Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Christians have of Islam. Then, playing the old anthropologist's game of changing my per-
spective, I considered how the predominantly male-led Christian services that I'm so com-
fortable with could also be edited to look ominous to those unfamiliar with the rituals. At
important Roman Catholic Masses, you'll see a dozen priests—all male—in robes before
a bowing audience. The leader of a billion Catholics is chosen by a secretive, ritual-filled
gathering of old men in strange hats and robes with chanting, incense, and the ceremonial
drinking of human blood. It could be filled with majesty, or with menace…depending on
what you show and how you show it.
We set up to film across the vast square from the mosque. My lines were memorized
and I was ready to go. Then, suddenly, the cleric with the beaming smile came toward
us with a platter of desserts—the local ice cream specialty, like frozen shredded wheat
sprinkled with coconut. I felt like Rafsanjani himself was serving us ice cream. We had a
lively conversation, joking about how it might help if his president went to my town for a
prayer service, and my president came here.
Persepolis is pharaoh-like in its scale. Emperors' tombs are cut into the neighboring
mountains.
