Persian Mirrors : The Elusive Face of Iran

by Elaine Sciolino

• ISBN13: 9780684862903
• ISBN10: 0684862905
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-10-03
• Publisher: Free Press

Summary

No American reporter has more experience covering Iran or more access to the private corners of Iranian society than Elaine Sciolino. As a correspondent for Newsweek and The New York Times, she has reported on the key events of the past two decades. She was aboard the airplane that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Tehran in 1979; she was there for the Iranian revolution, the hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq war, the rise of President Mohammad Khatami, and the riots of the summer of 1999. In Persian Mirrors, Sciolino takes us into the public and private spaces of Iran -- the bazaars, beauty salons, aerobics studios, courtrooms, universities, mosques, and the presidential palace -- to capture the vitality of a society so often misunderstood by Americans. She demystifies a country of endless complexity where, on the streets, women swathe themselves in black and, behind high walls, they adorn themselves with makeup and jewelry; where the laws of Islam are the law of the land, and yet the government advertises as tourist attractions the ruins of the pre-Islamic imperial capital at Persepolis and the synagogue where Queen Esther is said to be buried; and where even the most austere clerics recite sensual romantic poetry, insisting that it refers to divine, and not earthly, love. Iran is also a place with a dark side, where unpredictable repression is carried out, officially and unofficially, by forces intent on maintaining power and influence. Sciolino deftly uses her travels throughout Iran and her encounters with its people to portray the country as an exciting, daring laboratory where experiments with two highly volatile chemicals -- Islam and democracy -- are being conducted. Like the mirror mosaics found in Iran's royal palaces and religious shrines, there is more to the whole of the country than the fragments revealed to outsiders. Persian Mirrors captures this elusive Iran. Sciolino paints in astonishing detail and rich color the surprising inner life of this country, where a great battle is raging, not for control over territory but for the soul of the nation.

Author Biography

Elaine Sciolino is a senior writer in the Washington bureau of The New York Times and has also served as chief diplomatic correspondent, intelligence correspondent, and United Nations bureau chief. A former foreign correspondent and bureau chief for Newsweek, she has interviewed all the key leaders in Iran since its revolution. She is also the author of The Outlaw State: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Power and the Gulf Crisis. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Preface Reflections and Distortions	1	(10)
PART ONE: NAVIGATING THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC
Getting There, Getting In	11	(15)
Splendid Deception	26	(20)
The Improvised Revolution	46	(22)
The Mullah Wore Beautiful Shoes	68	(25)
PART TWO: PRIVATE LIVES, WOMEN'S LIVES
Leaving the Islamic Republic at the Door	93	(16)
Sir, Have You Ever Beaten Your Wife?	109	(22)
The Chanel Beneath the Chador	131	(22)
PART THREE: THE SPIRITUAL, THE MYSTICAL
Beloved of the Night	153	(19)
Martyrs Never Die	172	(18)
The World of Qom	190	(20)
Space for the Outsiders	210	(23)
PART FOUR: OPEN WARFARE
Dark Nights, Fear of Waves	233	(16)
The Tom and Jerry Game	249	(25)
Night Is with Child	274	(20)
A Republic in the Making?	294	(23)
PART FIVE: DREAMS
Making Money God's Way	317	(19)
The Center of the Universe	336	(23)
Epilogue The Bride Has Gone to Pick Flowers	359	(5)
Acknowledgments	364	(7)
Chronology of Events	371	(8)
Bibliography	379	(8)
Index	387