Thirty Years On

An Imaginary Return to Iran

This week in Iran they are celebrating thirty years of the Islamic Revolution. Thirty years since the overthrow of the Shah and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in Paris. And so it must be thirty one years since I travelled the length and breadth of that amazing land. Young, single and fancy free at the time, I suppose, but it was an awesome experience. A time when I learned a lot... about life and God, and believing. Lessons that have stayed with me. The images on the TV news reawaken vignettes of that moment in my life.

..The Fertile slopes and orchards of Amol leading down to the Caspian coast

....The Snows of Damavand ...... the sands of Zahedan.

........Blues tiles of Esfahan ..... lofty minarets of Mashhad.

.....Lines of tankers off the coast at Bandar e Abbas .

................................. .... Lines of trucks at the border crossing near Tabriz.

.... Corridors of Islamic learning and tradition in the mosques of Qom

................................ .....The older Zoroastrian tradition in the awesome towers of silence in Yazd.

.... The depths of history in Queen Esthers’s tomb in Hamadan

............................. ..... and in the Behustan inscription near Kermanshah.

Wow, those were heady days indeed. What an immense privilege to be part of that world and at that time. The realisation that events happen, times passes, seasons change and things are never quite the same again. The period you live in in the moment you have is so utterly unique.

I wonder how it might look if I were ever able to return. What would have changed and what would have remained the same? Ideoligies come and go. Kingdoms rise and fall. But those vast open deserts, clear blue skies, warm welcoming people, rich ancient cultures. Things like that you can’t alter. Nor the God who created and sustained this glowious world of ours. I suppose I might close with a single line from Iran's greatest poet Ferdowsi (935 – 1020) -

“Take not this world in jest, but walk with those whose steps are right;
right as thine end propose If thou wouldst be with men of glorious name”