More reports from Iran: Awe, reverence, and building an axis of friendship

Roger Cohen, a columnist for The New York Times, wrote an excellent Op-Ed that was published two days ago in the Sunday edition of the Times. Titled "What Iran's Jews Say," it has been one of the top two "most e-mailed" articles on nytimes.com for the past couple days. Cohen's depiction of the Iranian Jewish community as both historic and ongoing reflects the witness and engagement that the Fellowship of Reconciliation's Iran delegations have experienced — especially the two delegations in 2008 which sent a number of U.S. Jewish peace activists to Iran.

Several more reports have been received in the past 24 hours from FOR's 9th civilian diplomacy delegation to Iran. Father Louie Vitale writes:

Several months ago, a number of us were invited to participate in a "Friendship Delegation to Iran" this February. Already, many have been trying to move from the image of an "axis of evil" including Iran to an "Axis of Friendship."

In San Francisco and other cities, as we commemorated 9/11/2001, gatherings were held to recall the friendship of Iran expressed on that fateful occasion. We were told that on the day following the attack on the twin towers, the people of Iran burned candles in their windows in support of the United States. This year, adults and children participated with candles and letters and artworks addressed to the children of Iran.

We came to Tehran bearing a banner, buttons, and cards announcing the Axis of Friendship. We have been met with an amazing response of friendship. Iran has this reputation with all who visit. They are personally very friendly. Even with language barriers, we have become friends at once. They are eager to tell their stories, their immense 5,000-year history as a people and a culture. They share their pride in their land and civilization and also their sorrows at many wars and upheavals. They readily relate the role our country has played as a builder of friendship but also of war. We could not help but agree with our complicity in their suffering.

For me, I was especially moved by Ali and Said, our young guides. They represent contemporary Iran. They are well-educated, compassionate, most helpful, and very open with their lives. This was very evident as they shared their history. Their love for their land and people touched us. We could not help but share the joys and tears of their lives.

They showed us the many shrines, awesome mosques, ancient artifacts. They took us to the opulent palace of the former Shah, and then to the very humble residence of their religious and national leader Ayatollah Khomeini. At the latter, in a small museum commemorating his life's struggle and death, their obvious commitment to pursue his dedication to the people touched me very deeply. I felt a pride in them and a love that brought me to tears. I had adopted Ali and Said as my "grandsons," grateful for their friendship and wanting deeply to respond as friend and family.

Later we watched together very powerful films from the tragedies of the Iran-Iraq war, in which we supported their attackers and committed the shooting down of a civilian aircraft, on which all 290 aboard were killed. Again, we shared their tears. They have showed us a deep love and care that makes me very proud to call them my grandsons. It is these relationships and others that make this pilgrimage worthwhile.

Max Cooper writes:

The faces of the dead look down on Tehran's chaotic streets. Hundreds of murals showing the casualties of the Iran-Iraq war adorn billboards and building walls throughout the city, ensuring the war and its vicitims remain at the forefront of daily Tehran life. The eight-year war remains a defining and tumultous event in modern Iran. One veteran of the war, Habib Ahmadzadeh, has traded his weapons for a pen and a camera.

At a private screeing for the FOR group, Mr. Ahmadzadeh shared a film on the war, Night Bus, that he co-wrote. The film follows a young Iranian soldier and an older Iranian bus driver as they transport 38 Iraqi POWs from the fronts back to base. It is a simple premise, but the comments on war are profound. The young soldier is at first brutal, but he comes to lament his predicament and responsibilities, and eventually to care for his captives. The movie humanizes the POWs, and shows how they are victims of the decisions and arrogance of politicians. A particularly touching character is that of Farouq, an Iraqi POW who has spent his life doing business on the border and interacting with both peoples, but know finds himself isolated from both countries.

Mr. Ahmadzadeh hasn't written a heroic war movie. His story is different; it is one of friends seperated by war, soldiers missing their families, and a young soldier with terrible responsibilities. Mr. Ahmadzadeh participated in a Q and A after the movie, and shared his anti-war philosophy and a hope that our governments will embrace the same ideas. In Tehran, surrounded by images of the victims of war as we walk outside our hotel, we found one man who has a vision that no more murals will be painted.

Ann Morrell has sent two lengthy and moving reflections thus far. Her first was posted to our blog on Saturday, February 21st. Morrell's second missive, titled "The Great Library of Ayatollah Al-Uzma Mar’ashi Najafi in Qom: 'The World Treasure of Islamic Manuscripts'," is as follows:

The Great Library does not stand out from its neighbors. We mounted a few steps and were inside. On the left is a shrine to the Ayatollah: a plexiglass enclosure perhaps six feet high and eight feet long is bathed in a lime green light. Inside is a cloth-draped coffin. Within the coffin are the earthly remains of Ayatollah Al-Uzma Mar’ashi Najafi. But the Ayatollah left behind much more: he built the third most important library in Islam.

We are met by the chief librarian, and ushered through the hallway. Beyond the shrine is a carpeted area. Men enter, and by the front door, each picks up a small earthen pellet. They stop briefly by the shrine with heads bowed, kick off their shoes, mount a few steps, and kneel on the carpets to pray.

Our guide is a small man with a neat beard, a shirt open at the throat, and a sports coat. He leads us through corridors and upstairs, and past several large reading rooms where dozens of people are studying. I inquire whether the library is open only to men, as I see no women. He says some days are open to men, and others to women. We meet up with another man who is not introduced; when he never leaves our side until we depart, we realize he is a security guard. We leave all day packs and bags in a small dark room, and step into the hallway in front of an open door that leads into a vault. We go in.

This room is lined from floor to ceiling with books, each with a white numbered label. Display cases with glass tops encircle the long rectangular room. The first book in the case nearest the door arrests me. It appears very old, and the Persian writing in it is thick and heavy compared with some elegant Persian calligraphy I’ve seen elsewhere.

Our guide explains, with reverence, that this book dates from 1,200 years ago. I feel a chill knowing I am looking at words written by a man in about 800 AD. Our guide leads us along the display cases, explaining that as we progress, we can see the increasing refinement of the calligraphy. The writing in each book shows greater clarity and eventually, flourishes appear, and then borders with leaves and vines. Now the books have intricate flowers along the edges of the pages. They begin to have some gold illumination, and touches of vivid cobalt blue.

The room library possesses some 35,000 handwritten books. Many are the Koran, but not all. There are books on mathematics, astronomy, and other scientific subjects that reveal the extent of early Persian scholarship.

The progressively elegant pages lead us to a center display of three books open to pages of astonishing beauty, where the entire page surface is covered in script and ornament. I exclaim aloud, involuntarily, at the large volumes, maybe 18 inches tall and 10 inches wide, where the artistry is so refined and imaginative and the colors so alive and so vivid, that they seem to contain their own light source. It takes my breath away. Nowhere have I seen any art surpassing these in beauty. I linger over the pages, hoping to retain in my memory some fragment of the glory and passion embodied in the work.

There are other astonishing manuscripts. There are strips of goat leather a few inches wide and several yards long, covered in tiny calligraphy and decoration. These are complete versions of the Koran, written using as the pen one single strand of the author’s hair. In some, the white space around the microscopic lettering, the area left blank, itself spells out the first lines of a new chapters. I cannot decipher one letter from the next, they are so tiny. We are shown a volume that belonged to Imam Ali, one of the holiest of leaders to the Shi’a, who was the grandson of the Prophet Muhammed. A very large book is introduced as “undoubtable”: the writing of it was so close to the source that it is one of the cornerstones of the Islamic religion, and the faithful know that it elucidates the truth. Other volumes are written with wide blank borders on the pages. This invites commentary by later scholars, and there are notes in different handwritings scattered throughout such books.

After being permitted to take a few photos, we are led to the “book hospital.” Two glass chambers hold five or six old books propped standing up with their pages open. They are being treated with gas to kill any insects still alive within them. A large volume on a metal table has a thick black leather binding with a small hole gnawed through it. Our guide opens the volume and pages through, showing that the hole is much bigger inside, that of the creature who gnawed the binding borrowed within and feasted at length on the pages.

We pass the bindery. Stacks of leather hides and book binding machines are overseen by a thin young man. We enter the restorer’s workshop. A grave young fellow shows us some stencils. He repairs each ancient page by placing a thin sheet of paper on top and tracing the damaged areas. The GOOD parts of the page are cut away, and he has a sheet of paper to put behind the page that perfectly fills the holes. This is taped behind the original damaged page to form a new complete page. The repairs are made on the finest scale, and are almost indecipherable; the paper used is carefully matched for texture, fiber and weight, and then hand colored (with coffee, for example,) to blend in with the original. The absence of writing identifies most patches. The repairers do not restore the writing; our guide says they do not wish to “distort” the text.

It can take a full day to repair a single page. They show us samples of books that have been repaired, and “before” photos, showing the original devastated condition. Some books are so twisted and torn that I would not recognize them as books if I weren’t in a library!

This magnificent library exists because of the passion of the Ayatollah. A friend asked him why he worked so long and so hard to buy one worm-eaten moldering volume. He replied, “This book is my beloved sweetheart.”

As a student in Najaf, Iraq, the Ayatollah noticed that Europeans were buying up all the ancient Persian texts they could find. He became alarmed that the heritage of Islam was being removed from its birthplace and from the people who should love and protect it. He vowed to assemble a library to preserve these irreplaceable cultural artifacts. He then possessed 35 cents.

Before we left, we had the honor of being welcomed by the current director of the library, the son of the founding Ayatollah himself. He greeted us with great courtesy, and we had our picture taken under a large photo of his father. In this photo, the Ayatollah, in his nineties, being supported by adoring followers, is shown using a pickax to break ground for the new library building.

We are led back to the entrance, and are cautioned that we may find we have left part of our hearts here with the manuscripts. Our Muslim tour guides pause for a few minutes to kneel and pray with the other men; they pick up earthen pellets by the door. These pellets serve a similar function of the Christian admonition, “Man, thou art dust and to dust you shall return.”

We have been in the library for several hours, and I emerge into the street with a palpable sense of awe and reverence. What a glorious accomplishment this library was. Humanity is far richer for having these manuscripts extant. Seeing these books alone would have made the long trip to Iran worth the journey.

During our hours in the library there was no woman present except myself.

And last but not least, Bill Gillen shares:

Some friends had told us to visit the Carpet Museum so we took a taxi with our guide Said. Upon arrival, we learned that the museum was closed on Monday but open on Friday so people could visit on their day off.

On the way we had noticed a sign at the nearby Museum of Contemporary Art advertising the First International Visual Arts Festival. So we walked around the corner to the modern building and started to view the galleries of paintings, sculpture and calligraphy by Iranian artists. We would have needed another day to view the other fields such as cartoons and photography.

Almost immediately we began to notice that many of the artworks were entitled “Hope,” and others were called “Hope for the Future.” Several incorporated the image of a dove or doves. A striking small bronze sculpture depicted a woman holding an olive branch in her outstretched hands.

In a large space connecting several galleries we came upon a group of artists, most of them women, painting at their easels. On three walls surrounding the working artists were photographs of 18 well known deceased artists, all men. Then we realized that many of the artworks we were admiring were created by female artists. Clearly, the artistic demographic is changing with a younger generation.

One piece of calligraphy was particularly beautiful. On a gold background against a black frame dark blue and red lettering stood out, our guide Said translated it for us: “My God, I have no one but you.” Other calligraphs included, for example, the text of a poem by the revered Rumi.

As we walked through the museum, occasionally we exchanged glances, most of them friendly, with many young people. We felt ourselves among friends, people also interested in art.

Our visit left us with several questions. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more Americans could see such art? Why can’t we arrange art shows to travel between the two countries? How long will it take to remove these barriers to understanding?

Max, another group member, struck up a conversation with a clerk at the gift shop. By the end of our visit he was “Mr. Max” and the two exchanged e-mail addresses. We gave him the Web address for FOR and told him to check the blog for this report.