Touba and the Meaning of Night

Afterword

Afterword So I said to the sage, What is the Touba tree, and where can I find it? He said, The Touba tree is an enormous tree. Whoever is marked out for Paradise, will see the tree when he goes there. Does it bear any fruit? I asked. And he replied, Any fruit you see in the world will be on that tree. —Sohrevardi, The Red Logos (6th century C.E.) It is only the story that can continue beyond the war and the warrior. It is only . . . the story that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence. The story is our escort. Without it we are blind. —Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (1987) Touba and Meaning of Night is the story of a country, a house, a legendary tree, and a woman, that all live, grow, and suffer together for over a hundred years. The country is Iran, and the woman is named Touba, after the tree of divine light and wisdom in Persian legend and lore. Rooted in paradise, it is said, the Touba tree spreads its 339 TOUBA030206.qxd 3/7/06 12:08 PM Page 339 branches over the house of the Prophet Mohammad and the homes of all the faithful. In Touba and the Meaning of Night, the title character is overwhelmed by the dream of reaching her legendary namesake , seeing its light, and embracing its wisdom. Her story is a spiritual quest. But at the same time, like the tree, the novel’s Touba has deep roots in the soil of her native land, and her story is also the story of Iran in a turbulent century of change. Two revolutions bookend the seemingly endless nights of Touba’s life story. Her tale that begins in the last decades of the nineteenth century , with the socio-political upheavals that culminate in the Constitutional Revolution of 1906–1911, ends with the Islamic Revolution of 1979—both events with far-reaching affects on the country’s social, political, and literary landscapes. Iran’s Constitutional Revolution , the first of its kind in the Islamic world, converted the country from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one, and reflected, among other things, its growing engagement with the West and modernity. The Islamic Revolution, encompassing a broad spectrum of ideas and objectives and reflecting diverse intellectual trends, social backgrounds, and political demands, put an end to the millennia -long monarchy and also represented a rejection of the Western influences and interests that had come to dominate in Iran. As Touba lives her long life in between the two revolutions, many important things happen in her country: The Constitutional Revolution set into motion a period of social and political unrest in Iran, as the shah, with aid from Russia, sought to reclaim power from the new parliamentary government, which would operate only sporadically in the subsequent decades. The incursion of Russian, British, and Ottoman troops into Iran during World War I was an extreme expression of the ongoing encroachment of foreign powers into Iranian territory and the Iranian economy and culture. Soon afterwards, the longstanding Qajar dynasty (1796–1925) was replaced in a coup by the Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979). The rule of the former military leader Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1925–1941), saw an acceleration of Iran’s assimilation into the Afterword 340 TOUBA030206.qxd 3/7/06 12:08 PM Page 340 world economy, a process begun in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. The commercialization of agriculture, a general shift from agriculture to industry, the introduction of capitalist modes of production, increased mobility across class lines and a growth in the middle class, and increasing contacts with the West, all propelled Iran’s social, political, and cultural spheres away from its past at a speed unprecedented in the country’s history. In tandem with these fundamental changes the struggle for women’s rights, begun before the Constitutional Revolution, developed and intensified. The movement was highly influenced by social reforms in neighboring countries such as Turkey, Egypt, India, and the Transcaucasian republics (Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia), as well as by European liberal ideas. The Constitutional Revolution, for which many women fought ardently, did not grant rights to women. It did, however , provide spaces within which women’s advocates could fight and achieve some rights, and they went on to found health clinics, public schools, and publications...