Reminiscence from Persia- Part One: Qom-Mashhad bus!
I caught the bus in a funny manner… I was supposed to catch a 5 pm bus and arrived at Qom Bus station at 4 pm… I showed my ticket to one of the bus terminal employees… who boarded me on a 4 pm bus… I protested… My bus is due at 5pm… everybody- from the bus driver to the conductor- smiled… and said that it didn’t matter… and that 4 pm bus would ensure that I reach Mashhad early morning.
I got a seat in the rear end… beside a chubby gentleman… who turned out to be an Iraqi on Ziyarat (pilgrimage)… I was surrounded mostly by Iraqis and Hazaras… all on Ziyarat…
Qom and Mashhad are the two most sacred Shiite sights in Iran… Qom for its Fatimah al-Masumeh mosque and Jamkaran Mosque… and Mashhad for Imam Reza shrine… so naturally any bus plying between the two places is bound to be full of pilgrims. And so was my bus…
I struck conversation with the Iraqi gentleman… in Arabic… for last few days I had been speaking Persian… I am not a natural polyglot… and speaking in Arabic came with a lot of difficulty… I kept on forgetting pronouns, syntax, verb-conjugations… it is very difficult to imagine but Arabic and Persian are as different as chalk and cheese… and the only fact that binds them is Islam… due to which a lot of Arabic words have found place in Persian…
The Iraqi gentleman was accompanied by his aging mother and wife… they all were on pilgrimage… Iraq has about 40 percent of Shiite population… and till the American invasion; Shias lived under persecution… and have found a new voice only recently.
Shias despite their low numbers- have seen a kind of rejuvenation… power in Iraq and Lebanon to add to the already strengthened position in Syria… more say in Afghanistan and Bahrain… some say this is sponsored by aggressive policies of Iran.
The Iraqi gentleman was an extremely affable person… he offered me a portion from his lunch and was pleasantly surprised with the fact that I could speak a wee bit of Arabic… in fact while speaking to him- by and by- I could remember more and more of Arabic words and could speak to him even further.
I tried to find out if Iraqi Shias also revere Ayatollah Khomeini… and came to realize that Iraqis have their own Ayatollah Ali Sistani… there are a few subtle differences between the Iranian and Iraqi Shias… Iraqi Shias, as a matter of fact, are closer to Arabs living in Iran in South-West Region… places like Ahvoz etc…
One thing led to another and I realized that even in Iran… different places have different Ayatollahs… Shiraz, Mashhad and other places have their own Ayatollahs… and the structures of hierarchy are not as rigid as I expected them to be…
Iran has been an eye-opener in many other respects… some of which I already knew and therefore anticipated… and some which I didn’t know… and therefore was taken by surprise…
The Iraqi gentleman asked me if I was a Muslim… this, according to me, was an not-so-existential question in Iran… as it has been elsewhere in Islamic world… the majority of Iranians are relaxed about their religious identities and of the others… saying that one is a non-Muslim is never a big issue… no suggestions that a non-Muslim is wading his way in darkness… and is a qafir, a non-believer… it perhaps has something to do with the history of Iran… of having seen the first monotheistic religion… of seeing the first historically recorded prophet… Zoroastrianism and Zoroaster… the only thing which actually refrained it from becoming a religion of the books was- perhaps- lack of mention in the Quran… and had it been the case… it could have got elevated to the same status as of Judaism and Christianity…
Recorded history suggests that Iranian, though generally welcoming to the new religion of Islam, also tried their best to preserve their Zoroastrian heritage… the Zoroastrian kings were named as history-less kings in Juda-Islamic history… and therefore preserved.
Thus elsewhere I posed as a Hindu, Buddhist and sometimes as a Aatish-parast (a Zoroastrian)… at different occasions… somewhere at the back of my mind was the fact that Shia and Sunni are sworn enemies… and posing as a Muslim and then not passing off as a Shia (about which I knew very little) could be counter-productive… and mind you in Iran it does… like it does elsewhere in Sunni world, where many a times… Shias are considered not only non-Muslims but worse… a heretic sect.
This was my last chance to test the waters… I said I was a Muslim- not a Shia but a Sufi (which in many ways I am)… the Iraqi gentleman knew, henceforth, that I am not a Shia… something unknown for him… a Sufi… but not a Shia, nonetheless… but the warmth didn’t go… at the end of the journey… in Mashhad… he hugged me… and thanked me for helping him out at times…
The help… which I provided him… was something of an experience for me… an experience I am not likely to forget ever…
Iranians don’t know Arabic… and yet some of them know a few words here and there… to help the Arabs who visit Iran for pilgrimage… in fact when I first landed in Mashhad… I saw an aero plane of Saudi Airways… and met at the immigration counter hordes of Arabs from Dammam… the eastern Saudi Arabia, which is Shia-majority, though overall a marginalized minority in Saudi Arabia…
The Iraqi gentleman was having problems while communicating with the bus executive… he wanted to stop the vehicle because his wife was feeling nauseated… I came in and told the bus executive in Persian about the problem and the bus came to stop by a roadside mosque…
Later due to my language skill… I came much in demand… translating Arabic to broken Persian… and Persian to broken Arabic… from Arabs to the Iranians and Afghans… this was a numbing moment… a Hindu from India was a linking pin between Iranians and Arabs and Afghan… I am not likely to ever forget the experience…
I am also not likely to forget the surreal Salt Lake which one sees on the Qom-Mashhad road… miles and miles of it… it’s a beautiful sight.
Morning, I found myself in Mashhad… the place from where it all begun.
I got a seat in the rear end… beside a chubby gentleman… who turned out to be an Iraqi on Ziyarat (pilgrimage)… I was surrounded mostly by Iraqis and Hazaras… all on Ziyarat…
Qom and Mashhad are the two most sacred Shiite sights in Iran… Qom for its Fatimah al-Masumeh mosque and Jamkaran Mosque… and Mashhad for Imam Reza shrine… so naturally any bus plying between the two places is bound to be full of pilgrims. And so was my bus…
I struck conversation with the Iraqi gentleman… in Arabic… for last few days I had been speaking Persian… I am not a natural polyglot… and speaking in Arabic came with a lot of difficulty… I kept on forgetting pronouns, syntax, verb-conjugations… it is very difficult to imagine but Arabic and Persian are as different as chalk and cheese… and the only fact that binds them is Islam… due to which a lot of Arabic words have found place in Persian…
The Iraqi gentleman was accompanied by his aging mother and wife… they all were on pilgrimage… Iraq has about 40 percent of Shiite population… and till the American invasion; Shias lived under persecution… and have found a new voice only recently.
Shias despite their low numbers- have seen a kind of rejuvenation… power in Iraq and Lebanon to add to the already strengthened position in Syria… more say in Afghanistan and Bahrain… some say this is sponsored by aggressive policies of Iran.
The Iraqi gentleman was an extremely affable person… he offered me a portion from his lunch and was pleasantly surprised with the fact that I could speak a wee bit of Arabic… in fact while speaking to him- by and by- I could remember more and more of Arabic words and could speak to him even further.
I tried to find out if Iraqi Shias also revere Ayatollah Khomeini… and came to realize that Iraqis have their own Ayatollah Ali Sistani… there are a few subtle differences between the Iranian and Iraqi Shias… Iraqi Shias, as a matter of fact, are closer to Arabs living in Iran in South-West Region… places like Ahvoz etc…
One thing led to another and I realized that even in Iran… different places have different Ayatollahs… Shiraz, Mashhad and other places have their own Ayatollahs… and the structures of hierarchy are not as rigid as I expected them to be…
Iran has been an eye-opener in many other respects… some of which I already knew and therefore anticipated… and some which I didn’t know… and therefore was taken by surprise…
The Iraqi gentleman asked me if I was a Muslim… this, according to me, was an not-so-existential question in Iran… as it has been elsewhere in Islamic world… the majority of Iranians are relaxed about their religious identities and of the others… saying that one is a non-Muslim is never a big issue… no suggestions that a non-Muslim is wading his way in darkness… and is a qafir, a non-believer… it perhaps has something to do with the history of Iran… of having seen the first monotheistic religion… of seeing the first historically recorded prophet… Zoroastrianism and Zoroaster… the only thing which actually refrained it from becoming a religion of the books was- perhaps- lack of mention in the Quran… and had it been the case… it could have got elevated to the same status as of Judaism and Christianity…
Recorded history suggests that Iranian, though generally welcoming to the new religion of Islam, also tried their best to preserve their Zoroastrian heritage… the Zoroastrian kings were named as history-less kings in Juda-Islamic history… and therefore preserved.
Thus elsewhere I posed as a Hindu, Buddhist and sometimes as a Aatish-parast (a Zoroastrian)… at different occasions… somewhere at the back of my mind was the fact that Shia and Sunni are sworn enemies… and posing as a Muslim and then not passing off as a Shia (about which I knew very little) could be counter-productive… and mind you in Iran it does… like it does elsewhere in Sunni world, where many a times… Shias are considered not only non-Muslims but worse… a heretic sect.
This was my last chance to test the waters… I said I was a Muslim- not a Shia but a Sufi (which in many ways I am)… the Iraqi gentleman knew, henceforth, that I am not a Shia… something unknown for him… a Sufi… but not a Shia, nonetheless… but the warmth didn’t go… at the end of the journey… in Mashhad… he hugged me… and thanked me for helping him out at times…
The help… which I provided him… was something of an experience for me… an experience I am not likely to forget ever…
Iranians don’t know Arabic… and yet some of them know a few words here and there… to help the Arabs who visit Iran for pilgrimage… in fact when I first landed in Mashhad… I saw an aero plane of Saudi Airways… and met at the immigration counter hordes of Arabs from Dammam… the eastern Saudi Arabia, which is Shia-majority, though overall a marginalized minority in Saudi Arabia…
The Iraqi gentleman was having problems while communicating with the bus executive… he wanted to stop the vehicle because his wife was feeling nauseated… I came in and told the bus executive in Persian about the problem and the bus came to stop by a roadside mosque…
Later due to my language skill… I came much in demand… translating Arabic to broken Persian… and Persian to broken Arabic… from Arabs to the Iranians and Afghans… this was a numbing moment… a Hindu from India was a linking pin between Iranians and Arabs and Afghan… I am not likely to ever forget the experience…
I am also not likely to forget the surreal Salt Lake which one sees on the Qom-Mashhad road… miles and miles of it… it’s a beautiful sight.
Morning, I found myself in Mashhad… the place from where it all begun.
