The House of the Mosque

Qadi

‘Astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah,’ Khalkhal chanted to himself as he headed towards Khomeini’s room.

People chant ‘astaghfirullah’ when they’ve committed a sin or are afraid they’re going to, or if they want to avoid a confrontation but know they’ll have to face it anyway. Sometimes it’s simply an expression of astonishment at an unexpected turn of events or a request for God’s forgiveness.

Or you chant it, as Khalkhal was doing now, when you’re sure you’re about to make an irrevocable mistake.

Khomeini had no desire to live in the shah’s palace. Instead he chose to occupy a room in a seminary in one of Tehran’s poorer neighbourhoods.

It was dark when he came in and sat down on his rug. Someone brought him a glass of tea and some dates. After his first sip of tea, he asked for a pen and piece of paper.

He spent half an hour in his room by himself, then sent for Khalkhal. Khalkhal sensed that it was urgent. He shut the door behind him, knelt before the ayatollah and kissed his hand.

Khalkhal was the first person to perform this act of obeisance since Khomeini had been welcomed back to the country as its leader. It was his way of saying that he would carry out whatever mission Khomeini chose to send him on.

Khomeini whispered to him to come closer. Realising that the ayatollah wished to impart secret information, Khalkhal leaned forward until their heads were almost touching.

‘I appoint you to be a qadi, a judge. You are now Allah’s judicial envoy,’ Khomeini said, and he gave him a document.

Khalkhal’s hands began to shake.

‘America will do everything in its power to destroy us. The vestiges of the old regime must be wiped out. Eliminate all those who oppose the revolution! If your father rises up, eliminate him! If your brother rises up, eliminate him! Destroy all that gets in the way of Islam! I have appointed you as my representative, but you are responsible only to God. Show the world that the revolution cannot be undone. Begin at once. There is no time to waste!’

Khalkhal kissed Khomeini’s hand again, then stood up and hurriedly left the room to begin his mission.

Even though it was night, Khalkhal put on the dark glasses he had bought in Paris.

This Khalkhal bore little resemblance to the Khalkhal who had set off a riot in Senejan to prevent Farah Diba from opening a cinema. With his black turban and long black beard, which had recently begun to go grey, he now had an aura of power. As Allah’s judge, he would inspire fear.

An hour later, with some files tucked under his arm, he stepped into a waiting jeep, which drove him to the city’s largest slaughterhouse, where thousands of cows and sheep were slaughtered daily to feed Tehran’s burgeoning population.

The top officials of the old regime had been arrested and brought to the slaughterhouse in the greatest of secrecy. The regime was so terrified that the Americans would try to liberate the prisoners that they had brought them to this stinking hellhole and thrown them in the stalls beside the cows.

Khalkhal entered a dark, bare room. In the middle were a table and two chairs — one for Allah’s judge and another, much lower, for the accused — and a ceiling lamp, placed in such a way that its yellow glow would light only the face of the accused.

There was little time. By dawn it had to be clear to the world that the old regime was gone for good and that the Americans would have no opportunity to restore the shah to power.

Khalkhal laid a file on the table. ‘Bring in the accused!’ he said to the guard.

The first to be brought in was Hoveyda, the shah’s former prime minister. He was led into the room in handcuffs. Hoveyda had served as prime minister for fourteen years. He had rarely been seen without an orchid in the lapel of his elegant suit, or without his walking stick and pipe. Now he was dressed in a filthy pair of pyjamas.

There was a third person in the room: a masked photographer, who kept circling round Hoveyda, taking pictures of him from every angle.

‘The accused may be seated,’ Khalkhal said curtly, and he lowered himself into his chair.

Hoveyda sat down.

‘You now find yourself before Allah’s judge,’ Khalkhal said, his voice as hard as steel. ‘Your case has been reviewed. You have been sentenced to death. Do you have anything to say to that?’

Hoveyda, who had been received as a guest of honour by the American president; Hoveyda, who had been given three standing ovations by the American Senate; Hoveyda, who had studied law at an American university, couldn’t believe that this stinking stall was a courtroom. And so he made no reply, though his lips moved involuntarily, as if he were smoking an invisible pipe.

‘Did you say something?’ Khalkhal asked.

‘No,’ Hoveyda replied numbly.

‘The accused is hereby sentenced to death!’ Khalkhal said. ‘The execution is to be carried out immediately!’

Hoveyda, still not quite realising that he was about to be executed, was led away by two guards.

They took him to the warehouse behind the main slaughter room, which was stacked with thousands of hides from freshly slaughtered cows. The stench was so bad that you had to hold your nose. The guards propped Hoveyda up against the wall between the stacks of hides and tied a blindfold over his eyes. According to Islamic custom, he was offered a glass of water, but he waved it away.

Hoveyda trembled in his pyjamas, still unable to believe he was going to be executed. He thought they were simply trying to frighten him. He heard Khalkhal’s footsteps in the corridor, and a moment later Khalkhal came in and signalled to the guards to kneel and aim their rifles.

‘Ready, aim—’ Khalkhal began.

‘I’m innocent!’ Hoveyda cried in a broken voice. ‘I demand to see a lawyer!’

‘Fire!’ Khalkhal ordered.

Seven shots rang out. Hoveyda slumped to the ground. His head struck the damp stone floor of the warehouse, and the photographer rushed up to take pictures of his bullet-ridden body.

Khalkhal returned to the interrogation room and called for the next prisoner.

The former chief of the secret police was led in. He had heard the shots and was so frightened that he could barely walk.

‘Sit down!’

The guards lowered him into the chair.

‘Are you Nassiri?’

There was a long pause. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.

‘Were you the chief of the secret police who ordered the arrest, torture and death of hundreds of resistance fighters?’

Nassiri made no reply.

‘Were you chief of the secret police?’ Khalkhal repeated.

‘Yes,’ he said softly.

‘Allah’s judge hereby sentences you to death!’ Khalkhal exclaimed. ‘The execution is to be carried out immediately. Is there anything you wish to add?’

The dreaded Nassiri, whose very name had made people quake, began to cry and beg for mercy, but Khalkhal motioned to the guards to take him away.

Nassiri was led to the warehouse where Hoveyda had just been executed. The guards blindfolded him, offered him a glass of water and stood him against the wall.

‘Take your positions!’ Khalkhal commanded.

The guards knelt and aimed their rifles at Nassiri.

‘Fire until you have no more bullets left!’ Khalkhal thundered.

Shots rang out, and the guards fired until they had no more bullets left, thus ensuring that the body stayed upright until the firing stopped. Only when the last bullet had been pumped into Nassiri’s body did he fall into a stack of fresh cowhides, where he sprawled, face down, with his arms outstretched.

Khalkhal kept going until dawn, until all of the ministers and high-level officials who had been arrested and imprisoned in the slaughterhouse had been executed.

When he was through, he washed his hands and ordered breakfast. Boiled eggs, milk, honey and freshly baked bread were brought in on a silver tray and placed in front of him, along with the morning edition of the paper.

The front page had a picture of the blindfolded Hoveyda, his arms held wide as the first bullet slammed into his chest.

In one week Khalkhal met with fifteen young imams from Qom. They were all students at a seminary, where they were studying Islamic law.

He appointed them as Islamic judges and sent them out to the larger cities to try those officials of the former regime who had been directly involved in crimes against the people. All fifteen judges had his permission to show no mercy.

There was a knock on Aqa Jaan’s door. He hadn’t come home yet from the bazaar, so Lizard opened the gate. Three armed men wearing green headbands came charging into the courtyard. They were soldiers in the Army of Allah — a militant faction formed during the revolution to carry out Khomeini’s orders.

‘Where’s Ahmad?’ one of the men snapped at Lizard.

Fakhri Sadat, who was in the kitchen, could see the men through the window, but couldn’t go out and talk to them because she wasn’t wearing a chador. She opened the window and shouted to Lizard, ‘Would you please bring me my chador?’

He scuttled off and came back with it. She put on her chador and went into the courtyard. ‘Gentlemen,’ she said, ‘how can I help you?’

‘Where’s Ahmad?’ one of them repeated in an insolent tone of voice. ‘We’ve been ordered to bring him in.’

‘Bring him where?’

‘To the Islamic Court.’

Just then Ahmad emerged from the library. Dressed casually in his long cotton shirt rather than his imam turban and robe, he headed towards the hauz. The men raced over to him.

Startled, Ahmad asked them what they were doing in his house.

‘We’ve been sent to pick you up. You’re going to be tried before an Islamic court.’

‘Why? What for?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Ahmad said, and he knelt by the hauz to wash his hands.

The men seized him from behind and started dragging him towards the gate.

Ahmad struggled to free himself. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ he cried. ‘Let me go!’

But the men ignored him.

Ahmad squirmed around until he was facing Mecca. ‘Help me, Allah!’

Fakhri Sadat quickly ordered Lizard to shut the gate. As he was closing it, Jawad, who had arrived home last night, came careering down the stairs.

‘Phone Aqa Jaan!’ Fakhri Sadat said to him. ‘Hurry!’

Then she went over to the men and planted herself in front of them. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she said. ‘This is the imam of the mosque! You should be ashamed of yourselves!’

At the sound of Aqa Jaan’s footsteps in the alley, Lizard re-opened the gate. He was trying to tell him something in his usual gibberish when Aqa Jaan suddenly saw two men trying to overpower the struggling Ahmad. ‘Stop it!’ he yelled. ‘Stop it! What do you think you’re doing? Let go of him!’

Muezzin also came hurrying into the courtyard, while Nasrin and Ensi watched from upstairs. Aqa Jaan pulled one of the men off Ahmad, but Ahmad lost his balance and fell over. He scrambled to his feet and was about to make a dash for the roof when one of the men kicked him so hard that he fell down again. This time the man grabbed him, shoved his knee in his back and handcuffed him.

Lizard cowered, bewildered, next to Muezzin.

Aqa Jaan tried to reason with the men. ‘I’ll bring him to the court myself. I don’t want him to be dragged off in handcuffs. I’m Aqa Jaan, you can trust me, I’ll go with you. This isn’t the proper way to do things.’

One of the men shoved him aside. Jawad quickly intervened and tried to keep his father from shoving him back. ‘Leave it,’ he said. ‘You’ve done all you can.’

‘Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!’ Aqa Jaan exclaimed as the three men pushed Ahmad roughly into a jeep.

‘Which court are you taking him to?’ Aqa Jaan called out helplessly.

But the jeep roared off, leaving his question unanswered.

Fakhri Sadat, weeping, was led upstairs by her daughters.

Jawad tried to get Aqa Jaan to come into the house, but he refused.

‘This is a disaster,’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘I have to find out where they’re taking him.’ And he rushed off through the gate.

The men blindfolded Ahmad and drove him to a secret location, which had been turned into an Islamic court only the day before.

When they removed the blindfold, Ahmad saw that he was standing in a dimly lit room. He had no idea where he was, though he knew he had to be in a cellar, because he’d counted thirteen steps on the way down.

There were no windows. The walls were covered with large strips of black cloth on which sacred texts had been scrawled in white paint.

The only furniture consisted of a table and two chairs. A green flag — the symbol of Islam — had been nailed crookedly to the wall behind the taller of the two chairs.

Ahmad was ordered to sit on the low chair. The men left him alone in the airless room, with a yellow lamp shining down ominously on his face.

For one long hour he sat there, waiting for something to happen.

The silence and the uncertainty were terrifying.

He heard a door open somewhere, and there were hurried footsteps on the stairs.

A guard came in. ‘Stand up for the Islamic judge!’ he bellowed.

Ahmad stood up. He could just make out the figure of a young imam, who promptly sat down across from him.

‘The accused may be seated!’ he snapped.

Ahmad sat down and tried to see if he knew the imam. But he was so blinded by the lamplight that he couldn’t get a clear look at his face.

‘I’m going to read out your name,’ the judge began. ‘If it is correct, you may say yes. Then I’m going to ask you a few questions to which you must reply.’

‘I am the imam of the Friday Mosque,’ Ahmad said. ‘Before you start, I would like to have my robe and turban brought to me. If not, I refuse to answer your questions.’

‘You are Ahmad Alsaberi, the son of Mohammad Alsaberi.’

Ahmad maintained a stubborn silence.

‘As an active member of the secret police,’ the judge continued, ‘the suspect has committed the worst crime an imam can commit.’

‘That’s not true!’ Ahmad burst out. ‘I haven’t done anything!’

‘We’re got the evidence in here,’ the judge said, holding up a file.

‘Then it’s been falsified. I should know whether or not I’ve done anything wrong, and I don’t have any crimes on my conscience.’

‘We have proof that you were working hand in glove with the shah’s secret police,’ the judge said.

‘You can’t have proof, because I wasn’t working with them. As an imam I have contacts with all kinds of people — everyone from beggars to the chief of the secret police. You have no doubt received reports of those contacts, but they could hardly be considered evidence in a court of law! I was the imam of the mosque during turbulent times. Whenever I gave an inflammatory speech, the secret police showed up on my doorstep and read me the riot act. A judge wouldn’t consider that to be evidence either. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘You’re an opium addict,’ the judge replied.

‘That’s not a sin,’ Ahmad retorted. ‘Most of the ayatollahs in this country are opium addicts.’

‘We have proof that you smoked opium with top men in the secret police.’

‘True, but that’s all I did.’

‘They gave you money. That’s been documented.’

‘Only in my official capacity as an imam. People confide in me and give me money for a variety of reasons. The secret police also gave me money, but I turned every last cent of it over to the mosque.’

‘You’ve had improper relations with women on numerous occasions.’

‘I’ve had relations with women, but always according to sharia law.’

‘I have in my possession photographs which clearly show you smoking opium and cavorting with prostitutes.’

‘The secret police set me up in order to discredit me, but I…’

Up to this point he’d tried to give convincing answers to the judge’s questions, but in the harsh light of the lamp it was obvious that his hands were shaking, and that tears were oozing out of his eyes and rolling down his cheeks.

Soon he began to stutter and leave his sentences unfinished. It was the opium. He’d never kicked the habit. Instead, he’d bought a modern electrical pipe in Tehran so that he could smoke opium in secret wherever he wanted to. Aqa Jaan knew, but had decided to turn a blind eye.

If he’d had his usual fix, he would have been able to defend himself more eloquently. But they’d arrested him at the wrong moment, just when he’d been about to smoke his pipe before going to the mosque to lead the prayer.

Now that he was under so much pressure, every nerve in his body was crying out for opium. It felt like an elephant was standing on his chest.

Usually he kept a little chunk of opium in his robe for emergencies. If he’d had it with him now, he could have swallowed it and felt halfway normal, but when they hauled him off to the Islamic Court, he’d been wearing only a long cotton shirt.

In desperation, he patted the pockets of his shirt, but they were as empty as a desert.

He tried to loosen his collar so he could breathe more easily, but his fingers refused to cooperate. His forehead was beaded with sweat. His ears began to pound, the sound faded away and he no longer heard the judge’s voice. Everything went black before his eyes, and he slid from his chair.

The next morning his wife took their child and went home to her parents.