state has constructed.
Moral Space
The norm imposed on Iranian youth is that they have to be “veiled” in the abstract meaning of the word, to be modest. In their social practice they should maintain the distinctions and segregation between related and unrelated (mahram and namahram) people. This protects the moral values of society from corruption, by evil lusts or “cultural invasion” by the earthly Great Satan, the United States. Another feature of the politics of veiling is strict gender segregation, which is enforced in public places such as beaches, swimming pools, schools, hairdressers, or sports halls. According to the law, there should be separate sections for the sexes at political meetings, conferences, weddings, funerals, demonstrations, and even different queues in front of a bakery. Buses are divided into two parts separated with a metal grille. Men should get on and off through the front door; the rear section and rear door are for women. Women are excluded from sports halls, where “unveiled” men play football or wrestle in shorts. Mixing the sexes was seen by Ayatollah Khomeini as a plot “designed by foreigners to propagate promiscuity, and to weaken the Muslim youth’s determination.”19 All places where segregation cannot be imposed, for example, in the street, shopping centers, or parks, are under the supervision of the moral police.
Another noticeable feature of Iranian normative modesty is the division of space into public and private spheres. Private space (andaruni) is associated with women and family relations (mahram). Public space (biruni) is associated with men and unrelatedness (namahram). Traditional urban house designs use high walls and inner rooms to protect the family from the public. In southern Tehran, the quarter (mahalleh) still functions in its traditional role, as an interstitial space between private and public, under the control of neighbors. If this moral geography is violated, it might cause stigmatization. One way of understanding the chador—the black veil that covers the body from head to foot—is to see it as a “mobile andaruni.” Just as the walls of a house protect the inhabitants, the chador protects women moving through public space from being looked at by unrelated men.
Imposition of the Islamic order has transformed traditional definitions of space. The urban sociologist Amir-Ebrahimi (1380/2001) argues that after the Revolution even public spaces in the cities have to some extent been transformed into andaruni. The patriarchal father’s attention to the female virtue (namous) of his family is now part of the way the state manages space (Foucault 2000: 207). Although traditional principles of marking off public space from morally controlled “private” space are not followed in modern architecture and urban planning in Tehran, the attitude maintaining them is still powerful in some places. For instance, in all public places such as cinemas or restaurants there is a section “specifically for families” (makhsous-e khanevadeh), which is separated or “protected” from the single male’s (afrad-e mojarad) erotic power.
I experienced this “spatial morality” personally several times when I was asked to leave restaurants in Iran because I did not respect the “family space.” Once I was refused entrance to a well-known traditional teahouse. “It is only for families. We do not want to have mojarads [single people] here,” the doorman told me. Mojarad generally means single, but usually refers only to a single male. The discrimination against mojarads does not include women. While single men are not allowed to enter “family spaces,” single women can do so. A single man is called azab, an Arabic word which means unmarried but also “to be distant.” So, the dangerous single men are supposed to be distant, unattached, and isolated. At the entrance to the traditional teahouse, upset by being discriminated against, I insisted on entering, and the porter repeated: “Here is only for family-possessed [khanevadeh-dar] persons.” Being “family-possessed” brings connotations of morality, civility, or virtue. To call somebody “without-family” (bi-khanevadeh) is an insult, meaning that the person is vulgar and undignified. The moral geography in Iran is thus organized in a way that segregates the family (read women) from unrelated, particularly single, men, who are supposed to be potential challengers of the order of sexual purity that is upheld and protected by the omnipresence of the patriarch. The most blatant discriminations against young bachelor men are done by the basij.
Once I asked Bahman, a basiji in the Shahrak-e Gharb (I shall return to him in the next chapter), “Why do you stop only cars in which there are young people, while cars in which there are families can go through?”
Bahman: “Families usually are not a problem. But be honest and tell me don’t you become suspicious, if you see three well-dressed young men in a car at midnight?”
To summarize, the personal modesty that is designed and imposed from above implies a social control of the body that acts not only by covering hair and skin but also by desexualizing the body in public and by imposing a normative poverty. Modesty in appearance and behavior thus operates both as a symbol of Islamic order and as a mechanism for maintaining it, in a combination of self-regulation and external control. The modest body demonstrates the normative values of the social body (see Douglas 1982), defining its social boundaries and confirming a person’s loyalty to the social order. Operating by humiliating the self, the body and its desires, the social order is turned into a project of self-abasement. If one side of this is to create an aestheticization of modesty, the other side engenders the celebration of sadness.
Iranian Blues: The Politics of Grief
When you are among Iranians, don’t smile too much; they don’t. (Lewis 2000: 333)
Iranians frequently complain that the Iranian culture is “a culture of sadness” (farhang-e gham), “a culture of mourning” (farhang-e azadari). Contrary to Western conceptualizations of it, in the Iranian culture sadness in its various shapes of grief and despair is not an indication of anomaly or a destructive feeling, but rather is normal and even valued.20 The medical anthropologist asserts that dysphoria is central to the Iranian ethos (Good et al. 1985: 384). Such feelings are usually seen as symbols of inner purity (safa-ye baten). Once, while attending a concert, Dara and I saw Davod sitting close to us. Davod is a young man from Shahrak-e Gharb. An activist in the Local Association (anjoman-e mahali), he is accused by many other youths of being a political opportunist and having a “businessman style” (bazari maslak). Dara and his friends in Shahrak-e Gharb rarely missed a chance to criticize and belittle him. During the concert, Dara told me to look at Davod who, impressed by an old sorrowful melody, was shedding tears. Apparently surprised by Davod’s tears, Dara said after the concert: “Did you see? He cried. He is sincere. Despite his deceitfulness, his heart is clean.” Sadness and grief (qam o qosseh) are marks of social sophistication and personal “depth” (‘oumgh) and decency. Cheerful persons who express their joy frankly, laugh loudly, and joke with others risk being stamped as “happy-go-lucky” (alaki khosh), “unconcerned” (bi-khiyal), or bidard. In rural Iran it is still usual for people after long laughs to say “forgive me, God” (astaqforella), as if laughing is in itself a sin.
The centrality of tragedy to collective consciousness in Iran is reflected in popular culture and mythology. The Iranian national epic Shahnameh (Book of Kings) consists of tragedies. The best known of them are the tragedy of Rostam and Sohrab and the story of Siavash (I will return to these myths later). From the pre-Islamic mythologies in Shahnameh to the drama of Karbala, tragedy is related to the most conspicuous form of self-abasement and martyrdom. However, the Iranians’ vision of tragedy is first and foremost rooted in Shiite history and principally in the drama of Karbala.
The Tragedy of Karbala
The Karbala massacre took place in the month of Moharram 61 A.H. (ca. October 680 A.D.), on the plain of Karbala, located in today’s Iraq. Imam Hossein, son of Imam Ali and grandson of the Prophet, was martyred on the tenth day of Moharram, known as Ashura.21 The detailed history of Ashura is a story of loneliness,
