this woman's speech into English at a religious institute. Seeing as they even made it easy on me by faxing me a copy of her speech, I decided it wouldn't kill me to use up the rest of the midnight oil to help their cause.

A bit after sunrise, after I had finally succeeded in hacking prhases such as "the weeping flowers and blossoms of the Resistance" and "the illegitimate Zionist cancer aggressor" into what I felt was acceptable English, my friend and I headed for the religious institute in Tehran. (As usual, once we got near Tehran and began coughing on the thick pollution and languishing in the heavy traffic, I regretted that I had ever wanted to go there, and wished someone would put me back in Qom) As we marveled at the size and stature of the institute, a guide greeted us warmly and told us not to worry because the bus would soon come to take us where we were going.

Where were we going? We looked at each other and at various placards that said "DEATH TO ISRAEL!", and it dawned on me that we were headed for a demonstration. Since I had sworn off demonstrations, I was a bit annoyed; but since I believed in the cause, I didn't say anything.

Scores and scores of black-chadored women -- as well as a handful of men -- met us at the demonstration. As I took in the old women carrying pictures of their martyrs, and the young women wearing kefiyyahs over their faces with (presumably) mock-up explosives strapped to their chests, I realized that this demonstration was unlike any other that I had hitherto been to. This was a real demonstration.

"Death to America! Death to Israel!" roared through the crowd.

"Woe to you, Israel," incited a lady from up front, "if Khamene'i declares war on you!"

"Death to America! Death to Israel!" For the first time since I had come here, I realized how the revolutionary spirit had swept through the country and ousted the shah. As I listened to them chant, I really felt that I too was going to go fight the jihad, and Israel would be demolished. I felt an immense sense of my own responsibility, and decided that I would do everything I could to deliver a stirring translation.

"It's your turn," my guide whispered, leading me up to the stage. "Speak loud. Don't be shy. Let it all out!"

I noticed I was the only one at the microphone. "Where's the lady I'm translating for?" I asked.

"Oh," she said to me conspiratorially, "we thought it would be better if you just gave a speech yourself."

Gulp. I looked out at the crowd, and the crowd looked back at me. I would have said that I couldn't believe what was happening -- except that I have learned that everything that can happen in Iran does. I grabbed my translation and looked for help. "The Zionist cancer. The useless U.N." There was no way those words were going to come out of my mouth with a billion TV reporters pointing their cameras at the token American who hated Israel. I looked at the translation again. "Islamic unity. Boycott Israeli goods." I could work with that.

All of a sudden, as if time stopped for a moment, I caught a glance of that often-circulated picture of Israeli soldiers beating a woman and her children. I decided then and there that I was going to ignore the crowd and the translation and everything else and just do what I could to speak for that child.

I took a deep breath. (Actually, I also prayed) "Allahu akbar!" I called out.

"Allahu akbar!" they replied.

"Allahu akbar!" I repeated.

"Allahu akbar!" they called back.

Thank God, thank God, this was easier than I thought. Calling out one more "Allahu akbar!" so I could take a microsecond and wrack my brain for any tidbits of Sayyid Nasrullah's speeches that I could remember, I plunged in.

As I was describing the second Qana massacre, I caught sight of an American reporter in the crowd. She had interviewed me yesterday, and I had done my best to present myself in a calm and rational fashion. In fact, I had even invited her to the program at which I would be translating. Now, she had the privilege to see my other side, the side that yelled about the "Zionist enemy". I decided that I had best pretend that she was not there, and hoped she wouldn't write about it back home.

And in no time, it was over. With the mantra of "never again" going through my mind, I stepped down from the podium.

"Good job!" my guide congratulated me. "We were worried about you. You seemed so quiet when we met you. We didn't think you could do it!"

I muttered my thanks and escaped from various newscameras on the pretext that I couldn't speak Farsi or that I wasn't allowed to interview. ("But we have a translator!")

Later on that day, my friend and I were blinking back sleep at Tehran airport when, all of a sudden, "Death to America!" blared over a giant set of TV's. It looked even larger on TV. I noted with considerable relief that they had declined to broadcast the American's speech, but the sound still sent chills through me. The anger, the passion, the determination -- it was real.

And now I was a part of it.

Camera Moment

From Iraq, but even more relevant in the here and now...

Camera Moments (when I didn't have my camera)

* Way back when, when we chosen ones with the tickets were in our special seating at the commemoration of the anniversary of Imam Khomeini, a wizened old lady -- whom I took to be a villager -- decided that she was going to join us too. Since she didn't have a ticket, she made the logical decision to climb the freshly painted crowd control fence. I watched in admiration -- and the security in consternation -- as she made her methodical way up the fence, her well-worn chador blowing back to reveal a shock of repeatedly hennaed hair. But was most striking to me was her dress. Unlike the somewhat masculine coat-and-pants which you have to wear under your chador to be fashionable in the cities, bits and pieces of her long, brilliant, emerald green dress flashed by as she climbed. Far from being simplistic, her dress swished and swirled to reveal layers upon layers of bright green fabric -- some with patterns, and some with lace.
I really envied her and for a moment wished that I was living wherever she was living so I didn't have to wear the ugly coat-and-pants under my chador anymore. I felt genuinely sorry for her when the security -- consisting of girls in their early 20's -- removed her from the fence, and I wished that I could have traded her seat with mine.

* The other night, I chanced upon another, even more elderly woman at the shrine of Hazrat Masoumah (saa). The distinctive blue tattoos covering her face and hands (and which, many years ago, I used to think was a strange sort of hopefully incommunicable face disease) as well as her gossamer black shawl immediately pegged her as another villager -- this time from Iraq. Something about her struck me, and I watched for a moment as she raised her wrinkled hands and in a very thick accent prayed to God to utterly and completely destroy Israel.

And, on a lighter note...

* A middle-aged man of average build walking down the street in Tehran with a T-shirt featuring a photo of Arnold Schwartzeneggar and screaming GOVERNATOR!!! (I never even saw that one in California)

Guess What I Did Yesterday?

Seeing as I was bummed out about the war in Lebanon and other various and sundry things, when my friends (who happen to be Lebanese) asked me if I wanted to go SWIMMING!, I uttered a faint, "Yes...."

Aside from what was on my mind, I was also a little hesitant to go swimming in Qom because someone had told me about several women who had been in a private pool here and died of chlorine inhalation. But someone else later correct her and said that they had merely been hospitalized. Neither option seemed appealing to me -- but, as it turned out, the trip to the swimming pool was much more treacherous than the destination itself.

We got to the swimming pool visa Qom's famous female-run taxi service. (See http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2002/sep/06/irans_first_female/) Since I tend to get more than my fair share of stares and date invitations from male taxi drivers, I was looking forward to an uneventful ride. Was I mistaken. I should have realized we were in for something when I saw the driver. The first thing I noticed was that she had an ATTITUDE. Not an attitude, but an ATTITUDE. It wasn't just the bright red scarf the size of Rhode Island, or the chador draped loosely off of one shoulder, or even the Southern California Persian pop music blasting out of the taxi. It was the way she walked, the way she talked -- and, most alarmingly, the way she drove. Lanes had no meaning for her. She would speed up and slow down for no good reason and cut off poor men who would flip her off from behind their car windows. For the first time in my life, I felt a true sense of fear on the road here, and it occurred to me that maybe the occasional pick up line was not so bad after all.

After some impromptu prayers on my part, we made it to THE POOL! (Forgive me for sounding un-hawzah-like, but I have to share my excitement... we're allowed to have some fun, aren't we?) The pool was not just A POOL. It was a pool with DIVING BOARDS and a WATER SLIDE!!! I wanted to run straight in, but the caretakes made us go through not one, not two, not three, but FIVE salty showers as well as a foot washing pool to enter. (Hey, at least we know we were clean)

It was great... for a while. And then, the masses arrived. Hordes of Iranian women -- some young, some old, but, surprisingly, mostly old -- descended on the showers. Suddenly, someone pulled out a boom box and began blasting vaguely familiar American music and leading the crowd in water aerobics. I was doubly shocked. For one thing, I had no idea you were allowed to blast music in public places in Qom, and I had somewhat naively assumed that all the amplifiers they sold in the bazaar were for religious gatherings. And I also had no clue that people did water aerobics in Iran. But the good thing about water is, you can escape. All you have to do is go down... and it is the quietest place in the world.

It could only last so long though (especially the chlorine was rather strong), and eventually we had to go back to reality. But if I had to rate the experience, I'd give it a 10, and I'd recommend it to all!

Let's All Pray

The lastest news last night was that they tried to kill Sayyid Hassan Nasrullah in Lebanon. (First target the airport, then the sea routes, then the overland routes, then the leader) Sayyid Hassan is the backbone of the resistance. I'm not saying the Lebanese can't repel the Israeli onslaught without him, but he is the one who is giving the people courage and strength. We all know that life and death is in God's hands, but let's get together and pray anyway for his continuing health and safety.

Another Trip to Tehran

The other day, we went on another trip to see the rahbar. Unfortunately, I misconstrued "see" to mean "have an audience with" or "visit" -- whereas it really meant just physically "see" -- so as we waited for some missing buses, I hauled out my green, giant Farsi-English dictionary (which travelled from the Main Stacks in Berkeley to Los Angeles, parted from me, went to Qom, and then found me again eight years later) and began to write a plea regarding my visa problems (or, rather, "lack of visa" problems). I had hope since a friend of mine had dropped a letter on our last visit and had received an almost immediate response. My friend advised me that the appropriate way to address the rahbar is "Khedmat-e-Maqam-e-Ma'zam-e-Rahbari", so I used that as a good beginning. (Of course, being me, I messed that up and wrote "Khedmat-e-Maqam-e-Mu'azzam-e-Rahbari) Eventually, the buses appeared, and we set out to Tehran.

Not long after we passed the dry salt bed -- which still fascinates but also disturbs me after hearing that the Shah dragged the surviovrs of his attack on the Fayziyyeh to die there -- the police pulled us off the road. Fortunately, we were just missing an important paper, and they escorted us back to Qom where we drove from building to building looking for the elusive document. Eventually, it was procured, and we turned back to Tehran. I didn't mind the delay because I enjoy looking at the scenery and, anyway, I had to write my letter, but some others were upset.

As we entered Tehran, the giant buildings and cosmopolitan environment hit me. You would think I hadn't been raised in big cities in the West. I stared at the glitz and the glamour and the newsstands and the bookstores and the consumer goods and the women without chadors and the men with funny mustaches and the youth with greasy haircuts and the traffic and the chaos. I also choked on the thick pollution and decided I liked Qom better. Soon, as luscious green trees gave way to the University of Tehran, I felt again like I had just come out of the backwaters. Chadorless women and beardless men walked and talked and -- unlike in Qom, where being female is a legitimate cause for a great amount of unwanted attention -- no one noticed us. We piled into an auditorium, and I wondered whether the auditorium was the same as those in the West because the architect was trying to copy the West, or because the architect studied in the West, or whether auditoriums are simply functional structures and are the same the world over.
After another instance of myself not heeding a bit of personal advice about refusing to be interviewed on TV (that makes it the fourth time I have been broadcast since I got here), we headed off to see the rahbar. Unfortunately, due to our delays, we were too late. Many of my companions decided to take matters into their own hands and see the rahbar or else, but since the doorguard had already confiscated my letter, I had no real reason to take unnecessary risks, so I stayed my ground and joined a large, open-air congregation for maghrib prayers. Although I didn't know who the prayer leader was, I felt that he had a very charismatic and unusual voice -- not exactly Arabic, but lacking the usual Persian (and in my opnion annoying) accent in reciting the Qur'an. It was a voice that I consciously enjoyed and told myself I could listen to for quite a long time. Later, someone told me that the rahbar himself was leading prayers. Then, we sat under the open sky and listened to a majlis by some shaikh from Bahrain. (At least they told me he was from Bahrain) It was one of the better speeches that I have heard in a while, and I am still pondering some of his points -- one of which was that families should not send their girl children alone off to universities while they are young and at the peak of their emotional development and require a stable family structure to develop smoothly. I can't say I agree 100% because life is complicated, but he did give me some cause for thought.

Throughout the majlis, hordes of people banged on the door of the building next to us where the rahbar was locked inside. They pushed and yelled and clamored until, all of a sudden, the door opened, and a person on a stretcher came out. A mad rush ensued. Although the guards tried to push the crowd back, a few people managed to slip in anyway. I couldn't help recalling the Qur'anic ayah about seeking permission before entering someone's house and thinking that if someone really doesn't want you in their house, you shouldn't force yourself in -- particularly if you are sitting in a majlis commemorating the atatck on the house of Hazrat Fatimah (saa).

All in all, I enjoyed the summer night in the hills of Tehran -- even though I spent the whole time coughing and most definitely did not want to return any time soon. Soon, we set back home, and -- to my surprise -- some my companions informed me that, yes, they had been able to see the rahbar.