Headlines

CULTURE-IRAN: Holy Month Reveals Schism Between Shiite Youth, State

Ramin Mostaghim

TEHRAN, Mar 10 2004 (IPS) - The holy month of Moharram, marked by ritual mourning, has highlighted a rift between official religious doctrine and young people who make up the large majority of this Shiite Islamic republic’s population.

The holy month of Moharram, marked by ritual mourning, has highlighted a rift between official religious doctrine and young people who make up the large majority of this Shiite Islamic republic’s population.

Contrary to the uniform and austere religion promoted by the state, young Iranians increasingly have turned to individual interpretations that allow them, for example, to express themselves through Western fashions and popular music.

The specific forms of expression and the energy with which young people pursue them might be unique to the current generation, but its members recognize that the act of balancing state doctrine with individual conscience is not new.

”My father, a pensioner and self-employed businessman, plays the piano, has an occasional alcoholic drink, says his prayers five times daily, and describes himself as a Muslim,” said Amin Mazaheri.

The 24-year-old chemical engineer and bachelor lives with his parents in a three-story building a few minutes’ walk from the Madar (mother) roundabout. The nouveau-riche area is named for the sculpture that dominates it, a structure consisting of a hollow trunk, a metal heart and a headscarf, and designed to symbolize an archetypal Islamic mother.

The neighbourhood, like the rest of Iran, has been observing Moharram. The first month of the Islamic year is marked not by celebratory festivals but by mourning for the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in Karbala (in present-day Iraq) some 14 centuries ago. Observances, including massive processions in which men flagellate themselves, peak on Ashura, the tenth day of the lunar month, which this year fell on Mar. 2.

”My friends and I lament and beat our chests gently during the first ten days of the mourning month of Moharram and listen to rhythmic lamentations while we go riding in our cars,” said Amin, speaking in his French-style decorated dinning room.

"When we were small kids in the first decade of the Islamic revolution, we did not feel like joining these sorts of mourning ceremonies but for the past few years, the Heia’t (makeshift mosque) in our neighborhood has been our gathering place," he added.

”On the way to Heia’t, we exchange phone numbers with the young girls who bump into us on the pavement. For some of the young boys who fancy themselves as Muslims, it truly is a pick-up scene,” Amin said, adding that he regarded this as an insult to the holy month.

But Kambiz Pejman, 24, said he and the many girls who are among his friends saw no contradiction between the lamentation processions and the young crowd’s parallel "Hussain parties."

”I respect Imam Hussain and his companions who were martyred in Karbala,” he said as he looked over his shoulder in case vigilantes were eavesdropping. ”They were justice seekers from my point of view but commemorating him does not have to be at odds with fancying girls.”

As some tell it, young men who beat themselves on the chest and young women who wear trendy dresses and muted makeup are drawn to the processions increasingly by a desire to be seen and to be found appealing.

”By avoiding eye-catching makeup during these days I intend to show my tribute to the Karbala tragedy and Imam Hussain’s martyrdom but at the same time I am on the trail of the parade to see and to be seen. What is wrong with that?” said Farideh Agahi, 20, a student at Tehran Azad University, in the capital’s affluent northern district.

Over the years, new musical instruments, fashions, rhythms and eulogies have been incorporated into the mourning ceremonies in Tehran.

”Many things, such as drums, flutes and synthesizers, today are common but were unthinkable ten or 12 years ago," said shopkeeper Ali Hassani, 60.

Western couture is a relative newcomer, and it stands in stark contrast to Mader roundabout’s sculpture, which serves as a constant reminder of acceptable dress for Muslim women.

"For the first time, the new middle class mourning fashion almost spontaneously popped up in the aftermath of the Sep.11 tragedy,” said Nader Forghani, 35, who runs a boutique featuring the latest Italian and French fashions on the northern side of the roundabout. She was referring to the 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Since then, it has become common for the neighbourhood’s middle-class residents to descend on the roundabout for a candlelight vigil to mark the tenth of Moharram, Nader said.

The new ways enjoy sympathy from some older Iranians.

”People have rights to be Muslim or to worship their God in their own way,” said Hashem Navazi, 70, manager at an air conditioner repair shop near the roundabout. After all, he added: "I am Muslim but I do not feel like participating in elections in this so-called Islamic regime.”

Others have been less tolerant. Local media reported that vigilantes attacked participants in the Ashura candlelight vigil with iron bars and heavy chains. Some of Amin Mazaheri’s friends were among the victims.

"The vigilantes were about 15 to begin with but suddenly turned out to be around one hundred," Amin said. "I recognized some of them as my playmates from elementary school. That’s why I was not beaten up. They looked at me and shouted ‘run away’.”

”We are Muslims in our own way and I think our Islam has nothing to do with the established Islam advocated by the regime,” he added.

Sociologist Karamat Azimi, 60, said the vigilantes had misjudged the situation.

”Before the Islamic revolution, middle class and educated people used to convert covertly and overtly to different schools of thought such as Marxism, even various Islamic or Protestant Christian denominations. But nowadays, they try to individualize the official version of Islam,” Azimi said.

”By attacking these young fashionable mourners, nothing changes and the young people will be more agitated and come up with new approaches," he added.