“What?”
“Well,” his friend had said with a laugh, “I’ll explain but you’ve got to be a little patient. First, Iranians are not Arabs but Aryans, and the vast majority are Shi’ite Muslims, a volatile sometimes mystical breakaway sect. Arabs are mostly orthodox Sunni - they make up most of the world’s billion Muslims - and the sects are somewhat like our Protestants and Catholics and they’ve fought each other just as viciously. But all share the same overarching belief, that there is one God, Allah - the Arabic word for God - that Mohammed, a man of Mecca who lived from A.D. 570 to 632 was His Prophet, and the words of the Koran proclaimed by him and written down by others over many years after his death came directly from God and contain all instruction that is necessary for an individual or society to live by.” “Everything? That’s not possible.”
“For Muslims it is, Mac, today, tomorrow, forever. But ‘ayatollah’ is a title peculiar to Shi’ites and granted by consensus and popular acclaim by the congregation of a mosque - another Arabic word meaning ‘meeting place,’ which is all it is, a meeting place, absolutely not a church - to a mullah who exhibits those characteristics most sought after and admired amongst the Shi’ites: piety, poverty, learning - but only the Holy Books, the Koran and the Sunna - and leadership, with a big emphasis on leadership. In Islam there’s no separation between religion and politics, there can be none, and the Shi’ite mullahs of Iran, since the beginning, have been fanatic guardians of the Koran and Sunna, fanatic leaders and whenever necessary fighting revolutionaries.”
“If an ayatollah or mullah’s not a priest, what is he?”
“Mullah means ‘leader,’ he who leads prayers in a mosque. Anyone can be a mullah, providing he’s a man, and Muslim. Anyone. There’s no clergy in Islam, none, no one between you and God, that’s one of the beauties of it, but not to Shi’ites. Shi’ites believe that, after the Prophet, the earth should be ruled by a charismatic, semidivine infallible leader, the Imam, who acts as an intermediary between the human and the divine - and that’s where the great split came about between Sunni and Shi’ite, and their wars were just as bloody as the Plantagenets. Where Sunnis believe in consensus, Shi’ites would accept the Imam’s authority if he were to exist.” “Then who chooses the man to be Imam?”
“That was the whole problem. When Mohammed died - by the way he never claimed to be anything other than mortal although last of the Prophets-he left neither sons nor a chosen successor, a Caliph. Shi’ites believed leadership should remain with the Prophet’s family and the Caliph could only be Ali, his cousin and son-in-law who had married Fatima, his favorite daughter. But the orthodox Sunnis, following historic tribal custom which applies even today, believed a leader should only be chosen by consensus. They proved to be stronger, so the first three Caliphs were voted in - two were murdered by other Sunnis - then, at long last for the Shi’ites, Ali became Caliph, in their fervent belief the first Imam.”
“They claimed he was semidivine?”
“Divinely guided, Mac. Ali lasted five years, then he was murdered - Shi’ites say martyred. His eldest son became Imam, then was thrust aside by a usurping Sunni. His second son, the revered, twenty-five-year-old Hussain, raised an army against the usurper but was slaughtered - martyred - with all his people, including his brother’s two young sons, his own five-year-old son, and suckling babe. That happened on the tenth day of Muharram, in A.D. 650 by our counting, 61 by theirs, and they still celebrate Hussain’s martyrdom as their most holy day.”
“That’s the day they have the processions and whip themselves, stick hooks into themselves, mortify themselves?”
“Yes, mad from our point of view. Reza Shah outlawed the custom but Shi’ism is a passionate religion, needing outward expressions of penitence and mourning. Martyrdom is deeply embedded in Shi’ites, and in Iran venerated. Also rebellion against usurpers.”
“So the battle is joined, the Faithful against the Shah?” “Oh, yes. Fanatically on both sides. For the Shi’ites, the mullah is the sole interpreting medium which therefore gives him enormous power. He is interpreter, lawgiver, judge, and leader. And the greatest of mullahs are ayatollahs.”
And Khomeini is the Grand Ayatollah, McIver was thinking, staring at the bloody nightscape over Jaleh. He’s it, and like it or not, all the killing, all the bloodshed and suffering and madness, have to be laid at his doorstep, justified or not….
“Mac!”
“Oh, sorry, Charlie,” he said, coming back to himself. “I was miles away. What?” He glanced at the kitchen door. It was still closed. “Don’t you think you should get Genny out of Iran?” Pettikin asked quietly. “It’s getting pretty smelly indeed.”
“She won’t bloody go. I’ve told her fifty times, asked her fifty times, but she’s as obstinate as a bloody mule - like your Claire,” McIver replied as quietly. “She just bloody smiles and says: ‘When you go, I go.’” He finished his whisky, glanced at the door, and hastily poured himself another. Stronger. “Charlie, you talk to her. She’ll listen to y - ” “The hell she will.”
“You’re right. Bloody women. Bloody obstinate. They’re all the bloody same.” They laughed.
After a pause, Pettikin said, “How’s Sharazad?”
McIver thought a moment. “Tom Lochart’s a lucky man.”
“Why didn’t she go back with him on leave and stay in England until Iran settles down?”
“There’s no reason for her to go - she has no family or friends there. She wanted him to see his kids, Christmas and all that. She said she felt she’d stir things up and be in the way if she went along. Deirdre Lochart’s still very pissed off with the divorce, and anyway Sharazad’s family’s here and you know how strong Iranians are on family. She won’t leave until Tom goes and even then I don’t know. And as for Tom, if I tried to post him I think he’d quit. He’ll stay forever. Like you.” He smiled. “Why do you stay?” “Best posting I’ve ever had, when it was normal. Can fly all I want, ski winters, sail summers…. But let’s face it, Mac, Claire always hated it here. For years she spent more time in England than here so she could be near Jason and Beatrice, her own family, and our grandchild. At least the parting of the ways was friendly. Chopper pilots shouldn’t be married anyway, have to move about too much. I’m born expatriate, I’ll die one. Don’t want to go back to Cape Town - hardly know that place anyway - and can’t stand those bloody English winters.” He sipped his beer in the semidarkness. “Insha’Allah,” he said with finality. In God’s hands. The thought pleased him.
Unexpectedly the telephone jangled, startling them. For months now the phone system had been unreliable - for the last few weeks impossible and almost nonexistent, with perpetually crossed lines, wrong numbers, and no dial tones that miraculously cleared for no apparent reason for a day or an hour, to fall back like a shroud again, equally for no reason.
“Five pounds it’s a bill collector,” Pettikin said, smiling at Genny who came out of the kitchen, equally startled at hearing the bell. “That’s no bet, Charlie!” Banks had been on strike and closed for two months in response to Khomeini’s call for a general strike, so no one - individuals, companies, or even the government - had been able to get any cash out and most Iranians used cash and not checks.
McIver picked up the phone not knowing what to expect. Or who. “Hello.” “Good God, the bloody thing’s working,” the voice said. “Duncan, can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes, I can. Just. Who’s this?”
“Talbot, George Talbot at the British embassy. Sorry, old boy, but the stuff is hitting the fan. Khomeini’s named Mehdi Bazargan prime minister and called for Bakhtiar’s resignation or else. About a million people are in the streets of Tehran right now looking for trouble. We’ve just heard there’s a revolt of airmen at Doshan Tappeh - and Bakhtiar’s said if they don’t quit he’ll order in the Immortals.” The Immortals were crack units of the fanatically pro-Shah Imperial Guards. “Her Majesty’s Government, along with the U.S., Canadian, et al., are advising all nonessential nationals to leave the country at once….”