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SAIS Review 23.2 (2003) 217-220



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A Journey Beyond Stereotypes

Negin Nabavi


Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran, by Afshin Molavi. (London and New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2002). 315 pp. $26.

Two images are often associated with Iran in the popular Western media. The first is that of a repressed and stagnant society, a theocracy that rules according to anachronistic laws, and the second is that of a society characterized by what seems to be an almost unending power struggle between the so-called reformers and hard-liners. Afshin Molavi's book Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran is a thoughtful account illustrating that there is much more to Iran than these clichéd portrayals. His book is an attempt to go beyond the headlines and the politics of the moment in order to capture the culture and mood of a nation in all its complexity, a task that he accomplishes successfully.

An Iranian-born journalist, Molavi is in part inspired by Terence O'Donnell, an American writer who lived in Iran for some fourteen years in the 1950s and 1960s, who observed that the shrines that Iranians venerate are more often dedicated to saints and poets than to soldiers and politicians. Motivated also by his own impression that there was "more to the Iranian universe than the reformist-conservative power struggle," 1 Molavi decided to leave "a settled position with an international news agency" to travel across Iran, to find the "culture trail," and to write a book about "Iran and Iranians." In a sense, therefore, this book is more than a simple journalistic venture; it is also a journey of discovery for its author, who, far from being a detached observer, wants to make sense of the multi-layered richness of Iranian culture with all its seeming contradictions.

In fact, a prevalent theme that is underlined in much of the book is that of the multiple identities—in particular the Islamic and Iranian identities—that have developed side by side throughout Iranian [End Page 217] history. To this end, Molavi weaves past history and present realities quite skillfully. Thus, while broad descriptions of important turning points in Iranian history are included to serve as background for his observations, it is contemporary Iranian society that interests him most. It is by visiting a number of favorite pilgrimage destinations, ranging from that of Imam Reza, the eighth Shi'i Imam, to that of Ferdowsi, the tenth-century poet who immortalized pre-Islamic Iran by means of his epic, the Shahnameh or "Book of Kings," that Molavi depicts the diversity of contemporary Iranian culture.

Even though throughout much of the twentieth century there have been instances when intellectuals have wanted to emphasize one identity at the expense of another, (Ahmad Kasravi and Ali Shariati, to name but two influential intellectuals with diametrically opposed views), this book is often testimony to the fact that the Iranian and Islamic identities tend to be too intertwined for either one to be easily dismissed or discarded. Examples abound. Molavi reiterates the well-known account of the coming of Islam to Iran; how after the initial resistance, Iranians eventually make Islam their own, while maintaining their Persian culture and heritage. There are also the people who he meets: basijis, war veterans, and sympathizers with the conservative clerical establishment. And yet, far from the single-minded religious and ideological individuals that one would expect, they turn out to be much more complex and multi-faceted. Perhaps one of the more touching characters that Molavi encounters is the war veteran, Hossein, who continues to suffer from a "shattered shoulder," and who develops a sort of a bond with the author. In an attempt to explain why he volunteered to go to the battlefront three times in the course of the Iran-Iraq war, in spite of having suffered serious injuries, he states that it was not only because of his faith and the urge to defend the revolution, but also because he felt it his duty to safeguard "Iranian soil." 2 As Molavi is about to leave Iran, Hossein asks him not...

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