On Islamic art and head scarves in Iran

Of course one of the most interesting aspects of visiting Iran is to get to know better Shiism and Islamic culture. It is interestingly a modern yet religious country, where you discover the history of Shahs and the Islamic revolution, and people who are willing to share their thoughts about both. The question of religion in Iran is hard to disentangle from the questions of gender equality, women's rights, democracy, and politics in general. But before getting into this heated topic, let's look at the beauty of Islamic art and design in Iran.

The Imam Square in Isfahan is among the UNESCO World Heritage sites and said to be the second largest square in the world after the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It is a lively square dominated by the Masjed-e-Shah mosque and Masjed-e Sheikh Lotfollah mosque (above in the picture). The latter was a mosque for the women in the harem of Shah Abbas I, the king that made Isfahan the beautiful and important city it still today is. Masjed-e Sheikh Lotfollah is wonderfully decorated with blue and yellow tiles, and the cupola was among the most beautiful ones that I saw during our visit in Iran (picture below).

The Masjed-e Shah at the Southern end of the square is equally impressive. 

A local young man in Masjed-e Shah wanted to have many photos with me, maybe he presents me as his foreign girlfriend to his friends... Perhaps, I should do the same, the Iranians are not that bad looking after all... :)

For me, the most beautiful mosque in Iran was Masjed-e Jameh in Isfahan. It is a showcase of Islamic art from 800 years during which it was constructed. It is also the biggest mosque in Iran. Taj al-Molk dome of the mosque was gorgeous and as I was wandering alone in its sublime majesty, I got this very humble feeling that you often get in these places that are at once spiritual and great examples of human engineering and craftsman work.

Taj al-Molk dome, Masjed-e Jameh, Isfahan.

The beautiful ceiling of the South Iwan of Masjed-e Jameh, Isfahan.

It was possible to visit all the mosques as a foreigner and as a woman (well, as foreigners we always paid more for the entry, usually something between 100 000 and 150 000 rials, equalling to around 3 euros). In the holiest places they offered me (and also local visitors) a chador that covered me from head to toes. I think that wearing this chador I was ridiculing the holy place more than I would have without it ("Is that a tent for 4 or 6 people?", my sister asked of the chador I was wearing in a photo), but I was glad that there were no other restrictions to visit the mosques.

Wearing a chador inside the Masjed-e Jameh mosque of Yazd.

And from chador to the issue of head scarf... The questions I got most from my friends and colleagues in Europe were about the head scarf. Did I need to use it? Yes, I did. When landing to Tehran, we were announced that the female passengers are reminded that the Islamic Republic of Iran obliges women to cover their hair. Women looked for their handbags and adjusted their scarves, me included. Some of the Iranian women wore it very loosely at the back of their head as an accessory, but others also told us that the moral police did warn them every now and then for showing too much of hair...

Wearing the head scarf didn't bother me - as it was only temporary. Awful to say, but two weeks of wearing a scarf just increased the "exoticism factor" of Iran (luckily it wasn't too hot). But obviously during the trip there were plenty of moments when the absurdity of  the legal obligation of covering women's hair and body shapes frustrated - even outraged - me. Honestly, the men cannot control themselves so they make women hide their body, isn't this just fucked up? Woman is not pure if she shows her hair or body shapes? What about the men with the dirty thoughts, why aren't they blamed for? This also reminded me of the great film Timbuktu that we saw just before traveling to Iran: a woman is told to wear gloves by the jihadists and the women replies that her parents already brought her up respectfully and they did so without wearing gloves.

This is of course a debate that is very heated in Europe and elsewhere, but seeing a place where it is compulsory to wear a head scarf, you understand better the profound inequality in the system. 

And what craziness is this? A baby wearing a head scarf because otherwise she's not pure? Come on!

Welcome to Cairo

Al-Azhar Mosque in Islamic Cairo was established in 972. It is supposed to be the oldest university in the world and it still functions as an Islamic university gathering Muslim students from all around the world. The mosque itself was beautiful but as the ultimate religious place in Egypt women need to wear a veil.

We thought we were well prepared for Egypt with our three guidebooks, a recent travel story “Down the Nile” by an American woman, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, “Sinuhe the Egyptian” set in the times of Akhenaton by Mika Waltari and another novel by Ahdaf Soueif “A Map of Love” using as its setting both Egypt’s colonial period and contemporary Egypt. However, one month in Egypt was full of cultural adventures and nothing could have prepared us for the ubiquitous bargaining and haggling. We made it though, sometimes annoyed or feeling cheated, a few times angry, but also every now and then positively surprised.

As for the Islamic society, I was very surprised of the enormous role Islam plays in Egypt. Our 10 years old guidebook for Cairo said that the majority of women do not wear veils in Egypt, this had however completely changed during this last decade as a woman without a veil was an exception and they could only be spotted in the richer areas of the city or in the Coptic (Egypt’s Christians) neighbourhood. The first day in Cairo, a hot day, I was wearing only a knee-long skirt, and the people were staring at me constantly, the next day I decided to wear trousers even if I was quite irritated that I was thus submitted to a culture so demeaning to women. When Florence Nightingale was travelling in Egypt in the 19th century she was also horrified by the status of women and wrote in her letters: "She is nothing but the servant of a man; the female elephant, the female eagle, has a higher idea of what she was put into the world to do, than the human female has here."

Rosemary Mahoney wrote about an Egyptian guy in her book "Down the Nile": "Foreign women who dressed in scanty clothing he did not respect. 'I would try to touch them and make sex with them', he said. 'When I see foreign men and women friends greeting each other with huggings and kissings here in the market, I think they are like animals making sex in the street. Egyptian people would never do this.'" The last sentance is partly true, you never saw people openly showing their affection. Only in a little park in Cairo we saw young couples holding hands. However, men were touching each other quite a lot, male friends walking even hand in hand in the streets. When the Egyptian men had the opportunity, they tried to touch my skin as well.

View from our Downtown hotel. The room was next to a mosque so at 5 o’clock in the morning we woke up with the muezzin calling the Muslims for a prayer. We, the infidels, were thus ready for tourism with the sunrise. The neon green lights illuminating the minaret seemed to be very fashionable, reminding of the past Christmas, they were all over Egypt.

Hundred years ago, Cairo must have looked like Paris, but now with 18 million inhabitants and millions of old Ladas and Peugeots on the streets, the beautiful facades were under a layer of black dust. It is said that Cairo is one of the most polluted cities in the world and I don’t doubt that for a second. It must be intolerable during the summer but even in January you have a feeling as if you were constantly smoking cigarettes. Outside the city centre, there are hundreds of unfinished buildings for the poor people moving from the countryside to the biggest city in Africa. It is chaotic, exhausting and dirty city but somehow it has its own charm.

Buildings next to Ibn Tulun Mosque in Southern Islamic Cairo. Morning haze or pollution makes the air grey. Buildings are half finished or half destroyed, rubbish everywhere but the minarets make the skyline beautiful.

The Islamic neighbourhood (well, it’s all Islamic but there is an old Islamic centre) is full of beautiful mosques more than thousand years old and if you continue a bit further from a touristy spot, you’ll find yourself in an unpaved road with chickens running around and you wonder if you are in Afghanistan. Here, the people are so unfamiliar with tourists that you actually pay the same for a cup of tea as the locals, around one pound (10 cents) – and I guess there are not many places in Egypt where they don’t know how to take advantage of the rich Westerns. Afterwards, in the big Khan-el-Khalili market, you really feel like robbed when you have to pay 15 times more. But this is Egypt, the tourisms is one of its greatest sources of revenue so they are trying to make everything out of it in the micro level as well. It is annoying but finally it is still cheap.

Our little café. Only men go to these places, you see women outside when they are shopping. Men smoke sheesha and drink tea all night long while women are taking care of children and housework. The two worlds of men and women are clearly separated in Egypt. It's very sad, also because the tourist has very few opportunities to meet and speak with women.