CoL 49

[David Morris]

Similarly, the Mid-East scholar, Juan Cole, illuminates the tone of the
current protests in Iran (Thursday as a day of mourning for those killed) by
providing the Shia-Islamic influences on the population there:

http://www.juancole.com/

Mourning the martyr is as central to Iranian Shiite religious culture as it
was to strains of medieval Catholicism in Europe, and Mousavi's camp is
tapping into a powerful set of images and myths here. The archetypal Shiite
martyr is Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who championed
oppressed Muslims in Iraq and was cut down by the then Umayyad Muslim
Empire. Recognition that a Muslim state might commit the ultimate in
sacrilege by beheading a person who had been dangled on the Prophet's knee
has imbued modern political Shiism with a distrust of the state. When
Husayn's head was brought to the Umayyad caliph Yazid and deposited before
his throne, older companions of the Prophet are said to have wept and
remarked, "I saw the Prophet's lips on those cheeks." Shiites ritually
march, flagellate, and chant in honor of the martyred Imam or
divinely-appointed leader.

Today's protesters are wearing green, which symbolizes Mousavi's descent
from the Prophet Muhammad. (Mousavi's family name refers to the Seventh Imam
(descendant of the Prophet with claims to divine knowledge), Musa Kazim,
whose tomb is in Kazimiya, north Baghdad. Sayyid families, those claiming
descent from the Prophet, often take one of the Imams' names as a family
name to honor them, though of course they are also claiming descent from the
previous Imams right back to the Prophet.) The repertoires of protest the
reformists are using echo those of the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution-- they are
chanting "God is Great," mourning pious fallen martyrs, etc.-- another sign
that this movement is not just alienated secularized elites.

But now Mousavi's his supporters are also sporting black ribbons to indicate
that they are in mourning for the fallen. Typically, the dead will be
commemorated again at one month and at 40 days. In 1978 such demonstrations
for those killed in previous demonstrations grew in size all through the
year, till they reached an alleged million in the streets of Tehran. Since
the reformists are already claiming Monday's rally was a million, you wonder
where things will go from here.

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:

I agree with what you say but would carry the argument further.

Even if you grew up totally without religion, but live in "The West," your
moral outlook can't help but be shaped by Christianity.

Western Civilization (for good or ill) had a very Christian upbringing.

I have always thought that the postmodernist affinity for acceptance and
lack of exclusion is basically Christian.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20090618/e48fcfc6/attachment-0001.html>