Two hundred thousand men were killed at the front, maimed by landmines and
mustard gas dropped by Saddam's brigades; while the number of those disabled by
the fighting is approximated at 1.5 million Iranians - the unofficial number of
martyrs is whispered to be closer to three hundred thousand.
A man selling Shia Nouhay mourning tapes and books by Ayatollah Behesti, the
assassinated founder of the Islamic Republic Party, told me that landmines
planted by the Iraqi army have yet to be cleared and even today they bury men
killed by the after effects of the war, and so the number of Shaheeds keeps
rising and there is little respite from grief at Behesht-e-Zahra.
The graves are marked by elevated steel and glass boxes that contain
photographs of the dead. Personal belongings - an old watch, personal letters, a
comb - and flowers are propped up against the photographs of the many men killed
during the eight years of war. Tombstones, sometimes covering empty graves in
cases when the body of the Shaheed is still missing, mark the date and location
of the men's death. Masoud Safarlou has no date of death on his tombstone; his
body was found in a town called Faiyazi near the Iran-Iraq border; that is all
his family knows.
Martyrs
section in Behesht Zahra (photo 2002, Ali Moayedian)
When years are provided, the effect is even more disturbing. Hamid Reza
Saiyid was 15 years old when he was killed in 1981. His black and white smiling
photograph sits in the glass box above his grave. He has no facial hair in the
picture; he was barely even a man. Hamid Reza Saiyid was a boy when he was
martyred. Another Shaheed was 17 years old at the time of his death in Boustan,
one of the first towns that were directly attacked by the Iraqi Army. Another
was 21; he had just completed his military service and was killed on his very
first tour of duty. Some of the graves bore photocopied posters asking for the
martyr's families to come forward and share their history in an official fashion
so that their memory remains alive.
As I walked along the rows of graves a woman in a brown chador offered me a
plate of Halwa. "'No one goes hungry in Iran', that was the saying of the
Revolution" explained my interpreter Samira. "The mourners at Behesht-e-Zahra
will always be fed." We took a spoonful and thanked the woman for her kindness.
Samira told me of the thousands of Iranian soldiers who had disappeared after
the war. Three of her father's cousins, young men in their late teens, had
volunteered and gone out to fight. Two of them never returned, they were killed.
Their family had been told that the third son had also been killed, and though
his body hadn't been found, he was given a funeral and a plot in
Behesht-e-Zahra. Seven years after the news of his death, he returned home as a
prisoner of war. He was alive. He now lives near south of Iran. Those men were
not conscripted nor forced into the army due to poverty, they volunteered. "My
father, who went to business school in London, also volunteered" shared Samira.
"He was at the front for two to three years, he chose to be there. That is why
America will not attack Iran today."
Behesht-e-Zahra also bears the bodies of those who died fighting against the
Shah during the build-up to the revolution in 1979. The red, white, and green of
the Iranian flag are hoisted onto the boxes bearing their photographs. The
tombstones in this area are simpler than those of the war Shaheeds. Some are
afforded black marble slabs, but most of the dead have their obituaries written
on blocks of simple granite, the lettering of their names slowly fading with
time.
Martyrs
section in Behesht Zahra (photo 2002, Ali Moayedian)
As we walked carefully between the graves, with little place to tread, a man
and his daughter kneeled down by a family member's tombstone. The father took
out a handkerchief and cleaned away the dust from the marble with water while
his daughter placed fresh flowers in the glass box by a picture of a handsome
young man in a white jacket. I said a silent prayer for the generation of
children buried before me and we continued on our way.
It was Friday and we followed the road between Tehran and Qom to visit the
holy shrine of Imam Khomeini and witness the day's prayers. The mausoleum where
the Revolution's spiritual leader is buried is surrounded by, of all things, a
small shopping centre. Stores selling nuts, candy, toys and jewellery dotted the
landscape and as Samira and I struggled with our full length black chadors we
passed by families stocking up on food and refreshments.
Fatima & Samira at Imam
Khomeini's shrine
The domes of turquoise blue and gold, tiled with 72 tulips, one for each
of the 72 people who were attacked with Imam Hossein in Karbala, are surrounded
with scaffolds. Heavy construction was underway and we tiptoed gingerly over
rocks and wooden planks, passing by an Afghan man and his parrot calling out to
those who wanted their fortunes read. Once we removed our shoes we were directed
to a security checkpoint where our bags (mine is gargantuan) were placed through
an x-ray machine. My set of keys (also gargantuan) rang the alarm and we
hurriedly reassured the security woman that my bag and I meant no harm so that
we would not miss the commencement of Friday prayers. We entered the shrine just
moments after the Muazzin said the Azan and to my astonishment I saw that here
both men and women prayed side by side. There was no separation - the men stood
on the left and the women on the right, but they prostrated themselves on the
same carpet.
Away from the prayers people placed money into Imam Khomeini's shrine and
women and men sat on the marble floor and silently read passages from the Holy
Qur'aan. Red and green lights strung up to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr were being
replaced by black flags in preparation for Muharram and the 50 or so people
present arranged themselves so as not to disrupt the process.
There were picnickers, enjoying a holiday out, and lamenters wailing and
sobbing. A grandmother rubbed her palms on the pillars of the Imam's burial site
and then vigorously rubbed them onto her grandson's head, whose orange Adidas
winter headband slipped with every move of her hands.
The 28th anniversary of the Revolution falls this February, but on this past
Friday there was no place for celebrations. The weekend is Iran is over and
Muharram is about to start. On Saturday, following a day spent in remembrance,
these mourners and believers return to work and life in the city and an unusual
calm descends upon these monuments dedicated to the country's past.
About the author: Fatima Bhutto
is a 24 year old Pakistani woman. She graduated with a Bachelor's degree in
Middle Eastern and Asian Cultures and Languages from Columbia University and received a Masters at the School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS) in South Asian Government and Politics. Fatima comes from a
political background, her father Mir Murtaza Bhutto - an elected member of
Pakistan's parliament - was
assassinated by state police in 1996. His sister, Benazir Bhutto, was Prime
Minister at the time of his killing. Fatima is the author of two books, a volume
of poetry published when she was 15 years old in her father's memory a year
after his death called 'Whispers of the Desert' and a collection of first
hand survivor's accounts from the October 8, 2005 earthquake in Pakistan
entitled 8:50 am.
Both were published by Oxford University Press. The proceeds from '8:50 am' will
be given back to child survivors of the quake. Fatima currently writes a
weekly column for Pakistan's largest Urdu
daily newspaper, Daily Jang, and its English sister paper, The News
International. Her diary from Tehran is the
second the papers printed; Fatima also wrote a weekly diary from
Lebanon this past summer during the
Israeli invasion.
