Farewell Shiraz: An Iranian Memoir of Revolution and Exile

PROLOGUE

Cairo, October 1999

The taxi smelled of dust, petrol, and stale tobacco, a jumble of aromas to match the confused sounds issuing from the car’s radio, the rhythm of Arabic music barely discernible above the static. Driving me was Sayed, a middle-aged Egyptian with frizzy gray hair and dark eyes. For a moment he studied me in the rearview mirror. You Inglisi? he asked. I am half-Persian and half-French but was born in America, I replied. The driver looked surprised.

So you are Irani? he asked with a raised eyebrow. My height and European features did not strike him as typically Iranian. You could say that I am an exile, I said, grinning. My driver frowned, confused but rather satisfied, when he learned that I lived in London and was here on a short visit. Where do you want to go? he asked, lighting a cigarette. To a mosque, I said, absentmindedly unfolding my map. We have many beautiful ones. . . . Which one do you want to see? Sayed asked, exhaling smoke.

I leaned forward, coughing. Do you know the Rifa‘i Mosque, next to the Sultan Hassan? The driver’s eyes lit up. He turned the radio off and said, Of course I know! Shah is there. . . . I take you now? I nodded pensively. Yes . . . yes, please, I whispered. My jubilant taxi driver took to the wheel and off we went. There was an admirable and terrifying quality in the way he navigated his ramshackle vehicle through the potholed streets. Through the intense brightness I observed the lively crowds in the spice and fruit markets, the laughing children, the old men playing backgammon or smoking their hookahs. Even in autumn the sun could be hot. I rolled down the side window to let in some air.

Everything, even the smells, was disarmingly foreign yet oddly familiar, enough to remind me of my childhood in pre-revolutionary Iran, a time when life had seemed simple and blissful. During the bumpy ride I kept thinking of what had led me to this, the dust and the traffic, all the chaos of eternal Cairo. Ostensibly I had come to write an article for an émigré newspaper on the Rifa‘i Mosque, where the last emperor of Iran lay buried. In reality I had a sentimental reason to visit this place. Since leaving my homeland at the age of sixteen in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution I had traveled the world, but now, aged thirty-six, here I was in a strange land, coming full circle to face the past.

The taxi sped along the Nile Corniche and entered the crowded labyrinth at the Khan al-Khalili Bazaar. Weaving slowly through the traffic we headed toward Midan al-Qala, adjacent to the Citadel, and finally found ourselves outside the Rifa‘i Mosque with its immense walls that stretched upward from the rising heat, the minarets wavering dizzily against the sky like arms lifted toward heaven. Removing my sunglasses, I blinked as my gaze climbed above them. Sayed straightened in his leather seat. Amazing place, yes? he asked proudly. Stunning, I gasped, as my shoes scraped the uneven, baked sidewalk.

Hurriedly I made my way alongside the imposing walls. A lizard darted across the courtyard. Having lived in the west for so long, I was unaccustomed to the infernal heat. My clothes felt sticky and sweat beaded on my forehead. I climbed the wide, stony steps. By the entrance of the mosque stood a holy man, his head bowed in silent meditation. He reminded me of the wandering dervishes of Iran. As custom dictated, I removed my shoes. Then I entered the dim, hushed interior of the mosque. Despite the humidity, the stone floor was cool and soothing under my feet.

A sense of excitement—anticipation tinged with apprehension—engulfed me. I glanced around with wonder, taking in the dome above and the exquisitely detailed marble inlays. A young lad approached me with a confident smile: You want guide? I am Hani. I accepted. He obviously made a living showing Iranians around the place. The boy led me toward an intricately latticed partition. We entered a vast, empty prayer hall covered with rows of red, blue, and cream silk Persian carpets.

Walking through the lengthy hall we passed the derelict tombs of Egypt’s former royal family. To my left a tall door stood half-open, tantalizing. For a moment I paused, as if what lay beyond was something forbidden, even supernatural. Hesitantly, I stepped inside. Scrolled across the multicolored splendor of the marbled walls were Quranic verses in gold calligraphy. In the near-empty room, a raised plinth, which looked absurdly simple amid such finery, lay in one corner, beneath an Imperial Iranian flag. It was almost noon and soon the call of the muezzin would fill my ears.

A mosque attendant in flowing robes strode across the expansive room and pushed open a large window. Sunlight turned the expanse of green stone to a pale jade. I stood over the tombstone. Emblazoned upon its surface was the Pahlavi crest and a pair of lions facing each other, with raised swords. Here lay Mohammad Reza Shah, the King of Kings, Light of the Aryans. Was this all that remained of his Great Civilization? There was something about this place that evoked strong emotions, long supressed.

I felt overwhelmed by the shadow of the past, as though the emperor’s restless ghost were everywhere: in the walls, in the floor, in the air I breathed. Kneeling down, I lit an orange-scented candle, placed one hand on the royal tombstone, and recited a short prayer for the soul of my late king. After the fall of my country to Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters there was a lot to reflect upon when considering Mohammad Reza Shah’s place in history, his achievements, and his failures. With his demise, Iran and my life had changed forever. It was Hani who proudly reminded me how the late President Sadat had stood by his friend at a time when the world had turned its back on him.

When, at the end of eighteen months of exile, the deposed Shah of Iran passed away in a hospital overlooking the Pyramids, it seemed that all of Cairo had attended his state funeral, which began at the Abdin Palace and ended three miles away at the Rifa‘i Mosque where, two decades later, his mortal remains now lay in a temporary burial chamber. The sense of peace and contemplation that filled me was suddenly interrupted by a group of noisy tourists and a handful of expatriate Iranians taking souvenir photographs and placing wreaths of flowers in the room.

The midday prayers, amplified by speakers, resonated throughout the mosque. When it was over, Hani followed me toward the exit, where the holy man I had spotted earlier was limping toward me on his crutches. I offered him alms but to my surprise he refused. Hani tried to explain to me that the old man was a member of a Sufi order. The man looked at me with searching eyes then said something in Arabic. I looked at Hani and he quickly translated: Nobody should be buried away from the land of his birth. Inshallah, your shah will one day be reburied in Iran. On that day you will find your country again.

Outside, Sayed gestured at me through the sunshine and I got back into the taxi. As we drove away in a cloud of dust I shut my eyes, but despite the intense fatigue, many years of accumulated memories and emotions swept through my mind. Unanswered questions echoed in my head but the loudest was, How had our country been lost? Leaving the Rifa‘i Mosque behind, I felt ready to face the past with greater objectivity and an intensified passion to uncover the truth. In doing so I wanted to exorcise what I could only term a Persian tragedy with its share of heroes and villains.

There was, of course, no way of knowing at the time that in attempting to find the answers to my questions and reconstructing events, I was embarking upon a ten-year odyssey, both personal and historic. Along the way I would meet a varied cast of exiles and witnesses to the fall of the shah and would be forced to confront all that had been forsaken: a way of life, my lost youth, and unfulfilled dreams and aspirations for my homeland. Maybe this was the only way to find closure. Upon arriving in front of my hotel in downtown Cairo, I got out of the taxi and paid my driver.

I hope you find what you are looking for, Sayed said before driving away. When he had gone I looked up. High above me was the blue sky with that distinctive quality of light so unique to the Mediterranean and Near East. On that hot afternoon everything came into focus. A welcoming breeze shook the dusty leaves of a solitary tree. The words of the dervish resonated through my heart and soul: You will find your country again.

Near my hotel was a shop, filled with tiny yellow and red birds in gold and wooden cages trilling without a care in the world. It had been a fulfilling day but inside me something had been unlocked. I realized that despite the years of soul-searching I had not been able to properly mourn all that had been lost. Nostalgia for a forgotten world and my beloved city of Shiraz flooded my senses.

CHRONOLOGY

Part 1

Of Things Past

1

ROSES AND NIGHTINGALES

There are times when I dream of Shiraz. It happens whenever it rains in London, Paris, or any other city I may be in. How can I forget this city where cypresses stand tall, straight, and dense against a blue, cloudless sky; where the roses, splendid and fragrant, are serenaded by the nightingales? Then I remember him. As a child I was entirely under his spell. Every morning, after performing his ablutions, uttering his Muslim prayers, and shaving, my paternal grandfather would ask me to sit beside him on the Qashqai rug and choose a book from the pile on the floor. Excited, I would rummage through his collection, discarding each and every volume except for one superbly bound illustrated copy of the Shahnameh , the epic Book of Kings.

Containing sixty thousand verses and written a thousand years ago by the immortal Iranian poet Ferdowsi, this masterpiece had taken thirty years to compose. Every line was meant to evoke national pride in Iran’s past glories before the Arab conquest of Persia. As I opened the book, my young eyes would devour the miniature pictures. Here and there I would spot a king or a prince seated on a magnificent horse. There were queens and princesses in silk robes and jewels. On another page a brave warrior battled with a horned monster. Elsewhere I marveled at doomed lovers drinking wine from cups of gold, carousing in a rose-filled garden under the silver moon and a flowing stream.

Still in his white cotton pajamas, Mohammad Kadivar would put on his thick glasses and take me on a magical literary adventure. Mesmerized by my grandfather’s voice, which was husky with the pathos and power of the verses he recited, I would listen intently as he recounted the mythical tales and rattled off the names of the proud and good King Jamshid and Zahak, the evil prince who banished him; the daring blacksmith Kaveh and his battle to save Persia from dark forces. I heard the names of the colossal warrior Rostam and his son Sohrab. There was also a phoenix-like bird called Simorgh who could carry a camel or an elephant on its giant wings. My grandfather always spoke in Farsi so that his grandson, a Persian–French boy from Minneapolis, would one day understand the meaning of being an Iranian. Barely four years old, I was instantly drawn to all those vivid images.

The Persian word for ‘grandfather’ is ‘Baba Bozourgh,’ but from the very beginning the middle-aged man reading to me was called Papi Kouchik. It would be years before I understood and absorbed the rich heritage of my country. There were other books too, with roses and nightingales painted on their covers honoring the eternal poets. Typical of his generation, my grandfather was a devotee of the Shirazi bards: Hafez and Saadi, treasured for their celebration of earthly pleasures. He could quote abundant verses by heart. To impress his wife he would scribble one of his latest poems on paper, folding it carefully before asking me to deliver it to my unsuspecting grandmother at breakfast time, when the family sat down at the table on the veranda.

An Iranian breakfast, or sobhaneh, as my grandmother called it, was a simple affair: warm flatbread, butter, quince jam, honey, walnuts, feta cheese, mint leaves, and tea. My grandfather always sipped his black tea in a tiny glass with a lump of sugar between his teeth, and I tried to imitate him. Then he would wink at me. That, I knew, was the signal to pass the note to my grandmother. Tugging gently at her dress, I would sheepishly hand her the secret message. Mamie Kouchik would blush. Shaking her head in mock exasperation she would roll her eyes and declare: God save us . . . when will this old man act his age? Suppressing a giggle, she would put away the love poem in her purse.

Strange that I never saw my grandparents kiss. Instead Mamie Kouchik would hand me a pink rose she had cut from our small garden or write a few humorous lines for her husband and whisper: Go give this to Agha joon. Papi Kouchik would read the note and crack up laughing, and reward me with a sticky pistachio nougat he kept in his breast pocket. These loving exchanges often masked the sadness and regret my grandparents had for having left Shiraz so many years ago. As residents of modern Tehran, a rapidly growing metropolis laden with a vast population, heavy traffic, and smog, they appreciated Shiraz for her perfect climate—high elevation, invigorating air, dazzling sun, and cool night breezes from the purple-tinted Zagros Mountains rimming the city. Nobody really disagreed with them.

That summer of 1966, my Iranian grandparents had come to Shiraz to help my thirty-six-year-old father, a western-trained surgeon, and his French wife and two sons to settle down in their rented house. Mamie Kouchik, an olive-skinned woman with a penetrating stare and wrinkled face, had volunteered to initiate my mother into Persian life and was unable to separate herself from my baby brother. My grandfather often took me out on his daily morning walk. Holding his hand I would step out of the two-story house located on Behbahani Street and head down with my grandfather to Ferdowsi Street.

On the leafy Rudaki Street we would stroll beneath the trees, relishing the quiet neighborhood and the old, graceful buildings. There was a kiosk on a street corner where Papi Kouchik often stopped for a few minutes to glance at the newspaper headlines. Usually, if I behaved, Papi Kouchik would treat me to a faloodeh ice cream or buy me chewing gum from one of the street urchins. On the shaded sidewalk along the lengthy Zand Boulevard we admired the boutiques and arcades, modern hotels, bookshops, cafés, and movie theaters with names like Capri and Persepolis.

Once we took a taxi to the zoo and watched the caged peacocks, monkeys, and a sleepy lion. There was also a circus performer dressed as a Persian Hercules in a leopard-skin outfit who impressed children and their parents by bending iron bars. Further down on a hill, commanding an entrancing view of the city, was a splendid garden housing the renovated tomb of the poet Hafez. My grandfather enjoyed bringing me here, where birdsong and the hum of insects filled my senses. The dust and scent of roses tickled my nose. More like a pleasure park than a burial ground, this well-kept garden attracted people of all ages. They came to recite sonnets, sing, and drink, dancing to the sound of music.

In the Hafezieh we would cool down in the shade of an open-air dome held up by eight columns. My grandfather would open a small book of Hafez’s poems and murmur a few lines while one hand caressed the marble tombstone of that great wise man who lay below. I did not know at the time that the name Hafez means He who has memorized the Quran by heart. Born in 1320, Hafez wrote five hundred verses in his lifetime. Twice he was chased out of Shiraz by the Muslim orthodoxy for being a corrupting influence on the youth. Long after his death in 1388 he remained a worldly and enduring symbol of love and free thinking.

Behind the poet’s resting place was an orange grove and a well-kept cemetery. After offering prayers for the souls of the forty mystics, scholars, and other notables of Shiraz who lay buried in the sacred ground, Papi Kouchik would take me to another spectacular garden.

The locals and tourists who came to this place liked to pose for pictures in front of the Saadi Mausoleum, a white octagonal structure designed by the French architect André Godard. The tombstone of this humanist poet was of polished marble and embellished by Iranian artisans with famous verses. There was also a rectangular pool where on my first visit I threw a rial coin at the fish, wishing that my grandfather would live forever. On the way back we stopped at a bakery to buy our oven-baked bread with names like barbari, sangak, taftoon, and lavash, samples hanging from nails. From there we went to the popular Rudaki market where Papi Kouchik selected the best fruits and vegetables from the stalls before we hurried back home to avoid the invading heat.

At noon, the family gathered upstairs in the dining room and tucked into a Persian feast prepared in our dark kitchen by Roghayeh, a cheerful young woman my grandmother had brought with her from Tehran. In a muted atmosphere we filled our bellies with saffron rice, kebabs, and delicious stews such as fesenjan, bademjan, and khoresht ghormeh sabzi. There were bowls of yogurt seasoned with garlic, raisins, and shredded cucumbers. I loved the crispy tadiq rice scraped from the bottom of the pot. In the heat of the summer we quenched our thirst and washed down our food with ice-cold water poured from glass pitchers. Later, while Roghayeh cleared the dishes, everyone disappeared into their rooms for their afternoon siestas.

Unable to do the same, my mother would find a corner in the house to peruse her magazines or write long letters to her parents in Paris describing her experiences. In the late afternoons, when the sun’s rays gently faded away, the entire household would migrate to the courtyard next to a patch of lawn and a sad-looking rosebush. Roghayeh would serve us tea in tiny silver estekans while I leaned happily on a square cushion with my grandfather, who would hand me an apricot or peel me a large, juicy orange with his pocketknife. Other times we enjoyed slices of watermelon and sipped refreshing sharbat, drinks made of crushed ice and syrup. We usually sat on garden chairs and reclined on wooden benches covered with tribal kilims.

My grandfather loved telling stories. He constantly enthralled us by sharing memories of a way of life that no longer existed. Mamie Kouchik would dry her tears with the corner of her white chador. Other times she produced old photographs from her handbag. I would stare at them, fascinated and blissfully unaware of their significance, even if I realized that they evoked a different age. I thrived on such moments when everyone around me conversed in Persian, French, and English. Like all families we had our own folklore, repeated and embellished until it became part of the tapestry of our lives.

2

Land of Fars

In the rose-scented courtyard of our house where all the family stories were told, I had no inkling of the tumultuous times that my grandparents had endured. My paternal grandfather considered himself a Shirazi even though he originated from Fasa, a town near Shiraz, the capital of Fars Province, homeland of the ancient Persians and the great kings Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes. At the time of Aminollah Khan, my paternal great-grandfather, Fasa was a spacious market town with buildings made of mud and cypress wood. It had a citadel, a moat, and four arched gates.

Within the walls lived ten thousand people, most of them engaged in working the land and animal husbandry. Water for farming and drinking in the Fasa region was supplied by the qanats, underground channels, deep wells, and a few natural springs. Aminollah Khan had made his fortune selling fruits—dates, mountain figs, pears, and almonds—and also fine horses to Jahrom and Shiraz. As a prosperous landowner he owned several of the forty nearby villages. In those days, landed notables controlled many parts of the country, and Russia and Britain were the key outside players in Persian politics, but in 1905, when Aminollah’s wife Bibi Khanoum gave birth to their youngest son Mohammad, Persia was in the throes of a revolution. The news from Tehran was that Mozaffareddin Shah, the reigning Qajar ruler, was facing a rebellion.

This was no ordinary upheaval, for it was led by progressive nobles, members of the intelligentsia, bazaar merchants, and senior clerics. Demonstrations were held demanding an end to the king’s expensive trips to Europe, foreign loans, oil concessions, and the court’s extravagance. The government’s financial crisis was made worse by acute inflation brought on by a bad harvest, nearby war, and a cholera epidemic. The spark of Iran’s 1905–1907 Constitutional Revolution was the decision by the unpopular grand vizier of Tehran to order the public flogging of three merchants accused of fixing the price of sugar. Riots spread through the bazaars. In June 1906, two of Tehran’s most respected clerics led a protest of seminary students to Qom and threatened to stop the country’s religious services unless Mozaffareddin Shah gave in to their economic demands and established a House of Justice. In the same week twelve thousand protesters took refuge from the government’s troops inside the vast garden housing the British legation in Tehran and camped in other major cities such as Tabriz, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Shiraz. Sermons, newspapers, and leaflets galvanized public opinion. On August 5, 1906, bowing to his people’s will, Mozaffareddin Shah signed the royal proclamation to hold nationwide elections for a Constituent Assembly, which subsequently drew up an electoral law for the forthcoming Majles, or parliament. The Majles opened in October 1906 and drew up the constitution, which transformed the absolute monarch into a figurehead. Mozaffareddin ratified the constitution in December 1906. He died in January 1907 at his palace in Niavaran.

When Mohammad Ali Shah mounted the throne in January 1907 he tried to restore Qajar autocracy by abolishing the constitution. He was helped by the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention in 1907, which isolated the parliamentarians, and the backlash created by the Majles’s attempts at tax and secular reform, which angered royalists and sections of the clerical class. The shah’s contempt for the defiant parliamentarians was such that in the summer of 1908 he ordered the Russian colonel Vladimir Liakhov, the commander of the Persian Cossack Brigade, to shell the Majles building with his artillery. Many were killed and those arrested were brought in chains to the Golestan Palace. Tortured in the dungeon, they were later executed. Reports of their deaths were telegraphed to Tabriz, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Shiraz.

Soon the country was being torn apart as royalists and constitutionalists fought each other in a bitter civil war. Like many other provinces, Fars was not immune to the spreading disturbances. In Shiraz, where Aminollah Khan often did business, tensions were running high after Mohammad Reza Qavam, the governor of Shiraz, also known by his official title Qavam ol-Molk, pledged support for the shah. The Qavam family were among the most influential political and trading families in Fars, with strong links to the British. They had played a key role in the eighteenth century in ending the Zand Dynasty and bringing Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar to power. After the transfer of the capital from Shiraz to Tehran, the failing fortunes of the Qavams during the successive Qajar monarchs—Fath Ali, Nassereddin, and Mohammad—were revived, thanks to British support.

In 1907, attempts by the Qavam ol-Molk to enforce his authority in Shiraz led to a revolt, with his opponents taking refuge in the Shah Cheraq Mosque and attacking the Karim Khan Zand Citadel with several thousand Lur tribesmen armed with muskets. That October, the prince governor-general of Fars, Nezam-es-Saltaneh, fled to Isfahan. The following year the Qavam tried to broker a truce with his enemies at his Narenjestan Palace. While strolling among the sour-orange trees and palms, Qavam was shot four times by a constitutionalist, who later turned the revolver on himself. The Qavam’s assassination led to more unrest and bloodshed. Major landowners, like Aminollah Khan, my paternal great-grandfather, feared the loss of their lands and privileges if the constitutionalists won. My great-grandfather was careful not to take sides. But when law and order broke down, Aminollah Khan was forced to raise a private militia to protect his family and estates.

His brave wife Bibi Khanoum was equal to any man when it came to handling a rifle. She was reputed to have shot four bandits during a raid on the family ranch in Fasa. She was also a fortuneteller. What she saw in the coffee cup filled her with dread. In 1908, Prince Zil-es-Sultan, the shah’s cruel and vain uncle and ruler of Isfahan, added Fars to his domain with Shiraz under his protection. Hundreds of captured constitutionalists were paraded through the bazaar to the main square. Some were flogged to death. Others had their eyes gouged out. There were beheadings and amputations. Many were executed by hanging or firing squad, hurled from the citadel’s tower, or blown away with cannon shots.

In July 1910, when my grandfather was five, constitutionalist forces, led by the powerful Bakhtiari khans and other tribal chieftains, rode from the south, west, and north of Tehran and captured the capital. Mohammad Ali Shah fled to Odessa. The constitution was restored, and Mohammad Ali Shah’s twelve-year-old son, Ahmad Shah, was put on the throne. Ahmad Shah’s uncle, Azod ol-Molk, was named regent. When the Second Majles convened in late 1910, the weak central government was still in serious financial straits, but it lacked the means to collect tax revenue or impose order outside the country’s urban centers.

From early childhood my grandfather was aware that beyond the sheltered life provided by his parents was a dangerous world. He was nine when the First World War broke out, turning Fars into a battleground between Germany and Great Britain. During this period one of the Kaiser’s agents, Wilhelm Wassmuss, ousted Habibollah Qavam ol-Molk, the new governor of Shiraz, and took Sir Frederick O’Connor, the British consul, and the Shiraz colony hostage. His attempts to stir up the Qashqai and Tangestani tribesmen in southwest Persia against the British was a failure.

Armed by the British, the Qavam ol-Molk was about to capture Shiraz with a hundred men when along the way he was killed after falling off his horse. Upon his death, his son Ebrahim Khan Qavam ol-Molk assumed the leadership of the Khamseh Confederation, which was made up of Persian, Turkic, and Arabic-speaking tribes, and entered the city as the new kalantar, or governor, of Shiraz. In the summer of 1918, while visiting Shiraz, Aminollah Khan witnessed a fierce power struggle between Sowlat Khan, the supreme chief of the powerful Turkish-speaking Qashqai clan, and Ebrahim Khan Qavam ol-Molk, then installed at his Narenjestan Palace and protected by his loyal tribesmen. Fighting had broken out when three thousand Qashqais invaded the town. For two days, a small British and Indian force known as the South Persia Rifles under the command of Colonel Percy Sykes put up a stiff fight against the Qashqais with Lewis guns. Qavam’s decision to send two thousand of his Khamseh warriors into the fray won the battle, leaving seven hundred Qashqai tribesmen dead and wounded. A defeated Sowlat Khan fled to the mountains.

The battle for Shiraz highlighted the volatile situation in Fars, which increased the pressure on Aminollah Khan. Each day life in Fasa became harder, and the instability in the country and the economic hardships took their toll. As he aged, my great-grandfather leaned more on his sons. Unfortunately, he couldn’t rely on his youngest offspring. Compared to Aminollah Khan, a tall, domineering man with piercing green eyes, my grandfather was short and pudgy with dark brown eyes. As a boy, his parents and three older brothers teased him incessantly by calling him kouchik, ‘small’ in Farsi. Mohammad was not cut out for the challenges of rural life. He adored his sister, who protected him from bullies.

A sensitive lad, Mohammad detested hunting. Although he liked riding horses, he was a poor shot on account of his bad eyesight. He could never watch the slaughtering of sheep, and the sight of blood made him ill. Nor did he show any interest in toiling on the farm or in poppy fields. Once, while picking dates at the top of a palm tree in his father’s plantation, my grandfather was attacked by wasps and nearly died after falling off. In a country of illiterates, his father was a self-taught man who had ensured his sons and even his daughter a solid education. All of his children were tutored at home instead of attending the madresseh, schools run by the mullahs. Mohammad enjoyed studying. He was always carrying a book under his arm, sitting in the garden memorizing classical poems, and dreaming of another life.

As he grew older, my grandfather fumed at the daily injustices and the brutal suppression of the peasantry by the feudal khans and landlords. Although the people of Fasa had once enjoyed a reputation for being open-minded and honest, they seemed steeped in ignorance and superstition. They were religious folks who resorted to special charms and magic verses to ward off the jinns, who were blamed for everything bad that happened to them, from sickness to natural disaster.

When my grandfather told his father that he planned to leave Fasa for Shiraz, Aminollah Khan did not object. He gave him money, the names of several people he knew, and his full blessing. That spring as the white blossoms appeared, the sixteen-year-old Mohammad went to a local shrine, or emamzadeh, and prayed for a safe journey. Hiring a horse cart and a coachman, he and a relative traveled over120 kilometers west along bumpy dirt roads, passing ravines and negotiating mountain passes in a land ravaged by famine, earthquakes, and bandits.

Along the route, my grandfather was shocked by what he witnessed: starving farmers and their families, burnt-out wheat and opium fields, damaged telegraph poles, and vultures picking at the animal carcasses rotting in the sun. A sense of relief came over him as his two-day journey came to an end. "Allahu akbar!" (God is greater!), the coachman cried out as the horses neared the city gates. Nestled at the bottom of a green valley and cradled by purple-brown mountains lay a city bathed in a hazy light. Mohammad stayed the night in a battered caravanserai. At daybreak he woke up to the sound of a bulbul, the Persian nightingale. After washing, he performed his namaz, or prayers, on a silk rug that his mother had given him.

Finishing his breakfast and tea, my grandfather and his cousin explored the town by foot. The young man from Fasa was instantly enchanted by the town with its patrician mansions, famous gardens, blue-tiled and bulbous mosques. He walked down a long avenue leading to a brick fortress and then toward the bazaar named after Karim Khan Zand, the benevolent despot who brought forty years of peace, tranquillity, and prosperity to large parts of Persia and his capital, Shiraz, where he was fondly remembered. As my grandfather progressed through a jumble of crooked streets the air reeked of dung, jasmine, and tuberoses. Behind the façade was a grim reality.

At his aunt’s house he learned that thousands of people in Shiraz had died in an influenza epidemic. Few people ventured out at night in case they were attacked by thugs and packs of wild dogs. Shirazis still lived in fear of the powerful warlords fighting for dominance. Once he had settled at the home of a relative, my grandfather enrolled at the Soltani High School. The town and the rest of the province were still unruly. The weakness and indolence of the Qajar shahs had led to corruption and stagnation. The central government was powerless, unable to collect taxes or impose order outside the capital, and manipulated by rapacious foreigners. The country’s wartime travails had also included bad harvests and epidemics, leading to starvation and death. Persia was ripe for a savior.

In February 1921 Reza Khan, a tough soldier who had fought in many wars against rebellious tribes and been promoted to colonel and later general as commander of the Persian Cossack Brigade, led a detachment of two thousand cavalrymen from Qazvin and seized Tehran in a military coup. Great Britain, eager to protect its oil assets in Khuzestan and the route to India, secretly welcomed a strong hand in a crumbling Persia to halt the spread of Bolshevism.

With the connivance and logistical support of General Edmund Ironside, the head of the British Expeditionary Force in Persia, Reza Khan moved boldly, dismissed the unpopular cabinet, and formed a new government under Seyyed Zia Tabatabaie, a Shirazi journalist and Anglophile. The young Ahmad Shah Qajar had no choice but to promote Reza Khan to minister of war and commander of the Persian Army, and by the following year, after the fall of Seyyed Zia, to prime minister. In 1924 the Fars Brigade, led by General Fazlollah Zahedi, arrived in Shiraz and established a base at Bagh-e Shah.

One spring day, as my grandfather made his way to the Dar al-Fonoon, or ‘House of Sciences,’ where he was studying law, he was almost run over by a speeding vehicle. In a flash he recognized the unmistakable figure of Reza Khan wearing his kepi and navy blue uniform, tapping his whip against the window. Persia’s strongman had come all the way from Tehran via Isfahan to inspect his officers and recruits. In the coffeehouses people whispered that Ahmad Shah Qajar had left his capital for the French Riviera. Soon afterward Reza Khan ordered General Fazlollah Zahedi and the well-equipped Fars Brigade to subdue the Qashqai, Bakhtiari, Lurs, and Arab tribes. The tribes fought bravely, but their Enfield rifles and horses were no match for the Maxim guns and armored cars of the Persian Army.

The powerful warlords, Sowlat Khan in Fars and Sheikh Khazal in Khuzestan, were captured and taken to Tehran as hostages. After an uneasy interregnum during which Reza Khan toyed with the idea of republicanism, Ahmad Shah was deposed by parliamentary vote in October 1925. The decision to keep the monarchy was supported by the elite, the powerful clergy, and the majority of Iranians, who feared a republic might provide grounds for further strife and disunity. On April 25, 1926, Reza Khan was crowned the new Shahanshah (King of Kings) in the Golestan Palace.

In a brief sermon, the imposing new king, with his six-year-old heir Mohammad Reza watching, vowed to rebuild the country and reawaken the noble Persian nation. To symbolize his desire both to associate himself with Persia’s past glories and to give a sense of legitimacy to his rule, Reza Shah chose the name Pahlavi, derived from the language spoken by the Achaemenids and the Sasanids. Thus, from now on the country would be ruled by a king of true Persian origin, unlike his Turkic predecessor. While all this was taking place, my grandfather was busy keeping up with his studies at law school. About this time Reza Shah appointed a new justice minister, Ali Akbar Davar.

My grandfather would later praise Davar, a European-educated man, for having set up a modern judicial system based on the French civil code. Lawyers, not mullahs, were in charge of registering all legal contracts and documents. Barbaric practices of amputating the hands of thieves and the stoning and lashing of women accused of adultery were banned. By 1927, when, at the age of twenty-one, my grandfather received his diploma, the country appeared to be enjoying a degree of stability.

In Fars, the newly formed gendarmerie, once under the control of Swedish officers, was in the hands of trained, patriotic Persian officers whose men had put an end to brigandage and lawlessness. Tiny white forts staffed by gendarmes were erected along the main roads, offering protection to travelers. With the countryside pacified, caravans bearing goods from the strategic port city of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf to Kazerun and Shiraz traveled unmolested. People credited Reza Shah with having set up a centralized government and an efficient bureaucracy. He attacked foreign influences but imported modern ways.

There was also now a major police force in every city, town, and village, and a highly disciplined army guarding the unstable and porous borders. Modernity and the past went hand in hand. Outside Shiraz, European and American archaeologists were busy digging up Persia’s forgotten empire. In 1928, Reza Shah and his nationalist officers visited the ancient ruins around Fars. Surveying the tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae and the colossal monuments at Persepolis, the hardened Pahlavi monarch was moved to tears. Turning to Ernst Herzfeld, a young German archaeologist excavating the Achaemenid sites, Reza Shah vowed to restore Persia to its former imperial glory.

3

Dream City

Grandfather Mohammad often reminded us that as a young man he had found scant entertainment in Shiraz. In this city of dreams the youth would roam the streets looking for something to do. Usually they would stare up at the night sky to watch the fireworks display on the shah’s birthday or attend the religious passion plays held during the holy month of Muharram. There were camel fights and horse races in the main square. Once, my grandfather attended the trial of a man accused of killing several prostitutes and burying them in his garden. Judged insane, he was sentenced to death. The prisoner was brought to the main square and offered a smoke and a slice of melon. A half-hour later he was swinging from the gallows as a mob cheered and distributed sweets.

On Thursdays my grandfather would visit the bathhouse, spending hours being washed and massaged before shopping at the Vakil Bazaar. On Fridays he went to pray at the Shah Cheraq Mosque. One spring day, during the Nowruz holidays, my grandfather went to the Hafezieh in the Musalla Gardens for a picnic. In those days the resting place of Hafez was a modest place in an unkempt garden. That afternoon, my grandfather met a poet and writer called Lotfali Suratgar. The two men shared a passion for Persian literature and became good friends. Suratgar was the son of a local artist and a few years older than my grandfather. A typical Shirazi, gregarious, free-spirited, and a bon vivant, Suratgar lived with his two sisters, taught classical poetry at a college, and edited a literary newsletter. He loved to joke.

One day, eager to show the serious Mohammad a good time, Suratgar took my grandfather to