Every nook, every moment has a story — from the inscriptions of Persepolis to the glazed tiles in Isfahan. These are glimpses of Iran through legends, poetry and its people.

Farah Yameenis an oral historian

In good faith: Faravahar, the Zoroastrian symbol, on the walls of Persepolis, near the city of Shiraz. Persians worshipped Ahura Mazda, the ‘one true god’. The winged faravahar was the symbol of the followers of Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism. The advent of Islam in Iran led to an exodus of Zoroastrians, the largest numbers of the descendants of those who fled live in India. Many in Iran, however, have retained their allegiance to the sun and its fire. The faravahar is now a secular symbol, while Nowruz, the Persian new year, and Shab-e-Yalda, the longest and darkest night of the year, are still observed in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Notes of progress: Music room, Ali Qapu, Naqsh-e-Jahan, Isfahan. It was under Islam that what most of us today understand as Persian culture and literature developed. It gave the world the stories of Layla and Majnun, Shirin and Farhad, the poetry of Ferdowsi, Hafez, Saadi, Jami, Khayyam and Rumi. Their poetry heralded the Sufi movement, which travelled all the way to the Indian subcontinent. To the Sufis, neither music nor dance was forbidden. It led to a cultural resurgence in the country. I saw in a dream/A saki fair/ In his hands the gleam/Of the goblet there/To his ghost I said, “As His slave thou art/In the Master’s stead/O receive my heart. Rubai 51 (translated by Eliza Tasbihi)

Vehicle of love: Wall art depicting Shirin, from the romantic tragedy Shirin and Farhad (also Khosrow and Shirin) by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, Tehran. The poets of Persia gave to literature some of the most powerful romantic tragedies ever written. “Shirin! Did you say Shirin? How astonishing! How fortunate!” Then Khosrow told his friend about the dream and sent Shapur at once to bring Shirin to him. “If she be like wax, impress her with our seal. If her heart be like iron, return at once and tell me, so I shall not strike cold iron.” (translated by Peter J Chelkowski)

What’s in a name: A corridor in the Masjid-e-Imam (formerly Masjid-e Shah) Naqsh-e-Jahan, Isfahan. The Pahlavis are the last dynasty to rule modern Iran. Many considered King Reza Shah a minion of the British who oversaw, what Prof Hamid Dabashi calls, a “brutal program of modernisation”. But to those who remember his reign fondly, it was the days that preceded headscarves, whips and prohibition. When the revolution overthrew the Shahs, all memory of dynastic rule were also removed. It is how Masjid-e-Shah came to be known as Masjid-e-Imam, although it had nothing to do with the deposed king in the first place

In bold Graffiti, Tehran. “Dear Khomeini, We Will Never Put Down the Flag You Have Raised. Down With The USA.” The streets and walls of Iran never cease to tell stories. Listeners, however, are few.

Published on June 9, 2017