A tale of twenty two cities by Sohail Moughal

Sohail Moughal

A TALE OF TWENTY TWO CITIES ISBN 969 34 0000 3, Published in 1997
Chapter - 3 GATEWAY OF ALL NATIONS The ten hour journey was spent sleeping as there was nothing much to see outside the windows. Around midnight the bus stopped at a gas station and for some reason the whole place was crowded with camels. It seems as if they had come for refueling too. The desert between Esfahan and Shiraz is home of the Qashqai tribe who still live a nomadic life. In the morning we passed through the peaks of Zagros mountains and reached a valley, situated between Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia, from where the Persian kings set out, conquered and ruled almost every notable civilization living in their times. The city also had been capital of Persia during 1750-79. It was about nine in the morning when we got out of the bus terminal and hired a cab to take us to any 'mehmon khana' in the city center. On our way we asked the driver about the places worth-seeing in Shiraz. Later it was decided that the cab driver would remain hired with us for the whole day and take us to the tombs of Shah Chiragh, Saadi Shirazi, Hafiz Shirazi and the Takht-e-Jamshed. The taxis costed so cheap in Iran that we could afford to pay fifteen thousand Rials for the day's trip to all these places. He even promised to bring us back to the bus terminal next day. After climbing a very narrow stairway, we reached a very small counter where an old woman was standing behind it in the small area, technically called landing of the stairs. Abdul Manan, the driver told her about our requirement of two small rooms. She asked us about the number of days we intended to stay. When we told her that we wanted to stay for a single night only, she started fighting with the driver. It was unprofitable for the owner to change the bed-covers for the customers checking in and out every day. According to her the visitors staying for a day make the room more dirty than the ones staying for a week or so. She was a funny looking woman, and insisted on keeping our passports with her, until we had checkout. She was drinking milk at that moment and later, I observed that a glassful of milk was always present on the counter from which she kept on sipping throughout the day. After taking her time in completing her paperwork she gave the keys to Manan and told him the number of our room. We decided to grab a quick shower before going out for sightseeing. There was only one bathroom in the whole of the inn and one of us had to wait. The woman and the driver kept on shouting at each other, all through the time we took in refreshing ourselves. I told the driver that we needed most of the time to be spent in Takht-e-Jamshed. He nodded and moved on. First he took us to the tomb of the famous Saadi Shirazi, who was a great romantic Persian poet of the mid-thirteenth century. His books Gulistan and Boostan are considered as great contributions to classical literature, world wide. Saadi travelled a lot throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa and spent last days of his life in Shiraz. The region around Saadi's tomb was called "Saadia" Not very far from Saadia, we were taken to a place called "Hafizia" where the tomb of another great mystic and romantic poet, widely known as "Lisan-ul-Ghaib12", Khawaja Hafiz Shirazi was visited by us. The period after which the Mongols left Persia, is considered to be the golden age of the Persian arts and literature. Great thinkers and poets like Saadi, Romi, Hafiz and Jami contributed a lot during these times. Hafiz though, holds a key position in this era, as his poetry had the romanticism like Saadi's, mysticism like Roomi's and Shams Tabraizi's and held the same masterly position in Persian literature which was enjoyed by Jami in the later years. Later, we went to the tomb of Shah Chiragh, the man who had been a companion of three famous Imams: namely, Imam Jafar Sadiq, Imam Musa Kazim and Imam Reza. The last Imam had said that if anybody after his death came to visit him and did not visit Shah Chiragh, then the pilgrim's homage wouldn't be accepted. A lot of people who were being seen here, must have come from or planned to go to the Northern Iran to visit the tomb of Imam Reza at Mashhad. Close to the tomb was a market called Bazar Shah Chiragh. We wandered around the market shops for some fifteen minutes. After buying some cokes and sandwiches we headed for Tahkt-e-Jamshed. Travelling for some twenty kilometers on a lonely road out of the city we reached the ruins of the royal capital of fifth century BC Persian empire. The excavation to unearth this city was started in 1930. Alexander, after crossing Dardanelles alongwith an army of forty thousand men in 334BC, conquered the Persipolis and burnt the city as a revenge to the way the Persian invaders during the reign of Darius and his son Xerxes, had burnt the Greek temples. Today some twenty meter high huge columns without a roof and wide terraces could be seen only, evident of the grandeur and splendor of the ceremonial capital of the King of Kings, Darius I and his son. Darius held an empire of over three hundred subject nations and divided them into twenty provinces. Governors of these provinces had full autonomy, but the king's special secretaries called the eyes and ears of the king were responsible for tax collection and check against any revolts in the empire. We entered the Persipolis from the stairway and reached the ruins of a huge gate house which used to be called as the gateway of all nations. The thirteen columns, which can be seen even today were actually the columns of a twenty meter high audience hall called apadana. The remains of a thirty six column throne-room and the hundred column palace were totally destroyed; and only the rubble and the bricks laid as foundations proved of its existence. The bas-reliefs, which decorated the walls of all the halls, stairways and terraces of the palace were the evident source of providing the information about the happenings and the styles of the administration of those days. On the stairway, the figures of men could be notably differentiated by their costumes and head-gears as the Syrians, Ionians, Bactrins of Afghanistan, Medeans and the Persians bringing and presenting traditional gifts of their regions to the king. There were not many tourists seen in Shiraz and there was nobody visiting Persipolis besides us that day. The driver told us that all the aeroplanes were busy with taking the pilgrims to the Holy Macca; and not many domestic flights were operating in the country these days. We came back to our room at around seven in the afternoon and took an early dinner in a nearby restaurant. We were so tired that we went to sleep at once, only to be awakened by the piercing voice of the old woman, echoing through the narrow stairway, at six next morning. Manan was standing outside smiling warmly towards us as we came out of our room, to rush with the morning routine SSS. As we had paid him off the previous night and the pick-and-drop service was something he had offered himself, we didn't expect him to keep his promise at all. He showed us his watch to make us realize that we'd miss the first bus if we didn't hurry up. At the bus terminal we took the tickets for Qum and went to take a hurried breakfast in a nearby restaurant. Later, I called my friend Hameed in Qum and his father picked the phone. He told me that Hameed had gone to Tehran to meet his elder brother Waheed, and would return by the evening. He asked us to come to Qum and if Hameed had not returned by then he would give me the address of Wahid in Tehran. Hameed had visited Pakistan last year and stayed in Mastung for a couple of days with a friend. Manan wanted us to stay for one more day in Shiraz and be his guest in his house. He was standing near his taxi when we got to our seats in the bus He vanished all of a sudden and moments later was standing in the bus aisle, with two bottles of mineral water in his hands. "Zaroorat Naist", I tried to tell him that it was not necessary; but he hurriedly put them in our laps and left the bus. He kept on standing outside the window until the bus started moving. We crossed the Zagros mountains and the desert, home of nomadic Qashqai tribe once again; but this time during the daylight. Almost the same kind of ambulatory life is followed by a tribe found in the dry mountains of Southern Pakistan not very far from where I live. Clusters of gypsy houses made of bamboo shoots and colorful used clothes, which are called gidans in the Southern part of my country were seen scattered throughout the desert. Girls running after the goats, women cooking food in smoke covered huge black pots and baking round bread of very wide diameter were a sight very similar to my part of the world. Very long caravans of camels were also seen once in a while moving through the sand dunes most probably to explore those parts of the desert which had been left by there forefathers. Occassionally a lone camel was also seen walking with heavy steps. The guy sitting accross the aisle, told me that there were very remote chances of a camel like this, probably seperated from its caravan, to live for more than a couple of days. Gypsys' concepts were always a mystery to me and I always wished to find an opportunity to spend some time with them in their gidans. They are the ones who truly believe in the fact that their is no need to plan about the future because you don't know and you can not choose whether you are going to live through that or not. We reached Esfahan at around six in the afternoon. Qum was about four hours away, which meant that it will be very late when we reached Qum. Considering it bad manners to call on Hameed's father at that hour of the night, I decided to call Qum from Esfahan. Hamid had not come yet. I could only note the telephone number; because it was difficult for me to understand the address his father was trying to dictate in Persian. I wished he understood me, when I wanted to tell him that I will not be staying in Qum anymore. The bus dropped us at Haram Park in Qum, where the tomb of Masooma, the sister of Imam Reza was situated. The sight of the huge park was magnificent enough to hold our breaths. Whole of the park and the adjoining roads were illuminated with globes like luminaire and it looked as if candles instead of electric lamps were used inside. Qum also holds the central Islamic university of the Shiite Muslims. Students from all over the world, lot of them being from Pakistan also, come here and study Islam and its applications in all aspects of life. The moral, social, economic and scientific approach of Islam according to the Shiite sect is taught here. The city is also called the city of Ulema14. Apart from these two important holy places in the city, the third one, where almost whole of Qum assembles once a week is called as Masjid-e-Jim Karan. Muslims all over the world believe that Jesus was not crucified and was lifted by God instead, to be sent again in the world as Imam Mehdi, sometime before the doomsday. The people would have completely forgotten the teachings of God, by then and Imam Mehdi would give the final invitation of God for "Amar bil Maroof and Nahi anil Munkir15" before the final judgement starts. According to the people of Qum it was believed that one of the Ulema of the city saw Imam Mehdi in his dream, in which the Imam directed him to construct the Masjid-e-Jim Karan. They also believed that the Imam is himself present; but can not be seen, once in a week, most probably on Wednesdays in the mosque.

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Go to other chapters by clicking below
INTRODUCTION
Chapter # 1 GETTING STARTED
Chapter # 2 PEAKS PROTECT THE DESERTS
Chapter # 3 GATEWAY OF ALL NATIONS
Chapter # 4 THE TWELVERS
Chapter # 5 THE BUSINESS OF EVERY BUSINESS IS TO MAKE MONEY
Chapter # 6 CITIES BORN BEFORE THEIR TIMES
Chapter # 7 EID-UL-AZHA IN ISTANBUL
Chapter # 8 EMPTY MOSQUES
Chapter # 9 GOD’S FAVOURITE CITY
Chapter # 10 BLUE POOLS OF PAMMUKALE
Chapter # 11 THE GREEN PASSPORT AND THE GREEN CARD
Chapter # 12 IMMORAL, IMMORTAL GODS
Chapter # 13 THE NUDE OLYMPICS
Chapter # 14 SEARCH FOR REASON
Chapter # 15 BRONZE AGE BARI
Chapter # 16 ROMANTIC ROMA
Chapter # 17 EVERYBODY CONSIDERS EVERYBODY EDUCATED
Chapter # 18 OLEV SILD
Chapter # 19 DUAL RELIGION
Chapter # 20 BYE-BYE BALTIC
Chapter # 21 TOGETHER THEY STOOD, DIVIDED WITH WALL
Chapter # 22 THE THIRTY FIRST DAY