Ghost sign

مرگ بر شاه marg bar shâh, death to the shah. Now, in July 2015. Thirty-six years after the revolution. In Isfahan, in the alleys behind the bazaar.

“Forty days after the Qom events, people gathered in the mosques of many Iranian towns to commemorate the victims of the massacre. In Tabriz, the tension grew so high that an insurrection broke out. A crowd marched through the street shouting “Death to the Shah.” The army rolled in and drowned the city in blood. Hundreds were killed, thousands were wounded. After forty days, the towns went into mourning – it was time to commemorate the Tabriz massacre. In one town – Isfahan – a despairing, angry crowd welled into the streets. The army surrounded the demonstrators and opened fire; more people died. Another forty days pass and mourning crowds now assemble in dozens of towns to commemorate those who fell in Isfahan.”

Ryszard Kapuściński: Shah of Shahs, 1982

Ashura-day mourning song about Abolfazl, the brother of Imam Hussein, who died a martyr’s deat along with his brother at Kerbala. As we wrote earlier, this is the defining event ot the Shiite martyrdom paradigm.

Photo by Abbas (Magnum Photos), 1979