Qom, Iran, is a world
apart from the rest of the country. The world center for Shi’a education, Qom
is populated by seminarians and clerics; devotion to study of Qur’an is the way
of life. The fundamentalist clerics who have ruled Iran since the revolution
were all educated in Qom and Ayatollah Khomeini based his opposition to the
Pahlavi dynasty from there.
The women of Qom do
not openly challenge the covering that is a mark of the Islamic Revolution as
they do in Tehran and Isfahan where most women wear their hijab on the back
half of their head. In fact, the women of Qom almost all wear the more
conservative chador that covers from head to toe.
I was worried that we
would not make it to Qom, and I don’t think that many of my traveling
companions shared my desire to go to the world’s most important center for
Shi’a study. It was the last full day that we would spend in Iran and there was
hope that we might have an opportunity to meet with former president Mohammad
Khatami. But as we had already learned all too well, simply because our hosts
told us it might happen, there wasn’t that great of a chance that it would
actually happen. So, I and a few others lobbied for the opportunity to go to
Qom. It was not too far from the Imam Khomeini International Airport, and there
were religious studies professors there waiting to meet with us.
The visit to Qom’s
Center for the Study of Religions was not a disappointment, even though just
about every member of our delegation was completely exhausted and looking
forward to the end of the day when we would board the Lufthansa jet for our
trip home. There was the obligatory tea with the professors telling us of the
importance of the center for the study of the world’s religions. The scholars
on Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism were present and they told us about the
study of religions in an Islamic context, and they did a good job at dodging
our group’s rather political questions. Then I got to spend some time in the
library -- this was why I really wanted to visit Qom. Two students worked with
me to try to find the texts I was looking for, but after a very short time, our
host came and told me that the bus would soon be leaving for a mosque.
I said my goodbyes to
my new friends. (Mahmoud was studying Christianity and he asked if he might be
able to email questions to me. I said “Of course.”) Exchanged email addresses
and they walked me to the bus, saying goodbye with the traditional three-cheek
kiss.
As I was the last one
on the bus, there was already discussion about our next stop. One of our
delegation members was reading the description of the mosque to the group from
her Lonely Planet guide. She tells us that the Jamkaran Mosque is revered as a
very holy place in Shi’a Islam and it is said that the Imam Mahdi (the twelfth
Imam, or the messianic figure of Shi’a Islam) is said to have visited the site
on which the mosque sits. Millions of faithful visit the mosque each year, and
on Tuesday nights as many as 300,000 will visit for prayers.
Driving the back roads
out of eastern Qom, we see incredible mosques along the way. Each one raises
the hope that it must be our destination. One mosque -- all lit in green -- is
on top of a very high hill. As the sun is about to set, we see groups of people
(including women in chador) climbing the rather steep trail to reach the
mosque. But no, the bus keeps going past this, and several other spectacular
sites, until we see a huge mosque on the horizon. As we get closer, it looms
above the landscape and we can see that there is new construction for an even
larger set of minarets and a massive dome. This is it - the Jamkaran Mosque.
As we disembark, we
are greeted by Afzali, our guide. We are told to stay with the guide and not to
wander off. As we note the size of the complex and the crowds of people, no one
has any desire to break away from the group, and we comply (albeit for the
first time all trip).
The call to prayer has
begun. It is a beautiful lilting chant. With this aural backdrop, Afzali tells
us briefly about the history of the Jamkaran Mosque.
He also tells us that
the mosque is a popular spot for the faithful because their prayers are
answered here. “If on your first visit to Jamkaran, you ask for something with
a pure and faithful heart, Allah will grant it to you.”
Soon we are walking
across the great complex to the front of the mosque and the chant on the loud
speakers changes to the takbir,
stated as “Allah Akbar” (God is the greatest). There are two voices: a tenor
repeats the takbir and a
baritone is making longer prayers. The women are separated from us and taken to
their own entry into the mosque. We sit on the steps and remove our shoes. Then
we are ushered into the great mosque.
The Jamkaran is
already full and I see the origin of the two voices for the first time. Two men
stand at podiums at the front of the gathering of men. At the entry, there is a
large vat of the stones that Shi’a faithful put on the ground in front of them
as they pray. We know from previous discussions that this is a reminder that we
are from dirt -- a close connection to our ashes on Ash Wednesday.
There is a large
partition down the middle of the mosque and we know that the women are on the
other side; this experience of prayer is the first time that I have had a
single-sex religious experience (there was the Orthodox Synagogue in Tehran,
but the women were not out of sight, simply sitting on the other side of the
room). To see a room full of what must have been about 2,000 faithful men moves
me in a way I had not expected. I long to participate in the prayers, but instead
I sit with the rest of the men as a religio-tourist in this deeply spiritual
place. Later, I find out that the women actually participated in the prayers.
One of the women in our delegation tells me that for the first time she
welcomes wearing the chador because it takes her from the communal to the
personal as she knelt down becoming wrapped in a cocoon of prayer.
We were told that we
could not take photos or video inside the mosque, but I ask our guide if I can
record audio. This is not a problem so I set up my microphone and record the
prayers (and the coughing of our government guide). As I listen closely to what
I am recording, I am struck by a few things. In the middle of the sea of men is
a man who is trying to calm his toddler-aged son. The child is crying, and his
loving father has stopped the motions of standing and bowing and kneeling so
that he can sit and bounce his son on his knee. No one seems fazed by the
crying. Then I am struck by the sound of the takbir. In a strange way, there are parts of it that
sound like the chanting of the Gospel. It doesn’t seem foreign to me
whatsoever. I am struck by the different levels of vocal participation of the
men during the prayers. It reminds me of the Prayers of the People, and how
different people respond to the opportunity to make their petitions out loud.
Some mutter, some speak in audible tones. As I look around, I am struck at how
the others in my group are completely mesmerized by the moment.
Then I decide to turn off my reporter mode and simply
be in the moment. I stop, sit quietly, and begin to go into a trance. The
previous two weeks come rushing over me like a waterfall of experiences.
Meeting with Armenian Christians in Tehran and Isfahan, attending Orthodox
Synagogue in Tehran, walking along
the muraled wall outside the former American Embassy, listening to Persian
sitar on the street outside the Tehran Conservatory of Music, interviewing a
religion writer for the Tehran Times, sipping tea in a carpet shop in a bazaar
in Isfahan, striking up conversations with clerics on the street, meeting
Ahmadinejad’s spiritual advisor, sipping soup in the world’s oldest hotel,
walking the streets of an ancient Zoroastrian village, visiting Khomeini’s home,
touching the tomb of Hafez - all come rolling over me in a wash of experience
like an ablution from all of the assumptions that I arrived in Iran with.
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