The Heart of Iran
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Duncan Forbes, The Heart of Iran, bahai-library.com.
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By the same author
THE HEART OF
The Heart of Nepal

IRAN
by

DUNCAN FORBES

Illustrated and with maps

LONDON
ROBERT HALE LIMITED
63 Old Brompton Road, S.W.7
© Duncan Forbes 1963
First published in Great Britain 1963

Foreword
!RAN 1s FAR better known than Nepal, which was the subject
of my last book. The country's great bulk, nine-tenths of it
desert, lies astride the land route to India, and ever since the
end of the sixteenth century, when two Elizabethan knights,
the Shirley brothers, went by way of Russia to the court of Shah
Abbas at Isfahan and taught the Persians how to make cannons,
there has been a continuous stream of travellers' tales in Eng-
lish describing the Persian scene.
Throughout the nineteenth century the British looked at
Persia through the spectacles of India. More Englishmen
approached the country up the Persian Gulf than ever took
the short land route across Turkey, and British policy in
Persia was usually decided in Delhi. But now all this has
changed. Indian independence in 1947 was followed by the
nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951.
Diplomatic relations were broken off, and when they were
restored, the British Embassy in Teheran became the largest
in the Middle East, invariably dealing direct with London.
Yet the strange fascination of the country has not changed.
Be it Persia or Iran, the English mind still leaps the Balkans
and the Turkish mainland to light on the tawny deserts at its
heart, and the vivid blue domes of its oasis towns, and the pale-
green poplars of the Elburz.
Like the connection between England and Italy it is a liaison
of opposites--0f sober reticence with bubbling effervescence,
of cloud and mist with bright sunlight, of practical orderliness
with wild individuality, of quiet understatement with loud
bravado. The Persians take us to their hearts with their zest for
life and open-mindedness, and they infuriate us with their
intriguing and squandering and feckless promises. In a world
of militant republics pride in the age-old Persian monarchy
remains. Many criticize it. Many do not see why the Iranians
should be loyal to their Emperor, forgetting that we ourselves
PRINTl!D IN GREAT BRITAIN               are loyal to our Queen. Yet it is another tie-the feeling for
BY EBENEZER BAYLIS AND SON, LTD.
THJI TIUNlTY PRllllS, WORC1!8TER, AND LONDON
monarchy-that links us with the Persians.
In spite of this, there have been few books about Iran in
THE ROAD TO FARS
124                 THE HEART OF IRAN
Shiraz. History repeated itself with the aerial descent of
quarter of a century ago. From it the road leads downwards          German saboteurs on Fars to work on the grievances of the
through an avenue of trees as straight as a die to the Vakil        tribes. But it was not until after the departure of the Indian
Mosque at the bottom of the slope. There it levels off into a       Army that serious tribal disturbances took place. This was dur-
plain before rising, a mile or tw~ b~yond, to th~ next moun-        ing the tribal rebellion of 1950, when at times it was impos-
tain range. On either side the bmldmgs of the c1ty_are spread       sible to leave the town without running the gauntlet of armed
out, interspersed with the domes of mosques and 1mamzades           hold-ups on the road.
and the trees of the avenues and gardens.                              Talking about these things with the desk clerk I came to
The bus took us down to the Khiaban-e Zand, the broad            feel that I was now in regions where the British connection
boulevard which runs north-west to south-east across the town       was strong. Shiraz looks south towards the Persian Gulf and
on the same axis as the mountain ranges, then turned into a         India as well as north towards bustling Teheran. The oil-rich
caravansarai to deposit us. There I left my companions of two       Bedouin, millionaires by a chance turn of the wheel of fortune
days and went off to find the hotel that had been recommended       like winners of football pools, come to Shiraz to hawk and
to me. It proved to be a fine. bui~ding, decorated with blue        hunt in the coolness of the hills. With their musicians playing
kashi and mirror work, standmg m a handsome garden, but             monotonous thin music on the pipes, they entertain their
when I entered my heart sank. The venerable building echoed         guests and retainers in the big new tourist hotel.
with emptiness, the narrow rooms were bare, there was no hot           Later I went out into the Khiaban-e Zand, where the
water, and two apologetic servants advised me to ~o to the three    creepers trained to climb up the lamp posts lent a pecu~iarly
star tourist hotel, since discomforts tolerable m a peasant's       tropical appearance to the scene. After I had been walkmg a
cottage are not to be supported in a town hotel.                    few minutes a schoolboy accosted me.
The ao-ed  desk clerk welcomed me to Shiraz and talked to           "What is your name?" he asked.
me in ge ntle tones about the South Persia Rifles of the Fir~t

"Forbes," I said. "vVhat is yours?"
German War in which he had served as quartermaster. This               "Abbasian. What are you doing here, please?"
force origina~ed in a small detachment of Indian troops sent           "Nothing."
to Bandar Abbas from India in 1916, under the command of               "You are an explorer?"
Sir Percy Sykes. Its main purpose was to check the influence          "No."
of the redoubtable German agent, Wassmuss, who ha? suc-                "I am studying at the technical school. I am a welder."
ceeded in stirring up the tribes against a government friendly         "I see."
to the British.                                                        "I am also a Bahai. I am not an ordinary Moslem, you see.
In Iran, by means of recruitment from the gendarmerie,           I am a Bahai. We Bahais have our headquarters in Israel and
whose Swedish officers had sided with the Germans, and from         we have our holy book also."
other sources, Sykes increased his stre?-gth to ~ight thous;;nd,       "I see. And who wrote your holy book?"
and then marched through hostile tribal territory to Shiraz.           "I do not know, Sir. Please, have you no job here?"
The occupation of the town :was relativ~ly peaceful 1;1ntil 1918,      "No.,,
when the tribesmen, believmg that Britam was gomg to lose              "Then you must be an explorer. You are Alman?"
the war, invested Shiraz with about six thousand men against           "No. Englis."
the garrison of some two thousand. With some difficulty they           "I see. Can you answer me a question, please. How far is it
were beaten off.                                                    from here to London?"
Not only the desk clerk,. but several <;>thers of_ the el~er        "About four thousand miles, I think. More or less."
citizens of Shiraz were to testify to the considerable 1mpress10n      "Are you certain?"
this force had made on the region. It was active, not only in          "Yes."
pacifying the tribes, but also in con_verting camel t~ack~ to          "And how much does it cost to live there?"
wheeled routes, surveying and openmg up commumcat10ns                  "For you or for me?"
generally.                                                             "Let us say, for me."
In the Second German War also, the Indian Army was in
THE HEART OF IRAN

"You might live on twenty toumans a day, but it would be
difficult."
"Thank you. I will write that down."
"You are thinking of going there?"
"Perhaps I will go there, if it is possibl~." .
I left him writing down the answ_ers m _his no~e book, and
thought about the Bahai a_nd their ~unou~ history. The~
originated in this same city of Shiraz with Sayyed Ah
Mohammed, who called himself the Bab or "gateway'',                                   The Gardens of the Poets
through which men must communicate with God. H~
preached that he himself, was the Twelfth Imam, or Mahdi,         I HAD NOT been in Shiraz for many days before the spell of the
returned to earth for the salvation of mankind, and gained an     poets fell on me, for the Shirazis love their poets, know them,
enthusiastic following. But in 1850 he was taken to Tabriz and    and as convincing proof of their devotion, can quote them at
executed on the orders of Nasser-ud-din Shah's vizier. They say   length on any suitable occasion.
that when he was shot by the firing-squad, the bullets cut the       I went first to visit the mausoleum of Hafez, which is situated
rope with which he was bound without hurting him, and that        in the place known as Mosalla. As I walked down the avenue,
he escaped and had to be caught an~ shot a second time.           with the high brick wall of a hidden garden on my left, a large
On the death of the Bab a certam Baha-Ullah of Mazan-          station-wagon drew up alongside me.
deran announced that he was the appointed successor, and was         "Can I take you anywhere?"
a greater man than the Mahdi himself. This ~as heresy, and           "Thank you very much, but I am just taking a walk."
he was banished. But the followers of the Bab and of Baha            "Let me show you some of the sights of Shiraz."
refused to be repressed, and as a consequence the Shah order~d       "Don't let me trouble you."
a general massacre at Zenjan, betwee_n Tehera? and T_abnz,           "It is nothing. I have plenty of time. Please."
at Yezd and at Niriz, to the east of Shiraz. Baha1sm contmued        "Very well. Thank you very much."
under~ound, however, and because of _its unorthodox b~liefs          So I climbed into the station-wagon and the Member of
became liberal in outlook and unsettlmg to the established        Parliament for Abade introduced himself. "I am a Member
Moslem dogma. Some called it an invention of th~ ~nglis~,          of Parliament," he said, "but unfortunately now we have
because the British offered sanctuary to the Bahai m their        no parliament, so I am now just looking after my lands."
colonies. Baha-Ullah, himself, went to Palestine, where the          vVe reached the mausoleum, which in Hafez' day was well
temple of Bahaism was set up on Mount Carmel. His brother         outside the town, in the groves to the north, but has now been
went to Cyprus.                                                   caught up by the development of the municipal stadium and
Today there may be as many as three million Bahai through-     the Faculty of Letters of the University. It is still a delectable
out the world, including many educated ~en_ and women.            garden, however, which was completely modernized in 1936,
They persevere in their liberal. beliefs, w~ich mclude equal      after it had been closed to public burials. As one enters one
pay and rights for women, a fair average mcome for all, ~n?­      faces palm trees as well as pines and poplars, reminding one
free intercourse between all races. The book of the Baha1 1s      that this is the deep south, not far from the Persian Gulf. In
called Iqan, meaning "certitude."                                 front, a long colonnade, inscribed with lines from the poems
Happy are the Bahai, if they have certitude.                   on a blue background, acts as a fac;:ade to the interior garden,
in which the tomb itself is situated under a domed roof, sup-
ported by more columns.
The inner garden, which is interspersed with the graves of
those who have sought to capture something of the aura of the
poet by being buried near him, is planted out with orange
trees and mulberries, with roses and geraniums below them.
,127
-- The Heart of Iran (Used by permission of the curator)