Si-O-Se Pol—Bridge Over Multicultural Waters

Arcade on the Si-o-Se Pol Bridge
Photo by Siasard

By Heidi Noroozy

I’m a sucker for bridges. It gives me a rush to stand in the middle of a river, high and dry above the rushing stream, and contemplate all the places the river has been, from its source in the mountains to its mouth at the sea. I like to imagine the human stories that play out along its banks and think about the ingenious ways people have devised for crossing from one side to the other.

The Iranian city of Esfahan has a bridge that I’m sure was built just for dreamers like me. The Si-o-Se Pol Bridge spans the Zayandeh Rud River and connects Esfahan’s famous Chahar Bagh Boulevard with the Armenian neighborhood of New Julfa. This bridge is not only one of the oldest in Esfahan (built between 1591 and 1597 on the order of Shah Abbas the Great) but also the largest anywhere in Iran (45 feet wide and 175 yards long).

The Si-o-Se Pol is also known as the Allah Verdi Khan Bridge, the name of the provincial governor who oversaw its construction. Born a Christian in Georgia, Allah Verdi Khan Undiladze was captured during one of Shah Abbas’s Caucasus campaigns. He worked his way up to the position of commander in the Persian ghulam army, a special branch consisting of Christian captives. Later, Abbas appointed Allah Verdi Khan governor of Pars Province in southern Iran, and he eventually became the second most powerful man in the empire, after the shah. How’s that for a rags-to-riches story?

The bridge’s double-decker structure is built from the yellow brick and limestone masonry that is typical of Esfahan architecture. On a clear day, the color turns a burnished gold under the region’s relentless desert sun. The upper level holds the roadway, now limited to pedestrian traffic, and is flanked by two vaulted arcades. In the old days, when the bridge was a major thoroughfare crowded with carriages, farmers driving stock to market, and carts laden high with merchandise for the bazaar, these side corridors served as pedestrian zones where people on foot could escape the danger of being trampled. Today, they are quiet spaces where you can walk and admire the lovely arched ceilings and high brick walls.

Photo by Shahab Maghami

The lower level rests on piers, separated by 33 arched sluices where the river can flow past. These sluices lend the bridge its name, for Si-o-Se Pol means the Bridge of 33 Arches in Farsi. The piers, in turn, are supported on piles driven deep into the riverbed. The builders created these piles by digging shafts down to the stable bedrock, lining the shafts with earthenware pipes, and filling the pipes with stones and mud. Apparently, such pile construction was cutting-edge technology in the late 16^th century.

This bottom deck also contains a teahouse with tables and chairs set up along a narrow passage under the southern end of the bridge and also on an outside ledge near the shore. Between the tables, flights of stone steps lead to private chambers, where a family or group of friends can enjoy their tea out of public view.

My favorite features of the Si-o-Se Pol Bridge, though, are the alcoves set at intervals along the upper deck. They form little balconies overlooking the river, where you can sit and admire the view. See why I think this bridge was built for dreamers like me? I did sit in one of these alcoves once, contemplating the river, the distant mountains—and murder. (I am, after all, a crime writer.) It was where I came up with an idea for the novel I was writing at the time, in which a young woman is pushed from the Si-o-Se Pol Bridge and drowns in the river below.

Sipping tea under the bridge

I’ve also sipped tea in one of the teahouse’s little stone rooms. After dark one evening during Ramadan, my husband, his sister, and I sat on the red-carpeted floor, leaning against large cushions that lined the walls, and enjoyed little glasses of steaming tea. The river was calm that night, and we listened to it lapping gently against the stone piers, punctuated by the occasional crash of breaking glass.

Breaking glass? Curious, I crawled to the window of our stone chamber and peered down into the teahouse kitchen, which stood just above the water line. A man stood there tossing old water pipes (known as gheylians) out the door, where the glass portions shattered on the stone foundation over which the river flowed. (Note to self: Never go wading barefoot in the Zayandeh Rud—at least nowhere near the Si-o-Se Pol Bridge.)

The Si-o-Se Pol may not be the prettiest bridge in Esfahan. That honor goes to the Khadjou Bridge, which was built fifty years later. But I have to love a bridge whose history is rooted in three countries and two religions: Persia, Armenia, and Georgia and Islam and Christianity. Even better, it’s a bridge whose designers wanted people to take a moment from their busy day and notice the wonders of the natural world.

To get a close-up look at the Si-o-Se Pol Bridge, check out this video by Amin Eftekhari:

Twisted Threads – The Dark Side of Persian Carpet Weaving

Carpet weaver at the Carpet Museum in Tehran

By Heidi Noroozy

 

One of the perks I get from setting my stories and books in Iran is the opportunity for fascinating research. In 2004, while investigating Iran’s carpet industry for my unpublished novel, Frayed Silk, I scoured the carpet bazaars in Kashan and Esfahan, two of Iran’s major carpet producing cities, with my husband acting as interpreter. My goal was to find a carpet weaver who would talk to me about her life and work.

I’m almost ashamed to admit it now, but I had a rather romanticized notion of carpet weaving. I pictured women sitting happily at looms in their village homes, working things of beauty according to their own designs, taking pride in their craft.

In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Iran’s carpet industry today is largely a contract business. The work is still performed in private homes, and the workforce remains primarily women and children. (The Islamic Republic has child labor laws, which, like so many Iranian rules, are routinely broken.) But the Disney image I’d harbored of the happy artisan plying her craft and selling her work to appreciative buyers is long gone, if it ever existed at all.

The commission system works like this: Carpet wholesalers, like the companies I saw at the bazaar, own the means of production. They set up looms in the weavers’ homes, employ artists to create the designs, supply the materials (wool, silk, and cotton threads), and buy the finished carpets at wholesale prices.

Although centralized workshops do exist, many carpet dealers prefer the commission business because it is harder to regulate and allows them to avoid such inconveniences as paying minimum wage, taxes, and rent. The system also gives them greater flexibility in production, since they can add and remove looms according to market fluctuations. The dealers get the best of both worlds: skilled workers and absolute control over the business. The weavers, however, have no say in design, working hours, wages, or even whether they work at all.

Repairing a carpet at the back of the bazaar
in Esfahan

The carpet bazaaris I spoke to were less than eager to put me in touch with a flesh-and-blood weaver. Understandably, they were mainly interested in selling me their carpets. But when I plied my questions, they grew vague and unfriendly, all too happy to be rid of me. “Go ask Agha X three doors down,” they’d say. “He can help you.”

Persistence paid off eventually, when one man directed us to a carpet weaving school on a narrow alley just off Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Esfahan. There, in a windowless room at the top of a steep flight of stairs, we found two weavers sitting cross-legged at a vertical loom, knotting a huge blue and white floral carpet of an Esfahani design. One of the weavers worked the background colors while the other added the flowers, leaves, and vines, pulling colorful threads from skeins of wool hanging from the loom’s top beam. After completing a row, the two women would switch places to complete the pattern.

One of the weavers, a woman in her early thirties whom I’ll call Zahra, was happy to answer my questions about her work and life as a carpet weaver.

Born into a carpet weaving family in a village near Esfahan, Zahra learned to weave carpets as a small child, working with her parents. The skill of so many years of practice was easy to see in her deft fingers, which flew across the carpet she was knotting with such speed and assurance they practically blurred before my eyes.

Zahra’s parents didn’t want her to become a weaver. Instead, they urged her to find a better job without such long hours and backbreaking work. Understandable when you consider what it takes to create these lovely, complex works of textile art. Eighteen-hour workdays hunched over a loom give carpet weavers a higher-than-average rate of musculoskeletal disorders. The repetitive movements of knotting the rugs cripple fingers, create skin lesions, and induce swollen joints. Even lung disease is higher among carpet weavers, who breathe in fine wool dust all day long.

Detail of a silk carpet

But Zahra loved carpets and took pride in her family’s tradition of skilled weavers, so she persisted. Today she teaches at the school where we found her, her students mainly middle-class women who learn the craft as a hobby. Zahra also still weaves rugs on commission for local dealers, like the Esfahani carpet she was working on with a partner that day. She told me that it would take the two of them eight months to finish the six-meter rug.

Our house is filled with hand-made Persian carpets, old ones inherited from relatives and new ones we’ve bought ourselves at Iranian bazaars. Since that trip to Esfahan eight years ago, I can’t look at them without thinking of the skilled hands that knotted the rugs. Knowing the hardship that went into creating such beauty makes me appreciate Persian carpets all the more. To live without them would be unthinkable. For as my Iranian friends and relatives like to say – a home without a carpet is a home without a soul.

Shah Abbas and The Remaking of an Empire

Shah Abbas I

The first time I visited Esfahan, I was captivated by a slogan flashing on a neon sign outside my hotel window every night. Esfahan, nesf-e jahan, it proclaimed to the dark neighborhood: Esfahan – half the world. The words had me imagining a cosmopolitan metropolis whose streets were filled with traders from around the world, intellectuals arguing the finer points of philosophy in a cacophony of languages, tourists thronging museums, mosques, and palaces. In reality, I didn’t see a single foreigner (besides myself) in all the days my husband and I spent exploring the city.

But there was a time when Esfahan’s bold claim did ring true. Five hundred years ago, it was the heart of a vibrant empire, an economic, cultural, and political powerhouse built by an ambitious and visionary king.

Shah Abbas I, who ruled Iran from 1587 to 1629 during the Safavid Dynasty, was sixteen when he seized power in a coup against his father, Mohamed Mirza, a weak-willed monarch who had allowed the country to descend into political chaos. Shah Mohamed had sat by as the Ottomans seized vast territories in the west, and he ceded much of the northeastern Khorasan province to the Uzbeks. Infighting between the powerful Qizilbash tribesmen, who governed the provinces and controlled the military, undermined the government’s central authority.

The new king set about rectifying his father’s mistakes, ruling Iran with a keen sense of military strategy, political savvy, and a combination of compassion and ruthlessness. He beat back the Ottomans and Uzbeks, strengthened central authority, reformed the military and government institutions, opened up trade with the West, and launched what is now recognized as the Golden Age of Iranian art and culture.

Naghsh-e Jahan Square, Esfahan

In 1597, Shah Abbas relocated his capital from the northern city of Qazvin to the more centrally situated Esfahan, which was better suited for overseeing his empire (encompassing present day Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey) and afforded more convenient access to the southern trading ports. He built a new city, partly with the help of Armenian artisans he’d forcibly resettled from his northeastern border to areas in the nation’s interior to establish a buffer between Iran and the Ottoman Empire. By depopulating the region, Abbas prevented the Ottomans from using the Armenian villages to launch attacks against Iran. Yes, he could be ruthless.

Shah Abbas’s military, economic, and political strategies were all intertwined and aimed at creating a strong nation. Peace in the border regions brought prosperity that allowed art and culture to flourish. The end to internal strife strengthened the king’s authority and helped fill the royal coffers, which gave Abbas the financial means to establish trade with the West and gain the support of his people. He saw Europe as a natural ally in his ongoing struggle against the Ottomans, and the flourishing silk trade he established with the Dutch and the British melded European economic interests with his own desire for stability.

Contemporary accounts describe Abbas as a highly intelligent and intensely curious man, a compassionate ruler who honored and valued human rights, freedom of religion, and education. He used Christian Armenian merchants to conduct the silk trade with the West on the principle that Europeans would be able to relate better to followers of their own faith. He built universities and hospitals and welcomed foreigners and their ideas to his court, something that would have been unthinkable in the days of his predecessors.

Vank Cathedral, New Julfa, Esfahan
Photo by Raeabileah

Although you could argue that the forcible relocation of Armenians was anything but compassionate (thousands died on the march south), once in Esfahan, these new residents enjoyed a certain amount of freedom and autonomy. Abbas built them their own town named New Julfa and allowed them to largely govern themselves, own property, and practice their religion (he even built them a beautiful cathedral that still stands today) – all notions that were rare among Muslim leaders of the time.

Unfortunately, Abbas’s compassion didn’t extend to his own family. Obsessed with fears that his progeny would overthrow him in a violent coup, he had his eldest son assassinated and two others blinded. According to the beliefs of the time, a blind man could not become king.

Subsequent Iranian rulers undermined many of Shah Abbas’s accomplishments, and the country again lost vast territories in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, this time to Afghanistan and Russia. But the ghost of this charismatic Safavid leader lives on in Esfahan, where the blue-tiled mosques and richly decorated palaces he built still sparkle in the desert sun, and his ornate bridges link two halves of the city across the Zayandeh Rud, a river (aptly named the Giver of Life) that snakes through the arid landscape. The city may not be host to half the world anymore, but it does mark a milestone in Iranian history – when a charismatic monarch unified his fragmented nation under the banner of religious tolerance and prosperity.

Hide Your Eyes! The Hazardous Art of Ghalamzani

by Heidi Noroozy

“Put on your sunglasses,” my sister-in-law advised.

It was not immediately apparent why, since we were entering the dark heart of the Esfahan Bazaar, far from the desert sun beating down on the square outside. With every step, the tapping of metal on metal grew louder, a percussion orchestra beating out a rhythmic symphony.

But as we turned the corner into a long hall, a blaze of reflected light dazzled my eyes. Row upon row of embossed copper vases, engraved silver trays, and gold-plated bowls sparkled and gleamed down the length of the endless hall. And all along the stone walls, men sat at workbenches, hammering, chiseling, and shaping metal into practical vessels and decorative plates, their hand tools creating the syncopated music that reverberated through the space.

We had entered the workshop of the ghalamzani artisans, practitioners of the art of Persian metal engraving. The name of this handicraft is derived from the Persian word for pen (ghalam) and the verb “to hit” (zadan).

I slid my sunglasses over my eyes, suddenly grasping the urgency of my sister-in-law's warning. Tiny chips of metal could fly through the air, too small to see yet sharp enough to do serious damage. And yet none of the men laboring so hard in this long corridor wore any type of protective goggles.

Carving designs in metal has been practiced for three millennia, but in Persia it rose to a fine art in the twelfth century, when the Turkish-speaking Seljuks (11^th to 14^th centuries A.D.) perfected their metalworking techniques. They fashioned many practical items from metal, mainly bronze and copper, including incense burners, mirrors, and candlesticks.

The centers of ghalamzani production in modern Iran are Kermanshah, Shiraz, Tehran, and Esfahan. And this handicraft includes several metalworking techniques, the main ones being embossing and engraving. The materials most commonly used are copper, bronze, gold, brass, and silver.

In embossing, a raised design is worked into the metal from the back using a hammer and blunt punch. A thick layer of tar is first applied to the inside of the object or the back of a flat sheet of metal to absorb the impact of the hammer and protect the material from damage. The design is traced into the back of the sheet with a tool called a nimbor. Upon completing the design, the object is heated to remove the tar. In Shiraz, the metal of choice for embossing is silver; in Isfahan, it is copper. Embossing does not involve removing metal, so there are no chips to fly through the air and invade an unprotected eye.

Isfahan artisans are recognized masters of the other technique, where the artisan uses a hammer and sharp chisel to etch designs, many of them quite intricate, into the surface of a bowl, vase, mirror frame, or other object. The artifact is first polished and the pattern applied (often using a piece of perforated paper and rubbing coal dust over the holes). The engraver etches the positive elements of the motif into the metal and leaves the negative elements as raised areas.

The day we visited the ghalamzani workshop at the bazaar, I learned that my sister-in-law’s warning to protect my eyes came from experience. She worked as an eye surgeon at a charity hospital in Isfahan, and every day ghalamzani artisans traipsed through her examining room, needing her to remove tiny slivers of metal from their eyes.

Two pieces of ghalamzani hang on my wall, intricately engraved plates with interlinked geometric patterns chiseled into a nickel alloy. When I look at them and admire the workmanship, I try not to think of the high price they may have demanded from their creator: the loss of his precious eyesight.

A Peacock in the Mosque

Photo by seier + seier

When the Safavid king, Shah Abbas I, moved his capital from Qazvin, north of Tehran, to central Iran in 1598, he transformed Esfahan from a sleepy desert town to a bright jewel on a branch of the Silk Road. He built palaces with fanciful names such as Hasht Behesht (Eight Heavens) and ornate river bridges such as Sioseh Pol (Bridge of the Thirty-Three Arches). At the very heart of his new city, Abbas constructed a vast square that he called Meydoon-e Naghsh-e Jahan, or Half the World Square. Modesty was not an issue with this king.

The Safavid royals were known for their piety—they were the rulers who made Shi’a Islam Iran’s official religion. So it comes as no surprise that Esfahan’s most magnificent structures dating back to Abbas’s time are the mosques. When the sun strikes their blue-tiled domes, they gleam like turquoise gemstones against the dusty brown landscape beyond the city limits. Incidentally, the practice of placing colorful, glazed tiles on the outside of a mosque's dome, and not only on the inside, is a Persian invention.

Meydoon-e Naghsh-e Jahan boasts two magnificent mosques. The larger one is a big blue structure that draws the eye toward the south end of the square. Its orientation is slightly skewed because the architect needed to fulfill two requirements, one aesthetic and the other religious. The main portal stands in smooth alignment with the two-story bazaar building that defines the limits of the rectangular square. But the mosque proper is angled catty-corner to the portal to ensure that its mihrab, or altar, has a southwest orientation and thus faces the holy city of Mecca.

The smaller and (to my mind) far prettier mosque lies straight across the square from Shah Abbas's Ali Qapu Palace. Built between 1601 and 1619, Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque (named after the king’s father-in-law), has two unique physical features as well as a mysterious past. Unlike most Safavid mosques, Lotfollah’s dome is yellow, not blue, and the structure lacks minarets, those slender towers that rise on either side of a mosque’s dome. I can’t explain the unusual color, but the lack of minarets indicates that this mosque was for the royal family’s private use and not open to the public. Minarets are where the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer, a function that is unnecessary in a private place of worship.

Photo by Hamid Parsi

In fact, Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque was built specifically for Shah Abbas’s harem (he was said to have had 200 wives). Guards were posted at the main entrance and a tunnel ran from the mosque to the Ali Qapu Palace—underneath the square—so the king's wives could walk to their prayers without having to shield themselves from public view. This is where the mystery comes in: no evidence of this tunnel has ever been found. So what happened to it? Was the tunnel filled in or did it never exist at all? No one knows.

Tunnel or no tunnel, the fact remains that this women’s mosque is a unique place of worship, on the inside as well as the outside. Most Iranian mosques have a portal that leads directly to a large open square, beyond which lies the main prayer hall and often many other rooms. The open square serves as a meeting place on weekdays and extra space for worshipers during Friday prayers and holidays.

Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque has no central square. You pass through the portal into a narrow, beautifully tiled corridor. The hallway veers off to the left at a 45-degree angle then takes a sharp 90-degree turn and finally opens into the mosque’s one large chamber. Sixteen windows set high in the walls offer the only natural light, and the tiles cover walls in yellow, cream, and several shades of blue. Floral patterns with twisting vines that look like they came straight from an Esfahani carpet abound. Fine calligraphy outlines the mihrab, spelling out the names of the 12 Shiite Imams and the mosque’s master architect (Ostad Mohammed Reza Esfahani).

Photo by Nick Taylor

But I’ve saved the best for last: if you stand at the entrance to the prayer hall and peer up into the dome, you’ll see the shape of a peacock splayed across the ceiling. This is no manmade work of art. The peacock's head is its only physical attribute, formed by a pulley in the center of the dome. The bird's body and tail are nothing more than a trick of the light, created when the sun moves across the ceiling at just the right angle.

Persian mystics believe that the peacock represents the human spirit. A Sufi legend says that God created the human soul from the sweat of the peacock and that the bird's fanned tail represents the cosmic manifestation of the spirit.

I like to think that the spirits of Lotfollah’s designers still reside inside this exquisite mosque. Maybe they contribute to the special sense of tranquility that the interior inspires, so unlike the bustling square outside.

The Sport of Heroes

 We’re standing at the front of a crowded dizin restaurant in Tehran waiting to be seated. I’m looking forward to the food served here: dizin is a traditional one-pot stew of lamb and vegetables served with bread, pickles, and yogurt. But for the time being, I’m perusing a wall of photos depicting Iranian sports idols. From one grainy, black-and-white snapshot stares a face that could be the spitting image of my husband’s, except for the silly grin that is somehow all wrong.

“I didn’t know you were a famous athlete,” I kid my husband.

“That’s Takhti, the wrestler,” he replies with an air of long-suffering patience. “Everyone says I look like him.”

No kidding.

What fascinates me about Gholamreza Takhti, besides his uncanny resemblance to my husband, is the sport in which he excelled. Takhti was a Jahan Pahlavan, a master of the ancient Persian sport of varzesh-e pahlavani (also known as varzesh-e bastani), or pahlavani for short.

Often described as traditional Persian wrestling, pahlavani is actually a martial art that combines physical endurance and strength-building exercises with Sufi-based mysticism. The philosophy behind it is that physical strength (and hence masculinity, for this is an exclusively male domain) comes from spiritual and moral purity. The athletes (known as pahlavans) are supposed to enter the ring with only truth and honesty in their hearts and refrain from words and actions that would insult or humiliate their opponents. No wonder it’s called varzesh-e pahlavani, which translates as the “sport of heroes.”

Pahlavani is practiced in a zurkhaneh (house of strength), an octagonal structure with brick or mud walls, a round opening in the roof, and a sunken pit (gaud) in the center of the room. In traditional zurkhanehs the gaud floor is cement, but modern ones have more comfortable wooden surfaces. The area around the pit is divided into several sections for spectators, musicians, and the athletes themselves. A raised platform is reserved for the murshed, a person who recites poetry and beats a drum that provides the rhythm for the exercises.

Pahlavani practice involves a series of exercises performed to music and chanting, starting with acrobatics and juggling by a pishrav (novice). Athletes also swing huge, heavy clubs (mil), lift weights (some in the shape of iron bows), and perform push-ups and calisthenics. In one exercise, the men spin in circles and leap to the rhythm of the drum, an action that reminds me of Turkey’s whirling dervishes. The ritual ends with a wrestling match between two master pahlavans, one of whom is the zurkhaneh’s current champion and must defend his title against an opponent. The two men grasp each other tightly by the belt and try to knock the other off balance. The objective is to force the opponent’s shoulder to the floor. This form of wrestling is called koshti pahlevani (heroic wrestling).

The sport has its roots in pre-Islamic Persia and was banned soon after the Arab invasion that brought Islam to the country. The Arab invaders considered pahlavani clubs to be hotbeds of subversive activity. Pahlavani reached its peak of popularity the Qajar Dynasty (1785-1925), when Nasser-ed-Din Shah built a zurkhaneh in his palace and staged a big competition during the Persian New Year to select a national champion. Today, the sport is still going strong, with 450 zurkhanehs throughout Iran. In the Islamic Republic, there are even two schools of pahlavani: the traditionalists, who compete to the rhythm of poetry that praises the Prophet Mohammed and his family, and the nationalists, whose musical accompaniment retells the exploits of pre-Islamic kings and warriors.

I’ve never watched a real-live pahlavani competition, and it’s unlikely that I ever will in the Islamic Republic. Under current laws, women are banned from the zurkhaneh. Presumably the reasoning is that so much concentrated testosterone in one place would be too much for our weak sensibilities to take. However, zurkhaneh clubs have spring up all over the world in nearly every place where Iranian immigrants have put down roots, from Australia and Canada to Germany. Maybe there’s even is one in my California neighborhood. In the meantime, check out these video clips to get an idea of how this ancient, heroic sport is practiced.

A zurkhaneh in Esfahan

Athletes spinning

The Magic of Realism

I read fiction for two main reasons. First, to dive headlong into someone else’s life and forget about my own for a few hours at a stretch. Secondly, to learn something new about this vastly fascinating world we live in. The latter reason is why I am drawn to books set in other countries and cultures. I’m a literary explorer at heart.

Recently, I read a book that satisfied on both fronts: Cry of the Peacock, by the Iranian-American author, Gina B. Nahai. Although a literary novel, this book has a plot as riveting as any suspense, combined with Nahai’s lyrical prose and memorable characters. It’s set in Juyy Bar, Esfahan’s Jewish ghetto, a community whose presence in the city stretches back 3,000 years. Against the backdrop of Iranian history, the novel chronicles the tragedies and triumphs of a single Jewish family across seven generations and over 200 years. The story weaves myths and legends into the lives of its characters and combines magical realism with actual historical events.

Although the Jewish characters at the heart of the story are all fictional, we also meet real historical figures, such as Nasser-ed-Din Shah, the Qajar king who ruled Persia for 50 years; Prime Minister Mossadeq, who wrested control of Iran’s oil industry from the British in the 1950s; and Ayatollah Khomeini, the architect of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The book is narrated as a series of linked stories featuring characters with such wondrous names as Esther the Soothsayer, Joseph the Winemaker, and Taraneh the Tulip. But the real star of the tale is Peacock, who at the age of nine marries Solomon the Man. Solomon is the only Jewish singer at the royal court of Esfahan’s governor (who also happens to be the son of the king, Nasser-ed-Din), and a favored toy boy of the aristocratic ladies. Peacock shocks the entire ghetto when she does the unthinkable and becomes the first woman in the community’s history to leave her husband.

Esfahan Synagogue
Photo by Hamed Saber

She defies her neighbors’ expectations again by not coming to a bad end for breaking the long-standing tradition of wifely obedience. Instead of dying of shame, the now-young mother moves to Tehran with her two daughters and becomes a jewelry peddler, selling gold and gemstones to the city’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens.

Although Nahai vividly describes a world of suffering, tormenting her characters with plagues, poverty, and indignities—Jews were not allowed to leave the ghetto during rainstorms for fear that their impurity would wash off and contaminate Muslim souls—the story is ultimately a tale of hope. Peacock lives to the ripe old age of 116, and she never loses her faith that hard times are transitory. Perhaps when you live that long, it’s easier to see the big picture and tell yourself, “this too shall pass.”

The use of magical realism lends the novel a mythical quality, and yet Nahai has said that she based the stories on the lives of real people whose personal accounts she’s collected over the years. And the appearance of historical figures, combined with actual events and specific dates, ground the story in reality.

This contrast makes the tale a quintessentially Iranian one, from a culture where symbolism is everywhere and an ability to read between the lines is a useful skill in everyday conversation.

With its vivid imagery and emotional depth, Cry of the Peacock is a story that’s stayed with me long after I turned the last page.