You might remember me talking about my Persian post “Do Ayatollahs fart?” I put together that post with the reactions and also a lot of other stuff in a piece in the University of Manitoba Students’ Newspaper. It covers stuff like sacred couches and holy salivas, both Ahmadinejad’s and the Prophet’s.
Full Text (for archival purposes) – Copied from The Manitoban Website.
Do Ayatollahs fart?
From sacred couch to blessed saliva, political survival through “holyficationâ€
Arash Abadpour
Illustration by Ted Barker
When I wrote an article for my Persian blog on how the Islamic Republic of Iran benefits from glorifying the Ayatollahs into holy figures, I had no idea that it would create such a backlash. The reactions, however, offer good insight into what Iran’s main problem is. It is neither Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nor the Ayatollahs who have “corrupted†Iran, as some people suggest. The core problem is the corrupted framework of thought with which the Ayatollahs have infested Iran.
In the blog post, for which I had used the title “The Picture of the Day: Ayatollah, Fart, and a Question,†I used a picture, a sketch of which is shown here. The picture was taken about a week ago in Jamaran, the old residence of the former leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini. The woman in the picture is touching the window of Ayatollah’s room, simply because it is “blessed.†The picture also shows a couch the former Ayatollah used to sit on and recite Qur’an. The couch is now covered by a white cloth and is in effect considered “blessed†by many Iranians. The woman in question is a family member of a “martyr,†a person killed while serving the Islamic Republic. This is how this group of visitors is described by the state-run Fars News, but nevertheless, the reactions to my blog post seem to indicate that many other Iranians share the same point of view — to different extents.
In the post, I implicitly referred to the propaganda of the Iranian ruling regime, which through the very deliberate use of music and light, portrays Ayatollah Khomeini as a saint (look for “Ayatollah Khomeini†on Youtube.com for examples). I had stated, “This couch is an important piece of furniture to this woman, not because of the history behind it, but because it has been touched by the Ayatollah. Now the question is, knowing that the Ayatollah was a very old man, is it not possible that he had to pass his gas, right on the couch, at least once?†I had continued, “Now, the question is, how many of these worshippers do you think will not slap you on the face if you tell them that someone has farted on this holy couch?â€
From the 53 responses to that post, so far about 15 people think the author “does not understand these issues†or even that “this is crap.†Four other comments agree with the idea but do not like the way it is written, or find the piece “harsher than necessary.†Eight other comments are irrelevant to the topic, and the rest, which constitute about half the total, agree with the author.
While I did intentionally use provocative language to get more people involved in the discussion, that 25 per cent of the comments condemned me for the post is very informative and yet depressing at the same time.
This trend of glorifying Iranian political leaders continues. President Ahmadinejad recently went to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj pilgrimage. In order to have his trip comply with the Sharia, he even appeared on the national television in order to ask for forgiveness for all the bad he had done to the Iranian people. Then he went to Mecca, a trip closely followed by photographers and journalists. On his return, one of his first stops was the parliament, which he attended in order to present the budget for the coming Persian year.
Because many MPs had not seen him since his “holy†trip, they lined up to greet him and wish “God’s acceptance.†There were reports that one MP went as far as drinking from a glass Ahmadinejad had used for a blessing. Apparently, he then splashed the remainder of the water on his clothes (the MP later denied the reports but reputable local sources referred to his reputation for similar actions). This was when I wrote another Persian post titled “Apology, from Ayatollah’s Fart to Ahmadinejad’s Saliva.†The post started with, “I do apologize for the post on ‘Ayatollah’s Fart,’ †I continued, “When Ahmadinejad’s saliva is blessed, it is very obvious that each and every cell of any Ayatollah is the presence of God.†The story only gets better from here.
Shortly thereafter, I received a comment from an Iranian who satirically asked, “Have you become an infidel? There is a Hadith [saying or action of the Prophet] in this regard.†He had then posted a link to an audio file recorded at the Friday prayers in Tehran. The leader of the prayer was Ayatollah Emami Kashani, the 90-year-old member of the Assembly of Experts, which is the watchdog responsible for surveillance on the actions of the supreme leader. In his speech, Kashani gave a detailed review of what happened on the day his daughter, Fatimah, got married to Shia’s first Imam, Ali. Apparently, as Kashani so passionately described, the Prophet went to their place and asked for a bowl of water. He drank some of the water but did not swallow it. Instead, he mixed the water with his saliva and returned it to the bowl. Then, he showered Fatimah with the water and followed with doing the same to Ali. Kashani concluded, “The Prophet wanted to bless their marriage with his saliva.â€
Through finding bizarre stories like this in the thick books of Hadith, the Islamic regime does its best to establish the idea that the society is made up of two groups. The larger group is the majority of people, the flesh-made walking creatures who cannot survive unless they follow a “God-knowing†person. The other group is what gives a meaning to life: the breed of righteous people that starts with “the Prophet even whose saliva is blessed.†Clearly, the next question for a rational mind is whether this line of saviours end after the Prophet and the 12 Imams? The answer to this question is an essential pillar of the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic and the connection it proclaims to have with Allah.
While more than a thousand years has passed since the 11th Imam was killed by his enemies, the political Shia doctorine, which many scholars argue is less than 500 years old, bases its legitimacy on the concept of clerics becoming semi-saints. In this ideology, the Ayatollahs are glorified as holy individuals, and thus are exempt from criticism in the media. The “holyfication†also helps with providing the Ayatollahs, and the regime as well, with respect from the less educated and more conservative people.
While issues such as “sacred couch†and “holy saliva†raise a thousand questions for a person who lives in a free society, one who has been fed with this ideology since their early childhood will only nod and say “Whatever.†The more passionate ones become soldiers, or even sign up for suicide missions.
Arash Abadpour is a third-year graduate student in electrical and computer engineering.