Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We were in Iran for just one Friday, the Muslim “Sabbath.” Fortunately,
we were in Esfahan, so we could attend (and i lm) a prayer service at this
colossal house of worship.
Filming in a mosque i lled with thousands of worshippers required
permission. Explaining our needs to administrators there, it hit me that the
Islamic Revolution employs strategies similar to a communist takeover: Both
maintain power by installing partisans in key positions. But the ideology Iran
is enforcing is not economic (as it was in the USSR), but religious.
President Ahmadinejad has inspired a fashion trend in Iran: simple
dark suit, white shirt, no tie, light black beard. Reminiscent of apparatchiks
in Soviet times, it seemed to me that all the mosque administrators dressed
the part and looked like the president.
To i lm the service—which was already well underway—we were escorted
in front of 5,000 people praying. When we had visited this huge mosque the
day before, all I had seen was a lifeless shell with i ne tiles for tourists to pho-
tograph. An old man had stood in the center of the l oor and demonstrated
the haunting echoes created by the perfect construction. Old carpets had been
rolled up and were strewn about like dusty cars in a haphazard parking lot.
Today the carpets were rolled out, cozy, orderly, and lined with worshippers.
I felt self-conscious—
a tall, pale American tip-
toeing gingerly over the
little tablets Shia Muslim
men place their heads on
when they bend down to
pray. Planting our tripod in
the corner, we observed.
As my brain wan-
dered ( just like it some-
times does at home when
listening to a sermon), I
felt many of those wor-
shippers were looking
at me rather than listen-
ing to their cleric speak-
ing. Soldiers were posted
throughout the mosque,
As everyone bowed down in prayer, they revealed sol-
diers providing security and a “Death to Israel” banner.
