In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs
A superb, authoritatively written insider’s account of Iran, one of the most mysterious but significant and powerful nations in the world.Few historians and journalists writing in English have been able to meaningfully examine post-revolutionary Iranian life. Years after his death, the shadow of Ayatollah Khomeini still looms over Shi'ite Islam and Iranian politics, the state of the nation fought over by conservatives and radicals. They are contending for the soul of a revolutionary Islamic government that terrified the Western establishment and took them to leadership of the Islamic world.But times have changed. Khomeini's death and the deficiencies of his successor, the intolerance and corruption that has made the regime increasingly authoritarian and cynical, frustration at Iran's economic isolation and the revolution's failure to deliver the just realm it promised has transformed the spirit of the country.In this superbly crafted and deeply thoughtful book Christopher de Bellaigue, who is married to an Iranian and has lived there for many years, gives us the voices and memories of this 'worn-out generation': be they traders or soldiers, film-makers or clerics, writers or taxi-drivers, gangsters or reformists. These are voices that are never heard, but whose lives and concerns are forging the future of one of the most secretive, misunderstood countries in the world. The result is a subtle yet intense revelation of the hearts and minds of the Iranian people.
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CHRISTOPHER DE BELLAIGUE
In the Rose Gardenof the Martyrs
A Memoir of Iran
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
This edition published by HarperPress 2005
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2004
Copyright © Christopher de Bellaigue 2004
Sections of this book have appeared in Granta, the London Review of Books and the Paris Review
Christopher de Bellaigue asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
Extracts from the poetry of Rumi reprinted
by permission of Threshold Productions
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007113941
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2013 ISBN 9780007372812
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CONTENTS
Abdolrahman, Hassan: American convert to Islam who carried out an assassination on behalf of the Islamic Republic and then took refuge in Iran.
Alavi Tabar, Ali-Reza: Islamic revolutionary and holy warrior in the war against Iraq who later became an influential figure in Muhammad Khatami’s reform movement.
Amini, Reza: subordinate of the famous Isfahani commander Hossein Kharrazi.
Bani-Sadr, Abolhassan: the Islamic Republic’s first president, who later revolted against Ayatollah Khomeini and was forced into exile.
Bazargan, Mehdi: provisional prime minister after the Revolution, who resigned during the US hostage crisis.
Emami, Saeed: senior Intelligence Ministry figure of the 1990s, alleged mastermind of the ‘serial murders’ of dissidents.
Forouhar, Darioush: a minister after the Revolution, he fell out with the religious establishment and was one of the final victims of the ‘serial murders’.
Forouhar, Parastu: justice-seeking daughter of Darioush Forouhar.
Ganji, Akhar: investigative journalist, jailed for his part in exposing the ‘serial murders’ of dissidents in the 1990s.
Ghorbanifar, Manuchehr: arms dealer involved in the Iran – Contra scandal.
Hashemi, Mehdi: fanatical revolutionary whose rift with the establishment led to the exposure of the Iran – Contra scandal.
Hossein b. Ali: third Shia Imam, who was killed at Karbala in 680.
Khalkhali, Sadegh: revolutionary official, Iran’s ‘hanging judge’.
Khamenei, Ayatollah Ali: second president of the Islamic Republic and Khomeini’s successor as Supreme Leader, or Guide, of the Islamic Revolution.
Kharrazi, Hossein: inspirational Isfahani war commander.
Khatami, Muhammad: elected president in 1997, he failed to implement most of the democratizing reforms that he envisaged.
Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah: father of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic’s first Supreme Leader, or Guide.
Makhmalbof, Mohsen: revolutionary film-maker.
Montazeri, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali: Khomeini’s designated successor, stripped of the succession for being too independent.
Muhammad Mossadegh: controversial prime minister who nationalized Iran’s oil industry and was deposed, in a CIA-run coup, in 1953.
Pahlavi, Muhammad-Reza: the final Shah of Iran, deposed in the 1979 Revolution.
Pahlavi, Reza: the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, the Shah’s father.
Rafii, Muhammad-Ali: Isfahani cleric, subordinate of Hossein Kharrazi.
Rafsanjani, Ali-Akhar Hashemi: president between 1989 and 1997.
Rezai, Mohsen: Revolutionary Guards commander during the Iran – Iraq war.
Shirazi, Sayyad: army chief during the Iran-Iraq war.
Teyyeb, Haji-Rezai: Tehran mafioso.
Zarif, Sadegh: revolutionary, seminarian and, latterly, film-maker.
Why, I wondered long ago, don’t the Iranians smile? Even before I first thought of visiting Iran, I remember seeing photographs of thousands of crying Iranians, men and women wearing black. In Iran, I read, laughing in a public place is considered coarse and improper. Later, when I took an oriental studies course at university, I learned that the Islamic Republic of Iran built much of its ideology on the public’s longing for a man who died more than thirteen hundred years ago. This is the Imam Hossein, the supreme martyr of Shi’a Islam and a man whose virtue and bravery provide a moral shelter for all. Now that I’m living in Tehran, witness to the interminable sorrow of Iranians for their Imam, I sense that I’m among a people that enjoys grief, relishes it. Iran mourns on a fragrant spring day, while watching a ladybird scale a blade of grass, while making love. This was the case fifty years ago, long before the setting up of the Islamic Republic, and will be the case fifty years hence, after it has gone.
