The Road to Mecca Ch 9 PERSIAN LETTER

The Road to Mecca  Ch 9  PERSIAN LETTER

1

IT is AFTERNOON. I am sitting with a friend in his palm garden just outside the southern gate of Medina. The multitude of palm trunks in the orchard weaves a grey-green twilight into its background, making it appear endless. The trees are still young and low; sunlight dances over their trunks and the pointed arches of their fronds. Their green is somewhat dusty because of the sand-storms which occur almost daily at this time of year. Only the thick carpet of lucerne under the palms is of a brilliant, faultless green.

Not far in front of me rise the city walls, old, grey, built of stone and mud bricks, with bastions jutting forward here and there. From behind the wall tower the luxuriant palms of another garden in the interior of the city, and houses with weather-browned window shutters and enclosed balconies; some of them have been built into the city wall and have become part of it. In the distance I can see the five minarets of the Prophet's Mosque, high and tender like the voices of flutes, the great green dome which vaults over and conceals the little house of the Prophet - his home while he lived and his grave after he died and still farther, beyond the city, the naked, rocky range of Mount Uhud: a brown-red backdrop for the white minarets of the Holy Mosque, the crowns of the palms and the many houses of the town.

The sky, glaringly lighted by the afternoon sun, lies glass-clear over opalescent clouds, and the city is bathed in a blue, gold-and green-streaked light. A high wind plays around the soft clouds, which in Arabia can be so deceptive. Never can you say here,' Now it is cloudy; soon it will rain': for even as the clouds mass heavily, as if pregnant with storm, it often happens that a roar of wind comes suddenly from out of the desert and sweeps them apart; and the faces of the people who have been waiting for rain turn away in silent resignation, and they mutter.

'There is no power and no strength except in God' - while the sky glares anew in a light-blue clearness without mercy.

I bid good-bye to my friend and walk back toward the outer city gate. A man passes by driving a pair of donkeys loaded with lucerne, himself riding on a third donkey. He lifts his staff in greeting and says, 'Peace be with thee,' and I reply with the same words. Then comes a young beduin woman, her black robe trailing behind her and the lower part of her face covered with a veil. Her shining eyes are so black that iris and pupil merge into one; and her step has something of the hesitant, swinging tension of young steppe animals.

I enter the city and cross the huge, open square of Al-Manakha to the inner city wall; beneath the heavy arch of the Egyptian Gate, under which the money-changers sit clinking their gold and silver coins, I step into the main bazaar - a street hardly twelve feet across, tightly packed with shops around which a small but eager life pulsates.

The vendors praise their goods with cheerful songs. Gay head-cloths, silken shawls and robes of figured Kashmir wool attract the eye of the passerby. Silversmiths crouch behind small glass cases containing beduin jewellery arm-rings and ankle-rings, necklaces and earrings. Perfume vendors display basins filled with henna, little red bags with antimony for colouring the eyelashes, multicoloured bottles of oils and essences, and heaps of spices. Traders from Najd are selling beduin garments and camel-saddles and long-tasselled red and blue saddlebags from eastern Arabia. An auctioneer runs through the street, shouting at the top of his voice, with a Persian carpet and a camel-hair abāya over his shoulder and a brass samovar under his arm. Floods of people in both directions, people from Medina and the rest of Arabia and as the time of the pilgrimage has ended only a short while ago - from all the countries between the steppes of Senegal and those of the Kirghiz, between the East Indies and the Atlantic Ocean, between Astrakhan and Zanzibar: but in spite of the multitude of people and the narrowness of the street, there is no hurried frenzy here, no pushing and jostling: for in Medina time does not ride on the wings of pursuit.

But what might appear even more strange is that despite the great variety of human types and costumes that fills them, there is nothing of an 'exotic' medley in the streets of Medina: the variety of appearances reveals itself only to the eye that is determined to analyze. It seems to me that all the people who live in this city, or even sojourn in it temporarily, very soon fall into what one might call a community of mood and thus also of behaviour and, almost, even of facial expression: for all of them have fallen under the spell of the Prophet, whose city it once was and whose guests they now are...

Even after thirteen centuries his spiritual presence is almost as alive here as it was then. It was only because of him that the scattered group of villages once called Yathrib became a city and has been loved by all Muslims down to this day as no city anywhere else in the world has ever been loved. It has not even a name of its own: for more than thirteen hundred years it has been called Madinat an-Nabi, 'the City of the Prophet'. For more than thirteen hundred years, so much love has converged here that all shapes and movements have acquired a kind of family resemblance, and all differences of appearance find a tonal transition into a common harmony.

This is the happiness one always feels here this unifying harmony. Although life in Medina today has only a formal, distant relationship with what the Prophet aimed at; although the spiritual awareness of Islam has been cheapened here, as in many other parts of the Muslim world: an indescribable emotional link with its great spiritual past has remained alive. Never has any city been so loved for the sake of one single personality; never has any man, dead for over thirteen hundred years, been loved so personally, and by so many, as he who lies buried beneath the great green dome.

And yet he never claimed to be anything but a mortal man, and never have Muslims attributed divinity to him, as so many followers of other Prophets have done after the Prophet's death. Indeed, the Koran itself abounds in statements which stress Muhammad's humanness: Muhammad is naught but a Prophet; all prophets have passed away before him; if he dies or is slain, will ye then turn back upon your heels? His utter insignificance before the majesty of God has thus been expressed the Koran: Say [O Muhammad): 'I do not possess any power to grant you evil or good... I do not even possess any power to convey benefit or harm to myself, except as God may please; and had I known the Unknowable, I would have acquired much good, and no evil would ever have befallen me. I am nothing but a warner and the giver of glad tidings to those who have faith in God...

It was precisely because he was only human, because he lived like other men, enjoying the pleasures and suffering the ills of human existence, that those around him could so encompass him with their love.

This love has outlasted his death and lives on in the hearts of his followers like the leitmotif of a melody built up of many tones. It lives on in Medina. It speaks to you out of every stone of the ancient city. You can almost touch it with your hands: but you cannot capture it in words...

-2-

AS I STROLL THROUGH the bazaar in the direction of the Great Mosque, many an old acquaintance hails me in passing. I nod to this and that shopkeeper and finally allow myself to be dragged by my friend Az-Zughaybi down on to the little platform on which he sells cloth to beduins.

'When didst thou return, O Muhammad, and from where? It is months since thou has been here.'

'I am coming from Hail and from the Nufud.'

'And wilt thou not remain at home for a time?'

'No brother, I am leaving for Mecca the day after tomorrow.'

Az-Zughaybi calls out to the boy in the coffee shop opposite, and soon the tiny cups are clinking before us.

'But why, O Muhammad, art thou going to Mecca now? The season of hajj is past.'

=

'It is not a desire for pilgrimage that takes me to Mecca. After all, am I not a hajji five times over? But somehow I have a feeling that I will not long remain in Arabia, and want to see once again the city in which my life in this land began...' And then I add with a laugh: 'Well, brother - to tell thee the truth, I do not understand myself why I am going to Mecca; but I know I have to...'

Az-Zughaybi shakes his head in dismay: 'Thou wouldst leave this land, and thy brethren? How canst thou speak like this?'

A familiar figures passes by with a long, hurried stride: it is Zayd, obviously in search of someone.

'Hey, Zayd, where to?'

He turns abruptly toward me with an eager face:

'It is thee I have been looking for, O my uncle; there was a pack of letters waiting thy return at the post office. Here they are. And peace be upon

thee, Shaykh Az-Zughaybi!'

Sitting cross-legged before Az-Zughaybi's shop, I go through the bundle of envelopes: there are several letters from friends in Mecca; one from the editor of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of Switzerland, whose correspondent I have been for the past six years; one from India, urging me to come there and make the acquaintance of the largest single Muslim community in the world; a few letters from various parts of the Near East; and one with a Tehran postmark - from my good friend Ali Agha, from whom I have not heard for more than a year. I open it and glance through the pages covered

with Ali Agha's elegant shiqasta* writing:

To our most beloved friend and brother, the light of our heart, the most respected Asad Agha, may God lengthen his life and protect his steps. Amen.

Peace be upon you and the grace of God, ever and ever. And we pray to God that He may give you health and happiness, knowing that it will please you to hear that we also are in perfect health, God be praised.

We did not write to you for a long time because of the uneven manner in which our life has been progressing in the past months. Our father, may God grant him mercy, has passed away a year ago and we, being the eldest son, had to spend much time and worry on the arrangement of our family affairs. Also, it has been God's will that the affairs of his unworthy servant have prospered beyond expectation, the Government having granted him a promotion to lieutenant colonel. In addition, we hope soon to be joined in matrimony with a gracious and beautiful lady, our second cousin Shirin - and in this way our old, unsettled days are coming to a close. As is well known to your friendly heart, we have not been without sin and error in our past - but did not Hafiz say,

'O God, Thou hast thrown a plank into the midst of a sea -

Couldst Thou have desired that it remain dry?'

So old Ali Agha is at last going to settle down and become respectable! He was not so respectable when I first met him, a little over seven years ago, in the town of Bam, to which he had been 'exiled'. Although he was only twenty-six then, his past had been full of action and excitement; he had taken part in the political upheavals which preceded the assumption of power by Riza Khan, and could have played a considerable role in Tehran had he not lived a bit too gaily. His presence in out-of-the-way Bam in the southeastern corner of Iran had been brought about by his worried and influential father in the hope that the son might be reformed if he were removed from the pleasures of Tehran. But Ali Agha seemed to have found compensations even in Bam - women, arrack and the sweet poison of opium, to which he was greatly devoted.

At that time, in 1925, he was the district gendarmerie commander with the rank of lieutenant. As I was about to cross the great Dasht-i-Lut desert, I looked him up with a letter of introduction from the governor of Kirman province - which in its turn was based on a letter from Riza Khan, the Prime Minister and dictator. I found Ali Agha in a shady garden of orange trees, oleanders and palms through whose pointed vaults the rays of the sun were filtered. He was in his shirt sleeves. A carpet was spread on the lawn, and on it were dishes with the remnants of a meal and half-empty bottles of arrack. Ali Agha apologized,' It is impossible to find wine in this damned hole,' and forced me to drink the local arrack - a terrible brew which went to the brain like a blow. With the swimming eyes of a northern Persian he glanced through the letter from Kirman, tossed it aside and said: 'Even if you had come without introduction, I would have accompanied you myself on your journey through the Dasht-i-Lut. You are my guest. I would never let you ride alone into the Baluchi desert.'

Someone who until then had been sitting half concealed in the shadow of a tree rose slowly: a young woman in a knee-length, light-blue silk tunic and wide, white Baluchi trousers. She had a sensual face that seemed to burn from within, large red lips and beautiful but strangely vague eyes; the lids were painted with antimony.

'She is blind,' Ali Agha whispered to me in French, 'and she is a wonderful singer.'

I admired the great tenderness and respect with which he treated the girl who, as a public singer, belonged to a category in Iran more or less equated with courtesans; he could not have behaved better toward any of the great ladies of Tehran.

We sat down, all three of us, on the carpet, and while Ali Agha busied himself with brazier and opium pipe, I talked with the Baluchi girl. In spite of her blindness she could laugh as only those can laugh who dwell deep in inner gladness; and she made shrewd and witty remarks such as a lady of the great world need not have been ashamed of. When Ali Agha finished his pipe, he took her gently by the hand and said:

"This stranger here, this Austrian, would surely like to hear one of your songs; he has never yet heard the songs of the Baluchis.'

Over the sightless face lay a faraway, dreamy happiness as she took the lute that Ali Agha handed to her and began to strum the strings. She

sang with a deep, husky voice a Baluchi tent song which sounded like an echo of life from her warm lips...

I return to the letter:

I wonder if you still remember, brother and respected friend, how we travelled together in those old days through the Dasht-i-Lut, and how we had to fight for our lives with those Baluchi bandits...?

Do I remember? I smile inwardly at Ali Agha's idle question and see myself and him in the desolate Dasht-i-Lut, the 'Naked Desert' which spreads its huge emptiness from Baluchistan deep into the heart of Iran. I was about to cross it in order to reach Seistan, the easternmost province of Iran, and thence to proceed to Afghanistan; as I had come from Kirman, there was no other way but this.

We stopped, together with our escort of Baluchi gendarmes, at a green oasis on the fringe of the desert in order to hire camels and buy provisions for the long trek ahead. Our temporary headquarters were in the station house of the Indo-European Telegraph. The station-master, a tall, bony, sharp-eyed man, almost never let me out of sight and seemed to appraise me with his glances.

'Beware of this man,' Ali Agha whispered to me, 'he is a bandit. I know him and he knows that I know him. Until a few years ago he was a real robber, but now he has saved up enough money and has become respectable - and makes more money from supplying arms to his former colleagues. I am only waiting for an opportune moment to catch him at it. But the fellow is cunning and it is difficult to prove anything. Since he has heard that you are an Austrian he is very excited. During the World War some Austrian and German agents were trying to arouse the tribes in these parts against the British; they had bags of gold coins with them: and our friend thinks that every German or Austrian is similarly equipped.'

But the cunning of the station-master benefited us, for he was able to find for me two of the best riding-camels of the region. The rest of the day was occupied with haggling about waterskins, camel-hair ropes, rice, clarified butter and many other odds and ends necessary for the desert journey.

=

The afternoon of the following day we started. Ali Agha decided to go ahead with four gendarmes to prepare a camping place for the night, and the drawn-out line of their dromedaries soon disappeared beyond the horizon. We others - Ibrahim, myself and the fifth gendarme - followed at a slower pace.

We swayed (how new it was then to me!) with the strange, swinging amble of the slim-limbed dromedaries, at first through sand dunes, yellow, sparsely dotted with clumps of grass, then deeper and deeper into the plain - into an endless, soundless grey plain, flat and empty - so empty that it seemed not to flow but to fall toward the horizon: for your eye could find nothing there on which to rest, no ridge on the ground, no stone, no bush, not even a blade of grass. No animal sound, no chirping of birds or humming of a beetle broke through that vast silence, and even the wind, deprived of all impediment, swept low without voice over the void - no, fell into it, as a stone falls into an abyss... This was not a silence of death, but rather of the unborn, of that which had never yet come to life: the silence before the First Word.

And then it happened. The silence broke. A human voice struck gently, chirpingly, into the air and remained suspended, as it were: and to you it seemed as if you could not only hear but see it, so lonely and so undisguised by other sounds it floated over the desert plain. It was our Baluchi soldier. He sang a song of his nomad days, a half-sung and half-spoken rhapsody, a quick succession of hot and tender words which I could not understand. His voice rang in a very few tones, at one single level, with a persistence that gradually grew into something like splendour as it enveloped the brittle melody in a byplay of throaty sounds, and, by sheer repetition and variation of the same theme, unfolded an unsuspected wealth in its flat tones - flat and limitless, like the land in which it had been born...

The part of the desert through which we now travelled was called the 'Desert of Ahmad's Bells'. Many years ago, a caravan led by a man named Ahmad lost its way here, and all of them, men and animals, perished from thirst; and to this day, it is said, the bells which Ahmad's camels wore around their necks are sometimes heard by travellers - ghostly, mournful sounds which entice the unwary from their path and lead them to death in the desert.

Shortly after sunset we caught up with Ali Agha and the advance guard and made camp amidst some kahur shrubs - the last we would see for days. A fire was made from dry twigs, and the inevitable tea prepared - while Ali Agha smoked his usual opium pipe. The camels were fed coarse barley meal and made to kneel in a circle around us. Three of the gendarmes were posted as sentries on the outlying dunes, for the region in which we found ourselves was in those days a playground of the dreaded demons of the desert, the Baluchi tribal raiders from the south.

Ali Agha had just finished his pipe and tea and was drinking arrack - alone, for I was not in a mood to keep him company when a rifle shot shattered the silence of the night. A second shot from one of our sentries answered and was followed by an outcry somewhere in the darkness. Ibrahim, with great presence of mind, immediately threw sand on the fire. More rifle shots from all directions. The sentries were now invisible, but one could hear them call out to one another. We did not know how many the attackers were, for they kept uncannily silent. Only off and on a faint stab of light from a rifle muzzle announced their presence; and once or twice I could discern white-clad figures flitting through the blackness. Several low-aimed bullets whizzed over our heads, but none of us were hit. Gradually the commotion died down, a few more shots fell and were sucked in by the night; and the raiders, apparently disconcerted by our watchfulness, vanished as quietly as they had come. Ali Agha called in the sentries and we held a short council.

Originally we had intended to spend the night here; but as we had no idea how strong the attacking party was, and whether they would not return with reinforcements, we decided to break camp immediately and to move on.

The night was as black as pitch; heavy, low clouds had concealed the moon and the stars. In summertime it is better, as a rule, to travel in the desert at night; but under normal circumstances we would not have risked a march in such darkness for fear of losing our way, for the hard gravel of Dasht-i-Lut does not keep any tracks. In the early times the Iranian kings used to mark the caravan routes in such deserts by guideposts of masonry, but like so many other good things of the old days, these marks had long since disappeared. Indeed, they were no longer necessary: the wire of the Indo-European Telegraph, laid by the British at the beginning of the century from the Indian frontier across the Dasht-i-Lut to Kirman, served equally well, or even better, as a guide; but in a night like this, wire and telegraph posts were invisible.

This we discovered to our dismay when after about half an hour the gendarme who had been riding ahead as our guide suddenly reined in his mount and shamefacedly reported to Ali Agha:

'Hazrat, I cannot see the wire any more...'

For a moment we all remained silent. There were wells, we knew, only along the route marked by the telegraph line, and even these were very widely spaced. To lose one's way here would mean to perish like Ahmad's legendary caravan....

Thereupon Ali Agha spoke up in a way which was quite unlike his usual manner; and one could safely presume that arrack and opium were responsible. He drew out his pistol and bellowed:

'Where is the wire? Why did you lose the wire, you sons of dogs? Oh, I know you are in league with those bandits and are trying to lead us astray so that we may perish from thirst and thus be easy plunder!"

This reproach was certainly unjust, for a Baluchi would never betray a man with whom he has eaten bread and salt. Our gendarmes, obviously hurt by their lieutenant's accusation, assured us of their innocence, but Ali Agha broke in:

'Silence! Find the wire immediately or I will shoot down every one of you, you sons of burned fathers!'

I could not see their faces in the darkness but could sense how deeply they, the free Baluchis, were feeling the insult; they no longer even bothered to reply. Then suddenly one of them our guide of a while ago - detached himself from the group, struck his camel with his whip and disappeared at a gallop into the darkness.

'Where to?' shouted Ali Agha and received a few indistinct words in reply. For a few seconds one could hear the soft padding of the camel's feet, then the sounds dived into the night.

In spite of my conviction, a moment before, of the innocence of the Baluchi gendarme, the hesitant thought crossed my mind: Now he has gone to the bandits; Ali Agha was right, after all... I heard Ali Agha draw back the safety-catch of his pistol and I did the same. Ibrahim slowly unslung his carbine. We sat motionless in our saddles. One of the dromedaries grunted softly, a gendarme's rifle butt struck against a saddle. Long minutes passed. You could almost hear the breathing of the men. Then, abruptly, a shout came from a great distance. To me it sounded merely like, 'Ooo,' but the Baluchis seemed to understand it and one of them, cupping his hands to his mouth, excitedly shouted something back in the Brahui tongue. Again that distant shout. One of the gendarmes turned toward Ali Agha and said in Persian:

'The wire, hazrat! He has found the wire!'

The tension broke. Relieved, we followed the voice of the invisible scout directing us from time to time. When we reached him, he rose in his saddle and pointed into the darkness:

'There is the wire.'

And rightly, after a few moments we almost struck against a telegraph post.

=

The first thing Ali Agha did was very characteristic of him. He caught the soldier by his belt, drew him close to himself and, learning over the saddle, kissed him on both cheeks:

'It is I, and not thou, who is a son of a dog, my brother. Forgive me...'

It subsequently transpired that the Baluchi, this child of the wilderness, had been riding in a zigzag until he heard from a distance of half a mile the wind hum in the wire: a humming that was even now, when I passed directly under it, almost imperceptible to my European ears...

We proceeded slowly, cautiously, through the black night, from invisible telegraph pole to invisible telegraph pole, one of the gendarmes always riding ahead and calling out each time his hand struck a pole. We had found our way and were determined not to lose it again.

I AWAKEN FROM MY REVERIE and return to Ali Agha's letter:

With the promotion to lieutenant colonel, this humble individual has been appointed to the General Staff; and this, O beloved friend and brother, appeals to us more than garrison life in a provincial town...

I am sure it does; Ali Agha has always had a flair for life in the capital and its intrigues - especially political intrigues. And, indeed, in his letter he goes on to describe the political atmosphere of Tehran, those endless wranglings under the surface, those intricate manoeuvrings with which foreign powers have for so long managed to keep Iran in a state of restlessness that makes it well-nigh impossible for the strange, gifted nation to come into its own.

Right now we are being harassed by the English oil company; great pressure is being exerted upon our Government to extend the concession and thus to prolong our slavery. The bazaars are buzzing with rumours, and God alone knows where all this will lead to...

The bazaar has always played a most important role in the political life of Eastern countries; and this is particularly true of the Tehran bazaar, in which the hidden heart of Iran pulsates with a persistence that defies all national decay and all passing of time. Between the lines of Ali Agha's letter this huge bazaar, almost a city in itself, reappears before my eyes with the vividness of a sight seen only yesterday: a wide-meshed twilight labyrinth of halls and passageways roofed with vaults of pointed arches. In the main street, next to small, dark booths filled with cheap trifles, there are covered patios with skylights, stores in which the most expensive European and Asiatic silks are being sold; next to ropemakers' workshops, the glass cases of the silversmiths full of delicate filigree work; multicoloured textiles from Bokhara and India mingle with rare Persian carpets - hunting carpets with figures of knights on horseback, lions, leopards, peacocks and antelopes; glass-pearl necklaces and automatic lighters next to sewing machines; black, unhappy umbrellas side by side with yellow-embroidered sheepskin robes from Khorasan: all assembled in this extremely long hall as if in an immense and not too carefully arranged shop window.

In the innumerable side-lanes of this tangled maze of handicrafts and commerce, the shops are grouped according to trades. Here you see the long line of saddlers and leatherworkers, with the red of dyed leather as the dominant colour and the sourish smell of leather permeating the air. There are the tailors: and from every niche for most of the shops consist only of a single raised niche with about three or four square yards of floor space one hears the whirring of industrious sewing machines; long garments are hung out for sale, always the same garments so that when you walk you sometimes think that you are standing still. You have a similar impression in many other parts of the bazaar as well; none the less, the abundance of sameness at every single point has nothing in common with monotony; it intoxicates the stranger and fills him with uneasy satisfaction. Even though you visit the bazaar for the hundredth time, you find the mood around you always the same, seemingly unchanged - but of that inexhaustible, vibrating changelessness of an ocean wave which always alters its forms but keeps its substance unchanged.

The bazaar of the coppersmiths: a chorus of bronze bells are the swinging hammers which beat out of copper, bronze and brass the most varied shapes, transforming formless metal sheets into bowls and basins and goblets. What an acoustic sureness, this hammering in altering tempos across the whole length of the bazaar every man acquiescing to the rhythm of the others so that there should be no dissonance to the ear: a hundred workmen hammering on different objects in different shops but in the whole bazaar street only one melody... In this deep, more than merely musical, almost social desire for harmony appears the hidden grace of the Iranian soul.

The spice bazaar: silent alleys of white sugar cones, rice bags, mounds of almonds and pistachios, hazelnuts and melon kernels, basins full of dried apricots and ginger, brass plates with cinnamon, curry, pepper, saffron and poppy seeds, the many little bowls of aniseed, vanilla, cummin, cloves and countless odd herbs and roots which exude a heavy, overpowering aroma. Over the shining brass scales crouch the lords of these strangenesses, like buddhas, with crossed legs, from time to time calling out in an undertone to a passerby and asking after his wants. All speech is only whisper here: for one cannot be noisy where sugar flows smoothly from bag into balance scale, and one cannot be noisy where thyme or aniseed is being weighed ... It is the same adaptation to the mood of the material which enables the Iranian to knot noble carpets out of innumerable coloured wool threads - thread by thread, fraction of an inch by fraction of an inch - until the whole stands there in its playful perfection. It is no accident that Persian carpets have no equal in the world. Where else could one find this deep quiet, this thoughtfulness and absorption in one's own doing? - where else such eyes, dark depths to which time and the passing of time mean so little?

In cavernous niches, somewhat larger than the usual ones, sit silent miniature painters. They are copying old miniatures from hand-written books that have long ago been torn to shreds, depicting in breath-fine lines and colours the great things of life: fights and hunts, love and happiness and sadness. Fine and thin as nerve-threads are their brushes; the colours are not entrusted to lifeless vessels but are mixed on the living palm of the painter and distributed in minute blobs and drops on the fingers of the left hand. On new pages of flawless whiteness the old miniatures experience a rebirth, stroke after stroke, shade after shade. Side by side with the flaking gold backgrounds of the originals emerge the shining ones of the copies. The faded orange trees of a royal park blossom again in a new spring; the tender women in silks and furs repeat once again their loving gestures; anew rises the sun over an old knightly polo game... Stroke after stroke, shade after shade, the silent men follow the creative adventures of a dead artist, and there is as much love in them as there was enchantment in him; and this love makes you almost forget the imperfection of the copies...

Time passes, and the miniature painters sit bent over their work, strangers unto the day. Time passes; in the bazaar streets nearby Western junk penetrates with stubborn gradualness into the shops; the kerosene lamp from Chicago, the printed cotton cloth from Manchester and the teapot from Czechoslovakia advance victoriously: but the miniature painters sit cross-legged on their worn straw mats, burrowing with tender eyes and fingertips into the blissful old joys, and give to their royal hunts and ecstatic lovers a new awakening, day after day...

Numberless are the people in the bazaar: gents with European collar and often trailing Arabian abaya over a European or semi-European suit, conservative burghers in long kaftāns and silken sashes, peasants and artisans in blue or drab jackets. Singing dervishes - Iran's aristocratic beggars - in white, flowing garments, sometimes with a leopard skin over the back, long hair and mostly of fine build. The women of the middle class are, according to their means, dressed in silk or cotton, but always in black, with the traditional short Tehran veil standing stiffly away from their faces; the poorer ones wear a light-coloured flowered cotton wrap. Ancient mullahs ride on magnificently caparisoned asses or mules and turn upon the stranger a fanatical stare that seems to ask: 'What are you doing here? Are you one of those who work for our country's ruin?'

=

Iran's long experience of Western intrigues has made its people suspicious. No Iranian really expects any good to come to his country from the farangis. But Ali Agha does not seem to be unduly pessimistic:

Iran is old - but certainly not yet ready to die. We have often been oppressed. Many nations have swept over us, and all of them have passed away: but we remain alive. In poverty and oppression, in ignorance and darkness: but we remain alive. This is because we Iranians always go our own way. How often has the outside world tried to force on us new ways of life and has always failed. We do not oppose outer forces with violence, and therefore it may sometimes appear as if we had surrendered to them. But we are of the tribe of the muryune - that little, insignificant ant which lives under walls. You, light of my heart, must have seen sometimes in Iran how well-built houses with strong walls suddenly collapse for no apparent reason. What was the reason? Nothing but those tiny ants which for many years, with unceasing industry, have been burrowing passages and cavities in the foundations, always advancing by a hair's breadth, slowly, patiently, in all directions - until at last the wall loses its balance and topples over. We Iranians are such ants. We do not oppose the powers of the world with noisy and useless violence, but allow them to do their worst, and burrow in silence our passageways and cavities, until one day their building will suddenly collapse ...

And have you seen what happens when you throw a stone into water? The stone sinks, a few circles appear on the surface, spread out and gradually fade away, until the water is as placid as before. We Iranians are such water.

The Shah, may God prolong his life, has a heavy burden to bear, with the English on one side and the Russians on the other. But we have no doubt that, by the grace of God, he will find a way to save Iran...

Ali Agha's implicit faith in Riza Shah does not, on the surface, appear to be misplaced. He is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic personalities I have ever met in the Muslim world, and of all the kings I have known, only Ibn Saud can compare with him.

The story of Riza Shah's rise to power is like a fantastic fairy tale, possible only in this Eastern world where personal courage and willpower can sometimes lift a man out of utter obscurity to the pinnacle of leadership. When I came to know him during my first stay in Tehran in the summer of 1924, he was Prime Minister and undisputed dictator of Iran; but the people had not yet quite overcome their shock at seeing him appear so suddenly, so unexpectedly, at the helm of the country's affairs. I still remember the wonderment with which an old Iranian clerk in the German Embassy at Tehran once told me: 'Do you know that but ten years ago this Prime Minister of ours stood guard as an ordinary trooper before the gates of this very embassy? And that I myself occasionally gave him a letter to deliver to the Foreign Ministry and admonished him, "Make haste, you son of a dog, and don't dawdle in the bazaar...!"

Yes, it had not been so many years since Riza the trooper stood sentry before the embassies and public buildings of Tehran. I could picture him as he stood there in the shabby uniform of the Iranian cossack brigade, leaning on his rifle and gazing at the activity in the streets around him. He would watch Persian people stroll along like dreamy shadows or sit in the cool of evening along the water channels, as I watched them. And from the English bank behind his back he would hear the rattling of typewriters, the bustle of busy people, the whole rustling stir which distant Europe had brought into that Tehran building with its blue faience facade. It may have been then, for the first time (nobody told me this, but I somehow think it must have been so), that in the unschooled head of the soldier Riza a wondering, questioning thought arose: 'Must it be like this...? Must it be that people of other nations work and strive, while our life flows past like a dream?'

And it was perhaps at that moment that desire for change - creator of all great deeds, discoveries and revolutions - began to flicker in his brain and mutely call for expression...

At other times he may have stood sentry before the garden gateway of one of the great European embassies. The well-tended trees moved with the wind, and the gravelled pathways crunched under the feet of white-garbed servants. In that house in the midst of the park a mysterious power seemed to dwell; it cowed every Iranian who passed through the gate and caused him to straighten his clothes self-consciously and made his hands embarrassed and awkward. Sometimes elegant carriages drew up and Iranian politicians stepped out of them. The soldier Riza knew many of them by sight: this one was the foreign minister, that one the finance minister. Almost always they had tense, apprehensive faces when they entered that gateway, and it was amusing to observe their expressions when they left the embassy: sometimes they were radiant, as if a great favour had been conferred upon them; sometimes pale and depressed, as if a sentence of doom had just been passed over them. Those mysterious people within had pronounced the sentence. The soldier Riza wondered: 'Must it be thus ...?'

Occasionally it happened that an Iranian clerk came running from the office building Riza was guarding, thrust a letter into his hand and said: 'Carry this quickly to so and so. But make haste, thou son of a dog, otherwise the Ambassador will be angry!' Riza was accustomed to being thus addressed, for his own officers were not in the least fastidious in their choice of epithets. But possibly no, almost certainly - the words 'son of a dog' gave him a stab of humiliation, for he knew: he was not a son of a dog but the son of a great nation that called names like Rustam, Darius, Nushirwan, Kay Khosru, Shah Abbas, Nadir Shah its own. But what did 'those within' know of this? What did they know of the forces which moved like a dark, dumb stream through the breast of the forty-year-old soldier and sometimes threatened to burst his ribs and make him bite his fists in powerless despair, 'Oh, if only I could...'?

And the desire for self-affirmation that weepingly dwells in every Iranian sometimes rose up with painful, unexpected violence in the soldier Riza, and made his mind clear and made him suddenly understand a strange pattern in all he saw...

The Great War was over. After the Bolshevik revolution, the Russian troops which had previously occupied northern Iran were withdrawn; but immediately afterward communist upheavals broke out in the Iranian province of Gilan on the Caspian Sea, led by the influential Kuchuk Khan and supported by regular Russian units on land and sea. The government sent out troops against the rebels, but the badly disciplined and poorly equipped Iranian soldiers suffered defeat after defeat; and the battalion in which Sergeant Riza, then nearly fifty years old, was serving proved no exception. But once, when his unit turned to flight after an unlucky skirmish, Riza could not hold himself any longer. He stepped from the breaking ranks and called out, for everyone to hear: 'Why do you run away, Iranians - you, Iranians!" He must have felt what Charles the Twelfth of Sweden had felt when he lay wounded on the field of Poltava and saw his soldiers race by in headless flight and called out to them with a despairing voice: 'Why do you run away, Swedes - you Swedes!" But the difference was that King Charles was bleeding from many wounds and had nothing at his disposal except his voice, while the soldier Riza was unhurt and had a loaded Mauser pistol in his hand - and his voice was strong and threatening as he warned his comrades: 'Whoever flees, I will shoot him down - even if it is my brother!!

Such an outburst was something new to the Iranian troops. Their confusion gave way to astonishment. They became curious: what could this man have in mind? Some officers protested and pointed out the hopelessness of their position; and one of them scoffed: 'Will you, perhaps, lead us to victory?' In that second, Riza may have relived all the disappointments of his earlier years, and all his dumb hopes were suddenly lighted up. He saw the end of a magic rope before him; and he grasped it. 'Accepted!' he cried, and turned to the soldiers: 'Will you have me as your leader?'

In no nation is the cult of the hero so deeply ingrained as in the Iranian; and this man here seemed to be a hero. The soldiers forgot their terror and their flight and roared with jubilation: 'You shall be our leader!' - 'So be it,' replied Riza, 'I will lead you; and I will kill whosoever attempts to flee!' But no one thought any longer of flight. They threw away the cumbersome knapsacks, attached their bayonets to their rifles: and under Riza's

=

leadership the whole battalion turned round and captured a Russian battery in a surprise assault, drew other Iranian units with it, overran the enemy-and after a few hours the battle was decided in favour of the Iranians.

Some days later a telegram from Tehran promoted Riza to the rank of captain; and he could now affix the title khān to his name.

He had got hold of the end of the rope and climbed up on it. His name had suddenly become famous. In quick succession he became major, colonel, brigadier. In the year 1921 he brought about, in company with the young journalist Zia ad-Din and three other officers, a coup d'etat, arrested the corrupt cabinet and, with the help of his devoted brigade, forced the weak and insignificant young Shah Ahmad to appoint a new cabinet: Zia ad-Din became Prime Minister, Riza Khan Minister of War. He could neither read nor write. But he was like a demon in his drive for power. And he had become the idol of the army and the people, who now, for the first time in ages, saw a man before them: a leader.

In the political history of Iran scenes change quickly. Zia ad-Din disappeared from the stage and reappeared as an exile in Europe. Riza Khan remained - as Prime Minister. It was rumoured in Tehran in those days that Riza Khan, Zia ad-Din and the Shah's younger brother, the Crown Prince, had conspired to remove the Shah from the throne; and it was whispered - nobody knows to this day whether it is true - that at the last moment Riza Khan had betrayed his friends to the Shah in order not to risk his own future in so dubious an undertaking. But whether true or not, soon afterward the Prime Minister - Riza Khan - advised the young Shah Ahmad to undertake a pleasure trip to Europe. He accompanied him with great pomp on the automobile journey to the border of Iraq and is said to have told him: 'If your Majesty ever returns to Iran, you will be able to say that Riza Khan understands nothing of the world.'

He no longer needed to share his power with anyone; he was, in fact if not in name, the sole overlord of Iran. Like a hungry wolf, he threw himself into work. All Iran was to be reformed from top to bottom. The hitherto loose administration was centralized; the old system of farming out entire provinces to the highest bidder was abolished; the governors ceased to be satraps and became officials. The army, the dictator's pet child, was reorganized on Western patterns. Riza Khan started campaigns against unruly tribal chieftains who had previously regarded themselves as little kings and often refused to obey the Tehran government; he dealt harshly with the bandits who for many decades had terrorized the countryside. Some order was brought into the finances of the country with the assistance of an American adviser; taxes and customs began to flow in regularly. Order was brought out of chaos.

As if echoing the Turkish Kemalist movement, the idea of a republic emerged in Iran, first as a rumour, then as a demand of the more progressive elements of the populace and finally as the open aim of the dictator himself. But here Riza Khan seems to have committed an error of judgment: a powerful cry of protest arose from the Iranian masses.

This popular opposition to republican tendencies was not due to any love of the reigning house, for nobody in Iran had much affection for the Qajar dynasty which - because of its Turkoman origin - had always been regarded as 'foreign'; nor was it due to any sentimental predilection for the round, boyish face of Shah Ahmad. It was something quite different: it was prompted by the people's fear of losing their religion as the Turks had lost theirs in the wake of Ataturk's revolution. In their ignorance, the Iranians did not understand all at once that a republican form of government would correspond much more closely to the Islamic scheme of life than a monarchial one; guided by the conservatism of their religious leaders - and perhaps justifiably frightened by Riza Khan's obvious admiration of Kemal Ataturk - the Iranians sensed in his proposal only a threat to Islam as the dominant force in the country.

A great excitement took hold of the urban population, especially in Tehran. A furious mob, armed with sticks and stones, assembled before Riza Khan's office building and uttered curses and threats against the dictator who but yesterday had been a demigod. Riza Khan's aides urgently advised him not to go out before the excitement subsided; but he brushed them aside and, accompanied by only one orderly and entirely unarmed, left the office compound in a closed carriage. As soon as the carriage emerged from the gates, the mob seized the horses' reins and brought them to a standstill. Some people tore the carriage door open - 'Drag him out, drag him out into the street!' But already he was getting out himself, his face livid with rage, and began to beat the heads and shoulders of those about him with his riding crop: 'You sons of dogs, away from me, away! How dare you! I am Riza Khan! Away to your women and your beds!' And the raging crowd, which had been threatening death and destruction but a few minutes ago, became silent under the impact of his personal courage; they drew back, melted away, one by one, and disappeared in the side-alleys. Once again a great leader had spoken to his people; he had spoken in anger, and the people were cowed. It may have been at that moment that a feeling of contempt broke through Riza Khan's love for his people, and clouded it forever.

But in spite of Riza Khan's prestige success, the republic did not materialize. The debacle of this plan made it obvious that military power alone could not bring about a 'reform movement' in the face of the people's resistance. Not that the Iranians were opposed to reform as such: but they instinctively realized that an imported, Western political doctrine would mean the end of all hope of ever attaining to a healthy development within the context of their own culture and religion.

Riza Khan did not understand this, then or ever, and thus became estranged from his people. Their love for him vanished and a fearful hatred gradually took its place. They began to ask themselves: What has the hero really done for his country? They enumerated Riza Khan's achievements: the reorganization of the army - but at the price of tremendous costs which placed crushing tax burdens on the already impoverished people; the suppressed tribal rebellions - but also the suppressed patriots: showy building activity in Tehran - but ever-growing misery among the peasants in the countryside. People began to remember that but a few years ago Riza Khan had been a poor soldier and now he was the richest man in Iran, with innumerable acres of land to his name. Were these the 'reforms' about which so much had been spoken? Did the few glittering office buildings in Tehran and the luxury hotels which had sprung up here and there under the dictator's influence really represent any betterment of the people's lot?

IT WAS AT THIS STAGE of his career that I came to know Riza Khan. Whatever the rumours about his personal ambition and alleged selfishness, I could not fail to recognize the man's greatness from the moment he first received me in his office at the War Ministry. It was probably the simplest office occupied anywhere, at any time, by a prime minister: a desk, a sofa covered with black oilcloth, a couple of chairs, a small bookshelf and a bright but modest carpet on the floor were all that the room contained; and the tall, heavy-set man in his middle fifties who rose from behind the desk was attired in a plain khaki uniform without any medals, ribbons or badges of rank.

I had been introduced by the German Ambassador, Count von der Schulenburg (for although I was Austrian myself, I represented a great German newspaper). Even during that first, formal conversation I became aware of the sombre dynamism of Riza Khan's nature. From under grey, bushy brows a pair of sharp, brown eyes regarded me - Persian eyes that were usually veiled by heavy lids: a strange mixture of melancholy and hardness. There were bitter lines around his nose and mouth, but the heavy-boned features betrayed an uncommon power of will which kept the lips compressed and filled the jaw with tension. When you listened to his low and well-modulated voice - the voice of a man accustomed to speak words of importance and to weigh each of them on his tongue before it was permitted to become sound - you thought you were listening to a man with a thirty-year career of staff officer and high dignitary behind him: and you could hardly believe that it was only six years since Riza Khan had been a sergeant, and only three since he had learned to read and write.

=

He must have sensed my interest in him - and perhaps also my affection for his people - for he insisted that this interview should not be the last, and asked me, as well as Schulenburg, to tea next week at his summer residence at Shemran, the beautiful garden resort some miles out of Tehran.

I arranged with Schulenburg to come first to him (like most of the other foreign representatives, he also was spending the summer in Shemran) and to go together to the Prime Minister's residence. But as it happened, I was unable to arrive in time. A few days earlier I had purchased a small four-wheeled hunting carriage with two spirited horses. How spirited they were became fully obvious a few miles outside Tehran, when, following some wicked impulse, they obstinately refused to go ahead and insisted on returning home. For about twenty minutes I struggled with them; in the end, I let Ibrahim take horses and carriage home and set out on foot in search of some other means of transportation. A tramp of two miles brought me to a village where I fortunately found a droshky, but when I arrived at the German Embassy, it was about an hour and a half after the appointed time. I found Schulenburg pacing up and down his study like an angry tiger, with all his usual suavity gone: for to his Prussian-cum-ambassadorial sense of discipline, such an offence against punctuality seemed no less than blasphemy. At my sight he ex-ploded with indignation:

'You can't - you can't do that to a prime minister! Have you forgotten that Riza Khan is a dictator and, like all dictators, extremely touchy?'

'My horses seem to have overlooked this fine point, Count Schulenburg,' was my only reply. 'Even if it had been the Emperor of China, I would not have been able to arrive any earlier.'

At that the Count recovered his sense of humour and broke out into loud laughter:

'By God, such a thing has never happened to me before! Let's go then - and hope that the footman doesn't slam the door in our faces...'

He did not. When we arrived at Riza Khan's palace the tea party was long over and all the other guests had departed, but the dictator did not appear in the least offended by my breach of protocol. Upon hearing the reasons for our delay, he exclaimed: 'Well, I would like to see these horses of

yours! I think they must belong to the opposition party. I don't know whether it might not be wise to have them placed in police custody!!

If anything, my contretemps rather helped than hindered the establishment of an easy, informal relationship between the all-powerful Prime Minister of Iran and the young journalist, which later made it possible for me to move about the country with a freedom greater than that accorded to most other foreigners.

BUT ALI AGHA'S LETTER does not refer to the Riza Khan of those early days, the man who lived with a simplicity almost unbelievable in display-loving Iran: it refers to Riza Shah Pahlavi, who ascended the Peacock Throne in 1925; it refers to the king who has given up all pretence of humility and now seeks to emulate Kemal Ataturk in building a vainglorious Western facade onto his ancient Eastern land...

I come to the end of the letter:

Although you, beloved friend, are now in the blessed City of the Holy Prophet, we trust you have not forgotten nor ever will forget your unworthy friend and his country..

O Ali Agha, friend of my younger days - 'light of my heart', as you yourself would phrase it - your letter has made me drunk with remembrance: Persia-drunk as I became when I began to know your country, that old, dim jewel set in a setting of ancient gold and cracked marble and dust and shadows - the shadows of all the days and nights of your melancholy country and of the dark, dreaming eyes of your people...

I still remember Kirmanshah, the first Iranian town I saw after I left the mountains of Kurdistan. A strange, faded, opaque atmosphere lay about it, muffled, subdued not to say shabby. No doubt, in every Eastern city poverty lies close to the surface, much more visible than in any European city but to that I was already accustomed. It was not just poverty in an economic sense which thrust itself upon me, for Kirmanshah was said to be a prosperous town. It was rather a kind of depression that lay over the people, something that was directly connected with them and seemed to have hardly anything to do with economic circumstances.

All these people had large, black eyes under thick, black brows that often met over the bridge of the nose, weighted by heavy lids like veils. Most of the men were slim (I hardly remember having seen a fat man in Iran); they never laughed aloud, and in their silent smiles lurked a faint irony which seemed to conceal more than it revealed. No mobility of features, no gesticulations, only quiet, measured movements: as if they wore masks.

As in all Eastern cities, the life of the town was concentrated in the bazaar. It revealed itself to the stranger as a subdued mixture of brown, gold-brown and carpet-red, with shimmering copper plates and basins here and there and perhaps a blue majolica painting over the door of a caravanserai with figures of black-eyed knights and winged dragons. If you looked more carefully, you could discover in this bazaar all the colours of the world -but none of these variegated colours could ever quite assert itself in the unifying shadows of the vaults that covered the bazaar and drew everything together into a sleepy duskiness. The pointed arches of the vaulted roof were pierced at regular intervals by small openings to let in the daylight. Through these openings the rays of the sun fell in; in the aromatic air of the halls they gained the quality of a substance and resembled opaque, slanted pillars of fight; and not the people seemed to go through them but they, the shining pillars, seemed to go through the shadowy people...

For the people in this bazaar were gentle and silent like shadows. If a trader called out to the passerby, he did so in a low voice; none of them praised his wares with calls and songs, as is the custom in Arabian bazaars. On soft soles life threaded its way here. The people did not elbow or shove one another. They were polite - with a politeness which seemed to bend forward to you but in reality held you at arm's length. They were obviously shrewd and did not mind starting a conversation with the stranger - but only their lips were talking. Their souls stood somewhere in the background, waiting, weighing, detached...

In a teahouse some men of the working class sat on straw mats perhaps artisans, labourers, caravan drivers - huddled together around an iron basin filled with glowing coals. Two long-stemmed pipes with round porcelain bowls made the round. The sweetish smell of opium was in the air. They smoked wordlessly; each man took only a few deep draughts at a time, passing the pipe on to his neighbour. And then I saw what I had not observed before: many, very many people were smoking opium, some of them more and others less publicly. The shopkeeper in his niche; the loafer under the arched gateway of a caravanserai; the coppersmith in his workshop during a moment of respite: they all were smoking with the same withdrawn, somewhat tired face, gazing with dull eyes into a spaceless void...

Fresh, green poppies with thick buds were being sold by vendors all over the bazaar and apparently consumed in this way - another, milder form of taking opium. Even children were eating the seeds in doorways and corners. Two, three of them would divide the delicacy among themselves with an old-age tolerance toward each other, without childish egoism but also without childish joy or vivacity. But how could they have been otherwise? In their earliest life they were given a heavy brew of poppy seeds to drink whenever they cried and bothered their parents. When they grew up and began to roam the streets, the borderlines of quietude, lassitude and kindness were already blurred in them.

And then I knew what had moved me so strongly when I first beheld the melancholy eyes of the Iranians: the sign of a tragic destiny in them. I felt that the opium belonged to them in the same way as a suffering smile belongs to the face of a sufferer; it belonged to their gentleness, to their inner lassitude - it belonged even to their great poverty and great frugality. It did not seem to be so much vice as expression - and perhaps also help. Help against what? Strange land of questions...

=

He must have sensed my interest in him - and perhaps also my affection for his people - for he insisted that this interview should not be the last, and asked me, as well as Schulenburg, to tea next week at his summer residence at Shemran, the beautiful garden resort some miles out of Tehran.

I arranged with Schulenburg to come first to him (like most of the other foreign representatives, he also was spending the summer in Shemran) and to go together to the Prime Minister's residence. But as it happened, I was unable to arrive in time. A few days earlier I had purchased a small four-wheeled hunting carriage with two spirited horses. How spirited they were became fully obvious a few miles outside Tehran, when, following some wicked impulse, they obstinately refused to go ahead and insisted on returning home. For about twenty minutes I struggled with them; in the end, I let Ibrahim take horses and carriage home and set out on foot in search of some other means of transportation. A tramp of two miles brought me to a village where I fortunately found a droshky, but when I arrived at the German Embassy, it was about an hour and a half after the appointed time. I found Schulenburg pacing up and down his study like an angry tiger, with all his usual suavity gone: for to his Prussian-cum-ambassadorial sense of discipline, such an offence against punctuality seemed no less than blasphemy. At my sight he ex-ploded with indignation:

'You can't - you can't do that to a prime minister! Have you forgotten that Riza Khan is a dictator and, like all dictators, extremely touchy?'

'My horses seem to have overlooked this fine point, Count Schulenburg,' was my only reply. 'Even if it had been the Emperor of China, I would not have been able to arrive any earlier.'

At that the Count recovered his sense of humour and broke out into loud laughter:

'By God, such a thing has never happened to me before! Let's go then - and hope that the footman doesn't slam the door in our faces...'

He did not. When we arrived at Riza Khan's palace the tea party was long over and all the other guests had departed, but the dictator did not appear in the least offended by my breach of protocol. Upon hearing the reasons for our delay, he exclaimed: 'Well, I would like to see these horses of yours! I think they must belong to the opposition party. I don't know whether it might not be wise to have them placed in police custody!'

If anything, my contretemps rather helped than hindered the establishment of an easy, informal relationship between the all-powerful Prime Minister of Iran and the young journalist, which later made it possible for me to move about the country with a freedom greater than that accorded to most other foreigners.

BUT ALI AGHA'S LETTER does not refer to the Riza Khan of those early days, the man who lived with a simplicity almost unbelievable in display-loving Iran: it refers to Riza Shah Pahlavi, who ascended the Peacock Throne in 1925; it refers to the king who has given up all pretence of humility and now seeks to emulate Kemal Ataturk in building a vainglorious Western facade onto his ancient Eastern land...

I come to the end of the letter:

Although you, beloved friend, are now in the blessed City of the Holy Prophet, we trust you have not forgotten nor ever will forget your unworthy friend and his country

O Ali Agha, friend of my younger days - 'light of my heart', as you yourself would phrase it - your letter has made me drunk with remembrance: Persia-drunk as I became when I began to know your country, that old, dim jewel set in a setting of ancient gold and cracked marble and dust and shadows - the shadows of all the days and nights of your melancholy country and of the dark, dreaming eyes of your people...

I still remember Kirmanshah, the first Iranian town I saw after I left the mountains of Kurdistan. A strange, faded, opaque atmosphere lay about it, muffled, subdued not to say shabby. No doubt, in every Eastern city poverty lies close to the surface, much more visible than in any European city - but to that I was already accustomed. It was not just poverty in an economic sense which thrust itself upon me, for Kirmanshah was said to be a prosperous town. It was rather a kind of depression that lay over the people, something that was directly connected with them and seemed to have hardly anything to do with economic circumstances.

All these people had large, black eyes under thick, black brows that often met over the bridge of the nose, weighted by heavy lids like veils. Most of the men were slim (I hardly remember having seen a fat man in Iran); they never laughed aloud, and in their silent smiles lurked a faint irony which seemed to conceal more than it revealed. No mobility of features, no gesticulations, only quiet, measured movements: as if they wore masks.

As in all Eastern cities, the life of the town was concentrated in the bazaar. It revealed itself to the stranger as a subdued mixture of brown, gold-brown and carpet-red, with shimmering copper plates and basins here and there and perhaps a blue majolica painting over the door of a caravanserai with figures of black-eyed knights and winged dragons. If you looked more carefully, you could discover in this bazaar all the colours of the world -but none of these variegated colours could ever quite assert itself in the unifying shadows of the vaults that covered the bazaar and drew everything together into a sleepy duskiness. The pointed arches of the vaulted roof were pierced at regular intervals by small openings to let in the daylight. Through these openings the rays of the sun fell in; in the aromatic air of the halls they gained the quality of a substance and resembled opaque, slanted pillars of fight; and not the people seemed to go through them but they, the shining pillars, seemed to go through the shadowy people...

For the people in this bazaar were gentle and silent like shadows. If a trader called out to the passerby, he did so in a low voice; none of them praised his wares with calls and songs, as is the custom in Arabian bazaars. On soft soles life threaded its way here. The people did not elbow or shove one another. They were polite with a politeness which seemed to bend forward to you but in reality held you at arm's length. They were obviously shrewd and did not mind starting a conversation with the stranger - but only their lips were talking. Their souls stood somewhere in the background, waiting, weighing, detached...

In a teahouse some men of the working class sat on straw mats - perhaps artisans, labourers, caravan drivers - huddled together around an iron basin filled with glowing coals. Two long-stemmed pipes with round porcelain bowls made the round. The sweetish smell of opium was in the air. They smoked wordlessly; each man took only a few deep draughts at a time, passing the pipe on to his neighbour. And then I saw what I had not observed before: many, very many people were smoking opium, some of them more and others less publicly. The shopkeeper in his niche; the loafer under the arched gateway of a caravanserai; the coppersmith in his workshop during a moment of respite: they all were smoking with the same withdrawn, somewhat tired face, gazing with dull eyes into a spaceless void...

Fresh, green poppies with thick buds were being sold by vendors all over the bazaar and apparently consumed in this way another, milder form of taking opium. Even children were eating the seeds in doorways and corners. Two, three of them would divide the delicacy among themselves with an old-age tolerance toward each other, without childish egoism but also without childish joy or vivacity. But how could they have been otherwise? In their earliest life they were given a heavy brew of poppy seeds to drink whenever they cried and bothered their parents. When they grew up and began to roam the streets, the borderlines of quietude, lassitude and kindness were already blurred in them.

And then I knew what had moved me so strongly when I first beheld the melancholy eyes of the Iranians: the sign of a tragic destiny in them. I felt that the opium belonged to them in the same way as a suffering smile belongs to the face of a sufferer; it belonged to their gentleness, to their inner lassitude - it belonged even to their great poverty and great frugality. It did not seem to be so much vice as expression - and perhaps also help. Help against what? Strange land of questions...

=

MY MIND DWELLS SO LONG on my impressions of Kirman-shah, the first Iranian city I came to know, because those impressions continued, in varying forms but always unchanged in substance, throughout the year and a half that I remained in Iran. A soft, pervasive melancholy was the dominant note everywhere. It was perceptible in villages and towns, in the daily doings of the people and in their many religious festivals. Indeed, their religious feeling itself, so unlike that of the Arabs, bore a strong tinge of sadness and mourning: to weep over the tragic happenings of thirteen centuries ago - to weep over the deaths of Ali, the Prophet's son-in-law, and Ali's two sons, Hasan and Husayn - seemed to them more important than to consider what Islam stood for and what direction it wanted to give to men's lives...

THE GRAND SANSUI

On many evenings, in many towns, you could see groups of men and women assembled in a street around a wandering dervish, a religious mendicant clad in white, with a panther skin on his back, a long-stemmed axe in his right hand and an alms-bowl carved from a coconut in his left. He would recite a half-sung, half-spoken ballad about the struggles for succession to the Caliphate that followed the death of the Prophet in the seventh century - a mournful tale of faith and blood and death - and it would always run somewhat like this:

Listen, O people, to what befell God's chosen ones, and how the blood of the Prophet's seed was spilled over the earth.

There was once a Prophet whom God had likened unto a City of Knowledge; and the Gate to that City was the most trusted and valiant of his followers, his son-in-law Ali, Light of the World, sharer of the Prophet's Message, called the Lion of God.

When the Prophet passed away, the Lion of God was his rightful successor. But wicked men usurped the Lion's God-ordained right and made

another the Prophet's khalifa; and after the first usurper's death, another of his evil ilk succeeded him; and after him, yet another.

And only after the third usurper perished did the Will of God become manifest, and the Lion of God attained to this rightful place as Commander of the Faithful.

But Ali's and God's enemies were many; and one day, when he lay prostrated before his Lord in prayer, an assassin's sword struck him dead. The earth shook in anguish at the blasphemous deed, and the mountains wept and the stones shed tears.

Oh, God's curse be upon the evildoers, and may everlasting punishment consume them!

And again an evil usurper came to the fore and denied the Lion of God's sons, Hasan and Husayn, sons of Fatima the Blessed, their right of succession to the Prophet's Throne. Hasan was foully poisoned; and when Husayn rose in defence of the Faith, his beautiful life was extinguished on the field of Karbala as he knelt down by a pool of water to quench his thirst after the battle.

Oh, God's curse be upon the evildoers, and may the angels' tears forever water the sacred soil of Karbala!

The head of Husayn - the head the Prophet had once kissed - was cruelly cut off and his headless body was brought back to the tent where his weeping children awaited their father's return.

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And ever since, the Faithful have invoked God's curse on the transgressors and wept over the deaths of Ali and Hasan and Husayn; and you, O Faithful, raise your voices in lament for their deaths - for God forgives the sins of those who weep for the Seed of the Prophet...

men... And the chanted ballad would bring forth passionate sobbing from the listening women, while silent tears would roll over the faces of bearded

Such extravagant 'laments' were a far cry indeed from the true, historical picture of those early happenings that had caused a never-healed schism in the world of Islam: the division of the Muslim community into Sunnites, who form the bulk of the Muslim peoples and stand firm on the principle of an elective succession to the Caliphate, and the Shiites, who maintain that the Prophet designated Ali, his son-in-law, as his rightful heir and successor. In reality, however, the Prophet died without nominating any successor, whereupon one of his oldest and most faithful Companions, Abu Bakr, was elected khalifa by the over-whelming majority of the community. Abu Bakr was succeeded by Umar and the latter by Uthman; and only after Uthman's death was Ali elected to the Caliphate. There was, as I knew well even in my Iranian days, nothing evil or wicked about Ali's three predecessors. They were undoubtedly the greatest and noblest figures of Islamic history after the Prophet, and had for many years been among his most intimate Companions; and they were certainly not 'usurpers', having been elected by the people in the free exercise of the right accorded to them by Islam. It was not their assumption of power but rather Ali's and his followers' unwillingness to accept wholeheartedly the results of those popular elections that led to the subsequent struggles for power, to Ali's death, and to the transformation - under the fifth Caliph, Mu'awiyya - of the original, republican form of the Islamic State into a hereditary kingship, and, ultimately, to Husayn's death at Karbala.

Yes, I had known all this before I came to Iran; but here I was struck by the boundless emotion which that old, tragic tale of thirteen centuries ago could still arouse among the Iranian people whenever the names of Ali, Hasan or Husayn were mentioned. I began to wonder: Was it the innate melancholy of the Iranians and their sense of the dramatic that had caused them to embrace the Shia doctrine? - or was it the tragic quality of the latter's origin that had led to this intense Iranian melancholy?

By degrees, over a number of months, a startling answer took shape in my mind.

When, in the middle of the seventh century, the armies of Caliph Umar conquered the ancient Sasanian Empire, bringing Islam with them, Iran's Zoroastrian cult had already long been reduced to rigid formalism and was thus unable to oppose effectively the dynamic new idea that had come from Arabia. But at the time when the Arab conquest burst upon it, Iran was passing through a period of social and intellectual ferment which seemed to promise a national regeneration. This hope of an inner, organic revival was shattered by the Arab invasion; and the Iranians, abandoning their own historic line of development, henceforth accommodated themselves to the cultural and ethical concepts that had been brought in from outside.

The advent of Islam represented in Iran, as in so many other countries, a tremendous social advance; it destroyed the old Iranian caste system and brought into being a new community of free, equal people; it opened new channels for cultural energies that had long lain dormant and inarticulate: but with all this, the proud descendants of Darius and Xerxes could never forget that the historical continuity of their national life, the organic connection between their Yesterday and Today, had suddenly been broken. A people whose innermost character had found its expression in the baroque dualism of the Zand religion and its almost pantheistic worship of the four elements air, water, fire and earth was now faced with Islam's austere, uncompromising monotheism and its passion for the Absolute. The transition was too sharp and painful to allow the Iranians to subordinate their deeply rooted national consciousness to the supranational concept of Islam. In spite of their speedy and apparently voluntary acceptance of the new religion, they subconsciously equated the victory of the Islamic idea with Iran's national defeat; and the feeling of having been defeated and irrevocably torn out of the context of their ancient cultural heritage - a feeling desperately intense for all its vagueness - was destined to corrode their national self-confidence for centuries to come. Unlike so many other nations to whom the acceptance of Islam gave almost immediately a most positive impulse to further cultural development, the Iranians' first - and, in a way, most durable - reaction to it was one of deep humiliation and repressed resentment.

That resentment had to be repressed and smothered in the dark folds of the subconscious, for in the meantime Islam had become Iran's own faith. But in their hatred of the Arabian conquest, the Iranians instinctively resorted to what psychoanalysis describes as 'overcompensation': they began to regard the faith brought to them by their Arabian conquerors as something that was exclusively their own. They did it by subtly transforming the rational, unmystical God-consciousness of the Arabs into its very opposite: mystical fanaticism and sombre emotion. A faith which to the Arab was presence and reality and a source of composure and freedom, evolved, in the Iranian mind, into a dark longing for the supernatural and symbolic. The Islamic principle of God's ungraspable transcendency was transfigured into the mystical doctrine (for which there were many precedents in pre-Islamic Iran) of God's physical manifestation in especially chosen mortals who would transmit this divine essence to their descendants. To such a tendency, an espousal of the Shia doctrine offered a most welcome channel: for there could be no doubt that the Shiite veneration, almost deification, of Ali and his descendants concealed the germ of the idea of God's incarnation and continual reincarnation - an idea entirely alien to Islam but very close to the Iranian heart.

It had been no accident that the Prophet Muhammad died without having nominated a successor and, indeed, refused to nominate one when a suggestion to that effect was made shortly before his death. By his attitude he intended to convey, firstly, that the spiritual quality of Prophethood was not something that could be 'inherited', and, secondly, that the future leadership of the community should be the outcome of free election by the people themselves and not of an 'ordination' by the Prophet (which would naturally have been implied in his designation of a successor): and thus he deliberately ruled out the idea that the community's leadership could ever be anything but secular or could be in the nature of an 'apostolic succession'. But this was precisely what the Shia doctrine aimed at. It not only insisted in clear contradiction to the spirit of Islam on the principle of apostolic succession, but reserved that succession exclusively to 'tie Prophet's seed', that is, to his cousin and son-in-law Ali and his lineal descendants.

This was entirely in tune with the mystical inclinations of the Iranians. But when they enthusiastically joined the camp of those who claimed that Muhammad's spiritual essence lived on in Ali and the latter's descendants, the Iranians did not merely satisfy a mystical desire: there was yet another, subconscious motivation for their choice. If Ali was the rightful heir and successor of the Prophet, the three Caliphs who preceded him must obviously have been usurpers - and among them had been Umar, that same Umar who had conquered Iran! The national hatred of the conqueror of the Sasanian Empire could now be rationalized in terms of religion - the religion that had become Iran's own: Umar had 'deprived' Ali and his sons Hasan and Husayn of their divinely ordained right of succession to the Caliphate of Islam and, thus, had opposed the will of God; consequently, in obedience to the will of God, Ali's party was to be supported. Out of a national antagonism, a religious doctrine was born.

In the Iranian enthronement of the Shia doctrine I discerned a mute protest against the Arabian conquest of Iran. Now I understood why the Iranians cursed Umar with a hatred far more bitter than that reserved for the other two 'usurpers', Abu Bakr and Uthman: from the doctrinal point of view, the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, should have been regarded as the principal transgressor - but it was Umar who had conquered Iran...

This, then, was the reason for the strange intensity with which the House of Ali was venerated in Iran. Its cult represented a symbolic act of Iranian revenge on Arabian Islam (which stood so uncompromisingly against the deification of any human personality including that of

=

Muhammad). True, the Shia doctrine had not originated in Iran; there were Shiite groups in other Muslim lands as well: but nowhere else had it achieved so complete a hold over the people's emotions and imagination. When the Iranians gave passionate vent to their mourning over the deaths of Ali, Hasan and Husayn, they wept not merely over the destruction of the House of Ali but also over themselves and the loss of their ancient glory...

THEY WERE A MELANCHOLY people, those Iranians. Their melancholy was reflected even in the Iranian landscape in the endless stretches of fallow land, the lonely mountain paths and highways, the widely scattered villages of mud houses, the flocks of sheep which were driven in the evening in grey-brown waves to the well. In the cities life dripped in slow, incessant drops, without industry or gaiety; everything seemed to be shrouded in dreamy veils, and each face had a look of indolent waiting. One never heard music in the streets. If in the evening a Tatar stable boy broke into song in a caravanserai, one involuntarily pricked up one's ears in astonishment. Publicly only the many dervishes sang: and they always sang the same ancient, tragic ballads about Ah, Hasan and Husayn. Death and tears wove around those songs and went like heavy wine to the heads of the listeners. A terror of sadness, but of a willingly, almost greedily accepted sadness, seemed to lie over these people.

On summer evenings in Tehran you could see men and women crouching motionless by the watercourses that ran along both sides of the streets under the shadow of the huge elm trees. They sat and stared into the flowing water. They did not talk to one another. They only listened to the gurgling of the water and let the rustling of the tree branches pass over their heads. Whenever I saw them I had to think of David's psalm: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept...

They sat by the side of the watercourses like huge, dumb, dark birds, lost in silent contemplation of the flowing water. Were they thinking a long, long-drawn-out thought which belonged to them, and to them alone? Were they waiting? ... for what?

And David sang: We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof...

-3-

'COME, ZAYD, let us go' - and I put Ali Agha's letter into my pocket and rise to say good-bye to Az-Zughaybi. But he shakes his head: 'No, brother, let Zayd stay here with me for a while. If thou art too niggardly to tell me all that has befallen thee during these past months, let him tell me the story in thy stead. Or dost thou think thy friends no longer care about what happens to thee?'

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세진님, 요청하신 <메카로 가는 길 (The Road to Mecca)> 제9장 <페르시아의 편지 (PERSIAN LETTER)>의 1,000단어 분량 상세 요약입니다. 지침에 따라 본문은 <해라>체로 서술했습니다.<제9장: 페르시아의 편지 (PERSIAN LETTER) 요약><1. 메디나의 오후와 예언자의 영적 유산>

아사드는 메디나 남쪽 성문 밖 야자수 정원에서 친구와 대화를 나눈 뒤, 시장과 모스크를 향해 도시 안으로 발걸음을 옮긴다. 1,300년 전 예언자 무함마드가 묻힌 초록 돔과 다섯 개의 미나렛 아래, 메디나의 거리에는 서아프리카 세네갈부터 중앙아시아 키르기스스탄에 이르는 전 세계 순례자들이 어우러져 있다. 좁은 시장 골목에서 직물과 향료, 은장신구를 파는 상인들의 활기찬 모습 속에서도, 다른 도시와 달리 서두름이나 부딪침 없는 독특한 내적 조화와 평화가 흐른다.  아사드는 메디나에 깃든 이 유대감이 예언자 무함마드를 향한 무슬림들의 깊은 사랑에서 비롯되었다고 통찰한다. 이슬람은 예언자를 결코 신격화하지 않았으며, 코란 역시 그가 기쁨과 고통을 겪는 필멸의 인간이자 '경고자에 불과하다'는 점을 명백히 선언했다. 바로 그 완전한 인간성 때문에 사람들은 그를 자신들의 형제이자 완벽한 본보기로 깊이 사랑할 수 있었다. 시장의 포목상 친구 주가이비의 가게에 앉은 아사드는 곧 메카를 거쳐 아라비아를 영영 떠나게 될 것 같다는 예감을 나누던 중, 동행인 자이드로부터 테헤란 소인이 찍힌 오랜 벗 알리 아가의 편지를 건네받는다.  <2. 다슈트-이-루트 사막의 위험과 헌신적인 길잡이>

알리 아가의 편지는 아사드를 1925년 페르시아(이란) 체류 시절의 생생한 기억 속으로 이끈다. 당시 스물여섯 살의 헌병대 장교였던 알리 아가는 방탕하고 매력적인 인물로, 황량한 밤(Bam)에 머물며 아사드를 맞아주었다. 아사드는 그와 함께 페르시아 동부의 가혹한 불모지 '다슈트-이-루트(Dasht-i-Lut)' 사막을 횡단했던 사건을 회상한다.  사막 한가운데서 야영 중 발루치 반란 부족민들의 기습 총격을 받은 일행은 야영지를 철수하고 칠흑 같은 어둠 속에서 행군을 강행했다. 유일한 길잡이였던 영국령 인도-유럽 전신선(전신주)을 놓쳐 전원이 갈증으로 몰살당할 위기에 처하자, 마약과 술에 취한 알리 아가는 길을 잃은 발루치 병사들을 '도적들과 내통한 개자식들'이라며 권총으로 위협했다. 그러나 깊은 모욕 속에서도 한 발루치 병사가 어둠 속으로 말을 몰아, 사막의 바람이 전신선 전선에 부딪히며 내는 미세한 웅웅거림을 귀로 포착해 전신주를 찾아낸다. 알리 아가는 즉시 병사를 끌어안고 뺨에 입을 맞추며 "개자식은 바로 나였다"라고 진심으로 용서를 구했고, 일행은 전신주를 손으로 짚어가며 무사히 사막을 벗어났다.  <3. 테헤란 바자르의 장인들과 '개미'의 은유>

편지에서 알리 아가는 중령으로 진급하여 총참모부에 배속된 근황과 함께, 영국 석유 회사의 압력으로 술렁이는 테헤란 바자르의 정세를 전한다. 아사드는 이 대목에서 이란 사회의 심장부인 테헤란 바자르의 풍경을 떠올린다. 구리 제품을 두드리는 수백 명의 대장장이들이 자발적으로 빚어내는 리듬의 하모니, 미세한 손가락 끝으로 고대 페르시아 필사본의 세밀화를 정교하게 복원하는 화가들의 침묵, 그리고 손끝의 감각으로 완벽한 조화를 엮어내는 양탄자 장인들의 모습은 이란 영혼이 지닌 깊은 예술성과 내적 질서를 대변한다.  알리 아가는 편지에서 이란 민족을 벽 밑을 파고드는 '작은 개미(muryune)'와 '물'에 비유한다. 숱한 외세의 침략과 억압 앞에서도 이란인들은 헛된 폭력으로 맞서는 대신, 물밑에서 묵묵히 흙을 파내어 결국 침략자의 거대한 벽을 무너뜨리고 맑은 수면을 회복한다는 유구한 생존의 철학이다.  <4. 레자 샤의 집권과 위로부터의 서구화>

이어 아사드는 1924년 테헤란에서 만났던 근대 이란의 독재자 레자 샤 팔레비(당시 총리 겸 육군장관)의 극적인 집권 과정을 회고한다. 외국 대사관 앞의 문지기 사병으로 출발했던 레자 칸은, 1920년 길란 전선에서 퇴각하던 병사들을 권총 한 자루로 통솔해 반격을 성공시키며 영웅으로 급부상했다. 그는 쿠데타를 통해 실권을 장악하고 행정 중앙집권화와 군 현대화를 강력하게 추진했다.  그러나 튀르키예의 아타튀르크를 모방해 공화정을 도입하려던 그의 시도는 대중의 거센 저항에 부딪혔다. 이란 대중은 공화정을 서구화와 이슬람 신앙 파괴의 전조로 받아들였기 때문이다. 흥분한 군중을 채찍으로 진압한 후, 레자 칸의 마음속에는 민중에 대한 경멸이 싹텄고 결국 1925년 황제(샤)의 자리에 올랐다. 소박한 카키색 군복 차림으로 아사드를 친근하게 맞이했던 위대한 지도자는, 점차 외형적이고 과시적인 서구화에 집착하며 민중의 고통을 외면하는 전형적인 독재 군주로 변모해 갔다.  <5. 이란의 시아파 신앙과 무의식적 복수극>

아사드는 이란 전역을 여행하며 목격한 짙은 슬픔과 아편의 냄새, 그리고 거리의 데르비시들이 읊조리는 알리와 후세인의 비극적 순교 설화에 주목한다. 왜 이란인들은 1,300년 전의 역사적 비극에 그토록 광기 어린 눈물을 흘리는가? 아사드는 이를 사산 왕조의 찬란한 페르시아 제국이 7세기 아랍 무슬림 군대에게 정복당하면서 겪은 거대한 문화적 트라우마의 산물로 분석한다.  역사적 연속성을 단절당한 이란인들은 아랍의 종교를 받아들였으나, 정복자에 대한 무의식적 원한을 '시아파 교리'로 승화시켰다. 즉, 예언자의 합리적 유일신 신앙을 신성한 혈통(이맘) 숭배라는 고대 페르시아적 신비주의로 변형시켰으며, 페르시아를 정복했던 2대 칼리파 우마르를 '알리의 자리를 찬탈한 악당'으로 저주함으로써 종교의 외피를 쓴 '역사적 복수'를 완성했다는 것이다. 바빌론 강가에서 울던 유대인들처럼 거리에 웅크려 흐르는 물을 응시하는 이란인들의 멜랑콜리를 회상하며, 아사드는 편지를 접고 아라비아에서의 마지막 여정을 준비한다.  

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아래는 첨부하신 <The Road to Mecca Ch 9: PERSIAN LETTER>의 1,000단어 정도 요약입니다. 이 장은 표면적으로는 메디나에서 받은 한 통의 편지를 읽는 장면이지만, 실제로는 아사드가 과거 이란 여행과 이란인의 정신세계, 레자 샤의 근대화, 시아파 정서, 그리고 이슬람 세계 내부의 다양한 기질을 회상하는 장입니다.

<요약>

이 장은 메디나 남쪽 성문 밖 야자나무 정원에서 시작한다. 아사드는 친구와 함께 오후의 정적 속에 앉아 있다. 배경에는 우후드 산의 회색빛 능선이 있고, 젊은 야자수들이 흔들린다. 메디나는 사막 한가운데 있으면서도 야자수와 정원, 성벽과 미나렛, 예언자의 모스크가 어우러진 성스러운 도시로 묘사된다. 아사드는 이 도시가 단순한 도시가 아니라 예언자 무함마드의 현존이 아직도 살아 있는 공간이라고 느낀다. 예언자의 무덤과 모스크, 그리고 그를 사랑하는 무슬림들의 마음이 메디나 전체를 하나의 영적 중심으로 만든다.

그는 메디나의 거리와 시장을 걸으며, 이 도시가 여러 민족과 지역의 사람들이 모여 사는 곳임을 본다. 카슈미르 상인, 중앙아시아인, 아라비아 베두인, 수단인, 인도인, 페르시아인, 아프리카인 등 다양한 얼굴과 언어가 섞여 있다. 그러나 이 다양성은 단순한 이국적 혼합물이 아니다. 아사드는 메디나에서는 서로 다른 사람들이 예언자에 대한 사랑과 이슬람 공동체 의식 속에서 하나의 정서적 조화를 이룬다고 본다. 이 도시는 민족의 도시가 아니라 신앙의 도시다.

그는 시장에서 옷감 장수 친구인 아즈주가이비를 만난다. 친구는 오랫동안 보지 못했다며 반갑게 맞아주고 커피를 내온다. 아사드는 곧 메카로 떠날 예정이라고 말한다. 하지만 그것은 하지 순례 때문이 아니다. 그는 이미 여러 차례 순례를 했고, 이번에는 아라비아를 떠나야겠다는 막연한 예감을 품고 있다. 그는 자신이 이 땅에서의 삶을 시작했던 도시, 메카를 다시 보고 싶다고 말한다. 여기서 “길”은 다시 한 번 지리적 이동이면서 내면의 전환으로 나타난다.

그때 자이드가 나타나, 우체국에 편지들이 도착해 있다고 알려준다. 그중 하나는 이란 친구 알리 아가가 보낸 페르시아어 편지다. 아사드는 1년 넘게 그에게서 소식을 듣지 못했다. 편지에는 알리 아가의 근황, 그의 아버지의 죽음, 결혼, 그리고 봄이 오면 바그다드나 테헤란으로 오라는 초대가 담겨 있다. 편지의 문체는 우아하고 정서적이다. 알리 아가는 아사드를 “우리 마음의 빛”이라 부르며, 옛 여행의 추억을 불러낸다.

편지를 읽는 순간 아사드는 이란에 대한 기억 속으로 빨려 들어간다. 그는 알리 아가와 함께 다슈트이루트, 곧 “벌거벗은 사막”을 여행했던 때를 회상한다. 그 길은 케르만에서 세이스탄으로, 다시 아프가니스탄으로 이어지는 위험한 여정이었다. 당시 그들은 발루치 헌병들의 호위를 받으며 이동했다. 역장은 그들에게 길에서 만날 수 있는 도적과 약탈자들을 조심하라고 경고했다. 그 사막은 죽음 같은 침묵으로 가득 차 있었고, 바람도 새소리도 동물의 움직임도 없는 곳이었다. 아사드는 그 침묵을 “죽음의 침묵”이 아니라, 세상이 태어나기 전의 침묵처럼 느낀다. 이 묘사는 이 장의 중요한 분위기를 형성한다. 이란은 그에게 아름답지만 무겁고, 깊지만 우울한 땅이다.

여정 중 그들은 밤에 습격을 받는다. 발루치 약탈자들이 갑자기 총을 쏘고, 호위병 몇 명이 죽는다. 일행은 어둠 속에서 방향을 잃고 이동해야 하는데, 사막의 전신주를 따라가야 길을 찾을 수 있다. 그러나 호위병이 전선을 놓치고, 모두가 불안에 빠진다. 알리 아가는 분노하여 그를 모욕하지만, 곧 그 병사는 어둠 속으로 말을 달려 사라지고, 마침내 전신주를 다시 찾아낸다. 돌아온 병사에게 알리 아가는 곧바로 사과하고 입맞춤을 한다. 이 장면은 알리 아가의 성격을 잘 보여준다. 그는 충동적이고 귀족적이며 때로는 잔인할 정도로 거칠지만, 동시에 명예와 용기, 감정을 숨기지 않는 사람이다.

이후 아사드는 이란의 수도 테헤란과 바자르에 대한 기억으로 옮겨간다. 그는 테헤란의 시장을 동양 도시의 심장처럼 묘사한다. 바자르는 단순히 물건을 사고파는 곳이 아니다. 구리 세공, 직물, 향신료, 카펫, 미니어처 그림, 차집, 상인, 장인, 성직자, 거지, 군인, 귀족이 모두 뒤섞인 거대한 사회적 공간이다. 그는 바자르가 이란인의 영혼을 보여준다고 느낀다. 그곳은 오래된 질서와 쇠퇴, 아름다움과 가난, 세련된 예술감각과 침울한 정서가 동시에 흐르는 공간이다.

알리 아가는 이란에 대해 설명한다. 그는 이란이 늙었지만 아직 죽지는 않았다고 말한다. 여러 민족은 한때 번성했다가 사라졌지만, 이란인은 계속 살아남았다. 그 이유는 개미와 같기 때문이라고 한다. 이란인은 강자에게 정면으로 맞서지 않는다. 대신 통로와 구멍을 만들고, 조용히 움직이며, 기다리고, 때가 오면 구조물을 안에서부터 무너뜨린다. 이것은 약자의 생존술이자 오래된 문명의 지혜로 묘사된다. 아사드는 이 말을 통해 이란인의 정치적 본능, 의심, 인내, 우회적 저항을 이해하게 된다.

이어 아사드는 레자 칸, 곧 후일의 레자 샤를 회상한다. 알리 아가의 편지에서는 레자 샤가 터키의 케말 아타튀르크를 흉내 내어 단순함과 겸손을 버렸다고 비판된다. 그러나 아사드는 처음 만났던 레자 칸을 다르게 기억한다. 그는 한때 문맹에 가까운 군인이었지만, 강한 의지와 결단력, 개인적 용기를 가진 인물이었다. 그는 부패한 카자르 왕조와 무기력한 정치 상황 속에서 등장해 군대를 장악하고, 질서를 세우고, 국가를 개혁하려 했다. 아사드는 그에게서 거친 힘과 지도자의 에너지를 보았다.

하지만 레자 칸의 개혁은 점차 문제를 드러낸다. 그는 터키식 공화정을 꿈꾸었지만, 이란 사회와 종교적 정서를 제대로 이해하지 못했다. 터키에서는 아타튀르크의 세속 개혁이 일정한 역사적 조건 속에서 가능했지만, 이란에서는 샤 왕조와 시아파 정서, 전통적 종교질서가 다르게 작동했다. 레자 칸은 공화정 대신 왕정으로 방향을 바꾸었고, 결국 레자 샤 팔라비가 되었다. 아사드는 레자 칸이 처음에는 역사적 가능성을 가진 인물이었지만, 권력을 잡은 뒤에는 자기 민중과 점점 멀어졌다고 본다. 그의 근대화는 철도, 관청, 군대, 복장 개혁, 행정개편 등 외형적 성과를 낳았지만, 사람들의 마음과 문화, 종교적 감각을 깊이 이해하지 못했다.

아사드는 이란인의 우울함을 깊이 관찰한다. 그는 케르만샤를 처음 보았을 때부터 이란인의 눈에 멜랑콜리가 있다고 느꼈다. 가난, 아편, 오래된 피로, 체념, 조용한 슬픔이 거리와 차집, 시장 곳곳에 배어 있었다. 이란 사람들은 잘 웃지 않았고, 몸짓은 느렸고, 말은 낮았다. 그는 이 우울이 단순한 경제적 빈곤만의 결과가 아니라고 본다. 이란의 우울은 역사적 기억과 종교적 정서, 민족적 상처와 연결되어 있다.

이 장 후반은 시아파와 이란인의 집단정서에 대한 아사드의 긴 해석으로 이어진다. 그는 이란에서 떠돌이 더르비시가 카르발라의 비극, 후세인의 죽음, 알리와 하산·후세인의 고난을 노래하는 모습을 본다. 그 노래는 수니파인 아사드에게는 역사적으로 과장되고 신학적으로 동의하기 어려운 것이지만, 이란인들에게는 깊은 감정적 진실을 담고 있다. 그는 처음에는 왜 이 오래된 비극이 이토록 큰 감정을 불러일으키는지 이해하지 못한다. 그러나 점차 그는 이란인의 시아 정서가 단순한 교리 문제가 아니라, 아랍에게 정복당한 고대 페르시아의 상처와 연결되어 있다고 해석한다.

아사드의 해석에 따르면, 이란은 이슬람을 받아들였지만 그 과정은 단순한 기쁨의 개종이 아니었다. 사산조 페르시아는 아랍 무슬림에게 정복되었고, 이란인은 자신의 오래된 문명적 자부심이 무너지는 경험을 했다. 이슬람은 이란에 새로운 정신적 질서를 주었지만, 동시에 옛 문명의 단절과 굴욕도 남겼다. 이란인은 아랍의 종교를 받아들였으나, 그 아랍 정복자의 기억에 대한 반감을 무의식 속에 보존했다. 그래서 그들은 알리와 후세인의 비극을 통해 아랍 이슬람 내부의 반권력적·비극적 전통을 자신들의 정서와 결합시켰다고 아사드는 본다.

그는 시아파의 알리 숭배가 이란인의 민족적 복수감과 연결되었다고 해석한다. 수니파 입장에서 보면, 무함마드가 명시적으로 후계자를 지명하지 않았기 때문에 공동체의 자유로운 선택이 정당했다. 그러나 시아파는 알리와 그의 후손이 부당하게 배제되었다고 본다. 아사드는 이란인들이 이 교리를 통해, 자신들을 정복한 아랍 세계 안에서 다시 상징적 우위를 확보했다고 본다. 즉 알리와 후세인에 대한 사랑은 단순한 종교 감정이 아니라, 정복당한 민족의 깊은 상처와 저항이 종교적 언어로 바뀐 것이라는 해석이다.

이 장은 아사드의 이란관을 잘 보여준다. 그는 이란을 사랑하지만, 그 사랑은 아라비아에 대한 사랑과 다르다. 아라비아는 그에게 단순함, 태양, 사막, 일신교적 명료함의 세계다. 반면 이란은 음영, 슬픔, 기억, 우회, 예술, 오래된 문명의 피로가 있는 세계다. 그는 이란인의 영혼을 “멜랑콜리”로 본다. 이란인은 아름답고 예민하며 인내심이 깊지만, 동시에 상실과 원한의 기억을 품고 있다.

마지막에서 아사드는 다시 현재로 돌아온다. 알리 아가의 편지를 접고 떠나려 하지만, 아즈주가이비는 자이드를 남겨 이야기를 들려달라고 한다. 장은 다음 회상으로 이어질 준비를 하며 끝난다. 이 장은 제목 그대로 한 통의 “페르시아 편지”에서 시작하지만, 그 편지는 아사드의 내면에 저장된 이란 전체를 열어젖히는 열쇠가 된다. 편지는 단순한 소식이 아니라 기억의 문이다.

결국 이 장의 핵심은 이슬람 세계가 하나의 색깔이 아니라는 점이다. 메디나의 조화, 아라비아 사막의 단순성, 이란 바자르의 복잡성, 레자 샤의 근대화, 시아파의 비극적 정서가 한 장 안에 겹쳐 있다. 아사드는 이슬람을 사랑하지만, 그 내부의 역사적 차이와 민족적 감정도 예리하게 본다. <Persian Letter>는 그래서 여행기이면서 문명론이고, 회고이면서 이란 정신사에 대한 아사드식 명상이다.

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